Henry Frederick Teschemacher (February 16, 1823 – November 26, 1904) served as the 9th mayor of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

from October 3, 1859, to June 30, 1863. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts and worked for a Boston shipping house around the 1840s. The firm sent him to San Francisco, California in 1846, where he traded goods for furs, tallow, and hides. With the start of the

Gold Rush A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New Z ...

six years later, he bought a great deal of real estate in what later became San Francisco. He also sketched a drawing of the village of which he would become mayor, called ''View of Place of Anchorage of Yerba Buena''. Teschemacher joined the Vigilance Movement, serving in the vigilante-led trials of suspected criminals. Through his work with the vigilantes, he became known as a person who stood for law and order and was the choice of the People's Party for mayor in the 1859 election. He won due to divisions in the Democratic ranks over

slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

. His first months in office were relatively calm. He kept tabs on city spending and made few public appearances save to dedicate the city's first streetcar line. He also doubled the size of San Francisco's police force. While Teschemacher was Mayor of San Francisco, the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

erupted: San Francisco coped with disrupted trade with the East by buying stock in silver mines and establishing factories that sold goods not only within the city itself but also in

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

, beginning San Francisco's path to economic self-sufficiency. 1861 also saw the completion of the New York to San Francisco

telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas p ...

line, with Teschemacher sending a congratulatory telegram to New York's mayor. After leaving office, Teschemacher was a real estate agent until 1882. He retired to Europe, briefly appearing in San Francisco in 1892. He produced a

lithograph Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...

entitled ''Life In California'', by the Endicott Company. He died in Territet, Switzerland on November 26, 1904.

References

Sources

* Heintz, William F., ''San Francisco's Mayors: 1850-1880. From the Gold Rush to the Silver Bonanza''. Woodside, CA: Gilbert Roberts Publications, 1975. (Library of Congress Card No. 75-17094) {{DEFAULTSORT:Teschemacher, Henry F. 1823 births 1904 deaths Mayors of San Francisco Politicians from Boston California Populists