Historic Landmarks of San Francisco

During the brief time between his arrival in San Francisco in 1860 to serve as pastor of the First Unitarian Church, and his death in 1864 from diphtheria, Thomas Starr King became one of the City's leading citizens. His primary fame rests not on his skill as a minister, but on his leadership in keeping California in the Union during the War Between the States.

In 1862 he helped open a branch of the Sanitary Fund, a prototypical Red Cross, in the City. By the end of that year, largely through Starr King's tireless efforts, $500,000 in gold had been raised for the Fund. Such was his devotion to the Union that he caused a U.S. flag to be flown in front of his church. His lectures, which he travelled as far away as Oregon to deliver, were renowned for their vituperative attacks on the Confederacy.

Thomas Starr King was variously described as eloquent, scholarly, pleasant, and humorless. Widely mourned in San Francisco, statues of him were erected posthumously in Golden Gate Park and in the Hall of Fame in Washington, DC, where he and Junipero Serra represent California.

Thomas Starr King's grave is on the west side of Franklin Street just north of its intersection with O'Farrell on the grounds of the First Unitarian Church. The white marble sarcophagus rests on a concrete slab. Next to the sarcophagus is a boulder bearing a California state plaque. This marker was dedicated April 24, 1960, by the California State Park Commission, the California Historical Society, and the First Unitarian Church of San Francisco.

In 2009 the statue of Starr King in the US Capitol Building was replaced by one of Ronald Reagan (a change which was objected to by some Californians!). Starr King’s statue in now located in the Civil War Memorial Grove in Capitol Park, Sacramento.