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2 [upper right corner]

a precedent in the history of any Community.
Every religious Society in the city also has lost a
house of worship by fire, except the little band
of Colored people; and that, too, not very long after
each one had been enlarged or rebuilt. Never
was such a scene presented to the eye of one of
us before, as we saw on the morning of Nov. 3,
'52 [1852] – a city reduced to smoke & ashes, & not a
solitary church-edifice standing but the one
that stood hard by where we are, from whose
tower we behold the wide-spread ruin. Our
sister cities have suffered severely by con-
flagrations, but never one like Sacramento;
either in the destruction of Churches, or other
property.

And yet here is one fair city to-day [today],
the monument of the people's enterprise, the
wonder of the land. And here are the other
religious societies with comfortable places
of worship; the and here are we the longest