“Artisanal” Asylum in the Lower HaightNew

The first building on Haight was locally-sourced. It was constructed by local artisans of stones quarried from the Lower Haight ridge. The stones were donated by the Spring Valley Water Works, owners of Mint Hill, where they eventually made a reservoir. The Protestant Orphan Asylum moved in before Haight Street was finalized. Haight Street got its name from this institution—or to be more exact, one of its managers, Weltha Haight.

Weltha worked there for 45 years, then penned a pamphlet about its early years in which she mentions that “out of consideration of the work done,” two streets were named for “two of the managers”. In her modesty, she left out for whom. Weltha described overgrown paths as the only access in the early days. “The property was considered remote…. For a purchase price of $100, a two block lot bounded by Haight, Buchanan, Hermann and Laguna Streets became the new site…” (FoundSF.org)

The name Elizabeth Waller might have a familiar sound. Waller was the other manager honored with a street and one of the asylum’s founders.

For generations, the assumption was that Haight Street was named for a man: not for the man who years later became State Governor Henry Haight, but for his uncle, a banker named Henry Welles Haight who married Weltha Ann Buell. This error is still doctrinal in many records. Edit Wikipedia, anyone?

Long unchallenged, this assumption had “become true.” Research by a lifelong local, Angus MacFarlane, has unearthed this correction. To complicate the story, MacFarlane found that an earlier proposal marked what is today’s Page Street as “Haight Street” in 1850. At the time, Weltha’s brother-in-law Samuel Haight was established in the city, making him the most likely reference at that time.

Some man named Haight may have been the namesake for other Bay Area institutions, but not Haight Street!

In 2019, Haight Elementary School in Alameda changed its name to Love! This was based on the conclusion that the school was named for the problematic guy who became governor in 1867.

Governor Haight was public about his racism, even in his inaugural address. He said Asian Americans and African Americans should be barred from voting.

Ashbury Street was named for Uncle Henry’s business partner Monroe Ashbury. That fact is thin evidence for claiming Haight was named for Henry, but it’s all they had. And clearly wrong, since the naming of Ashbury Street was later: Stanyan, Shrader, Cole, Clayton, and Ashbury, the first five streets east from Golden Gate Park, were named by the members of the Outside Lands committee…after themselves! Nothing modest there. The committee established the legal foundations and boundaries creating the park.

You’ve read here, last month, that the Outside Lands were the “sandy wastes” beyond the city line which was near Devisidero.

Photograph: The Asylum in 1866 as viewed from Hermann and Buchanan, by Lawrence & Houseworth. Source: OpenSFHistory / wnp37.00640, detail as reproduced in the October print edition.