Introduction

Introduction to revised edition.

Separating myth from reality.

Copyright 2000 by Malcolm E. Barker

Now out of print, the first edition of this little book has been hailed as a minor classic, and its heroes have been further memorialized with a large brass plaque at the base of one of San Francisco’s most famous landmarks. Meanwhile, I confess to a researcher’s obsession with uncovering the whole story: This new volume not only recounts the engaging history of Bummer and Lazarus but solves the mystery of what ultimately became of the two canine companions. Along the way it also introduces several other dogs well- known to nineteenth century San Franciscans but since forgotten. It is 140 years since Bummer and Lazarus roamed the streets of San Francisco, yet their names are still recalled with affection by local citizens. They have become legends. As with many legends, their story is now a blend of truths, half-truths, and far-fetched fabrications. Conflicting accounts litter dozens of books and hundreds of articles published worldwide. Some of these are now circulating on the Internet. The original story is simple enough. Bummer and Lazarus were strays and acknowledged no master. They lived in the early 1860s and gained the respect and attention of the people because of their expertise at killing rats and their unique bond of friendship. Newspapers constantly reported their escapades, whether it was stealing a bone from another dog or stopping a runaway horse. City supervisors exempted them from a strict ordinance that banned dogs downtown unless they had a leash and/or muzzle. When Lazarus died, one newspaper ran a lengthy obituary entitled “Lament for Lazarus.” While Bummer lay dying, the local papers vied with each other in updating the news, and Mark Twain added his characteristically caustic commentary. From these facts a number of myths have evolved. The most persistent is that the dogs belonged to Joshua Abraham Norton, a local character who, from 1859 through January, 1880, roamed the city claiming to be Emperor Norton I of the United States and Protector of Mexico. Yet of all the contemporary newspaper accounts of Bummer and Lazarus, not one mentioned Norton. Similarly, in twenty years of newspaper stories about Norton, not one mentioned the dogs. The earliest account of such a liaison that I have found was published in Germany in 1886—21 years after Bummer died. The author, Theodor Kirchhoff, did not arrive in San Francisco until four years after Bummer’s death. The most likely explanation is that people who arrived in the city after the dogs died saw a series of cartoons depicting them with the emperor and assumed that these represented the truth. Since then, generations of storytellers and writers have repeated these assumptions. In reality, these cartoons, drawn by Edward Jump, were intended as satirical commentaries about famous personalities of the day. One personality who was not amused was Norton. He became so incensed when he saw in a store window an illustration of himself eating with Bummer and Lazarus that he struck the window with his cane, and broke the cane. The indignity of it—he, an emperor, eating with stray dogs. . . ! This incident, combined with any lack of substantiation in contemporary accounts, would surely seem to negate any possibility of kinship. Another myth that has been perpetuated since the late 1800s is that three seats were reserved on opening nights of new shows—one each for Emperor Norton, Bummer, and Lazarus. The idea of reserving theater seats for dogs is far-fetched even by the standards of 1860s San Francisco. Nevertheless, I searched reviews and countless books about the city’s early theaters in the fruitless hope of learning how the story originated. My time was not wasted. In the announcement for an 1862 musical farce I found Bummer and Lazarus listed in the cast. There was no indication that they showed up for their performance. (See page 30.) One of Jump’s most famous cartoons depicts a procession of identifiable politicians, businessmen and others attending the funeral of Lazarus. Norton gives the blessing, a small drummer boy swings a rat as if it were incense, and Bummer looks on, mournfully. (See page 32.) To the artist, this was merely another satire on the times. To future observers, however, it represented more than a figment of Jump’s creative imagination. Stories began circulating that Lazarus had been buried, and that hundreds of local dignitaries had attended the funeral. In his 1886 account, Kirchhoff elaborated by saying that the funeral was arranged by the dog’s “imperial master” (implying Norton), and that it had “a following of many people on foot and in carriages.” Furthermore, he mistakenly identified the event as Bummer’s funeral instead of Lazarus’. The story was given credibility by an entry in the venerable Guinness Book of World Records that proclaimed an estimated 10,000 people attended the greatest dog funeral on record. The truth is that Bummer and Lazarus were not buried. When they died their skins were stuffed by a taxidermist and displayed in the two saloons they frequented while alive. I pointed this out to Norris D. McWhirter, the Guinness editor in London. In his reply, he wrote: Alas, [fiction] has no place between our covers and therefore we will have to regretfully excise it from the next printings and face the wroth of those who will inevitably write to us asking why we have moved one of their favourite entries. In an effort to keep Bummer and Lazarus in Guinness, I submitted an 1863 account in which they are reported to have killed “over 400 rats” when the gallery of a local fruit market was cleared. (See page 35.) I suggested this would make them the greatest ratters on record. But the names Bummer and Lazarus were expunged from the book, apparently not to be seen there again. For me, the most intriguing mystery was the fate of the stuffed skins. I had heard that they were displayed at the Golden Gate Park museum and then destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire. Attempting to verify this, I searched all entries prior to December, 1904, in the museum’s massive, hand-written inventory books, but found no reference to Bummer and Lazarus. Shortly after the first edition of this book was published in 1984, however, reader Michael Rosen sent me a clipping from the Daily Morning Call for February 2, 1906, with the headline “Bummer and Lazarus in the Park Museum.” The account read: Wednesday D.B. White, 425 Sansome street, gave “Bummer” and “Lazarus” to the Golden Gate Park Museum. Commissioner Reuben H. Lloyd, who knew the dogs in the “sixties,” accepted the donation on behalf of the commission, and Professor Gruber at once installed the new exhibit. Armed with this, I returned to the museum and checked the inventory book for 1906. Sure enough, the skins were received in February. They were transferred to the Department of Natural History. A further notation adds that they were in the janitor’s loft. A single word was scribbled in the margin: “Destroyed.” There is no mention about Professor Gruber installing the new exhibit. I looked at the clipping, then at the inventory item, and back again at the clipping. Only then did I realize their full significance. The address of the donor—425 Sansome Street—was the same as that of the saloon Pless & Martin. An earlier newspaper account had confirmed that in 1892 the skin of Lazarus was still at 425 Sansome, and that the skin of Bummer was at the former location of Martin & Horton’s saloon, at the corner of Montgomery and Clay. For me, this seemed to be the end of the story. But I was wrong! The skins languished, unseen, at the museum another four years. In April, 1910, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that “while rummaging in the storeroom” the curator “came across the stuffed bodies of Bummer and Lazarus, two Fire Department dogs of this city in the early sixties.” The report added that the curator was “restuffing” and preparing them for exhibition in the natural history department. I first became fascinated with Bummer and Lazarus in 1966, five years after I immigrated to San Francisco from England. My fascination has not dimmed in the intervening 35 years. If anything, it has intensified. Since 1984 I have been campaigning to grant these two dogs their own chapter in the city’s colorful history, separate from that of Emperor Norton. (It has been suggested that having a name like Barker may account for this obsession!) The newspaper accounts you will find in this book were written by journalists who knew Bummer and Lazarus. The charming story they tell deserves to stand alone, without the grossly exaggerated elements that have been added since. I do realize that a story’s appearance in a newspaper does not mean without a doubt that it is true. Also, I am aware that the style in which some of these accounts were written indicates that the writers were unashamedly stretching the truth to add color to an otherwise insignificant event. To me, these embellishments are more acceptable than those that were added later because they belong to the period; they provide us with a glimpse into mid-nineteenth century humor and tolerance. They become facets in the kaleidoscope that was San Francisco in the mid-1860s. Bummer and Lazarus were not the only dogs whose antics were reported in the newspapers, but they certainly had more coverage than others. Before December, 1866, fires in San Francisco were fought by volunteer firemen attached to a number of individual companies. Many of these companies had dogs that were written about in the local press. The following appeared in the Alta on February 13, 1865, under the headline “Death of a Notable Animal.” “Jack,” the famous half-mastif, half-bull-dog who has long “ran with the machine” and lodged in the house of California Engine Co., No. 4, for twelve years, died on Friday night, and his skin is now in the hands of the taxidermist, who will prepare it for occupying a place in the company meeting room for the future. “Jack” was a character and almost as well known in his particular line as old “Bummer” himself. He never paid the slightest attention to street rows or the ringing of bells for anything but a fire, but the first tap of the alarm bell or the rolling of an engine through the streets set him off half crazy with excitement, and he would, if outside, run at once to the house of No. 4 and commence springing against the door to attract the attention of those within. He had a habit of dashing into a burning building and seizing whatever came in his way, with a view to rescuing it from destruction, and to that habit fell a victim at last, dying from injuries inflicted by some stranger at the Market street fire some two months since. He was deservedly a favorite with No. 4 and one of the pets of the Department. Question: Did this 1865 account of Jack’s death become confused with accounts of Bummer’s death a few months later and, subsequently, inspire the following account that appeared in The Argonaut in 1882? Furthermore, did either one (or both) of these inspire the story that Bummer was a firefighters’ pet and was killed at a fire—a story that today circulates on the Internet? Bummer grew very stout, and one night, being seized with a fit of curiosity on the subject of fires, he accompanied the engines to South Park, where a conflagration was going on. There were a number of buildings burned; the excitement was great; in an evil moment Bummer, who had so far forgotten himself as to become excited too, got in the way of the hose, and was thrown over, trampled on, and killed, being no longer quick or agile enough in his movements to get out of the way in time to save himself. . . . For some days, if not weeks, the unhappy [Lazarus] did not appear in public; he must have remained in seclusion during the day, and issued forth at night into streets as dreary and deserted as his own altered life. Meantime, the fire company, . . . recognizing in him a public hero, had his skin stuffed and mounted in their engine room in such an extremely natural manner as to elicit much admiration. On the occasion of a civic display very soon afterward, this company “turned out,” and, mounted on a stand, poor Bummer’s vivid effigy accompanied them in parade. The day chosen chanced to be one on which poor Lazarus had ventured forth, a wretched ghost of his former self. On reaching Montgomery Street he met the pageant, and, raising his sad eyes, beheld his former patron’s figure carried aloft before the engine. The howl he uttered is said by those who heard it to have been blood-curdling. It was the last sound he was ever known to make, for, raising his head higher than he had ever held it before, he seemed mutely to appeal to heaven against such mummery, and then started homeward, never more to appear in the theatre of San Francisco affairs. When, on the removal of some rubbish on the corner of Leidesdorff Street, his remains were discovered, no one was by to suggest a taxidermist; but that may not have been from lack of good feeling as much as from the necessity for chloride of lime. Thus are myths generated!

Napoleon, and Chuffy the Chain Gang Dog Most of the dogs that appeared in the press during this period rated only one account, usually a glowing obituary. Some of these tell of funerals, while others state bluntly that the bodies had been handed over to the taxidermist—not an uncommon practice with favored pets in those days. A rare eyewitness account of a dog’s funeral in the mid-1860s appeared in the Bulletin in January, 1914. James H. Wilkins recalled the funeral of Napoleon, a performing dog that belonged to circus owner John Wilson. Napoleon was already old when he and his master retired from show business and settled in San Francisco during the 1860s. Wilkins wrote: Though he never enjoyed the notoriety of Bummer and Lazarus, Napoleon nevertheless was a favorite with great numbers of pioneers, and a well-known figure on Montgomery Street. . . . The funeral of “Lazarus,” as I have heard it described, was something of a burlesque. The funeral of Napoleon was the real thing. I know, because I attended it in person and never have witnessed a ceremony more marked and impressive in solemn, sympathetic setting. Wilkins went on to say that the funeral was attended by more than a hundred sincere sympathizers including bankers, lawyers, stockbrokers and “perhaps a clergyman or so, together with a miscellaneous assortment of sorrow-laden sports.” The funeral address was given by John W. Dwinelle, the lawyer after whom Dwinelle Hall on the University of California’s Berkeley campus was named. The grave site was “a lonely spot on Russian Hill.” Chuffy the Chain Gang Dog was another contemporary of Bummer and Lazarus. He earned this title by his close association with convicted chicken thief Francisco Fuentes. According to the Christmas Day, 1859, Daily Alta California, this “poor little nondescript animal” was a familiar sight as his master and other manacled prisoners labored in Washington Square. Ups and downs he certainly has had, as instanced in the halting gait of the poor quadruped, produced by an accident which unfortunately cut off one of his feet. This gives him a sort of “step-and-fetch-it” gait, which, together with his “sad-dog” look, makes him wear a most lackadaisical appearance. . . . Chuffy has been the innocent but devoted attendant of Francisco in all his midnight forays, and we presume keeps watch for his master while the latter is engaged in his unlawful calling. As fast as the Sonorian is detected, and sentenced to the public works, Chuffy seems to understand the matter, and considers himself as likewise in durance vile, regularly accompanying his unworthy proprietor to his daily labor, sitting about in convenient places during working hours and contentedly following the old sinner and his ball-and-chain companions back again to the Station House at evening. In the prison the dog is a recognized character. He is always promptly on hand at feeding time, and quietly picks the bones thrown to him. Being of diminutive dimensions, he has easy ingress and egress under the Station House door, but never gets far enough away to miss accompanying the procession, wending its way toward Washington Square for the daily routine of labor. Chuffy has few canine acquaintances. Either in his simple innocence he imagines the chain gang to be some intensely exclusive and aristocratic institution—a privileged class with whom the common people about the streets are not worthy to associate—and thus his connection with them places him a peg above other dogs; or the rest of the Trays, Blanches and Sweethearts scent the real plebian and eschew his company. Certain it is, Chuffy enjoys a monopoly of the chain gang favors, and not another cur presumes to court a quarrel with him. He has sagacity worthy a better master; but, poor brute, he is quite satisfied with his lot. Two Cribs, a Jack, and “Jenny Lind” The police department also had pet dogs. In December, 1866, the Alta led its City Items column with this: For the past 15 years a crop-eared yellow dog known as “Crib” (short for “Cribbage”), has been the pet of the police and one of the most heavy taxes on the proprietors of the lunch tables around the City Hall. “Crib’s” origin is involved in doubt and obscured by the mists of time, but there is a dim tradition that he was born in the City Prison and of disreputable parentage; but, however that may be, he was among the characters of San Francisco and, next to “Bummer” and “Lazarus,” the greatest of our canine specialties. Affectionate to a degree when hungry, he would fawn upon and dance about anybody who seemed disposed to give him a dinner, and when full fed would not hesitate to bite the hand of his benefactor, or any other man who came near him and attempted to caress him. Whether this peculiarity was native to him, or the result of vile associations, it is impossible to say, but public opinion inclines strongly towards the latter theory. As “Crib” grew old, a tendency to scorbutic and cutaneous disease was developed in him, and for some years his back had presented the appearance of having been burned over by a prairie fire and badly harrowed down and seeded over again. On the first day of December, 1866, in the gray dawn of the morning, a policeman found “Crib” in the agonies of death, and half an hour later he was subject for the Coroner. Whether he died from grief at the wholesale slaughter of his offspring which was about to be perpetuated by order of the Police Commissioners, committed suicide by taking an overdose of Kenney’s hard boiled corned beef rather than be shot at by the policemen who so distinguished themselves at the last target excursion of the National Guard at the Encinal de Alameda, or was basely murdered through the medium of a ready made sausage by somebody who wished to get even on the police in advance for the butchery of their pets, is as yet unknown: but certain it is, he sleeps the sleep of the just, and has gone to his reward, whatever and wherever that may be. His funeral will take place in a day or two, under the joint auspices of the Reporters for the Press, the members of the Police Court bar, and the proprietors of 210 saloons within half a block of the City Hall. Apparently Crib and Jack were not uncommon names for dogs in those days. In April, 1863, the firefighters of Manhattan Fire Engine Company lowered their flag to half staff in remembrance of their Crib, who died of lung congestion the morning after attending a fire on Powell Street. Earlier, firefighters of Manhattan No. 2 Company mourned the death by poisoning of their 2-year-old Scottish terrier, Jack. “The taxidermist has received orders to stuff his skin, and Jack, albeit with a pair of glass eyes, will continue to watch over the interests of his good friends and true,” said the Bulletin. “Jenny Lind,” described by the Alta as “the celebrated black and tan terrier slut,” was considered “an old pioneer” when she died in March, 1864. She was a dog of the world, having crossed the Atlantic three times. Named in honor of a popular singer of the day, she arrived in the city with her master Ebenezer Niles during the Gold Rush. When Niles died, “Jenny Lind” declined numerous offers of a comfortable home and, instead, chose to live at the Blue Wing Saloon. She died there at the age of 15. The Alta assured its readers she had not been poisoned, but had died “at peace with all the world from sheer old age.”

San Rafael, California M.E.B. October, 2000

Index

A
Academy of Natural Sciences,
	14, 54
Alameda, 11, 36
Alexandra, Princess, 76
Appleton, D.E. & Co., 63
Atypical Press, 3
Avanzino, Richard, xx-xxi

B
Badger, Alexander, 45, 46
Baker, G.H., 63
Bessey’s ranch, 50, 51, 52, 53
Bierce, Ambrose, 74
Blue Wing Saloon, xvii
Board of Supervisors,
	8, 9, 22, 26, 39
	pass ordinance, 27-28
Branch, Edgar M., 41
Brooks, Fred Emerson, 24
Bruno (dog), 20
Bummer the 4,732nd, xx-xxi
Bunker Hill, anniversary, 10
Butler, Benjamin, 81

C
California Historical Society, 
	xviii, 3
Carlucci, Carlo G., 3
Carson, Kit, 42
Chuffy (dog), xiii-xv
City Hall, 2
Clemens of the ‘Call’, 41
Clemens, Samuel
	See Mark Twain
Collins, C.E., jeweler, 10, 29, 36
Consolidation Act, 33, 75
Cosmopolitan Hotel, 54
Cowing, Turner, 41
Cowles, J., 41
Crib (firefighters’ dog), xvi
Crib (police dog), xv-xvi
“Cur Non,” 9, 25, 75

D
Damon and Pythias, 10, 26
	lettersheet, 13, 55-60, 67
de la Montanya, H., 27
de Young, Charles, 74
de Young, Michael, 74
de Young (M.H.) Museum,
	viii, ix, 3, 65, 74
dog ordinance, 8, 22-24, 26-28
dog pound, 9, 35
dogs (not Bummer or Lazarus)
	See separate listings:
	Bruno
dogs (continued) 
	Bummer the 4,732nd
	Chuffy
	Crib (firefighters’ dog)
	Crib (police dog)
	Jack (dog, died 1863)
	Jack (dog, died 1865)
	Jenny Lind (dog)
	Lazarus, Jr.
	Lazarus, the 3,815th
	Napoleon
Dwinelle Hall, xiii
Dwinelle, John W., xiii

E
E Clampus Vitus, xx-xxi
earthquake, 1865, 12, 45
earthquake, 1906, viii, 65
“Earth Quakey Times,” 12, 44, 46
Elegy on Bummer, 52
“Elegy Written in a Country
	Graveyard,” 48
Emperor Norton,
	vi, vii, 1, 2, 33, 38, 42

F
Fat Boy, The, 2
Field Guide to Greek Metre, A, 3
firefighters, xi, xii
Flag, The, 53, 59, 60
“Foundling of the Forest,” 30
Frank, Moses, 64
free lunch, vii, 2, 42
French Market, 34
Fuentes, Francisco, xiv
“Funeral of Lazarus,” vii, 32

G
George Washington, 42
George Washington II, 2
Gilmore’s Swamp Angel, 36, 75
Gould & Martin, 35
Gray, Thomas, 48
Great Unknown, The, 2
“Greetings to Alexandra,” 37
Gruber, Professor, ix
Guinness Book of World
	Records, viii
Guttersnipe, The, 2

H
Harte, Bret, 74
Hayes Valley, 13, 50, 51, 52, 53
Hayne, Julia Dean, 30
Hearst, George, 74
Hearst, William Randolph, 73, 74
horse, 10, 29
Howard Street, 46
Hutchings, James, 81

I
Internet, v, xi

J
Jack (dog, died 1863), xvi
Jack (dog, died 1865), xi
Jackson, Stonewall, 42
Jenny Lind (dog), xvi-xvii
Jenny Lind Theater, 2
Johnson, Bruce L., xviii
Jump, Edward, vi, vii, 2, 7
	biography, 81
	“Damon & Pythias” 
	   13, 55-60, 67
Jump, Edward (continued) 
	“Earth Quakey Times,” 12, 46
	“Funeral of Lazarus,” vii, 32
	free lunch counter,
	    vi-vii, xxxiv, 2, 42
	vs. Turner Cowing, 41-42

K
Kirchhoff, Theodor, vi-vii
Knight, Edward D., 7, 36

L
Ladies’ Christian Commission
	 Fair, 42
“Lament for Lazarus,” 
	vi, 11, 33-36
Lazarus, Jr., 12, 40
Lazarus the 3,815th, xx-xxi
letter sheets, 7, 57, 59, 67
Lick House, The, 54
“Life in San Francisco,” 11, 30
Lind, Jenny, xvii
Lloyd, Reuben H., ix
Lorquin, E.F., 39

M
Maguire, David, 54
Mark Twain,
	vi, 12, 40-41, 73, 74, 81
	Bummer’s obituary, 14, 60-61
Martin & Horton saloon,
	ix, 3, 48, 50, 65
Martin, Frederick, 2-3, 35, 39
Mayhew, Edward, 75
McWhirter, Norris D., viii
Metropolitan Market, 45
Metropolitan Theatre, 11, 30
Money King, The, 2

N
Nagel, Louis, 81
Napoleon (dog), xiii
Natural History, Dept. of., ix
New Mining Bureau, 14
Niles, Ebenezer, xvii
North Beach Sanitarium Bath
	House, 45
Norton, Joshua A.,
	See Emperor Norton

O
Occidental Hotel, 54
Olympic Club, 45, 46
Oofty Goofty, 2

P
Peck, Rev., 46
petition, 9, 26, 27
Pless & Martin saloon, ix, 3, 65
poison, 11, 19
“Poor Old Bummer,” 62, 63
Pope, Charles, 30
poundkeeper, 8–9, 23, 24, 28
Proverbial Philosophy, 37, 76
Puck (magazine), 81

R
rats, 6, 9, 28, 34, 35, 36, 49, 59
Roos & Wundelich, 46, 59
Rosen, Michael, viii-ix
Rosenfield, A., 10, 29, 31, 35
Rouse & Jump, 41–42
Russ House, The, 46, 54, 59

S
sheep, 11, 36
“S.Nooks, Jr.,”13, 62, 63
Society of California Pioneers,
	3, 14, 39, 54
SPCA, xx-xxi
Supreme Court, 64

T
taxidermist
	and Bummer, 51, 54
	and Lazarus, 11, 36, 37, 39
Territorial Enterprise, 14, 60
Thorne, Charles Robert, Sr., 30
Transamerica Pyramid, xx-xxi
“Trem,” 13, 56, 58-60, 67
Tupper, Martin Farquhar,
	37–38, 76

W
Washington Market, 31
What Cheer House, 54
Wilkins, James H., xiii
Wilson, John, xiii
White, D.B., ix
World’s Columbia Exposition, 65

Y
YMCA, 14, 54