User:Furvus Leighart/sandbox

While Benjamin Franklin (B.F.) Hastings ancestors were from England, he was born and raised in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in 1812. As a young man he moved to Vicksburg, Mississippi, where he met and married Ann Caroline Baker, a native of Somersetshire, England, whose father was Amos Baker, Esquire.

In 1849, when Mr. Hastings heard of the discovery of gold in California, he made the trip through the Isthmus of Panama to Sacramento, where he promptly became engaged in the banking business... then, later in Virginia City, Nevada and in San Francisco.

In 1852 he brought his entire family to Sacramento. B.F. and his wife had 10 children in all, but not all survived to adulthood.

In 1851 a merchant, Wesley Merritt, built a store on 2nd and J Streets. Because it was built out of wood, it burnt down during the Great Conflagration of 1852. He rebuilt in 1853 and ran out money- then the sheriff seized the property and immediately sold it to Mr. Hastings for $1,500.

The B.F. Hastings Building in old Sacramento, still stands. This is where Hasting's bank was housed, along with many notable tenants over the years. Among some of these were Wells Fargo & Co. in the 1850s, the Alta California Telegraph Company and the California Supreme Court. Theodore Judah, the mastermind of the Trans-Continental Railroad had his office in the Hastings Building. The B.F. Hastings Building was also the western-most terminus of the Pony Express.

Mr. B.F. Hastings was an altruistically redoubtable banker, a man of excellent business ability and a respected community leader with unquestioned integrity.