Can anyone here spell Varennes?

And the remarkable story of the young black journalist who was one of the street’s early residents.

Varennes Street is one of more than three dozen alleys, lanes and minor streets that criss-cross North Beach and Telegraph Hill, giving the neighborhood its labyrinthine, European atmosphere. Located above Grant Avenue, North Beach’s main drag, and below Kearny, Varennes is two blocks long, its first, flat block running between Green and Union and its second, hilly one between Union and Filbert. With Jasper Place, it’s the only minor byway in the neighborhood that is two blocks long.

Varennes Street is one of the older streets in the city. Its first block, what police call the “uniblock,” was initially called Lafayette Place, a name that first appears in the 1854 LeCount and Strong’s City Directory. And a name resembling Varennes first appears in the two city directories for 1856. But in the city’s early years, when street naming and other details of municipal governance were haphazard and spelling was a matter of individual choice, the city couldn’t even get the locations of the streets straight at first—and it took it 24 years more years to figure out how to spell Varennes.

The 1856 Colville’s City Directory lists a “Lafayette” as running north of Green Street and a “Varren” as running north of Union. However, the 1856 Harris, Bogardus and Labatt City Directory lists “Varrens Street” as running both blocks—then adds to the confusion by listing a “Lafayette Street” in exactly the same location. The 1858 Langley City Directory finally gets the locations right, with Lafayette the first block and Varennes the second, but it spells the latter “Varren.” By 1859, Langley had got the spelling of the second block almost up to Gallic correctness with “Varenne,” but in 1860 it lost its quasi-French mojo and reverted to “Varren.” It returned to “Varenne” in 1861, where it remained until 1880, when it at long last settled on “Varennes.”

Clearly chuffed after finally spelling Varennes correctly, the city changed the name of Lafayette Place to Varennes Street on March 3, 1905—just in time for both blocks to be destroyed by the great 1906 fire.

Despite being officially renamed, the first block of Varennes continued to be erroneously referred to as Lafayette Place for years. The Sanborn Insurance Map of 1913 still shows the first block as Lafayette. Both the Chronicle and the Examiner ran stories referring to Lafayette Place as late as 1909, with the Chronicle making that mistake as late as 1914. 

The earliest resident of either Varennes or Lafayette Place I’ve come across was a young man named Jonas H. Townsend, who in 1858 took up residence at #12 Lafayette. As serendipity would have it, Townsend was a remarkable and inspiring figure, whose life in San Francisco sheds a fascinating light on the early history of African-Americans in this city. He was also a seriously underpaid journalist, which not only makes me feel a deep personal connection to him, but provides a perfect segue into the paywall that is about to descend.

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