There was a time in early California, before California became a state, that if a man wasn’t a member of one or more secret organizations then his business would fail, or his family would be scorned and he would be fired when he got sick. Whether you were well-to-do or a drudge with an axe or shovel, you would be invited to join the Freemasons, the Elks, the Oddfellows, the Knights of Columbus, the Order of Rechabites, the Order of Free Gardeners, the Order of E Clampus Vitus, or any number of other secret societies that are mostly secret even today. In San Francisco, meeting rooms above saloons were so booked that some establishments allowed so-called dual use, where two secret organizations performed their rites on different sides of the same room at the same time. In 1856, by some estimates, whereas San Francisco had a population of about 35 thousand men, the membership of secret societies exceeded 55 thousand. Obviously, many members were counted more than once.
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