Black Fire: The True Story of the Original Tom Sawyer

  Curiously, the claim that Twain was supposed to have named his book Tom Sawyer after his San Francisco acquaintance was well known in 1900 when all of the principals were alive, including Twain, Sawyer, and probably several hundred San Franciscans who knew them both, and could have authenticated or challenged the claim. No one disputed it in San Francisco. The life of Tom Sawyer is replete with stirring scenes and adventures, and he never doubted that Twain named his first book for his longtime friend who had been the inspiration for his best work.

  When I worked as a cartoonist and artist at the Stockton, California, Record in 1963, I was told the story of “the man who burned down San Francisco” by a sea captain in his late eighties who called the arsonist the Lightkeeper. He said the firebug was set off by the Lightkeeper’s Wind, the gales that propelled fogs through the Golden Gate and up from Southern California. These gales imperiled shipping and set lonely lighthouse keepers to trimming their wicks and activating their blazing lights. I found this name most evocative and used it. I speculated on the arsonist’s death at the hands of irate firemen because many suspected looters and arsonists were beaten to death that night. If Ben Lewis did escape, his ultimate fate remains unknown.

  Profound thanks to my agent, Joel Gotler, Jenna Ciongoli, Michael Chernuchin, Dan Gordon, Michael Larkin, Michael Goldstein, Thomas Ellsworth, Darren Hattingh, Ryan Fischer-Harbage, Margot Graysmith, Aaron Smith, David Smith, Melanie Graysmith, Penny Wallace, David Zucker, Jordan Sheehan, Kevin Fagan, Marli Peterson, and Mizuki Osawa. Special thanks to the spirited and always reliable Miriam Chotiner-Gardner, art director Christopher Brand and designer Elina Nudelman, Patricia Shaw, Ellen Folan, and Rachel Meier. I am deeply indebted to Charles Conrad, whose wise guidance, sometimes only a word or two, put me on the right path.

  SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Andrews. Ralph W. Historic Fires of the West: 1865 to 1915. New York: Bonanza Books, 1966.

  Asbury, Herbert. The Barbary Coast. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1937.

  Askins, Col. Charles. Texans, Guns & History. New York: Winchester Press, 1970.

  Bacon, Daniel. Walking San Francisco on the Barbary Coast Trail. San Francisco: Quicksilver Press, 1996.

  Baldwin, Joseph G. Edited by Richard E. Amacher and George W. Polhemus. The Flush Times of California. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1966.

  Bancroft, Hubert Howe. The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft: History of California, Vols. 4 and 23, 1849–1859. San Francisco: The History Company, Publishers, 1888. (From the original first edition with two foldout maps and diagrams of the vigilante cells in proximity to the cage holding Yankee Sullivan.)

  ————. The Works, Vol. 37, Popular Tribunals. San Francisco: The History Company, Publishers, 1887. (First edition. Billy Mulligan is discussed on pp. 604–8.)

  Barker, Malcolm E. San Francisco Memoirs 1835–1851: Eyewitness Accounts of the Birth of a City. San Francisco: Londonborn Publications, 1996.

  ———. More San Francisco Memoirs 1852–1899. San Francisco: Londonborn Publications, 1994.

  Beebe, Lucius, and Charles Clegg. San Francisco’s Golden Era: A Picture Story of San Francisco Before the Fire. Berkeley: Howell-North, 1960.

  Bell, Major Horace. On the Old West Coast. New York: William Morrow & Company, 1930.

  Benemann, William, editor. A Year of Mud and Gold. San Francisco in Letters and Diaries, 1849–1850. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1999.

  Boessenecker, John. Against the Vigilantes: The Recollections of Dutch Charley Duane. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999. (Duane’s memoir was originally printed in the San Francisco Examiner, 1881. An excellent history, well written and an important source.)

  ———. Gold Dust & Gunsmoke: Tales of Gold Rush Outlaws, Gunfighters, Lawmen, and Vigilantes. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 1999. From published edition and advance uncorrected proofs. (This is a valuable source for the stories of Billy Mulligan, Dutch Charley, and Yankee Sullivan.)

  Block, Eugene E. Great Stagecoach Robbers of the West. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1962. (Great resource for Hank Monk.)

  Brands, H. W. The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream. New York: Anchor Books, 2002.

  Browning, Peter. San Francisco/Yerba Buena. Lafayette, CA: Great West Books, 1998.

  Camp, William Martin. San Francisco, Port of Gold. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1947.

  Carlisle, Henry C. San Francisco Street Names: Sketches of the Lives of Pioneers for Whom San Francisco Streets Are Named. San Francisco: The American Trust Company, 1954.

  Coffin, George B., and Gorham B. Coffin, editor. A Pioneer Voyage to California and Round the World, 1849 to 1852. Chicago: Gorham B. Coffin, 1908. (Firsthand accounts of the great fires by an artistic sailor.)

  Cole, Tom. A Short History of San Francisco. San Francisco: Don’t Call It Frisco Press, 1981.

  Country Beautiful editors. Great Fires of America. Waukesha, Wisconsin: Country Beautiful Publishing, 1973.

  DeFord, Miriam Allen. They Were San Franciscans. Caldwell, ID: The Caxton Printers, Ltd., 1941.

  Delgado, James P. To California by Sea: A Maritime History of the California Gold Rush. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 1996.

  ———. Gold Rush Port: The Maritime Archaeology of San Francisco’s Waterfront. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2009. (A treasure trove of valuable archaeological information about Yerba Buena Cove from a leading maritime archaeologist.)

  Dickson, Samuel. Tales of San Francisco. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1965.

  ———. Tales of Love and Hate in Old San Francisco. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1971.

  Dillon, Richard H. Embarcadero: Being a Chronicle of True Sea Adventures from the Port of San Francisco. New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1959.

  ———. Humbugs and Heroes. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1970.

  ———. Shanghaiing Days. Garden City, NY: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1961.

  Dobie, Charles Caldwell. San Francisco: A Pageant. New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1934.

  Dunshee, Kenneth Holcomb. As You Pass By. New York: Hastings House, 1952. A major source for information about New York firehouses and volunteers, 1832–66.

  Duke, Donald, editor. Water Trails West: The Western Writers of America. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1978.

  Eldredge, Zoeth Skinner. The Beginnings of San Francisco, Vol. 1. New York: John C. Rankin, 1912.

  The Exempt Firemen of San Francisco: Their Unique and Gallant Record. Also includes a Résumé of the San Francisco Fire Department and its Personnel. San Francisco: H. C. Pendleton, 1900. (This book was written while Tom Sawyer was still alive. Pp. 100–101 include his biography as a volunteer firefighter and his heroism during the sinking of the steamer Independence as well as a long Lilly Hitchcock piece as a torch girl and an honorary fireman by Frederick J. Bowlen, battalion chief, SFFD.)

  Fehrenback, T. R. Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans. New York: Macmillan, 1968. (Coffee “Jack” Hays biography.)

  Fishkin, Shelley Fisher, editor. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in The Oxford Mark Twain. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

  Fracchia, Charles A. Fire & Gold. Encinitas, California: Heritage Media, 1996.

  Garvey, John. San Francisco Fire Department. Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2003.

  Gilliam, Harold. San Francisco Bay. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1957. (A terrific book and one of my all-time favorites.)

  Goodenough, Simon. The Fire Engine, an Illustrated History. Secaucus, NJ: Chartwell Books, 1978.

  Gorn, Elliott J. The Manly Art: Bare-Knuckle Prize Fighting in America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989.

  Green, Floride. Some Personal Recollections of Lillie Hitchcock Coit-5. San Francisco: Grabhorn Press, Limited Edition of 450 copies, 1935. Includes plates from old photographs of Lillie, her mother and fa
ther, and engravings. Illustrator might have been Green herself.

  Greer, James Kimmins. Colonel Jack Hays, Texas Frontier Leader and California Builder. Texas: Texas A & M University Press, 1987.

  Harlan, George. San Francisco Bay Ferryboats. San Diego: Howell-North Books, 1967.

  Hazen, Robert M., and Margaret Hindle Hazen. Keepers of the Flame. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.

  Hearn, Michael Patrick, editor. The Annotated Huckleberry Finn. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2001.

  Hoffer, Peter Charles. Seven Fires. New York: Public Affairs, 2006.

  Holdredge, Helen. Firebelle Lillie. New York: Meredith Press, 1967. (A very valuable biography of the little torch girl that mentions Tom Sawyer’s rivalry with Davey Scannell and Lillie’s enduring friendship with Mark Twain.)

  Jackson, Donald Dale. Gold Dust. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980.

  Jackson, Joseph Henry, editor. The Western Gate, A San Francisco Reader. New York: Farrar, Straus and Young. (Jackson reprints “The Terry-Broderick Duel,” Ben C. Truman, 1859.)

  Jacobson, Pauline. City of the Golden ’Fifties. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1941. (Tom Sawyer is mentioned on p. 84, Ed Stahle on pp. 80–81. Davey Scannell’s marathon eating sessions are covered on pp. 54–55. Charlie Robinson’s torch boy story is told on pp. 46–47, and the tale of Curly Jack Carroll’s botched wedding is on p. 49.)

  Johnson, Kenneth M. San Francisco As It Is. Georgetown, CA: The Talisman Press, 1964.

  Johnson, Paul C. Pictorial History of California. New York: Doubleday & Company, 1970.

  Johnson, Paul C., and Richard Reinhardt. San Francisco As It Is, As It Was. San Francisco: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1979.

  Johnson, William Weber. The Forty-Niners. New York: Time-Life Books, 1974. (On p. 192 Charles Robinson relates how he and two other torch boys fell into a pit leading an engine when he was a torch boy in North Beach, San Francisco.)

  Jones, Idwal. Ark of Empire, San Francisco’s Montgomery Block. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1955. (The author discusses Sawyer and Twain steaming together in the baths in the Montgomery Block on p. 200. “It was a fortunate acquaintance for the ex-fireman.…” Jones speaks of torch boy Charlie Robinson’s upstairs painting studio on p. 236.)

  Kaplan, Justin. Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain: A Biography. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1966.

  Kelly, Joellen L., Robert A. Yatsuk., and J. Gordon Routley. Firefighters. New York: Universe Publishers, 2003.

  Kemble, John Haskell. San Francisco Bay, A Pictorial Maritime History. Cambridge, MD: Cornell Maritime Press, 1957.

  Kersey, A.T.J., and William J. Goudie, editors. Ripper’s Heat Engines. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1939.

  Kowalewski, Michael, editor. Gold Rush. Berkeley, California: Heyday Books, 1997.

  Levy, Jo Ann. They Saw the Elephant. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992.

  Lewis, Oscar. San Francisco: Mission to Metropolis. San Diego: Howell-North Books, 1980.

  ———. Sea Routes to the Gold Fields. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949. (The sinking of the Independence is presented on pp. 252–53.)

  Lewis, Oscar, editor. This Was San Francisco. New York: David McKay Company, Inc., 1962.

  Lockwood, Charles. Suddenly San Francisco. San Francisco: The Hearst Corporation, 1978.

  MacMullen, Jerry. Paddle-Wheel Days in California. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1944.

  Marryat, Frank. Mountains and Molehills. Reprint of 1855 edition. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1952.

  Mayer, Robert, editor and compiler. San Francisco, A Chronological and Documentary History, 1542–1970. New York: Oceana Publications, Inc., 1974.

  McGloin, John Bernard, S. J. San Francisco, The Story of A City. San Rafael, CA: Presidio Press, 1978.

  Mee, Bob. Bare Fists. Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 2001. (Yankee Sullivan fights and background.)

  Meltzer, Milton. Mark Twain Himself: A Pictorial Biography. New York: Bonanza Books, 1960.

  Mullen, Kevin J. Let Justice Be Done: Crime and Politics in Early San Francisco. Reno and Las Vegas: University of Nevada Press, 1989. (A scholarly, factually reasoned, and deeply researched study of the police records of Old San Francisco by an ex–deputy police chief with twenty-six years of service with the San Francisco Police Department.)

  Muscatine, Doris. Old San Francisco, the Biography of a City from Early Days to the Earthquake. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1975.

  Myrick, David F. San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill. Berkeley: Howell-North Books, 1972.

  Neville, Amelia Ransome. The Fantastic City. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1932.

  Newell, Gordon. Paddlewheel Pirate. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, Inc., 1959. (A biography of Captain Ned Wakeman that includes Ben Lewis’s arrest.)

  O’Brien, Robert. This Is San Francisco. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1948. (Quote about the opening of the Fifth and Mission streets U. S. Mint across from the original Tom Sawyer’s Saloon is on p. 273.)

  Paine, Albert Bigelow, Introduction to What Is Man? And Other Essays by Samuel Langhorne Clemens, Vol. 26 of The Writings of Twain, with the assistance of Mary Jane Jones. The Works of Twain. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1923.

  Quinn, Arthur. The Rivals. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1994. (Excellent book on Broderick and his courage. It is one of my favorites and a tremendous source.)

  Rasmussen, Louis J. San Francisco Ship Passenger Lists. Volumes 1, 2, 4. San Francisco.

  Rathmell, George. Realms of Gold. Berkeley: Creative Arts Book Company, 1998.

  Richards, Rand. Historic San Francisco. San Francisco: Heritage House Publishers, 1991. (Twain met “a fireman named Tom Sawyer,” p. 342.)

  Riesenberg, Felix, Jr. Golden Gate. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1940.

  Royce, Josiah. California. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948. (Details the burning of the Alta office and the sinking of the Independence.)

  Russ, Carolyn Hale, editor. The Log of a Forty-Niner (edited from the original manuscript). Boston, MA: B. J. Brimmer Company, 1923.

  San Francisco Fire Department. History of the Fire Department. San Francisco: Press of Commercial Publishers Co., 1900.

  San Francisco Fire Department, Historical Review. Part II, the Paid Department, December 3, 1866. (Tom Sawyer, paid corporation yard keeper, December 3, 1866.)

  Sanborn, Margaret. Mark Twain: The Batchelor Years. New York: Doubleday Dell Publishing, 1990. (Tells the story of Mark Twain and Lillie Hitchcock, p. 244. Relates Twain’s dream about his brother Henry in his casket, pp. 124–29.)

  Schultz, Charles R. Forty-Niners ’Round the Horn. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1999.

  Scott, Mel. The San Francisco Bay Area. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959.

  Secrest, William B. California Badmen. Sanger, CA: Word Dancer Press, 2007. (Includes Yankee Sullivan’s and Billy Mulligan’s biographies.)

  Senkewicz, Robert M. Vigilantes in Gold Rush San Francisco. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985.

  Soule, Frank, John H. Gihon, and James Nisbet. The Annals of San Francisco: A Complete History of All the Important Events Connected with Its Great City. San Francisco: Appleton & Co., 1854. (Mentions children who ran with the fire engines, p. 244.)

  Stellman, Louis J. Sam Brannan, Builder of San Francisco. Fairfield, CA: James Stevenson Publisher, 1996.

  Stewart, George R. Committee of Vigilance. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1964.

  Tapper, Bernard, editor. Mark Twain’s San Francisco. Berkeley: Heyday Books, 1963. (“Over the Mountains,” pp. 3–6; “Earthquake Almanac,” pp. 124–28; “Mark Twain’s Farewell,” pp. 261–63.)

  Thomas, Lately. Between Two Empires. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1969.

  Time-Life editors. The Forty-Niners. New York: Time Inc., 1974.

  Twain, Mark. Autobiography of Mark Twain. Vol. 1. Edited by Harriet Elinor Smith. Berkley, CA: Univ
ersity of California Press, 2010.

  ———. Mississippi Writings. Guy Cardwell, editor. New York: Library of America, 1982. (Life on the Mississippi. Chapter 22, “A Catastrophe.” Twain’s brother Henry and a fatal steamboat explosion.)

  ———. The Innocents Abroad & Roughing It. Guy Cardwell, editor. New York: Library of America, 1984. (Roughing It, Chapter LIX: “I slunk from back street to back street. I slunk away from approaching faces that looked familiar, I sluck to my meals … I felt meaner and lowlier and more despicable than the worms.”)

  ———. Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, and Essays. Vol. 1: 1852–1890. Lewis Budd, editor. New York: Library of America, 1992.

  ———. Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, and Essays. Vol. 2: 1891–1910. Lewis Budd, editor. New York: Library of America, 1992.