SPOILERS BELOW - SPOILERS BELOW
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Friday, September
10
A few research
gaps are filled:
The Hobo signs found around the hill are
warnings not to proceed and that the place is dangerous.
Nov. 05 –
1912 – Article in the Call
Family Wiped Out By Freakish
Mishaps
A series of freak accidents have nearly wiped out the LeClerque
family at 113 Flint Street.
Last night Mr. and Mrs. LeClerque died in what appears to have been a
fall, down the cellar stairs onto a heap of gardening tools
and lumber. As bizarre as it sounds, the incident is not being considered a
result of foul play, according to
Captain Reeves of the Homicide Squad.
At approximately the same time the three LeClerque children, none of
them over nine years of age, plunged to the ground, apparently from the roof of
the house. All of the children sustained grievous injuries but none of them can
explain why they were on the roof in the
middle of the night. Doctors at the City Hospital report that the children, are
in as poor a state mentally as they are physically and that they will more than
likely be sent to the State Asylum.
Earlier in the year a visiting relative suffered a midnight fall from an
upstairs window, possibly as a result of sleepwalking. We have been unable to
contact this survivor of an earlier incident.
The LeClerques are said by neighbors to have been a perfectly ordinary
family, having dwelt in the house on Flint Street almost without incident since
1908.
Background
on the Chapel of Contemplation included lists of members – mostly socially
prominent San Franciscans – and listings of the Church from the 1860s through
1914. The list included Drood (died 1901). The original location was on the
site of the WHH Ship’s Chandlery – (Which the Investigators recall was the
location where the Homonculous of their previous adventure originated) -, with
the later location – from 1873 – 1914 on 22nd Street near Castro.
Josiah
Parsons was the “Pastor” from 1860 – 1899 when he died.
His
son Gilbert took over in 1899
A
number of newspaper articles attest to the high standing in the community of
Chapel members.
1890 - Josiah Parsons, pastor of the Chapel of
Contemplation, has donated funds for the new City Opera Company.
1903 - Jethro Cantrill, local business magnate and
member of the Chapel of Contemplation, hosts magnificent gala at the Egyptian
Museum in Golden Gate Park.
1906 - Bradford Williams, owner of H.W.W. Chandlery
and member of the Chapel of Contemplation has contributed another hundred
thousand dollars to the relief fund for displaced victims of the Earthquake and
Fire.
The
search for information on the Chapel brought up one obviously significant
article which would appear to show why the Chapel no longer appears in the
Registry of Churches.
TRAGEDY
IN NOE VALLEY Thursday, February 3, 1914
Last night
in San Francisco, fire struck a number of our cities leading citizens at their
place of Christian worship.
This tragedy
took place on a cul-de-sac at the end of
22nd Street, just west of Castro. The location is, or rather was, the Chapel of
Contemplation, an institution in this city since Gold Rush Days. The sound of an explosion and what was
believed to be gunfire aroused the neighborhood to what they at first believed
was a police raid on anarchists or gangsters.
This impression was supported, at first, by the fact that a number of
policemen and detectives were found to be already upon the scene. The presence of the policemen seems to have
been purely a matter of good fortune and the lawmen acquitted themselves
heroically, pulling several dazed and injured victims from the blazing
building.
Police
Captain Conal O’Donough of the Homicide Squad and his men had been patrolling
the neighborhood in accordance with Chief White’s new “prowl-car” tactic for
dealing with the recent upsurge in criminal activity. The Captain himself happened to be riding
along on this particular evening, in the company of Police Commissioner Cook,
to demonstrate the new program. This bit
of luck is credited with the salvation of a dozen persons, who might otherwise
have perished.
In very
short order, representatives of the gas company also arrived, and when the fire department reached the
scene, they were ordered to contain the blaze rather than attempting to enter
the structure as the cause of the initial explosions, erroneously reported as
gunfire, was, in fact, a gas explosion, or rather a series of gas explosions.
Saved from the
Inferno:
Eric Ralston,
socially prominent son of William Ralston, co-founder of the Palace Hotel.
Algernon Hayward, heir to the Hayward Silver Legacy.
Wyndom Schank, prominent mining engineer.
Bradford Williams, son of Herbert Warren Williams,
owner of H.W.W. Chandlery.
John Ramsdale, cousin to M.H. de Young.
Mortimer Grandry, owner of the San Francisco
Bulletin.
Jethro Cantrill, the department store millionaire
Woodrow Van Sant, socialite and supporter of the
Ballet.
Believed to have
Perished:
The city must now mourn the loss of such local
patrons of the arts as Gilbert Parsons, Manning Caulfield and Reginald
Spode. A full enumeration of those lost
in this tragedy must await confirmation of the identities of numerous victims
burned beyond recognition.
It is, however, certain that among the dead are two
local runaway children, who have been discovered to have secreted themselves in
the basement of the Chapel. The
children, so tragically lost, are Rose Macklin, aged 11, and Peter Quist, aged
9.
The Investigators
visit the asylum…
At the
asylum, their visit made easy by Dr. Marsh, with his medical standing and high
credit rating, the raving Macarios are briefly interviewed… Little can be
learned.
Augustus Weaver, the “gibbering tramp” who
had been mentioned earlier, has been engaging in… “writing behavior” and has
been largely unresponsive to what little treatment he has received. He is,
however, quiet now and only lightly medicated.
When he was first brought in to the City
Hospital in San Francisco (March 25, 1920), Weaver was almost nude, his
remaining clothing in rags and he was covered with a lot of small abrasions and
contusions, as though he had rolled down a slope of jagged rocks. There was
also more blood on him than his injuries seemed to account for, but Police
found no sign of anyone else having been injured.
Weaver is a little red-haired man with a lot
of minor and well healed scars visible on face and hands. He sat at a table, staring off into the
distance while writing on sheets of paper, of which many are already filled
with… This sort of thing:
In the night he came.
His eyes like windows on Hell.
I felt the fire in my brain and when I awoke…
There fell upon me a rain of
stones and gravel…
I saw the eyes of beasts circling me and then saw them rent asunder.
Their blood anointed me.
I was made to do a foul thing and lost myself.
Variations of this repeat.
I drank the blood. I ate the squealing vermin. I did it at HIS pleasure.
His red eyes burnt into me and a hail of stone was upon me.
His faceless eyes glowed upon me and there was blood and it was black in
the moonlight.
HIS will was overpowering me in the moonlight and his eyes flamed a red
judgement upon my weak soul. I did what he told me.
Mr. Weaver
was only able to answer a couple of questions before becoming incoherent. It
seems that he was aware that the hill was supposed to be a bad place, haunted
in fact. But Mr. Weaver didn’t believe in that sort of thing…
Hastening
back to the city, the Investigators decided to stop off at the old location of
the Chapel of Contemplation on 22nd near Castro – Not far from the
Drood House.
The Chapel
location is a raised foundation with steps leading up to a board fence with “No
Trespassing” signs. There is an alley which leads around back a partially
asphalted parking area. The Investigators easily entered around the back,
scrambling over a pile of broken masonry. As they did so Sara and Tom were
aware of a nagging, itching sensation in their heads… A sensation behind the
eyes. Not painful or terribly distracting but absolutely linked to the proximity
of a symbol painted, neatly, upon a flat face of broken stone. Not very new,
but probably not a few months old. The Doctor discovered that scratching away a
bit of the symbol made the sensation go away…
The interior
of the ruin was largely demolished, with the stubs of pillars and a few feet of
wall; all the debris remaining, piled at the back. Signs of fire were apparent.
There was a stairway leading down, from which the Investigators pried a sheet
of plywood.
Below, the
basement level as more intact, fire scarred and with more debris at the rear
where the floor above seems to have collapsed. In the large room that made up
most of the area there was a section of bare stone, scraped but unaffected by
fire, which was guessed to have been the site of an altar – no longer present.
At the front
of the basement, beyond a doorway, from which the door appeared to have been
removed, were three small rooms.
·
A
ten foot square with no floor, dropping sheerly another ten feet down to what
looked a bit like a dungeon… Staples in the walls suggestive of points where manacles
might have hung. On one wall was a large (easily four feet across) version of
the strange symbol, cut into the wall… And broken, as by deliberate blows of a
sledgehammer. No sensation is associated with this symbol.
·
An
eight by ten foot room with another set of symbols caved on the wall in a
circle easily seven feet in diameter. These symbols are similar to some found
in the “Homonculous” text, which Sara was unable to recognize. – This room also
contains the entrance to a strong-room or safe, the door of which seems to have
been removed with some considerable work. The strong-room contains broken
wooden shelving… Possibly bookshelves… and is the only room to show no sign of
fire.
·
A
bare room.
There are no
furnishings or other artifacts to be seen.
Noe Valley Neighbors
Across
the alley> Mrs. Almira Stamos runs a boarding house for young ladies.
The
middle aged lady dresses primly but is businesslike and susceptible to Dr.
Marsh, before he even tries to be charming…
The
Chapel had been there for 40-50 years. Before I was in the neighborhood. Some
people didn’t like the sound of their bell – it was a bit odd sounding, but it
didn’t sound often like a regular church bell would. That would have been
annoying.
She
remembers the whole thing. “Captain O’Donough was here with a young officer to
reassure the ladies and to ask a few questions… About comings and goings at the
Chapel. I suppose they were still trying to discover who might be missing…”
“Oh,
and those two children. Little Rose and Peter… They had gone missing the week
before – Over by Mission Dolores… It was in the papers. They thought that the
children had run away. The father was said to be a most dissolute drunkard.”
Then
the next week a priest who was a chaplain to the police department came around
– Can’t recall his name – with a K and German, but very nice and gentle. He
just wanted to talk to everyone about what had happened. To reassure us that
everything was being done for the survivors and that the cause had been
accidental. There was some talk – I recall at the time thinking I had heard
shots, but the Father explained that the Chapel had used old gas fixtures and
there had been a series of explosions and the terrible fire.
He
told us that masses were said for the children and their mother was being cared
for.
There
were so many funerals in that week. Five or six of those wealthy Chapel folk…
One, a newspaper owner, died the next day… And the two children… And the three
policemen who died that night in a car crash…
She
believes a big foreign man – Mexican? – who used to work at the chapel, comes
occasionally to leave flower perhaps. Not just recently – A couple of months
ago…
James
Nichols, A plump and jovial little man - a librarian who lives behind the
Chapel recalls the events similarly. Right down to the police Captain and the
priest – “Peter Kolvenbach – something of an academic. He was the police
chaplain but he held some position at the University – St. Ignatious College –
University of San Francisco”. He recalls the bell sounding the evening of the
fire as it did Oct 31 Mayday and the end of August.
He
remembers that in the weeks that followed there was a lot of demolition at the
ruined Chapel. Department of Public Works was involved – “Something to do with
the gas explosions. There were trucks in - removing tons… tons of stone. Father
Kolvenbach was there often during that time. Perhaps there were some sort of
religious relics to be salvaged… Although none of the Chapel members returned
there again.”
Approaching the Drood House in the late afternoon the
Investigators decide to stop and speak with the old lady at the pink cottage on
the corner.
On
the corner is the house of Anna Rosenberg. – An elderly Jewish widow. Her son,
Abe was seen by the Investigators leaving the house yesterday, when they passed.
(He is a veterinarian, mostly caring for horses)
14
years ago the Great Earthquake hit (She remembers the earthquake that occurred at 7:53 a.m. on October 21,
1868. – when she was 14. She lived in Oakland at that time.) and after that
there was the Rock Hill Camp.
She and her husband – dead now, these ten
years - and the children (All moved away but Abe) helped out and put up some
people in the house. There were some families – the city put them up in the
Drood House. And temporary< “earthquake shacks” were built.
“That camp
was trouble. I don’t mean that the people were bad. Those I knew were decent
folks, but there was trouble anyway. Always someone screaming in the night.
People left, abandoning all their possessions that they had saved from the
fire. It must have happened half a dozen times in the year the camp was open.
And there were deaths. Two suicides I know of and one man fell down the
hillside – across the street… Those houses weren’t there yet… And another young
man, a tramp, but a nice young man who’d work when he could. – He was found
dead in one of the earthquake shacks they hadn’t yet moved or torn down… I
don’t know what happened to him.”
“The
police officers who patrolled up here around the hill used to find quite a few
men living in the buildings up the hill (presumably the “Old Brick Works”) or
the earthquake shacks – later on. Joseph Hartnell, - He’s a sergeant now -used
to come in for a cup of coffee and bring his younger partner along when they
passed by. They’d say how they worried about us up here there being more than
the average number of tramps turning up raving drunk or being found dead… But
that sort of thing stopped. I haven’t seen any of those unfortunate men about
on the hill. It’s been a few years now and just the one… The one the papers
called “The Gibbering Tramp”
“And
then there were all the things happening at the Drood House. The Hull Family
running off in 1905 and the horrible accident with the French people… In 1912…
And during the Exposition there were several people who rented the house for a
month or two. I didn’t get to know any of them but there was trouble then too.
I recall lights on at all hours, and one family drove off in the middle of the
night, leaving the front door open.”
“When
Sidney bought this house, back in ’97, Old Mr. Drood was still alive. I believe
that Sidney got the house at a very good price as the former owner had simply
wanted to get away. I believe he had bad experiences with Mr. Drood. I spoke
with a lady who used to live across the street – she died a few years ago – and
she said that Mr. Drood used to be a terror. There were fences with spikes on
them and armed guards, at times and he was supposed to have had bonfires up on
the hillside some nights of the year… including Halloween. There was a boy
killed for trespassing at some point.”
“Anyway,
by the time we moved in, the worst problem was the big brick factory down the
street. I think Mr. Drood had sold most of the hill to the Gray brothers and…
--- Big wagons in and out, gangs of workmen coming and going…And sooty smoke. People
living below the factory and quarrying had plenty of trouble from them, what
with landslides and all.
She
knows the old Mexican man and his son who live down the street used to work for
Drood…
The
Investigators decide not to enter the Drood house this late in the day…
