Historic Landmarks of San Francisco

At 8AM on July 9, 1846, Captain John B. Montgomery of the USS Portsmouth, then lying at anchor in San Francisco Bay, landed on the shore of Yerba Buena Cove at the present corner of Clay and Leidesdorff. Montgomery and his party of 70 sailors and Marines were not paying a social call. The United States and Mexico were at war. Montgomery, executing the orders of Commodore John D. Sloat, commanding officer of US Naval forces in the Pacific, had come to claim Yerba Buena, San Francisco Bay, and all the rest of Mexican Alta California north of Monterey for the United States.

To the stirring accompaniment of fife and drum the military party marched from its landing spot up Clay Street to the old plaza where, at noon, the American flag was raised before the adobe custom house. Captain Montgomery read Commodore Sloat's proclamation to the assembled inhabitants of Yerba Buena, who numbered no more than 200. There was no resistance. The ceremonies were climaxed by a 21-gun salute from the little Portsmouth.

Montgomery had copies of Sloat's proclamation, printed in both Spanish and English, posted around the village. Although he remained in San Francisco only five months, both the captain and his ship were later memorialized when the Calle Della Fondacion and the old plaza were renamed, respectively, Montgomery Street and Portsmouth Square. In 1915 the Native Sons of the Golden West dedicated a bronze tablet at the southeast corner of Clay and Montgomery to commemorate the landing of 1846.