Dolores Waldorf

“ But among the fellow citizens of Judge Waller were many who shared Walker's dissatisfaction with the local courts. Men from every strata of so- ciety talked of "perjured witnesses" and "corrupted juries."^^ They openly declared that they would do something drastic if the courts continued to release the notorious and guilty. On one side of the benign recorder raged roaring mobs, plundering and terrifying the town. ”

“ Directly after Waller became recorder for the second time, the Alta com- mented, "We have no sympathy with the 'Know Nothings' as a political body . . . but if they have elected their ticket in this city, they have done the city the service of placing in office good and capable men." Royal H. Waller had lost neither his dignity nor his good name by the change. ”

“ He flew against tradition in politics but three times in his life. Each time the nation rocked with the forces which brought the change about.
Royal H. Waller was born on November 29, 1802,^ in the village of Royalton, Vermont, northeast of the famous Green Mountains. He came into a world temporarily at peace. Napoleon was First Consul of France, immersed in the business of revising the codes and map of conquered Europe. ”

“ When men take it in their heads today to hang gamblers or burn murderers, they should recollect that in the confusion usually at- tending such transactions they will be as likely to hang or burn some one who is neither a gambler nor a murderer as one who is . ”

“ Royal Waller reversed the usual formula for living. The average boy roves until he marries and then settles down. Educated for the law. Waller hung out his shingle in Rutland, Vermont,^ a small but busy hillside town in the valley cut by Otter Creek between the Green Mountains and the Taconic Range. Just outside of Rutland the famous marble quarries were already producing building stone for a booming nation. Waller was appointed post-master^ for Rutland by President Andrew Jackson ”

“ Waller sharing with other good Presbyterian ladies in plans for the formation of an orphan asylum society which late in January of that year^^ became the San Francisco Ladies Orphan Asylum Society. Her husband, however, was concerned with more worldly matters and was planning to run for Recorder on the Whig ticket. ”

“ He be- came recorder for the second time.
By 1854 the Wallers had moved to their last San Francisco home, which stood on Montgomery between Green and Union Streets. Late in that year the Rev. Albert Williams preached his farewell sermon, preparatory to re- turning to the Atlantic States. The trustees of the church, among them Royal H. Waller, addressed a letter to their pastor asking him to furnish them with a copy of the sermon, so that it might be printed for the congregation. ”

“ San Francisco courts adjourned out of respect to Royal Waller.62 His funeral services were held in the First Presbyterian Church, on Stockton Street.63 The Alta bemoaned his passing: one by one the pioneers were de- parting from a community which could "ill afford" to spare them. 64
The widow of Royal Hiram Waller lost no time in returning to her fam- ily home in Rutland, Vermont, where her sister Mary Ann, also a widow, awaited her. Mary Ann's husband had been Solomon Foot, United States Senator from Vermont, who had died in 1865. ”

“ It started in a paint factory on the opposite side of the Plaza, three blocks south of the City Hall, and burned everything, including the planked streets, from the Plaza to the bay. Noth- ing remained east of Kearny Street but the far end of Long Wharf, isolated beyond ash and debris strewn water and the charred stumps of the piles upon which that part of the town had rested. With the usual blithe reaction of the frontier this remnant of former splendor was named Pile Island. That was on May 4, 1851, the anniversary of the great fire of May 4, 1850. ”

“ San Francisco Herald, September 2, 1855, 2/2.
47. Op. cit., August 21, 1855, ill.
48. San Francisco Municipal Reports, 18^ (^-80, p. 183; Zoeth S. Eldredge, The Begin- nings of San Francisco (San Francisco, 1912) , II, 738.
49. LeCount & Strong, San Francisco Directory, 18^4, p. 138.
50. Williams, op. cit., p. 183.
51. San Francisco Alta California, September 7, 1854, 2/1.
52. Philip Van Doren Stern, The Life and Writings of Abraham Lincoln (New York: Random House, 1940) , p. 255.
53. San Francisco Municipal Reports, 18^9-60, p. 183. ”