…Or, more to be more precise, what was the biggest cathedral in San Francisco, around the year 1870?
Thanks for your patience,
Ranchoth
I strongly suspect it would be Old St. Mary’s Cathedral.
A second St. Mary’s Cathedral was built on Van Ness Avenue in 1891, but this structure was destroyed by fire in 1962. This was probably bigger than the first (“Old”) St. Mary’s, and survived the 1906 Earthquake, but was not there in 1870.
The current Catholic cathedral in SF is also called St. Mary’s, and is much bigger, but was completed in 1970.
The Episcopalian Grace Church, was
Thus, by the OP’s date of 1870, it wasn’t called a “Cathedral” as such. One of its rectors was the Reverend James S. Bush, great-great-grandfather of the current US President.
(Grace Church was destroyed in the fire that followed the 1906 Earthquake, and was eventually replaced by the massive neo-gothic Grace Cathedral, dedicated in 1910 but not finished and consecrated until 1964.)
Old St. Mary’s is still standing, apparently unaltered externally since it was built, but Grace Church exists now only in old photos. They appear to me to have been similar in size.
The Orthodox Holy Trinity Cathedral dates back to 1857 and is still standing, but was not given cathedral status until 1872. It is also smaller than Old St Mary’s (I’m pretty sure about this, having been inside both).
I’ll try to do some more checking later, but my money is on Old St. Mary’s.