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| Aaron Cerf's Pioneer File Questionnaire |
The most valuable vital statistics Aaron gave were the exact date and place of birth and the names of his parents, Bernard Cerf and Clarice Block. This information made research in France possible.
Aaron recorded he had lived in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Tennessee. He also lived in Cincinnati, Ohio, because that is where he was naturalized as a citizen in 1846, though those papers were burned in a massive fire. We don't know where he landed when he arrived in the U.S. in 1840 at the age of sixteen; maybe New Orleans or maybe New York, working his way west and south and catching a boat to California out of New Orleans.
Aaron arrived in San Francisco, California on September 24, 1852 by steamer. Many people, including large numbers of Jewish people, were drawn to California after three major events: Mexico ceding California to the U.S. in 1848, the discovery of gold, and California's statehood in 1850. California was seen as a new frontier, a land of promise and opportunities.
There was no easy route to California at that time. The Central (western line) and Union Pacific (eastern line) Railroads did not join until 1869. The Suez Canal did not open until that same year. Aaron either traveled around Cape Horn, which was a 17,000-mile trip taking approximately seven months at that time, or went across Panama on foot or muleback. That difficult journey was approximately fifty miles over rough terrain, sometimes taking four weeks. On the other side of Panama, travelers then boarded a northbound ship.
After the discovery of gold, California's population of non-Indians rose dramatically from 6,000 in December 1848 to 15,000 in July 1849, to 53,000 in December 1849, and to 93,000 in September 1850. In 1852, California's population hit 220,000. By 1860, 380,000 peopled lived in California, forty percent being foreign-born.
The main city benefiting by the Gold Rush was San Francisco, the port of entry to the west and the destination of thousands of newcomers. The population of San Francisco changed from about 1,000 in 1848 to 40,000 in 1850. In just two short years, San Francisco had grown from a small settlement to a major city and international port.
Immigrants from France did not receive a warm welcome in San Francisco. There was a strong anti-French sentiment because "too many Frenchies" migrated to avoid military service in the 1848 Revolution in France or left France after its failure. The language barrier and the formation of many French fraternal organizations made these immigrants appear clannish.
The San Francisco of Aaron's day was a wild city, growing too quickly to properly administer justice. The San Francisco newspapers of 1853 advertised a large number of duels, each one drawing large crowds. The police and political systems were riddled with corruption, causing citizens to form a vigilance committee to see that the people's justice would be done.
The turning point between corruption and justice for San Francisco occurred in the year 1856 when the San Francisco Vigilance Committee tried and executed several murderers, including the famous executions of Charles Cora and James P. Casey, an event Aaron Cerf attended.
A closer look the Cora and Casey executions reveals an interesting picture of San Francisco. Charles Cora was known as a wealthy professional gambler who lived with his mistress, Belle Ryan, a former prostitute in New Orleans. He created an outrage among the upstanding citizens when he brought Belle to a performance of the American Theatre and boldly sat in an open box instead of discreetly hiding in a curtained rear stall. The wife of the U.S. marshal complained to her husband, William Richardson, who spoke sharply to Cora, with whom he had already been feuding. The next day the two met, with Cora grabbing Richardson by his collar and pulling out a pistol. Richardson claimed to be unarmed, but Cora shot him through the chest, killing Richardson instantly.
While Cora awaited trial, Cora's employer who was San Francisco's most notorious gambler was made the new marshal. At Cora's trial a spellbinding defense was given by a lawyer from Illinois hired by Belle for $10,000. The trial resulted in a disagreement on the grounds of self-defense. San Francisco citizens were outraged.
A second brutal murder occurred when James P. Casey, a county supervisor, gunned down James King, the editor of the Evening Bulletin. King started his newspaper for the purpose of exposing the underworld control of San Francisco politics. He had just printed an article revealing Casey as a former inmate of Sing Sing who was elected by use of a false ballot box. While King lay wounded, Casey rushed to the police station, which was controlled by his friends. The crowds grew in front of the jail, demanding a lynching.
The next day San Franciscans formed a Vigilance Committee, which grew to 8,000 members in three days with $75,000 in contributions to purchase arms. Each member took an oath of obedience and secrecy and was assigned a number. The Committee leased a three-story building at 41 Sacramento Street, which became known as "Fort Gunnybags" because of the eight-foot-high enclosure of sand-filled gunnybags built in front. They mounted a canon on the roof and rang a bell to summon their members. Nearly three-quarters of the city's men came running armed with guns, a piece of white ribbon in their buttonholes. The Committee moved to the jail while 15,000 spectators watched along the route. The jailkeeper turned over Casey, and Cora was later abducted.
Casey and Cora were tried before a twelve-man jury selected from the Vigilante Executive Committee. During the trial it was announced that James King had died. Both men were convicted unanimously. After Belle and Cora were allowed to marry, the hangings took place in front of Fort Gunnybags just as the funeral procession for King was beginning one block away.
The Vigilance Committee brought to trial dozens of corrupt politicians, who were then deported, and hung a few other murderers after their trials. Many other people fled the city before coming to trial. After a few months, the Committee disbanded but retained an informal organization to nominate and elect officials under a new People's Party. After sweeping the elections, the Committee put on a parade with a band, its members marching with white-ribboned buttonholes and flowers in their muskets.
Many immigrants had a picture in their minds of California as a place where dreams come true. And while the Gold Rush led a lot of people to search the hills for gold, many other individuals were inspired to provide goods and services to the miners, sometimes at very high prices. Those individuals fared better, on the whole, than the miners.
In 1860, San Franciscans heard about the discovery of a rich, new mining area near the Owens Valley, a valley located between Death Valley and the mountains south of Yosemite. Many expeditions set out for that area. No large Indian uprising occurred in 1860 that I could find, but I noted local Indians were considered friendly, while fugitive Indians from neighboring counties were entering the region in 1859, causing violence. These renegades were known to have a hatred of the white man and desired to keep him out of Owens Valley.
Aaron lived in many locations around California where he usually set up a general merchandise store. He cited living on the Juanna Sanchez de Pacheco Ranch of Ygnacio Valley near Martinez. This may have been when he operated a store in Concord, Contra Costs County, called Cerf & Co. Two children were born when the family lived in another location, San Pablo, California, just north of Richmond.
After moving to Oakland, five years of city directories reveal Aaron's change in occupations, from merchant, to money broker with Nathan Rosenberg & Co. to agent for IXL Lime Co, to agent for wood and coal in Alameda, to capitalist, and finally back to merchant.
Once again, Aaron started a new business venture, a trend which was common among Jewish merchants at that time. Attracted by rapidly expanding towns, many times they arrived at a location where new mining had just been discovered. Aaron's new venture was in Mendocino County in the town of Willits where Aaron and Louis Lobree operated a general merchandise company named Cerf and Lobree. The town of Willits was twenty-four miles north of Ukiah with a population of about 400 in 1884.
Sometimes a store closed simply because a building was sold, which happened to Aaron in Willits. On March 21, 1884, a Ukiah newspaper reported: "Charles A. Irvine has purchased of Hiram Willits the block of land in Willits containing the brick store now occupied by Cerf and Lobree, the two frame buildings used as a drug store and harness shop, and the residence building of Hiram Willits, for which he paid the sum of $8,000. Mr. Irvine has also purchased $2,000 worth of Cerf and Lobree's goods--groceries and hardware--that firm having concluded to remove to Covelo, Round Valley, to open a first class general merchandising store." Two thousand dollars must have been a large sum in those days. (Covelo was located north of Willits.)
Next, a store was opened in Ukiah, Mendocino County, California, and Aaron arranged for his family to move to Ukiah, traveling in those days by stagecoach while hoping no robbers would hold them up. See the preceding blog entitled "Cerf Family Photo in Ukiah 1895" for more details about the family living in Ukiah.
References:
Bishop's Directory of Oakland and Alameda, 1877-78.
Bishop's Oakland Directory, 1881-82.
"Changing Hands," Dispatch Democrat [Ukiah, CA], 21 March 1884.
Directory of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties, 1871-72.
Langley's Directory of Oakland, Berkeley and Alameda, 1 April 1878-1 April 1879.
McKenney's Oakland City Directory, 1882-84.
McKenney's Oakland City Directory, 1884.
McKenney's 8-County Directory, 1884-85.
William Lewis Manly, Death Valley in '49, Borden, 1966.
Mendocino County Great Register, 7 April 1892, No. 802.
Pioneer Card File on Aaron Cerf, California Section, California State Library, Sacramento, 1906.
Irving Stone, Men to Match My Mountains (The Opening of the Far West, 1840-1900), Doubleday & Co., Inc., NY, 1956.
U.S. Census Records, Oakland, Alameda Co., CA, 11 June 1900, S.D. 3, E.D. 377, Sheet 13, Page 13.
