San Francisco fire of May, 1851

“…I saw a dark cloud of smoke rising from the region of the church. In anxious haste I left for the threatening scene. On Stockton street I met a friend, who reported the fire as already beyond control, and our church beyond the power of preservation.”

-Rev. Albert Williams,
eyewitness

By sunrise, Rassette House is gone, leaving only a smoldering pile of embers. Watching the last wisps of smoke leave what used to be your home and your workplace, you realize you’ve never felt more alone.

You walk to waterfront, passing the burned-out hull of Ghirardelli’s at Battery and Broadway, the sickly smell of scorched chocolate heavy in the morning air.

Finally facing the strait that had been recently dubbed the Golden Gate, you make your decision.

By nightfall you’re aboard the SS Brother Jonathan, a steamer bound for New York.

The long journey home gives you an opportunity to reflect on your adventure. Could it have been barely 30 months earlier that you set sail for the West Coast? You feel like you’ve aged a great deal, but you have yet to turn 25.

Maybe your father will start his welcome speech with “I told you so”.

Maybe you could have done better financially at home, settling down and starting a family.

And maybe you never did actually make it to gold country.

But you’ll take to your grave your great adventure.

You will live another fifty years in Kinderhook; in those fifty years, you’ll never tire of the request, be it from the host of a dinner party or any of your six granddaughters:

“Can you tell us again about your trip to California?”

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