Rev. Albert Williams (1809-1893) was founder of San Francisco’s First Presbyterian Church. He resigned his pastorship October 8, 1854. This account of the sixth Great Fire comes from his book "A Pioneer Pastorate and Times..." published in 1879.

The fire following the 1906 earthquake was San Francisco’s seventh great fire, but the city avoided its eighth when the San Francisco Fire Department, together with volunteers manning a bucket brigade, kept the 1989 Marina Fire from jumping to surrounding blocks.

So frequent and periodical were these fires, that they came to be regarded in the light of permanent institutions. Fears of a recurrence of the dread evil, in view of the past, were not long in waiting for fulfilment. On the anniversary of the fire of the 4th of May, 1850, came another on the 4th of May, 1851, the fifth general fire. The city was appalled by these repeated calamities. And more, it began to be a confirmed conviction that they were not accidental, but incendiary. On the 22d of June, 1851, the sixth, and, happily the last general fire, and severest of all, occurred. The fact that the point of the beginning of this fire was in a locality quite destitute of water facilities, with other attending circumstances, left hardly a remaining doubt of its incendiary character.

To the congregation of the First Church in general, in the burning of its church edifice, and, in addition, to a large number of its individual members, many of whom lost their all in this fire, the event was deplorably ruinous. The fire began in a small frame house on Pacific street, between Stockton and Powell streets, in the rear of the church, on the same block on which it was situated. When first discovered, a bucket of water might have extinguished the fire, but the preventive was not at command, or timely efforts to apply it were neglected. The time was Sunday morning. At the first bell-ringing for the eleven o’clock service, looking out of my north study window, from my residence on California street, I saw a dark cloud of smoke rising from the region of the church. In anxious haste I left for the threatening scene. On Stockton street I met a friend, who reported the fire as already beyond control, and our church beyond the power of preservation. Very many of the congregation were on the way to the church service at the beginning of the fire. The choir had made special preparation for the music of that day. I reached the church in time to assist members of the congregation in saving the books, organ, and other moveable articles, and last of all, helped to detach the pulpit and bear it to a place of safety. Meanwhile the fire had begun its destructive work upon the west pulpit end of the building, and from the burning masses around had gained such power that in a few minutes the entire structure was enveloped in the consuming flames. The eastern Stockton street front, supporting the belfry, last gave way, and the bell loosened from its lofty height fell into the street and was broken in the fall. In so brief a space of time, the church for which we had waited so long, and in the use of which so much gratification had been derived, was entirely destroyed.