The story of a violent chapter in San Francisco's history--the Tong Wars for the control of Chinatown's gambling and prostitution. Only an Earthquake would end it. The average man and woman in Chinatown was terrorized, and the government did nor understand what was happening.

The Hatchet Men: San Francisco's Chinatown in the Days of the Tong Wars

Politics & Social Sciences

Richard H. Dillon

Anthropology

Comstock/Ballantine Books

The greatest California mountain man of them all was Grizzly Adams. He was also one of the most mysterious men in the history of the American West. In this colorful biography, historian Richard Dillon chronicles the life of the man from a dull New England town who cultivated a society of bears in the wilderness of the West and went on to be one of the greatest showmen. Grizzly Adams' real name was John Adams (despite various aliases he used) and he left Medway, Massachusetts for California in 1849 at the age of 37. Adams traveled widely in the West racking up exploit after exploit. After trying mining in the Gold Country, hunting game to sell to the miners, and trading, Adams finally settled on ranching near Stockton, California. Creditors took his ranch in 1852 and he decided to head to the hills to get away from it all. With the help of the local Miwok Indians, Adams built a cabin and spent the winter alone in the Sierra. During a later hunting and trapping expedition 1,200 miles from his California basecamp, in what is today western Montana, Adams caught a yearling grizzly he named Lady Washington. He tamed her and trained her to follow him. Before long he had her carrying a pack and pulling a loaded sled. In due course, she allowed him to ride her. Lady Washington was the first grizzly Adams captured and tamed, but not the last. As he traveled, John set up impromptu shows of his bears and other animals he had collected. Thinking he was onto something, he then opened the Mountaineer Museum in a basement on Clay Street in San Francisco. In 1855, Adams had been attacked by a mother grizzly in the Sierra. Ben Franklin, one of two grizzly cubs he'd made into pets a year earlier, save his life. In the melee, Adams had his scalp dislodged and came away with a permanent depression in his forehead the size of a silver dollar. Adams often wrestled with the bears during his shows and during one such event, his old wound was cracked open like an eggshell. Knowing he was in poor health and having been away from his wife and family for 10 years, on January 7, 1860, Adams and his menagerie departed from San Francisco on the clipper ship the Golden Fleece. It was a three and one-half month voyage around Cape Horn. When he got to New York he went to work with famed circus owner P.T. Barnum for six weeks. His health having failed him, he sold his menagerie to Barnum and retired to Massachusetts where he died, five days after arriving at the home of his wife and children. Adams was 48.

The Legend of Grizzly Adams

Univ of Nevada Pr

High Steel: Building the Bridges Across San Francisco Bay

Don DeNevi

Thomas Moulin

Reference

Celestial Arts

Traces the combat experiences of U.S. special forces in Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia and looks at special operations and guerrilla warfare techniques

North Beach: The Italian Heart of San Francisco

History

Americas

Presidio Press

Meriwether Lewis: A Biography

Biographies & Memoirs

Travelers & Explorers

Coward-McCann, Inc.

Hatchet Men: The Story of the Tong Wars in San Francisco's Chinatown

The Write Thought

In the tradition of his award-winning biographies, Meriwether Lewis and Fool's Gold, acclaimed historian Richard Dillon recreates the life of one of frontier America's most gifted lawmen, James B. Hume. Dillon paints a vivid picture of Hume, the greatest of Wells, Fargo and company's detectives, who ranged all over the West in search of robbers of the firm's express shipments. Formerly a sheriff in California's Mother Lode gold mining country, Hume did not operate in the usual manner of most western lawmen. Instead of using his gun in apprehending badmen, this courageous lawman preferred to rely on his brains. In collaboration with famed San Francisco policeman Isaiah Lees, Hume pioneered scientific detection in law enforcement in the American West-a science later known as criminology. In one of history's most fascinating arrests, Hume used a laundry mark to track down Black Bart, the poetry writing stagecoach robber.

Wells, Fargo Detective: A Biography of James B. Hume

True Crime

Sutter, the father of California, is one of the most enigmatic figures in the history of the West. With Fool's Gold, famed California historian Richard Dillon (Wells, Fargo Detective, Embarcadero) brings to life the story of Swiss immigrant John A. Sutter. Via a circuitous route, John Sutter arrived in Yerba Buena-today's San Francisco- on July 1, 1839. At the time, the territory had a population of only 1,000 Europeans, in contrast with 30,000 Native Americans. It was at that point a part of Mexico and the governor, Juan Bautista Alvarado, granted him permission to settle; in order to qualify for a land grant, Sutter became a Mexican citizen on August 29, 1840 after a year in the provincial settlement. He identified himself as "Captain Sutter of the Swiss Guard." The following year, on 18 June, he received title to 48,827 acres. Sutter named his settlement New Helvetia, or "New Switzerland," after his homeland, "Helvetia" being the Latin name for Switzerland. Sutter employed Native Americans of the Miwok and Maidu tribes, Kanakas, and Europeans at his compound, which he called Sutter's Fort; he envisioned creating an agricultural utopia, and for a time the settlement was in fact quite large and prosperous. It was for a period the destination for most California-bound immigrants, including the ill-fated Donner Party, for whose rescue Sutter contributed supplies. In 1848, gold was discovered when James W. Marshall and Sutter began the construction of Sutter's sawmill in Coloma, along the American River. Sutter's attempt at keeping this quiet failed when merchant and newspaper publisher Samuel Brannan returned from Sutter's Mill to San Francisco with gold he had acquired there and began publicizing the find. Masses of people overran the land and destroyed nearly everything Sutter had worked for. In order to keep from losing everything, however, Sutter deeded his remaining land to his son, John Augustus Sutter, Jr. The younger Sutter, who had come from Switzerland and joined his father in September 1848, saw the commercial possibilities of the land and promptly started plans for building a new town he named Sacramento, after the Sacramento River. The elder Sutter deeply resented this because he had wanted the location to be named Sutterville after them and be built near his New Helvetia domain. Eventually Sutter gave up New Helvetia to pay the last of his debts. He got a letter of introduction to the Congress of the United States from the governor of California. He moved to Washington D.C. at the end of 1865. Soon after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, John Sutter and his wife moved to Lititz, Pennsylvania (1871). But John made trips back to Washington every so often. John Sutter died in a Washington D.C. hotel room on June 18, 1880.

Fool's Gold: The Decline and Fall of Captain John Sutter of California

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

Vignettes on sixty-three men and women who helped shape California

Humbugs and Heroes: A Gallery of California Pioneers

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Books by Richard H. Dillon