Podcast appearances and mentions of samuel brannan

It's time to take a look at the early Utah economy as created by Brigham Young, a ruthless capitalist in his own right. We take a brief look at the beginnings of the California Gold Rush and how much the Mormons were involved, as well as the battle for control between Bloody Brigham and Samuel Brannan. Which also leads us into Part 1 of our deep dive into Approaching Zion by Hugh Nibley. We discuss the first two essays and show the contortions Hugh Nibley has to make in order to present Bloody Brigham Young as a utopian. And to wash that image from your eyes, we will close out with some fantastic news about, of all things, the most recent Super Bowl and renewable energy. Enjoy!    Show Notes: https://utahstories.com/2016/07/the-legend-of-brighams-gold/ https://rsc.byu.edu/california-saints/apostles-amid-gold-seekers-1849 https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/goldrush-samuel-brannan/ https://www.historynet.com/latter-day-scoundrel-sam-brannan/ https://historytogo.utah.gov/mining/   Sword of Laman:    chrome-extension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/https://coast.noaa.gov/data/Documents/OceanLawSearch/Senate%20Hearings_Committee%20on%20Commerce%20Oct.%20&%20Nov.%201971.pdf     Happy News: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/energy/2024/02/10/super-bowl-58-100-percent-solar-powered/72538610007/    Go get your Glass Box Candle!  https://exmocandles.com/creator-candles/ Look for the Destroying Angel.    Other Appearances:    Come see us on Aron Ra's YouTube channel! He's doing a series titled Reading Joseph's Myth BoM. This link is for the playlist:   https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXJ4dsU0oGMKfJKvEMeRn5ebpAggkoVHf  Check out his channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@AronRa   Email: glassboxpodcast@gmail.com  Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GlassBoxPod  Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/glassboxpodcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/GlassBoxPod  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/glassboxpodcast/  Merch store: https://www.redbubble.com/people/exmoapparel/shop Or find the merch store by clicking on “Store” here: https://glassboxpodcast.com/index.html One time Paypal donation: bryceblankenagel@gmail.com   

Join us on a captivating episode as we explore the multifaceted life of Samuel Brannan, a charismatic leader who played a pivotal role in both in Mormonism and the California Gold Rush. We trace Brannan’s journey from his membership in Mormonism, to his leading a group of Mormon pioneers on the perilous voyage of the… Read More »Mormon to Millionaire: Sam Brannan & the Brooklyn: Mormonism LIVE: 137

Join us on a captivating episode as we explore the multifaceted life of Samuel Brannan, a charismatic leader who played a pivotal role in both in Mormonism and the California Gold Rush. We trace Brannan's journey from his membership in Mormonism, to his leading a group of Mormon pioneers on the perilous voyage of the… Read More »Mormon to Millionaire: Sam Brannan & the Brooklyn: Mormonism LIVE: 137

Join us on a captivating episode as we explore the multifaceted life of Samuel Brannan, a charismatic leader who played a pivotal role in both in Mormonism and the California Gold Rush. We trace Brannan’s journey from his membership in Mormonism, to his leading a group of Mormon pioneers on the perilous voyage of the… Read More »Mormon to Millionaire: Sam Brannan & the Brooklyn: Mormonism LIVE: 137 The post Mormon to Millionaire: Sam Brannan & the Brooklyn: Mormonism LIVE: 137 appeared first on Mormon Discussions Podcasts - Full Lineup.

In this episode, Lindsay and Bryan discuss the Mormons' first venture heading west: Samuel Brannan's expedition to the so-called, "Upper California." Special thanks to Matt Riley for the cameo on this episode. Music mentioned and used in this episode: Mormon Symphony & Mormon Youth Chorus - The Upper California

In this episode, Lindsay and Bryan discuss the Mormons’ first venture heading west: Samuel Brannan’s expedition to the so-called, “Upper California.” Special thanks to Matt Riley for the cameo on this episode. Music mentioned and used in this episode: Mormon Symphony & Mormon Youth Chorus – The Upper California

(Not So) Small Talk and... the Gold Rush? Samuel Brannan was California's first millionaire. He made his millions during the Gold Rush, but he didn't do it by finding gold. Rather, he mined the periphery. While everyone was focusing on gold. Samuel Brannan focused on the periphery. He focused on what was adjacent to (but just outside of) their opportunity radars. He sold shovels. In fact, he bought up all of the shovels for miles... all of them. With all of these people coming to California trying to find gold, trying to find their fortunes, Samuel Brannan asked, "What do they need?" He mined the periphery and in the periphery, he found a need for shovels. Small Talk Can Be Awkward and It Can Be Difficult, But Small Talk Isn't Small What else is in our periphery that is of extreme value? Often viewed as "off to the side", "extra", "useless", or "small" - Small talk isn't small at all. Small talk is a potential goldmine. It's the thing that tells you where the gold is. Small Talk As A Hallway Of Doors Imagine small talk as a hallway full of doors. You can walk through one door and it can lead to conflict and argumentation and difficult discussions. Other doors, though, are potential connections, these potential gold mines. Walk through the door where there is potential connection. Connection leads to rapport, which is where the magic happens. In the conversational hypnosis model of conversation. You can imagine a series of concentric rings, and outside of these concentric circles is when somebody is nearby but not engaged. And then the edge of the circle is the greeting. After the greeting, there's typically small talk. You can bounce around to different topics really quickly, and then the interaction ends and you move on. No big deal. Where The Magic Happens - The Change Agent of Change Agents If rapport is established though, that moves you deeper into the circle, towards deeper connection, deeper intimacy - the place where magic happens. Deep rapport is where the best of your relationships, the best of human connection occurs. In fact, rapport is the flow state of human-human connection. Once a rapport is established, that's the change agent of change agents. That is the place where growth and love and connection and all those things occur. Once you have rapport, you're typically in a space where you can potentially have deeper talk. In the conversational hypnotherapy model and in actually most therapy models in the deeper states of rapport and connection, they look for problem states and they look for resource states. Then they basically help that person connect those two - and ultimately solve their own problems. (Typically with a powerful reframe) Every single time you are in small talk, you have the potential to get slightly deeper and make someone's month. Why? Because you can give a gift - the gift of a transformational change.(In hypnotherapy, we often call them "hypnotic gifts" - where you give a gift to somebody) When you give a powerful reframe in a moment of deep connection and rapport, you change someone's life forever. It can be a pivot moment, and by "moment" I mean moment. It can occur in a sliver of time. Someone's entire life can pivot on a single moment. And small talk is your doorway to those moments. Your job in small talk: Assess whether you even want to get deeper. Get curious. View it as a hallway of doorways. Which one would you like to walk through? Go deeper and you have the potential to change your life and the life of the person you're talking to. Small talk is not so small. It is an opportunity. In fact, go to DrTori.com or InfluenceEverywhere.com. There's an opportunity to take a super micro-course on how to change someone's life in a single conversation. And in that conversation, I give an example of a pivotal moment that occurred in small talk by quickly accelerating into rapport from small talk. Small Talk Now, Deep Rapport Later? Ask yourself, how can I optimize my small talk with other people to either establish rapport now or to establish a rapport later? When you're talking, you're bouncing around to different topics and even these like super mundane topics or and somebody mentions like an event or something that's occurring, you know, their daughter is getting married or they're going on a trip or their mom had surgery, whatever. The thing is, they mention it. If you ask about it later, you just say, "Hey, I'm just... I was curious. I was thinking about you the other day. How did your mom's surgery go?" Now that is a establishing rapport later with a small talk doorway that you saw earlier. Small talk is only small if you want it to be small. It's only small if you look at it that way. You have the power to use small talk, to make magical moments in people's lives, including your own. I hope you found this helpful. Get curious and look at small talk is not so small. I'll see you in the next episode. Who needs to hear what you just heard? Go ahead and share it with them right now. The Influence Every Day podcast is free. We don't sell advertising space, so telling others is the best way to pay us back. But more importantly, it's the best way to pay it forward. If you enjoy today's podcast, take a moment to rate and review the show. Then check out the additional links and materials that go along with it. They offer more ways to take your influence, your impact, and your relationships to a whole new level. Now go forth and influence for good. Every day. Do You Want To Take Your Conversations To The Next Level? Go to: https://www.drtori.com/offers/ukqSTL77 - There's a free micro-course called How To Induce Powerful Change In A Single Conversation

Hey everybody and welcome to another episode of the Unlock Success Podcast.Today I wanted to work through a concept I shared on one of my affiliate marketing videos that I think is a good lesson for entrepreneurs and business owners alike. There's an old saying in marketing that goes like this:The people who made the most money in the gold rush were the ones who sold the shovels.And when I was looking up the origins of this quote I was surprised to find that it may actually be based on a true story...The rumor is, there was a guy named Samuel Brannan who, during the california gold rush, made millions of dollars but not by finding gold...But by selling the tools - the pots, pans, and shovels - for people who were digging up the gold. I'm going to get to how that affects our business strategy and how it also plays into things like the stock market on today's episode.

The toughest part of coaching isn't necessarily coaching itself. Instead, it's the niche, isn't it? How do you go looking for the right niche? And how do you know when you've found one that's rewarding as well as profitable? We go back in time with the British Cycling Team and what turned them into champions, and how their coach played a role. We also look at how Pilates went from being everything to everyone to finding a solid niche. Listen and enjoy. Click here to read online: Coaching Series 1/3: How To Start Up With A Great Niche ________________________________________ Hand washing is not exactly the activity you'd indulge in if you wanted to win the gold medal at the Olympics. Yet, that's exactly what the British Cycling Team did at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. They hired a surgeon to teach the athletes to properly wash their hands, in order to avoid illnesses during competition. The team staff were utterly fastidious about food preparation. They even brought their own mattresses and pillows, so that the athletes could sleep in a familiar posture every night. What does all of this have to do with coaching? It might seem totally weird, even slightly crazy, but these were just some of the methods Sir Dave Brailsford, head of British Cycling used to turn his scrappy little bunch into world champions. British Cycling went from a terrible 76 year record of just one gold medal, to 7 out of 10 gold at the Beijing Olympics and then 7 out of 10 at yet again at the London Olympics. They've even won three out of the last Tour de France competitions, with only Italy interrupting their successful run. Surely Britain didn't sprout champions overnight Something else was in play, and that something else is simply the teacher, or a coach. And there's a remarkable difference between being just someone who coaches others, and one that coaches to get precise results. The coach who works with a specific goal in mind takes great performers and transforms makes them unbeatable. If you look at almost any great artist, performer, athlete or professional, it's easy to seduce yourself into believing in inborn talent. In almost every instance, you will find it's the coach and their methods that take the client from a seemingly ordinary level to something quite stupendous. Without a coach, a person has to go through the gruelling method of having to figure out all the mistakes and fix it themselves. When you look at the 10,000 hour principle, what you're seeing is someone who doesn't have an outstanding coach. A coach can not only reduce the learning curve, but can make learning fun and addictive. In this series, we'll take apart not just what makes for good coaching, but the elements of coaching. Let's get started. How do you define your Niche as a Coach? Around the time of the California Gold Rush, one man, Samuel Brannan was known as the richest man in California. Contrary to what we might believe, Brannan didn't quite make his money panning for gold. He'd decided early on that he'd never make much money in the gold mines. Instead, he was reputed to have gone down the streets of San Francisco, shouting, “Gold, there's gold down the American river”. So where did Brannan's riches arise? His fortune arose from a strategic move. He owned the only store between San Francisco and the gold fields. He stocked his store with the picks, shovels and pans he could find paying barely 20 cents for each pan and selling it for $15 each. In scarcely nine weeks, he had made over $36,000 (in today's terms that would be 1,080,077.47). In short, Brannan put himself in a position where it was hard, even impossible for him to fail with his insight. When starting up as a coach, it's not easy to have such clear insight. In many cases, you're in transition yourself. You're often trying to find your own feet, your own space and voice. You do know one thing, though. You know that you can't be like everyone else rushing off with their pans and shovels. You instinctively know you've almost got to swing the other way and find a niche. But how do you go about creating a niche? Let's start with luck, shall we? When I first got to Auckland in 2000, I got thrust into coaching by accident—twice. I wasn't into coaching at all, but instead was drawing cartoons on Photoshop. A client who'd come over watched in awe as I got rid of all the icons on the screen. No tool bar, no colour picker, not even a menu bar. “Where is everything”? He asked, amazed partially at the speed of my method, but more because I seemed to be working almost magically. I explained I was using shortcuts and he was so impressed that he offered me $1000 to train his daughter. And I had my first accidental coaching session “How to use Photoshop faster than graphic designers”—that was my temporary slogan. In a week, his daughter went from never using Photoshop to teaching graphic designers how to use shortcuts as well. With my new found slogan, I managed to pick one more client—yes, another graphic designer. As a result, I was able to do my cartoons in my Superman time and had this little Clark Kent coaching operation on the side. But why was this type of coaching earning me a fair bit of money in a brand new country? I didn't have any testimonials, no referrals, not even a business card and most definitely no website. What I did have was a subset, or what you'd call a niche. Which coincidentally takes us to the second coaching scenario. Around 2001, I had decided I didn't want to draw cartoons for a living anymore and started up a marketing company, instead. At first, I tried to solve every possible marketing problem and got nowhere in a hurry. Then, one day, by sheer fluke I decided to create a presentation on just seven elements. This presentation was called The Brain Audit, and once I was done with the presentation, I was pushed into creating a book, which then sold online and guess what buyers wanted next. They wanted me to coach them on The Brain Audit I wish I knew what I was doing back then, but the reality is I didn't know much at all. I was desperately reading books, buying courses and finding myself spending anywhere between $1500 to $8000 for seminars and workshops. However, at the very same time, clients were happy to pay me as much as $150 an hour to help them through The Brain Audit. If you put the Photoshop and The Brain Audit story together, you should easily see what's happening It's the power of the subset that matters most to clients. Clients don't want to learn how to cook Indian food. They want to learn a subset, like “vegetarian food for special occasions”. They don't want to learn InDesign, but instead “how to create an ebook in under an hour”. In almost every subset, we also find there are both—a specific problem and a corresponding solution. But the moment you get out of the subset, there's a complete lack of clarity. Let's go back to Photoshop, shall we? What problem does it solve? How about marketing? What problem does it solve? And Indian food? See what I mean? The problem with saying “I'm a life coach” or “I'm an NLP coach” or “I'm a boxing coach” is totally pointless. People can't make head or tail of what you're trying to say. But the moment you pick a subset, you almost automatically get a problem and solution. And maybe that's where you ought to start What problems do clients have in Photoshop? Or with guitar playing, watercolours, marketing or NLP? How can you reverse engineer that problem so that you can end up with a solution? Then, it won't matter if you have a fancy card, website or referrals, what you do have is a solution to their problem. And that's how you get started with a niche. You start with the problem It's not going to make you a nine-week millionaire like Samuel Brannan, but it will get you off the ground and started into the world of coaching. How do you know you've found the right niche? If you were asked to go to the supermarket and buy a packet of potato chips, would you make the right choice? There are only two answers here, aren't there? You could pick the right one, or be wildly off the mark. After all, the supermarket loads at least two dozen different brands and then there are the variations. Low fat, full fat, crinkled, plain salted, vinegar, paprika, whisky—who knows what else! The chances of getting it wrong far, far exceed the probability of getting it right. And how do we know if we've got it wrong or right? It depends who you're buying the chips for, doesn't it? If Renuka sends me into the market to get chips, I know I can only get the brand called Proper Crisps, and it won't matter if I get the paprika or the salted versions—because they're both the right choices. When choosing a niche, it might seem like you're stuck in a “nightmare supermarket aisle” Wouldn't it be better, if there were a way to make a correct choice from the very start? Let's find out whether such a task is possible, or if we just have to bludgeon our way through choices. The reality is that the answer lies somewhere in between No matter what niche you pick, you can almost be certain you're off the mark. The good news is that you're partially, not completely off the mark. Which means that a piano coach, life coach, breathing coach—any kind of coach is more or less going to be in the right box. They'll still be in the broad spectrum of piano, life coaching and breathing, just like the chips are still in the broad range of chips. What makes a niche right isn't the broad spectrum that you choose, but instead, the narrow niche you choose to occupy. You might know the story of the coach, Joseph Pilates Pilates wasn't an exercise coach in his early years. Born in Germany in 1883, he'd already dabbled in gymnastics and bodybuilding in his younger years. In 1912 when he moved to England, he moved to professional boxing, was a circus performer and a self-defence trainer. Notice how versatile Pilates seems to be? Well, that's the problem with a lot of businesses. They have the capacity or at least believe they can be a one-size-fits-all-type-of-coach. And it's not like Pilates was destitute. Despite this smorgasbord of doing a bit this and a bit of that, he got by. However, it's only in 1925, that he finds a niche Over the years, and through World War I, he developed an integrated, comprehensive system of physical exercise, which he called “Contrology”. Instead of trying to appeal to everyone who wanted to improve their well being, Pilates set up shop under a dance studio. The dancers needed to be fit at all times, plus have flexibility, strength and stamina. His focus was on reducing injuries, and to the outside world, it looks like he just got lucky to find this profitable niche. Luck has its role to play, but when we examine the unlucky coaching businesses, there's a clear pattern The businesses that struggle are those that stay incredibly generic. You ask the coach what she does, and she says, “I'm a writing coach”. As you can tell, her statement tells you nothing. But if we were to choppitty-chop our way a bit, she might say, “I'm a writing coach that specialises in removing writer's block.” Notice how that specialisation gets your attention? She's possibly good at teaching writers how to create structure, drama, flow, style and a whole bunch of other stuff related to writing. But the moment she goes wide, she loses the power of the niche. We wonder if we've found the right niche, but any niche is the right niche. Pilates could have made a great life for himself as a boxing coach, a self-defence coach, a circus coach. But he instead he chose to focus not just on an audience of dancers, but then to “reduce injuries”. All niches are already niches There's no such thing as the right niche. The moment you get yourself into a category of being a writing coach, you've already cancelled out all the other things you can do. But your audience still won't care, because a client doesn't buy into a coach. Instead, the client buys into a specific problem that needs solving. We waste endless days, weeks and months—even years trying to find the “right niche” when in reality we're already in the right niche, but haven't defined the problem we're solving. But how do you know if the problem is the right problem? There's no such thing as the right problem. But there is such a thing as a recurring problem. Do dancers get injuries? Yes, they do. Did they get injuries during the time of Pilates dance studio? Yes, they did, and they still do today. If you are a fitness coach, all you need to do is specialise in how you can make the dancers get fewer injuries. You don't even have to reinvent the problem. It was done for you back in 1925 by Pilates. You think Writer's Block is a recent problem? Or was snoring invented yesterday? Not one of these things are new, and all you need to do is look for the recurring problem. People have had these problems for centuries and will continue to have the same problems over and over again. Where do you go from here? Your first step is to find yourself a category. e.g. Writing. The second step is to find yourself an audience. e.g. Small business owners who want to write blogs. The third and final step is to find the recurring problem: Writer's block. And there you have it—your niche—the right niche—is yours for the asking. Next Step: How To Make The Mental Leap From a Job into Entrepreneurship

Join Lindsay as she interviews editor and researcher Bryan Buchanan about the life of Samuel Brannan.   Links and work mentioned and referenced in the podcast: Connell O'Donovan's site O'Donovan's work on early Boston Mormons Scoundrel's Tale: The Samuel Brannan […]

Join Lindsay as she interviews editor and researcher Bryan Buchanan about the life of Samuel Brannan.   Links and work mentioned and referenced in the podcast: Connell O’Donovan’s site O’Donovan’s work on early Boston Mormons Scoundrel’s Tale: The Samuel Brannan Papers Paypal Connell to support his work: odonovan@ucsc.edu GoFundMe for Connell  

In 1848, a worker of John Sutter found gold in California. Sutter had reason for wanting to keep the find quiet, but he didn’t count on Samuel Brannan, who was soon running down the street yelling “Gold! Gold on the American River!” Brannan, a former Mormon, businessman and journalist, wasn’t crazy – and had no desire to look for the valuable mineral – but he knew that a mad rush of fortune hunters was his key to fame and fortune. He would become California’s first millionaire, only to die poor and in relative obscurity. Show notes and links: * Ann Eliza Corwin Brannan (1823 – 1916) (findagrave.com) * Brannan Before the Brooklyn (byu.edu) * The Start of the California Gold Rush (1849) (youtube.com) * Sam Brannon (1979) – YouTube (youtube.com) * Sam Brannan and the Gold Rush: Biography & History – Video & Lesson Transcript (study.com) * Sam Brannan (sierrafoothillmagazine.com) * Latter-day Scoundrel Sam Brannan | HistoryNet (historynet.com) * Samuel Brannan (spartacus-educational.com) * HISTRORIANS REPORT (ecv1841.com) * Fortunes Made Through Global Trade (flexport.com) * Samuel Brannan – Wikipedia (wikipedia.org) * Chapter 2: Samuel Brannan and the Eastern Saints (byu.edu)

THIS WEEK'S PODCAST TRANSCRIPT: 1849: As the fateful year of 1849 begins, a newspaper editor scrutinizes San Francisco's gold rush future. February 1, 1849 The eye of the Gold Rush hurricane The spring of 1849 -- dawn of a year forever branded into the national consciousness as the era of the California Gold Rush. And so it was -- but that was back East, in the "States". In San Francisco, the Gold Rush had actually begun an entire year earlier. I'd better set the scene. The United States were at war with Mexico -- it's President Polk and "Manifest Destiny" time. San Francisco (then Yerba Buena) was conquered without a shot in July of 1847. In the first month of 1848, gold was quietly discovered in the foothills east of Sutter's Fort. Days later, the Mexican war came to an end, and Alta California became sole property of the United States. Sam Brannan kick-starts things in '48 San Francisco was skeptical about the gold strike, but in May of '48, Sam Brannan made his famous appearance on Market Street brandishing a bottle of gold dust. His shouts of "Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River" triggered the first wave of the Gold Rush. The village of about 500 souls was emptied almost overnight as its inhabitants hotfooted it for the hills. Among the many businesses left completely in the lurch was Sam Brannan's own newspaper, the California Star. While the entrepreneurial Brannan was busy becoming a millionaire selling shovels to gold miners, by June his entire staff had abandoned the paper and set off to make their own fortunes. Edward Kemble publishes the Alta California >Brannan sold what was left of his newspaper to a more civic-minded businessman, Mr. Edward Cleveland Kemble. Kemble resuscitated the Star (along with San Francisco's other gold rush-crippled paper, the Californian) as a brand spanking new paper he called the Alta California. The first issue appeared at the tail end of 1848. That brings us right up to today's timecapsule. The editorial on the front page of issue #5 of the new paper is a treasure trove of contemporary San Francisco perspectives. As editor Kemble was composing this piece -- a retrospective of the previous year, and a peek into the uncertain future -- it was the dead of winter, and the first wave of the Rush had crested and broken back towards the city. Kemble was first and foremost a businessman, and he was concerned with the civic and financial future of San Francisco. He points out that the city is poorly governed, a little short on law and order, already swelling with gold-seekers from Mexico and Oregon, and -- to sum it up -- is woefully unprepared for the onslaught of humanity, the avalanche of "49ers" already looming on the horizon. But though he's aware that the next wave is going to be a doozy, with 20-20 historical hindsight we know that he doesn't really have a clue. What Kemble doesn't know ... yet. By the end of 1849, the village of San Francisco will have burst at every seam, with a population exploding from 2000 to 25,000. Tens of thousands of gold seekers will flow through the port and even more will stagger in overland from the East, all in all 100,000 strong. The beautiful harbour will be choked with hundreds of deserted, rotting ships, and the local government will prove to be ineffectual and almost totally corrupt. By the end of '49 San Francisco will have become a wild, sprawling, lawless shanty boomtown, and the soul and future of our City by the Bay will be permanently transformed. Kemble's observations give us ground-level insight into the concerns of the village of San Francisco in the winter of 1848 -- a priceless peek into the eye of the gold rush hurricane. read on ...

A weekly handful of weird, wonderful and wacky happenings dredged up from the kaleidoscopic depths of San Francisco history. THIS WEEK: a hanging from 1852, and a Miss Goldie Griffin wants to become a cop in 1912. December 10, 1852: San Francisco's first official execution It certainly wasn't for any lack of local mayhem that it took so long for San Francisco to order its first "official" execution. The sleepy hamlet of Yerba Buena had ballooned from fewer than 500 to over 36,000 people in 1852 -- and the famous camaraderie of the '49ers notwithstanding, not all of them had the best interests of their fellow men at heart. During the first few years of the Gold Rush, San Francisco managed to average almost one murder per day. The murders that made it to court in these semi-lawless days were seen by sympathetic juries mostly as cases of "the guy had it coming". And concerning executions of the un-official variety, Sam Brannan's Committee of Vigilance -- that would be the first one -- had taken matters into their own hands and lynched four miscreants just a year earlier. As the San Francisco Examiner would describe the event 35 years later, "The crime which inaugurated public executions was of a very commonplace character. A Spaniard named José (Forner) struck down an unknown Mexican in (Happy) Valley, stabbing him with a dagger, for as he claimed, attempting to rob him. ... after a very prompt trial, (Forner) was sentenced to be hanged two months later." Was it because he wasn't white? Lack of bribery money? Some secret grudge? José had claimed self defense just like everybody else, and turns out to have been a man of relatively high birth in Spain, oddly enough a confectioner by trade -- and we can only speculate as to the reason he ended up the first victim of San Francisco's official rope. The execution was to take place up on Russian Hill, at the oldest cemetery in the young city -- a cemetery which, due to the fact that a group of Russian sailors had first been buried there back in '42, had actually given the hill its name. If you've heard the Sparkletack "Moving the Dead" episode, you know that this burial ground is long gone now -- and in fact, its remote location up on the hill had already caused it to fall out of use by 1850. I guess that made it seem perfect for an early winter hanging. Let's go back to the Examiner's account: "(The location) did not deter some three thousand people from attending, parents taking children to see the unusual sight, and women on foot and in carriages forcing their way to the front. Between 12 and 1 o’clock the condemned man was taken to the scaffold in a wagon drawn by four black horses, escorted by the California Guard. The Marion Rifles under Captain Schaeffer kept the crowd back from the scaffold. The man died game, after a pathetic little farewell speech, in which he said: “The Americans are good people; they have ever treated me well and kindly; I thank them for it. I have nothing but love and kindly feelings for all. Farewell, people of San Francisco. World, farewell!” A dramatically chilling engraving of the scene can be seen by clicking the thumbnail above. If you'd like to pay your respects in person, the Russian Hill Cemetery was located in the block between Taylor, Jones, Vallejo and Green Streets. December 9, 1912: Miss Goldie Griffin wants to become a cop! Another item culled directly from the pages of our historical newspapers, this one from the period in which California women had just won the right to vote -- something for which the country as a whole would need to wait seven more years. This hardly made San Francisco a bastion of progressive feminist thought. I scarcely need to point it out, but note the amusement and disdain in this articles' treatment of the first female applicant to the San Francisco Police Department, December 9, 1912: read on ...