1880
- Joshua Abraham Norton (pictured) , self-declared " Emperor of these United States" and subsequently "Protector of Mexico", collapses and dies in front of Old St. Mary's Church while on his way to a lecture at the California Academy of Sciences
- Famed Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson honeymoons for 2 months at a played out mine on Mount Saint Helena in the northern San Francisco Bay Area, and writes a memoir about his travels in Napa Valley