Nunan had always been active in local politics, having been a member of San Francisco’s first volunteer fire department and an officer in the state militia. Center: Andrew Bryant for Mayor lower left: Thomas Agnew for Chief of Police far left: Matthew Nunan for Sheriff. San Francisco's Democratic Party slate - August 1877. He found a job on an upstate farm near Lake Ontario making $10 a month, and in 1854 Matt Nunan became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Nunan joined thousands of Irish immigrants who fled to the United States in the late 1840's, when he managed to get passage on a ship to New York City. Another one million refugees left the country any way they could simply to save their lives. He was seventeen years old when the Great Famine hit Ireland- a devastating potato blight disease that starved hundreds of thousands of poor Europeans between 18.Īt the time, Ireland was particularly depended on its huge potato crop, and the famine became so terrible that over one million men, women, and children of mostly Irish lower class died of starvation. Matthew Nunan was born in County Limerick, Ireland probably in 1828. In San Francisco, Sheriff Matthew Nunan would find himself at the center of the enforcement of a highly controversial anti-Chinese law passed by the Board of Supervisors that would result in significant changes in State law. The result was violence, like the Chinese Massacre of 1871 in Los Angeles, and increasing local and state laws restricting Chinese immigration and citizenship. This was a period when anti-Chinese prejudice was institutionalized in San Francisco and it echoed throughout California. Matthew Nunan served two terms as Sheriff, 79.

Story on chinese queue