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David Colbreth Broderick
Funeral Ceremonies

FUNERAL CEREMONIES OF D. C. BRODERICK.

1859 September 21
[Reported for the Sacramento Daily Union.]
The funeral of David C. Broderick, in San Francisco, on Sunday last, was the most solemn scene ever witnessed on the Pacific, or, in fact, anywhere else. Without a note of music floating on the air, without a banner waving to the breeze, without military pomp or aught else to attract the multitude, thousands and tens of thousands of mourners of all sexes, ages and nations, assembled to pay the last tribute of respect to one who, by the purity of his life and incorruptibility of his motives, has won the public heart and, was the strongest evidence of the deep impression his violent and untimely death has made upon the public.

Lying in State

It is well known Senator Broderick died on Friday morning, and on the evening of that day his remains were brought into the city from the residence of Leonidas Haskell, and were placed in the large hall of the Union Hotel, where they laid until the time appointed for the funeral. The hall was draped in mourning entwined with American flags. The coffin, a metallic one, was profusely decorated with flowers, and in it, fully exposed to view, Mr. Broderick lay. His features were unchanged, but the unquailing eye was closed forever. The same determined expression of countenance that distinguished him when living was still apparent, and it seemed almost an impossibility to believe him dead.

THE CROWD.

From Friday evening until the removal of the body for burial there was one continuous stream of people visiting it, walking with quiet step, tearful eve and saddened heart, to take the last look of all that remained of him who stood forward so nobly to do battle for the people. It was computed that at least thirty thousand people passed through the hall — thousands of the number being women. Scenes took place around the dead body of Mr. Broderick which were harrowing in the extreme. One old man came up to the coffin, and placing his hand on the pallid brow of the dead, remarked in a low and mournful voice : " They have murdered you ! murdered you, my son, and that is all that can be said about it."

On Sunday morning from 6 until 9 o'clock a large number of the Irish population, on their return from mass, passed round, lingering at the coffin, and gazed with faces full of grief and reverence at the last spectacle. At one time there were thirteen women on their knees around the body of the dead Senator, praying to the Almighty God for the repose of his soul. No such a scene as that has ever occurred before in the history of our country.

THE CITY.

The city was thronged with people, and there could not have been less than seventy-five thousand in the streets. Strangers from all parts of the State had hurried down to testify their respect for the deceased, by their presence. The day was intensely hot, yet there was not the slightest diminution in the crowd observable at all points. The public buildings were draped in mourning; the flags of the City Hail, engine and truck houses and plaza were displayed at half-mast. The engine houses were shrouded in crape and mourning habilliments, and their respective flags draped in crape. Along the line of march a number of buildings were in mourning — the most noticeable ones being the office of the California Spirit of the Times and Fireman's Journal, No. 120 Montgomery street ; Hoesch & Co.'s coffee saloon, and Selleck's daguerrean gallery, on Clay street. On Montgomery street, the office of the London and Liverpool Fire Insurance Company ; the New York dry goods store ; T. S. Broderick's shoe store, and J. Jorgensen's. On Market street (where the procession turned in order to reach Sansome street) the new building, Green's market, was hung with festoons of black and white. On Sansome street the national flag edged with black crape, was suspended across the street from Hussey, Bond & Bale's to P. Whitbeck's carriage store. On Washington street Maguire's Opera House was densely hung with mourning. On Stockton street the flag of the French Consulate was lowered to half-mast, and on the building of T. P. Evans & Co. was displayed a flag, bearing on it these words : " Hon. D. C. Broderick— we mourn his loss."

THE PLAZA

Before noon the crowd began to collect and thousands had assembled to witness the imposing ceremonies on the Plaza. There could not have been less than fifteen thousand persons in view from the balcony of the Monumental Engine House. Of the number ten thousand at least were on the Plaza, and the remainder were up and down Clay, Kearny, Merchant and Washington streets. At the front of the flag staff a large catafalco was built, and above it a national ensign, edged with crape, was displayed at half-mast

THE CATAFALCO.

A stand some twenty feet square was built at the base of the flag staff, the whole of which was draped in black. From the edge of the platform, which was raised some three and a half feet from the ground and above the same some ten feet, was a canopy, the inner side of which was roofed half of a hexagonal. From the base of the platform to the ground the catafalco was covered with black muslin with white laid over in stripes equidistant. On three sides of the top, midway between the corner posts, was a raised point, which, with the top of the posts, were pointed with a black plume. From these, drapery of black alpacca hung in festoons of three large folds, edged with white and black craps, suspended by cords of white and black, entwined with rosettes of white and black. The corner columns were curtained with the same material festooned in like manner, whilst the intermediate pillars were draped similarly to the base of the platform. The floor was covered with black cloth and the rear covered in with similar material, within entrance, access to which was obtained by a short flight of steps. In the northwest corner a table was placed for the accommodation of the Reporters, and in front of the catafalco were ranged chairs for the pall bearers around a space left for the remains of the deceased. The arrangements were exceedingly appropriate and reflected great credit on the taste and skill of the attendant undertaken , Massey & Young.

THE LAST VISIT.

At 1 o'clock the pall bearers and chief mourners, in a body, paid their last visit to the remains of the lamented dead. The scene was mournful in the extreme. To say that tears were shed would be but a faint expression of its intensity ; weeping and wailing from anguished hearts gave token of their sorrow. The pall bearers remained around the corpse, and the mourners returned to their place of meeting, in the room of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, in the City Hall.

TO THE PLATFORM.

At half-past 1 o'clock precisely, the body, borne by eight members of Empire Engine Company, No. 1, of which company the dear Senator was the founder and first foreman, and followed by the pall bearers and chief mourners, passed out of the Union Hotel, crossed Kearny street, and up the great avenue through the Plaza. By the excellent arrangements made by Chief of Police Burke, room was made by the vast concourse of uncovered people, and through this path thus opened the solemn procession moved to the platform, where the coffin, containing all that was mortal of Senator Broderick, was placed. The pall bearers and chief mourners then assembled upon the platform, and when all were seated, E. D. Baker arose, and, standing at the head, to the left of the coffin, pronounced the Funeral Oration. [Colonel Baker's oration was published in the Union in full on Monday.] At the close of Baker's oration and when he bid farewell to the dead Senator, his self-command forsook him, and, bursting into tears, he sank down ; and as the intonation of the last word left his lips, the deep booming of the Hall bell broke in upon the solemn stillness which reigned around, causing an involuntary shudder to agitate the vast throng.

THE FUNERAL PROCESSION

At half past 2 o'clock, all things being in readiness, the funeral procession commenced moving from Kearny street, opposite the Plaza, and passed out to Lone Mountain Cemetery, by the following route : From the Union Hotel through Kearny to Clay street, down Clay to Montgomery, along Montgomery to Market, down Market to Sansome, thence through Sansome, Washington, Montgomery, Jackson, Stockton, Vallejo and Powell to Pacific, and out through Pacific, and the Presidio road, to the Cemetery. The following was the order of the procession, which was fifty-two minutes in passing a given point :
Grand Marshal — John Middleton.
Aids— A. G. Randall, J. C. L. Wadsworth, W. B. Farwell, Charles Hosmer, John Knox, H. S. Fitch, D. H. Carpenter.
Two Policemen.
Thirteen Carriages for the Pall Bearers
(the last one containing Fathers Gallagher and Harrington, of the Catholic Church).

THE HEARSE.

Pall Bearers — F. D. Kohler, Thomas J. Poulterer, J. MeGlynn, Joseph W. McCorkle, B. B. Redding, B. S. Lippencott, George H. Crossette, J. B Frisbie, Wilson Flint, C. A. Washburn, Wm McKibbin, D. J. Oliver, J. A. Monroe, Jacob Deeth, W. Fuller, John Y. Wattson, S. H. Dwindle, Alex. Campbell, J. P. Dyer, A. A. Selover, Joseph C. Palmer, Wm. J. Shaw, Jno. Currey, Edmund Randolph, H. W. Carpentier, Ogden Hoffman, Frank Soule, M. J. Vallejo, John White, John McDougal, Moses K. Flanagan, John O'Meara, Geo W. Green, A. R. Baldwin, James M. Wilson, E. L. Beard, R. C. Moore, Wm. Huefner.

Chief Mourners— Joseph C. McKibbin, L. Haskell, Ed. Boequi, E. J Moore, Hermann Wohler, John Conness, E. R. Carpenter, John McGlynn, Genl. Coulton, Andrew McCabe, J. J. Arlington, J. O'Neil, John Mallon, Charles W. Cook, Lucien Hermann, Jos. Grant, Major S. H. Meeker, Charles D. Carter, E. P. Seymour, J. W. Sullivan, Mr. Koopmanshaft, D. C. McCarthy. P. Hickey, A. C. Hurlbut, Ed Corbett, James Godfrey, Jacob Cohn, P. C. Hyman, Wm. Willis, T. C. Oliver, T. B. Newton, P. A. Owens, D. Cronin, Captain E. A. Poole, P. Martin, T. E. Hedges, S. Sheldon, Dr. Loehr, Dr. Rowell, Thomas Gallagher, Chas. E. Buckingham, M. Campbell, Judge Crane, L. Shearer, Col. A. J. Butler, D. C. McGlynn, Cor. Stagg, Marcus D. Boruck, Terrence Foley, Wm. F. Williamson, G. W. Colby, Wm. M. Lent, Joseph A. Nunes, Samuel Blaisdell, D. G. Murphy, Charles Kohler, George Kohler, Thomas Maguire, James Dennison, Edward Martin, H. J. Duft, H. H. Byrne, Judge Wm. Corbett, M. O'Brien, Charles M. Chase, S. H. Parker, T. W. Freelon, Judge Worth, Mr. Worthington, Dr. Titcomb, John Kelly, H. E. Highton, James W. Stillman, J. G. Pearson, Thomas Fallon, Mr. Garniss, 0. H. Peizer, M. C. Flynn, H. C. Macey, Dr. Sawyer, George W. Wright, Robert E Hunter, J. H. Simmons, P. Crowley, A. H. Meyers, Joseph Norton, A. P. Crittenden, J. Ten. Eycke.

THE FIRE DEPARTMENT.

Following these came the Fire Department, to the number of one thousand and twenty-eight men, in the following order :
David Scannell, Foreman of Empire Engine Company, No. 1, Marshal.
Aids — David T. Van Orden, L. H. Robie and Gordon, Assistant Engineers.

The firemen were dressed entirely in black with the exception of No. 1, the members of which wore white gloves. The turnout of the firemen was the largest ever made since the Fire Department of San Francisco was organized. The firemen marched four abreast, and their appearance was admirable.

Next came the California Pioneers, numbering seventy-five men, wearing their regalia draped in mourning, and following these came the members of the Slavonian Ulrick Benevolent Society, numbering  fifty-nine men, who were followed by two hundred and nineteen citizens, walking three abreast ; then came twelve double carriages with an average of five persons in each, and one hundred and sixteen open vehicles containing two hundred and sixty-five persons; a company of ninety-five mounted men closed the procession. At the corner of Pacific and Stockton streets the procession was joined by a number of double carriages, and indeed throughout the whole line of the route it was constantly receiving additions to its numbers, so that it was scarcely possible with accuracy to tell the number of persons and vehicles, but they may be safely set down as forty double carriages, one hundred open vehicles, six four horse barouches and omnibuses, and one hundred mounted men, which, with the footmen, numbered about three thousand men. Taken together it was the largest and most impressive procession ever witnessed in this city.

When the head of the procession reached the corner of Broadway and Stockton streets it halted, and the firemen passed on in open order through Vallejo, Powell and Pacific streets, to Mason, where they halted ; and that portion of the procession decided upon following the remains to their last resting place, passed through on its way to the grave, through Pacific to Taylor street, through a short alley way to the Presidio road to

THE CEMETERY

Where the procession arrived at 4 o'clock. An immense number of vehicles, horsemen and persons on foot had already congregated, and were waiting the arrival of the new occupant of the tomb, the doors of which were thrown open. Silently and slowly the concourse wended their way towards the last resting place of the dead Senator. It came, quietly, sadly, mournfully. Oh ! how slowly they marched to his burial place. The assemblage made way, for " Broderick, dead, was greater than Broderick, living." The pall bearers came to the doors of the vault, and, resting the coffin upon the sod, awaited the last melancholy rites — Revs. H. P. Gallagher and F. Harrington officiating.

Father Gallagher then addressed the assemblage as follows:
Beloved and Esteemed Fellow-Citizens : You are assembled for the purpose of beholding the earthly remains of the Hon. David C. Broderick deposited in their final resting place — a most melancholy office — and one that wrings the Christian hearts of our people throughout the length and breadth of the land; with grief, deep, intense and unalloyed, over that most pernicious error which created the fictitious artificial necessity that has cast the eternal silence of death upon this noble young tribune. With what constitutes the character of a good or a bad, an honest or dishonest politician, or with what he was or was not in that respect I have nothing to do, nor do I obtrude any idea I may have formed of his private piety or otherwise ; but whilst I am compelled to regret and condemn unequivocally the grand irreparable fault by which be consented to his own death, I feel a pride and esteem it a privilege here in your presence and in common with you all, to record my high appreciation of the public virtues of the man, who, considering the times and circumstances, could say without fear of contradiction, iv the hearing of the whole State, " The man, is not living or dead who ever saw me at a gambling table, in a brothel, or under the influence of intoxicating drink." (July.)

This implies no more virtues than a man's duty enjoins ; but it is confessedly a refreshing instance to our present world, to which I say, all earthly honor to him of whom such things with truth can be said. Subsequent to his sad mishap, he sought and received the consolations of religion. We may and must presume that his repentance was sincere and genuine — that he forgave his enemies; for there is no place in Christian ethics for revenge. He was reconciled, therefore, to the Church and received her last rites. ln her unquestioned right, therefore, as the Holy Mother, would she have claimed him to lay him down with honor in the ground which she had consecrated as the temporary resting place for the anointed bodies of her children, but that, unhappily for him, by the accrued duello, the privilege was forfeited. A Church that has with unabating persistency issued and renewed her anathema from century to century for twelve hundred years against this Pagan code of blood, from the time that Pope Nicho It-us I. denounced it in his letter to King Charles the sill, of France, in 850, to the present day, could not be expected to reverie her immutable decrees for human caprice or temporary expediency. He addressed me as father. I, indeed, regarded him as my son in Christ, in his repentance, and the grief I feel that his misguided act deprives me of whatever of sorrowful satisfaction there might be in depositing him with solemn honor in his consecrated tomb, is such as oppressed the paternal heart of the noble Brutus, when of the sons of his bosom he said, " I Lictor collega manus."

Your thousand sorrowing hearts attest this day that in your solemn and sincere condemnation of this code of blood, you confirm and reecho the Church's sentiments, but that she, the Mother of all the Faithful, is ever consistent obnoxious to no vital vicissitude nor varied phase of feeling; inflicting, indiscriminately, this temporal penalty on all who may set at defiance her maternal mandate. Would to God, beloved and esteemed fellow citizens, that this day, which presents to the horror of a civilized world the bleeding, mangled spectacle of a murdered Senator — (I make no allusion to his antagonist, I say so with emphasis) — we might behold the incipient step inaugurated on this memorable spot, that would trample in the dust this last, detested relic of Pugau barbarity. Christian men, on bended knee, before this melancholy spectacle, with right hands raised to Heaven, registering there their solemn vows that they would never cease from peaceful, legal, constitutional agitation of this question, till every remnant of it is eradicated from our Christian State — a monument more durable than brass or marble, and more valuable than the hands of man could erect.

The Reverend speaker, here turning to the corpse, said, with much feeling, " Peace to thy ashes, joy to thy spirit, truest and most unselfish of friends, and most moral of public men."

At the close of the above address, amid loud sobs and expressions of grief, the coffin was deposited in the tenement of the dead, in a separate niche, to await a final disposition of the body on the part of the dead Senator's friends.
Source: Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 18, Number 2647, 21 September 1859 — FUNERAL CEREMONIES OF D. C. BRODERICK. [ARTICLE]

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