Corrections and connections from "San Francisco's Forgotten Cemeteries"

Odd Fellows Cemetery, 1900s. (wnp15.208; Courtesy of a Private Collector).

Writing a book is always an imperfect process. Most authors do our best to get all our facts straight before a book goes to press, but frequently find out later that we got something wrong, or didn’t have all of the information we needed. 

I’ve learned a few such tidbits since “San Francisco’s Forgotten Cemeteries: A Buried History” came out almost 6 months ago, and thought it would be fun to share them here.

In the chapter on City Cemetery (where the Lincoln Park Golf Course and the Legion of Honor Museum operate today), I wrote about Thomas Wood, a military man who served in the Mexican-American War before taking his own life in San Francisco in early 1882. I — and other local cemetery historians — assumed Wood’s grave remained at City Cemetery to this day. 

Clipping: The Arizona Sentinel, Yuma, Arizona, 04 Mar 1882.

However, another researcher, Alex Ryder, recently discovered that after the San Francisco Call wrote about Wood and the sad state of affairs at City Cemetery in February 1882, Wood’s body was exhumed and reburied in the Odd Fellows Cemetery, on the western slope of Lone Mountain. At the time, this would have been seen as a more respectable spot for a veteran than the Potter’s Field at the desolate edge of the city. But it probably wasn’t Wood’s last move. The Odd Fellows Cemetery was largely dug up and relocated to a plot in Colma’s Greenlawn Cemetery in 1932. 

We know that at least a handful of Odd Fellows graves were left behind, but most of its 26,000 occupants now rest in Colma. Unfortunately, their plot has, in the past 100 years, been separated from the rest of Greenlawn by a large Best Buy retail store and parking lot. Before that, a United Artists 6 movie theater sat on the same site. 

Today, the Odd Fellows reburial site is a weedy, fenced-off lot with a single, broken monument commemorating about as many dead as the population of El Cerrito or Eureka. In my book, I wrote that they were all in a single mass grave. I’ve since learned that the Odd Fellows remains were reburied carefully, each one with a small marker with some identifying information on it. Unfortunately, those markers have since been broken or moved, making it difficult to determine who is buried where. 

Thomas Wood might have had an easier rest if he’d been left in City Cemetery.

Jewish Cemeteries, on the land that’s Dolores Park today.

I also reported in the book, based on faulty source material, that the Jewish cemeteries in today’s Dolores Park contained about 600 graves, but that wasn’t correct. It turns out they held somewhere between 3,500 and 5,000 graves. All those graves are now in Colma, as far as anyone knows. Thanks to Judi Leff for the correction. 

Lastly, this isn’t so much a correction as a nifty connection. In the section on Sailor’s Burying Ground, one of San Francisco’s earliest settler cemeteries, I write about British seaman James Anderson, who died aboard the USS Congress in July 1847 and was buried in Sailor’s the next time the Congress docked in San Francisco. 

This wasn’t the Congress’ first time in San Francisco; it wasn’t even the first Congress. This second iteration, built in Maine in 1842, was the flagship of the Mexican-American war from 1846 to 1848, a conflict that ties Thomas Wood, James Anderson, and many other newcomers to San Francisco together. Back to my point: Nine months earlier, the Congress docked in San Francisco, in October 1846, to bring California’s new Governor, Robert F. Stockton, to visit the tiny village of Yerba Buena on the shores of San Francisco Bay. Stockton was also the Commodore of the Congress from July 1846 until his retirement from the U.S. Navy in 1850, making it possible that he and James Anderson crossed paths, or even that they were on board together when Anderson died. 

The Congress, for her part, served as a flagship in Brazil before joining the Union Army during the Civil War. She met her end in March 1862; while anchored off the coast of Virginia, she was attacked by the Confederate USS Virginia. She slipped her moorings, ran aground, and was destroyed by the ensuing fire and explosions. Governor Stockton died in Princeton, New Jersey, in October 1866, and is buried in Princeton Cemetery. 

My next book: "San Francisco’s Forgotten Cemeteries: A Buried History"

You're looking at Sen. David Broderick's monument (the pointy one in the far distance) in Laurel Hill Cemetery, near where the Trader Joe's on Masonic Avenue  is today. In the foreground is Calvary Cemetery, on the slopes of Lone Mountain. Credit: Lawrence & Houseworth, publisher, Library of Congress.

I’m excited to share that my next book, "San Francisco’s Forgotten Cemeteries: A Buried History,” will be out August 28, 2023, with The History Press. I’ve been working on this book for almost two years, digging through newspaper articles, history books, master’s theses, archaeological documents and photo archives to tell this story, and I’m excited to be able to share it with you all soon.

Here’s the info from my publisher: “San Francisco is famous for not having any cemeteries, but the claim isn’t exactly what it seems. In the early 20th Century, the city relocated more than 150,000 graves to the nearby town of Colma to make way for a rapidly growing population. But an estimated fifty to sixty thousand burials were quietly built over and forgotten, only to resurface every time a new building project began. The dead still lie beneath some of the city’s most cherished destinations, including the Legion of Honor, United Nations Plaza, the Asian Art Museum and the University of San Francisco. Join author Beth Winegarner as she maps the city's early burial grounds and brings back to life the dead who've been erased.”

Caroline Paul, author of the New York Times bestseller “The Gutsy Girl,” writes: “Beth Winegarner’s book traces the history of San Francisco through its forgotten cemeteries: their beginnings, their relocations, and the bodies that often remain. I thought I knew my beloved city but I wasn’t looking deep enough – literally. Unique and eye-opening, I won’t be able to walk these San Francisco streets without wondering what may still be buried just underfoot."

The book includes a foreword by Roberto Lovato, author of “Unforgetting,” in which he writes, “‘San Francisco’s Forgotten Cemeteries’ is an act of restorative justice.”

“San Francisco’s Forgotten Cemeteries” isn’t available for preorder yet, but you can add it to your “want to read” list on Goodreads if you follow this link. I’ll share more news about preorders, events and other news on this page for the book when I can.

Abortion and the short, sharp life of Addie Hand

Abortion instruments. Photo credit: unknown.

On January 20, 1871, 20-year-old Adelaide “Addie” Hand had an abortion. Eighteen days later, she died of a massive pelvic infection, and her doctor went on trial for murder. 

Born in Connecticut in 1851, Addie came to San Francisco and married Joseph Hand, likely in the late 1860s. They lived at 333 Clementina St., now the site of a downtown parking lot, and on July 14, 1869, Addie gave birth to their daughter, May Emily Hand. 

The Hands were poor, and both of them worked, Addie as a housekeeper, Joseph as a grocer. So when Addie got pregnant again at the end of 1870, she knew they wouldn’t be able to support another child. She contacted Dr. Charles C. O’Donnell, a known abortion doctor in the city, and he performed the procedure on January 20. 

O’Donnell told her “if that did not have the desired effect to come again in a few days,” Addie’s sister-in-law, Victoria, testified in February. Addie felt as though it hadn’t worked. Victoria asked if she would go back to O’Donnell, and “she said she certainly would.” When Victoria asked why Addie didn’t want to become a mother again, Addie said, “her husband could not afford it.” And when Victoria asked if Joseph knew, “she said no, and that she would not tell him until it was all over.”

Addie returned to O’Donnell, who attempted another abortion. After the abortions, O’Donnell told Addie “to take care of herself not to take cold, and not to pat her hands in cold water.” But still she became sick. In the following days, Addie began throwing up and experiencing “a good deal” of abdominal pain, according to testimony from her friend, Jennie West. When West asked if there was anything they could do, O’Donnell suggested laudanum and the application of “hot fermentations” to her abdomen. But only after some prodding. At first, when Addie told him she felt “very bad and weak,” he told her “she needed nothing, as she was getting along nicely.”

Five days later, on February 7, she was dead; initially, her cause of death was given as “congestive chills.”

In the 19th century, abortion procedures could be dangerous. Herb-induced abortions were practiced for centuries, and generally safely, but those performed with contemporary surgical instruments often led to infection, and frequently infertility or death. After all, germ theory wasn’t widely known, and antibiotics weren’t yet available. Abortion was illegal in California during Addie Hand’s lifetime, although early abortion laws were largely in place to protect women from medical malpractice. After the 1850s, though, the laws became about prosecuting and punishing women. 

If she’d had her abortion today, in a state where the procedure is illegal, her ability to get proper medical care for post-abortion complications would depend largely on her income, ability to travel, and access to good doctors.

O’Donnell was arrested February 10, and a coroner’s inquest began February 12. Addie’s body was exhumed from its resting place in Odd Fellows Cemetery and examined by Coroner Jonathan Letterman and Dr. Edwin Beatty. Letterman testified that Addie had been six to eight weeks pregnant, although there was no sign of the fetus, just a portion of the placenta. 

“In the cavity of the abdomen were found from four to six ounces of pus and serum, the lining of the membrane peritoneum showing that there had been a high degree of inflammation, also in the intestines; the ovaries were both filed with pus; there was a large sack of pus in the pelvis,” according to Letterman’s testimony. “The death of the woman was, in my opinion, caused by the intense inflammation of the womb and other viscera of the abdomen.”

There wasn’t much further coverage of the case, but according to a later article about O’Donnell, he was acquitted of all abortion-related charges he faced in his lifetime. Unfortunately, O’Donnell was also deeply involved in stirring up anti-Chinese racism in San Francisco, and his qualifications as a doctor were also questioned. He claimed he learned his surgery skills during the Civil War, where he amputated soldier’s limbs under the authority of General Robert E. Lee. 

By 1891, O’Donnell was wealthy enough to build a “luxurious” summer home, called Cozy Castle, in Glen Ellen, in California’s wine country. He also built an extensive mineral springs resort along Sonoma Creek nearby. He died in May, 1912, at the age of 77. 

Sources: 

1870 United States Federal Census

U.S., Find a Grave Index, 1600s-Current

“Murder.” Daily Alta California, Volume 23, Number 7630, 11 February 1871

“Abortion— Murder.” Daily Alta California, Volume 23, Number 7631, 12 February 1871

“Abortion,” Daily Alta California, Volume 23, Number 7640, 21 February 1871

“Dr. Charles C. O’Donnell,” Glen Ellen Historical Society website, accessed June 24, 2022

To read the full articles listed above, click here. 

A NEW AND UNIQUE DEPARTURE IN JUVENILE CRIME.

The "Noodle Girls" San Francisco's Most Startling Development of Criminal Misses. 

HOME-MADE SPAGHETTI AND LARCENY. 

Like the Girl Whose Golden Hair Hung Down Her Back They Don't Take the Stove Unless There's One to Take.

San Francisco Examiner, Dec. 30, 1894

San Francisco is not prolific in the girl whose "golden hair is hanging down her back." That is, the criminal records of the city show few young misses who are given to theft. The "Noodle Girls " who have caused such a stir in police circles within the past week seem unique in their methods and their persistency. 

"I recall few girls who were at all notable as crooks," said Captain Lees, who carries a large part of the city's criminal history in his picturesque hand. "That is a line of crime in which we have not been prolific. Probably it is because San Francisco knows comparatively nothing of the extreme depths of poverty and degradation. 

"The other night two of the officers arrested a young Oakland girl who had been soliciting subscriptions under the pretense that she was collecting for the Flower Mission. She was only fifteen years old, and was crying as if her heart would break. She had actually obtained no money, so I let her go with a lecture and a warning. Her story seemed straightforward, and she was emphatic in saying that it was her first offense. 

"Occasionally we run across such cases, but persistent depravity in our young girls is rare. When we do find a case the methods are generally so crude that we have little trouble in apprehending the offenders before they have gone far on the rough road of crime. There are also occasional reports of girls who answer advertisements, obtain situations and then decamp with the property of their employers. But even those cases are not alarmingly prevalent. 

"Those 'noodle girls,' however, are unique. They are far above the ordinary criminal in intelligence, and though we are morally certain they have stolen much valuable jewelry in addition to their work of obtaining money under false pretenses, we have been unable to trace that jewelry to places where they disposed of it. 

"Their names are Victoria and Olga Bock, and their ages respectively sixteen and fifteen. Their mother seems an honest woman who prepares noodles and sends the girls out to certain customers to dispose of them. The girls in some cases merely make the delivery of packages the pretext for collecting money not due them; but in others they seem to use the merchanting of the noodles as a means for gaining access to houses in which thefts are discovered soon after their departure. 

"Their simpler method is illustrated by the experience of Sergeant Colby of this office. Next door to his home resides a family named Arnold, with whom his people are very friendly. The two girls ascertained that no one was at home in the Arnold house. Then they want to Colby's and told Mrs. Colby that Mrs. Arnold had ordered a box of noodles; that she was not home and that they were in immediate need of the 50 cents which Mrs. Arnold was to pay them. Of course, Mrs. Colby paid the money, sympathized with the pitiful tale they told, and then ascertained when Mrs. Arnold returned that no noodles had been ordered and that Mrs. Arnold knew nothing of the girls. 

"Complaints have been coming in for a long time of this petty crime. The girls must have worked the city thoroughly by leaving packages of noodles said to have been sent by members of the family with a request that money be collected on them. In several Instances that we know of they secured as much as $3 from people who knew nothing of noodles and didn't want them. To their mother they would return the usual small price of the box of noodles and keep the balance. 

"More serious than all this, however, are the thoughts we feel sure the girls committed, but which cannot as yet be proved against them. From all over the town and from adjoining towns and cities complaints have come in regarding jewelry and valuables that vanished after their visits. In one case two solitaire diamond earrings, a diamond ring and a gold watch were taken. Now, that is a decided case of grand larceny, but we have not been able to perfect the proofs against the girls. 

"They do not look like criminals, nor do they have the appearance of belonging to that class colloquially termed 'chippies.' They seem fresh and innocent, and so elicit a great deal of sympathy from the men and women who are engaged in reform work about the prisons. In fact, I think that if it were not for this mistaken sympathy the girls would have confessed and told us where we could recover a great deal of valuable property. 

"But as I said, the case of those girls is unique, because there is so little criminality among the younger women of San Francisco. Detective Anthony here may be able to tell of other cases which might have slipped my memory, as he is specially detailed on that branch of our work." 

Detective Anthony produced his record book and began to furbish up his recollection.

"Since 1881 I have arrested 287 girls who were under age," he said. "Still, very few of them were what you would call criminals. Nearly all were girls who had run away from home and were taken into custody because they tended toward a life of immorality. Of these many have reformed, married and become proper members of the community. 

“Among the comparatively few girls arrested for theft or swindling the 'noodle girls' stand out alone. Apart from their offenses there have been a few–a very few–recognized kleptomaniacs, and the others have nearly all been girls who obtained situations and stole from their employers. 

“As for the girl kleptomaniacs I find that they generally outgrow the mania. One girl I remember who on no less than sixteen occasions stole everything she could lay her hands on in her mother's house and went out to sell her plunder. Once she took off her shoe and broke a shop-window on Polk street near Sacramento, in order to steal the contents of the window. Who has now entirely recovered from her mania and seems to be an industrious, modest young woman. 

“Here was the case of Adelaide Griggs, sixteen years old, who was a light-fingered miss. She once stole $175 from the pockets of an intoxicated man with whom she had picked up a street acquaintance. She was morally depraved and not bright enough to be specially dangerous.  

"Here is a girl who began to steal when she was hardly more than an infant. Time and again she broke open her father's trunks and took everything she could lay her hands on. Now she is married and seems to have no further desire to steal or be anything but a good wife and mother. 

"Among the young girls who secure situations and then rob their employers are Maria Fitzgerald, whom I arrested in 1889, when she was only fifteen, and who has been in custody for similar offenses on several occasions since. Katie Young, a sixteen-year-old miss, is another who 'works the family racket,' as the loungers call it. Lena Cramer, now at the Magdalen Asylum, obtained employment as a domestic with Mr. and Mrs. Stein at 940 Powell street. One day her employers went out for a walk, leaving $50 in a purse. When they came back Lena was gone and the purse contained but $20. That night the girl appeared at the Grove-street Theatre with a new gold watch in full view on her breast. Sadie Crelly Is another little lass who steals from everyone who gives her employment. 

"Apart from the ‘noodle girls,' however, Flora Holt, a little Oakland girl, is the most daring of the thieving misses. We arrested her only last week after a series of thefts. 

"On November 28th she went to work for H. A. Arnold of 432 1/2 Haight street, answering his advertisement. A few days afterward he took his wife out for a ride, leaving the girl to attend the baby. When be returned the house was open, the baby crying and unattended and Miss Holt had walked off with a great bundle of Mrs. Arnold's clothes, a gold ring and other valuables. 

"Two days after this, on December 3d, the girl secured employment with Mrs. Beerman, at 1419 1/2 Webster street. There she remained until the 14th, when she broke into the baby's safe, took $15 from it, bundled up a lot of clothing, piled the bundle in the baby carriage, grabbed a gold ring and a meerschaum pipe and went away, trundling the baby carriage ahead of her. 

"In order to run the girl down I began answering all the advertisements for nurse girls myself. In this way I found Miss Holt at Mrs. Hart's, 421 Ellis street. The Harts were glad I found her in time, for the three girls they had had before her had all been caught stealing. One of these three was the notorious Mollie Joseph, a Vallejo girl not yet over eighteen, and who began her evil career before she was fourteen. She has been arrested time and again. Once I found her in a room on Bush street. She jumped out of the second-story window and broke her leg. 

"The worst of the others, however, have given us little trouble compared with these 'noodle girls.' I've been on their track for a year. The number of complaints about them would be ludicrous if the matter hadn't such a serious turn. Here are a few records of their doings: 

"They took a bundle of noodles to the home of Dr. William D. Bass, at 2012 1/2  Union street, and made the usual collection on the plea that the bundle had been sent home C.O.D. 

"At Mrs. Pray’s, 1849 Jackson street, they were found in the house and said they had come in to sell noodles. Not long afterward Mrs. Pray found them rummaging around upstairs. As soon as they were gone a search was instituted and two rings and other jewelry were missing. But Judge Slack let the girls go on habeas corpus after they had been held for grand larceny. 

"Mrs. Smith of 425 Geary street paid $2.25 for a box of noodles, which they told her had been sent home with a charge to collect. At the home of E. L. Miller, 355 Eleventh street, they said a man named Jeffreys at Baden had sent them with a bundle on which $2.50 was to be collected. Mrs. Miller didn't have that much money. The girls boldly asked if she couldn't get it from the neighbors. Finally they accepted $1.75 as 'part payment,' that being all the money in the house. The bundle contained noodles, worth little or nothing, and Jeffreys hadn't sent them at all. Of course the girls didn't come back for the balance. 

"They have played this bundle game in dozens of places, but people will not prosecute them for it. 

"In one instance they were absolutely cruel. A minister had given $2.50 to a poor family as a matter of charity. They went to that family, said the minister had sent them with a bundle on which they were to collect $2 which he would refund, and so actually robbed the paupers. The families of newspaper men and car conductors and even police officers are worked by these daring girls on the plea that the absent husbands have sent the packages home.

 "These are merely hints at the extent of their operations. Undoubtedly the 'noodle girls are the most successful young girl crooks we have yet had in San Francisco."

The Storms of Sleepy Hollow

Philipsburg Manor, Sleepy Hollow, New York, photographed by Daderot in 2005, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

One branch of my family tree includes many folks who were among the first settlers of the legendary town of Sleepy Hollow in New York. Even better, their family name was Storm. 

A side note before we get started: Sleepy Hollow wasn’t always called Sleepy Hollow. The little village north of Tarrytown was most often called North Tarrytown from its incorporation in the late 19th century until 1996, when it officially changed its name, staking its claim to the Washington Irving story. 

One of my earliest ancestors to settle in Sleepy Hollow (in Haudenosaunee territory) was my 10th great-grandfather, Dirck Goris (or Gorisszen) Storm. He was born in 1630 in Leiden, in the Netherlands. He married Maria van Montfoort in 1655, and they had a son, my 9th great-grandfather, Gregoris Storm, in 1656. The family, including two other children, traveled to North America in 1662; Maria gave birth to a daughter during the journey. 

Before arriving in North America, Storm had served as the Town Clerk for Oss, in the Netherlands. When they arrived by boat -- at the foot of Wall Street in Manhattan -- Storm became involved in local affairs right away. He owned property, including a tavern on Beaver Street, and later served as Town Clerk for communities in Brooklyn. In 1670 he became Secretary of the Colony. In 1691 the British sent him north to Tappan, where he became the first Secretary and Clerk of the Sessions for Orange County, New York. Later that decade, Dirck and Maria were recorded as members of the Old Dutch Church in Sleepy Hollow, not long after the church was built. 

The Old Dutch Church in Sleepy Hollow, built in the 1690s and seen here in a postcard from 1907.

He was also a skilled writer, and the church members asked him to write the history of the church, dating back to 1697. His book, Het Notite Boeck der Christelyckes Kercke op de Manner of Philips Burgh, offers a rare look at early colonial life. He died in 1716, and is buried in Sleepy Hollow. 

The original village was quite small, with several large and active families that sometimes intermarried. My Storm ancestors married Van Tassels at least three times: Pieter Storm, son of Dirck, married Margaret Van Tassel in 1696, and Elizabeth Storm married Lt. Cornelius Van Tassel in 1756. A third marriage played a small role in one of the spookiest stories of all time.  

Sleepy Hollow was well established by 1820 when Washington Irving -- who had lived in nearby Tarrytown and socialized in Sleepy Hollow -- wrote his famous short story about the Headless Horseman. The character of Katrina Van Tassel was inspired by a flesh-and-blood daughter of the Van Tassel family. Although historians believe the actual girl was Eleanor Van Tassel; her aunt, Catriena, inspired the name. Eleanor’s grandparents were Jacob Van Tassel and Aeltie Alberts Storm. They married in 1724 in the First Reformed Church of Tarrytown. 

Dirck Goris Storm’s descendants remained in and around Sleepy Hollow for generations. Gregoris lived in North Tarrytown much of his life and is also buried in the Sleepy Hollow cemetery. Likewise his son, Derck Storm, who was born in 1695 and died in about 1762. His son, Hendrick, was born in 1709 and lived until 1793; his son, Gregorus, was born in 1731, baptised in North Tarrytown, and lived until 1807. Most or all have headstones in Sleepy Hollow. (So does Washington Irving.) 

The latter Gregorus Storm and his wife, Jannitje Williams, had at least three children, including my 5th great-grandmother, Mary Storms, who was born in 1760 in Haverstraw, just up the Hudson River (and on the other bank) from Sleepy Hollow. It’s unclear to me why she went by Storms instead of Storm; her brothers, Jacobus and Johannis, didn’t. Mary married Joseph Allison in 1781 and they had 11 children together. Mary died in 1829. The Allison lineage carried down to my grandmother, Frances Allison Nesbitt, whose middle name comes from that line. 

As with the other ancestors I’ve written about, I’d love to visit Sleepy Hollow, walk the streets they may have walked, visit their bones at the Sleepy Hollow cemetery, and find out just how haunted the village really is.

First Names: San Francisco's Ramaytush People and Language

I recently became a Patreon supporter of Queer Nature, a queer-run nature education and ancestral skills program serving the local LGBTQ2+ community. They teach ecological and situational awareness in nature, as well as survival/self-sufficiency skills. 

When I began supporting Queer Nature, I received a 30-page document called “Meeting the Land,” which describes their philosophies in more depth. One of their suggestions is to keep in mind that the flora, fauna and landscape elements in our regions had names before colonial/settlers gave them the names they may have today, and to be curious what those names might have been. Those of us from a white/settler/colonist background are definitely not entitled to these names, and we should not use them to signal that we are “good” or “not racist,” Queer Nature’s founders write. 

“Respecting first names is about a lot of things, but it is partially about a personal practice of remembering and honoring that these beings have been in relationship with other cultures and ways of knowing for a long time and integrating that understanding into our ways of being as naturalists in socially/politically/ecologically apocalyptic times. Just the fact that these beings have names other than their names in colonial languages, or Latin binomial nomenclature, is vitally important,” they write. 

When I wrote Sacred Sonoma almost 25 years ago, I included many of the Pomo/Miwok place names that were publicly available, wanting to lead readers down paths similar to the ones Queer Nature expressed. Many of these names indicate indigenous peoples’ relationship to a place. For example, one of the tribal villages near Cazadero was called Kaletcemaial, “sitting under a tree,” while another was called Kabebateli, “big rock place.” 

But after I moved to San Francisco in the early 2000s, I did not look for information about the indigenous people who’d lived on this land for thousands of years before. It was only after reading “Meeting the Land” that I began to explore. 

San Francisco history writer Gary Kamiya wrote a series of articles for the San Francisco Chronicle called “Portals of the Past.” In a few of them, he touched on the lives of the indigenous people who first made their home in San Francisco. 

About 4,500 years ago, a linguistically distinct group of Ohlone Indians settled here. The majority of Ohlone tribes lived in the East Bay, where it was warmer and drier, which may be why the San Francisco residents came to be known as the Yelamu, or “western people.” They probably got the name from their eastern neighbors. But they were also likely known as the Ramaytush, from “ramai,” the name for the western side of the San Francisco Bay, and that’s also what their language was called.  

Only a few hundred Ramaytush lived in San Francisco at any time, and they were pretty spread out. One group had a winter village near Candlestick Point called Tubsinthe and a summer village called Amuctac in present-day Visitacion Valley. Another group had a winter village on Mission Bay, just south of the ballpark, called Sitlintac; their summer village was near Mission Dolores, and they called it Chutchui. There was one more village near Crissy Field called Petlenuc. Construction crews and others have found remnants of Ramaytush activity in places along Islais Creek, in Bayview-Hunters Point, near Fort Mason, by Lake Merced, at Point Lobos and on the San Francisco State University Campus. The oldest skeleton in San Francisco, the 5,000-year-old remains of a woman, was discovered during excavations for the Civic Center BART Station. 

In my research, I discovered something I wish I’d known sooner. In 2009, 104 small plaques were embedded in the sidewalk along King Street, between the Caltrain station and the ballpark. Each one offers a Ramaytush word and its English translation, a public lesson in the indigenous language history of our city. I pretty much never walk along King Street, so I’d never seen it. 

I want to name that the Ramaytush were virtually wiped out by the Spanish Catholic Missionaries who established the Mission San Francisco de Asis in 1776, including Francisco Palou (a colleague of Junipero Serra’s) and Fray Pedro Benito Cambon. The last native Ramaytush speaker died in the 1800s, and there are only a handful of Ramaytush descendants left. Some are enrolled with the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, mainly consisting of Chochenyo (East Bay). There is another tribe, not federally recognized, called Association of the Ramaytush Ohlone in San Francisco. This is not especially unusual. Although there are about 575 federally recognized tribes, there are another 245 who aren’t.

For those like me who haven’t or can’t take a stroll over to King Street, I wanted to make an online dictionary of these words and translations, grouped by topic. I only feel comfortable doing this because these words have already been made into a piece of public art, though I share them with the caveat that they were all collected by colonizers. Many more may exist, but they are not mine to know or share.

I’ll put the ones regarding nature and animals first, since that’s the idea that led me down this path of inquiry. You can find out more about how to pronounce these words, as well as efforts to revive the Ramaytush language, at the Reviving Lost Languages website. In the meantime, consider these words the next time you see a wiinahmin in your backyard or greet the hishmen in the morning.

Animals
Salmon: cheerih
Bird: wiinahmin 
Coyote: mayyan 
Dog: puuku 
Turtle: ’awnishmin 
Snake: liishuinsha 
Deer: poote 
Fly: mumura 
Duck: ’occey

Nature
Lightning: wilkawarep 
Earth: warep 
Night: muur 
Star: muchmuchmish 
Thunder: pura 
Chaparral: huyyah 
Sun: hishmen 
Day: puuhi 
Ice: puutru 
Tree bark: shimmi
Fire: shoktowan 
Morning star: ’awweh 
Rock: ’enni 
Hill: huyyah 
Sky: karax 
Sky: rinnimi
Evening: ’uykani
Water: sii 
Stone: ’irek 
Grassland: paatrak 
Bay: ’awwash 

Numbers:
Two: ’utrhin
Three: kaphan
Four: katwash 
Five: mishahur 
Six: shakkent 
Seven: keneetish 
Eight: ’oshaatish 
Nine: tulaw

Body parts:
Nose: huus 
Bone: trayyi 
Ear: tukshush 
Fingernail: tuurt 
Mouth: wepper 
Eye: hiin 
Heart: miini 
Arm: ’ishshu
Chest: ’etrtre 
Body: waara 
Finger: tonokra  
Tooth: siit 
Leg: puumi 
Neck: lannay 
Blood: payyan 
Foot: koloo 
Tongue: lasseh 
Hair: ’uli 

People/relationships
Friend: ’achcho  
Daughter: kaanaymin 
Old man: huntrach 
Wife: hawwa 
Older brother: takka
Father: ’apaa 
Chief: wetresh 
Boy: shimmiishmin 
Husband: makko 
Girl: katrtra 
Mother: ’anaa 
Son: ’innish 
They: nikkam 
You: meene 
Who: maatro  
I: kaana 

Actions:
To dance: yishsha 
To drink: ’uuwetto 
To kill: mim’i 
To go: ’iye 
To eat: ’amma 
To speak: kiisha 
To give: shuumite 

Misc. nouns/adjectives
Red: chitkote 
Black: sholkote  
White: laskainin 
No: ’akwe 
Yes: hee’e 
Ye: makkam 
What: hintro 
Good: horshe 
Bad: ’ektree
Alive: ’ishsha 
Dead: hurwishte 
This: nee 
That: nuhhu 
How: panuuka 
Pipe: shukkum 
Tule raft: walli 
Knife: trippey 
House: ruwwa 
Meat: riish 
Arrow: pawwish 
All: kette 
Cold: kawwi 
Tomorrow: hushshish