[My SF Past] Victorian San Francisco Tour - Part 1

[Gloria Lenhart]

Fine examples of Victorian homes can be seen in many neighborhoods in San Francisco and on several City Guides tours.  Mission District tours offer examples of early Italiante style Victorian homes.  Both the Haight Ashbury and Castro neighborhood tours offer excellent examples of later Stick and Queen Anne architecture, many beautifully restored. And our Landmark Victorians tour brings you inside a Victorian and features the world-famous Postcard Row.

But perhaps the best place to see the progression of Victorian-era architecture is in the city's first suburb around Lafayette Square.  Our Victorian San Francisco tour is a moderately strenuous walk around Pacific Heights neighborhood, including a few steep streets and some fabulous views. 

Getting There

From Downtown
Most fun:
 Take the California St. Cable Car to end of the line at Van Ness
Less expensive:
   Muni Bus #47 Van Ness across Civic Center plaza from BART and MUNI
Scenic Route:
  Muni Bus #1 California, goes through Chinatown 

Parking: Street parking tight during the week, better on weekends. Some private garages near Van Ness.

Tour starts
Octavia and Bush Streets, in the middle of the line of trees on Octavia. A City Guide is there to lead the tour most Sundays at 2:00 p.m.  Check for current schedule on the web at sfcityguides.org. 
Difficulty:  Moderate.  Some steep streets and paths.

Remember:  These are thousands of Victorians in San Francisco and each one has its own story.   Those featured here are just a few examples.   Each City Guide chooses his or her own stories to tell and favorite places to visit, so every tour experience will be different.         

1. Mary Ellen Pleasant Grove

Octavia and Bush Streets

 The six eucalyptus trees on this corner are all that's left of the estate of millionaire capitalist Thomas Bell.  Bell lived here with his much-younger wife Teresa, their five children and their housekeeper,  a old woman of mixed race named  Mary Ellen Pleasant.
Whether Mary and her employer were business partners, or whether she controlled Bell and his wife under a voodoo spell as some claimed, may never be known for sure. Many blamed Mary when Thomas died in 1892, after a late-night fall from the top of his mansion's central staircase.  Mary was in her 70s by then, and spent the last years of her life fighting multiple lawsuits brought against her by  Teresa and a parade of creditors involving property the Bells had signed over to her.  Thomas' estate was bankrupted and Mary died broke in 1904.  The mansion became a boarding house and was torn down in the 1920s.        

Mary Ellen Pleasant, about  87 years old. Photo Credit:  SF Public Library, AAD-2997;

.Mary Ellen Pleasant

1814* - 1904
Mary was known to provide conflicting details about her early life, probably to cover the fact that she was born into slavery.  She had a white father and a Haitian mother, reportedly a voodoo priestess. Mary was traded among several owners before arriving in Massachusetts in her early teens as a indentured servant to a family of Quakers.  From them, she first learned the concept of racial equality. She earned her freedom, married, and became an important part of the Underground Railroad, a chain of people who sheltered and supported slaves escaping the South.
Mary and her second husband, J.J. Pleasants (the final "s" was later dropped) fled to New Orleans and then to California in 1852, after a new law said that anyone without papers proving free status could be returned to slavery. When Mary arrived in Gold Rush San Francisco, she began to create a dual identity. Sometimes she was Mrs. Pleasants, a black business owner who helped provided legal help and jobs for ex-slaves.  Other times she was known as Mrs. Ellen Smith, a white woman, owner of a popular boarding house and dining hall.  It was there she met  businessman Thomas Bell and began to amass a fortune she used to help fight discrimination laws.  
In 1858, Mary went back to West Virginia to help abolitionist John Brown, taking part in his failed raid on the Armory at Harper's Ferry.  Brown was executed for treason, but Mary escaped back to San Francisco where she continued to fight for equality. When a local streetcar company refused to let her board because she was black, she sued them and won, earning her the title Mother of Civil Rights in California.

*estimated

For more information on Mary Ellen Pleasant, visit: www.mepleasant.com, where there's an excellent summary of her life and work by Cheryl Susheel Bibbs, Ph.D., author of the book on Mary Ellen Pleasant, Heritage of Power, and creator of several films documenting her life .

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Posted By Gloria Lenhart to My SF Past at 9/30/2011 09:56:00 AM