Robert Graysmith - Black Fire: The True Story of the Original Tom Sawyer--and of the Mysterious Fires That Baptized Gold Rush-Era San Francisco

Also by Robert Graysmith

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The Sleeping Lady

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Unabomber: A Desire to Kill

The Bell Tower

Zodiac Unmasked

Amerithrax: The Hunt for the Anthrax Killer

The Laughing Gorilla

The Girl in Alfred Hitchcocks Shower

Copyright 2012 by Robert Graysmith
All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com

CROWN and the Crown colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Graysmith, Robert.
Black fire: the true story of the original Tom Sawyerand of the mysterious fires that baptized Gold Rushera San Francisco / written and illustrated by Robert Graysmith. 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Sawyer, Tom, 18321906. 2. San Francisco (Calif.)Biography. 3. San Francisco (Calif.)History19th century. 4. Adventure and adventurersCaliforniaSan FranciscoBiography. 5. FirefightersCaliforniaSan FranciscoBiography. 6. FiresCaliforniaSan FranciscoHistory19th century. 7. ArsonCaliforniaSan FranciscoHistory19th century. 8. Twain, Mark, 18351910Friends and associates. 9. Sawyer, Tom (Fictitious character) 10. Twain, Mark, 18351910Sources.
I. Title.
F869.S353S294 2012
979.404092dc23
[B]

201200313

eISBN: 978-0-307-72058-0

Illustrations by Robert Graysmith, except the historical images appearing on , from the collection of Robert Graysmith
Cover design by Christopher Brand
Cover illustration by Robert Graysmith

v3.1

IN MEMORY OF GAVIN

CONTENTS

AUTHORS NOTE

Black Fire is the first book about Tom Sawyer, a bona fide San Francisco hero and poker-playing buddy of Mark Twains, and his relationship with Twain, who, in 1863, was considering a first novel. In 1864, Twain began to envision a book of much wider scope as he heard more of Sawyers incredible adventures a dozen years earlier in a landscape of burning roads, melting iron warehouses, mystery men and deadly gangs who extorted and ruled by fear. This is the true story of the volunteers; their band of boy firefighters, the torch boys; a U.S. senator; the World Heavyweight Champ; the most famous bruiser of the era; a lethal gunfighter; and fifty or sixty other misfits as they hunted a mysterious serial arsonist who, in 184951, would burn San Francisco to the ground six times in eighteen months. All the characters are real and their dialogue is based on letters, personal diaries, journals, memoirs, biographies, historical records, published newspaper interviews, public speeches, civil and criminal trials, illegal Vigilance Committee tribunals, transcripts and confessions, and original 185051 history volumes. In an 1895 interview Twain said he did not believe an author ever lived who had created a character, that characters are always drawn from someone the writer has known. We mortals cant create, we can only copy, he said. He wanted Tom Sawyer to be the boy who carried on the nations soul. In 1850, America was San Francisco.

ROBERT GRAYSMITH
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, NOVEMBER 2011

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

The Protagonists

Clockwise, from left: Mark Twain:San Francisco Call reporter in search of his first novel; Tom Sawyer: veteran volunteer fireman, customs inspector, and savior of ninety lives at sea; Eliza Lillie Hitchcock: a volunteer fire girl and potential subject of Twains first novel; U.S. Senator David C. Broderick: chief of San Franciscos first volunteer fire company; Bret Harte: Mark Twains writing partner and a rival for Lillie Hitchcocks favors

Brodericks Crash Squad of Faithful Bully Bhoys

Charles P. Dutch Charley Duane: the biggest, toughest brawler of the Gold Rush era; Billy Mulligan: a lethal, diminutive gunfighter with a chip on his shoulder; James Yankee Sullivan: former World Heavyweight Champ and the Ugliest Man in San Francisco

The Antagonists