Black Fire
Authors: Robert Graysmith
Also by Robert Graysmith
Zodiac
The Sleeping Lady
Auto Focus: The Murder of Bob Crane
Unabomber: A Desire to Kill
The Bell Tower
Zodiac Unmasked
Amerithrax: The Hunt for the Anthrax Killer
The Laughing Gorilla
The Girl in Alfred Hitchcock’s 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 Sawyer—and of the mysterious fires that baptized Gold Rush–era San Francisco / written and illustrated by Robert Graysmith. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Sawyer, Tom, 1832–1906. 2. San Francisco (Calif.)—Biography. 3. San Francisco (Calif.)—History—19th century. 4. Adventure and adventurers—California—San Francisco—Biography. 5. Firefighters—California—San Francisco—Biography. 6. Fires—California—San Francisco—History—19th century. 7. Arson—California—San Francisco—History—19th century. 8. Twain, Mark, 1835–1910—Friends and associates. 9. Sawyer, Tom (Fictitious character) 10. Twain, Mark, 1835–1910—Sources.
I. Title.
F869.S353S294 2012
979.4′04092—dc23
[B]
201200313
eISBN: 978-0-307-72058-0
Illustrations by Robert Graysmith, except the historical images appearing on
3.1
,
6.1
,
8.1
,
9.1
, from the collection of Robert Graysmith
Cover design by Christopher Brand
Cover illustration by Robert Graysmith
v3.1
IN MEMORY OF GAVIN
“You want to know how I come to figure in his books, do you?” Sawyer said. He turned on his stool, acknowledged the reporter, raised his brandy and took a sip. They were speaking of Twain, of course. “Well, as I said, we both was fond of telling stories and spinning yarns. Sam, he was mighty fond of children’s doings and whenever he’d see any little fellers a-fighting on the street, he always stop and watch ’em and then he’d come up to the Blue Wing and describe the whole doings and then I’d try and beat his yarn by telling him of the antics I used to play when I was a kid and say, ‘I don’t believe there ever was such another little devil ever lived as I was.’ Sam, he would listen to these pranks of mine with great interest and he’d occasionally take ’em down in his notebook. One day he says to me: ‘I am going to put you between the covers of a book some of these days, Tom.’ ‘Go ahead, Sam,’ I said, ‘but don’t disgrace my name.’ ”
—VIOLA RODGERS, INTERVIEW WITH TOM SAWYER,
SAN FRANCISCO CALL
, October 23, 1898
CONTENTS
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Author’s Note
Dramatis Personae
Prologue
Part I: THE MAN WHO BURNED DOWN SAN FRANCISCO
December 24, 1849–September 16, 1850
Chapter 1
Broderick and the Christmas Eve Catastrophe
Chapter 3
Sleeprunners and Flying Houses
Chapter 5
Rainbow Rivers of Gold and Silver
Part II: THE LIGHTKEEPER
September 17, 1850–June 22, 1851
PART III: STEAMING WITH TWAIN AND SAWYER
May 26, 1863–December 16, 1866
Sources and Acknowledgments
Selected Bibliography
About the Author
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Black Fire
is the first book about Tom Sawyer, a bona fide San Francisco hero and poker-playing buddy of Mark Twain’s, 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 Sawyer’s 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 1849–51, 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 1850–51 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 can’t create, we can only copy,” he said. He wanted Tom Sawyer to be the boy who carried on the nation’s 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 Twain’s first novel;
U.S. Senator David C. Broderick:
chief of San Francisco’s first volunteer fire company;
Bret Harte:
Mark Twain’s writing partner and a rival for Lillie Hitchcock’s favors
Broderick’s Crash Squad of Faithful Bully B’hoys
