Public School Music in San Francisco, 1848-1897

SAN FRANCISCO'S musical life began with the founding of the Mission Dolores in 1776 when the Spanish padres, in accordance with their custom, immediately set about teaching the Indian converts to chant and to play instruments.1 By 1827 the mission boasted an orchestra of 27 members played for both church services and fiestas. As late as 1846, however, the only piano in northern California was at the Sonoma ranch of General Vallejo. The early inhabitants of the area-soldiers, missionaries, and assorted wanderers-led a happy, lazy life in association with the inland baronial ranches of the Spanish Dons and with the traders came into the bay with an ever increasing frequency. But in 1848, the pastoral sounds of the Spanish fiesta were driven from the air of San Francisco by lusty choruses of Oh, Susanna. Because housing was so poor and home-life was almost non-existent, idle hours were spent in the gambling halls and saloons, often called melodeons because small reed organs were used to provide a musical din. According to the Alta California, there was not a bar-room in town that did not have its regularly employed musicians who not only made the day

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