San Francisco During the Eventful Days of April, 1906 | Page 2

and Nora sprinkling holy water over the room.
I hurriedly dressed and went up, to my daughter's (Mrs. Winslow's)

house, 1945 Pacific Avenue, and found her and the children with their
neighbors in the street and very much frightened. Their house was
cracked considerably, and she had been imprisoned in her room by the
binding of the door, which had to be broken open to enable her to
escape. The chimneys of her house were thrown down and much
valuable glass and chinaware broken. I returned to my house and found
that the tops of all my chimneys had been thrown down, and one was
lying in the front yard sixteen feet from the building. There were some
cracks visible in the library, but none in my room, and only very few in
the parlor and dining-room. In the kitchen, however, the plastering was
very badly cracked and the tiles around the sink thrown out. In the
parlor the marble statue of the "Diving Girl" was thrown from its
pedestal and broken into fragments. The glass case containing the table
glassware in the dining-room and its contents were uninjured; very
little china and glassware were broken in the pantry; the clocks were
not stopped. A water-pipe broke in the ceiling of the spare room and
the water did some damage.
I then went over to the power-house of the California-Street Railroad
and found that about seventy feet of the smoke-stack had fallen
diagonally across the roof, and about six feet of it into the stable, where
were two horses; fortunately it did not touch them, but before they were
released they squealed and cried, most piteously. One of them was so
badly frightened that he was afterward useless and we turned him out to
pasture and he grew lean and absolutely worthless. Things were
considerably disturbed, but the engines were apparently uninjured. The
watchman was not injured, although surrounded by falling bricks and
mortar. I was told that the water supply was stopped, and later learned
that it was because the earthquake had broken the water-mains.
I then started on foot down-town, this was about 7 A. M.; no cars were
running on any line. The sidewalks in many places were heaved up,
chimneys thrown down, and walls cracked by the earthquake. St.
Mary's Cathedral and Grace Church gave no outward sign of being
injured; neither did the Fairmont Hotel. I went on California Street,
over Nob Hill, and as I got in sight of the business part of the city, I
saw as many as ten or twelve fires in the lower part of the city. The
wind was light from the northwest, and the smoke ascended in great
columns, and the sun through it looked like a large copper disk. When I

arrived at California and Montgomery streets the lower part of both
sides of California Street seemed to be all on fire. I did not realize that
the whole city would be burned. I had a vague idea that it would stop,
or be stopped, as fires had been hundreds of times before in this city. I
went along Sansome Street to Pine and down Pine towards Market. I
saw that Holbrook, Merrill & Stetson's store was all on fire, and when I
arrived at Front Street I saw that the Commercial Block on the
southeast corner of Front and California streets (on the fifth floor of
which was my office), was not on fire. So I started to go toward the
building. The fire was then burning fiercely at the southeast corner of
California and Battery. I went to the entrance at 123 California Street
and met the janitor coming out, who said I could not go upstairs, as the
building was on fire on the fifth floor. However, I started slowly up.
The sparks were coming down into the open area in a shower, but there
was no smoke in the building, so I was sure that it was not on fire on
the inside. I got up to my room on the fifth floor and found the door
would not come open. I tried the door in the adjoining office of the
American Beet Sugar Company and found it open. From that room I
got into mine. I raised my shades, and the fire was blazing at Battery
Street and California, fully seventy-five feet high, and not more than
three hundred feet distant from me. I looked through the hall and rooms
and saw no smoke, and was sure that I was safe for a few minutes. As I
turned the combination of my safe to open it another shock of
earthquake came, which confused me a little, but I persevered and
opened it. I had a quantity of souvenirs and presents which had been
given