Charles and Michael de Young,
Founders of The San Francisco Chronicle
1880

Charles De Young attempts to assassinate Reverend Issac Kalloch.
Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, September 13, 1879.

On August 23, 1879, ten days before the local election, one of the founders of The Chronicle, Charles de Young, fired two shots at point blank range into the body of The Reverend Issac Kalloch, the founder of the Metropolitan Baptist Church and a candidate for Mayor.

The De Youngs and Rev. Kalloch had been engaging in a running war of public insults for some months and the insults finally were directed at the late mother of the De Youngs and Rev. Kalloch’s father. This was too much. De Young took an enclosed horse drawn "hack" to the Metropolitan Church, waited outside for Kalloch and shot him in front of a crowd of Kalloch supporters.

Charles de Young was arrested and taken to jail and his brother was put in the same cell for his own safety. Kalloch lay in his temple near death for several days, but won the election and became San Francisco’s 18th Mayor.

Nine days after the shooting, De Young was released on bail under a charge of assault and promptly went to Mexico for a vacation, the start of a four month absence from San Francisco. Local authorities procrastinated for eight months without indicting De Young. Meanwhile, De Young had returned to San Francisco and prepared a scathing and greatly fabricated "biography" of Mayor Kalloch.

On April 23, 1880, Mayor Kalloch’s 28 year old son, Milton, was given an advance copy of the "biography." Milton got his gun, visited a number of taverns and then walked into the lobby of The Chronicle and killed Charles de Young. Many months later a jury acquitted Milton on grounds of self defense.