| Title: | [Jim Keenan?], San Francisco, to The Keenan Family, [Ireland?] |
|---|---|
| ID | 1586 |
| Collection | Irish Emigration Database |
| File | Keenan, Jim/5 |
| Year | 1906 |
| Sender | Keenan, Jim |
| Sender Gender | male |
| Sender Occupation | businessman |
| Sender Religion | unknown |
| Origin | San Francisco, California, USA |
| Destination | Ireland |
| Recipient | unknown |
| Recipient Gender | male |
| Relationship | brothers |
| Source | Copyright Retained by Mr. P. Keenan, 65 Deerpark Rd, Castledawson |
| Archive | The Ulster American Folk Park |
| Doc. No. | 9907080 |
| Date | 1/7/1906 |
| Partial Date | |
| Doc. Type | EMG |
| Log | Document added by LT, 19:07:99. |
| Word Count | 1430 |
| Genre | |
| Note | |
| Transcript | San Francisco July 1st 1906 My Dear Mother & Bro. A few lines to let you know how this town looks to me after the fire & earthquake. This was a big city, in fact there is enough of it left to make a big city still, but the business part the part where all the Banks, Office buildings, and places where people worked are all gone, you can imagine a city as big as the townland of Ballymaquiggan with the streets very narrow and the houses anywhere from 5 to 10 stories [storeys?] high and in all that area not a single house left it certainly is a sight and many a story is in circulating about the hapenings [happenings?] of those few days some of them pathetic and some of them rediculous [ridiculous?] enough. A friend of mine whom Joe knows (Jamie McCarton) you met him that night on the Texan was out in Frisco, Engineer in a small lumber ship which was unloading in a Canal up in the centre of the city his boat was to leave next A.M. at daylight Jamie went and took a room in a nearby hotel for the night but as it was too early to go to bed he went to the corner to have a look around, by and by, the fireman who was to get up steam for him came around beastly drunk. So Jamie said nothing but went to his ship instead of the hotel when he got up in the morning the Hotel was gone. Sank into the earth and 42 men in it. 2 The Hotel Brunswck [Brunswick?] and 200 ladies of easy virtue disapeared [disappeared?] the same way; the quakes would have been bad enough but when the fires started in a 100 different places at once the fire brigade found that the mains (water) had been shattered by the quake and there was no water to get the fire under control so they had to blow up blocks upon blocks of houses with dynamite otherwise the entire town would have gone. The carpenter of our dock was stoping [stopping?] in a 5 Story [storey?] hotel and it sank so deep in the earth that he had to crawl on his belly on to the St [Street?] through a 5th Story [storey?] window. One Gentleman dressed himself in a swallow tail Coat and Castor hat but forgot to put on his trousers and started off with a valise in his hand, and he was so badly frightened he forgot to close the valise so there he was going up the street hell bent for election valise hanging open and no pants on and did not know it A lady jumped out of bed put on her bonnet snatched up a pug dog under one arm and a canaries cage in the other she started off and did not know she was undressed or that the cage was empty. A friend of mine named Magill having a wife and 4 children packed all he could into a large trunk then he could not move the trunk so they threw some of the stuff out and put the baby 5 months old in, and put a rope through the handle of the trunk and him and his wife pulled the trunk along the street to the Park almost 4 miles, then in the confusion they lost trunk & baby and they remained lost for 24 hours the mother was almost out of her mind but they found the trunk and baby sound asleep in it next day Page 3 Then again in all big towns there is a certain element of people who never make a pretense [pretence?] of working, just live on what they can beg, borrow or steal, and the towns of the pacific coast has got more than an average share of such, and any catastrophe happening is their harvest, so that in the excitement their chance for looting and stealing or murder even without fear of detection is better and, is readily taken The Police were demoralized and the concienstous [conscientious?] element had full swing for a few hours to the Mayor called for military law and handed the town over to the soldiers who started in and shot anyone acting in anyway suspiciously without asking questions or giving warning of course some innocent people were killed but they also put terror into the lawless crowd as well, and many of them will loot no more. one gent well dressed and respectable appearing came along the 1st day badly wounded the soldiers picked him up and sent him to the red-cross hospital for treatment there the Drs' found him suffering from 5 gunshot wounds and they also found in his pockets 4 diamond rings with a ladys finger in each ring the unfortunate man had not time to force the rings off so he took finger and all now this man got no trial he was just taken out on the street and shot as an example. Any whiskey shops left was broken into and the stock destroyed by the soldiers, so as to keep the people sober of course when these houses fell the streets were filled with brick and all kinds of debris and hundreds & thousands of people buried under it and on the streets rich or poor was ordered to go to work and if they refused were shot on the spot Jamie McCartan was going home [-ast?] St when he met the Captain of his Ship they stoped [stopped?] to talk and the mate and some friend of his came along a soldier sees the 4 of them and ordered the 4 of them to get busy this friend of the mates refused so the soldier shot him dead right there, needless to say the other 3 went to work, of course they had only to work two hours but the next soldier they came to would most likely turn them to again after the 2nd day the soldiers had cards and after a man done his [v?] hours he got one and that saved him for the rest of the day. There was a gent from Sacramento (the State Capital) who came to see the sights one of the soldiers told him to turn to, he says but my dear sir I am the Secretary of State for California, the soldier says never mind who you are get a moving them ere [there?] brick and he presented his musket "The Secretary moved brick" these are samples of the times they had in San Francisco but it was necessary for the publics good and nobody has anything but praise for the U.S. Army Now that is all I have time to write about the fire I want you to get that job moving as the secretary of state moved brick only faster I mail this in Honolulu we will by [be?] here one week after it is mailed and in 60 days more we will be in Philadelphia I expect to have a le [letter?] waiting for me when I get there telling me how much you have got done. I will mail you an order for œ100 and will expect receipts for every cent you spend of it both for material and wages - finished up on small sheet - saying the job is at the square. And containing bills for the material used and all you have paid out for wages etc, you will get the cash called for as fast as the mail will cary [carry?] it keep these œ40 I sent you as a working Capital and after I go home to N.Y. [New York?] you can send me a monthly report and every 30 days I will send you all the cash you may require. I dont mind the ammount [amount?] but lay it out as I ask you, you will have the most valuable place in the County and in 5 - or 6 - years will own it outright if you do, and above all, don't be penny wise and pound foolish hire good men the best are none too good and give them as good wages or better, than they would get anywhere else and then see that they earn it Your Bro [Brother?] Henry C/o American - Hawaiian S.S. Co 8 Bridge St New York City a letter sent to that address will be forwarded to the ship wherever she may be while at sea to Honolulu I will write you an account of the havoc made in Frisco [San Francisco?] as I know it *Appendix to Letter Writer of the Letter Mr & Mrs Jim Keenan 1001 Wilder Ave 403 Honolulu Hawaii 96822 Address that were visited by Mr & Mrs Jim Keenan Mary Keenan Fay 109-08 85 Ave Richmond Hill Queens NY [New York?] (1) 718 849-2137 11418 Jane Fay 96 Caire Terrace San Francisco, Ca. [California?] 94107 415-285 4743 |
