#62: samuel holladay, pioneer squatter of lafayette park

June 22, 2007

San Francisco history podcasts » [7] comments

samuel holladay, pioneer squatter of lafayette park [50:48m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

On a recent Pacific Heights walking tour I found myself standing atop Lafayette Park. As I admired the spectacular view, the guide told an unfamiliar story about a mansion that once occupied this hill. The building is long gone now, of course, but its history is a wild one.

Here’s the story: Samuel Holladay, respectable Gold Rush era citizen and pillar of society, had legally stolen this beautifully situated hilltop. He was a squatter… and even better, had successfully defended the property against the City of San Francisco for over thirty years! Needless to say, after the tour I made a beeline to the sixth floor of the San Francisco Public Library.

It seemed so unlikely; what bizarre circumstances could have led such a distinguished character to take such a seemingly scurrilous action? The great thing about our city’s history is that once you’ve seized a single thread, it can take you anywhere — and this one went all over the place. In today’s podcast I will untangle the story of Samuel Holladay, the king of Holladay Hill.

For further edification:
» Lafayette Park – GoogleMaps
» contemporary view from Lafayette Park – 360 degree panorama
» Samuel Holladay’s 1901 autobiography – Calisphere
» 1888 California Supreme Court decision
» 1895 United States Supreme Court decision – final
» map of San Francisco showing Western Addition, 1861 – David Rumsey collection
» Kim Barnes – Friends of Lafayette Park
» San Francisco Neighborhood Parks Council
» George Davidson – bio and observatory photo

musical support:
Thanks to Cameron Ember for “Intro”, Acoustic Rosh for “Almost Forgotten”, AjT for “Love Piano v2″and Piney Creek Weasels for “Off to California”. This week’s music courtesy of PodShow PodSafe Music Network.

7 responses to “#62: samuel holladay, pioneer squatter of lafayette park”

Joe McGuire
June 24, 2007 at 10:42 pm

Welcome back! – I look forward to more of your in-depth podcasts. I do like the two part format, but would suggest a brief recap so they can stand alone. Also hope to hear some east bay stuff. I read an interesting book recently that was not as prurient as I had expected – Murder by the Bay by Charles Adams.
Regards,
Joe
Andy
June 25, 2007 at 10:32 am

Great episode! I was completely captured by the story, good work!
Erich Stonestreet
June 25, 2007 at 12:56 pm

Richard, this story is great, and it also seems possible that you’ve discovered the legal hub of a much larger scam, possibly one of the greatest land scams ever.

Questions…

In addition to directly benefiting from his own laws, which of Holladay’s CLIENTS also benefited? You mentioned all these barons coming over — it seems like they weren’t coming over for cultural enrichment, but rather to get legal counsel on how to use the same tactics (“I bought this land when it was still Mexico”). It was a Deadwood-like situation after all.

Did any of Holladay’s clients go through similar legal proceedings? Perhaps many were settled without a peep (because they didn’t claim land in a park) and we’ll never know just how much land was had for nothing by those who could afford to pay or pay-off Holladay.

Who sponsored that legislation? Who paid for Holladay’s various candidacies? It just seems like as much as you dug up, perhaps you only scratched the surface. Perhaps ironically, Holladay was the only one who got his hands caught in the cookie jar while his clients took, as Monty Python put it, “Huge tracks of land!”
richard - sparkletack
June 27, 2007 at 4:42 pm

Interesting idea, Erich – but I’m not sure it fits the facts well enough.

The Van Ness ordinance was seen as something that was desperately needed at that chaotic time, and a great success — in fact, James Van Ness was elected mayor on the strength of its popularity. Holladay didn’t write it, just shepherded the thing through the state legislature.

And though he certainly was in the position to help other men with unethical land litigation against the city, there’s just no record that he did so. Many city records were lost in the great fire of ‘06, though, so we may never know.

As to his association with various wealthy men of the city whom I’ve characterized as “barons”, they seem to have come into his orbit after the Holladay Hill case was settled. In other words, this would have been after the Western Addition lands were settled, providing no opportunity for any “Deadwood”-like land grabs.

One of his famous cases actually involved prosecuting some of San Francisco’s richest men — the infamous Comstock Lode “Bonanza Kings“, Flood, O’Brien, Fair, and Mackey. (The Flood mansion is the only “Robber Baron”-era castle to have survived the ‘06 fire — it’s still up on Nob Hill.) Holladay represented stockholders who claimed that the “Kings” had bilked them by misrepresented bullion production… and he won.

I’m afraid that I still have to draw the conclusion that I came to in the podcast. Though his squatting of Holladay Hill looks quite shady, he seems to have thought of himself and been thought of as an honourable, respectable man. Odd as it sounds, I think he was convinced that he was in the right!

Still, I have to admit that your interpretation is a much more exciting one! And if any evidence comes to light, I’d love to hear it.
mzdebra
July 14, 2007 at 1:47 pm

richard,
i so look forward to imagining the samuel holladay era the next time i stroll by lafayette park. thank you for the wonderful stories.
Cynthia Price
August 24, 2007 at 4:07 am

Wow — I never knew pieces of that Hearst monastery had traveled so far from Golden Gate Park!

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