RICHARD CHENERY'S ACCOUNT LEDGER FOR CONSTRUCTION OF PAVEMENT IN FRONT OF THE CUSTOM HOUSE ON BATTERY STREET IN SAN FRANCISCO, 1856-1857
San Francisco, CA: 1856-57. Leather covered ledger, 34 cm., approx. 45 pp. of entries in a neat hand. Gilt stamped leather spine label marked "Journal," and stamped "6" at base of spine. Beginning with his first entry on April 24, 1856, Chenery kept a record of expenses for cobble stone, stone cutting, cartage, mining, a stone dressing machine, and other "sundries." He also noted payments to individual laborers, as well as companies, including Conroy & O'Connor; Nelson & Doble; Silas Burrows & Sons; Geo. C. Johnson & Co.; Benchley & Co.; and Vulcan Iron Works. In May 1856, he mentions a payment to Horace P. Russ for $100, and a purchase by Chenery & Cochran [evidently his partner in the enterprise] of 100 tons of cobble stone at the Broadway stone yard. On Aug. 23, he records $3000 for "Russ Pavt. on Battery St."; and $3898.80, "United States to Quarry a/c to construction of Russ Pavement in front of Custom House on Battery St." By Dec. 1856, some of the ledger sheets are headed with the name "California Granite Co." Chenery and his company also appear to have had contracts for work at Mare Island, Fort Point, and Alcatraz [here recorded as "Alcatraces"]. The last entry is dated Oct. 1857.
Richard Chenery was a Massachusetts born businessman- hotelier, steamship owner, merchant, contractor, and entrepeneur who arrived in San Francisco in 1849. He later served in the California legislature. He worked on this paving contract with Col. Horace Phipps Russ (1820-ca.1868), who arrived in San Francisco from New York City. Russ was the inventor of Russ pavement (although there was some dispute over the patent) and had held contracts for its installation in both New York and Washington, DC. Item #70857
California law in the mid-1850s required owners of lots in the city to keep the streets in good repair and Battery Street was in need of work. The Merchants' Exchange which occupied the lot next to the Custom House had proposed sharing costs with the government building but the collector of customs did not feel authorized to make that decision. The Merchants' Exchange went ahead with the repairs, contracting with Russ Pavement for half the cost. Russ agreed to petition the government for the other half. On Nov. 5, 1856, Major Toner who superintended the expenditure of appropriations for street improvement on the block, reported that “what is called the Russ pavement, consisting of cubical granite blocks laid upon a substantial bed, had been constructed across the street the length of the front of the Exchange and he suggested the payment of some sum in compromise of the claim, at least as far as the government property had been benefited by the improvement.” The Secretary of the Treasury declined to pay, stating that "the service was voluntary and the work itself of doubtful value." He appeared to think ordinary cobblestone would have done as good a job.
Still unpaid, in 1860, Richard Chenery petitioned the government for payment for "the construction of certain pavement in front of the custom-house at San Francisco...." Chenery stated that, as an assignee of Horace Russ, he installed granite pavement on Battery Street between the privately owned Merchants' Exchange and the U.S. Custom House. The House Committee agreed payment was due, feeling the work was beneficial to both parties and granting Chenery's petition in March 1861. [see: Richard Chenery's petition,US House of Representatives, April 1860, 36th Cong. 1st Session, Report No. 404, pp.1-3]
According to an article in the New York Times on Feb. 1, 1962, entitled "How Paving Came to Manhattan," New York City also used Russ Paving in the construction of some of their streets: “[i]n 1848 the city got its best paving to date when Broadway between Chambers and Reade Streets became the scene of an experiment with what was called Russ Block, named after its inventor, Horace P. Russ. This paving lasted so well that bits of it can still be seen in Manhattan.” The pavement in San Francisco may not have fared as well, given the earthquakes of 1865 and 1906. A new custom house replaced this 1854 version which was torn down in 1905. In an article in the San Francisco Call from Nov. 19, 1905, "The Passing of the Custom House," W.L. Brown states: “Even many of the records of the early days of the Custom-house are missing, thus making it impossible to correctly chronicle the history of the building up to the sixties….” This ledger fills in a little of the street history.
Price: $1,750.00