Black Fire: The True Story of the Original Tom Sawyer--and of the Mysterious Fires That Baptized Gold Rush-Era San Francisco

by Robert Graysmith

The first biography of the little-known real-life Tom Sawyer (who Mark Twain met during his brief tenure as a California newspaper reporter), told through a harrowing account of Sawyer's involvement in the hunt for a serial arsonist on the loose in mid-nineteenth century San Francisco.

   When 28-year-old San Francisco Daily Morning Call reporter Mark Twain met Tom Sawyer at San Francisco’s steam baths in 1863, he was seeking a subject for his first novel.  As Twain steamed, played cards, and drank beer with Sawyer (a Volunteer firefighter, Customs Inspector, and local hero responsible for having saved ninety lives at sea), he had second thoughts about Shirley Tempest, his proposed book about a local girl firefighter, and began to envision a novel of wider scope.  Twain learned that a dozen years earlier the eighteen-year-old New York-born Sawyer had been a “Torch Boy,” one of the young men who raced ahead of the volunteer firemen’s hand-drawn engines carrying torches to light the way, always aware that a single spark could reduce the all-wood city of San Francisco to ashes in an instant.  In fact, at that time, a mysterious serial arsonist known as “The Lightkeeper” was in the process of burning San Francisco to the ground six times in eighteen months – the most disastrous and costly series of fires ever experienced by any American metropolis.
 
   Drawing on deep archival sources such as actual San Francisco newspaper interviews with the original Tom Sawyer and the handwritten police depositions of the arrest of the Lightkeeper, bestselling author Robert Graysmith vividly portrays the gritty, corrupt, and violent world of Gold Rush-era San Francisco, terrorized by an arsonist and simultaneously overrun with gunfighters, gangs, hordes of gold prospectors, crooked politicians, and vigilantes.  By chronicling the story of how Sawyer took it upon himself to investigate, expose, and stop the arsonist,  Black Fire tells – for the first time – the true story of Sawyer’s remarkable life and illustrates why Twain would later feel compelled to name his iconic character after his San Francisco buddy when he wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Biography, True Crime, American

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

ROBERT GRAYSMITH is the New York Times Bestselling author and illustrator of Zodiac , Auto Focus , and Black Fire . He was the political cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle when the letters and cryptograms from the infamous Zodiac killer were opened in the morning editorial meetings. He lives in San Francisco where he continues to write and illustrate.



Graysmith's latest book Shooting Zodiac is now available in paperback!
As well as the beautiful new edition of The Sleeping Lady: The Trailside Murders Above the Golden Gate in paperback and Kindle!

Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Books-A-Million | Kobo | Apple Books | Google Play Books

Two films have been based on his books: Auto Focus and Zodiac. Graysmith is portrayed in the film Zodiac by Jake Gyllenhaal.

Also narrated by the author are the audiobooks Black Fire and Zodiac Unmasked .

Reviews

[Arianna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. I learned SO much about San Francisco's early days, and as that is already one of my favorite cities, that was fun and enlightening. I may have also liked the book because I might possibly maybe have a crush on a man who died in 1859. David Broderick was just my kind of guy! I adored how he was a working-man's man, but secretly read books, and that he was so gung-ho about firefighting and a strong abolitionist. So every time he was mentioned in the book, I am sure that added favor in my eyes.

However, aside from my silly crush, the story of San Francisco's fire brigades was legendary, and I'm glad it was told. I didn't even realize how great of a story it was! However, I did have several issues with the book. First, as many others have pointed out, the connection to Tom Sawyer feels like it was gimmicky, a ploy to get people to read this book, while the connection was tenuous at best. I did like the framing of the Twain/Sawyer story that surrounded the true meat of the book, but the book was by and large about San Francisco, NOT about Tom Sawyer. I have seen other reviews which were similarly upset about that point. It may have been what got me to read the book, so kudos to the author for playing that card well, but I was disappointed by how much it wasn't about Sawyer. It didn't NEED to be, though - the SF story was gold in and of itself! I was constantly relating these great anecdotes that I had picked up from the book, and amusing my friends and family endlessly with them. This is truly why I loved the book.

Another issue I had, though, was with the narrator. Usually I LOVE when the author reads his or her own book, because then I KNOW I am getting the true experience, as the author intended. Not in this case - the narration frustrated me to NO END. First, I was constantly thrown off by the way Graysmith would move to the next section or paragraph with no pause or transition of any sort, so I often found myself misled into believing that the next part was related to the previous! It was endlessly maddening. I was always rewinding to catch the transition (found not in inflection, only in words). (He also inflected on the wrong syllable more often than not, which also caused me great confusion.) Also, Graysmith had this unfortunate tendency towards sounding gleeful when he read about awful, tragic events. I understand that was his reading voice and how he presented the book, but it was unsettling and somewhat upsetting to hear how pleased he sounded at the death or maiming of this or that person. Definitely odd.

Still, despite the awful listening experience (and the misleading title), I STILL loved this book. So I had to give it 4 stars. I truly wanted this to belong in my "favorite books of all time" group, and there were points when I thought it might be, but it was more just a truly enjoyable story, and I am glad Graysmith researched and shared it. It is definitely a book I will be sharing anecdotes from for years to come.

[Deidre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Did you know that Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer was based on a real person? Sawyer is just one of the fascinating historical characters in Black Fire, a new book by Robert Graysmith that explores the rollicking world of San Francisco circa 1850 when an arsonist dubbed the Lightkeeper was on the loose in the quickly growing city. In the thick of it all was Tom Sawyer, volunteer firefighter, adventurer and sailor not from the South but from Brooklyn. Twain and Sawyer later played cards in the steam rooms of San Francisco.

The San Francisco of the early 1850s was a wild place, a boomtown of new building and new money. Volunteer firefighting came with its own set of rules and was more akin to a set of rival gangs than to today's unified force. Firefighters had luxury lodgings with billiard rooms and parlors. They were not paid but they attended lavish events in town and were generally the kings of the city. And they had a lot of work. the city burned repeatedly and was quickly rebuilt over and over with startling speed.

The book is full of small details such as the fact that merchants would hammer down bottles into the perpetually muddy streets to create small glassy steps. Graysmith has a cinematic touch when describing the chaos, danger, and fury of a city fire. He compares falling ash to the flakes of a pepper mill, chronicles "glittering rivers" of gold and silver and the "rainbow lakes of glass, once the windows of happy homes." He takes some of the license Twain did, using his own imagination to add to the vividness of the moment. Like Twain, Graysmith uses Sawyer as a lens through which to view a particular way of life. But Graysmith has another trick up his sleeve, he was once a political cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle and his own ink drawings add even more personality to this fascinating tale.

Oddly enough it's the sections of the book that deal with Twain that are actually the least interesting. It's hard for the story of a writer's life, even that of an American treasure like good old Samuel Clemens. to measure up to the firefighters' derring-do. A writer's struggles with finding a subject for a novel are not nearly as exciting as a battling a city ablaze.

There's a certain pleasure to learning the history of the place where you live and that shines through in the author's portrayal of the San Francisco of yesteryear. For any reader who has ever spent anytime in that city, it is a treat to imagine California, Kearney, Stockton, Clay, and other well-travelled streets in their muddy and plank-clad infancy.

[Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

The part of the book that takes place in old San Francisco was interesting. Today it is a modern behemoth

[Sarah - All The Book Blog Names Are Taken · Rating 2 out of 5]

Normally I love city biographies and San Francisco is one of my favorite cities in the US, but this book just does not work. There are some really interesting pieces of information but there’s also a lot of filler and there were points where I was just skimming because there was no point in reading every single word.

The adventures of Tom Sawyer was one of my favorite books as a child and I never knew he was a real person. That aspect was also interesting but trying to connect Mark Twain and the San Francisco fires through Tom Sawyer was clunky and awkward.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tom Sawyer was real, and Mark Twain thought he was a great guy.

Buy this book for your grandpa !!!!!! This was the most grandpa thing I've read in a while. Seriously, what should you get your grandpa for Christmas? This book.

We start off with a naked Mark Twain in the Turkish baths in San Francisco, spinning a yarn with Tom Sawyer and some other interchangeable old-timey fellows who come and go, as they did, in early San Francisco. But flashback to an even earlier San Francisco, 1851, and Mark Twain won't even be here for another two thirds of the book. This is a book about Tom Sawyer, torch boy, and the crazy ways of the American West, and the utter, bloodyminded refusal of forefathers to do things differently despite overwhelming evidence that they should change things. And there's an arsonist.

Remember that scene in Gangs of New York where the firefighters fought each other? Tom Sawyer started out there, where the profits from saving a building would be distributed to the fire company who did the putting out, but Tom Sawyer followed his fire chief (a man who's name I forgot because I listened to the audiobook and all the names blurred together) to San Francisco in '49 or '50 because GOLD! But they both stayed in the general San Francisco area and helped found one of the first fire companies in San Francisco after the first great fire that ripped through the wood and canvas buildings. Fire companies were a sort of social volunteer effort that involved building the best fire house, because you wanted to keep your volunteers in the house for as much time as possible, so that they would be ready for the next fire. The firemen were there to socialize, carouse, relax, enjoy homosocial male bonding, network, and brawl. Tom Sawyer was a torch boy. Fire engines were big, heavy, hand drawn, maybe because you needed sixty men to work the pumps, and without a good way to have horses pump, the men might as well pull the engine too? Torch boys ran in front of the engines, lighting the night black streets that were littered with all manner of crap, mud, sinkholes, dead horses, brand new random buildings, and everything else that was lying in the streets of boomtown San Francisco. The descriptions of San Francisco are incredible. Urban grid to maximize profit by ignoring the hills meant buildings in weird places on hills sliding down the hills, sinking into the mud, and the ghost fleet of ships abandoned by men who sailed to San Francisco and left their ships to search for gold was its own little town on the water, while wood was scarce in the hills and the buildings were made of canvas. By the second time the whole city went up in flames, some residents were calling for building regulations and stone so that this didn't happen again, while most citizens were thrilled that their houses, shops, and hotels could be rebuilt in less than a few weeks with more flammable materials for copious amounts of money. Meanwhile, Tom Sawyer wondered who the arsonist was.

Mark Twain shows up in the last third to hang around running from his creditors and enjoying the highlife and starting to fuck around with novel writing. He's a great character, of course, but this is mostly about Tom Sawyer and the rootin'-tootin' days of early San Francisco. Loved it.

One local San Francisco man was shot five different times by three different people in the span of a week. This is the West.

[Chris · Rating 1 out of 5]

Rambling, scattered and contradictory, it read like the worst of 19th century American writing. Based around two semi related events (there were a series of fires in San Francisco and one of the hundreds of firefighters involved was named Tom Sawyer. Mark Twain spent a few months drinking with Tom Sawyer more than a decade afterward and recycled his name in the famous novel) Greysmith tried to build a coherent book around it. It takes every outrageous claim at face value, and never critically looks at any of the problems involved in San Francisco firefighting. We are supposed to be uncritical boosters for the fire departments, never mind they often seem more concerned with fighting one another than the actual fires. We are constantly given details of what various characters are thinking and doing with the whole thing bordering on historical fiction, hung on a vague framework that seems to be the novelization of some letters and interviews. There’s some interesting material buried in here, but it takes far too much effort to find it.

[Thomas Rankin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found Black Fire to be engaging, well-written, well-organized and well-illustrated. Graysmith also uses what, to me, seems a unique and intriguing and approach to his subject: Although the subtitle refers to "the Original Tom Sawyer" – a San Francisco firefighter who claimed that Mark Twain's classic character was named for him – Mark Twain himself does not enter prominently into the narrative until the second half of the book. First comes an account of "the original" Sawyer's adventures as a young "torch boy" lighting the way for fire companies, and later as a fullgrown fireman. Anyone in either job faced potentially lethal risks, for, during Sawyer's active years in the mid-nineteenth century, San Francisco was beset by a series of devastating fires, several of them the work of arsonists. Graysmith vividly portrays these conflagrations and elucidates then-current firefighting techniques.

But Sawyer is not the exclusive focus in the first half of Black Fire. Instead, Graysmith pulls back from him to give us a panoramic view of The City in the 1850s and 1860s – its mix of immigrants, its rampant crime, its often corrupt politics, the ferocious competition among firefighting companies, and more. This was the turbulent milieu that greeted young Mark Twain when he arrived in search of a subject for his first novel.

According to Graysmith, the scope of Mark Twain's idea for a first novel broadened once he learned of Sawyer's background. And in later life Sawyer asserted repeatedly that Mark Twain had told him, "I am going to put you between the covers of a book some of these days, Tom." While granting that Twain never denied Sawyer's claim, some critics today doubt that this claim has been proved. In fact, current scholarship maintains that the fictional character is based on Mark Twain himself, along with boyhood friends in Missouri.

But, like the fictional character, San Francisco's Tom Sawyer was a detective, helping to track down the arsonists responsible for six deadly fires. And what could have inspired at least the use of his name in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is the spirit of Tom Sawyer the firefighter – his youthful bravery, his tenacity in just staying alive while he fought heroically against the blazes that threatened San Francisco's existence.

[Danger Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't say enough great things about this book. It transported me to the birth of this city that I love. To a time when men ate bear steaks, when fire fighters fought each other as much as they fought fires. When the streets were death traps of mud and sand, and when torch bearing boys were needed to light a path to blazing buildings. It's a time that is mythical to our modern era. When arsonists torched buildings daily just to loot and rob, or to deplete surplus commodities and drive up prices. When the best form of communication was ringing a bell in different rhythms, to let fire houses know which district had a fire. It told in great detail the six fires San Francisco suffered in two years. Horrible disasters when I can even image living through one.

I went in looking for great tales of San Francisco and it delivered. It also embarrassed me that at the age of 31 and living in the Bay Area for all of the, that I did not know what happened on my own back yard. I had no idea that Tom Sawyer was a real man, who lived and had a saloon where the SF Chronicle building stands today. Hell I didn't know that Mark Twain had the number of adventures in his twenties in SF. I also learned more about Lillie Hitchcock Coit, and why she is forever associated with fire fighters. Not just because a land mark is named after her.

If you enjoy history or learning about San Francisco I highly recommend this book. I already know it's going to be my Christmas present for most of my friends.

[Pamela Mclaren · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not sure what it was about this book except that I never really got involved in the story. It always felt disjointed. It starts with Mark Twain playing cards with Tom Sawyer, a real life volunteer fireman in 1850s San Francisco, then basically goes totally away from the two characters to tell the story of the development of volunteer firefighters in the city and the arsonist that set numerous fires to the ramshackle town. Two many characters, two many different stories told and then when the last mysterious fire is out and a professional fire department is created, the two builds up again, this time with brick and better roads, the story goes back to Twain and Sawyer. I just didn't really get into the history, the people or the idea that Sawyer truly inspired Twain in the creation of his books.

[Jack Peltier · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would honestly give this book 2.5/5. For a piece of non-fiction regarding the true story of Tom Sawyer, I thought this book was somewhat convoluted. The book certainly did go into the story of Samuel Clemens' (Mark Twain's) development of the character Tom Sawyer who was based on a rascally firefighter by the same name in San Francisco's infancy. However, this story of such a famous character's development seemed like almost an afterthought. It's misleading that "the Original Tom Sawyer" appears so early in the title of this book because, at times, he felt like more of an afterthought. If you want a book that does a decent job in describing the history of how San Francisco almost didn't survive, I would recommend it to you.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked it much more than I anticipated! It's primarily about the fires that destroyed San Francisco and the fire fighters that worked to stop them (they helped but not enough---I mean the city burned down about 3 times over the course of I think 2 years). Tom Sawyer is one of the fire fighters (hence the real Tom Sawyer). There isn't too much of Mark Twain in it, but I think that isn't too bad since I really does focus on the fire fighters. Very good book.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

A LOT of primary source information about fire fighting in early San Francisco. Not so much about Tom Sawyer except the name. Interesting look at a tent city laid out in an unyielding grid over hilly terrain and a harbor full of abandoned "ghost ships" whose crews have fled to the gold fields.

[Alicia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really interesting and completely unreadable at the same time. A hard book to stick with (I gave up) - every 20 pages or so you find some truly fascinating fact about 1850s San Francisco, but the rest is a complete hodgepodge with a narrative structure that just doesn't work.

[Cindy B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edifying romp thru early San Francisco loosely following the real friendship of Mark Twain & Tom Sawyer. Loved the historical info on the city & it's fire department- enjoyable, well written & researched, only drawback is it's not a series. Will read author again. Highly recommended for all ages!

[Susbp · Rating 1 out of 5]

So very difficult to read...there was some interesting information buried within the book...surely there is a better written book out there regarding this period of history in San Francisco!

[Linda Chrisman · Rating 4 out of 5]

OA really interesting book more about the wild and wicked old San Francisco and the ruffians that started terrible fires so they could steal everything they could lay their hands on. It tells if the fabulous volunteer fireman, who started as heroes of the city and end their lives in failure and drink. It was an incredibly wild place, the city somehow surviving massive arson fires again and again. Samuel Clements, fresh from Virginia City. After being thrown out of town, he meets the original Tom Sawyer, a real hero and volunteer fireman. San Francisco is where Samuel Clements turned into the writer Mark Twain. I had no idea that he was mentored by Brett Harte. A book full of terrible fires, murders, city corruption. Truly amazing that anyone survived to tell the tales!

[Kyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gold Rush-era San Francisco is a wildly fascinating setting, and I thoroughly enjoyed the details surrounding the arson epidemic/manhunt, the state of firefighting at that time, and especially the engineering considerations that go into managing cities that repeatedly spring up literally overnight.

That said, this book was probably twice as long as it should have been, and the connection to Mark Twain felt forced. A shorter and more organized narrative would have highlighted the gems that are here, because Graysmith's writing was wonderfully cinematic and easy to read at its best. My favorite passage:

"A warm wind swept in from the bay - the so-called Lightkeeper's Wind as Sawyer had named it and which could be considered a trade wind, if the trade was arson."

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although this book is featured as being about the real Tom Sawyer, a lot of the content is actually about San Francisco's volunteer fire department in the early 1850-60's. It is filled with beautiful illustrations and I was amazed at how much I learned about the city's history. I found myself putting post-its on pages throughout the book with the idea that I would come back and research the new information later. It was so interesting to learn that Tom Sawyer, a fireman, was great friends with Mark Twain and inspired the book of his name. Just loved reading this book and filled in so many historical facts for me.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this book contains interesting historical information, it reads as though it were organized by the city planner of San Francisco circa 1849. Chapters meander in every direction, connections are tenuous at best, and by the end I felt less like a reader and more like a bewildered newcomer trying to locate a specific tent somewhere between the waterfront and a gambling hall. .

[Andrew Edgecomb · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overly detailed and kind of boring. I kept waiting for something interesting to happen but I was listening to the audiobook and would lose focus so often because it was so dull I missed a bit but never seemed to be anything of note

[Artie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A low 4. It's a fascinating tale of a little known historical episode but the writing is a bit awkward and it could use better editing.

[Laura Blevins · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is hard to get started but if you give it a chance it's very good.

[Russell Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well researched and, while not riveting, a very solid+enjoyable read.

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is not a biography of Thomas Sawyer. In fact, there is a disappointing amount of information in the book about him. It is mainly a tedious dialogue about the San Francisco fires.

[Maggie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked the history of this book, I told a lot of people about it. It’s fun reading about the people the streets are named after and about how it was in SF in 1850s.

[Dana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Frisco of today is a modern behemoth, so it’s interesting to read about it as a frontier town struggling for survival. The firebug almost becomes a side story.

[Kwomack · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing novel combining real history and fictional embellishments. Some thick going at times, but definitely worth it.

[David Becker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hell of a page-turner about crazily competitive and desperate world of firefighting in Gold Rush-era San Francisco, centered on the real-life inspiration for Tom Sawyer.

[Tyler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edit: March 2019
Now I've read this a few times. I had to go back as I knew I missed a lot on the first read.
I have a feeling this guy has scared off a few editors. In his bookTV video for this book he says he had turned in something like 10,000 words and this represents a massively cut down version. I think that speaks to a herculean task of the editor to have this as readable as it was. I love his enthusiasm for the subject and it shows in the book. Difficult to adjust to his style but I recommend sticking with it till you get his rhythm.

I think I had Stockholm Syndrome with this book. Something about the writing style of the author made it incredibly slow going for me even though I wasn't really bored with what I was reading. The amount of detail here is pretty incredible and there are story threads in here. It is kind of like reading an encyclopedia but not that tedious. I can't put my finger on it. I compare this book to Rothstein: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series, Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York and the Herbet Ashby books. Tellingly this and Rothestein are the only books I was able to make it through. I only trudged through this because it was just 250pages. Longest 3 weeks of reading in my life. But as I say that I started to appreciate it. I can only think its Stockholm Syndrome or ownership bias just because I finished the damn thing. I think I'll read it again soon so I don't forget.

[Spiros · Rating 3 out of 5]

In a period of 18 months, ending in June 1851, the boom town of San Francisco was burned down six times. All six conflagrations were started by arsonists, most likely members of the City's community of Australian ticket of leave men, the Sydney Ducks. A dozen volunteer fire departments, mostly staffed by brawling, larger than life thugs, sprang up to combat the flames (when they weren't too busy battling each of the other companies). Amongst their number was a young Brooklynite named Tom Sawyer. A dozen years after the arson stopped, Samuel Langhorn Clemens met Sawyer, and was captivated by his recollections.
Surely, this story is absolutely in my happy-zone; it has everything I could hope for in a history: I would have expected to have torn through this 250 page book in a couple of days. The problem is, as an author, Graysmith is a very good cartoonist; the book is lavishly illustrated, but the prose is very muddled. Some passages took six or seven readings for me to ascertain exactly what was supposed to be going on, and many anecdotes start at the end, wander around through various stages of incident, and arrive at the beginning. I carefully scanned the "Acknowledgements", and found no reference to an editor; passages like this, set at Ocean Beach, "Standing ankle deep in the surf, he studied the wide expanse of the bay" (and an earlier mention of a firehouse set on the south side of Kearney Street), made me wonder whether Graysmith had read his own book.