A Sketch of the Causes, Operations and Results of the San Francisco Vigilance Committee in 1856

Stephen Palfrey Webb (1804-1879) was Mayor of Salem, Massachusetts for two nonconsecutive terms (1842-1845, 1860-1862) and Mayor of San Francisco (1854-1855). After finishing law school, he practiced law in Salem. Afterwards, he served in the Massachusetts State Legislature, first as a Representative and then as a Senator. He was then elected Salem's mayor, serving three years in his first term in that office. He moved in to San Francisco in approximately 1853 where, while serving as that city's mayor, witnessed the violent mobs that ran through the city following the Gold Rush. He would prepare a report about these mobs (known as vigilance committees) in 1874 which was published as A Sketch of the Causes, Operations and Results of the San Francisco Vigilance Committee in 1856. After returning to Salem, he would be elected to his final term as that city's mayor. He also served as city clerk from 1863 to 1870. He died there in 1879.