Henry F. Teschemacher

Who was Henry F. Teschemacher?

Henry Frederick Teschemacher served as the tenth mayor of San Francisco 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 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.

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 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, beginning San Francisco's path to economic self-sufficiency.