The most unforgettable event that took place in the city of San Francisco, California, in the year 1906 was the infamous earthquake and fire.

However, two years earlier, in 1904, the most significant and memorable event was the very impressive assembly of Knights Templar of the Grand Encampment of the United States. San Francisco was literally “turned over” to host the twenty-ninth Triennial. Only a few examples of the opulent treatment given by the city will demonstrate the importance attributed to the event. Market Street, the major street of San Francisco, was lined with columns capped by Templar crosses.

The Ferry Building, at the foot of Market Street and perhaps the most dominant structure at that time, was outlined with lights and had a lighted Knight Templar cross on the side facing the city.

Jesuits and Freemasons Founded the “New” California

   In the winter of 1840, the Western Emigration Society was founded in Missouri, with 500 pledging to trek west into Mexico California. Members included Baldridge, Barnett, Bartleson, Bidwell and Nye. Organized on 18 May 1841, Talbot H. Green was elected president, John Bidwell secretary, and John Bartleson captain. The group joined Father Pierre Jean De Smet’s Jesuit missionary group, led by Thomas F. Fitzpatrick, westward across South Pass along the Oregon Trail. That trail took them past Courthouse and Jail Rocks, Chimney Rock, Scotts Bluff, Fort Laramie, and Independence Rock. The Bartleson-Bidwell party separated from Fitzpatrick, and the missionary group, at Soda Springs on 11 Aug.

   Some 152 years ago Freemason Brother Peter Lassen led 12 wagons from Missouri to California, forging the treacherous – and now infamous – Lassen Trail. After months of hardship, he successfully delivered new settlers to Benton City, the state’s northernmost community. On November 23, 1848, Levi Stowell was appointed master of the new lodge, and on November 15, 1849, the lodge was formally organized under the charter. After meeting the requirements of the Grand Lodge of California, Sacramento Lodge #40 was chartered on May 6, 1854 and assigned the number 40, signifying that it was the fortieth Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons to be chartered in the state of California. La Fayette Lodge No. 126 was chartered by the Grand Lodge of California on May 13, 1858. It is located in Sebastopol California, originally a farming community north of San Francisco. To this day, La Fayette Lodge maintains the traditions of a small-town community.

Jesuit Joseph Justus Scaliger (1540 – 1609)     Chief Architect of Falsifying Modern History

Joseph Scaliger was a French Jesuit religious leader and scholar, known for expanding the notion of classical history from Greek and ancient Roman history to include Persian, Babylonian, Jewish and ancient Egyptian history. In 1601 Gaspar Scioppius, then in the service of the Jesuits published his Scaliger Hypobolimaeus (“The Supposititious Scaliger”), a quarto volume of more than four hundred pages. The author purports to point out five hundred lies in the Epistola de vetustate of Scaliger. The pressure of the Scaligerian chronology and all of these oddities brings historians to the conclusion that:

“The Middle Ages were the time when all idea of chronological consequentiality had been lost: monks with crosses and thuribles at the funeral of Alexander the Great, Catilina attending mass… Orpheus becomes a contemporary of Aeneas, Sardanapal a Greek king, and Julian the Apostate – a Papal chaplain. Everything acquires a hue of fantasy in this world [this perplexes the modern historian greatly – A. F.. The most blatant anachronisms and the strangest fancies coexist peacefully.”

Jesuits, Knights Templar and Freemasons well established in San Francisco by 1849

View of the Knights Templar parade in San Francisco, August 20th, 1883. It was built in 1905 and 1906-1907. The building has been home to two institutions, the Knights Templar and the Baptist Church. The building was originally built for the Golden Gate Commandery #16 of the Knights Templar, a masonic order at the turn of the century. The building was originally built for the Golden Gate Commandery #16 of the Knights Templar.

  A Grand Parade was held at the Grand Conclave on August 20, 1883.

San Francisco Mason Temple

The first Masonic lodge, at 1 Montgomery Street, was built in 1860 and, of course, burned down in the 1906 fire.  On 1911, the Masonic Temple Association laid a 12-ton cornerstone (the largest ever in California at that time) for the new building. Two years later, (man these guys could erect back then!), a grand parade of 8,000 Masons, with Knights Templar on horseback, marked the dedication

Memories of the 1904 Grand Encampment Triennial

by W. Bruce Pruitt, KGC, Right Eminent Past Grand Commander, California

   The Grand Lodge of California building was outlined at every corner with lighting including the square and compasses, Templar cross, cross and crown, etc. (This beautiful structure, on Market Street, was destroyed by the earthquake and fire two years later.) Golden Gate Park was profuse with floral arrangements forming Masonic symbols of all types. Business sessions were held in Golden Gate Hall, and the San Francisco Pavilion was greatly decorated for events. The festivities extended from August 31 to September 6 and culminated with an amazing parade through the length of Market St. to Van Ness Avenue.    Many, if not all, attending Commanderies produced souvenir medals to commemorate the experience. One personal enjoyment engaged in by the Knights was to exchange medals and accumulate a collection to take back home.

The presiding Most Eminent Grand Master was Sir Knight Henry Bates Stoddard of Texas. He was greeted in Oakland by the Grand Commander of California, Past Grand Master Reuben H. Lloyd, the Commanders of California Commandery No. 1 and Golden Gate Commandery No 16, and an escort of Sir Knights. He then proceeded across San Francisco Bay by ferry to the Ferry Building, where he was met by an even more elaborate escort. The record states: “At the Ferry Station, companies A, B, C, D, and E of California Commandery mounted on finely caparisoned black chargers and under the command of Sir Knight Rueben P. Hurlbut, Captain General (on a snow-white charger — ed.) were drawn up in line for escort duty.” The Grand Master, Past Grand Master, Grand Commander, and Commander of California Commandery proceeded in a carriage drawn by four white horses. Several other carriages followed. The delegation from Great Britain was given special attention:

“Great deference was paid to the distinguished delegation from the Great Priory of England during the stay of the members in San Francisco. The visit itself was a distinction, representing the fraternal relations existing between the governing bodies of the greatest two Grand Jurisdictions of Templars in the world. In another sense it was highly representative in that in his official capacity the Earl of Euston was the personal representative of Edward VII, King of England, who for many years was the active head of Craft Masonry in England and who has ever been a patron of the Order in that jurisdiction.”

What is now Union Square in San Fransisco used to be a Freemason Penis

The drill competition was held on the multi-acre Recreation Ground of Golden Gate Park. Awards were won by Ivanhoe Commandery No. 24 of Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Malta Commandery No, 20. of Binghamton, New York; and Louisville Commandery No. 2 of Louisville, Kentucky. The launching of the armored cruiser Milwaukee was timed to occur during the time of the Conclave. It took place at the Union Iron Works along the shoreline of San Francisco Bay. Naturally it was of special interest to the delegation from the state of Wisconsin. A beautiful, leather-bound record was produced to commemorate this Triennial. That book is truly a treasure and a collector’s item. A review of the photographs in this volume is the only way one can appreciate in any way the extent of effort and involvement that went into this assembly. Those pictures help one to enjoy, in particular, the final parade of Sir Knights. The number of mounted companies, the sizes of the delegations, and the number of spectators lining the streets make one really appreciate those “glory days” of Templary. Oakland Commandery No. 11 seemed to extend for over a block. San Jose Commandery No. 10 was almost two blocks long. California Commandery was resplendent in their unique uniform and made up a fully mounted troop. Even though there were, of course, larger groups from California, every Grand Commandery made an impressive appearance. The Grand Commandery of Pennsylvania, mounted on matching black steeds, did their part to impress the on-lookers.

The Legend of San Francisco and Conflicting Population Numbers

Remember, the only way to access SF was from the South or by water, so all materials had to be hauled in[J1]  and that California Statehood was not reached until 1850. The 1850 U.S. Federal Census tallied California’s population at 92,597. This illustrates the population consensus of San Francisco, which clearly shows that either the consensus is in error by a great margin given the photographic images of the 1850’s – 1900’s, or the Tartarians were there already well established.

And the story goes…   Then in 1846 the USA annexed California. On 9 July 1846 USS Portsmouth sailed into San Francisco Bay and sailors and marines went ashore and raised the US flag. The little settlement of Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco (after the bay) on 30 January 1847. At that time San Francisco only had a population of about 800. In 1848 a man named James Marshall discovered gold. News of the find reached New York in December 1848. As a result people went to San Francisco in their thousands and the population boomed. In 1849 the population of San Francisco reached 25,000. That first wave of settlers included many southerners who brought slaves with them. Even after California was granted statehood in 1850 as a “free” state, several thousand people of African descent were held in slavery with the backing of fugitive slave laws passed by the California legislature and approved by the California supreme court. But a growing majority of California’s white men, the only ones who could vote, were embracing the “free soil” ideology of the anti-slavery wing of the Democratic Party. The commitment to free white labor meant that any other group, for example, the thousands of Mexicans, Chileans, Peruvians, and other Spanish-speakers who arrived early to the gold diggings, had to be defined as occupying a different category of work. The push for a “foreign miner’s tax” that lasted until 1852 was designed to drive out the so-called peones, or peons, men who were paid a pittance and sent the products of their labor to their patrones, or bosses. The Spanish-speaking gold miners were defined as less than white men by this argument, and thus subject to violent expulsion. After 1852, when most Spanish-speaking miners had departed, the target of white miners was shifted to the Chinese miners. Before long a new claim was being made about the Chinese workers who had signed contracts and come to work in California: they were “coolies.”

And, of course, as we see everywhere, fires burning buildings in the 1850’s and beyond.

Frequent fires shaped the development of both San Francisco and Sacramento, and the years of 1849 to 1851 were a particularly fiery time in the history of both towns. My novel takes place between 1848 and 1850. Sacramento is one of the primary settings of the novel, and some scenes are set in San Francisco as well. So I decided learning something about the San Francisco and Sacramento fires would be good background. This post focuses on San Francisco.

   Santa Rosa, California was founded in 1833 and named afterSaint Rose of Lima. Before the arrival of Jesuits, the Santa Rosa Plain was home to a strong and populous tribe of Pomo natives known as the Bitakomtara. The Bitakomtara controlled the area closely, barring passage to others until permission was arranged. Those who entered without permission were subject to harsh penalties. The tribe gathered at ceremonial times on Santa Rosa Creek near present-day Spring Lake Regional Park. Upon the arrival of Europeans, the Pomos were decimated by smallpox brought from Europe. By 1900 the Pomo population decreased by 95%.

   Just down the road is the towns of Sebastapool and Occidental, California founded in the 1850’s and home to Bohemian Grove were world power gather each year. By 1863, there was already railroads to through these towns whose populations were under 5,000 people.

   Interestingly, Sevastopol, in Russia laid claim to the possible to one of the classic sieges of all time. The city of Sevastopol was the home of the Tsar’s Black Sea Fleet, which threatened the Mediterranean. The Russian field army withdrew before the allies could encircle it. The siege was the culminating struggle for the strategic Russian port in 1854–55 and was the final episode in the Crimean War.

1850’s Los Angeles, California…..More Tartary Grand Designs

The first Our Lady of Sorrows Church was consecrated July 29, 1855, and the Jesuits have served at the parish since 1908. Blessed Sacrament Church in Hollywood, established in 1904, came under Jesuit administration in 1914, beginning with Father William Deeney pastor, the former president of Loyola College (now Loyola Marymount University). And Dolores Mission in Boyle Heights — at 68, the “baby” of the group — has been administered by the Jesuits since 1980. A fourth parish with Jesuit history, St. Ignatius of Loyola in Highland Park, was founded in 1911 by Jesuit priests under the leadership of Bishop Thomas Conaty of the Monterey-Los Angeles Diocese.

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 [J1]