Marin history: The legacy of Bay Area pioneer William Richardson

William Richardson, a first mate on the American whaler Orion, sailed into the San Francisco Bay in early 1822, jumped ship and settled near the Presidio in San Francisco. At that time, there were no streets or homes in what was known as Yerba Buena, just the Misión San Francisco de Asís, or Mission Dolores, and the military Presidio.

Employing local Native Americans, he started a small business transporting grain and hides from around the bay to ships anchored at Yerba Buena and Sausalito. From Sausalito, known then as Whaler’s Cove, he also supplied crews with fresh water from hillside springs and hardwood for spars and masts. Capt. Richardson, as he was called, successfully petitioned the governor of California for Mexican citizenship and in 1825 married Maria Antonio Martinez, the daughter of the Presidio commander. After traveling south to San Gabriel with his family for a couple of years, Richardson came back to the San Francisco Bay, was appointed captain of the port and laid out the first streets in what would become the city of San Francisco, establishing the first civilian residence there for his wife and three children. As port captain, Richardson could direct incoming vessels to Sausalito and once again operated a thriving ship supply business that also included collecting duties and anchorage fees.

In 1838, he was granted a large tract of land, more than 19,000 acres, that ran from the Golden Gate through the Marin Headlands to Stinson Beach, and included Sausalito. He named it El Rancho del Sausalito.

In its early days, the tiny port town was a wild and rambunctious community that catered to the needs of incoming ships and their crews. In the 1840s, the United States Navy chose Whaler’s Cove as the location for a drydock and set up a sawmill there to process the timber from the Marin hills. Meanwhile, Richardson built his family’s hacienda north of Whaler’s Cove in what is now New Town Sausalito and expanded his operations to include a second waterworks and a deep-water pier for ships to transport hides and beef from his growing cattle ranch.

The captain was heavily in debt and sold a large portion of Old Town on the cove to Charles Tyler Botts, a San Francisco attorney who had made his fortune after coming to California in 1848. Botts laid out the grid-like streets we know today and planned to sell individual lots to the ever-increasing population that followed the discovery of gold and California statehood. When the Navy chose Mare Island, rather than Sausalito, as its West Coast shipyards and drydock, the town fell on hard times and Richardson, borrowing heavily to run his ranch and shipping concerns, found himself unable to sustain his holdings. He ended up selling all of El Rancho del Sausalito to attorney Samuel Throckmorton, except for the New Town area deeded to his wife and children and the Old Town parcel sold to Botts.

In 1856, Richardson lost three of his uninsured ships in quick succession and was embroiled in numerous lawsuits over his debts. In April of that year, suffering from rheumatism, he mysteriously died from mercury poisoning contained in tablets prescribed by his doctor. Though his family retained some of New Town, investment in the area was slow and Throckmorton and others eventually bought out the holdings of the Richardson family. Today, the bay between Sausalito and the Tiburon Peninsula bares Richardson’s name in memory of the San Francisco Bay’s first United States resident.

I want to acknowledge Jack Tracy’s book, “Sausalito: Moments in Time,” for informing this article.

History Watch is written by Scott Fletcher, a volunteer at the Marin History Museum, marinhistory.org. Images included in History Watch are available for purchase by calling 415-382-1182 or by email at info@marinhistory.org