ABSTRACT
"Our city is overshadowed by gloom," wrote Sacramento physician Gregory J. Phelan as he related the tragedy to readers of the New York Freeman. Phelan related: All the dead were buried in the City Cemetery. The legislature adjourned to attend the funeral and more than three thousand marched to the Sacramento city cemetery. Among the mourners were certainly those who had no particular religious affiliation at all, and the state of their minds would not find its way into any denominational journal dedicated to reporting on the state of religion in the West. The rise of anti-Catholic Know Nothingism in California between 1854 and 1856, although somewhat altered from its manifestation elsewhere, was felt in the emerging urban politics of San Francisco. Los Angeles's population grew steadily from 1,610 in 1850 to 5,738 in 1870, with most of the increase coming from an influx of American settlers.
