
I bought a used copy of The Barbary Coast recently (the lame reprint that has Gangs of New York on it) recently and realized that the book is public domain and available online
here. I highly recommend it. It was written in 1933 and although the style of writing is a bit dated and very un-P.C. at times, it is a VERY fascinating and entertaining read about the scandalous San Francisco underworld around the gold rush.
one of my favorite excerpts involves Samuel Brannan (as in Brannan St), Brigham Young’s main rep in NY. Brannan voyaged out to the West with a bunch of Mormon peeps hoping to settle a big Mormon camp out in SF, but Young wasn’t having it and was firm on Utah. Brannan continued pursuing his goals in SF anyway, and Young would try to shake him down:
He declined to recognize the authority of Brigham Young, although he continued for several years to collect tithes regularly from the members of his flock. During the gold rush, when many California Mormons became wealthy, these amounted to considerable sums. None of this money was ever remitted to the Church at Salt Lake City, and when Brigham Young made formal demand for “the Lord’s share,” and also for a share of Brannan’s personal earnings, Brannan retorted that he would pay upon a written order signed by the Lord, and not otherwise. According to Asbury Harpending, an associate of Brannan’s in various business enterprises, Brigham Young several times dispatched his holy gunmen, better known as Destroying Angels, to San Francisco to deal with Brannan and collect the money by force. But the Angels were invariably met in the desert, and their wings clipped, by Brannan’s “exterminators,” fighting men whom he is said to have employed as a bodyguard for half a dozen years.
the idea of “holy gunmen” being sent out to extort money on God’s behalf is so funny to me. there are tons of juicy (and probably sexed up) anecdotes like this in the book. check it out
Filed by awwwdrey at October 27th, 2006 under
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