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34,
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v.
A HISTORY
OF
C A L I F O R N IA
AND AN
Extended History of Its Southern Coast Counties
ALSO
Containing Biographies of Well-Known Citizens of the Past and Present.
BY
J. M. GUINN, A. M.,
Secretary and Late President of the Historical Society of Southern California, and
Member of the American Historical Association of Washington, D. C.
ILLUSTRATED.
COMPLETE IN TWO VOLUMES.
HISTORIC RECORD COMPANY
LOS ANGELES, CAL.
1907
- - -, -ºs.<< .: * – 'as. ...*.*.*.*.*.*.*=sººrºº: ºr, s = + , , -
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COPYRIGHT, 1907
By
HISTORIC RECORD COMPANY.
S-t *-*-
PRE FA CE.
EW states of the Union have a more varied, a more interesting or a more instructive
F history than California, and few have done so little to preserve their history. In this
statement, I do not contrast California with older states of the Atlantic seaboard, but
draw a parallel between our state and the more recently created states of the far west, many
years younger in statehood than the Golden State of the Pacific.
When Kansas and Nebraska were uninhabited except by buffaloes and Indians, California v’
was a populous state pouring fifty millions of gold yearly into the world's coffers. For more
than a quarter of a century these states, from their public funds, have maintained state historical
societies that have gathered and are preserving valuable historical material, while California,
without a protest, has allowed literary pot hunters and speculative curio collectors to rob her
of her historical treasures. When Washington, Montana and the two Dakotas were Indian hunt-
ing grounds, California was a state of a quarter million inhabitants; each of these states now
has its State Historical Society supported by appropriations from its public funds.
California, of all the states west of the Mississippi river, spends nothing from its public
funds to collect and preserve its history.
To a lover of California, this is humiliating; to a student of her history exasperating. While .
preparing this History of California I visited all the large public libraries of the state. I
found in all of them a very limited collection of books on California, and an almost entire ab-
sence of manuscripts and of the rarer books of the earlier eras. Evidently the demand for works
pertaining to California history is not very insistant. If it were, more of an effort would be
put forth to procure them.
The lack of interest in our history is due largely to the fact that California was settled by
one nation and developed by another. In the rapid development of the state by the conquering
nation, the trials, struggles and privations of the first colonists who were of another nation have
been ignored or forgotten. No forefathers' day keeps their memory green, no observance cele-
brates the anniversary of their landing. To many of its people the history of California begins
with the discovery of gold, and all before that time is regarded as of little importance.
The race characteristics of the two peoples who have dominated California, differ widely; and
from this divergence arises the lack of sympathetic unison. Perhaps no better expression for
this difference can be given than is found in the popular by-words of each. The “poco tiempo”
(by and by) of the Spaniard is significant of a people who are willing to wait—who would defer
action till maiiana—to-morrow—rather than act with haste to-day. The “go ahead” of the tº
American is indicative of hurry, of rush, of a strenuous existence, of a people impatient of pres-
ent conditions.
In narrating the story of California, I have endeavored to deal justly with the different eras
and episodes of its history; to state facts; to tell the truth without favoritism or prejudice; to
2
PREFACE.
give credit where credit is due and censure where it is deserved. In the preparation of this his-
tory I have endeavored to make it readable and reliable.
The subject matter is presented by topic and much of it in monographic form. I have
deemed it better to treat fully important topics even if by so doing some minor events be ex-
cluded.
The plan of this work includes—first, a general history of California from its discovery by
Cabrillo in 1542, to its subdivision into counties by the first Legislature in 1850, and, second,
a history of the southern coast counties from the dates of their organization to the close of the
year 1906.
In compiling the history of the Spanish and Mexican eras, I have taken Bancroft's History
of California as the most reliable authority. I have obtained much original historical material
from the Proceedings of the Ayuntamiento or Municipal Council of Los Angeles (1828 to
1850). The jurisdiction of that Ayuntamiento extended over an area now included in four of the
seven counties commonly classified as Southern California. This accounts, in part, for the prom-
inence of Los Angeles in the second half of this volume.
In presenting the history of the southern coast counties I have given, first, that of the
original counties in the order they are named in the act of the Legislature creating them—San
Diego, Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. Originally these included all the ocean frontage of
the southern coast of California. Hence the appropriateness of the term southern coast counties.
Next I have taken up the history of the others in the order of their separation from an original
county.
In gathering material for this work, I have examined the collections in a number of libra-
ries, public and private, have consulted state, county and city archives, and have scanned thou-
sands of pages of newspapers and magazines. In the preparation of the history of the southern
counties I have found files of newspapers the most fruitful source for material. Without the files
of the San Diego Herald, the Los Angeles Star and the Santa Barbara Gazette, the pioneer papers
of Southern California, the early history of the original counties would be very meager, al-
most a blank.
From the files of The Californian, The California Star and The Alta Californian, pioneer
papers of the state, I have obtained much valuable data that has not heretofore been incorpo-
rated into a volume of history. Where extracts have been made from authorities, due credit
has been given in the body of the work. I have received valuable assistance from librarians,
from pioneers of the state, from city and county officials, from editors and others. To all who
have assisted me I return my sincere thanks.
Los Angeles, January I, IOO7. J. M. GUINN.
SPANISH ExPLORATIONS AND DISCOVERIES
ALTA OR
CoLONIZATION OF ALTA CALIFORNIA
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Romance and Reality—The Seven Cities of Cibola—The Myth of Quivera—El Dorado–
Sandoval's Isle of the Amazons—Mutineers Discover the Peninsula of Lower California
—Origin of the Name California—Cortes's Attempts at Colonization—Discovery of the
Rio Colorado—Coronado’s Explorations—Ulloa's Voyage.
Jº Jº Jº
CHAPTER II.
NUEVA CALIFORNIA &
e sº e º e º e s = e s a e º a s e s tº e s s s a e e s e e s e º & © e s e e º e º ºs e º ºs e º e s tº e º ſº º
Voyage of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo–Enters the Bay of San Diego in Alta California—
Discovers the Islands of San Salvador and Vitoria—The Bay of Smokes and Fires—The
Santa Barbara Islands—Reaches Cape Mendocino—His Death and Burial on the Island of
San Miguel—Ferrolo Continues the Voyage—Drake, the Sea King of Devon—His Hatred
of the Spaniard–Sails into the South Sea—Plunders the Spanish Settlements of the South
Pacific—Vain Search for the Straits of Anian—Refits His Ships in a California Harbor—
Takes Possession of the Country for the English Queen—Sails Across the Pacific Ocean
to Escape the Vengeance of the Spaniards—Sebastian Rodriguez Cermefio Attempts a
Survey of the California Coast—Loss of the San Agustin—Sufferings of the Shipwrecked
Mariners—Sebastian Viscaino's Explorations—Makes No New Discoveries—Changes the
Names Given by Cabrillo to the Bays and Islands—Some Boom Literature—Failure of
His Colonization Scheme—His Death.
3% Jº Jº
CHAPTER III.
Jesuit Missions of Lower California—Father Kino or Kuhn's Explorations—Expulsion of
the Jesuits—Spain's Decadence—Her Northwestern Possessions Threatened by the Rus-
sians and English—The Franciscans to Christianize and Colonize Alta California—Galvez
Fits Out Two Expeditions—Their Safe Arrival at San Diego—First Mission Founded—
Portolâ’s Explorations—Fails to Find Monterey Bay—Discovers the Bay of San Fran-
cisco—Return of the Explorers—Portolá's Second Expedition—Founding of San Carlos
Mission and the Presidio of Monterey.
.5% ºf .5%
CHAPTER IV.
ABORIGINES OF CALIFORNIA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Inferiority of the California Indian—No Great Tribes—Indians of the San Gabriel Valley—
Hugo Reid's Description of Their Government—Religion and Customs—Indians of the
Santa Barbara Channel—Their God Chupu–Northern Indians—Indian Myths and Tra-
ditions. 19
e e s e º e º e s e e º e a e º e º e e s tº e º e s e º 'º - e º 'º e º 'º e º 'º e º 'º e º a
• * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * c e s a e s a e º e º e o e s e e s s e s e e e e e s e e s
. 49
20 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER V.
FRANCISCAN MISSIONS OF ALTA CALIFORNIA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . tº gº tº e º 'º º e
Founding of San Diego de Alcalá–San Carlos Barromeo—Sah Antonio de Padua—San
Gabriel Arcangel—San Luis Obispo—San Francisco de Asis—San Juan Capistrano–Santa
Clara—San Buenaventura—Santa Barbara—La Purisima Concepcion—Santa Cruz—La
Soledad—San José–San Juan Bautista—San Miguel—San Fernando del Rey, San Luis
Rey, Santa Ynez—San Rafael–San Francisco Solano–Architecture—General Plan of the
Missionary Establishments—Houses of the Neophytes—Their Uncleanliness.
Jº Jº º
CHAPTER VI.
PRESIDIOS OF CALIFORNIA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
PUEBLos .
Presidio in Colonization—Founding of San Diego—General Plan of the Presidio—Found-
ing of Monterey—Rejoicing over the Event—Hard T imes at the Presidio—Bear Meat Diet
—Two Hundred Immigrants for the Presidio—Founding of the Presidio of San Francisco
—Anza's Overland Route from Sonora—Quarrel with Rivera—Anza's Return to Sonora—
Founding of Santa Barbara—Disappointment of Father Serra—Quarrel of the Captain with
the Missionaries over Indian Laborers—Soldiers' Dreary Life at the Presidios.
.* .9% º
CHAPTER VII.
• , a e s = e s e s e e e o e s e e o e s = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * c e e s e s e
Pueblo Plan of Colonization—Necessity for Agricultural Colonies—Governor Filipe de
Neve Selects Pueblo Sites—San José Founded—Named for the Patron Saint of California
—Area of the Spanish Pueblo—Government Supplies to Colonists—Founding of the
Pueblo of Los Angeles—Names of the Founders—Probable Origin of the Name—Sub-
divisions of Pueblo Lands—Lands Assigned to Colonists—Founding of Branciforte, the
last Spanish Pueblo.
Jº Jº Jº
CHAPTER VIII.
THE PASSING OF SPAIN's DOMINATION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
FROM EMPIRE TO REPUBLIC
Spain's Exclusiveness—The First Foreign Ship in Monterey Bay—Vancouver's Visit—
Government Monopoly of the Fur Trade—American Smugglers—The Memorias–Russian
Aggression—Famine at Sitka—Rezānoff's Visit—A Love Affair and Its Tragic Ending—
Fort Ross—Failure of the Russian Colony Scheme—The War of Mexican Independence—
Sola the Royalist Governor—California Loyalists—The Year of Earthquakes—Bouchard
the Privateer Burns Monterey—The Lima Tallow Ships—Hard Times—No Money and
Little Credit—The Friars Supreme. -
..?? ..sº ºf
CHAPTER IX.
Sola Calls for Troops—Cholas Sent Him—Success of the Revolutionists—Plan of Iguala—
The Three Guarantees—The Empire—Downfall of Agustin I.-Rise of the Republic—
Bitter Disappointments of Governor Sola and the Friars—Disloyalty of the Mission
Friars—Refuse to Take the Oath of Allegiance—Arguella, Governor—Advent of Foreign-
ers—Coming of the Hide Droghers—Indian Outbreak.
tº e º f *
tº e º 'º & tº e s e º dº e s is a º ºs e º 'º e s a tº e e º º e s is e º e º tº & e º e º Gº e º 'º e s e s e e º e g g g tº e º gº
CONTENTS. 21
CHAPTER X.
FIRST DECADE OF MEXICAN RULE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . e e e g º ºs e º º tº $ tº e s e e 87
Echeandia Governor—Make San Diego His Capital—Padres of the Four Southern Mis-
sions Take the Oath of Allegiance to the Republic–Friars of the Northern Missions
Contumacious—Arrest of Padre Sarria—Expulsion of the Spaniards—Clandestine De-
parture of Padres Ripoll and Altimira—Exile of Padre Martinez—The Diputacion—
Queer Legislation—The Mexican Congress Attempts to Make California a Penal Colony—
Liberal Colonization Laws—Captain Jedediah S. Smith, the Pioneer of Overland Travel,
Arrives—Is Arrested—First White Man to Cross the Sierra Nevadas—Coming of the
Fur Trappers—The Pattie Party—Imprisoned by Echeandia—Death of the Elder Pattie—
John Ohio Pattie's Bluster—Peg Leg Smith—Ewing Young—The Solis Revolution—A
Bloodless Battle—Echeandia’s Mission Secularization Decree—He Is Hated by the Friars
—Dios y Libertad—The Fitch Romance.
Jº Jº Jºº
CHAPTER XI,
REVOLUTIONS-THE HIJAR COLONISTs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . 93
Victoria, Governor—His Unpopularity—Defeated by the Southern Revolutionists—Abdi-
cates and is Shipped out of the Country—Pio Pico, Governor—Echeandia, Governor of
Abajenos (Lowers)—Zamarano of the Arribanos (Uppers)—Dual Governors and a No
Man’s Land—War Clouds—Los Angeles the Political Storm Center–Figueroa Appointed
Gefe Politico—The Dual Governors Surrender–Figueroa the Right Man in the Place—
Hijar’s Colonization Scheme—Padres, the Promoter—Hijar to be Gefe Politico—A Fa-
mous Ride—A Cobbler Heads a Revolution—Hijar and Padres Arrested and Deported—
Disastrous End of the Compania Cosmopolitana—Death of Figueroa. .
Jº Jº Jºº
CHAPTER XII.
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE MISSIONS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . & © tº C e º 'º e e 96
Sentiment vs. History—The Friars' Right to the Mission Lands Only That of Occupa-
tion—Governor Borica's Opinion of the Mission System—Title to the Mission Domains—
Viceroy Bucarili’s Instructions—Secularization—Decree of the Spanish Cortes in 1813–
Mission Land Monopoly—No Land for Settlers—Secularization Plans, Decrees and Regla-
mentos—No Attempt to Educate the Neophytes—Destruction of Mission Property,
Ruthless Slaughter of Cattle—Emancipation in Theory and in Practice—Depravity of the
Neophytes—What Did Six Decades of Mission Rule Accomplish?—What Became of the
Mission Estates—The Passing of the Neophytes.
Jº Jº Jºº
CHAPTER XIII.
THE FREE AND SOVEREIGN STATE OF ALTA CALIFORNIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... • - - - - - - - - IOI
Castro, Gefe Politico—Nicolas Gutierrez, Comandante and Political Chief—Chico, “Gober-
nador Propritario”—Makes Himself Unpopular—His Hatred of Foreigners—Makes
Trouble Wherever He Goes—Shipped Back to Mexico–Gutierrez Again Political Chief—
Centralism. His Nemesis—Revolt of Castro and Alvarado—Gutierrez Besieged—Surrenders
and Leaves the Country–Declaration of California's Independence—El Estado Libre y
Soberano de La Alta California–Alvarado Declared Governor—The Ship of State
22 CONTENTS.
PAGE
YLaunched—Encounters a Storm—The South Opposes California's Independence—Los An-
geles Made a City and the Capital of the Territory by the Mexican Congress—The Capital
Question the Cause of Opposition—War Between the North and South—Battle of San
Buenaventura—Los Angeles Captured—Peace in the Free State—Carlos Carrillo, Gov-
ernor of the South—War Again—Defeat of Carrillo at Las Flores—Peace—Alvarado
Appointed Governor by the Supreme Government—Release of Alvarado's Prisoners of
State—Exit the Free State.
2: 3: 34
CHAPTER XIV.
JDECLINE AND FALL OF MEXICAN DOMINATION. . . . . . . . . . . . . e e e s e e º e e º e º e º 'º e º e º e º e º 'º e º 'º ... 108
Hijos del Pais in Power—The Capital Question—The Foreigners Becoming a Menace—
Graham Affair—Micheltorena Appointed Governor—His Cholo Army—Commodore Jones
Captures Monterey—The Governor and the Commodore Meet at Los Angeles–Extrava-
gant Demands of Micheltorena—Revolt Against Micheltorena and His Army of Chicken
Thieves—Sutter and Graham Join Forces with Micheltorena—The Picos Unite with
Alvarado and Castro—Battle of Cahuenga—Micheltorena and His Cholos Deported—Pico,
Governor—Castro Rebellious—The Old Feud Between the North and the South—Los
Angeles the Capital–Plots and Counter-Plots—Pico Made Governor by President Herrera
—Immigration from the United States.
Jº Jº Jº
CHAPTER XV.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT—HOMES AND HOME LIFE OF THE CALIFORNIANS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . II.4.
The “Muy Ilustre Ayuntamiento,” or Municipal Council—Its Unlimited Power, Queer Cus-
toms and Quaint Usages—Blue Laws—How Office Sought the Man and Caught Him—
Architecture of the Mission Age Not Aesthetic—Dress of the Better Class—Undress of
the Neophyte and the Peon—Fashions That Changed but Once in Fifty Years—Filial
Respect—Honor Thy Father and Mother—Economy in Government—When Men's Pleas-
ures and Vices Paid the Cost of Governing—No Fire Department—No Paid Police—No
Taxes.
Jº Jº Jº
CHAPTER XVI.
TERRITORIAL ExPANSION BY CoNQUEST. . e e º e º 'º e º e º 'º e o e e º is tº tº º º, º e dº º gº e º e º 'º e g e e º ſº º e C & © º O ſº º II9
The Mexican War—More Slave Territory Needed—Hostilities Begun in Texas—Trouble
Brewing in California—Fremont at Monterey—Fremont and Castro Quarrel—Fremont
and His Men Depart—Arrival of Lieutenant Gillespie—Follows Fremont—Fremont's Re-
turn—The Bear Flag Revolt—Seizure of Sonoma—A Short-Lived Republic—Commodore
Sloat Seizes California—Castro's Army Retreats Scuthward—Meets Pico’s Advancing
Northward—Retreat to Los Angeles—Stockton and Fremont Invade the South—Pico and
Castro Vainly Attempt to Arouse the People—Pico's Humane Proclamation—Flight of
Pico and Castro—Stockton Captures Los Angeles—Issues a Proclamation—Some His-
torical Myths—The First Newspaper Published in California.
CONTENTS.
23
REVOLT OF THE CALIFORNIANS
DEFEAT AND RETREAT OF MERVINE'S MEN
FINAL CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA
CHAPTER XVII.
Stockton Returns to His Ship and Fremont Leaves for the North—Captain Gillespie,
Comandante, in the South—Attempts Reforms—Californians Rebel—The Americans Be-
sieged on Fort Hill—Juan Flaca's Famous Ride—Battle of Chino—Wilson's Company
Prisoners—Americans Agree to Evacute Los Angeles—Retreat to San Pedro—Cannon
Thrown into the Bay—Flores in Command of the Californians.
sº s Jº
CHAPTER XVIII.
Mervine, in Command of the Savannah, Arrives at San Pedro—Landing of the Troops—
Mervine and Gillespie Unite Their Forces—On to Los Angeles—Duvall's Log Book—An
Authentic Account of the March, Battle and Retreat—Names of the Killed and Wounded—
Burial of the Dead on Dead Man's Island–Names of the Commanding Officers—Flores
the Last Gefe Politico and Comandante-General—Jealousy of the Hijos del Pais—Hard
Times in the Old Pueblo.
Jº Jº Jºº
CHAPTER XIX.
Affairs in the North—Fremont's Battalion—Battle of Natividad—Bloodless Battle of Santa
Clara—End of the War in the North—Stockton at San Pedro—Carrillo's Strategy—A Re-
markable Battle—Stockton Arrives at San Diego—Building of a Fort—Raid on the
Ranchos—The Flag Episode—General Kearny Arrives at Warner's Pass—Battle of San
Pasqual—Defeat of Kearny—Heavy Loss—Relief Sent Him from San Diego—Preparing
for the Capture of Los Angeles—The March—Battle of Paso de Bartolo—Battle of La
Mesa—Small Losses—American Names of These Battles Misnomers.
Jº .5% º
CHAPTER XX. -
AND OccupATION OF THE CAPITAL
Surrender of Los Angeles—March of the Victors—The Last Volley—A Chilly Recep-
tion—A Famous Scold—On the Plaza—Stockton's Headquarters—Emory’s Fort—Fre-
mont’s Battalion at San Fernando—The Flight of Flores—Negotiations with General Pico–
Treaty of Cahuenga—ſts Importance—Fremont's Battalion Enters the City—Fremont,
Governor—Quarrel Between Kearny and Stockton—Kearny Departs for San Diego and
Stockton's Men for San Pedro.
3% Jº 2
CHAPTER XXI.
TRANSITION AND TRANSFORMATION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Colonel Fremont in Command at Los Angeles—The Mormon Battalion—Its Arrival at
San Luis Rey, Sent to Los Angeles—General Kearny Governor at Monterey—Rival
Governors—Col. R. B. Mason, Inspector of the Troops in California—He Quarrels with
Fremont—Fremont Challenges Him—Colonel Cooke Made Commander of the Military
e e º e s tº e º 'º e º 'º e º 'º e º e º e e º e º ºs e s tº s e º 'º e º e º 'º e º e o e º e a s e e s e a e t
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * e e e s e a e e s e s e e e s e
• * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - . . . . . . . . . . . . .
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * e o e s e e s a e
24
CONTENTS.
Mexican LAws AND AMERICAN OFFICIALS
GOLD! GOLD! GoLD!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . © e e º a c e º 'o e © o e º e
MAKING
District of the South—Fremont's Battalion Mustered Out—Fremont Ordered to Report
to Kearny—Returns to the States with Kearny–Placed Under Arrest—Court-Martialed
—Found Guilty—Pardoned by the President—Rumors of a Mexican Invasion—Building
of a Fort—Col. J. B. Stevenson Commands in the Southern District—A Fourth of July
Celebration—The Fort Dedicated and Named Fort Moore—The New York Volunteers—
Company F, Third U. S. Artillery, Arrives—The Mormon Battalion Mustered Out—
Commodore Shubrick and General Kearny Jointly Issue a Proclamation to the People—
Col. R. B. Mason. Military Governor of California—A Policy of Conciliation—Varela,
Agitator and Revolutionist, Makes Trouble—Overland Immigration Under Mexican Rule—
The First Train–Dr. Marsh's Meanness—The Fate of the Donner Party.
Jº Jº Jºº
CHAPTER XXII.
Richard A. Mason, Commander of the Military Forces and Civil Governor of California—
Civil and Military Laws—The First Trial by Jury—Americanizing the People—Perverse
Electors and Contumacious Councilmen—Absolute Alcaldes—Nash at Sónoma and Bill
Blackburn at Santa Cruz—Queer Decisions—El Cañon Perdido of Santa Barbara—Ex-
Governor Pio Pico Returns—Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo—Peace Proclaimed—The
News Reaches California—Country Acquired by the Treaty—The Volunteers Mustered
Out. -
.* .5% º
CHAPTER XXIII.
Traditions of Early Gold Discoveries in California—The First Authenticated Discovery—
Marshall's Discovery at Colomas—Disputed Dates and Conflicting Stories About the
Discovery—Sutter’s Account—James W. Marshall—His Story—The News Travels Slowly—
First Newspaper Report—The Rush Begins—San Francisco Deserted—The Star and the
Californian Suspend Publication—The News Spreads— Sonorian Migration—Oregonians
Come—The News Reaches the States—A Tea Caddy Full of Gold at the War Office,
Washington—Seeing Is Believing—Gold Hunters Come by Land and Sea—The Pacific
Mail Steamship Company—Magical Growth of San Francisco—The Dry Diggings—Some
Remarkable Yields—Forty Dollars for a Butcher Knife—Extent of the Gold Fields.
Jº St Jºº
CHAPTER XXIV.
A STATE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • s • e s º dº e º sº e e
Bennett Riley, Governor—Unsatisfactory Form of Government—Semi-Civil and Semi-Mil-
itary—Congress Does Nothing—The Slave-Holding Faction Prevents Action—Growing
Dissatisfaction—Call for Convention—Constitution Making—The Great Seal—Election of
State Officers—Peter H. Burnett, Governor—Inauguration of a State Government—The
First Legislature—A Self-Constituted State—The Pro-Slavery Faction in Congress—Op-
pose the Admission of California—Defeat of the Obstructionists—California Admitted into
the Union—Great Rejoicing—A Magnificent Procession—California Full Grown at Birth—
The Capital Question—San José Loses the Capital—Vallejo Wins—Goes to Sacramento—
Comes to Benicia—Capital Question in the Courts—Sacramento Wins—Capitol Building
Begun in 1860—Completed in 1869.
• * * * * * * * e s e a s e s tº e < e < e º e º e º 0 tº g o e º s e s e e g c e e º e
PAGE
CONTENTS. is * 25
CHAPTER XXV.
THE ARGONAuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I69
Who First Called Them Argonauts—How They Came and From Where They Came—
Extent of the Gold Fields—Mining Appliances—Batéas, Gold Pans, Rockers, Long Toms,
Sluices—Useless Machines and Worthless Inventions—Some Famous Gold Rushes—Gold
Lake—Gold Bluffs—Kern River—Frazer River—Washoe—Ho for Idaho!—Social Level-
ing—Capacity for Physical Labor the Standard—Independency and Honesty of the Argo-
nauts.
Jº Jº Jºº
CHAPTER XXVI.
SAN FRANCISCO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I75
The First House—A Famous Fourth of July Celebration—The Enterprise of Jacob P. Leese
—General Kearny’s Decree for the Sale of Water Lots—Alcalde Bartlett Changes the
Name of the Town from Yerba Buena to San Francisco—Hostility of the Star to the
Change—Great Sale of Lots in the City of Francisca, now Benicia—Its Boom Bursts—
Population of San Francisco September 4, 1847—Vocations of Its Inhabitants—Population
March, 1848—Vioget's Survey—O'Farrell’s Survey—Wharves—The First School House—
The Gold Discovery Depopulates the City—Reaction—Rapid Growth—Description of the
City in April, 1850—Great Increase in Population—How the People Lived and Labored—
Enormous Rents—High Priced Real Estate—Awful Streets—Flour Sacks, Cooking Stove
and Tobacco Box Sidewalk—Ships for Houses—The Six Great Fires—The Boom of 1853–
The Burst of 1855—Harry Meigs—Steady Growth of the City.
Jº Jº Jºº
CHAPTER XXVII.
CRIME, CRIMINALS AND VIGILANCE COMMITTEES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I82
But Little Crime in California Under Spanish and Mexican Rule—The First Vigilance
Committee of California—The United Defenders of Public Safety—Execution of Alispaz
and Maria del Rosario Villa—Advent of the Criminal Element—Criminal Element in the
Ascendency—Incendiarism, Theft and Murder—The San Francisco Vigilance Committee
of 1851–Hanging of Jenkins—A Case of Mistaken Identity—Burdue for Stuart—Arrest,
Trial and Hanging of Stuart—Hanging of Whittaker and McKenzie—The Committee
Adjourns but Does Not Disband—Its Work Approved—Corrupt Officials—James King
of William Attacks Political Corruption in the Bulletin—Richardson killed by Cora—
Scathing Editorials—Murders and Thefts—Attempts to Silence King—King Exposes
James P. Casey's State's Prison Record—Cowardly Assassination of King by Casey—
Organization of the Vigilance Committee of 1856–Fatal Mistake of the Herald—Casey
and Cora in the Hands of the Committee—Death of King—Hanging of Casey and Cora—
Other Executions—Law and Order Party—Terry and His Chivalrous Friends—They Are
Glad to Subside—Black List and Deportations—The Augean Stabie Cleaned—The Com-
mittee's Grand Parade—Vigilance Committees in Los Angeles—Joaquin Murrieta and His
Banditti—Tiburcio Vasquez and His Gang. - -
Jº Jº Jºº
CHAPTER XXVIII.
FILIBUSTERS AND FILIBUSTERING. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . tº tº gº tº e º e • . . . . I93
The Origin of Filibustering in California—Raousset-Boulbon's Futile Schemes—His Ex-
ecution—William Walker—His Career as a Doctor, Lawyer and Journalist—Recruits Fili-
busters—Lands at La Paz—His Infamous Conduct in Lower California—Failure of His
26 CONTENTS.
PAGE
Scheme—A Farcical Trial—Lionized in San Francisco—His Operations in Nicaragua–
Battles—Decrees Slavery in Nicaragua–Driven Out of Nicaragua–Tries Again—Is Cap-
tured and Shot—Crabb and His Unfortunate Expedition—Massacre of the Misguided
Adventurers—Filibustering Ends When Secession Begins. -
.5% ºf 3%
CHAPTER XXIX.
FROM GOLD TO GRAIN AND FRUITS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . © tº º O & © e º e o e º • . . . . . . . I99
Mexican Farming—But Little Fruit and Few Vegetables—Crude Farming Implements—
The Agricultural Capabilities of California Underestimated—Wheat the Staple in Central
California—Cattle in the South—Gold in the North—Big Profits in Grapes—Orange Culture
Begun in the South—Apples, Peaches, Pears and Plums—The Sheep Industry—The Famine
Years of 1863 and 1864 Bring Disaster to the Cattle Kings of the South—The Doom of
Their Dynasty—Improvement of Domestic Animals—Exit the Mustang—Agricultural Col-
O111 CS.
• CHAPTER XXX.
CIVIL WAR–Loyalty AND DISLOYALTY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
State Division and What Became of It—Broderick's Early Life—Arrival in California—
Enters the Political Arena—Gwin and Broderick—Duel Between Terry and Broderick—
Death of Broderick—Gwin-Latham Combination—Firing on Fort Sumter–State Loyal—
Treasonable Utterance—A Pacific Republic—Disloyalty Rampant in Southern California—
TJnion Sentiments Triumphant—Confederate Sympathizers Silenced.
Jº Jº ºt
CHAPTER XXXI.
TRADE, TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION
Spanish Trade—Fixed Prices—No Cornering the Market—Mexico’s Methods of Trade—
The Hide Droghers—Trade—Ocean Commerce and Travel—Overland Routes—Overland
Stage Routes—Inland Commerce—The Pony Express—Stage Lines—Pack Trains—Camel
Caravans—The Telegraph and the Railroad—Express Companies.
.* .9% º
CHAPTER XXXII.
RAILROADs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . & g o a o o . . . . 218
Early Agitation of the Pacific Railroad Scheme—The Pacific Railroad in Politics—Northern
Routes and Southern Routes—First Railroad in California–Pacific Railroad Bills in Con-
gress—A Decade of Agitation and No Road—The Central and Union Pacific Railroads—
Act of 1862—Subsidies—The Southern Pacific Railroad System—Its Incorporation and
Charter—Its Growth and Development—The Santa Fe System—Other Railroads.
CONTENTS. 27
CHAPTER XXXIII.
PAGE
THE INDIAN QUESTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22.
Treatment of the Indians by Spain and Mexico—A Conquista—Unsanitary Condition of the
Mission Villages—The Mission Neophyte and What Became of Him—Wanton Outrages on
the Savages—Some So-Called Indian Wars—Extermination of the Aborigines—Indian
Island Massacre—The Mountaineer Battalion—The Two Years' War—The Modoc War.
Jº Jº Jºº
CHAPTER XXXIV.
SoME POLITICAL HISTORY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Advent of the Chinese—Kindly Received at First—Given a Public Reception—The “China
Boys” Become Too Many—Agitation and Legislation Against Them—Dennis Kearney
and the Sand Lot Agitation—Kearney's Slogan, “The Chinese Must Go”—How Kearney
Went—The New Constitution—A Mixed Convention—Opposition to the Constitution—
The Constitution Adopted—Defeat of the Workingmen's Party—A New Treaty with
China–Governors of California, Spanish, Mexican and American.
Jº Jº Jºº
CHAPTER XXXV.
Education AND Educational Institution.................................. .......... 235
Public Schools. in the Spanish Era—Schools of the Mexican Period—No Schools for the
Neophytes—Early American Schools—First School House in San Francisco—The First
American Teacher—The First School Law—A Grand School System—University of the
Pacific—College of California—University of California—Stanford University—Normal
Schools.
Jº Jº Jº
CHAPTER XXXVI.
CITIES OF CALIFORNIA—THEIR ORIGIN AND GROWTH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , - - - - - - - - - - - 242
The Spaniards and Mexicans Not Town Builders—Francisca, on the Straits of Carquinez,
the First American City—Its Brilliant Prospects and Dismal Failure—San Francisco—Its
Population and Expansion—The Earthquake of April 18, 1906—The Great Fire that Fol-
lowed the Earthquake—The Effects of the Earthquake at Oakland, Alameda, Berkeley, San
José, Santa Rosa and Other Points Around the Bay of San Francisco–Oakland, an
American City—Population—Sacramento, the Metropolis of the Mines–San José, the Gar-
den City–Stockton, the Entrepot of the Southern Mines—Fresno–Vallejo-Nevada City—
Grass Valley–Eureka—Marysville—Redding. -
28 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
SouthERN CALIFORNIA, INTRODUCTORY.... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
No County Government under Spain and Mexico—No Tax on Land–Mexican Laws
Continued in Force after the Conquest—The Territorial Government was Semi-Military
and Semi-Civil—A De Facto' State—It is Divided into Counties.
SAN DIEGO COUNTY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Boundaries Somewhat Erratic—Imperial in Area but Limited in Population—First Assess-
ment of Property—County Officials—Yuma Indian Outbreak—Massacre of Dr. Lincoln
and Ten of his Men at the Colorado Ferry—Depositions of two of the Survivors—Names
of Those Massacred—Call for Troops—General Morehead's Gila Expedition—No Indians
Killed—Expensive War—Second Indian War—Indians Resist Taxation of their Cattle—
Antonio Garra, Chief of the San Luis Rey Indians—His Attempt to Form a Confederation—
Sacking of Warner's Rancho-Warner's Account of the Indian Raid—Massacre of the
Americans at Agua Caliente—San Diego under Martial Law—Battle at Los Coyotes—
Defeat of the Indians—Four Minor Chiefs Executed—Hanging of Bill Marshall and Juan
Verde–Capture of Antonio Garra–Tried by Court Martial—Execution of Antonio Garra—
Bean's Second Expedition, or the Garra War Very Expensive.
.* * *
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
SAN DIEGO County—ContLNUED. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The Pueblo of San Diego—The Early History of the City and County Identical—Organi-
zation of the Pueblo–First Survey of Pueblo Lands—San Diego Fifty Years ago the
Largest City in the United States—The Founding of New Town—Names of its Founders—
The First Building—A Wharf Built—Fate of the First Wharf–The Pioneer Newspaper
and its Proprietor—The Dime Catcher—Some Alleged Adventures of the Press and its
Proprietor on the Isthmus—Ames' Own Story—Lieutenant Derby Entrusted with the Ed-
itorial Tripod—The Herald's Political Somersault—The Famous Mill between Phoenix
and Boston—Ames’ Remarks—The Herald Plant Moved to San Bernardino—Death of
Ames and his Newspaper—Travel by Sea and Land—Steamers Plying between San Diego
and San Francisco in the Early '50s—Overland Mail between San Diego and San Antonio,
‘Texas–Change of Route—Old Town and New Town at a Standstill.
.* .32 sº
CHAPTER XXXIX.
CoNTINUED. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
SAN DIEGO County
The Back Country Undeveloped—Wagon Road to San Bernardino—Market Supplies from
the Mormon Town—The Famine Years of 1863–1864 Less Disastrous in San Diego than
Elsewhere—Great Ranchos Still Intact—Water Development—Thirteen Reservoirs—The
Imperial Valley and Salton Sea—Overland Routes Across the Desert—Desert Tragedies—
First Scheme for the Reclamation of the Desert—The California Development Company
and Its Work—Rapid Development of the Imperial Country—The Waters of the Colorado
Find their Way into Salton Sink—Great Flood of the Gila—The Old Channel of the Colo-
rado Left High and Dry–Salton Sea Spreads Over Four Hundred Square Miles—South-
ern Pacific Compelled to Change its Track around the Salton Sea—The Colorado Forced
into its Old Channel—Old Town, Roseville and La Playa—National City–Coronado—Ocean-
side—Escondido—La Jolla—Fallbrook—Pala—Julian—Banner—Ramona.
CONTENTS. 29
CHAPTER XL.
SAN Diego City. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
Act of Incorporation—First City Election—Names of Officers Elected—The First Council—
Patriots of the Pocket—The Cobblestone Jail—The First Prisoner Digs Out with His
Pocket Knife—The City Disincorporates—Governed by Trustees—Postoffice Established—
|High Rates of Postage—San Diego a Port of Delivery—A Port of Delivery at the Junction
of the Gila and Colorado—No Applicants for the Position of Revenue Collector—The
Pioneer Railroad Project—Great Railroad Meeting in 1853—The San Diego and Gila South-
ern Pacific & Atlantic—Railroad Incorporated—The Legislature Authorizes a Donation of
Two Leagues of Pueblo Lands to the Railroad—Rivalry Over Routes Defeats Railroad
Building—San Diego in a Comatose Condition—No Newspaper for Eight Years—Hor-
ton Comes and San Diego Awakes—Horton Buys a Town Site—Horton's Tin Horn—San
Diego in 1867—The Memphis, El Paso & Pacific Railroad—John C. Fremont its President—
The Rush to San Diego in 1869—Lot Buying and Selling—The Horton House Built—Some
of the Great Hotels of the World at That Time—The Texas Pacific Railroad Coming—
Congress Passes an Act Giving Land Grant to the Road in 1871—Great Rejoicing at San
Diego–San Diego's Great Real Estate Boom—Some Boom Poetry—Postoffice at South San
Diego Named San Diego—The Financial Crisis of 1873 Stops Railroad Building—Generous
Act of Father Horton—A New Railroad Scheme—The Kimball Brothers—The California
Southern Railroad—The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Built—The Great Real-
Estate Boom of 1887–Town Sites Galore—The Bursting of the Boom—The Boom a Bless-
ing in Disguise—The Aftermath—Recuperation—Disasters—Summary of Events to the End
of the Century—Schools—San Diego Free Public Library—Chamber of Commerce—Parks
of San Diego.
.9% ºf .9%
CHAPTER XLI.
Los ANGELES COUNTY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . e e o e s e e s e e s e e º 'º e º e º e e s a e º 'º e s a e e s e s e e e s e e s e e º e e e e 285
Los Angeles County Originally did not Take in the Colorado Desert—The Boundaries as
Defined in the Act of February 18, 1850—Boundaries as Given in Act of April 25, 1851—
Boundaries as Given in 1853 When San Bernardino County was Created—Los Angeles County
an Empire in Itself—Various and Variable Climates—County of Kern Created—Orange
County, the Last Slice taken from Los Angeles—Organization of a County Government—
First County Officers—Court of Sessions—Judges of the Plains—Fees and Salaries—Big
Pay for Little Work—The First County Jail—Criminal Aristocrats—Spanish and Mexican
Land Grants—The Township of Los Angeles—Immigrants and Immigrant Routes—The
Sonoran Migration—A Job Lot of Immigrants—The Salt Lake Route—Ox Carts, Stages
and Steamers—Passenger Rates and Bill of Fare on the Steamers—Landing Passengers—
Bucking Sailors—Imports Greatly Exceeded Exports—Grapes the Principal Fruit—The First
State Census—Slow Growth of the County in the '50s.
Jº Jº Jº
CHAPTER XLII.
GROWTH OF Los ANGELES COUNTY AND CITY IN WEALTH AND POPULATION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
No Land Tax under Spanish and Mexican Rule—Salaries Small—And Revenue Ditto—The
First County Assessment—One Small Book Contained it All—Expansive Territory but Lit-
tle Wealth—Assessment of 1856—First Record of City Assessment—Assessment of 1866–
No Increase in Wealth for Ten Years—Great Loss of Property in the Famine Years of
1863–1864—Land without Value—The Alamitos Rancho of 28,000 Acres Sold for $152 Delin-
quent Taxes—Low Value of City Real Estate—Decline of the Cattle Industry—Second
Great Drought Kills Sheep Industry—Real-Estate Boom of 1887—Rapid Rise in Values—
30 - CONTENTS.
TJepression and Decrease of Values Follow—The Table of Yearly Assessments Shows Peri-
ods of Prosperity and Adversity—Yearly Assessments from 1851 to 1906 both Inclusive—
City Assessment Combined with the County During First Decade—City Assessment
from 1860 to 1906 both Inclusive—Banks of Los Angeles—Capital—Bank Clearances for Ten
Years—Number of Buildings and Cost of Erection 1m Los Angeles City since 1900—Increase
in Assessment Each Year Since 1900—Population as Shown by the School Census—Popu-
lation of Los Angeles City by Decades Since its Founding—Population of the County of
Los Angeles from 1850 to 1900—Vote of Los Angeles County at Presidential Elections
1856 to 1904 Inclusive.
Jº Jº sº
CHAPTER XLIII.
MINING RUSHES AND REAL ESTATE BOOMS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
But Few of the Argonauts of '49 Remained in Los Angeles County—First Discovery of
Gold in California Made in Los Angeles County—The Kern River Gold Rush Brought
Experienced Miners to Los Angeles—Prospecting in the Mountains of Los Angeles County—
Santa Anita Placers—Mining on the San Gabriel River—Some Rich Strikes—El Dorado-
ville the Mining Metropolis cf San Gabriel—The Flood of 1859—Shipment of Gold Dust
by Wells Fargo & Co.—Mining Boom on the Island of Santa Catalina—Queen City the
Mining Metropolis of the Island—Many Claims Located—Collapse of the Boom—Govern-
ment Takes Possession of the Island—The Great Real Estate Boom of 1887—That Boom a
Turning Point in the History of Los Angeles—Great Financial Booms of the Past—No Spec-
ulation in Real-Estate during Spanish and Mexican Rule in California—Dull Times after
the Gold Rush of '49—Financial Depression of the Later ’70s—Completion of the Southern
Pacific Railroad Gives Los Angeles a New Outlet—Immigrants Coming—Causes that Pre-
cipitated the Boom—Creation of New Towns—Completion of the Santa Fe Railroad—Wild
Rush to Buy Lots—All Night Vigils—The Fate of the City of Gladstone—Phantom Cities
of the Boom—Homberg's Famous Twin Cities—Carlton Nature's Rendezvous—Magnitude
of Our Boom Compared with Other Great Financial Bubbles—Great Cities on Paper but
Few Inhabitants—Methods of Advertising—Disappearance of the Professional Boomers—
The Collapse of the Boom Gradual.
Jº Jº Jº
CHAPTER XLIV.
Los ANGELES CITY, FROM PUEBLO TO CIUDAD (FROM Town To CITY). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
Los Angeles a Pueblo for Fifty-Five Years—Raised to the Dignity of a Ciudad by the
Mexican Congress—The Raise Made no Change in its Government—Area of the Pueblo—
Narrow Streets and House Lots of All Shapes—Expansion of the Pueblo to Sixteen
Leagues—No Written Titles to House Lots—Report of the Commissioners on Titles—Street
Commissioners’ Reports—Narrow Streets for Warm Countries—Squaring the Plaza—Pedro's
Obstinacy Twists a Street—Ord’s Plan of the City—His Terms for his Survey—Names of
the Streets in Ord’s Plan—Some Old Street Names—The Wickedest Street on Earth—
Calle del Toro—Heroic Act—Adjustment of the Houses to the New Streets—The Passing of
the Ayuntamiento—Act of the Legislature Incorporating the City.
.* * *
CHAPTER XLV.
Los ANGELES CITY-CONTINUED. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3I2
The Evolution of a Metropolis—Act of the Legislature Incorporating the City Reduces
its Area—First City Election—Names of the City Officers Elected—Sworn to Support the
Constitution of the State of California, and yet There was no State—The First Council a
CONTENTS.
31
Los ANGELES IN ITs SECOND CENTURY
THE SCHOOLS OF Los ANGELES CITY AND County
Patriotic Body—All Except one Member had been Citizens of Mexico—Some Early Ordi-
nances—Selling Indian Prisoners—“Ordinance Relative to Public Washing”—Americaniz-
ing the People a Difficult Task—The Indian a Disturbing Element—The Whipping Post
for the Red Man—The United States Land Claims Commissions’ Herculean Task—City
Claims Sixteen Leagues—Hancock's Survey of the Pueblo Lands—Commission Gives the
City Four Square Leagues—United States Patent Issued in 1875—City Donation Lots—
Pueblo Lands Frittered Away—A Woeful Waste of a Royal Patrimony—The Huber Tract—
City Prosperous in the Early '50s—Reaction—Hard Times in the South—Dry Years and
Dying Cattle—A Building Boom in 1859—The Telegraph Completed to Los Angeles in 1860—
The Civil War Divides the People—Depression—Low Price of Lots and Acreage—Famine
Years—Small-pox Epidemic—A Gleam of Light Penetrates the Financial Gloom—Passing
of the Cattle Barons—Gas Introduced into the City—A High-priced Luxury—Los Angeles
& San Pedro Railroad Completed—The Pioneer Ice Factory—The First Bank—The First
Street Railroad Franchise Granted—Subdivision of the Great Ranchos Benefits the City—
Houses Numbered—Population of the City in 1870—Railroad Bond Issue of 1872—Rival
Railroad Schemes and Rival Offers—Southern Pacific Wins—A Year of Disasters—The
Drought of 1877 Kills the Sheep Industry—Population of the City in 1880—Hard Times
Continue.
Jº Jº Jº
CHAPTER XLVI.
The Centennial Celebration of Los Angeles City—A Curious Blending of the Old and the
New-An Ancient Belle—The 5th of September Celebrated Instead of the 4th–Modern
Improvements not Much in Evidence—The City a Sea of Green—The City Beautiful—
The Best Description Ever Written of Los Angeles at the End of Its First Century—
B. F. Taylor’s Prose Poem of the Angel City—Direct Connection with the East by Rail-
road—Tourists Begin to Arrive by the New Route—Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe System
Gives Los Angeles a Second Transcontinental Road—Cheap Fares Boom Travel—Tourists
Delighted—Real-Estate Values Rise Rapidly—The Speculative Mania Infects Old Timers and
New Comers—In One Hundred Years the Business Center Moved from the Plaza to First
Street—The Demand During the Boom for Offices Drives it South—Sudden Rise in Rents—
The First City Hall—The First Cable Railway—The First Electric Street Car Line Built,
mot a Success—City Lighted by Electricity—The Cable Railway System Begun—Passing of
the Horse Car—First Oil Wells Within the City Limits Bored—The Oil Boom of 1899 and
1900—Fake Oil Companies—Cheap Oil Stock—The Belgian Hare Industry—The Fad Be-
comes Epidemic—Sudden Collapse—But Little Advance in Real-Estate Prices in the Decade
Between 1890-1900—H. E. Huntington Buys Controlling Interest in the Los Angeles Elec-
tric System—Building of Interurban Electric Railways—Rapid Rise in Real-Estate Values—
Increase in Building Permits and Value of Buildings Erected—Increase in City Assess-
ments—Increase in Population from 1903. to 1906 Inclusive.
Jº Jº Jº
CHAPTER XLVII.
Education in Los Angeles Under Spanish Rule—Luciano Valdez—The First Teacher Under
Mexican Domination a Failure—School Master Morago a Success—Pantoja Asks for More
Wages and Loses his Job-Fifteen Dollars a Month the Limit of the School Master's Pay—
Don Ygnacio Coronel and his Daughter Soledad Improve School Methods—The Lancas-
trian School of Lieutenant Medina—The School Master Paid in Merchandise—A Revolu-
tion Closes the School—The First School for Girls—School Furniture and Expenses Under
the Ayuntamiento's Rule—The First School Under American Control—The City Council a
* * g º 'º º gº tº e º e º 'º e º s a e is sº s º ºs e s a tº e º e e s e º s is º ºs e º ºs e s e s e
tº dº ſº º e s e e º e º 'º # 4 s is a s is $ tº a º a e < * * * e º e e s is ºs in
CONTENTS.
POSTAL SERVICE OF Los ANGELES
WATER SYSTEM OF LOS ANGELES
PIONEER CHURCHES OF LOS ANGELES CITY
School Board—The Schools Run on a Go-as-you-please System—The First School Ordi-
nance—Free Schools—The Mayor the City Superintendent of Schools—The First School
House Built Located on the Northwest Corner of Spring and Second Streets—Growing
Shade Trees on the School Lot Under Difficulties—City School Superintendents from
1853 to 1906—The First Teacher’s Institute—Public Schools Unpopular in the Early '60s—
Los Angeles Behind Other Cities in Schools in the ’70s—Separate Schools for Negro Chil-
'dren—Polytechnic High School—Non-Partisan School Board–School Bonds to the Amount
of $780,000 Voted—High School Annex Built—County School Reports for Fifty Years—
High Schools in the County.
Jº Jº Jºº
CHAPTER XLVIII.
Postal Service of California Under the Rule of Spain—The Los Angeles Postoffice One
Hundred Years Ago—Postal Service and Routes Under Mexico–Slow Mail Service—The
First Mail Route Established After the Conquest—Act of Congress Establishing Postoffices
in California—The Tub Postoffice at Los Angeles—Postmasters of Los Angeles—Locations
of the Postoffice—The Soap Box Postoffice—Postmaster's Duties Light and Pay Lighter—
The Stage Coach Era of Mail Carrying—The Butterfield Overland Stage Coach—The Los
Angeles Postmaster’s Salary in 1869—Postal Statistics in 1887-1890—Site of the Downey
Block Donated to the Government for a Postoffice Site—Sale of the Site of the First Post-
office Building—Demolition of the Building.
CHAPTER XLIX.
The Los Angeles River the Sole Water Supply of the City—Its Water Rights Decreed by
Royal Reglamento—First Community Work in the Pueblo–The Building of the Zanja
Madre—The Indian the Ditch Builder—The Indian the Water Carrier—The First Water
Pipe System—The Dryden Reservoir on the Plaza—Scrip and Water Bonds Issued to Build
Distributing Water Works—Expensive Dam Built—Municipal Ownership an Expensive Bur-
den—Water Works Leased to Sansevain—Water Works and Waters of the River Sold by
the City Council–Mayor Vetoes the Ordinance—Water Works and the Waters of the Los
Angeles River Leased for Thirty Years—Opposition to the Leasing—The Fountain on the
Plaza—P. Beaudry's Water System—The Canal and Reservoir Company’s System—A Cen-
tury of Litigation—The First Contest Over the Waters of the River Began in 1810—Trouble
in 1833—The Regidores Allowed No Cloud to Rest on the City’s Water Rights—Numerous
Legal Contests over the City's Water Rights Under American Rule—Expiration of the Thirty
Years' Lease to the Water Company—Refusal of the Company to Abide by the Award of
the Arbitrators—The Council Agrees to Pay Nearly a Million Dollars More for the Plant
than the Amount Awarded by the Arbitrators—Bonds Issued and City Gains Possession
of the Water Plant—The Owens River Project—Originator of the Scheme—Its Esti-
mated Cost.
22 sº sº
CHAPTER L.
Early Records of the Protestant Churches not Preserved—The First Chapel Built in 1784–
Cornerstone of a New Church Laid in 1814—Change of Location—Contributions of the
Mission to the Building Fund of the Parish Church—Indians the Builders—The Church of
Our Lady of the Angels Completed and Dedicated—Changes in the Building—Indians With-
e e s m e º ºs e e º 'º & e º e º e º 'º e º s e e s a • * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * s º e º s º is e º sº e º 'º e º a s 6 s is a e º 'º e º e º e < e < e s s tº e - w =
• * s = * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
CONTENTS. 33
out a Boss Rounded up to Repair the Building—Church of Our Lady of the Angels the
Oldest Parish Church on the Pacific Coast of the United States—Cathedral of St. Vibiana—
Cornerstone Laid October 3, 1869–Change of Location—Dedication of the Cathedral—Meth-
odist Episcopal Churches–First Protestant Sermon Preached in Los Angeles Delivered by
a Methodist Minister—Rev. Adam Bland First Protestant Missionary in Los Angeles—
Contract for a Church Building that was not Built—The Field Abandoned in 1858—First
Church Built in 1868–Account of its Dedication—First Methodist Church South Built in
1873—Changes of Location—Presbyterian Churches—Rev. James Woods the Pioneer Min-
ister–Succeeded by the Rev. F. N. Davis—The Presbyterians Abandon the Field in 1856–
A Period of Spiritual Darkness—The Rev. William E. Boardman comes in 1859—The First
Protestant Society Organized—Its Constitution—The Building of a Protestant Church Be-
gun—Rev. Boardman Leaves—Church Advertised for Sale on Account of Delinquent Taxes—
Church Built on Corner of Fort and Second Streets—Church Sold and the Congregation
Divides into two Organizations—Protestant Episcopal Churches—First Service Held in 1857–
A Lay Reader Appointed—The Episcopalians Secure the Church Building of the First
Protestant Society—The Building Sold and Church Built on Olive Street—Congregational
Churches—Church Organized in 1867—Account of the Dedication—New Church Built on
Corner of Third and Hill Streets—Baptist Churches—First Baptist Sermon Preached in
1853–First Church Organized in 1874–Church Built on Corner of Broadway and Sixth
Streets in 1884—Christian Churches—First Service Held by a Member of the Christian
Church in 1874—A Church Founded—The First Church Erected During the Rev. B. F.
Coulter’s Ministration—The Rev. B. F. Coulter Erects a Church at his Own Expense—
|Unitarian Churches—The First Unitarian Service was Held in 1877—Rev. Dr. Fay Holds
Service in Child's Opera House—A . Church Erected on the Corner of Broadway and
Seventh. Street—Destroyed by Fire—Jewish Synagogues—Other Denominations.
Jº Jº .º
CHAPTER LI.
THE PIONEER NEWSPAPERS OF LOS ANGELES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354
A History of the Newspapers That Have Been Published Twenty-five Years or More—No
Newspapers in California Under Spain and Mexico—First Newspaper in California Pub-
lished in 1846—Rapid Increase in Newspapers After the Discovery of Gold—Proposition
to Publish a Newspaper in Los Angeles—Location of the First Printing Office—The First
Issue of La Estrella de Los Angeles—Names of the Publishers—The First Job Dome for
the City—The Tribulations of a Pioneer Publisher—Change of Ownership—Burning Issues
of the Early '50s—Pacific Railroad—Camel Caravans and Dromedary Express—Subscrip-
tions Payable in Produce After Harvest—The Star for Sale at $1,000 Less Than Cost—
Hard Times in the Old Pueblo—Henry Hamilton Becomes the Owner of the Star—The
Star Sets in Darkness—After Four Years it Appears' Again—The Daily Star Issued—The
Star Ceases to Shine—The Southern Californian—The Second Paper of Los Angeles Issued
in 1854—Frequent Changes of Owners—Suspends Publication in January, 1859–El Clamor
Publico—The First Paper in Los Angeles Printed in Spanish–Suspends Publication Decem-
ber 31, 1859—The Southern Vineyard Founded by Col. J. J. Warner—Becomes a Semi-
Weekly—Suspends—The Los Angeles Daily and Weekly News—Established in January,
1860, as a Weekly—Changed to a Semi-Weekly—Then to a Tri-Weekly—Republican in Pol-
itics—Changes to Democratic—The Daily News Issued January 1, 1869—The Paper Dies in
1873—The Wilmington Journal the First Paper Published Outside of Los Angeles City—
The Plant of the Star Used for Its Publication—The News Gives it a Doubtful Compliment—
The Los Angeles Express—The Oldest Newspaper Now Published in Los Angeles—Founded
by an Association of Practical Printers—Sold to Ayers & Lynch—Frequent Changes of
Ownership—E. T. Earl buys It and Builds a Home for It—Los Dos Republicas—Originally
La Cronica—An Influential Spanish Paper—Independent in Politics—The Daily and Weekly
Herald—Founded in 1873 by C. A. Storke—Sold to a Stock Company—Organ of the
Grange Movement—Ayers & Lynch Become Proprietors—The Leading Democratic Journal
34 - CONTENTS.
of California—Sold to a Syndicate of Politicians—Frequent Changes of Ownership—The
Herald Publishing Company Become Owners—Becomes Republican in Politics—Wallace L.
Hardison, President of the Company—Sold Again to a Syndicate of Which Frank G. Fin-
layson is President—Politics Changed Again—Now the Organ of the Democratic Party—
The Rural Californian—Predecessor was Southern California Horticulturist—First Issue
September, 1877–Los Angeles Weekly Mirror—The Los Angeles Daily Times—Date of Its
Founding—Changes in Ownership—Increase of Capital Stock–Present Officers.
3% ºf 32
CHAPTER LII.
EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS, CoLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
No Collegiate Institutions in California Under Spanish and Mexican Rule—Grants Made
After the American Occupation—St. Vincent's College—The First College Founded—First
Site Sold—Military Instruction Introduced—College Has a High Reputation—University of
Southern California—Oldest Protestant Educational Institution—Offers of Land Made—
Tract Selected in West Los Angeles—Building Erected—College of Medicine Founded in
1885—Building Constructed in 1895–Library Building Built—Colleges Included in the Uni-
versity—Pomona College—Founded at Pomona—Location at Claremont—Buildings—Pres-
1dents—Library—Attempt to Unite the Congregational, Baptist and Disciples in One Col-
legiate Institution—Rapid Growth of the College—Occidental College—The First Site
Chosen—Building Erected—The First President—College Building Destroyed by Fire—Loca-
tion Changed—First Building on the New Site Erected in 1898—Hall of Letters Built—The
Stimson Library—A $200,000 Endowment Secured—New President—Throop Polytechnic
Institute—Founded at Pasadena in 1891 by Hon. Amos G. Throop—Endowment—First
Board of Trustees—Change of Name—Buildings Erected—Stickney Memorial Building—
Throop Hall—Endowments—lnstitute Comprises Five Schools—Whittier College—Whittier
Academy Established in 1891—Whittier College Organized in 1901—College Buildings Com-
pleted—Gymnasium Built—Successful Effort to Raise a $100,000 Endowment—Harvard
School (Military)—A School Where Military Training and Scholarship are Combined—
Founded by Prof. Grenville C. Emery, A. M.–Site Selected and Buildings Erected—Rapid
Growth of the School—New Buildings Erected—Rifle Range Established—Cadet Band
Organized.
Jº Jº .2%
CHAPTER LIII.
LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC ORGANIZATIONS
s & e s e e s - e. e. e. e. e s e e º a s a e e s e s e e s a s e s e e s • * * * * * * * *
The Los Angeles Public Library—The Amigos del Pais and Their Library—The Mechanics
Institute—The First Library—Its Organization—Officers—Books Sold at Auction to Pay
Expenses—Organization of the Present Library—Its First Location—Librarians—Attempts
to Secure a Library Building—Library Moved from the City Hall—Roof Garden Reading
Room—Appropriation for Support of the Library—Historical Society of Southern California
—Founded November 1, 1883—The First Officers—Publications—Widely Circulated Library
—Legislature of 1904 Appropriates $125,000—Bill Vetoed by Governor Pardee—Southern
California Academy of Science—Organized as the Southern California Science Associa-
tion—Objects of the Society—Membership—Line of Work—Publications—Pioneers of Los
Angeles County—Its Object Historical—Organization—Founders—First Officers—Publica-
ticns—The Southwest Society of Archaeological Institute of America—Date of its Found-
ing—Rapid Growth—Collection of Folk-Songs—Relics of Fremont and Other Pioneers—
Scientific Explorations—Purchase of a Site—The First Officers of the Society.
CONTENTS.
35
CLIMATIC AND SEISMIC TRAGEDIES
CoMMERCIAL CORPORATIONS
PASADENA
CHAPTER LIV.
California Proud of Its Climate—Excuses Climatic Extremes on the Plea of Exceptional
Years—Earthquakes—Seismic Disturbances Epidemic—Frequent Earthquakes at the Time
of the First Settlement—San Gabriel River Named El Rio de Los Temblores, The Year
of Earthquakes—Destruction of the Mission San Juan Capistrano—Injury to Other
Mission Buildings—Earthquakes of 1856 and 1857—Owens' Valley Earthquake—Earthquake
of 1899–Floods—Meager Weather Reports in Early Days—Flood of 1810-II—Great Flood
of 1825–Changes the Course of the Los Angeles River—Flood of 1832—Changes Face of
the Country—Argonauts' First Experience of a California Flood—Flood of 1852 Dis-
astrous to the Miners—The Noachian Deluge of 1861-62—Very Destructive to Property—
Flood of 1867-68 Makes a New River in Los Angeles County—Floods of 1884 and 1886–
Droughts—After the Deluge–Droughts—Short Crops—Slaughter of Horses–Noveſias to
San Antonio of Padua—Famine Years of 1863 and 1864—Great Loss of Cattle—Dry Year
of 1877 Destructive to the Sheep Industry—Water Development has Mitigated the Evil
Effects of Dry Years—Record of the Rainfall at Los Angeles for Twenty Years.
Jº Jº Jº
CHAPTER LV.
The First Chamber of Commerce Organized in 1873—Proposed to Call It a Board of
Trade—Names Changed to Chamber of Commerce—First Board of Directors—Incorporated
for Fifty Years—Works to Secure Appropriation for San Pedro Harbor—Hard Times
Kill It—Board of Trade—Oldest Commercial Corporation—First Officers—Incorporates—
Take the Initiative in Many Beneficial Enterprises—Presidents from its Organization to
the Present Time—Secretaries—Second Chamber of Commerce—W. E. Hughes Inaugurates
the Movement—The First Meeting for Organization—Resolutions—Decide on Name—The
First Members—Constitution and By-laws Drafted—The First Officers—First Work Efforts
to Secure Appropriation for San Pedro Harbor—Facts and Figures—First Pamphlet Issued—
California on Wheels—Contest Over Free Harbor Location—San Pedro Wins—Homes of
the Chamber—Its Work—Exhibitions—Presidents—Secretaries—The Merchants and Manu-
facturers Association—Youngest Commercial Corporation—Two Organizations United—
Movement for Patronizing Home Products—Presidents of the Association—Secretaries.
Jº Jº Jºº
CHAPTER LVI.
Dr. Reid’s Labors to Preserve the Early History of Pasadena—The Citizens Owe Him a
Debt of Gratitude—Origin of the Name San Pascual—Some Romancing About the First
Owner—Dona Eulalia Perez de Guillen not an Owner—Juan Marine Granted the Rancho
in 1835—Don Manuel Garfias Became Owner of the Rancho—Builds a Costly Residence—
Loses the Rancho on a Mortgage to Dr. J. S. Griffin—Mrs. Johnston, Wife of Gen. Albert
Sidney Johnston, Purchases Part of the Rancho and Builds a House—Judge B. S. Eaton
Locates on the Rancho and Plants a Vineyard—The Great Oil Boom of 1865—The Pioneer
Oil Company Obtains a Deed to All Petroleum, Rock Oil, etc., on the Rancho San Pasqual—
The San Pasqual Plantation Scheme—The California Colony of Indiana—The San Gabriel
Orange Grove Association Purchases 4,000 Acres—Subdivision of the Land—Orange Grow-
ing a Success—The Lake Vineyard and Water Company Tract—The First Store and Post-
office—No Town in 1880—Pasadena Wins Prizes at Citrus Fairs—Pasadena, Key of the
Valley—Helen Hunt Jackson's Romancing—Raymond Hotel Built—Railroad Built—First
Reverberation of the Boom—Sale of the School-house Tract—Inflation of Values—Boom
e e e s e e s e s e s e e º a s e s a e e s e s a e º 'º e s a e s sº e s º e s º e s = * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * g e s s a e º e º e s is e s is a e º e º a
& e s tº e e s e s e e º s sº e º e º ºs e s e º 'º e s m s a s is s e º ºs e º sº dº º e º is ſº e º sº e s & e º ſº e º 'º e º ºs e º & s is nº e º ºs e º ºr
36 CONTENTS.
Bursts—Depression Does not Last Long—Rehabilitation—A Second Railroad–Population in
I890—The Mount Lowe Railroad—Mount Lowe Observatory Built—The Pacific Electric
Railway Built—New Buildings—Company I, Seventh Regiment—Population in 1900—Throop
Polytechnic Built—Building Boom of 1904-05—City Assessment—The Rose Tournament—
Board of Trade—The Public Library—Pioneer Newspapers—The Chronicle—It Fails—The
Star & Union—The Star Still Shines.
CHAPTER LVII.
CITIES AND TOWNS OF THE SAN GABRIEL VALLEY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Pomona a Child of the Colony Era—Origin of the Name—The San Jose Rancho—The Los
Angeles Immigration and Land Co-operative Association—Object of the Association—Great
Auction Sale of Lots in Pomona—Disaster Comes upon the Town—Population in 1880–
Incorporated as a City—Rapid Growth During the Boom—The Pioneer Newspaper—Pop-
ulation—Completion of the Salt Lake Road to Pomona—Great Prosperity in 1904-1905–
Pomona Library—Orange Shipment in 1906—Clarement—Lordsburg—San Dimas—Glendora
—Azusa City–Covina—Duarte—Irwindale–Monrovia—El Monte—San Gabriel–South Pas-
adena—Tropico—Glendale—Burbank—San Fernando—Newhall—Hollywood—Sherman—The
Soldiers' Home and Sawtelle—Compton—Whittier—Norwalk—Downey—Rivera—Artesia—
Santa Fe Springs—Dolgeville—Alhambra—Sierra Madre.
.8% ºf .sº
CHAPTER LVIII.
LONG BEACH. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
A Modern Town—A City of To-day—Some Military History—The Rancho Los Cerritos
Bought by Bixby & Co.—Willmore City—The American Colony—The Teachers’ Colony not
a Success—Old Timers not Good Colonist Material—Eastern People Coming—Colony Tract
and Town Lot Sold to the Land & Water Company—Name of Town Changed to Long
Beach—The First Car Service—Mulish Propelling Power—Southern Pacific Builds a Spur
Road into the Town—Depression—Population in 1890—The Terminal Railroad Built—The
Chautauqua Assembly—Population in 1900–Electric Road Built—The Los Angeles Dock &
Terminal Company—Annexed Territory—Schools—The Bixby Hotel Disaster—Long Beach
Library.
.* .ºz. .sº
CHAPTER LIX.
CITIES AND TOWNS BY THE SEASIDE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
San Pedro—The First House–Smuggling—Banning and Tomlinson—First Harbor Im-
provements—The Free Harbor—Misfortunes of the First Contractors—Increased Exports
and Imports—Free Public Library—Wilmington—Banning Founds New San Pedro—Explo-
sion of the Steamer Ada Hancock—Extension of the Railroad—Decline of Business—Revi-
val—Santa Monica—Redondo–Avalon—Playa del Rey—Ocean Park—Venice of America–
Naples.
3% ºf .sº
CHAPTER LX.
SANTA BARBARA COUNTY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Cabrillo, the Discoverer of the Santa Barbara Channel, Does not Name It—Named by
Padre de La Ascension—Presidio and Mission Take Their Names from the Channel—New
Historical Material in Regard to Bouchard and his Privateers—Captain Peter Conrey's Story
—Differs Widely from the Spanish Accounts—Cause of the Burning of Monterey—Pillag-
ing of Ortegas Rancho—Bouchard Spares Santa Barbara—Organization of the County—
CONTENTS.
37
SANTA BARBARA COUNTY-CONTINUED
THE CITY OF SANTA BARBARA
SAN BERNARDINo County
Boundaries—Transition from Mexican Forms to American—The First Officers Under Amer-
ican Rule—The First County Seal—First Assessment of Property—Fitness and Family
Chief Requisites in Officeholder—Crime and Criminals—No Vigilantes in Santa Barbara—
Downfall of the Cattle Kings—Subdivision of the Great Ranchos—The Railroad Comes.
Jº Jº Jºº
CHAPTER LXI.
The First School Under Spanish Rule—The First Under Mexican Domination—Futile
Attempts to Establish a School System—The Common Council in 1850 Takes Charge of
the School—The District Judge Elected County School Superintendent—The English Lan-
guage Introduced in the Schools—Slow Growth of the Public School System—Cities and
Towns—Lompoc.—Founded as a Temperance Colony—Contest with the Liquor Forces—
Growth of the City—Guadalupe—Betteravia—Santa Maria—Santa Ynez—Los Olivas—Los
Alamos—Goleta—El Montecito—Summerland–Carpinteria—The Channel Islands.
.* * *
CHAPTER LXII.
The Inhabitants Always Conservative—Not Given to Revolutions—Capture of Santa Bar-
bara by Commodore Stockton—Fremont Recaptures It—Incorporation of the City–Early
Municipal Records Carelessly Kept—First Common Council—Salisbury Haley's Survey of
the City Lands—Wrackenrueder's Survey—The Council Officially Recognizes the United
States Revenue Collector—The Indian Question—A Queer Judicial Decision—The First
Sunday Closing Ordinance—Careless Councilmen—City Lands—Street Nomenclature—The
Canon Perdido Affair—The Lost Cannon–City Seal—Squatter Troubles—The Pioneer News-
paper—Gazette’s Description of the City in 1855—Vigorous arraignment of Derelict Officials
—Slow Growth of City—Hard Times—The New Era—The First Wharf Built—Improve-
ments—The Natural History Society—The Public Library—The Decade Between 1870–
1880, the Transformation Period—First Railroad Train Arrives August, 1887—Real-Estate
Boom—Southern Pacific Coast Line Completed in 1901—St. Anthony’s College—Recent Im-
provements—Ocean Boulevard—Extension of the City Water System—La Cumbre Trail.
Jº Jº Jº
CHAPTER LXIII.
A Portion of the Area of San Bernardino County Originally in San Diego—First White
Settlers—San Bernardino Township—Robidoux a Judge of the Court of Sessions at the
Organization of Los Angeles County—Politana the First Settlement—Father Caballeria’s
Account of the Founding and Destruction—The Mission Establishment at Old San Bernar-
dino—Destroyed by the Mountain Indians—Hostile Indians—The First Land Grant—New
Mexican Colonists—The Lugo. Grants—The Transition Era—Indian Horse Thieves—A True
Account of the Irving Affair—Names of the Members of Irving's Gang—The Mormon
Immigration—The First Arrivals—Welcomed to California—The State of Deseret—Its
Organization at Salt Lake—Boundaries Included Nearly All of Southern California—Brig-
ham Young Elected Governor—Congress Refused to Admit the State of Deseret—Los
Angeles Star's Description of the San Bernardino Valley in 1851—The Mormons buy the
San Bernardino Rancho-Indian Depredations—Stockade Built at San Bernardino to Protect
the Settlers from Indian Raids.
e e s = e a e s a s & e s is a e s s s e s e º e º e s tº is a dº e º ſº e º e s m tº s is a tº º a
tº e º e º e º e g º e s is e g º ºs e º c e º 'º e º ºs º g º ſº tº e º tº e º 'º fº e º º ºs º º is e º 'º e º º ºs º º
e e º ºs e e s tº e s a e º 'º e º e º º is a e e º ºs e s ſº e º sº tº º ºs e º e º ſº tº a e e º 'º º ºs e º ſº dº e º sº e º 'º
38
CONTENTS.
SAN BERNARDINo County—CoNTINUED
SAN BERNARDINo County—ContLNUED
VENTURA COUNTY
VENTURA County—CONTINUED
CHAPTER LXIV.
Organization of the County—Act Creating the County Approved April 26, 1853—Town Site
of San Bernardino Laid Off—Council House Built—Rancho Subdivided into Small Tracts—
Express to Salt Lake Established—The First Pony Express—Failure of the Wheat Crop—
Hard Times—The Colony Prosperous—School Established—Political—Vote for President—
Recall of the Saints—Brigham Young Defies the Government—The Exodus Begins—Rival
Fourth of July Celebrations—Report of Mountain Meadows Massacre Hastens the Mor-
mon Departure—Sacrifice of Property—Departure of the Last Train—After the Mormon
Exodus—Reminiscences of an Old Pioneer—Unsocial Events—Hard Times—Gold Mining—
Holcomb Valley Discoveries—Pioneer Newspaper—J. Judson Ames Moves the San Diego
Herald to San Bernardino—Demise of the San Bernardino Herald—The Great Flood of
1861-62—Agua Manza Washed Away—Indian Depredations—Population in 1870—Railroad
Projects—The Southern Pacific Railroad.
Jº Jº Jº
CHAPTER LXV.
Cities and Towns—San Bernardino City—Its Early History Identical with That of the
County—Not Often Visited in Early Times by Travelers—Trade with the Mines—Court-
house Built in 1875—The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Reaches the City—The
California Southern Railroad—Car Shops Built—The Stewart Hotel—Disaster—Board of
Trade—Southern Pacific Railroad Builds a Line into the City—City Charter Granted—
Colton—A Railroad Town—Pioneer Newspaper—Town Becomes a City—Redlands—The
Town Plat Filed—Agitation over Incorporation of the Several Towns into One City—The
Smileys' Arrival—The Redlands Water Company—Board of Trade—Ontario and Upland—
Founding of the Colony—Founding of the Chaffey College of Agriculture—A Gala Day at
the Colony Site—Euclid Avenue—The Gravity Mule Car—Ontario Library—Upland—For-
merly North Ontario—Change of Name—Public Library—Chino, Meaning of the Word—
The Chino Rancho—Chino Sugar Factory—Rialto—The Semi-Tropic Land & Water Com-
pany—Its Failure—Highland–Early Settlers—Secures a Railroad—Cucamonga—Etiwanda—
loamosa—Barstow—The Needles.
.* * *
CHAPTER LXVI.
Early History of Ventura County—Part of Santa Barbara—The Oldest Roads up the
Coast—Little Shipping from the Port of San Buenaventura in Early Days—The Battle of
San Buenaventura—First Settlers after the Conquest—The First School—The First Attempt
to Form a County from the Eastern Part of Santa Barbara—First Attempt to Incorporate
the Town—Floods—Subdivision of the Great Ranchos Brings Immigrants—Coast Stage Line
—Josephine Clifford's Description of a Night Ride—The First Wharf–Formation of the
New County—Reasons for Segregation—Election Frauds—The Bill Creating the County
Approved—Commissioners Appointed—Names of the First County Officers Elected—The
Courthouse War—Prosperity.
Jº Jº Jº
CHAPTER LXVII.
Annals of Ventura Town and County—No Colony Settlements—School Bonds Issued—
Ventura Library Association Formed—Two Newspapers—News Items Scarce—Newspaper
War—The First Fire Company—Loss of the Steamer Kalorama—Crimes and Criminals—
tº e º e º e º º is is tº º is s is sº sº e s tº a tº 8 s tº a s e e s s is º is a º s e º is e º s º ºs
s e e s e s s & a s & e e e s e s e º e º e a e s e e a s s a e º s e e º e s s e s a e e
s a s e º 'º e s s e s sº e º s e s s a e s is e º e º e s e º e º a s e º e s e º a s tº e º 'º e e º e º s 6 º' s sº tº e º e s = e e
e s e s a tº t e º e º is e s tº e s a s a e s a s e s e s e s tº a s a s e e º s & © e e s & © tº e º e s & e
CONTENTS.
39
ORANGE COUNTY
Lynching of Hargen—The T. Wallace More Murder—The Murder Trial a Famous Case—
Conviction of Two of the Conspirators—Discharge of the Others—Wreck of the Crimea—
Loss of the Brig Mary Ann—Destruction of the Sheep Industry—Assessed Value of the
County in 1879—Beginning of the Bean Industry—Flood of 1884—Building of the South-
ern Pacific—Population in 1890—Pioneer Society Organized—Assassination of County Su-
perintendent Buckman—Railroad to Nordhoff—High Schools—Beet Sugar Industry—Popu-
lation in 1900—Chatsworth Tunnel Completed—Towns—Hueneme—Nordhoff–Santa Paula—
Oxnard—Islands of Ventura County—The Anacapas—Meaning of the Name—Loss of the
Steamer Winfield Scott on the Anacapas—San Nicolas—Massacre of the Inhabitants by the
Aleut Fur Hunters—Removal of the Survivors to the Mainland—Story of the Lone Woman
of San Nicolas—Killed by Kindness.
Jº Jº Jº
CHAPTER LXVIII.
ORANGE COUNTY *
tº g º ºs º dº º 'º e º e º ſº e º is º ºs e º e º ºs e e º 'º e º ºs º is tº ſº a tº gº tº º e º is tº º ſº ſº tº tº º tº º ſº tº dº e º º ºs º ºs e º & & © tº
The First Attempt to Create a New County—The Originator of the County Division
Scheme—Bill to Create the County of Anaheim Passed by the Lower House of the Legis-
lature—Opposition of Los Angeles City—Bill Defeated in the Senate—No More Coin from
the Faithful—Major Max Stroble, a Soldier of Fortune—His Career—He Starts a News-
paper—Attempt to Form the County of Santa Ana—A Concession That Does not Conciliate—
Failure of the Fourth Attempt—The Final Struggle—Success—The County of Orange Cre-
ated—County Officials Elected—Boundaries and Area of the New County—Spanish Ranchos
in Orange County—The Oldest Spanish Grant—Boundaries of the Santiago de Santa Ana—
The Santa Ana River Changes the Boundaries—The Squatter War—A Long Drawn Out
Legal Contest—Indefinite Boundaries of the Mexican Land Grants Cause of Much Litiga-
tion—An Example of Crude Boundary Lines—Schools—High Schools—Population—His-
tory of the Celery Industry—The Oil Industry.
.* .3% º
CHAPTER LXIX.
CONTINUED
Cities and Towns—Anaheim, One of the Oldest Colony Experiments in California—A Vine-
yard Colony—The Los Angeles Vineyard Company—The Purchase of 1,200 Acres Near
the Santa Ana River—Plan of the Colony—George Hansen Appointed Superintendent—
Names of the Trustees—The Colony Tract Named Anaheim—Improvements Begun—Plant-
ing Vines—Distribution of the Vineyard Tracts by Lot—Anaheim Township Created—Hard
Struggle—The First School-house—The Colony Flooded—The Anaheim Water Company—
The Cajon Irrigation Company—School District Bonded and a $10,000 Schoolhouse Built
—The Pioneer Newspaper—The Mysterious Vine Disease Destroys the Vineyards—Pioneer
Churches—Improvements—Santa Ana—Founded by William H. Spurgeon—The First Store
—Organization of a School District—The First Schoolhouse—The Town off the Main
Road—The Stage Route Diverted to a New Road–Postoffice Established—Small Pay to the
Postmaster—The Railroad Reaches the Town—The First Newspaper—Pioneer Churches—
Pioneer Banks—The Press—Recent Improvements—New City Hall—Improved Water Sys-
tem—The Parade of Products—Wonderful Display of Products—Santa Ana Free Public
Library—Orange Formerly Known as Richland–Postoffice Established—New Ditch Con-
structed—Incorporated as a City—Public Library—Tustin—Founded, by Columbus Tustin—
Builds a Schoolhouse at His Own Expense—Postoffice Established—Fullerton a Young
City—Center of Large Citrus District—Large Walnut Production—High School—Hunting-
ton Beach—Westminster Colony—Garden Grove—Los Alamitos—Buena Park—Newport
Beach—Capistrano.
© e is tº dº tº g e º & © tº º e º º ºs e g º ºs e g º 'º gº tº e º e º 'º tº e º & e º ºs e tº e e º ſº e º tº e s tº e º º
40
CONTENTS.
RIVERSIDE COUNTY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ©
RIVERSIDE County—CoNTINUED
CHAPTER LXX.
First Attempt to Form Riverside County a Failure—Effort to Form Three Counties—Sec-
ond Attempt to Form the County Succeeds—Varieties of Climate and Productions—Era of
Agricultural Experiments—Riverside Owes Its Location to the Sericulture Fad—The Failure
of the Silk Industry Experiment—Death of Louis Prevost, the Principal Promoter of the
Industry—Judge North’s Colony Association—Judge North Visits Southern California—
Purchase of the Silk Center Association’s Land—The Southern California Colony Associa-
tion Formed—Names of the Members of the Association—Lands Surveyed and Subdivided
—Town of Jurupa Laid Off—Name Changed to Riverside—Arrival of the First Colonists—
Irrigating Canal Constructed—First Orange Trees Planted—Raisin Grape Extensively
Planted—The Bahia or Washington Navel Orange Introduced by L. C. Tibbetts—Millions
of the Trees Propagated—Arlington—Samuel C. Evans Buys a Half Interest in the Harts-
horn Tract—Evans and Sayward Begin the Construction of a Canal—Consolidation of
Water Systems—The World-famous Magnolia Avenue Begun—Various Colonies United
under One Water System—Riverside in 1875 not a Temperance Town—Railroad Prospect—
An Amusing Resolution—The First Citrus Fair—Fruit Culture in 1879—Some Recent
Statistics—Riverside the Richest Community in the World—Some First Events—The River-
side Free Public Library—The Pioneer Newspaper—The Weekly News—Bucks Brief Vale-
dictory—The Riverside Press—The Daily Enterprise.
sº º .5%
CHAPTER LXXI.
Riverside Water System—Riverside Water Company—Sources of Supply—Extent—The
Gage Canal—Mathew Gage—Difficulties That Beset Him in the Beginning—Success Crowns
His Efforts—Extent of the System—Cost—Jurupa Canal—Riverside Highland Water Com-
pany—Cities and Towns—Riverside City—A Modern City—Area—The Replanting of a
Famous Tree—Recent Rapid Growth—Public Building Erected—Mount Robidoux Boule-
vard—Notable Thoroughfares—Corona–Laid Off in a Circular Form—Rapid Growth–
New Water Supply—Manufactures—Public Library—Temecula—Murietta—Elsinore—Perris
—Winchester—Lakeview—Hemet—San Jacinto City—Strawberry Valley—Beaumont—Ban-
ning—The Coachilla Valley—Some Twentieth Century Events—City High School—The
County Jail—The Sherman Institute—Laying of the Corner Stone—Objects of the Institute—
The School a Success—The Concrete Bridge over the Santa Ana River One of the World’s
Famous Bridges—Cost.
• * * * * * * * * * * * * * * e s e o a e s e e s e e s e e s • e • * * *
is a s e g g º ºs e s is e e s tº e º e º e º º e º e º 'º e º 'º e º e º e s tº s at e º 'º e º ºs e is a tº e º sº
A
Abbot, J. R. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1726
Abbott, Edward S. . . . . . . . . . . 1960
Abbott, John R. . . . . . . . . . . . . I619
Abbott, Osceola C. . . . . . . . . . 1890
Abplanalp, Edward . . . . . . . . . I94O
Adams, Abel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I64I
Adams, Charles B. . . . . . . . . . . 2IIO
Adams, Clarence C. . . . . . . . . . I972
Adams, John Q. . . . . . . . . . . . . 86O
Adams, John Q. . . . . . . . . . . . . I939
Adarga, Jose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 814
Addison, Robert . . . . . . . . . . . . 2163
Aerick, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1958
Aggen, Frederic . . . . . . . . . . . . I559
Agoure, Pierre . . . . . . . . . . . . . I636
Aguirre, Miguel A. . . . . . . . . . I740
Ahlstrom, John F. . . . . . . . . . . I554
Aiken, Harry C. . . . . . . . . . . . . IO36
Ainsworth, H. B. . . . . . . . . . . . 222O
Alcorn, James C. . . . . . . . . . . . 2I25
Alexander, Gottfried . . . . . . . . 2I90
Alkire, Josiah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . II88
Allen, Charles F. . . . . . . . . . . . . II83
Allen, Claude M. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2I/4
Allen, George F. . . . . . . . . . . . . I648
Allen, John W. . . . . . . . . . . . . . IOI6
Allen, Oliver A. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2IOO
Allen, William J. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1898
Allgeyer, Henry . . . . . . . . . . . . I348
Amar, Edouard . . . . . . . . . . . . . 827
Ambler, Cleason . . . . . . . . . . . . Io98
Ames, Earl L. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2062
Anderson, C. O. . . . . . . . . . . . . II 30
Anderson, Daniel W. . . . . . . . . 2I42
Anderson, G. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2240
Anderson, John A. . . . . . . . . . . 995
Anderson, J. W. . . . . . . . . . . . . IO46
Anderson, Nils . . . . . . . . . . . . . I987
Anderson, Reuben J. . . . . . . . 216I
Andrew, Charles . . . . . . . . . . . I28I
Andrew, Tilghman D. . . . . . . . 1805
Andrew, William . . . . . . . . . . . I322
Andrews, Allen W. . . . . . . . . . 1857
Andrews, Harvey F. . . . . . . . . Q22
Andrews, Joshua . . . . . . . . . . . 2I41
Andrews, Joshua . . . . . . . . . . . I995
Andrews, R. C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2O7O
Andrews, Richard L. . . . . . . . . I318
Angel, James N. . . . . . . . . . . . . 929
Apiou, Jean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I73I
Apsey, Job E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I403
Ardis, John D. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IO67
Armstrong, Robert, M. D. . . . IOI9
Armstrong, Royal M. . . . . . . . . 2O55
Arnold, C. R. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2216
Arnold, Chester G. . . . . . . . . . . I666
Arnold, Eugene T. . . . . . . . . . . I668
Arnold, Leroy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I584
Arnold, Percy N. . . . . . . . . . . . 1976
Ashcroft, Norman . . . . . . . . . . 1276
Aspe, Capt. John W. . . . . . . . . I972
Atkinson, Benjamin M. . . . . . I953
I N D E X.
Atmore, M. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2IZ3
Atwater, A. J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2239
Atwood, Danford . . . . . . . . . . . I826
Auld, William H. . . . . . . . . . . . II.43
Austin, Matthew J. . . . . . . . . . I908
Austin, W. Horace. . . . . . . . . . I957
Ayers, Frank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IO73
Ayers, Wilbur W. . . . . . . . . . . 2O7I
Aylmore, Albert . . . . . . . . . . . . 2I75
B
Bacon, Elmer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1746
Bacon, Shirley V. . . . . . . . . . . . . I749
Bahrenburg, George E., M. D. IoIO
Bailard, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IO52
Bailey, Charles W. . . . . . . . . . 2164
Baker, Calvin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2186
Baker, Isaac F. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I2O8
Baker, John S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2I92
Baldridge, Michael . . . . . . . . . I222
Baldwin, Fred P. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1796
Baldwin, James V. . . . . . . . . . 545
Baly, Hal W. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I758
Baly, Henry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I828
Banks, George H. . . . . . . . . . . . I839
Barclay, John H. . . . . . . . . . . . . I422
Bard, Cephas L., M. D. . . . . . 509
Bard, Hon. Thomas R. . . . . . . 507
Bargar, John C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 984
Barker, Obadiah T. . . . . . . . . . 736
Barker, Walter E. . . . . . . . . . . 1855
Barlow, Walter J. . . . . . . . . . . . 535
Barnard, Edwin L. . . . . . . . . . . I625
Barndollar, Harry . . . . . . . . . . . 676
Barnes, Charles J. . . . . . . . . . . . I464
Barnes, Hon. Frank W. . . . . . I4I7
Barnes, Legene S. . . . . . . . . . . II26
Barron, George D. . . . . . . . . . . 776
Barton, Albert G. . . . . . . . . . . . 1308
Barton, Chester R. . . . . . . . . . . 727
Barton, John W. . . . . . . . . . . . . I533
Barton, Sylvester W. . . . . . . . . IO53
Barton, William T. . . . . . . . . . . 2009
Bartow, James V. . . . . . . . . . . . I964
Bartron, P. H. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I253
Bates, Frank L. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2258
Bates, Jacob H. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I435
Battles, George W. . . . . . . . . . . 879
Baum, John G. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1819
Bautzer, Edward H. . . . . . . . . . 1906
Bay, George . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I469
Beach, W. W. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2IOI
Bean, Jacob . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 661
Beard, George . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1895
Beardsley, Robert L. . . . . . . . . 1987
Beasley, Henry C. . . . . . . . . . . . I 333
Beck, Charles E. . . . . . . . . . . . . I396
Beck, Thomas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2I50
Beckett, Wesley W. . . . . . . . . . 733
Bell, John S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2I75
Bell, Robert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IOOO
Bell, Thomas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I333
Bemis, Amos H. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2O4I
Bendasher, P. J 2222
Benedict, Edson A. . . . . . . . . . . I654
Benn, John
* * * * * * * * * * c e =
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * I
Bennett, F. E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . §
Bennett, George E. .......... I6O2
Bennett, Oscar . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2024
Benson, George S. . . . . . . . . . . I745
Bentley, William H. . . . . . . . . . I5I9
Berges, Sylvain . . . . . . . . . . . . . I8OI
Bernasconi, Mrs. M.......... I437
Berry, J. B.................. 2I79
Berry, Mark T. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 887
Best, Fred N. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 862
Best, Newton W. . . . . . . . . . . . 2069
Bettens, P. A................ 2238
Beveridge, John L. . . . . . . . . . . 546
Beverly, Burt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2257
Bewley, William E. . . . . . . . . . I9 I5
Biane, Marius . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2I54
Bichowsky, Emmo C. . . . . . . . . 2O49
Bidart, Gratian . . . . . . . . . . . . . 942
Bierlein, Fred G. . . . . . . . . . . . . I255
Billingsly, William C. . . . . . . . IO45
Binns, W. C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I3O2
Bise, Samuel M. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2I32
Bither, Eber K. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I825
Bixby, Jotham 5OI
* * * * * * * * * * * is a e
Bixler, Gilbert A. . . . . . . . . . . . I808
Bjorkman, Henry . . . . . . . . . . . I594
Bjorkman, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . I7I5
Black, John W. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I608
Black, Hon. Samuel T. . . . . . . 643
Blackmer, Hon. Eli T. . . . . . . . I488
Blake, John C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I95O
Blakely, Thomas A. . . . . . . . . . I815
Blakeslee, George A. . . . . . . . . 9I6
Blewett, George A. . . . . . . . . . . 708
Blinn, Irving L. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1823
Blodgett, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2O5 I
Blondeau, Rene . . . . . . . . . . . . 2O77
Blood, Harrison J. . . . . . . . . . . I90I
Blount, George H. . . . . . . . . . . . 504
Bluemle, Frederick . . . . . . . . . . 1872.
Blumeare, Matheas . . . . . . . . . . 2O52
Blythe, Clinton . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1817
Bodger, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 554
Bodwell, Joseph F. . . . . . . . . . . IQO4
Boettcher, Reinhold . . . . . . . . . 1879
Bolton, M. Blanche, M. D... II40
Bondietti. A. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 626
Borchard, Casper . . . . . . . . . . . I94I
Borchard, Frank A. . . . . . . . . . I732
Borchard, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53I
Borden, Carroll E. . . . . . . . . . . II.45
Borden, John E. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2241
Borden, Reynold B. . . . . . . . . . 8o3
Bovard, George F. . . . . . . . . . . 702
Bowen, Edmund F. . . . . . . . . . I332
Bowman, D. E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I24O
Boyd, Thomas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I3O2
Bradley, Edward R. . . . . . . . . . 756
Brady, Capt. John T. . . . . . . . . 526
Brand, Robert L
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
ii.
INDEX
Bras, A. V. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 704
Breckenridge, Nathan L. . . . . . 2176
Breedlove, Doctor M. . . . . . . . I955
Breedlove, John H. . . . . . . . . . . IO88
Breen Brothers . . . . . . . . . . . . . I7OI
Brelin, Gustav . . . . . . . . . . . . . . II57
Brenneis, Louis . . . . . . . . . . . . . II23
Brinkerhoff, George F. . . . . . . . I27O
Brooks, Francis P. . . . . . . . . . . IIOO
Brookshire, T. J.. . . . . . . . . . . . 2183
Brown, Charles C. . . . . . . . . . . 1118
Brown, Edmund L. . . . . . . . . . . 2O79
Brown, Fred . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 884
Brown, Jacob . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2OO7
Brown, John, Sr.. . . . . . . . . . . . 578
Brown, Robert H. . . . . . . . . . . . 2242
Brown, Dr. Robert W. . . . . . . II44
Brown, Stephen . . . . . . . . . . . . 224O
Brown, William M. . . . . . . . . . . 1789
Brown, Wilmot G. . . . . . . . . . . 1984
Brubaker, Josiah D. . . . . . . . . . 1996
Bruce, David . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IISI
Brunson, Edward A. . . . . . . . . I875
Bryan, John C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2006
Bryant, Ernest A. . . . . . . . . . . . 875
Bryant, Joseph F. . . . . . . . . . . . I862
Bublitz, G. H. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2058
Buckley, John W. . . . . . . . . . . . 92O
Buehn, George J. . . . . . . . . . . . . II25
Buesser, David . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2OI2
Bundy, G. G. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . II49
Bunford, Thomas H. . . . . . . . . 2I39
Bunt, Eli . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2242
Burdick, Herbert A. . . . . . . . . . 1306
Burfeindt, Peter . . . . . . . . . . . . I673
Burke, Joseph H. . . . . . . . . . . . III.7
Burke, Michael H. . . . . . . . . . . . 1758
Burke, Capt. William W. . . . . 1819
Burks, Dana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 709
Burlingham, Nathan D. . . . . . 807
Burmister, Howard C. . . . . . . I437
Burns, Frank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 871
Burr, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I279
Burson, John W. . . . . . . . . . . . 84I
Butler, Frank G. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2I47
Butler, Lewis G. . . . . . . . . . . . . I949
Butler, William J. . . . . . . . . . . . 1366
Butters, William H. . . . . . . . . . 899
Byng, Enoch F. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Q94.
Byram, Ellis T. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2O3O
C
Calac, Jose P. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2223
Caldwell, George W. . . . . . . . . 815
Caley, William S. . . . . . . . . . . . 2244
Calkins, Lyman O. . . . . . . . . . . I690
Callahan, Henry S. . . . . . . . . . . 1832
Callender, C. R. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 893
Callens, Jules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1969
Callens, Remie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I390
Callister & Smith. . . . . . . . . . . . 2177
Cammer, E. Y. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I5I3
Camp, Henry J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . IO61
Campbell, D. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2223
Campbell, George W. . . . . . . . . I474
Campbell, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22.45
Campbell, Marcus . . . . . . . . . . . I638
Campbell, William C. . . . . . . . I432
Campodonico, S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1767
Canne, H. D. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2083
Cantarini, Angelo . . . . . . . . . . . 2223
Cantarini, Auguste . . . . . . . . . . I757
Carey, Thomas . . . . . . . . . . . . . 807
Carl, B. J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2244
Carner, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I995
Carpenter, Chauncey E. . . . . . . I455
Carpenter, Mrs. Helen C. . . . . 2I40
Carpenter, William H. . . . . . . I354
Carr, Earle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I379
Carr, Philetus S. . . . . . . . . . . . . 583
Carroll, James B. . . . . . . . . . . . IO92
Carroll, Thomas H. . . . . . . . . . I952
Carson, Henry C. . . . . . . . . . . . I389
Carson, Stephen H. . . . . . . . . . . 1860
Carter, Walter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . II69
Caruthers, William . . . . . . . . . . 1858
Case, Jesse H. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2OO2
Case, L. H. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2224
Casebeer, Charles F. . . . . . . . . 91o
Casner, Lazarus P. . . . . . . . . . I584
Casner, Martin Van. . . . . . . . . I596
Cassidy, James H. . . . . . . . . . . I52I
Caster, George B. . . . . . . . . . . . I948
Casterline, Myron N. . . . . . . . . IO68
Caswell, A. M. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I792
Cate, J. A. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I436
Catey, Henry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IO2O
Cathcart, J. Lee. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2I3I
Cathcart, Robert . . . . . . . . . . . . 2235
Cawelti, David . . . . . . . . . . . . . I4I5
Cazas, Felipe J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I490
Cazaux, Jean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I435
Chamberlain, Albert . . . . . . . . . 2225
Chamberlain, Olo J. . . . . . . . . I4I2
Chambers, Charles E. . . . . . . . I6II
Chapman, Juan J. . . . . . . . . . . . I644
Charnock, George . . . . . . . . . . I744
Charnock, John J. . . . . . . . . . . . 739
Chase, Raymond E., M. D. . . . I75I
Cheney, Willard R. . . . . . . . . . IOI3
Cherry, H. M. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2243
Chevalier, Jeremie . . . . . . . . . . I2O8
Chittenden, R. H., M. D. . . . 1831
Choate, Roger L. . . . . . . . . . . . . 889
Christensen, J. P. . . . . . . . . . . . 1863
Christensen, John P. . . . . . . . . I709
Christie, Robert R. . . . . . . . . . . 903
Churchill, Edward M. . . . . . . . 1588
Clancy, Edward L. . . . . . . . . . . IO28
Clark, Byron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Io36
Clark, Charles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2O75
Clark, Capt. Frank B. . . . . . . . I997
Clark, Eli P. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565
Clark, George M. . . . . . . . . . . . IOOI
Clark, John D. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2085
Clark, William L. . . . . . . . . . . . I250
Clark, James H., M. D. . . . . . . II58
Clay, Daniel R. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1217
. Clayton, Albert B. . . . . . . . . . . 1918
Cleminson, James . . . . . . . . . . . 655
Cleminson, James D. . . . . . . . . 656
Cleminson, John . . . . . . . . . . . . I409
Clewett, James C. . . . . . . . . . . . 1962
Cline, S. A. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I929
Clock, Charles L. . . . . . . . . . . . 2I57
Clock, Fred H. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2I53
Clough, D. E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2243
Clusker, Charles C. . . . . . . . . . 833
Clyde, Edward P. . . . . . . . . . . . 1825
Clyde, Rufus T. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I4I5
Coates, Thomas W. . . . . . . . . . I944
Cobb, Ives E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I539
Coburn, James A. . . . . . . . . . . 2OIO
Cochran, George I. . . . . . . . . . . 623
Coe, Clarence E. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1884
Coe, Nathaniel F. . . . . . . . . . . .
883
Coffin, William V., M. D. . . . 631
&
Cogswell, Hon. P. F. . . . . . . . . 1873
Colby, J. J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1893
Cole, Byron S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1879
Cole, George W. . . . . . . . . . . . . I281
Cole, Joseph A. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I418
Cole, James A. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1969
Cole, James C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I738
Cole, Schuyler . . . . . . . . . . . . . I722
Coleman, Joseph L. . . . . . . . . . I923
Coleman, Leonidas W. . . . . . . 2036
Collins, David H. . . . . . . . . . . . 598
Colman, Edwin W. . . . . . . . . . I218
Colton, Charles E. . . . . . . . . . . I29I
Colton Daily News. . . . . . . . . . I947
Colton Fruit Exchange. . . . . . . IQ9I
Compton, Ralph S. . . . . . . . . . 815
Comstock, Alfred B. . . . . . . . . I691
Comstock, Andrew . . . . . . . . . . 980
Connelly, Archie . . . . . . . . . . . . I429
Conner, Jasper N. . . . . . . . . . . I425
Conrad, E. Francis. . . . . . . . . . I733
Converse, Thomas P. . . . . . . . . 974
Cook, Henry T. . . . . . . . . . . . . I274
Cook, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 814
Cook, R. B. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2IQ3
Cook, Ulric T. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1178
Cooley, H. George. . . . . . . . . . . I632
Coomer, Edward C. . . . . . . . . . I337
Coony, Thomas V. . . . . . . . . . . I489
Corbeil, Theophile . . . . . . . . . . 2246
Costner, Albert M. . . . . . . . . . . I9I4
Cota, Agustin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2226
Coultas, W. Walter. . . . . . . . . . I296
Counts, J. E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I970
Courtney, J. E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I965
Covert, E. Lynn. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1756
Covert, George W., M. D. . . . 1795
Covert, Joseph N. . . . . . . . . . . . 1566
Covington, P. H. . . . . . . . . . . . . I926
Covington, William B. . . . . . . I477
Cox, Aaron A. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I948
Cox, Charles C. . . . . . . . . . . . . I935
Cox, James G. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I918
Crafts, Mrs. E. P. Robbins. . 987
Cram, Lewis F. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I794
Crawford, Joseph . . . . . . . . . . . IO57
Crawford, Robert A. . . . . . . . . . 1877
Creelman, Lawrence A. . . . . . II56
Crise, David, M. D. . . . . . . . . . IIOO
Crocker, Capt. H. A. . . . . . . . . 2087
Cross, George E. . . . . . . . . . . . . III.4
Crouch, Herbert . . . . . . . . . . . . 215I
Cruickshank, John W. . . . . . . . I932
Crum, Dwight M. . . . . . . . . . . . 1810
Cruz, Jesus L. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2O77
Culver, Francis F. . . . . . . . . . . I933
Cuneo, Alexander J . . . . . . . . . . I288
Currier, Hon. Alvan T. . . . . . . 701
Curry, Samuel N. . . . . . . . . . . . I931
Curtis, Chester W. . . . . . . . . . . I95I
Curtis, Thomas F. . . . . . . . . . . 9I6
Curtis, William J. . . . . . . . . . . . 2OI2
Cushing Brothers . . . . . . . . . . . Io.78
Cushing, John W. . . . . . . . . . . . IO/8
Czerny, Mrs. Dora . . . . . . . . . . 635
D
Dailey, Merritt H. . . . . . . . . . . I927
Daily, E. Wright. . . . . . . . . . . . I593
Daily, Wendell P. . . . . . . . . . . . 1834
Dallas, Alexander . . . . . . . . . . II84
Dancer, Barton W. . . . . . . . . . . I934
Dancer, Robert E. . . . . . . . . . . I931
INDEX. - iii
Dart, Louis S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1982 Easton, Albert D. . . . . . . . . . . . I493 Foshay, James A. . . . . . . . . . . . 755
Davenport, Walter L. . . . . . . . I564 Easton, George . . . . . . . . . . . . . I993 Foss, D. R. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 639
Davidson, Charles G. . . . . . . . . I572 Eastwood, Ernest . . . . . . . . . . . 2IO4 Foster, Joseph. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2247
Davidson, Frank P. . . . . . . . . . 2224 Eaton, L. C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I966 Foussat, H. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2181
Davidson, Hiram S. . . . . . . . . . 2042 Eckelkamp, Herman . . . . . . . . I477 Fowler, Will L. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I2O9
Davies, Ben . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 907 Edmonds, Bishop J. . . . . . . . . . I5I4 Francis, John. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I275
Davis, James W. . . . . . . . . . . . . I509 Edmondson, Robert B. . . . . . . I692 Fraser, James McG. . . . . . . . . . 767
Davis, John W. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 743 Edwards, Joseph A. . . . . . . . . . 1824 Frazer, George W. . . . . . . . . . . I247
Davis, Stephen O. . . . . . . . . . . 1864 Eisemayer, Emil J. . . . . . . . . . . 1885 Frazier, John M. . . . . . . . . . . . . I635
Davis, William . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1769 Elliot, George . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I359 Frederick, Cody J. . . . . . . . . . . I92O
Davis, William C. . . . . . . . . . . . I933 Elliott, Elmer E. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2I45 Fredericks, John D. . . . . . . . . . 867
Dawson, Robert W. . . . . . . . . . I44I Elliott, William . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2O73 Freeman, Albert J. . . . . . . . . . . . I317
Day, H. K. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2020 Ellis, H. B. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69I Freeman, Charles A. . . . . . . . . I626
De Armond, Jerome C. . . . . . 2158 Ellis, William S. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1946 Freeman, Daniel. . . . . . . . . . . . . 809
De Coudres, Thomas L. . . . . . 658 Ellsworth, Capt. W. H. . . . . . . 2I9I Freeman, Ernest M., M. D. . . 2172
De Garmo, Rollie F. . . . . . . . . I917 Elms, Harry M. A. . . . . . . . . . 2246 Freeman, Henry D. . . . . . . . . . . 1587
Delpy, Jules J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I984 Emerson, Claudius L. . . . . . . . . I92O Freeman, Thomas A. . . . . . . . . I462
Delpy, Pierre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2004 Engebretsen, John . . . . . . . . . . I273 Freeman, Zenas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I794
De Meulle, Joseph . . . . . . . . . . IO6I Engebretson, Charles . . . . . . . . I666 Fremont, John C. . . . . . . . . . . 695
Demsey, Claudius O. . . . . . . . . I344 England, Thomas Y. . . . . . . . . IIO3 French, John G. . . . . . . . . . . . . I922
Denman, Abram C., Jr. . . . . . 84I Eno, R. A. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2228 Freer, Jackson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I360
Dewey, Edwin P. . . . . . . . . . . . 1978 Erickson, E. R. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I905 Freer, James B. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I27o
Diaz, Adolph D. . . . . . . . . . . . . I458 Erskine, Forrest M. . . . . . . . . . I383 Freer, John H. . . . . . . . . . . . . . IO74
Didier, Louis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 657 Escallier, Hypolite . . . . . . . . . . I560 Freer, Lee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I266
Diedrich, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2226 Esler, Frederick J. . . . . . . . . . . 976 Freer, Martin S. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2IIO
Diedrich, Louis F. . . . . . . . . . . I697 Espiau, Peter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 735 Freer, Thomas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I266
Dinsmoor, Raphael H. . . . . . . . 948 Evans, Harvey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I37O Freer, William H. . . . . . . . . . . . IO97
Dinwiddie, W. H. H. . . . . . . . 218O Evans, Henry H. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2O37 Frew, Prof. Will L. . . . . . . . . 956
Doane, G. M., Sr. . . . . . . . . . . I447 Eymann, Walter C. . . . . . . . . . 1782 Friedricks, H. A. . . . . . . . . . . . 222I
Dodd, T. V. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 763 - Frink, Alonzo M. . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Io
Dodson, Arthur Mc. . . . . . . . . 747 F Frink, Marcus L. . . . . . . . . . . . 2042
Dodson, D. N. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1248 Fages Jean e s e º e º 'º e s e - e º 'º - e. 935 Frink, William H. . . . . . . . . . . . I5I5
Dodson, James H. . . . . . . . . . . 747 Fahier, john ............... 1864 Fryer, Henry F. . . . . . . . . . . . . I656
Dodson, John F. . . . . . . . . . . . . 748 Failor, Benjamin F. ......... 1327 Fulkerson, Jonathan F. . . . . . . 1702
Dodson, William R. . . . . . . . . . 649 Fairbanks, Fergus L. . . . . . . . . 819 Fuller, Henry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 762
Doerr, Phillip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1444 Fairbanks, John H. . . . . . . . . . 1233 Fulton, Charles E. . . . . . . . . . . 1871
Doig, John R., M. D. . . . . . . . *349 Fairburn, Simon . . . . . . . . . . . . I22I Fulton, William T. . . . . . . . . . . 828
Domenigoni, Angelo . . . . . . . . 1487 Faii. Capt. G. L. F. ......... 1893. Fuqua, William J. . . . . . . . . . . 94O
Donovan, Daniel . . . . . . . . . . . . 1965 Fankhanel Brothers ......... 1275 Fussell, Pomeroy B. . . . . . . . . I546
Donovan, John J. . . . . . . . . . . . 890 Farley, John D. . . . . . . . . . . . . I322
Donovan, Patrick . . . . . . . . . . . 499 Farquhar, Frank R. . . . . . . . . . 2O86 G
Doran, Edmond L. . . . . . . . . . . £579 Farquhar, Richard J. . . . . . . . . 2O7I
Dorn, Charles I. . . . . . . . . . . . . 43%. Farquhar, William R. . . . . . . . 2194 Gabbert, Thomas G. . . . . . . . . 574
Doud, James . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I673 Farrington, E. A. . . . . . . . . . . . 2179 Gamash, Louis. . . . . . . . . . . . ... 2228
Dougherty, James L. . . . . . . . . 1729 Feder, Henry C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1975 Ganahl, F. J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2003
Douglas, Bruce. E. . . . . . . . . . . %24 Fellows, Ernest F. . . . . . . . . . . . 1913 Gano, Peter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1989
Dovey, James H. . . . . . . . . . . . 1% Fellows, irwin ......... . . . . 1849 Gansner, Henry F. . . . . . . . . . . 2064
Dow, Herbert G. . . . . . . . . . . . 868 Fellows, joseph . . . . . . . . . . . . 1888 Garbani, Gaudenzio. . . . . . . . . . I6I2
Downey, Alvah . . . . . . . . . . . . 1799 Ferguson, James F. . . . . . . . . . 2027 Gard, J. Daniel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I790
Doyle, P. W. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 939 Ferguson. William . . . . . . . . . 808 Garland, Richard H. . . . . . . . . . 777
Drake, Alden T. . . . . . . . . . . . . 6:3 Feri, Arthur F.............. IIo9 Garner, Lawrence L. . . . . . . . . I983
Drake, Alfred C. . . . . . . . . . . . 1582 Ferrero, joseph ............. 1240 Garner, Moses B. . . . . . . . . . . . 2044
Draper, Arthur J. . . . . . . . . . . . *373 Fesler, E. L................. 2229 Garner, Sylvester H. . . . . . . . . . Io'79
Dreher, Gus P. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1806 Fetterman, Isaac L.......... 600 Garrison, Frank J. . . . . . . . . . . I545
Driffill, Col. J. A. . . . . . . . . . . . 5* Fickewirth, Edmund . . . . . . . . 2195 Garrison, Horace B. . . . . . . . . . 1963
Duarte, Mariano J. . . . . . . . . . 984 Filanc, Peter j...'............ 1727 Garrison, James A. . . . . . . . . . . I557
Dudley, P. J . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 799 Filanc, Peter J. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2064 Garvey, Richard. . . . . . . . . . . . . 717
Dudley, T. Horace ... . . . . . . . . 594 Finch, B. W. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2181 Gaskill, Luman H. . . . . . . . . . . I299
Duffy, Capt. Mitchell. . . . . . . . 1540 Finley, james ............... 1243 Gaskill, Silas E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . IO25
Duncan, Mrs. Narcissa. . . . . . *7. Finney, Daniel A. . . . . . . . . . . 2155 Gehring, Gustav A. . . . . . . . . . . 2097
Duncan, William P. . . . . . . . . . £537 Firebaugh, J. A....... . . . . . . . 2185 Gerard, Erle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 665
Dunford, William . . . . . . . . . . . 1484 Fieishman, Frederick . . . . . . . . 22To Gifford, Charles M. . . . . . . . . . . I32I
Dunlap, Louis N. . . . . . . . . . . . 2076 Fint. Moses A.............. 1192 Gifford, Judge Charles T. . . . . 777
Dunn, John S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 999 Flint, Samuel H. . . . . . . . •s g º 'º e 1360 Gilbert, Joseph D. . . . . . . . . . . 2248
Durant, Edward W. . . . . . . . . 1402 Fint, Winfield S. . . . . . . . . . . . 1312 Gill, Alexander. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I218
Durfee, James. D. . . . . . . . . . . . 649 Fiores, Ábraham. . . . . . . . . . . . 2247 Gill, Henry Z., M. D. . . . . . . . . I798
Durrell, Daniel M. . . . . . . . . . . 1534 Fiory," Guy M............... 2053 Gillis, William T. . . . . . . . . . . . 1696
Dusch, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1516 Fior. M. M. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2128 Gillmore, Jesse. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9I3
Dye, Bruce W. S. . . . . . . . . . . . *7 Follansbee, Elizabeth A. . . . . . 551 Gilly, Gaston J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . II78
Dye, Drew E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . *9 Foot, Frank D. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I280 Gird, Henry H. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 568
Dye, Thomas C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . *7 Ford, Charles Y. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1354 Giroux, Henry T. . . . . . . . . . . . 2006
Ford, John V. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1905 Gisler, Frank: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1306
E Forman, Gen. Charles. . . . . . . 72I Gisler, Gabriel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 845
Eaches, William A. . . . . . . . . . . 1326 Fortney, B. L. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IOOI Gisler, Joseph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I269
iv.
INDEX.
Glass, David R. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2187
Glatz, Albert. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2061
Glen Holly Dairy. . . . . . . . . . . . I954
Glenn, George W. . . . . . . . . . . . I583
Glidden, Seth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2239
Glover, James B. . . . . . . . . . . . I538
Goelz, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2OI4
Goetting, August A. . . . . . . . . . IIIQ
Golden, Martin J. . . . . . . . . . . . 862
Goldkamp, Ferdinand J. . . . . . 683
Gonzalez, Jose M. . . . . . . . . . . . IQI2
Goode, Edgar D. . . . . . . . . . . . . I553
Goodlett, John B. . . . . . . . . . . . 1892
Goodrich, George A. . . . . . . . . 2008
Gordon, James J. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2229
Gowell, Silas L. . . . . . . . . . . 2059
Graham, J. W. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223O
Graham, William O. . . . . . . . . I493
Grand, August H. . . . . . . . . . . 2I95
Grant, James P. . . . . . . . . . . . . 952
Granville, Edward . . . . . . . . . . 899
Gray, W. J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2178
Gray, W. M. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2I82
Greaser, Charles E. . . . . . . . . . . I689
Greely, William C. . . . . . . . . . . 2O55
Greene, Edmund B. . . . . . . . . . 2099
Greenman, Charles F. . . . . . . . 2IOO
Gregg, Hon. Frederic W. . . . . IQIQ
Gregory, Joseph . . . . . . . . . . . . 879
Greve, Charles . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2IOO
Grider, Thomas J., Jr. . . . . . . . 2184
Griffin, Cecil L. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1870
Griffin, Enoch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1776
Griffin, James L. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2O47
Griffin, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IOI5
Griffith, G. W. E. . . . . . . . . . . . I793
Griffiths, George W. . . . . . . . . I IO4
Griffiths, William L. . . . . . . . . I5IO
Grimaud, Germain . . . . . . . . . . 2O3I
Griswold, Harry W. . . . . . . . . II24
Griswold, Mrs. Helen B. . . . . . II97
Grosjean, Charles . . . . . . . . . . . I924
Grow, Walter F. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2O46
Guess, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532
Guinn, James M. . . . . . . . . . . . . 650
Guiteau, Henry C. . . . . . . . . . . 21.96
Gully, Cuthbert . . . . . . . . . . . . . II7I
H
Hackman, Mrs. Mabel L. . . . . 1814
Haddox, Eli M. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I338
Hadley, Albert . . . . . . . . . . . . . I3O7
Hage, Willard B. . . . . . . . . . . . I52O
Haig, Morton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2IQO
Haight, Albert C. . . . . . . . . . . . 1863
Hails, George A. . . . . . . . . . . . . I253
Halburg, Frank A. . . . . . . . . . . 223O
Hall, Albert E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2089
Hall, I. L. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2249
Hall, Jesse P. R. . . . . . . . . . . . IO4O
Hall, Nathan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IO42
Hall, W. F. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2009
Ham, Alexander M. . . . . . . . . . I9I2
Hambleton, Walter D. . . . . . . 1566
Hamburger, Asher . . . . . . . . . . 730
Hamilton, Capt. John. . . . . . . . 778
Hamilton, N. H., M. D. . . . . . I7O3
Hancock, Alvin B. . . . . . . . . . . . I373
Hancock, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Igg4
Hancock, Samuel R. . . . . . . . . . I994
Hanf, Philip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . II57
Hanford, J. J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2O43
Hanna, George . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2248
Hanna, Jacob . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2250
Hannon, Francis C. . . . . . . . . . IO92
Hansard, J. W. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22O6
Hansen, George . . . . . . . . . . . . I775
Hansen, James P. . . . . . . . . . . . I960
Hansen, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2I35
Happe, Anthony J. . . . . . . . . . . I464
Haraszthy, B. A. . . . . . . . . . . . . 82O
Harbison, John S. . . . . . . . . . . 2IO2
Harbison, R. C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2256
Hardin, Louis B. . . . . . . . . . . . . IO66
Hargis, Charles J. . . . . . . . . . . 614
Hargrave, John R. . . . . . . . . . . 2O89
Hargraves, Walter C. . . . . . . . 2004
Harper, Robert B. . . . . . . . . . . . 2167
Harps, Jacob . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I422
Harrington, David G. . . . . . . . I508
Harris, Henry H. . . . . . . . . . . . I959
Harris, Horace E. . . . . . . . . . . . 2O22
Harris, Oscar W. . . . . . . . . . . . I550
Harrison, E. N. . . . . . . . . . . . . 22O5
Harshman, Josiah J. . . . . . . . . . 7I4
Hart, Allan L. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1867
Hartman, John C. . . . . . . . . . . . I590
Haskell, Loring B. . . . . . . . . . . 1804
Haskell, Wesley . . . . . . . . . . . . III.3
Haskins, James C. . . . . . . . . . . . I797
Hass, Theodore E. . . . . . . . . . . I944
Hatch, Edward J. . . . . . . . . . . . 2I49
Hatfield, Abraham . . . . . . . . . . II69
Hathaway, Jefferson H. . . . . . I262
Hatherley, John H. . . . . . . . . . 2162
Hathorn, Daniel M. . . . . . . . . . 2O27
Hattery, Jeremiah L. . . . . . . . . 2O57
Hays, John P. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2231.
Hayward, Daniel S. . . . . . . . . . 2249
Hazelton, George H. . . . . . . . . I5I4
Heacock, Nat E. . . . . . . . . . . . . 964
Heap, George E. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2026
Heap, Parley W., Jr. . . . . . . . . 22II
Heartwell, Charles L. . . . . . . . 68I
Heartwell, Hon. J. B. . . . . . . . 687
Hecox, Adna A. . . . . . . . . . . . . I2O2
Hecox, Orville S. . . . . . . . . . . . I2O2
Hedden, George . . . . . . . . . . . . 2183
Heinrich, John R. . . . . . . . . . . . 1728
Heistermann, August C. . . . . . I868
Helander, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2O53
Heller, Samuel . . . . . . . . . . . . . II55
Hellman, Herman W. . . . . . . . 557
Henry, Hugh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I974
Herbert, Fernando C. . . . . . . . 2I52
Herkelrath, Nicholas . . . . . . . I527
Hess, Frederick C. . . . . . . . . . . 1763
Hiatt, Marvin B. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2040
Hibbits, Guy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2233
Higgins, Benjamin B. . . . . . . . 1187
Hickey, Abraham L. . . . . . . . . . 816
Hicks, Robert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 764
Hicks, Squire E. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 IOI
Hildebrand, J. Frederick. . . . . , 872
Hill, Reuben W., M. D. . . . . . I431
Hill, Thomas M. . . . . . . . . . . . . I961
Himalaya Mining Company. . I249
Himrod, Tovey B. . . . . . . . . . . . I938
Hincks, Harvey W. . . . . . . . . . I82O
Hinman, George . . . . . . . . . . . . I992
Hinshaw, John A. . . . . . . . . . . 794
Hoag, Judge Julius A. . . . . . . 1843
Hoansler, Frank . . . . . . . . . . . . 2124
Hobbs, Mrs. Martha J. . . . . . 2OOO
Hoff, Richard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1786
Hoffman, L. E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22O5
Hoffman, Roy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2230
Hoffmayr, Harry J. . . . . . . . . . . 1788
Hofman, Capt. W. E. . . . . . . . I377
Hoge, Charles H. . . . . . . . . . . . II29
Hohlbauch, John . . . . . . . . . . . 9I9
Holcomb, Roy . . . . . . . . . . . . . I274
Holden, Joseph M., M. D. . . . 761
Holland, Charles E. . . . . . . . . . 2O65
Holliday, Charles L. . . . . . . . . . I332
Holloway, J. J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67o
Hollywood Hotel . . . . . . . . . . . 1746
Holmes, Chester J. . . . . . . . . . . I550
Hood, William H. . . . . . . . . . . . IO54
Hook, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I545
Hoover, Clyde L. . . . . . . . . . . . 846
Hoover, George W. . . . . . . . . . . 952
Hoover, O. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 959
Horton, A. E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225I
Horton, Sidney V. . . . . . . . . . . . I533
Hossler, Frank C. . . . . . . . . . . . 1887
Hotchkiss, Fred E. . . . . . . . . . . 2094
Hotel Escondido . . . . . . . . . . . I544
Hough, John J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . If 35
Houghton, Alonzo O. . . . . . . . . I617
Houghton, Lake W. . . . . . . . . I285
Howard, Bryant . . . . . . . . . . . . 669
Howard, Oliver S. . . . . . . . . . . 2I29
Howe, Ernest S. . . . . . . . . . . . . 787
Howell, William H. . . . . . . . . . II52
Hubbard, C. D. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2I44
Hubbard, Henry C. . . . . . . . . . 1578
Hubbert, B. F. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I647
Hubbert, Presley T. . . . . . . . . . II75
Hudson, Josiah W. . . . . . . . . . IIQI
Huff, Jacob . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I952
Hughes, C. B. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2260
Hughes, Edward T. . . . . . . . . . I589
Hughes, George W. . . . . . . . . . 542
Hughes, J. M. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22O4
Hughes, Thomas . . . . . . . . . . . . 577
Hughes, W. A. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2IQQ
Hugues, Jules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I392
Hull, Albert G. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2I 66
Humphrey, C. O. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2259
Humphrey, F. J. . . . . . . . . . . . . 223.I
Hungerford, Wallace . . . . . . . 2005
Hunt, Almer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . III9
Hunt, D. Winslow, M. D. ... 758
. Hunt, Richard O. . . . . . . . . . . . II.46
Hunt, William C. . . . . . . . . . . . I236
Hunter, Asa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2006
Hunter, Jesse D. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2008
Hurlburt, Burt G. . . . . . . . . . . . I6OI
Hursey, Robert O. . . . . . . . . . . I456
Hurst, Melvin W. . . . . . . . . . . . I239
Hurtt, George W. . . . . . . . . . . 2232
Hutchcroft, Mark . . . . . . . . . . . IO8O
I
Ijams, Isaac C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I618
Ingersoll, Joseph . . . . . . . . . . . 1813
Ingham, Thomas S. . . . . . . . . . I659
Ironmonger, Charles F. . . . . . 1779
Iversen, Peter L. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1764
Iveson, Clarence E. . . . . . . . . . . I4II
Izer, Elmer E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 671
J
Jacob, Rev. W. E. . . . . . . . . . . . II62
Jacobs, Abner D. . . . . . . . . . . . . I734
Jacoby, George F. . . . . . . . . . . . I279
James, Thomas H. . . . . . . . . . . . 1876
Janeway, Luther C. ... . . . . . . . 740
Jasper, James A. . . . . . . . . . . . . I500
Jatta, J. N. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IOO6
INDEX.
V
Jeffery, R. N. . . . . . . . .
Jenifer, John Ó......... . . . . : Kerr, J. T. . . . . . . . . . 6
jennings. Samuel N......... #: Keyes, Hiram ............. . 220 I Lent, Samuel L. .
jensen, j. H. . . . . . . . 2 ; Kidson, Gilbert ............. º Lenton, Stephen'............. 2I41
Jepson, Frederick . . . . . e e º 'º e º 3. 5 Kidson, Richard ............ 3. Lesem, Marx A.............. I383
jobbitt, Thomas.............. 195 Killian, Jonas S. ............ §: Lesher, Samuel M. .......... I295
joehnck, Fredrich............ . Kimball, Fred i............. 5 Letizinger, Adolph .......... I5I9
Johnson, Albert. ... . . . . .s tº tº e s & ; Kimbei, Albert T. .......... ić Lewis, Henry C. . . ... . . . . . . . I801
Johnson, Albert ... . . . . . . . . . . 92I King, Ábraham L........... IöI2 Lewis, James H............. 2I69
johnson, Alfred E. . . . . . . . . º: King, Abraham N º 1979 Lewis, Matthew ............ I227
johnson, Amasa P. jr....... I King, Frank É.......... . . . . 1976 Lewis, Samuel F. .......... 682
johnson, Andrew ........... 1224 King, John ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26% Lewison, i.ewis "............ IO4I
}; º; 6....... ºff sº 528 Libby, Benjamin F. ... ...... 2167
Johnson, Hon. C. F. A. . . . . 8 7 Kingcade, Russeli ........... #. Libby, Charles's............ 2I22
Johnson, Charles H. . . . . tº º e º e ić. Kinkead, William ........... I7 Libby, Frank. .............. I543
johnson, Claus A............ 74 Kirkpatrick, Robert C. ...... 2roy Lightburn, john F. ......... 2O90
johnson, Frank ............. ; Kirkwood, Robert .......... #. Hº 835
johnson, Frank W. . . . . . . . . 2I 36 Kitching, Mrs. P. É. . . . . . . . . 38 Lindley, Waiter, M.D........ 2I23
Johnson, George H. . . . . . . . . . ; Kling, George S. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2O35 Lindsay, Gawn J …: 697
johnson, Gudmund . . . . . . . . 39 Knapp, Harrie C. ... . . . . . . . . . º Lindº, Lewis Cº........... I903
Johnson, Gustav F. .......... § Kneale, Thomas . . . . . . . . . . . . § Linds tow, Mrs. Mary Etº gº tº e º te I262
johnson, Hans A............ I § Kneen, J. D. . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Littlepage, Charles P e tº $ ſº e ºs £,
Johnson, Horace A.......... : I9 Knickerbocker, E. M. . . . . . . . . : Littlepage, William Č tº e º ſº tº gº º I 67
johnson, James Y............ #3 Knight, Frederick A. ........ 22 8 Livingston, Robert G. . . . . . . . I755
johnson, john L....... . . . . . . § Knight, Jesse j. . . . . . . . . . . *: Lobingier," Jacob F........... I230
johnson, john R............. 5 Knox, James f. ... . . . . . . . . . 77 Lockwood, "A. J. . . . . . . . . . . 2I33
Johnson, Niels P. . . . . … ; Kohler, Ernst . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I455 Lodge, Leander "............. 2002
Johnson, Percy A. . . . . . . * * * * * * #. Kohler, Herman ...... . . . 1770 Logan, John E.............. . I4OO
johnston, James c. . . . . . . . . . 9 Kortner, Christian . . . . . . . . . . 1421 Logan, j. S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I902
johnston, john ... . . . . . . . 2256 Kortner, Henry T. . . . . . . . . I923 Logan, W. P . . . . . . . . . . . 2127
johnston, join . . . . . . . . . . 1507 Krempei, Chris . . . . . . . . . . . 1703 Long Beach Business Coi . . . 2126
y Il . . . . . . . . . . IOII Del, T1S . . . . . . . . I46 g 1 Business College I
je.*... ii. s....... . Kuebier, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. Long, John G. . . . . . . . * .
Jones, Rev. Alonzo E....... º: kughen, favid A............ 1620 Long, Štephen G. . . . . . . . . . . ;
Jones, Rev. Henry w........ I ; ~~~~~~ 1305 Longmire. Charles W. . . . . . 1781
jones, Joseph ............... ; L Loomis, Chester B.’......... º
Jones, Joseph E. . . . . … 2O3 Laborde, J Lopez, "Peter L. . . . . . . . . . . . I66I
Jones, William H. M. D.'...' *19. I. i. JallleS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2083 Lorbeer, L. A. . . . . . . . . . . . . . II26
jones, zephaniah ".......... 604 Lac €, Fº D. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 692 Loustau, Jean B. . . . . . . . . . . I679
jordan, Daniel S. . . . . . . . . . . ... 2084 i. º R. . . . . . . . . . . 23 Love, Jerome W. . . . . . . . . . . . I576
Jorres, William … £494 i.i. J enver O. . . . . . . . . . . . 692 Loveland, Fremont . . . . . . . . 1815
}. º º *; Hº H. ºg Hºlº W. . . . . . . . . º:
ughin, Andrew, jr........ :---> S fi . . . . . . . . . 2I6 owe.’ Henry ... . . . . . . . . . .
Joughin, John º, J. tº e º ſº gº tº e § Hºly M. . . . . . . . . . . . - : Lowe, Prof. ºw. Ólin. ... ..... 98o
jourdan, É M. .............. § Lane. hº A. . . . . . . . . . . . . ; Fºsha; Jºhnſº Io'77
joy, Walter B. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . º/* Lººh enry S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I594 Ludden, Raymond i). O. . . . I703
judson, john B....... . . . . . . 1791 #. e. Stephen D. . . . . . . . . . #: Pºdy, Jacob.... . ., L). O. . . . . I945
junod, Gustavus L.......... . ; La z, Carl O. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 884 Tugo, Mercuriai' ............ 896
justice, john B. ............. IOI4 L . Pierre . . . . . . . . . . . . . I525 ingo, Vicente . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1851
justice, William . . . . . . . . . . . i. #.º H. . . . . . . . . . . 734 É. Warren C. . . . . . . . . . . #:
* * * * * * * * * * & !--- s >> c. N. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 undquist, Carl . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.
K H. ºis L. . . . . . . . . . . . . : Iutherer, 'Anton . . . . . . . . . . . . I678
Kahl º farson. Öiof'............... I990 Lutz, Capt. Eimer 6......... 22OT
hn, Louis . . . . . . . . . . . 2O L son, Olof . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IOS4 Lybarger, Jay G . . . . . . . . . II 30
Kaiser, Henry F........... I § Hºlº John V. . . . . . . . . . . I494 Íyman, George F. .......... 1836
$º Hº Geºrge F. . . . . . : Hº! * F. . . . . . . . I605 F. George W. ............ :
Frank .............. 'ell. J. J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1111, ... 'Ar' . . . . . . . . . . . OO7
Kastie, Coi John ........... º: Hº Lincoln A. . . . . . . . . . . . : i. jº. M. . . . . . . . . . . . I907
Keen, Winfield's............ * Hº Homer . . . . . . . . . . . 㺠Lyon, William H. . . . . . . . . . . 1683
keir, Åiexander ............ : Hºly John . . . . . . . . . . . . . I509 Lyster, Byron J tº $ tº dº dº º & 4 tº º I400
Keiièy, w. E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2I 56 #. Martin J. . . . . . . . . . . II3 iytie, John H....... . . . . . . . 2146
Kellogg, Joseph i............ ; #.". Rev. Charles H. . ; e tº s º º º ji e º e º e º º sº. 2045
Reily. Arthur G. . . . . . . . . . . . 2 42 e Bellejay, Father A. . . . . . e 2I52 M
Reily, Charles .............. % Lee, Alexander O. . . . . . . . º 8 M g C
Reily, Hazen H............. 783 Lee, Alonzo W. . . . . . . . * * * 2. 4 ſcCain, John . . . . . . . . . . . I5
kelly, Joseph H. . . . . . . . . . . 216. Lee, Baker P................ : McClain, Nathaniel . º: #.
Reily, Robert S. ............. 2013 Lee. Francis M. . . . . . . . . . . 2% Megure, John ............. I .
feisea, H. C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . #: Leedom, Smith . . . . . . . . . . . t 5 McCollum, Clarence C. ...... ; 6
keiso, Hon. William H..... j. le Fevre, Thomas . . . . . . . . ...: §§ Mrs. Kate C. ... ;
Rempley, john ............. : 3 Leffingweil, Miss L. i....... : McCormick, Thomas . . . . . . . I38O
Rennedy, john ............. 1836 Leñer. Samuel ............. 2 2 McCoy, Benton ........... ;
Rennedy, Šias É............ 16; Leftwich, j. T. .............. : McCoy. Oliver . . . . . . . . . . . . I Z;
Fenyon, Merton f............ º i.ehman, Leon . . . . . . . . . . . . . ; McCreery, Rufus K.......... #.
kepner, Aaron E............ # Lehmann, A. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : §3. Samuel R. ....... 1986
£eppei, Mark .............. º Hºjº ; :º I878
tº tº $ tº e º 'º is e Lemberger, John . . . . . . . 2274 McCurdy, Fred A. . . . tº e tº §.
* * * * * * * * * * # Mºjº,"Wii B......... };
Kerns, Albert L. * e is tº e º 'º e º e º ºs 2O8O Lembke. * A. | tº sº tº º s tº e º 'º e g º º tº º tº 22I 2 McEl Waln, Jer emiah * * * 2234
vi
INDEX.
McFarland, Samuel B. . . . . . • -
2OII
McFarlane, William A. . . . . . . I53I
McGarvin, D. C. . . . . . . . . . . . . 782.
McGee, Robert M. . . . . . . . . . . 1768
McGlashan, John . . . . . . . . . . . 1763
McGrath, Donlick . . . . . . . . . . 956
McGuire, Irving N. . . . . . . . . . 788
McIntosh, Daniel . . . . . . . . . . . I557
McIntosh, Richard P. . . . . . . . I4I2
McKay, George P. . . . . . . . . . . . 684
McKie, Alexander . . . . . . . . . . I565
McKinney, M. R. . . . . . . . . . . . 2093
McLain, Henry L. . . . . . . . . . . I569
McLaughlin, Mark . . . . . . . . . . I265
McLaughlin, William T. . . . . . 1762
McLean, John D. . . . . . . . . . . . 2032
McLeod, Benjamin F. . . . . . . . 2O63
McLoughlin, Thomas F. . . . . 1626
McMichael, Thomas R. . . . . ." *I686
McMillin, John C. . . . . . . . . . . . 1632
McNab, Capt. S. W. . . . . . . . . II31
McNealy, Henry E. . . . . . . . . . I IO6
McNiven, Daniel . . . . . . . . . . . . I955
McPherson, James . . . . . . . . . . I775
McVicar, Capt. James A. . . . 1830
M
MacGillivray, George B. . . . . 2018
MacGillivray, John I684
Machado, Dolores . . . . . . . . . . 536
Machado, Jose A. . . . . . . . . . . . 925
Machado, Jose J. . . . . . . . . . . . . 929
Machado, Macedonio . . . . . . . . Io27
Maclay, Hon. Charles. . . . . . . I426
Maclay, J. C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I577
Maclay, Robert H. . . . . . . . . . . I334
MacNeil, J. D. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2234
Macy, Clarence P. . . . . . . . . . . 629
Magee, Victor M. . . . . . . . . . . . 933
Mahan, Guy W. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I697
Mahan, Henry L. . . . . . . . . . . . 2262
Mahan, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I560
Maier, Bernhard . . . . . . . . . . . . I72I
Main, Walter J . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1869
Malcolm, Prof. William . . . . . . 22OI
Malkim, J. Ross. . . . . . . . . . . . I909
Malmberg, Nils . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2I34
Mander, George F. . . . . . . . . . . 5IO
Manveg, Charles . . . . . . . . . . . . I328
Marcovina, Francisco . . . . . . . 1898
Marean, H. H. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2254
Markham, Henry H. . . . . . . . . 561
Marlette, Gen. S. H. . . . . . . . I2I3
Marlette, Stephen A. . . . . . . . . 2IO6
Marsh, George H. . . . . . . . . . . I7I4
Marshall, E. E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2252
Marshall, Seth . . . . . . . . . . . . . I223
Martin, Frank J. ... . . . . . . . . . I685
Martin, Harry L. . . . . . . . . . . . I4O4
Martin, James T. . . . . . . . . . . . I438
Martin, J. D. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2255
Martin, Robert H. . . . . . . . . . . 2I2I
Martin, Sebastian D. . . . . . . . . 872
Marusch, Anton K. . . . . . . . . . 2O3I
Mason, Charles . . . . . . . . . . . . . II IO
Mason, Charles I. . . . . . . . . . : II7o
Masselin, Capt. Joseph. . . . . . . I265
Massey, Nicholas I. . . . . . . . . . 934
Mathews, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218O
Mathewson, Eugene, M. D. . 2034
Mathewson, Capt. John E. . . . 2033
Matson, Frank A. . . . . . . . . . . . I975
Matteson, Cyrene K. . . . . . . . . 216o
Matteson, Hiram C. . . . . . . . . . I8IO
Matthews, A. L. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Matthews, Lee R. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Matthews, Levi R. . . . . . . . . . .
Maulhardt, Gotfried
Maulhardt, Heinrich . . . . . . . .
Maxson, Benjamin F. . . . . . . .
May, Newton E. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mayer, H. C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mayer, Michael
Mayo, Harman J. . . . . . . . . . . .
Mays, Mrs. Alice. . . . . . . . . . . .
Mehegan, Mrs. Margaret. . . .
Meigs, Albert E. . . . . . . . . . . .
Mendenhall, Thomas D. . . . . .
Merriam, Maj. Gustavus F. . .
Merrifield, Charles S. . . . . . . . .
Meserve, Hon. Frank P. . . . . .
Meskimons, C. B. . . . . . . . . . . .
Metcalf, John
Michelsen, Christian . . . . . . . .
Middagh, Samuel A. . . . . . . . .
Middleton, George
Miles, J. Euclid. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Miller, Frank
Miller, George H. . . . . . . . . . . .
Miller, Jacob
Miller, James
Miller, Leslie A. . . . . . . . . . . .
Miller, L. C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Milligan, J. Henry. . . . . . . . . . .
Milligan, James
Mills Brothers . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mills, Henry W. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mills, Ira E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Milner, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mitchell, David e & & © e º 'º e º a º
Mitchell, James M. . . . . . . . . . .
Moe, George E. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Moffatt, William D. . . . . . . . . .
Moffett, Thomas J. . . . . . . . . .
Moffitt, Hon. Albert B. . . . . . .
Mohrenstecher, G. A. . . . . . . . .
Molle, Victor
Monroe, Prof. G. Walter . . . . .
Montgomery, Joseph W. . . . . .
Montgomery, M. L. . . . . . . . . .
Moon, Gail E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Moore, Boyd M. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Moore, E. E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Moore, Frank L. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Moore, John F. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Moorhead, T. B. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Moreno, Francisco M. . . . . . . .
Moretti, F. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Moretti, Joseph . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Morgan, Prof. J. J.. . . . . . . . . .
Morgan, L. Bert. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Moricich, V. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Morrell, J. E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Morris, Henry O. . . . . . . . . . . .
Morris, William T. . . . . . . . . . .
Morrison, John K. . . . . . . . . . .
Morrison, Joseph A..... . . . . .
Morse, Lewis . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Morton, John J. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Moses, Elmer E. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mosher, Evan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mosher, Ezra D. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mourning, Harvey S. . . . . . . . .
Mudgett, Samuel
Muller, Adolph . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mullholand, Charles L. . . . . . .
Mulock Brothers
Mulvihill, Denis
tº a e º 'º e º # = s. s is a e
* * s a º e s 3 s º
& # * * * * * * * * g e s &
tº ſº s º is s is $ s is s e s s :
& º is s a ſº e º e º a s a a s
* * * * * g g g g s &
* * * * * * * * g e º 'º
Munger, S. D. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I569
Munro, Rev. John. . . . . . . . . . . 776
Munroe, William H. . . . . . . . . 2050
Murphy, Charles J. . . . . . . . . . . 1176
Murphy, Fr. Daniel W. . . . . . . II49
Murphy, J. B. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2II5
Murphy, William W. . . . . . . . . 740
Murray, Charles E. . . . . . . . . . . 2216
Muscio, Guiseppe . . . . . . . . . . . 2238
Musselman, Hiram . . . . . . . . . II62
Myers, Andrew J. . . . . . . . . . . IOO9
Myers, Daniel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I581
Myers, John H. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I954
Myers, Philip N. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1761
Myzelle, Joseph W. . . . . . . . . . . 2026
N
Nadeau, George A. . . . . . . . . . . 652
Nadeau, Joseph F. . . . . . . . . . . I854
Nadeau, Remi . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22O3
Naumann, Samuel . . . . . . . . . . 1677
Neely, William T. . . . . . . . . . . . I94I
Neff, Millard F. . . . . . . . . . . . . I845
Neher, William H. . . . . . . . . . . I35I
Nelson, Arthur P. . . . . . . . . . . I384
Nelson, Niles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I357
Nelson, Olof . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I925
Nelson, Robert . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2OOI
Nestell, John J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I956
Neuls, G. W. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I528
Newlan, Oliver J. . . . . . . . . . . . I532
Newlove, Frank H. . . . . . . . . . . 657
Newport, William . . . . . . . . . . . 1827
Newsom, David F. . . . . . . . . . 539
Newsom, Frank M. . . . . . . . . . . IO66
Newton, H. W. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2197
Newton, Willis E. . . . . . . . . . . . I228
Nichols, H. M. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2203
Nicholson, George H. . . . . . . . . 2197
Nicholson, Joseph W. . . . . . . . . I5O4
Nielsen, N. C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I8OO
Niverth, S. B. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2265
Noble, Lloyd E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I587
Norton, J. B. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2212
O
Oaks, Oliver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22I7
O’Brien, Oliver . . . . . 9IO
O'Connell, William . . . . . . . . . I779
Ohlsen, Harry J. . . . . . . . . . . . . I945
Ohre, Chris N. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I733
O'Keefe, Fr. Joseph J. . . . . . . 666
Old, Henry W. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1967
Olds, Nelson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 678
Olhasso, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2OIO
Olivares, Blas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IQI3
Olmstead, William L. . . . . . . . . 2135
Olmsted, John C. . . . . . . . . . . . . I363
Olsen, Alexander . . . . . . . . . . . I904
Ontiveros, Abraham . . . . . . . . I285
Ontiveros, Patricio IIO4
Oreb, Frank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1630
Orelli, Abraham T. . . . . . . . . . . I75I
Orr, John J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I227
Orr, William W. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1853
Ortega, Juan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2085
Osmun, Dr. J. Allen. . . . . . . . . I947
Osmund, Michael . . . . . . . . . . . 1916
Ott, Frank H. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2032
Otte, Frederick W. . . . . . . . . . 2134
Otte, Friederich . . . . . . . . . . . . . 993
Over, J. Frank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2086
Owens, Alfred H. . . . . . . . . . . . IQ/7
INDEX. vii
Owens, M. T. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I
Owens, Robert L. . . . . . . . . . . . : É."#. s º ºs e º gº º s e º 'º gº 2OI7 Roberts, Ozrow . . . . . . . . . . . . 2I43
-- 5 omas tº e º 'º & e º º q & e tº IO73 Roberts, William M. . . . . . 2 98
P Fº Frederick A. . . . . . . . . . 2189 Robinson, A. E tº º º :
Paine. Castanos - Fºr '..." * * * * * * * * * * * g e 1835 Robinson, Edmund C. ........ 1680
Paine. Charles R. . . . . . . . . . . . 933 Porter, Hon. George K. . . . . 2236 Robinson, Col. George F. . . . 625
Paine. Charles W. . . . . . . . . . . 999 porter. Orin ... rge is . . . . .. §º Nathaniel D. . . . . . . I635
Paine, Capt Lewis A. . . . . . . . º: Post, Charles ............... 537 obison, Joseph B.. . . . . . . . . . I470
Faimér, George"...... . . . . . . . I2 Poston, William H........... I2O7 Rocha, Jacinto A. . . . . . . . . . . . 959
Palmer. j.“, * * * * * * * * * * * * s #93 Potter. Frank"o.......... 888 Rockwell, Lorenzo A...... . . . 836
Palmer. Lucius B............ 1823 Pourry Pierre . . . . . . . . . . . . QIS Rockwood, Bernard B. . . . . . 983
Baimer, Oscar F........... #. Poweli, David .............. #. §: Louis ; . . . . . . . . . . . . . 775
Papson, William . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Powers, Charles . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 ogers, Miss C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2126
parker, John F. . . . . . . . . . . . . . '; Powers, James H. . . . . . . . . . º #. E. A. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 973
Parmley, Arthur L. . . . . . . . Pratt, Henry B. . . . . . . . . . . . I318 Ogers, H. W. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I565
Farrish Enoch K........... ; Pratt, Henry j...'.......... º: §: Ernest . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1386
Parsons Cyrus M. ; Price, Ulvsses G.' s & © e º ſº tº e º º ſº º ooker, Joseph A.... . . . . . . . . . IO48
Patchett. Ben E. . . . . . . . . . I93 Pringle Capt William H. . . 2023 Rosenfeld, Morris A......... 1767
Patterson Benja . . . Ftº * * * * * * II70 Privett y John * A 3.111 . . . . 572 Rotanzi, Samuel . . . . . . . . . . . . I739
patterson. Coi #. w.... . . 1738 proctor james B. . . . . . . . . . . 2956 Rouchleau, Albert ... . . . . . . . 1966
Patterson. Justi º * * * g e º Io58 Pujol Rev. Fr John........ . 1850 Roussey, Justin . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1865
jº º ſº, º fºg; flºº. §
#: łºść e tº e º s tº e º g º º º Fº, fºliº F. . . . . .......... }.
Pease, Rev. Charles . . . . . . º: º: Q §º §. T. . . . . . . . . .
E. §ºnd M., M. D... II65 Quill, James . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1866 Rowell, George B., M.D.. . . . :
beck. Edward W. . . . . . . . . . . . 57I Quinn, Patrick . . . . . . . . . . . . . Izº, Rowland, Bernardo, F. ... ... 1430
Pº, Geºrge H............. 2000 Quinn, Richard . . . . . . . . . . . . . § Rowland, Samuel P. . . . . . . . . 1963
Peck, 3. H. Sr.. . . . . . . .# Quint, L. J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2025 #: 3. ** J. . . . . . . . . . . 787
Peck, George W. M. D. . . . . 1563 * j º T.. . . . . . . . . . . . I442
Peck, Capt. L. B. . . e R Ruggi dCOD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I3OI
Peck, Walter L. . . . . . . . . . . . ſº Rambaud º ; es, Charles F. . . . . . . . . . I229
Peckham, john j, M.D. . . . . #. §. aud, Emile . . . . . . . . . . . . I31 I jº # D. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2267
Peirce, William fi ... . . . . . tº ºn lº is $."...º............ ;
. . . . . . . . . . &. y g * e e g g º e g º e e º e s º 2I 'P -/w J Q, l l l 1 - - - - - - - - , , , , , , , ,
Fº M. D. . . . . ; § Lewis F. . . . . . . . . . . . . i; §º F. C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .#
perkins, Hon. David T. . . . . . 999 aphael, Abraham . . . . . . . . . . I981 ussell, Allen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1328
Perozzi. A. . . . . . . . . . . § Raycraft, George S. . . . . . . . . . . I352 Russell,...Allen J. . . . . . . . . . . . . I287
Perry, 'Morgan s & e a s gº º º ſº tº e º º º i. §º James B. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2138 § William L. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1897
Perry, William H......... . . . # ; Edward . . . . . . . . . . . . . I757 Sºlº, Charles H. . . . . . . . . 1649
Peters. Anson M * * * * g º e º e º is tº ;: 3 §: e, Anthony C., Jr. . . . . . . IO99 §º Andrew K. . . . . . . . . . . . IQ/8
Petersen. Peter C. . . . . . . . . . . . ;: edburn, Walter B. . . . . . . . . . 847 yan, Andrew W. . . . . . . . . . . . 757
Petit, Frank ................ º; ; ; Mºb........ 13% Rynearson, S. D. . . . . . . . . . . . 1526
£º jº..… : : ; ; P: I468
Petit, Justin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597 Reed, Phili ſi. . . . . . . . . . . . . I344 S
Pettijohn, Ernest A... . . . . . . . . II82 reed. S ºp a sº e º e s e s e e s tº e .. 2IO8
Pettis, Chauncey B. . . . . . . . . . 1867 Reel, Edgar R............... 2237 Sackett, Robert E. L......... 1869
Pettis, Frank B. . . . . . . . . . . . . I785 Feeve #h d w. . . . . . . . . I625 Sackett, William A. . . . . . . . . . 2188
peyregne, Bertrand . . . . . . . . . 880 Re S, Wi. A........... 2II4 Saenz, Jesus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1899
Pfeiffer, Louis Å... . . . . . . . 2265 §: W. & e º e º 'º e g tº º & 1785 Sailer, Joseph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I97I
#. A. ........... ; ;....'. ........... IO62 Sanderson, S. A... . . . . . . . . . . 1790
Phelps, Frank W. . . . . . . . . . . . I613 Reimann. wº Z . . . . . . . . . . . 903 San Diego State Norma
Phelps, Ira W. . . . . . . . . . . . . º IOI3 Rentohier j. º B . . . . . . . . . I929 School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 644
Phelps, William E. . . . . . . . . . . 1849 Revolon 'A'. ......... 1821 Sanford, Mrs. Lucy A...... . 1840
Philbrook, Herman S. . . . . . . . ; :... ."... 1617 Sappington, Francis P., M. D. 1359
Phillips, George S. . . . . . . . . . . 2n3 Rheingans, jacob ........... 1395 Sargent, Francis P........... 2009
Phillips, Louis . . . . . . . . . . . . 839 j S, §. les . . . . . . . 217o Sarrail, Rock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I447
#: wºrd G........ º. º. Eiºn w..... #: §: * e e g g tº e e g g g º gº 2219
illips, William J. . . . . . . . . . . º 5 tº sº sº º ' s e e s e e • J tiles ....... . . . . . . . . . . . 22O
Pico, *śra. Jg is tº $ tº ſº º tº a s ** º §: Williºn § B.... 1077 Savage, Hon. William H..... :
Pierce Brothers . . . . . . . . . . . . 1846 j. º E ysses F. . . . . . II92 Saviers, Charles W. . . . . . . . . . I338
Pierce, Elijah H. . . . . . . . . . . . . I970 Fiddick. Rev. Dr. C. B. ..... 1977 Sawtelle, George C. . . . . . . . . . I889
Piercy, John R. . . . . . . . . . . . . ; : ...Peº 813 Scarlett, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 591
Pierson, William M. ........ 1451 Righetti #mes Bºº 1728 Scarlett, John L., . . . . . . . . . . . 2O29
Pile, Herbert .............. & Riº william ........ 2266 Schallert, Louis M........... 1124
pinneil, Prof. Homer F. . . . . . 1623 §º. I ºm a tº a gº & & © tº 2266 Schaniel, Peter F. ........... 1629
Pitcher, Charles F.. º 187; Robbins * • - - - - - - - - - - - 1883 Schelling, Alexander . . . . . . . . I902
# * *::::::::::::::::: Rºbins, john w............ '# jº."..… 1928
itts, Frank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ; J J = ** a v v - - - - - - - - - - - - >>.” f! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22I
Plantico. E. L................ º: §: É. & e º e º e º 'º tº tº e ſº 2I37 Schmidt, Herman C.. . . . . . . . #.
Platt, Mrs. Martha É........ 813 j F º P * * * * * ſº gº tº º º I942 Schmitz, Bernard . . . . . . . . . . . 1756
Poland, Henson . . . 908 Rob , Frederick H. . . . . . . . I416 Schofield, H. P. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I358
tº º s 4 & tº $ tº tº oberts, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 603 Scholder, Fred . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1829
Polhamus, Capt. Albert A.... 2019 Roberts, John W............. 829 Scholle Brothers . . . . . . . 22O7
viii - INDEX.
Scholler, Mrs. Pauline M. . . . . 200 Smith. James A. . . . . . . . * . . .
Schroeter, H. M. E. . . . . . . . . . ; Smith, }. E. . . . . . . . . . . . ; §§. * G. . . . . . . ;
Schueddig, Frederick E. . . . . . I630 Smith, John N. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I483 Sundermann C. G. . . . . . . . . . :
Schulze, Theodore G. . . . . . . . . I564 Smith, John W. . . . . . . . . . . . . . IO97 Swan oliver Č. . . . . . . . . . . I
Schutz, M. Alexander. . . . . . . IO91 Smith, Lewis N. . . . . . . . . . . . . I66O Sweeney M. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ;
Schwartz, Peter H. . . . . . . . . 1894 Smith, Noah R. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I38o Swift, Å. j................. :
Schwichtenberg, Hugo E. . . . . 573 Smith, Sylvester K. . . . . . . . . . I474 Swinford, James . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 I
Scofield, Lebbeus . . . . . . . . . . . I525 Smith, W. Clifford . . . . . . . . . 1638 Swing, Ralph E 2O35
Scott, Mrs. Collisto W. . . . . . . I527 Smith, William . . . . . . . . . . . . . I861 swyðaffer joseph • * * * * * * * * * * * 851
Scott, Mrs. Sarah B. . . . . . . . . Io94 Smith, William H. . . . . . . . . . . 15% Syria, joseph F. ....... . . . . . 1695
Seaberg, Capt. Charles A..... 2008 Smith, William S., M. D. . . . I443 ; J v.2 v H = 1 + . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Seaman, William N. . . . . . . . . 2267 Smither, Alexander C. . . . . . . 865 T
Sechrest, W. F. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I64I Smithson, John B.. . . . . . . . . . . I833
Seckinger, Jacob . . . . . . . . . . . I3OI Smithson, John B., Jr. . . . . . . . I254 Taft, Fred H. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Io
Sederlund, August . . . . . . . . . . I900 Snoddy, John B. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I755 Taft, Stephen H. . . . . . . . . . . . . 967
Seely, Horace J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I581 Snoddy, William M. . . . . . . . . 845 Tallman, Robert . . . . . . . . . . . . 2272
Selbach, E. W. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I364 Snow, Miletus H. . . . . . . . . . . . . I379 Tanner, Richard R. . . . . . . . . . . 594
Sentous, Exupere . . . . . . . . . . . I369 Snuffin, William M. . . . . . . . . . 18O2 Taylor, Allen J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 942
Sentous, Louis . . . . . . . . . . . . . II2O Snyder, Hon. Meredith P. . . . 525 Taylor, Hon. Benton P.. . . . . . 1838
Sentous, Vincent . . . . . . . . . . . I495 Solari, O. J.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1892 Taylor, C. J. E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 605
Sepulveda, Albert G. . . . . . . . . . IO35 Souza, Antonio J.. . . . . . . . . . . 1683 Tedford, John F. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1607
Sepulveda, Aurelio W. . . . . . . . 604 Sparks, Marcus L. . . . . . . . . . . . I282 Telford, George A..... . . . . . . . I259
Service, Richard W. . . . . . . . . 1921 Spaulding, Elbert A. . . . . . . . . 1822 Temple, Francis P. F. . . . . . . . 859
Seymour, Edwin C.. . . . . . . . . . 855 Specht, Joseph H. . . . . . . . . . . I442 Temple, Walter P.. . . . . . . . . .. 859
Seymour, Howard L. . . . . . . . . I662 Speed, John W. . . . . . . . . . . . . I470 Tench, William J.. . . . . . . . . . . 2069
Shaffer, F. A. J.. . . . . . . . . . . . . I677 Speed, William . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2O45 Terribilini, John . . . . . . . . . . . . I478
Šiš, George P............ 36 sº ºrg. M.......... 22.3 ſº."º. 2 . . . . . . . . . 1852
sººn jºin E. . . . . . . ; sinkie. "Wiiam F. ... 1994 ||..." Sºlº . . . . . . . . 2O68
Sharp, William F. . . . . . . . . . . . I647 Sproul, William C. . . . . . . . . . . ... Thayer, Deloss P. . . . . . . . . . . 894
Sharps, Jonathan H. . . . . . . . . 1803 Sprouse, Joseph V. . . . . . . . . . . IO32 Thomas, Albert A... . . . . . . . . . . I489
Shaul, Marion J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 713 Squires, Hamilton M. . . . . . . . . II4O Thomas, Charles H. . . . . . . . . . I484
Shaw, Hervey E. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1396 Stagg, Edward H. . . . . . . . . . . . IO88 Thomas, Charles H. . . . . . . . . . I841
Shedden, James . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1881 Stanton. Francis H. ........ I2I4 Thomas, Frank W., M. D. . . . . 629
Sheehy, Jerry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227O Stearns Frank W. ....... º o;; Thomas, William M. . . . . . . . . I347
Sheldon, Dr. Frederick C. ... 1540 Steel, Arthur B. . . . . . . . . . . . j Thompson, Elmer H. M. D. 19%
Shepard, James M. . . . . . . . . . . I613 Steele, Thomas J. . . . . . . . . . . . § Thompson, Frank G. . . . . . . . . . 900
Sheppard, William . . . . . . . . . . 1871 Steen, John B.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 672 Thompson, G. E. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2272
Sherer, J. C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I930 Steers, Dr. Joseph E. . . . . . . . . 993 Thompson, Jacob P. . . . . . . . . . 1689
Sherman, Capt. Matthew. . . . . 675 Steiner, Sig . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 963 Thompson, Hon. N. W... . . . . IO5I
Shipley, Alexander H........ IO52 Stephens, Louis F. . . . . . . . . . . . I878 Thompson, Tellie L. . . . . . . . . 704
Shipley, Elmore C. . . . . . . . . . . 202I Stephens, Timothy A. . . 6IO Thorne, Oliver P. . . . . . . . . . . . 1716
Shoop, John T. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I769 Stern, Jacob * … I482 Thorpe, Edmund C. . . . . . . . . . 593
Short, Cornelius R. . . . . . . . . . II95 Stetter. George B. . . . . . . . . . . I792 Thowson, Elias . . . . . . . . . . . . 2II3
Short, James . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I653 Stevens, Rev. George D. . . . . I659 Thurman, Stephen D. . . . . . . . . 904
Shrewsbury, Joseph E. . . . . . . I353 Stevens, William is . . . 1872 Thurman, Sylvanus . . . . . . . . . I235
Shugg, William . . . . . . . . . . . . . ré, Stewart, A. A..... . . . . . . . . . 2IQQ Thurmond, Gideon E......... 1378
Shutt, William . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22O6 Stewart, Edward J.. º 1582 Thurmond, J. R. . . . . . . . . . . . . IOOO
Sibley, Mrs. George W. . . . . . 781 Stewart, James . . . . . . . . . - 22O7 Ticknor, J. C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2222
Sidwell, William L. . . . . . . . . . 16; sº, jºhn H............ Tº ſº; Jº..., ºf . , . . . . . . . . . Io98
Sillifant, Francis J.. . . . . . . . . . I2O2 Stewart, Oscar D. . . . . . . . . . . I374 Tilton, Alfred H. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2O39
Silva, Joseph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2189 Stewart, Thomas . . . . . . . . . . . 227I Tilton, Natt W. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17Io
Silvernale, Roy C. . . . . . . . . . . . 1805 Stewart, Thomas H. 1708 Tisnerat, Jacques. . . . . . . . . . . . 2273
Simonton, Thomas H........ 1374 Stiles, Edward i..... . . . . . . . . 2160 Todd, Howard M.. . . . . . . . . . . 1986
Simpson, R. R. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2060 Stockton, Isaac j...'........ I370 Tomasini, Antonio . . . . . . . . . . I749
Singleton, William ::... . . . . 1261 Stokes, Aristides É.......... II45 Tomblin, E.S.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2208
Singleton. William H........ 2139 Stone." Charles M. . . . . . . . . . I365 Tompkins, Thomas . . . . . . . . . I692
Slack, Albert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1776 Stone, Grant s... . . . . . . . . . . ; Fºstensºn, Nel; O. . . . . . . . . 763
Slack, George . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 804 Stone, H. N. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1780 Towne, Tyler P. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2I29
Slanker, Samuel C. . . . . . . . . . . 2; sº, jºhn D.............. 6; ºf $º, sº . . . . 707
Slauson, Ella J.. . . . . . . . . . . . . 22I3 Stone, Joseph C. . . . . . . . . . . . . IOO5 Townsend, Winfield S. . . . . . . . Ioa 6
Sloane, Capt. Hampton P.. . . II81 Stone, Marshall G. . . . . . . . . . . 1983 Traub, Peter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1642
Sloat, Major Orin P. . . . . . . . 2062 Stoneham, George T. . . . . . . . . I444 Trauzettel, Otto . . . . . . . . . . . . 2177
Slosson, Leonard B. . . . . . . . . . 2218 Stones, J. E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I457 Treloar, Samuel . . . . . . . . . . . . I256
Slosson, Nathan L. . . . . . . . . . 2213 Stout, Cornelius . . . . . . . . . . . . 1844 #. te, Moritz . . . . . . . . . . . . . II36
Slygh, E. W. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2213 Strain, Numa A. . . . . . . . . . . . . 990 +ºğ. George E. . . . . . . . . . . . I577
Smiley, Albert K. . . . . . . . . . . . ; sº."º .......... º. º."oº"; . 17or
Smiley, Alfred H. . . . . . . . . . . . 947 Stratton, John J. . . . . . . . . . . . . I392 #. §: C,e tº s ºf e º 'º - - - © tº e 2273
Smiley, Frederick A. . . . . . . . . 281 Strawser, Joseph S. . . . . . . . . . I951 #. S * e e s e s a º e º e º e & g;
Smith, Archie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 665 Strine, Prof. John H. . . . . . . . . I343 #. William B.'... . . . . . . §
Smith, C. E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a; sº, tºid". M. D.I. 23: Fºn": "ºhday........ I637
Smith, Edwin W. . . . . . . . . . . . IO/6 Stuart, Joseph M.......... 6 , K. L111C1Say . . . . . . . . . . 2O67
º 97 5 ep . . . . . I67I Trostle, W. E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2003
Smith, R. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1334 Suess, Emil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I7O2 Troxel, Frank L. . . . . . . . . . . . . I42I
Smith, Fred P. . . . . . . . . . . . ... 1260 Suess, J. J.... . 1698 Turbett, Thomas . . . . . . . . . . . 22I4
Smith, Howard B. . . . . . . . . . . 1438 Sullenger, Marshai P....... 2050 Turbett, William . . . . . . . . . . . 1859
INDEX.
ix
Turner, Hanna S., M. D. . . . .
Turrentine, John N. . . . . . . . . .
Tweedy, James . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Tweedy, Lorenzo D. . . . . . . . . .
Twogood, N. H. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Tyler, Charles H. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Tyler, Joseph B. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Tyler, Urban A. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Tyler, Uriah U. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ulrick, William J. . . . . . . . . . . .
Unruh, H. A. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Usrey, William . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Vache, Emile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Vail, Herman D. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Valdez, Teofilo . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Valentine, E. J. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Van Derveer, J. L. . . . . . . . . . .
Van Deventer, Eugene M. . . .
Van Luven, Earl F. . . . . . . . . .
Van Ornam, Edward C. D. . .
Van Winkle, J. A. . . . . . . . . . . .
Varble, John P.. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Veach, James W. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Vejar, Dolores M. . . . . . . . . . . .
Vellon, Frederick . . . . . . . . . . .
Venable, P. S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Vestal, Col. Warner L. . . . . . .
Vickers, Ashby C. . . . . . . . . . . .
Vieweger, E. # * * * * * * * * * * *
Virden, Benjamin S. . . . . . . . .
Visscher, Louis G. . . . . . . . . . . .
Vogt, Adam M. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Volkmor, William . . . . . . . . . .
W
Walker, C. J.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Walker, H. S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Walker, James H. . . . . . . . . . . .
Wallace, James C. . . . . . . . . . .
Wallace, William . . . . . . . . . . .
Wallis, Herbert J. . . . . . . . . . .
Walls, William A. . . . . . . . . . .
Walsh, Ambrose . . . . . . . . . . . .
Walsh, Austin . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Walter, O. S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ward, James E. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ward, James P. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ward, P. T. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Warfield, Miss Ida E. . . . . . . .
Warner, Lorin S. . . . . . . . . . . .
Warnock, Henry A. . . . . . . . . .
1650
IIO5
IOO2
I4I6
2OOI
2O54
2O57
2O48
I7I3
2056
2I73
I993
2066
2O24
IO57
2184
IO74
I478
II.32
2269
II75
2I53
1468
2O74
I606
5.I.5
I696
... 2025
IOO3
IO54
I725
973
617
2II.7
2O73
2I62
IIO6
678
94I
I882
II6I
1707
22OQ
2O75
I600
2II6
1887
I643
I314
Warnock, Robert . . . . . . . . . . . I7I9
Warnock, Samuel . . . . . . . . . . I719
Warnock, William J. . . . . . . . . 752
Warren, James G. . . . . . . . . . . . I3I4
Wasem, Adam . . . . . . . . . . . ... I608
Washburn, William J. . . . . . . . 729
Waters, Hon. Russell J. . . . . . 722
Watkins, James C. . . . . . . . . . . 1829
Watkins, Morgan R. . . . . . . . . II77
Watkins, William D. . . . . . . . . IOO5 .
Watson, Clarence A. . . . . . . . . 2II8
Watson, Jacob . . . . . . . . . . . . . I463
Watson, James B. . . . . . . . . . . . II.87
Watson, Ralph E. . . . . . . . . . . . . I837
Watson, Robert L. . . . . . . . . . . I770
Watson, W. G. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2268
Watts, S. L. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2178
Waymire Brothers . . . . . . . . . . I927
Weaver, John L. . . . . . . . . . . . . IO66
Webb, Henry H. . . . . . . . . . . . . . I31 I
Weber, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I886
Webster, David G. . . . . . . . . . . . I985
Webster, Joseph . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.188
Webster, La Torre . . . . . . . . . . 828
Webster, Quincy C. . . . . . . . . . . IO62
Wees, John C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1856
Wegnori, Henry F. . . . . . . . . . I808
Weidenfeller, Charles A. . . . . . 1800
Weidler, George B. . . . . . . . . . . I3O8
Weigle, George J. . . . . . . . . . . . I648
Weir, James . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I249
Weir, Richard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I990
Welch, William O. . . . . . . . . . . 790
Weldt, Joseph A. . . . . . . . . . . . . 662
Welty, Richard J. . . . . . . . . . . . I495
Wescott, Edmund . . . . . . . . . . 9I4
Westgate, Charles A. . . . . . . . . I2OI
Westlund, John M. . . . . . . . . . . I352
Westover, M. N. . . . . . . . . . . . . I73I
White, Caleb E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . IO7I
White, E. C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2II9
White, Michael C. . . . . . . . . . . . 2I48
White, William . . . . . . . . . . . . I247
White, William W. . . . . . . . . . 2060
Whited, George B. . . . . . . . . . . 1835
Whittemore, A. C. . . . . . . . . . . IO22
Whitworth, James H. . . . . . . . 22IO
Whitworth, Joseph H. . . . . . . 618
Wickersham, W. A. . . . . . . . . . I244
Wickersham, Hon. W. H. . . . . 554
Wilcox, Oramel . . . . . . . . . . . . 920
Wildasin, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62O
Wiley, William . . . . . . . . . . . . . I287
Wilhelm, Louis . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2II5
Wilhite, Samuel C. . . . . . . . . . 960
Wilhoit, John C. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1896
Wilkerson, Eugene . . . . . . . . . 2O72
Willard, Franklin P. . . . . . . . . 718
Willard, Harry M. . . . . . . . . . . II36
Williams, E. M.. . . . . . . . . . . . . I276
Williams, George A.......... 2268
Williams, Hermon D.. ... . . . . 2028
Williams, Thomas J. . . . . . . . . 866
Williams, Thomas W. . . . . . . . I818
Williamson, William P. . . . . . 2O48
Willis, Hon. Henry M. . . . . . . IO39
Willis Etta C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1896
Willis, Nellie H . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1896
Willis, Oscar C. . . . . . . . . . . . . I891
Wilmot, Rosseau J.. . . . . . . . . . 890
Wilshire, Henry H. . . . . . . . . . 2II8
Wilshire, Joseph E. . . . . . . . . . . 1385
Wilson, Doc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 830
Wilson, H. B. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2II9
Wilson, John T. . . . . . . . . . . . . 772
Wilson, John W. . . . . . . . . . . . 2I2O
Wilson, Russell B. . . . . . . . . . . I503
Wilson, W. Patton. . . . . . . . . . Igoo
Wilson, William . . . . . . . . . . . . 2215
Wineman, Edward . . . . . . . . . . 921
Wing, Sanford C. . . . . . . . . . . . 1678
Wisdom, Guy W. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1522
Wise, Alpheus B. . . . . . . . . . . . 2O52
Wiseman, George W. . . . . . . . . II5I
Witham, William H. . . . . . . . . I74O
Withers, Col. W. J. . . . . . . . . . 2270
Witman, Henry W. . . . . . . . . . 996
Wohlford, A. W. . . . . . . . . . . . . Io91
Wolfskill, Joseph W. . . ... ... 799
Wood, James W., M. D. . . . . . 793
Wood, Lewis M. . . . . . . . . . . . . 834
Wood, Rev. William O. . . . . . 632
Woodford, Col. Asa W. . . . . . 626
Woodman, Arthur G. . . . . . . . I985
Woods, Harry J. . . . . . . . . . . . I8I6
Woods, James M. . . . . . . . . . . . II55
Woods, John X. . . . . . . . . . . . . I737
Woolman, Claude . . . . . . . . . . . 1496
Workman, William H. . . . . . . . 5I9
Works, Thomas L. . . . . . . . . . . 93O
Worthen, John A. . . . . . . . . . . . 803
Wright, Joseph W. . . . . . . . . . . I7I4
Wynne, Sydney Y., M. D. . . . . 2072
Yerby, Henry C.. . . . . . . . . ... 600
Yoakum, John E. . . . . . . . . . . . . 58O
Yokam, Eli J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . II66
Young, Andrew . . . . . . . . . . . . 2OI5
Young, Charles . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2I2O
Young, Capt. E. E. . . . . . . . . . 2I27
Young, George W. . . . . . . . . . . 2215
Young, Joseph W., Jr. . . . . . . . 1744
Young, William W. . . . . . . . . . 8IO
Yribarne, Cadet . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1845
Z
Zillgitt, H. H. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1607
：
：
|×
№.
ſae

CALIFORNIA.
CHAPTER I.
SPANISH EXPLORATIONS AND DISCOVERIES.
OR centuries there had been a vague tra-
F dition of a land lying somewhere in the
seemingly limitless expanse of ocean
stretching westward from the shores of Europe.
The poetical fancy of the Greeks had located in
it the Garden of Hesperides, where grew the
Golden Apples. The myths and superstitions of
the middle ages had peopled it with gorgons
and demons and made it the abode of lost Souls.
When Columbus proved the existence of a
new world beyond the Atlantic, his discovery
did not altogether dispel the mysteries and su-
perstitions that for ages had enshrouded the
fabled Atlantis, the lost continent of the Hesperi-
des. Romance and credulity had much to do
with hastening the exploration of the newly dis-
covered western world. Its interior might hold
wonderful possibilities for wealth, fame and con-
quest to the adventurers who should penetrate
its dark unknown. The dimly told traditions of
the natives were translated to fit the cupidity or
the credulity of adventurers, and sometimes
served to promote enterprises that produced re-
sults far different from those originally intended.
The fabled fountain of youth lured Ponce
de Leon over many a league in the wilds of
Florida; and although he found no spring spout-
ing forth the elixir of life, he explored a rich
and fertile country, in which the Spaniards
planted the first settlement ever made within the
territory now held by the United States. The
legend of El Dorado, the gilded man of the
golden lake, stimulated adventurers to brave the
horrors of the miasmatic forests of the Amazon
and the Orinoco; and the search for that gold-
3
covered hombre hastened, perhaps, by a hun-
dred years, the exploration of the tropical re-
gions of South America. Although the myth of
Quivira that sent Coronado wandering over des–
ert, mountain and plain, far into the interior of
North America, and his quest for the seven cities
of Cibola, that a romancing monk, Marcos de
Niza, “led by the Holy Ghost,” imagined he
saw in the wilds of Pimeria, brought neither
wealth nor pride of conquest to that adventur-
ous explorer, yet these myths were the indirect
cause of giving to the world an early knowledge
of the vast regions to the north of Mexico.
When Cortés' lieutenant, Gonzalo de Sando–
val, gave his superior officer an account of a
wonderful island ten days westward from the
Pacific coast of Mexico, inhabited by women
only, and exceedingly rich in pearls and gold,
although he no doubt derived his story from
Montalvo's romance, “The Sergas of Esplan-
dian,” a popular novel of that day, yet Cortés
seems to have given credence to his subordi-
nate's tale, and kept in view the conquest of the
island.
To the energy, the enterprise and the genius
of Hernan Cortés is due the early exploration
of the northwest coast of North America. In
I522, eighty-five years before the English
planted their first colony in America, and nearly
a century before the landing of the Pilgrims on
Plymouth rock, Cortés had established a ship-
yard at Zacatula, the most northern port on the
Pacific coast of the country that he had just
conquered. Here he intended to build ships to
explore the upper coast of the South Sea (as
*S.
34 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
the Pacific Ocean was then called), but his good
fortune, that had hitherto given success to his
undertakings, seemed to have deserted him, and
disaster followed disaster. His warehouse,
filled with material for shipbuilding, that with
great labor and expense had been packed on
muleback from Vera Cruz, took fire and all was
destroyed. It required years to accumulate an-
Cther supply. He finally, in 1527, succeeded in
launching four ships. Three of these were taken
possession of by the king's orders for service in
the East Indies. The fourth and the smallest
made a short voyage up the coast. The com-
mander, Maldonado, returned with glowing re-
ports of a rich country he had discovered. He
imagined he had seen evidence of the existence
of gold and silver, but he brought none with
him.
In 1528 Cortés was unjustly deprived of the
government of the country he had conquered.
His successor, Nuno de Guzman, president of
the royal audiencia, as the new form of gov-
ernment for New Spain (Mexico) was called, had
pursued him for years with the malignity of a
demon. Cortés returned to Spain to defend
himself against the rancorous and malignant
charges of his enemies. He was received at
court with a show of high honors, but which in
reality were hollow professions of friendship
and insincere expressions of esteem. He was
rewarded by the bestowal of an empty title. He
was empowered to conquer and colonize coun-
tries at his own expense, for which he was to
receive the twelfth part of the revenue. Cortés
returned to Mexico and in 1532 he had two ships
fitted out, which sailed from Acapulco, in June
of that year, up the coast of Jalisco. Portions
of the crews of each vessel mutinied. The mu-
tineers were put aboard of the vessel com-
manded by Mazuela and the other vessels, com-
manded by Hurtardo, continued the voyage as
far as the Yaqui country. Here, having landed
in search of provisions, the natives massacred
the commander and all the crew. The crew of
the other vessel shared the same fate lower
down the coast. The stranded vessel was after-
wards plundered and dismantled by Nuno de
Guzman, who was about as much of a savage as
the predatory and murderous natives.
In 1533 Cortés, undismayed by his disasters,
fitted out two more ships for the exploration
of the northern coast of Mexico. On board one
of these ships, commanded by Bercerra de Men-
doza, the crew, headed by the chief pilot, Jim-
inez, mutinied. Mendoza was killed and ali
who would not join the mutineers were forced
to go ashore on the coast of Jalisco. The muti-
neers, to escape punishment by the authorities,
under the command of the pilot, Fortuno Jim-
inez, Sailed westerly away from the coast of
the main land. After several days' sailing out
of sight of land, they discovered what they sup-
posed to be an island. They landed at a place
now known as La Paz, Lower California. Here
Jiminez and twenty of his confederates were
killed by the Indians, or their fellow mutineers,
it is uncertain which. The survivors of the ill-
fated expedition managed to navigate the vessel
back to Jalisco, where they reported the dis-
covery of an island rich in gold and pearls. This
fabrication doubtlessly saved their necks. There
is no record of their punishment for mutiny.
Cortés' other ship accomplished even less than
the One captured by the mutineers. Grixalvo,
the commander of this vessel, discovered a des-
Olate island, forty leagues south of Cape San
Lucas, which he named Santo Tomas. But the
discovery that should immortalize Grixalvo, and
place him in the category with the romancing
Monk, de Niza and Sandoval of the Amazonian
isle, was the seeing of a merman. It swam about
about the ship for a long time, playing antics
like a monkey for the amusement of the sailors,
washing its face with its hands, combing its hair
with its fingers; at last, frightened by a sea
bird, it disappeared.
Cortés, having heard of Jiminez's discovery,
and possibly believing it to be Sandoval's isle
of the Amazons, rich with gold and pearls, set
about building more ships for exploration and
for the colonization of the island. He ordered
the building of three ships at Tehauntepec. The
royal audencia having failed to give him any
redress or protection against his enemy, Nuno
de Guzman, he determined to punish him him-
self. Collecting a considerable force of cava-
liers and soldiers, he marched to Chiametla.
There he found his vessel, La Concepcion, lying
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 35
on her beam ends, a wreck, and plundered of
everything of value. He failed to find Guzman,
that worthy having taken a hasty departure be-
fore his arrival. His ships having come up
from Tehauntepec, he embarked as many sol-
diers and settlers as his vessels would carry, and
sailed away for Jiminez's island. May 3, 1535,
he landed at the port where Jiminez and his fel-
low mutineers were killed, which he named
Santa Cruz. The colonists were landed on the
supposed island and the ships were sent back
to Chiametla for the remainder of the settlers.
His usual ill luck followed him. The vessels
became separated on the gulf in a storm and
the smaller of the three returned to Santa Cruz.
Embarking in it, Cortés set sail to find his miss-
ing ships. He found them at the port of Guaya-
bal, one loaded with provisions, the other dis-
mantled and run ashore. Its sailors had de-
serted and those of the other ship were about
to follow. Cortés stopped this, took command
of the vessels and had them repaired. When the
repairs were completed he set sail for his colony.
But misfortune followed him. His chief pilot
was killed by the falling of a spar when scarce
out of sight of land. Cortés took command of
the vessels himself. Then the ships encountered
a terrific storm that threatened their destruc-
tion. Finally they reached their destination,
Santa Cruz. There again misfortune awaited
him. The colonists could obtain no sustenance
from the barren soil of the desolate island.
Their provisions exhausted, some of them died
of starvation and the others killed themselves
by over-eating when relief came.
Cortés, finding the interior of the supposed
island as desolate and forbidding as the coast,
and the native inhabitants degraded and brutal
savages, without houses or clothing, living on
vermin, insects and the scant products of the
sterile land, determined to abandon his coloniza-
tion scheme. Gathering together the wretched
survivors of his colony, he embarked them on
his ships and in the early part of 1537 landed
them in the port of Acapulco,
At some time between 1535 and 1537 the
name California was applied to the supposed
island, but whether applied by Cortés to en-
courage his disappointed colonists, or whether
given by them in derision, is an unsettled ques-
tion. The name itself is derived from a Spanish
romance, the “Sergas de Esplandian,” written
by Ordonez de Montalvo and published in Se-
ville, Spain, about the year 15 IO. The passage
in which the name California occurs is as fol-
lows: “Know that on the right hand of the In-
dies there is an island called California, very near
the terrestrial paradise, which was peopled with
black women, without any men among them,
because they were accustomed to live after the
fashion of Amazons. They were of strong and
hardened bodies, of ardent courage and great
force. The island was the strongest in the
world from its steep rocks and great cliffs.
Their arms were all of gold and so were the
caparison of the wild beasts which they rode,
after having trained them, for in all the island
there is no other metal.” The “steep rocks and
great cliffs’’ of Jiminez’s island may have sug-
gested to Cortés or to his colonists some fan-
cied resemblance to the California of Montalvo's
romance, but there was no other similarity.
For years Cortés had been fitting out ex-
peditions by land and sea to explore the un-
known regions northward of that portion of
Mexico which he had conquered, but disaster
after disaster had wrecked his hopes and im-
poverished his purse. The last expedition sent
out by him was one commanded by Francisco
Ulloa, who, in 1539, with two ships, sailed up
the Gulf of California, or Sea of Cortés, on the
Sonora side, to its head. Thence he proceeded
down the inner coast of Lower California to
the cape at its southern extremity, which he
doubled, and then sailed up the outer coast to
Cabo del Engano, the “Cape of Deceit.” Fail-
ing to make any progress against the head
winds, April 5, 1540, the two ships parted com-
pany in a storm. The smaller one, the Santa
Agueda, returned safely to Santiago. The
larger, La Trinidad, after vainly endeavoring to
continue the voyage, turned back. The fate of
Ulloa and of the vessel too, is uncertain. One
authority says he was assassinated after reach-
ing the coast of Jalisco by one of his soldiers,
who, for some trivial cause, stabbed him to
death; another account says that nothing is
known of his fate, nor is it certainly known
36 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
whether his vessel ever returned. The only
thing accomplished by this voyage was to dem-
Onstrate that Lower California was a peninsula.
Even this fact, although proved by Ulloa's voy-
age, was not fully admitted by geographers until
two centuries later.
In 1540 Cortes returned to Spain to obtain, if
possible, some recognition and recompense from
the king for his valuable services. His declin-
ing years had been filled with bitter disappoint-
ments. Shipwreck and mutiny at sea; disaster
and defeat to his forces on land; the treachery
of his subordinates and the jealousy of royal of
ficials continually thwarted his plans and wasted
his substance. After expending nearly a million
dollars in explorations, conquests and attempts
at colonization, fretted and worried by the in-
difference and the ingratitude of a monarch for
whom he had sacrified so much, disappointed,
disheartened, impoverished, he died at an ob-
scure hamlet near Seville, Spain, in December,
I547.
The next exploration that had something to
do with the discovery of California was that of
Hernando de Alarcon. With two ships he sailed
from Acapulco, May 9, 1540, up the Gulf of Cal-
ifornia. His object was to co-operate with the
expedition of Coronado. Coronado, with an
army of four hundred men, had marched from
Culiacan, April 22, 1540, to conquer the seven
cities of Cibola. In the early part of 1537 Al-
varo Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca and three compan-
ions (the only survivors of six hundred men that
Panfilo de Narvaes, ten years before, had landed
in Florida for the conquest of that province)
after almost incredible sufferings and hardships
arrived in Culiacan on the Pacific coast. On
their long journey passing from one Indian tribe
to another they had seen many wondrous things
and had heard of many more. Among others
they had been told of seven great cities in a
country called Cibola that were rich in gold and
silver and precious stones.
A Franciscan friar, Marcos de Niza, having
heard their wonderful stories determined to find
the seven cities. Securing the service of
Estevanico, a negro slave, who was one of Ca-
beza de Vaca’s party, he set out in quest of the
cities. With a number of Indian porters and
Estevanico as a guide, he traveled northward
a hundred leagues when he came to a desert
that took four days to cross. Beyond this he
found natives who told him of people four days
further away who had gold in abundance. He
sent the negro to investigate and that individual
sent back word that Cibola was yet thirty days'
journey to the northward. Following the trail
of his guide, Niza travelled for two weeks cross-
ing several deserts. The stories of the magnifi-
cence of the seven cities increased with every
tribe of Indians through whose country he
passed. At length, when almost to the prom-
ised land, a messenger brought the sad tidings
that Estevanico had been put to death with all
of his companions but two by the inhabitants of
Cibola. To go forward meant death to the
monk and all his party, but before turning back
he climbed a high mountain and looked down
upon the seven cities with their high houses and
teeming populations thronging their streets.
Then he returned to Culiacan to tell his wonder-
ful stories. His tales fired the ambition and
stimulated the avarice of a horde of adventurers.
At the head of four hundred of these Coronado
penetrated the wilds of Pimeria (now Arizona).
He found seven Indian towns but no lofty
houses, no great cities, no gold or silver. Cibola
was a myth. Hearing of a country called Quivira
far to the north, richer than Cibola, with part of
his force he set out to find it. In his search he
penetrated inland as far as the plains of Kansas,
but Quivira proved to be as poor as Cibola, and
Coronado returned disgusted. The Friar de
Niza had evidently drawn on his imagination
which seemed to be quite rich in cities.
Alarcon reached the head of the Gulf of Cal-
ifornia. Seeing what he supposed to be an in-
let, but the water proving too shallow for his
ships to enter it, he manned two boats and
found his supposed inlet to be the mouth of a
great river. He named it Buena Guia (Good
Guide) now the Colorado. He sailed up it some
distance and was probably the first white man to
set foot upon the soil of Upper California. He
heard of Coronado in the interior but was unable
to establish communication with him. He de-
scended the river in his boats, embarked on his
vessels and returned to Mexico. The Viceroy
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 37
Mendoza, who had fitted out the expedition of
Alarcon, was bitterly disappointed on the re-
turn of that explorer. He had hoped to find the
ships loaded with the spoils of the seven cities.
The report of the discovery of a great river did
not interest his sordid soul. Alarcon found him-
self a disgraced man. He retired to private life
and not long after died a broken hearted man.
CHAPTER II.
ALTA OR NUEVA CAL.IFORNIA.
W HILE Coronado was still wandering
in the interior of the continent search-
ing for Quivira and its king, Tatar-
rax, who wore a long beard, adored a gol-
den cross and worshipped an image of the
queen of heaven, Pedro de Alvarado, one of
Cortés' former lieutenants, arrived from Guate-
mala, of which country he was governor, with a
fleet of twelve ships. These were anchored in
the harbor of Navidad. Mendoza, the viceroy,
had been intriguing with Alvarado against
Cortés; obtaining an interest in the fleet, he
and Alvarado began preparations for an ex-
tensive scheme of exploration and conquest. Be-
fore they had perfected their plans an insurrec-
tion broke out among the Indians of Jalisco, and
Pedro de Alvarado in attempting to quell it
was killed. Mendoza fell heir to the fleet. The
return of Coronado about this time dispelled the
popular beliefs in Cibola and Quivira and put
an end to further explorations of the inland re-
gions of the northwest.
It became necessary for Mendoza to find
something for his fleet to do. The Islas de
Poiniente, or Isles of the Setting Sun (now the
Philippines), had been discovered by Magellan.
To these Mendoza dispatched five ships of the
fleet under command of Lopez de Villalobos to
establish trade with the natives. Two ships of
the fleet, the San Salvador and the Vitoria, were
placed under the command of Juan Rodriguez
Cabrillo, reputed to be a Portuguese by birth and
dispatched to explore the northwest coast of
the Pacific. Cabrillo sailed from Navidad, June
27, 1542. Rounding the southern extremity of
the peninsula of Lower California, he sailed up
its outer coast. August 20 he reached Cabo del
Engano, the most northerly point of Ulloa's ex-
ploration. On the 28th of September, 1542, he
entered a bay which he named San Miguel (now
San Diego), where he found “a land locked and
very good harbor.” He remained in this harbor
until October 3. Continuing his voyage he sailed
along the coast eighteen leagues, discovering
two islands about seven leagues from the main
land. These he named San Salvador and Vitoria
after his ships (now Santa Catalina and San
Clemente). On the 8th of October he crossed
the channel between the islands and main land
and anchored in a bay which he named Bahia
de los Fumos y Fuegos, the Bay of Smokes and
Fires (now known as the Bay of San Pedro).
Heavy clouds of smoke hung over the head-
lands of the coast; and inland, fierce fires were
raging. The Indians either through accident
or design had set fire to the long dry grass that
covered the plains at this season of the year.
After sailing six leagues further up the coast
he anchored in a large ensenada or bight, now
the Bay of Santa Monica. It is uncertain
whether he landed at either place. The next
day he sailed eight leagues to an Indian town
which he named the Pueblo de las Canoas (the
town of Canoes). This town was located on or
near the present site of San Buenaventura.
Sailing northwestward he passed through the
Santa Barbara Channel, discovering the islands
of Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa and San Miguel.
Continuing up the coast he passed a long nar-
row point of land extending into the sea, which
from its resemblance to a galley boat he named
Cabo de la Galera, the Cape of the Galley (now
called Point Concepcion). Baffled by head
winds, the explorers slowly beat their way up
the coast. On the 17th of November, they cast
anchor in a large bay which they named Bahia.
de los Pinos, the Bay of Pines (now the Bay
of Monterey). Finding it impossible to land on
38 |HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
account of the heavy sea, Cabrillo continued his
voyage northward. After reaching a point on
the coast in 40 degrees north latitude, accord-
ing to his reckoning, the increasing cold and
the storms becoming more frequent, he turned
back and ran down the coast to the island of
San Miguel, which he reached November 23.
Here he decided to winter.
While on the island in October, he had broken
his arm by a fall. Suffering from his broken
arm he had continued in command. Exposure
and unskilful surgery caused his death. He
died January 3, 1543, and was buried on the
island. His last resting place is supposed to
be on the shore of Cuyler's harbor, on the
island of San Miguel. No trace of his grave
has ever been found. His companions named
the island Juan Rodriguez, but he has been
robbed of even this slight tribute to his mem-
ory. It would be a slight token of regard if
the state would name the island Cabrillo. Saint
Miguel has been well remembered in California
and could spare an island.
Cabrillo on his death bed urged his successor
in command, the pilot Bartolome Ferrolo, to
continue the exploration. Ferrolo prosecuted
the voyage of discovery with a courage and dar-
ing equal to that of Cabrillo. About the middle
of February he left the harbor where he had
spent most of the winter and after having made
a short voyage in search of more islands he
sailed up the coast. February 28, he discovered
a cape which he named Mendocino in honor of
the viceroy, a name it still bears. Passing the
cape he encountered a fierce storm which drove
lim violently to the northeast, greatly endanger-
ing his ships. On March Ist, the fog partially
lifting, he discovered a cape which he named
Blanco, in the southern part of what is now the
state of Qregon. The weather continuing stormy
and the cold increasing as he sailed northward,
Ferrolo reluctantly turned back. Running
down the coast he reached the island of San
Clemente. There in a storm the ships parted
company and Ferrolo, after a search, gave up
the Vitoria as lost. The ships, however, came
together at Cerros island and from there, in
sore distress for provisions, the explorers
reached Navidad April 18, 1543. On the discov-
eries made by Cabrillo and Ferrolo the Span-
iards claimed the territory on the Pacific coast
of North America up to the forty-second degree
of north latitude, a claim that they maintained
for three hundred years.
The next navigator who visited California was
Francis Drake, an Englishman. He was not
seeking new lands, but a way to escape the
vengeance of the Spaniards. Francis Drake,
the “Sea King of Devon,” was one of the brav-
est men that ever lived. Early in his maritime
life he had suffered from the cruelty and injus-
tice of the Spaniards. Throughout his subse-
Quent career, which reads more like romance
than reality, he let no opportunity slip to pun-
ish his old-time enemies. It mattered little to
Drake whether his country was at peace or war
with Spain; he considered a Spanish ship or a
Spanish town his legitimate prey. On one of
his predatory expeditions he captured a Spanish
town on the isthmus of Panama named El Nom-
bre de Dios, The Name of God. Its holy name
did not protect it from Drake's rapacity. While
On the isthmus he obtained information of the
Spanish settlements of the South Pacific and
from a high point of land saw the South sea, as
the Pacific Ocean was then called. On his re-
turn to England he announced his intention of
fitting out a privateering expedition against the
Spaniards of the South Pacific. Although Spain
and England were at peace, he received encour-
agement from the nobility, even Queen Eliza-
beth herself Secretly contributing a thousand
crown towards the venture.
Drake sailed out of Plymouth harbor, Eng-
land, December 13, 1577, in command of a fleet
of five small vessels, bound for the Pacific coast
of South America. Some of his vessels were
lost at sea and others turned back, until when
he emerged from the Straits of Magellan he had
but one left, the Pelican. He changed its name
to the Golden Hind. It was a ship of only one
hundred tons' burden. Sailing up the South
Pacific coast, he spread terror and devastation
among the Spanish settlements, robbing towns
and capturing ships until, in the quaint language
of a chronicler of the expedition, he “had loaded
his vessel with a fabulous amount of fine wares
of Asia, precious stones, church ornaments,
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 39
gold plate and so mooch silver as did ballas the
Goulden Hinde.”
From one treasure ship, the Caca Fuego, he
obtained thirteen chests of silver, eighty pounds
weight of gold, twenty-six tons of uncoined sil-
ver, two silver drinking vessels, precious stones
and a quantity of jewels; the total value of his
prize amounted to three hundred and sixty
thousand pesos (dollars). Having spoiled the
Spaniards of treasure amounting to “eight hun-
dred sixty-six thousand pesos of silver >k >{<
a hundred thousand pesos of gold
and other things of great worth, he thought it
not good to return by the streight (Magellan)
* * * least the Spaniards should there waite
and attend for him in great numbers and
strength, whose hands, he being left but one
ship, he could not possibly escape.”
Surfeited with spoils and his ship loaded with
plunder, it became necessary for him to find the
shortest and safest route home. To return by
the way he came was to invite certain destruc-
tion to his ship and death to all on board. At
an island off the coast of Nicaragua he over-
hauled and refitted his ship. He determined to
seek the Straits of Anian that were believed to
connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Strik-
ing boldly out on an unknown sea, he sailed
more than a thousand leagues northward. En-
countering contrary winds and the cold in-
creasing as he advanced, he gave up his search
for the mythical straits, and, turning, he ran
down the northwest coast of North America to
latitude 38°, where “hee found a harborrow for
his ship.” He anchored in it June 17, 1579.
This “convenient and fit harborrow” is under
the lee of Point Reyes and is now known as
Sir Francis Drake's Bay.
Fletcher, the chronicler of Drake's voyage, in
his narrative, “The World Encompassed,” says:
“The 3rd day following, viz., the 21st, our ship
having received a leake at Sea was brought to
anchor neerer the shoare that her goods being
landed she might be repaired; but for that we
were to prevent any danger that might chance
against our safety our Generall first of all
landed his men with necessary provision to build
tents and make a fort for defense of ourselves
and gocols; and that we might under the shel-
:k >k >k
ter of it with more safety (whatsoever should
befall) end our business.”
The ship was drawn upon the beach, careened
On its side, caulked and refitted. While the
crew were repairing the ship the natives visited
them in great numbers. From some of their ac-
tions Drake inferred that they regarded himself
and his men as gods. To disabuse them of this
idea, Drake ordered his chaplain, Fletcher, to
perform divine service according to the English
Church Ritual and preach a sermon. The In-
dians were greatly delighted with the psalm
singing, but their opinion of Fletcher's sermon
is not known.
From certain ceremonial performance Drake
imagined that the Indians were offering him the
Sovereignty of their land and themselves as sub-
jects of the English crown. Drake gladly ac-
cepted their proffered allegiance and formally
took possession of the country in the name of
the English sovereign, Queen Elizabeth. He
named it New Albion, “for two causes: the one
in respect of the white bankes and cliffes which
ly towardes the sea; and the other because it
might have some affinitie with our own country
in name which sometimes was so called.”
Having completed the repairs to his ship,
Drake made ready to depart, but before leav-
ing “Our Generall with his company made a
journey up into the land. The inland we found
to be farre different from the shoare; a goodly
country and fruitful soyle, stored with many
blessings fit for the use of man; infinite was the
company of very large and fat deere which
there we saw by thousands as we supposed in a
heard.” They saw great numbers of small bur-
rowing animals, which they called conies, but
which were probably ground Squirrels. Before
departing, Drake set up a monument to show
that he had taken possession of the country. To a
large post firmly set in the ground he nailed a
brass plate on which was engraved the name of
the English Queen, the date of his arrival and the
statement that the king and people of the coun-
try had voluntarily become vassals of the Eng-
iish crown; a new sixpence was fastened to the
plate to show the Queen's likeness.
*World Encompassed.
40 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
After a stay of thirty-six days, Drake took
his departure, much to the regret of the Indians. .
He stopped at the Farallones islands for a short
time to lay in a supply of seal meat; then he
sailed for England by the way of the Cape of
Good Hope. After encountering many perils,
he arrived safely at Plymouth, the port from
which he sailed nearly three years before, hav-
ing “encompassed” or circumnavigated the
globe. His exploits and the booty he brought
back made him the most famous naval hero of
his time. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth
and accorded extraordinary honors by the na-
tion. He believed himself to be the first dis-
coverer of the country he called New Albion.
“The Spaniards never had any dealings or so
much as set foote in this country; the utmost
of their discoveries reaching only to many de-
grees southward of this place.” The English
founded no claim on Drake's discoveries. The
land hunger that characterizes that nation now
had not then been developed.
Fifty years passed after Cabrillo's visit to Cal-
ifornia before another attempt was made by the
Spaniards to explore her coast. Through all
these years on their return voyage far out be-
yond the islands the Manila galleons, freighted
with the wealth of “Ormus and Ind,” sailed
down the coast of Las Californias from Cape
Mendocino to Acapulco. Often storm-tossed
and always scourged with that dread malady of
the sea, the scurvy, there was no harbor of ref-
uge for them to put into because his most Cath-
olic Majesty, the King of Spain, had no money
to spend in exploring an unknown coast where
there was no return to be expected except per-
haps the saving of a few sailors' lives.
In 1593, the question of a survey of the Cali-
fornia coast for harbors to accommodate the in-
creasing Philippine trade was agitated and Don
Luis de Velasco, viceroy of New Spain, in a let-
ter dated at Mexico, April 8, 1593, thus writes to
his majesty: “In order to make the exploration
or demarcation of the harbors of this main as
far as the Philippine islands, as your majesty
orders, money is lacking, and if it be not taken
from the royal strong box it cannot be supplied,
* *
*The World Encompassed.
as for Some time past a great deal of money has
been Owing to the royal treasury on account
of fines forfeited to it, legal cost and the like.”
Don Luis fortunately discovers a way to save
the contents of the royal strong box and hastens
to acquaint his majesty with his plan. In a let-
ter written to the king from the City of Mexico,
April 6, 1594, he says: “I ordered the navigator
who at present sails in the flag ship, who is
named Sebastian Rodriguez Cermeiào, and who
is a man of experience in his calling, one who
can be depended upon and who has means of
his own, although he is a Portuguese, there
being no Spaniards of his profession whose serv-
ices are available, that he should make the ex-
ploration and demarcation, and I offered, if he
would do this, to give him his remuneration in
the way of taking on board merchandise; and
I wrote to the governor (of the Philippines)
that he should allow him to put on board the
ship some tons of cloth that he might have the
benefit of the freight-money.” The result of
Don Luis's economy and the outcome of at-
tempting to explore an unknown coast in a
heavily iaden merchant ship are given in a para-
graph taken from a letter written by a royal offi-
cer from Acapulco, February I, I596, to the
viceroy Conde de Monterey, the successor of
Velasco: “On Wednesday, the 31st of January
of this year, there entered this harbor a vessel
of the kind called in the Philippines a viroco,
having on board Juan de Morgana, navigating
officer, four Spanish sailors, five Indians and a
negro, who brought tidings that the ship San
Agustin, of the exploring expedition, had been
lost on a coast where she struck and went to
pieces, and that a barefooted friar and another
person of those on board had been drowned and
that the seventy men or more who embarked in
this small vessel only these came in her, be-
cause the captain of said ship, Sebastian Rodri-
guez Cermeſio, and the others went ashore at
the port of Navidad, and, as they understand,
have already arrived in that city (Mexico). An
account of the voyage and of the loss of the
ship, together with the statement made under
oath by said navigating officer, Juan de Mor-
gana, accompany this. We visited officially the
vessel, finding no kind of merchandise on board,
*
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 41
and that the men were almost naked. The ves-
sel being so small it seems miraculous that she
should have reached this country with so many
people on board.” A viroco was a small vessel
without a deck, having one or two square sails,
and propelled by sweeps. Its hull was formed
from a single tree, hollowed out and having the
sides built up with planks. The San Agustin
was wrecked in what is now called Francis
Drake's Bay, about thirty miles north of San
Francisco. To make a voyage from there to
Acapulco in such a vessel, with seventy men on
board, and live to tell the tale, was an exploit
that exceeded the most hazardous undertakings
of the Argonauts of '49.
The viceroy, Conde de Monte Rey, in a let-
ter dated at Mexico, April 19, 1596, gives the
king tidings of the loss of the San Agustin. He
writes: “Touching the loss of the ship, San
Agustin, which was on its way from the islands
of the west (the Philippines) for the purpose of
making the exploration of the coast of the South
Sea, in accordance with your Majesty's orders
to Viceroy, Don Luis de Velasco, I wrote to
Your Majesty by the second packet (mailship)
what I send as duplicate with this.” He then
goes on to tell how he had examined the offi-
cers in regard to the loss of the vessel and that
they tried to inculpate one another. The navi-
gating officer even in the viroco tried to ex-
plore the principal bays which they crossed, but
on account of the hunger and illness they expe-
rienced he was compelled to hasten the voyage.
The viceroy concludes: “Thus I take it, as to
this exploration the intention of Your Majesty
has not been carried into effect. It is the gen-
eral opinion that this enterprise should not be
attempted on the return voyage from the islands
and with a laden ship, but from this coast and
by constantly following along it.” The above
account of the loss of the San Agustin is taken
from Volume II, Publications of the Historical
Society of Southern California, and is the only
correct account published. In September, 1595,
just before the viceroy, Don Luis de Velasco,
was superseded by Conde de Monte Rey, he
entered into a contract with certain parties of
whom Sebastian Viscaino, a ship captain, was
the principal, to make an expedition up the Gulf
of California “for the purpose of fishing for
pearls.” There was also a provision in the con-
tract empowering Viscaino to make explorations
and take possession of his discoveries for the
crown of Spain. The Conde de Monte Rey
seems, from a letter written to the King, to have
seriously doubted whether Viscaino was the
right man for so important an expedition, but
finally allowed him to depart. In September,
1596, Viscaino sailed up the gulf with a fleet of
three vessels, the flag ship San Francisco, the
San José and ā Lancha. The flag ship was dis-
abled and left at La Paz. With the other two
vessels he sailed up the gulf to latitude 29°. He
encountered severe storms. At some island he
had trouble with the Indians and killed several.
As the long boat was departing an Indian
wounded one of the rowers with an arrow. The
sailor dropped his oar, the boat careened and
upset, drowning twenty of the twenty-six sol-
diers and sailors in it. ".
Viscaino returned without having procured
any pearls or made any important discoveries.
He proposed to continue his explorations of the
Californias, but on account of his misfortunes
lis request was held in abeyance. He wrote a
letter to the king in 1597, setting forth what
supplies he required for the voyage. His in-
ventory of the items needed is interesting, but
altogether too long for insertion here. Among
the items were “$35,000 in money”; “eighty ar-
robas of powder”; “twenty quintals of lead”;
“four pipes of wine for mass and sick friars”;
“vestments for the clergy and $2,000 to be in-
vested in trifles for the Indians for the purpose
of attracting them peaceably to receive the holy
gospel.” Viscaino's request was not granted at
that time. The viceroy and the royal audiencia
at one time ordered his commission revoked.
Philip II died in 1598 and was succeeded by
Philip III. After five years’ waiting, Viscaino
was allowed to proceed with his explorations.
From Acapulco on the 5th of May, 1602, he
writes to the king that he is ready to sail with
his ships “for the discovery of harbors and bays
of the coast of the South Sea as far as Cape
Mendocino.” “I report,” he says, “merely that
the said Viceroy (Conde de Monterey) has en-
trusted to me the accomplishment of the same
42 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
in two ships, a lancha and a barcoluengo,
manned with sailors and soldiers and provi-
sioned for eleven months. To-day being Sun-
day, the 5th of May, I sail at five o'clock in the
names of God and his blessed mother and your
majesty.”
Viscaino followed the same course marked
out by Cabrillo sixty years before. November
IO, 1602, he anchored in Cabrillo's Bay of San
Miguel. Whether the faulty reckoning of Ca-
brillo left him in doubt of the points named by
the first discoverer, or whether it was that he
might receive the credit of their discovery, Vis-
caino changed the names given by Cabrillo to
the islands, bays and headlands along the Cali-
fornia coast. Cabrillo's Bahia San Miguel be-
came the Bay of San Diego; San Salvador and
Vitoria were changed to Santa Catalina and
San Clemente, and Cabrillo's Bahia de los
Fumos y Fuegos appears on Viscaíno's map as
the Ensenada de San Andres, but in a descrip-
tion of the voyage compiled by the cosmog-
rapher, Cabrero Bueno, it is named San Pedro.
It is not named for the Apostle St. Peter, but
for St. Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, whose day
in the Catholic calendar is November 26, the
day of the month Viscaino anchored in the Bay
of San Pedro. g
Sailing up the coast, Viscaino passed through
the Santa Barbara channel, which was so named
by Antonio de la Ascencion, a Carmelite friar,
who was chaplain of one of the ships. The ex-
pedition entered the channel December 4, which
is the day in the Catholic calendar dedicated to
Santa Barbara. He visited the mainland near
Point Concepcion where the Indian chief of a
populous rancheria offered each Spaniard who
would become a resident of his town ten wives.
This generous offer was rejected. December
15, 1602, he reached Point Pinos, so named by
Cabrillo, and cast anchor in the bay formed by
its projection. This bay he named Monterey,
in honor of the viceroy, Conde de Monte Rey.
Many of his men were sick with the scurvy and
his provisions were becoming exhausted; so,
placing the sick and disabled on the San Tomas,
he sent them back to Acapulco; but few of them
ever reached their destination. On the 3d of
January, 1603, with two ships, he proceeded on
his search for Cape Mendocino, the northern
limit of his survey. The Manila galleons on
their return voyage from the Philippines sailed
up the Asiatic coast to the latitude of Japan,
when, taking advantage of the westerly winds
and the Japan current, they crossed the Pacific,
Striking the North American coast in about the
latitude of Cape Mendocino, and from there
they ran down the coast of Las Californias and
across the gulf to Acapulco. After leaving
Point Reyes a storm separated his ships and
drove him as far north as Cape Blanco. The
smaller vessel, commanded by Martin de Agui-
lar, was driven north by the storm to latitude
43°, where he discovered what seemed to be
the mouth of a great river; attempting to enter
it, he was driven back by the swift current.
Aguilar, believing he had discovered the western
entrance of the Straits of Anian, sailed for
New Spain to report his discovery. He, his
chief pilot and most of his crew died of scurvy
before the vessel reached Navidad. Viscaino,
after sighting Cape Blanco, turned and sailed
down the coast of California, reaching Acapulco
March 21, 1603.
Viscaino, in a letter to the King of Spain,
dated at the City of Mexico, May 23, 1603,
grows enthusiastic Over California climate and
productions. It is the earliest known specimen
of California boom literature. After depicting
the commodiousness of Monterey Bay as a port
of safety for the Philippine ships, he says: “This
port is sheltered from all winds, while on the im-
mediate shores there are pines, from which masts
of any desired size can be obtained, as well as
live oaks and white Oaks, rosemary, the vine, the
rose of Alexandria, a great variety of game, such
as rabbits, hare, partridges and other sorts and
species found in Spain. This land has a genial
climate, its waters are good and it is fertile,
judging from the varied and luxuriant growth
of trees and plants; and it is thickly settled with
people whom I found to be of gentle disposition,
peaceable and docile. * * * Their food con-
sists of seeds which they have in great abun-
dance and variety, and of the flesh of game such
as deer, which are larger than cows, and bear,
and of neat cattle and bisons and many other
animals. The Indians are of good stature and
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. - 43
fair complexion, the women being somewhat
less in size than the men, and of pleasing counte-
nance. The clothing of the people of the coast
lands consists of the skins of the Sea Wolves
(otter) abounding there, which they tan and
dress better than is done in Castile; they pos-
sess also in great quantity flax like that of Cas-
tile, hemp and cotton, from which they make
fishing lines and nets for rabbits and hares.
They have vessels of pine wood, very well made,
in which they go to sea with fourteen paddle-
men of a side, with great dexterity in very
stormy weather. * * * They are well ac-
quainted with gold and silver and said that
these were found in the interior.”
The object of Viscaino's boom literature of
three hundred years ago was the promotion of a
colony scheme for the founding of a settlement
on Monterey Bay. He visited Spain to obtain the
consent of the king and assistance in planting
a colony. After many delays, Philip III, in
1606, ordered the viceroy of New Spain to fit
out immediately an expedition to be com-
manded by Viscaino for the occupation and set-
tlement of the port of Monterey. Before the ex-
pedition could be gotten ready Viscaino died and
his colonization scheme died with him. Had he
lived to carry out his scheme, the settlement of
California would have antedated that of James-
town, Va., by one year.
CHAPTER III.
COLONIZATION OF
the abandonment of Viscaino's coloniza-
tion scheme before the Spanish crown
made another attempt to utilize its vast posses-
sions in Alta California. The Manila galleons
sailed down the coast year after year for more
than a century and a half, yet in all this long
space of time none of them so far as we know
ever entered a harbor or bay on the upper Cali-
fornia coast. Spain still held her vast colonial
possessions in America, but with a loosening
grasp. As the years went by she had fallen
from her high estate. Her power on sea and
land had weakened. Those brave old sea kings,
Drake, Hawkins and Frobisher, had destroyed
her invincible Armada and burned her ships in
her very harbors. The English and Dutch pri-
vateers had preyed upon her commerce on the
high seas and the buccaneers had robbed her
treasure ships and devastated her settlements on
the islands and the Spanish main, while the free-
booters of many nations had time and again
captured her galleons and ravished her colonies
on the Pacific coast. The energy and enterprise
that had been a marked characteristic of her
people in the days of Cortés and Pizarro were
Rºº. and sixty years passed after
ebbing away.
The age of luxury that began
ALTA CALIFORNIA.
with the influx of the wealth which flowed into
the mother country from her American colonies
engendered intrigue and official corruption
among her rulers, demoralized her army and
prostrated her industries. While her kings and
her nobles were revelling in luxury the poor were
crying for bread. Proscriptive laws and the fear
of her Holy Inquisition had driven into exile
many of the most enterprising and most intelli-
gent of her people. These baneful influences
had palsied the bravery and spirit of adventure
that had been marked characteristics of the
Spaniards in the fifteenth and sixteenth cen-
turies. Other nations stood ready to take ad-
vantage of her decadence. Her old-time enemy,
England, which had gained in power as Spain
had lost, was ever on the alert to take advantage
of her weakness; and another power, Russia,
almost unknown among the powers of Europe
when Spain was in her prime, was threatening
her possessions in Alta California. To hold this
vast country it must be colonized, but her re-
strictions on commerce and her proscriptive laws
against foreign immigrants had shut the door to
her colonial possessions against colonists from
all other nations. Her sparse settlements in Mex-
ico could spare no colonists. The native in-
44 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
habitants of California must be converted to
Christianity and made into citizens. Poor mate-
rial indeed were these degraded savages, but
Spain's needs were pressing and missionary zeal
was powerful. Indeed, the pristine courage and
daring of the Spanish soldier seemed to have
passed to her missionary priest.
The Jesuits had begun missionary work in
1697 among the degraded inhabitants of Lower
California. With a perseverance that was highly
commendable and a bravery that was heroic,
under their devoted leaders, Salvatierra, Kino,
Ugarte, Piccolo and their successors, they
founded sixteen missions on the peninsula.
Father Kino (or Kuhn), a German Jesuit, be-
sides his missionary work, between 1694 and
1702, had made explorations around the head
of the Gulf of California and up the Rio Colo-
rado to the mouth of the Gila, which had clearly
demonstrated that Lower California was a pen-
insula and not an island. Although Ulloa had
sailed down the inner coast and up the Outer
coast of Lower California and Domingo del
Castillo, a Spanish pilot, had made a correct
map showing it to be a peninsula, so strong was
the belief in the existence of the Straits of
Anian that one hundred and sixty years after
Ulloa's voyage Las Californias were still be-
lieved to be islands and were sometimes called
Islas Carolinas, or the Islands of Charles, named
so for Charles II. of Spain. Father Kino had
formed the design of establishing a chain of mis-
sions from Sonora around the head of the gulf
and down the inner coast of Lower California to
Cape San Lucas. He did not live to complete
his ambitious project. The Jesuit missions of
Baja California never grew rich in flocks and
herds. The country was sterile and the few
small valleys of fertile land around the missions
gave the padres and the neophytes at best but a
frugal return for their labors.
For years there had been, in the Catholic
countries of Europe, a growing fear and dis-
trust of the Jesuits. Portugal had declared them
traitors to the government and had banished
them in 1759 from her dominions. France had
suppressed the order in her domains in 1764.
In 1767, King Carlos III., by a pragmatic sanc-
tion or decree, ordered their expulsion from
observed in Spain and Mexico.
Spain and all her American colonies. So great
and powerful was the influence of the order that
the decree for their expulsion was kept secret
until the moment of its execution. Throughout
all parts of the kingdom, at a certain hour of
the night, a summons came to every college,
monastery or other establishment where mem-
bers of the order dwelt, to assemble by com-
mand of the king in the chapel or refectory
inmediately. The decree of perpetual banish-
ment was then read to them. They were hastily
|Jundled into vehicles that were awaiting them
Outside and hurried to the nearest seaport,
where they were shipped to Rome. During
their journey to the sea-coast they were not al-
lowed to communicate with their friends nor
permitted to speak to persons they met on the
way. By order of the king, any subject who
should undertake to vindicate the Jesuits in writ-
ing should be deemed guilty of treason and con-
demned to death.
The Lower California missions were too dis-
tant and too isolated to enforce the king's de-
cree with the same haste and secrecy that was
To Governor
Gaspar de Portolà was entrusted the enforce-
ment of their banishment. These missions were
transferred to the Franciscans, but it took time
to make the substitution. He proceeded with
great caution and care lest the Indians should
become rebellious and demoralized. It was not
until February, 1768, that all the Jesuit mis-
sionaries were assembled at La Paz; from there
they were sent to Mexico and on the 13th of
April, at Vera Cruz, they bade farewell to the
western continent.
At the head of the Franciscan contingent that
took charge of the abandoned missions of Baja
California, was Father Junipero Serra, a man
of indomitable will and great missionary zeal.
Miguel José Serra was born on the island of
Majorica in the year 1713. . After completing his
studies in the Lullian University, at the age of
eighteen he became a monk and was admitted
into the order of Franciscans. On taking or-
ders he assumed the name of Junipero (Juniper).
Among the disciples of St. Francis was a very
zealous and devoted monk who bore the name
of Junipero, of whom St. Francis once said,
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 45
“Would to God, my brothers, that I had a whole
forest of such Junipers.” Serra’s favorite study
was the “Lives of the Saints,” and no doubt the
study of the life of the original Junipero influ-
enced him to take that saint's name. Serra's
ambition was to become a missionary, but it was
not until he was nearly forty years of age that
his desire was gratified. In 1749 he came to
Mexico and January 1, 1750, entered the College
of San Fernando. A few months later he was
given charge of an Indian mission in the Sierra
Gorda mountains, where, with his assistant and
lifelong friend, Father Palou, he remained nine
years. Under his instructions the Indians were
taught agriculture and the mission became a
model establishment of its kind. From this
mountain mission Serra returned to the city of
Mexico. He spent seven years in doing mis-
sionary work among the Spanish population of
the capital and surrounding country. His suc-
cess as a preacher and his great missionary zeal
led to his selection as president of the missions
of California, from which the Jesuits had been
removed. April 2, 1768, he arrived in the port of
Loreto with fifteen associates from the College
of San Fernando. These were sent to the dif-
ferent missions of the peninsula. These mis-
sions extended over a territory seven hundred
miles in length and it required several months
to locate all the missionaries,
The scheme for the occupation and coloniza-
tion of Alta California was to be jointly the
work of church and state. The representative
of the state was José de Galvez, visitador-gen-
eral of New Spain, a man of untiring energy,
great executive ability, sound business sense
and, as such men are and ought to be, some-
what arbitrary. Galvez reached La Paz in July,
1768. At once he began investigating the condi-
tion of the peninsular missions and supplying
their needs. This done, he turned his attention
to the northern colonization. Establishing his
headquarters at Santa Ana near La Paz, he sum-
moned Father Junipero for consultation in
regard to the founding of missions in Alta Cali-
fornia. It was decided to proceed to the initial
points, San Diego and Monterey, by land and
sea. Three ships were to be dispatched carrying
the heavier articles, such as agricultural imple-
ments, church ornaments, and a supply of provi-
sions for the support of the soldiers and priest
after their arrival in California. The expedi-
tion by land was to take along cattle and
horses to stock the country. This expedition
was divided into two detachments, the advance
one under the command of Rivera y Moncada,
who had been a long time in the country, and
the second division under Governor Gaspar de
Portolá, who was a newcomer. Captain Rivera
was sent northward to collect from the missions
ail the live stock and supplies that could be
spared and take them to Santa Maria, the most
northern mission of the peninsula. Stores of
all kinds were collected at La Paz. Father
Serra made a tour of the missions and secured
such church furniture, ornaments and vestments
as could be spared.
The first vessel fitted out, for the expedition
by sea was the San Carlos, a ship of about
two hundred tons burden, leaky and badly con-
structed. She sailed from La Paz January 9,
1769, under the command of Vicente Vila. In
addition to the crew there were twenty-five Cat-
aionian soldiers, commanded by Lieutenant
Fages, Pedro Prat, the surgeon, a Franciscan
friar, two blacksmiths, a baker, a cook and two
tortilla makers. Galvez in a small vessel accom-
panied the San Carlos to Cape San Lucas, where
he landed and set to work to fit out the San
Antonio. On the 15th of February this vessel
sailed from San José del Cabo (San José of the
Cape), under the command of Juan Perez, an
expert pilot, who had been engaged in the Phil-
ippine trade. On this vessel went two Franciscan
friars, Juan Viscaino and Francisco Gomez.
Captain Rivera y Moncada, who was to pioneer
the way, had collected supplies and cattle at Vel-
icatá on the northern frontier. From here, with
a small force of soldiers, a gang of neophytes
and three muleteers, and accompanied by Padre
Crespi, he began his march to San Diego on the
24th of March, 1769.
The second land expedition, commanded by
Governor Gaspar de Portolà in person, began
its march from Loreto, March 9, 1769. Father
Serra, who was to have accompanied it, was de-
tained at Loreto by a sore leg. He joined the
expedition at Santa Maria, May 5, where it had
46 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
been waiting for him some time. It then pro-
ceeded to Rivera's camp at Velicatá, sixty miles
further north, where Serra founded a mission,
naming it San Fernando. Campa Coy, a friar
who had accompanied the expedition thus far,
was left in charge. This mission was intended
as a frontier post in the travel between the pen-
insular missions and the Alta California settle-
ments. On the 15th of May Portolà began his
northern march, following the trail of Rivera.
Galvez had named, by proclamation, St. Joseph
as the patron saint of the California expeditions.
Santa Maria was designated as the patroness of
conversions.
The San Antonia, the last vessel to sail, was
the first to arrive at San Diego. It anchored in
the bay April 11, 1769, after a prosperous voy-
age of twenty-four days. There she remained
at anchor, awaiting the arrival of the San Car-
los, the flag ship of the expedition, which had
sailed more than a month before her. On the
29th of April the San Carlos, after a disastrous
voyage of one hundred and ten days, drifted
into the Bay of San Diego, her crew prostrated
with the scurvy, not enough able-bodied men
being left to man a boat. Canvas tents were
pitched and the afflicted men taken ashore.
When the disease had run its course nearly all
of the crew of the San Carlos, half of the sol-
diers who had come on her, and nine of the
sailors of the San Antonio, were dead.
On the 14th of May Captain Rivera y Mon-
cada’s detachment arrived. The expedition had
made the journey from Velicatá in fifty-one
days. On the first of July the second division,
commanded by Portolà, arrived. The journey
had been uneventful. The four divisions of the
grand expedition were now united, but its num-
bers had been greatly reduced. Out of two
hundred and nineteen who had set out by land
and sea only one hundred and twenty-six re-
mained; death from scurvy and the desertion of
the neophytes had reduced the numbers nearly
one-half. The ravages of the scurvy had de-
stroyed the crew of one of the vessels and
greatly crippled that of the other, so it was im-
possible to proceed by sea to Monterey, the
second objective point of the expedition. A
council of the officers was held and it was de-
cided to send the San Antonia back to San Blas.
for supplies and sailors to man the San Carlos.
The San Antonia sailed on the 9th of July and
after a voyage of twenty days reached her des-
tination; but short as the voyage was, half of
the crew died of the scurvy on the passage. In
early American navigation the scurvy was the
most dreaded scourge of the sea, more to be
feared than storm and shipwreck. These might
happen occasionally, but the scurvy always made
its appearance on long voyages, and sometimes
destroyed the whole ship's crew. Its appearance
and ravages were largely due to the neglect of
sanitary precautions and to the utter indiffer-
ence of those in authority to provide for the
comfort and health of the sailors. The interces-
Sion of the Saints, novenas, fasts and penance
were relied upon to protect and save the vessel
and her crew, while the simplest sanitary meas-
tires were utterly disregarded. A blind, unrea-
soning faith that was always seeking interposi-
tion from Some power without to preserve and
ignoring the power within, was the bane and
curse of that age of superstition.
If the mandates of King Carlos III. and the
instructions of the visitador-general, José de
Galvez, were to be carried out, the expedition
for the settlement of the second point designated
(Monterey) must be made by land; accordingly
Governor Portolá. Set about organizing his
forces for the Overland journey. On the 14th
of July the expedition began its march. It con-
sisted of Governor Portolà, Padres Crespi and
Gomez, Captain Rivera y Moncada, Lieutenant
Pedro Fages, Engineer Miguel Constansó, sol-
diers, muleteers and Indian servants, number-
ing in all sixty-two persons.
On the 16th of July, two days after the de-
parture of Governor Portolà, Father Junipero,
assisted by Padres Viscaino and Parron, founded
the mission of San Diego. The site selected
was in what is now Old Town, near the tempo-
rary presidio, which had been hastily con-
structed before the departure of Governor Por-
tolá. A hut of boughs had been constructed
and in this the ceremonies of founding were
held. The Indians. while interested in what was
going on, manifested no desire to be converted.
They were willing to receive gifts, particularly
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. tº 47
of cloth, but would not taste the food of the
Spaniards, fearing that it contained poison and
attributing the many deaths among the soldiers
and sailors to the food. The Indians had a great
liking for pieces of cloth, and their desire to
obtain this led to an attack upon the people of
the mission. On the 14th of August, taking
advantage of the absence of Padre Parron and
two soldiers, they broke into the mission and
began robbing it and the beds of the sick. The
four soldiers, a carpenter and a blacksmith ral-
lied to the defense, and after several of their
numbers had fallen by the guns of the soldiers,
the Indians fled. A boy servant of the padres
was killed and Father Viscaino wounded in the
hand. After this the Indians were more cau-
tious.
We now return to the march of Portolá's ex-
pedition. As the first exploration of the main
land of California was made by it, I give con-
siderable space to the incidents of the journey.
Crespi, Constansó and Fages kept journals of
the march. I quote from those of Constansó
and Crespi. Lieutenant Constansó thus de-
scribes the order of the march. “The setting-
forth was on the I4th day of June” of the cited
year of ’69. The two divisions of the expedition
by land marched in one, the commander so ar-
ranging because the number of horse-herd and
packs was much, since of provisions and victuals
alone they carried one hundred packs, which he
estimated to be necessary to ration all the folk
during six months; thus providing against a
delay of the packets, altho' it was held to be
impossible that in this interval some one of
them should fail to arrive at Monterey. On
the marches the following order was observed:
At the head went the commandant with the offi-
cers, the six men of the Catalonia volunteers,
who added themselves at San Diego, and some
friendly Indians, with spades, mattocks, crow-
bars, axes and other implements of pioneers, to
chop and open a passage whenever necessary.
After them followed the pack-train, divided into
four bands with the muleteers and a competent
number of garrison soldiers for their escort with
each band. In the rear guard with the rest of
*Evidently an error; it should be July 14th.
the troops and friendly Indians came the cap-
tain, Don Fernando Rivera, convoying the
horse-herd and the mule herd for relays.”
>k >k >}:
“It must be well considered that the marches
of these troops with such a train and with such
embarrassments thro’ unknown lands and un-
used paths could not be long ones; leaving aside
the other causes which obliged them to halt
and camp early in the afternoon, that is to say,
the necessity of exploring the land one day for
the next, so as to regulate them (the marches)
according to the distance of the watering-places
and to take in consequence the proper precau-
tions; setting forth again on special occasions
in the evening, after having given water to the
Jeasts in that same hour upon the sure informa-
tion that in the following stretch there was no
water or that the watering place was low, or the
pasture scarce. The restings were measured by
the necessity, every four days, more or less,
according to the extraordinary fatigue occa-
Sioned by the greater roughness of the road,
the toil of the pioneers, or the wandering off of
the beasts which were missing from the horse
herd and which it was necessary to seek by their
tracks. At other times, by the necessity of
humoring the sick, when there were any, and
with time there were many who yielded up their
strength to the continued fatigue, the excessive
heat and cruel cold. In the form and according
to the method related the Spaniards executed
their marches; traversing immense lands more
fertile and more pleasing in proportion as they
penetrated more to the north. All in general are
peopled with a multitude of Indians, who came
out to meet them and in some parts accompa-
nied them from one stage of the journey to the
next; a folk very docile and tractable chiefly
from San Diego onward.” - o
Constansó's description of the Indians of
Santa Barbara will be found in the chapter on the
“Aborigines of California.” “From the chan-
nel of Santa Barbara onward the lands are not
so populous nor the Indians so industrious, but
they are equally affable and tractable. The
Spaniards pursued their voyage without opposi-
tion up to the Sierra of Santa Lucia, which they
contrived to cross with much hardship. At the
48 * HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
foot of said Sierra on the north side is to be
found the port of Monterey, according to an-
cient reports, between the Point of Pines and
that of Año Nuevo (New Year). The Spaniards
caught sight of said points on the Ist of October
of the year '69, and, believing they had arrived
at the end of their voyage, the commandant sent
the scouts forward to reconnoitre the Point of
Pines; in whose near vicinity lies said Port in
36 degrees and 40 minutes North Latitude. But
the scant tokens and equivocal ones which are
given of it by the Pilot Cabrera Bueno, the only
clue of this voyage, and the character of this
Port, which rather merits the name of Bay,
being spacious (in likeness to that of Cadiz),
not corresponding with ideas which it is natural
to form in reading the log of the aforemen-
tioned Cabrera Bueno, nor with the latitude of
37 degrees in which he located it, the scouts were
persuaded that the Port must be farther to the
north and they returned to the camp which our
people occupied with the report that what they
sought was not to be seen in those parts.”
They decided that the Port was still further
north and resumed their march. Seventeen of
their number were sick with the scurvy, some of
whom, Constansó says, seemed to be in their
last extremity; these had to be carried in lit-
ters. To add to their miseries, the rains began
in the latter part of October, and with them
came an epidemic of diarrhea, “which spread to
all without exception; and it came to be feared
that this sickness which prostrated their powers
and left the persons spiritless, would finish with
the expedition altogether. But it turned out
quite to the contrary.” Those afflicted with the
scurvy began to mend and in a short time they
were restored to health. Constansó thus describes
the discovery of the Bay of San Francisco:
“The last day of October the Expedition by land
came in sight of Punta de Los Reyes and the
Farallones of the Port of San Francisco, whose
landmarks, compared with those related by
the log of the Pilot Cabrera Bueno, were found
exact. Thereupon it became of evident knowl-
edge that the Port of Monterey had been left
behind; there being few who stuck to the
contrary opinion. Nevertheless the comman-
dant resolved to send to reconnoitre the
land as far as Point de los Reyes. The Scouts
who were commissioned for this purpose found
themselves obstructed by immense estuaries,
which run extraordinarily far back into the land
and were obliged to make great detours to get
around the heads of these. * * * Having
arrived at the end of the first estuary and recon-
noitered the land that would have to be followed
to arrive at the Point de Los Reyes, interrupted
with new estuaries, scant pasturage and fire-
wood and having recognized, besides this, the
uncertainty of the news and the misapprehen-
sion the scouts had labored under, the com-
mandant, with the advice of his officers, resolved
upon a retreat to the Point of Pines in hopes of
finding the Port of Monterey and encountering
in it the Packet San José or the San Antonia,
whose succor already was necessary; since of
the provisions which had been taken in San
Diego no more remained than some few sacks of
flour of which a short ration was issued to each
individual daily.”
“On the eleventh day of November was put
into execution the retreat in search of Mon-
terey. The Spaniards reached said port and
the Point of Pines on the 28th of Novem-
ber. They maintained themselves in this place
until the Ioth of December without any ves-
sel having appeared in this time. For which
reason and noting also a lack of victuals, and
that the sierra of Santa Lucia was covering
itself with snow, the commandant, Don Gaspar
de Portolà, saw himself obliged to decide to
continue the retreat unto San Diego, leaving
it until a better occasion to return to the enter-
prise. On this retreat the Spaniards experi-
enced some hardships and necessities, because
they entirely lacked provisions, and because the
long marches, which necessity obliged to make
to reach San Diego, gave no time for seeking
sustenance by the chase, nor did game abound
equally everywhere. At this juncture they killed
twelve mules of the pack-train on whose meat
the folk nourished themselves unto San Diego,
at which new establishment they arrived, all in
health, on the 24th of January, 177O.”
The San José, the third ship fitted out by
Visitador-General Galvez, and which Governor
Portolà expected to find in the Bay of Monte-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 49
rey, sailed from San José del Cabo in May,
1770, with supplies and a double crew to sup-
ply the loss of sailors on the other vessels, but
nothing was ever heard of her afterwards. Pro-
visions were running low at San Diego, no ship
had arrived, and Governor Portolà had decided
to abandon the place and return to Loreto.
Father Junipero was averse to this and prayed
unceasingly for the intercession of Saint Joseph,
the patron of the expedition. A novena or nine
days’ public prayer was instituted to terminate
with a grand ceremonial on March 19th, which
was the saint’s own day. But on the 23rd of
March, when all were ready to depart, the
packet San Antonia arrived. She had sailed
from San Blas the 20th of December. She en-
countered a storm which drove her four hun-
dred leagues from the coast; then she made
land in 35 degrees north latitude. Turning her
prow southward, she ran down to Point Concep-
cion, where at an anchorage in the Santa Bar-
bara channel the captain, Perez, took on water
and learned from the Indians of the return of
Portolà’s expedition. The vessel then ran down
to San Diego, where its opportune arrival
prevented the abandonment of that settle-
ment. Q
With an abundant supply of provisions and a
vessel to carry the heavier articles needed in
forming a settlement at Monterey, Portolà or-
ganized a second expedition. This time he took
with him only twenty soldiers and one officer,
Lieutenant Pedro Fages. He set out from San
Diego on the 17th of April and followed his trail
made the previous year. Father Serra and the
engineer, Constansó, sailed on the San Antonia,
which left the port of San Diego on the 16th of
April. The land expedition reached Monterey
on the 23d of May and the San Antonia on the
31st of the same month. On the 3d of June,
1770, the mission of San Carlos Borromeo de
Monterey was formally founded with solemn
church ceremonies, accompanied by the ringing
of bells, the crack of musketry and the roar of
cannon. Father Serra conducted the church
services. Governor Portolà took possession of
the land in the name of King Carlos III. A
presidio or fort of palisades was built and a few
huts erected. Portolá, having formed the nu-
cleus of a settlement, turned over the command
of the territory to Lieutenant Fages. On the
9th of July, I'770, he sailed on the San Antonia
for San Blas. He never returned to Alta Cali-
fornia.
CHAPTER IV.
ABORIGINES OF CALIFORNIA.
W HETHER the primitive California In-
dian was the low and degraded being
that some modern writers represent
him to have been, admits of doubt. A mis-
sion training continued through three gen-
erations did not elevate him in morals at least.
When freed from mission restraint and brought
in contact with the white race he lapsed into a
condition more degraded and more debased than
that in which the missionaries found him.
Whether it was the inherent fault of the Indian
or the fault of his training is a question that is
useless to discuss now. If we are to believe the
accounts of the California Indian given by Vis-
caino and Constansó, who saw him before he
had come in contact with civilization he was not
inferior in intelligence to the nomad aborigines
of the country east of the Rocky mountains.
Sebastian Viscaino thus describes the In-
dians he found on the shores of Monterey Bay
three hundred years ago: -
“The Indians are of good stature and fair
complexion, the women being somewhat less in
size than the men and of pleasing countenance.
The clothing of the people of the coast lands
consists of the skins of the sea-wolves (otter)
abounding there, which they tan and dress bet-
ter than is done in Castile; they possess also,
in great quantity, flax like that of Castile, hemp
and cotton, from which they make fishing-lines
4.
50 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
and nets for rabbits and hares. They have ves-
sels of pine wood very well made, in which they
go to sea with fourteen paddle men on a side
with great dexterity, even in stormy weather.”
Indians who could construct boats of pine
boards that took twenty-eight paddle men to
row were certainly superior in maritime craft
to the birch bark canoe savages of the east.
We might accuse Viscaino, who was trying to
induce King Philip III. to found a colony on
Monterey Bay, of exaggeration in regard to
the Indian boats were not his statements con-
firmed by the engineer, Miguel Constansó, who
accompanied Portolá's expedition one hundred
and sixty-seven years after Viscaino visited the
Coast. Constansó, writing of the Indians of the
Santa Barbara Channel, says, “The dexterity
and skill of these Indians is surpassing in the
construction of their launches made of pine
planking. They are from eight to ten varas
(twenty-three to twenty-eight feet) in length,
including their rake and a vara and a half (four
feet three inches) beam. Into their fabric enters
no iron whatever, of the use of which they know
little. But they fasten the boards with firmness,
one to another, working their drills just so far
apart and at a distance of an inch from the edge,
the holes in the upper boards corresponding
with those in the lower, and through these holes
they pass strong lashings of deer sinews. They
pitch and calk the seams, and paint the whole
in sightly colors. They handle the boats with
equal cleverness, and three or four men go out
to sea to fish in them, though they have capacity
to carry eight or ten. They use long oars with
two blades and row with unspeakable lightness
and velocity. They know all the arts of fishing,
and fish abound along their coasts as has been
said of San Diego. They have communication
and commerce with the natives of the islands,
whence they get the beads of coral which are
current in place of money through these lands,
although they hold in more esteem the glass
beads which the Spaniards gave them, and of-
fered in exchange for these whatever they had
like trays, otter skins, baskets and wooden
plates. * * *
“They are likewise great hunters. To kill
deer and antelope they avail themselves of an
admirable ingenuity. They preserve the hide
of the head and part of the neck of some one
of these animals, skinned with care and leaving
the horns attached to the same hide, which they
stuff with grass or straw to keep its shape.
They put this said shell like a cap upon the head
and go forth to the woods with this rare equip-
age. On sighting the deer or antelope they go
dragging themselves along the ground little by
little with the left hand. In the right they carry
the bow and four arrows. They lower and raise
the head, moving it to one side and the other,
and making other demonstrations so like these
animals that they attract them without difficulty
to the Snare; and having them within a short
distance, they discharge their arrows at them
with certainty of hitting.”
In the two chief occupations of the savage,
hunting and fishing, the Indians of the Santa
Barbara Channel seem to have been the equals
if not the Superiors of their eastern brethren.
In the art of war they were inferior. Their
easy conquest by the Spaniards and their tame
subjection to mission rule no doubt had much
to do with giving them a reputation for infe-
riority.
The Indians of the interior valleys and those
of the coast belonged to the same general fam-
ily. There were no great tribal divisions like
those that existed among the Indians east of the
Rocky mountains. Each rancheria was to a
certain extent independent of all others, al-
though at times they were known to combine
for war or plunder. Although not warlike, they
sometimes resisted the whites in battle with
great bravery. Each village had its own terri-
tory in which to hunt and fish and its own sec-
tion in which to gather nuts, seeds and herbs.
While their mode of living was somewhat no-
madic they seem to have had a fixed location for
their rancherias.
The early Spanish settlers of California and
the mission padres have left but very meager
accounts of the manners, customs, traditions,
government and religion of the aborigines. The
padres were too intent upon driving out the old
religious beliefs of the Indian and instilling new
ones to care much what the aborigine had for-
merly believed or what traditions or myths he
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 51
liad inherited from his ancestors. They ruth-
lessly destroyed his fetiches and his altars
wherever they found them, regarding them as
inventions of the devil.
The best account that has come down to us
of the primitive life of the Southern California
aborigines is found in a series of letters written
by Hugo Reid and published in the Los An-
geles Star in 1851-52. Reid was an educated
Scotchman, who came to Los Angeles in 1834.
He married an Indian woman, Dona Victoria, a
neophyte of the San Gabriel mission. She was
the daughter of an Indian chief. It is said that
Reid had been crossed in love by Some high
toned Spanish señorita and married the Indian
woman because she had the same name as his
lost love. It is generally believed that Reid was
the putative father of Helen, Hunt Jackson's
heroine, Ramona.
From these letters, now in the possession of
the Historical Society of Southern California,
I briefly collate some of the leading character-
istics of the Southern Indians:
GOVERNMENT.
“Before the Indians belonging to the greater
part of this country were known to the whites
they comprised, as it were, one great family
under distinct chiefs; they spoke nearly the same
language, with the exception of a few words,
and were more to be distinguished by a local
intonation of the voice than anything else. Be-
ing related by blood and marriage war was
never carried on between them. When war was
consequently waged against neighboring tribes
of no affinity it was a common cause.”
“The government of the people was invested
in the hands of their chiefs, each captain com-
manding his own lodge. The command was
hereditary in a family. If the right line of de-
scent ran out they elected one of the same kin
nearest in blood. Laws in general were made
as required, with some few standing ones. Rob-
bery was never known among them. Murder
was of rare occurrence and punished with death.
Incest was likewise punished with death, being
held in such abhorrence that marriages between
kinsfolk were not allowed. The manner of put-
ting to death was by shooting the delinquent
with arrows. If a quarrel ensued between two
parties the chief of the lodge took cognizance
in the case and decided according to the testi-
mony produced. But if a quarrel occurred
between parties of distinct lodges, each chief
heard the witnesses produced by his own people,
and then, associated with the chief of the oppo-
site side, they passed sentence. In case they
could not agree an impartial chief was called in,
who heard the statements made by both and he
alone decided. There was no appeal from his de-
cision. Whipping was never resorted to as a
punishment. All fines and sentences consisted in
delivering shells, money, food and skins.”
RELIGION.
“They believed in one God, the Maker and
Creator of all things, whose name was and is
held so sacred among them as hardly ever to be
used, and when used only in a low voice. That
name is Qua-o-ar. When they have to use the
name of the supreme being on an ordinary oc-
casion they substitute in its stead the word
Y-yo-ha-rory-main or the Giver of Life. They
have only one word to designate life and
soul.”
“The world was at one time in a state of chaos,
until God gave it its present formation, fixing
it on the shoulders of seven giants, made ex-
pressly for this end. They have their names,
and when they move themselves an earthquake
is the consequence. Animals were then formed,
and lastly man and woman were formed, separ-
ately from earth and ordered to live together.
The man's name was Tobahar and the woman's
Probavit. God ascended to Heaven immediately
afterward, where he receives the souls of all who
die. They had no bad spirits connected with
their creed, and never heard of a ‘devil' or a
'hell’ until the coming of the Spaniards. They
believed in no resurrection whatever *
MARRIAGE.
“Chiefs had one, two or three wives, as their
inclination dictated, the subjects only one. When
a person wished to marry and had selected a
suitable partner, he advertised the same to all
his relatives, even to the nineteenth cousin. On
a day appointed the male portion of the 10dge
52 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
brought in a collection of money beads. All the
relations having come in with their share,
they (the males) proceeded in a body to the resi-
dence of the bride, to whom timely notice had
been given. All of the bride's female relations
had been assembled and the money was equally
divided among them, the bride receiving noth-
ing, as it was a sort of purchase. After a few
days the bride's female relations returned the
compliment by taking to the bridegroom's
dwelling baskets of meal made of chia, which
was distributed among the male relatives. These
preliminaries over, a day was fixed for the cere-
mony, which consisted in decking out the bride
in innumerable strings of beads, paint, feathers
and skins. On being ready she was taken up
in the arms of one of her strongest male rela-
tives, who carried her, dancing, towards her
lover's habitation. All of her family, friends and
neighbors accompanied, dancing around, throw-
ing food and edible seeds at her feet at every
step. These were collected in a scramble by the
spectators as best they could. The relations
of the bridegroom met them half way, and, tak-
ing the bride, carried her themselves, joining in
the ceremonious walking dance. On arriving at
the bridegroom's (who was sitting within his
liut) she was inducted into her new residence by
being placed alongside of her husband, while
baskets of seeds were liberally emptied on their
heads to denote blessings and plenty. This was
likewise scrambled for by the spectators, who,
on gathering up all the bride's seed cake, de-
parted, leaving them to enjoy their honeymoon
according to usage. A grand dance was given
on the occasion, the warriors doing the danc-
ing, the young women doing the singing. The
wife never visited her relatives from that day
forth, although they were at liberty to visit her.”
|BURIALS.
“When a person died all the kin collected to
mourn his or her loss. Each one had his own
peculiar mode of crying or howling, as easily dis-
tinguished the one from the other as one song
is from another. After lamenting awhile a
mourning dirge was sung in a low whining tone,
accompanied by a shrill whistle produced by
blowing into the tube of a deer's leg bone.
Dancing can hardly be said to have formed a
part of the rites, as it was merely a monotonous
action of the foot on the ground. This was con-
tinued alternately until the body showed signs
of decay, when it was wrapped in the covering
used in life. The hands were crossed upon the
breast and the body tied from head to foot. A
grave having been dug in their burial ground,
the body was deposited with seeds, etc., accord-
ing to the means of the family. If the deceased
were the head of the family or a favorite son,
the hut in which he lived was burned up, as
likewise were all his personal effects.”
FEUDS—THE SONG FIGHTS.
“Animosity between persons or families was
of long duration, particularly between those of
different tribes. These feuds descended from
father to son until it was impossible to tell of
how many generations. They were, however,
harmless in themselves, being merely a war of
Songs, composed and sung against the conflict-
ing party, and they were all of the most obscene
and indecent language imaginable. There are
two families at this day (1851) whose feud com-
menced before the Spaniards were ever dreamed
of and they still continue singing and dancing
against each other. The one resides at the mis-
sion of San Gabriel and the other at San Juan
Capistrano; they both lived at San Bernardino
when the quarrel commenced. During the sing-
ing they continue stamping on the ground to
express the pleasure they would derive from
tramping on the graves of their foes. Eight days
was the duration of the song fight.”
UTENSILS.
“From the bark of nettles was manufactured
thread for nets, fishing lines, etc. Needles, fish-
hooks, awls and many other articles were made
of either bone or shell; for cutting up meat a
lºnife of cane was invariably used. Mortars and
pestles were made of granite. Sharp stones and
perseverance were the only things used in their
manufacture, and so skillfully did they combine
the two that their work was always remarkably
uniform. Their pots to cook in were made of
soapstone of about an inch in thickness and
procured from the Indians of Santa Catalina.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 53
Their baskets, made out of a certain species of
rush, were used only for dry purposes, although
they were water proof. The vessels in use for
liquids were roughly made of rushes and plas-
tered outside and in with bitumen or pitch.”
INDIANS OF THE SANTA BARBARA CHANNEL.
Miguel Constansó, the engineer who accom-
panied Portolá's expedition in 1769, gives us the
best description of the Santa Barbara Indians
extant.
“The Indians in whom was recognized more
vivacity and industry are those that inhabit the
islands and the coast of the Santa Barbara
channel. They live in pueblos (villages) whose
houses are of spherical form in the fashion of a
half orange covered with rushes. They are up
to twenty varas (fifty-five feet) in diameter. Each
house contains three or four families. The
hearth is in the middle and in the top of the
house they leave a vent or chimney to give exit
for the smoke. In nothing did these gentiles
give the lie to the affability and good treatment
which were experienced at their hands in other
times (1602) by the Spaniards who landed upon
those coasts with General Sebastian Vizcayno.
They are men and women of good figure and as-
pect, very much given to painting and staining
their faces and bodies with red Ochre.
“They use great head dresses of feathers and
some panderellas (small darts) which they bind
up amid their hair with various trinkets and
beads of coral of various colors. The men go
entirely naked, but in time of cold they sport
some long capes of tanned skins of nutrias (ot-
ters) and some mantles made of the same skins
cut in long strips, which they twist in such a
manner that all the fur remains outside; then
they weave these strands one with another,
forming a weft, and give it the pattern referred
to.
“The women go with more decency, girt
about the waist with tanned skins of deer which
cover them in front and behind more than half
down the leg, and with a mantelet of nutria over
the body. There are some of them with good
features. These are the Indian women who
make the trays and vases of rushes, to which
they give a thousand different forms and grace-
ful patterns, according to the uses to which they
are destined, whether it be for eating, drinking,
guarding their seeds, or for other purposes; for
these peoples do not know the use of earthen
ware as those of San Diego use it.
“The men work handsome trays of wood, with
finer inlays of coral or of bone; and some vases
of much capacity, closing at the mouth, which
appear to be made with a lathe—and with this
machine they would not come out better hol-
lowed nor of more perfect form. They give the
whole a luster which appears the finished handi-
work of a skilled artisan. The large vessels
which hold water are of a very strong weave of
rushes pitched within; and they give them the
same form as our water jars.
“To eat the seeds which they use in place of
bread they toast them first in great trays, put-
ting among the seeds some pebbles or small
stones heated until red; then they move and
shake the tray so it may not burn; and getting
the seed sufficiently toasted they grind it in mor-
tars or almireses of stone. Some of these mor-
tars were of extraordinary size, as well wrought
as if they had had for the purpose the best steel
tools. The constancy, attention to trifles, and
labor which they employ in finishing these pieces
are well worthy of admiration. The mortars are
so appreciated among themselves that for those
who, dying, leave behind such handiworks, they
are wont to place them over the spot where they
are buried, that the memory of their skill and
application may not be lost.
“They inter their dead. They have their cem-
eteries within the very pueblo. The funerals of
their captains they make with great pomp, and
set up over their bodies some rods or poles, ex-
tremely tall, from which they hang a variety of
utensils and chattels which were used by them.
They likewise put in the same place some great
planks of pine, with various paintings and fig-
ures in which without doubt they explain the
exploits and prowesses of the personage.
“Plurality of wives is not lawful among these
peoples. Only the captains have a right to
marry two. In all their pueblos the attention
was taken by a species of men who lived like the
women, kept company with them, dressed in the
same garb, adorned themselves with beads, pen-
54 - HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
dants, necklaces and other womanish adorn-
ments, and enjoyed great consideration among
the people. The lack of an interpreter did not
permit us to find out what class of men they
were, or to what ministry they were destined,
though all suspect a defect in sex, or some
abuse among those gentiles.
“In their houses the married couples have
their separate beds on platforms elevated from
the ground. Their mattresses are some simple
petates (mats) of rushes and their pillows are
of the same petates rolled up at the head of the
bed. All these beds are hung about with like
mats, which serve for decency and protect from
the cold.”
From the descriptions given by Viscaino and
Constansó of the coast Indians they do not ap-
pear to have been the degraded creatures that
some modern writers have pictured them. In
mechanical ingenuity they were superior to the
Indians of the Atlantic seaboard or those of the
Mississippi valley. Much of the credit that has
been given to the mission padres for the patient
training they gave the Indians in mechanical
arts should be given to the Indian himself. He
was no mean mechanic when the padres took
him in hand.
Bancroft says “the Northern California In-
dians were in every way superior to the central
and southern tribes.” The difference was more
in climate than in race. Those of Northern Cal-
ifornia living in an invigorating climate were
more active and more warlike than their
sluggish brethren of the south. They gained
their living by hunting larger game than
those of the south whose subsistence was derived
mostly from acorns, seeds, small game and fish.
Those of the interior valleys of the north were
of lighter complexion and had better forms and
features than their southern kinsmen. They
were divided into numerous small tribes or
clans, like those of central and Southern Cali-
fornia. The Spaniards never penetrated very
far into the Indian country of the north and
consequently knew little or nothing about the
habits and customs of the aborigines there.
After the discovery of gold the miners invaded
their country in search of the precious metal.
The Indians at first were not hostile, but ill
treatment soon made them so. When they re-
taliated on the whites a war of extermination
was waged against them. Like the mission In-
dians of the south they are almost extinct.
All of the coast Indians seem to have had
some idea of a supreme being. The name dif-
ſered with the different tribes. According to
Hugo Reid the god of the San Gabriel Indian
was named Quaoar. Father Boscana, who
wrote “A Historical Account of the Origin,
Customs and Traditions of the Indians” at the
missionary establishment of San Juan Capis-
trano, published in Alfred Robinson’s “Life in
California,” gives a lengthy account of the relig-
ion of those Indians before their conversion to
Christianity. Their god was Chinigchinich. Evi-
dently the three old men from whom Boscana
derived his information mixed some of the
religious teachings of the padres with their
own primitive beliefs, and made up for the father
a nondescript religion half heathen and half
Christian. Boscana was greatly pleased to find
so many allusions to Scriptural truths, evidently
never suspecting that the Indians were imposing
upon him.
The religious belief of the Santa Barbara
Channel Indians appears to have been the most
rational of any of the beliefs held by the Cali-
fornia aborigines. Their god, Chupu, was the
deification of good; and Nunaxus, their Satan,
the personification of evil. Chupu the all-powerful
created Nunaxus, who rebelled against his cre-
ator and tried to overthrow him; but Chupu, the
almighty, punished him by creating man who, by
devouring the animal and vegetable products of
the earth, checked the physical growth of
Nunaxus, who had hoped by liberal feeding to
become like unto a mountain. Foiled in his am–
bition, Nunaxus ever afterwards sought to in-
jure mankind. To secure Chupu’s protection,
offerings were made to him and dances were
instituted in his honor. Flutes and other in-
struments were played to attract his attention.
When Nunaxus brought calamity upon the In-
dians in the shape of dry years, which caused a
dearth of animal and vegetable products, or sent
sickness to afflict them, their old men interceded
with Chupu to protect them; and to exorcise
their Satan they shot arrows and threw
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 55
stones in the direction in which he was sup-
posed to be.
Of the Indian myths and traditions Hugo
Reid says: “They were of incredible length
and contained more metamorphoses than Ovid
could have engendered in his brain had he lived
a thousand years.”
The Cahuilla tribes who formerly inhabited
the mountain districts of the southeastern part
of the state had a tradition of their creation. Ac-
cording to this tradition the primeval Adam and
Eve were created by the Supreme Being in the
waters of a northern sea. They came up out
of the water upon the land, which they found to
be soft and miry. They traveled southward for
many moons in search of land suitable for their
residence and where they could obtain susten-
ance from the earth. This they found at last on
the mountain sides in Southern California.
Some of the Indian myths when divested of
their crudities and ideas clothed in fitting
language are as poetical as, those of Greece or
Scandinavia. The following one which Hugo
Reid found among the San Gabriel Indians
bears a striking resemblance to the Grecian
myths of Orpheus and Eurydice but it is not at
all probable that the Indians ever heard the
Grecian fable. Ages ago, so runs this Indian
myth, a powerful people dwelt on the banks of
the Arroyo Seco and hunted over the hills and
plains of what are now our modern Pasadena
and the valley of San Fernando. They com-
mitted a grievous crime against the Great Spirit.
A pestilence destroyed them all save a boy and
girl who were saved by a foster mother pos-
sessed of supernatural powers. They grew to
manhood and womanhood and became husband
and wife. Their devotion to each other angered
the foster mother, who fancied herself neglected.
She plotted to destroy the wife. The young
woman, divining her fate, told her husband that
should he at any time feel a tear drop on his
shoulder, he might know that she was dead.
While he was away hunting the dread signal
came. He hastened back to destroy the hag who
had brought death to his wife, but the sorceress
had escaped. Disconsolate he threw himself on
the grave of his wife. For three days he neither
ate nor drank. On the third day a whirlwind
arose from the grave and moved toward the
south. Perceiving in it the form of his wife, he
hastened on until he overtook it. Then a voice
came out of the cloud saying: “Whither I go,
thou canst not come. Thou art of earth but I
am dead to the world. Return, my husband,
return!” He plead piteously to be taken with
her. She consenting, he was wrapt in the cloud
with her and borne across the illimitable sea that
separates the abode of the living from that of
the dead. When they reached the realms of
ghosts a spirit voice said: “Sister, thou comest
to us with an odor of earth; what dost thou
bring?” Then she confessed that she had
brought her living husband. “Take him away!”
said a voice stern and commanding. She plead
that he might remain and recounted his many
virtues. To test his virtues, the spirits gave him
four labors. First to bring a feather from the
top of a pole so ligh that its summit was in-
visible. Next to split a hair of great length and
exceeding fineness; third to make on the ground
a map of the constellation of the lesser bear and
locate the north star and last to slay the celestial
deer that had the form of black beetles and were
exceedingly swift. With the aid of his wife he
accomplished all the tasks. -
But no mortal was allowed to dwell in the
abodes of death. “Take thou thy wife and re-
turn with her to the earth,” said the spirit. “Yet
remember, thou shalt not speak to her; thou
shalt not touch her until three suns have passed.
A penalty awaits thy disobedience.” He prom-
ised. They pass from the spirit land and travel
to the confines of matter. By day she is invis-
ible but by the flickering light of his camp-fire
ine sees the dim outline of her form. Three days
pass. As the sun sinks behind the western hills
he builds his camp-fire. She appears before
him in all the beauty of life. He stretches forth
his arms to embrace her. She is snatched from
his grasp. Although invisible to him yet the
upper rim of the great orb of day hung above
the western verge. He had broken his prom-
ise. Like Orpheus, disconsolate, he wandered
over the earth until, relenting, the spirits sent
their servant Death to bring him to Tecupar
(Heaven).
The following myth of the mountain Indians
56 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
of the north bears a strong resemblance to the
Norse fable of Gyoll the River of Death and its
glittering bridge, over which the spirits of the
dead pass to Hel, the land of spirits. The In-
dian, however, had no idea of any kind of a
bridge except a foot log across a stream. The
myth in a crude form was narrated to me many
years ago by an old pioneer.
According to this myth when an Indian died
his spirit form was conducted by an unseen
guide over a mountain trail unknown and inac-
cessible to mortals, to the rapidly flowing river
which separated the abode of the living from
that of the dead. As the trail descended to the
river it branched to the right and left. The right
hand path led to a foot bridge made of the mas-
sive trunk of a rough barked pine which spanned
the Indian Styx; the left led to a slender, fresh
peeled birch pole that hung high above the roar-
ing torrent. At the parting of the trail an in-
exorable fate forced the bad to the left, while
the spirit form of the good passed on to the
right and over the rough barked pine to the
happy hunting grounds, the Indian heaven. The
bad reaching the river's brink and gazing long-
ingly upon the delights beyond, essayed to cross
the slippery pole—a slip, a slide, a clutch at
empty space, and the ghostly spirit form was
hurled into the mad torrent below, and was
borne by the rushing waters into a vast lethean
lake where it sunk beneath the waves and was
blotted from existence forever.
CHAPTER V.
FRANCISCAN MISSIONS OF ALTA CALIFORNIA.
SAN DIEGO DE ALCALA.
HE two objective points chosen by Vis-
T itador General Galvez and President
Junipero Serra to begin the spiritual
conquest and civilization of the savages of Alta
California, were San Diego and Monterey. The
expeditions sent by land and sea were all united
at San Diego July 1, 1769. Father Serra lost no
time in beginning the founding of missions.
On the 16th of July, 1769, he founded the mis-
sion of San Diego de Alcalá. It was the first
link in the chain of missionary establishments
that eventually stretched northward from San
Diego to Solano, a distance of seven hundred
miles, a chain that was fifty-five years in forging.
The first site of the San Diego mission was at
a place called by the Indians “Cosoy.” It was
located near the presidio established by Gov-
ernor Portolà before he set out in search of
Monterey. The locality is now known as Old
Town.
Temporary buildings were erected here, but
the location proving unsuitable, in August,
1774, the mission was removed about two
leagues up the San Diego river to a place called
by the natives “Nipaguay.” Here a dwelling for
the padres, a store house, a smithy and a
wooden church 18x57 feet were erected.
The mission buildings at Cosoy were given
up to the presidio except two rooms, one for
the visiting priests and the other for a temporary
store room for mission supplies coming by sea.
The missionaries had been fairly successful in
the conversions of the natives and some prog-
ress had been made in teaching them to labor.
On the night of November 4, 1775, without any
previous warning, the gentiles or unconverted
Indians in great numbers attacked the mission.
One of the friars, Fray Funster, escaped to the
soldiers’ quarters; the other, Father Jaume, was
killed by the savages. The blacksmith also was
killed; the carpenter succeeded in reaching the
soldiers. The Indians set fire to the buildings
which were nearly all of wood. The soldiers, the
priest and carpenter were driven into a small
adobe building that had been used as a kitchen.
Two of the soldiers were wounded. The cor-
poral, one soldier and the carpenter were all
that were left to hold at bay a thousand howl-
ing fiends. The corporal, who was a sharp
shooter, did deadly execution on the savages.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 57
Father Funster saved the defenders from being
blown to pieces by the explosion of a fifty pound
sack of gunpowder. He spread his cloak over
the sack and sat on it, thus preventing the pow-
der from being ignited by the sparks of the
burning building. The fight lasted till daylight,
when the hostiles fled. The Christian Indians
who professed to have been coerced by the sav-
ages then appeared and made many protesta-
tions of sorrow at what had happened. The mili-
tary commander was not satisfied that they were
innocent but the padres believed them. New
buildings were erected at the same place, the
soldiers of the presidio for a time assisting the
Indians in their erection.
The mission was fairly prosperous. In 18OO
the cattle numbered 6,960 and the agricultural
products amounted to 2,600 bushels. From
1769 to 1834 there were 6,638 persons baptized
and 4,428 buried. The largest number of cat-
tle possessed by the mission at One time was
9,245 head in 1822. The old building now stand-
ing on the mission site at the head of the valley
is the third church erected there. The first,
built of wood and roofed with tiles, was erected
in 1774; the second, built of adobe, was com-
pleted in 1780 (the walls of this were badly
cracked by an earthquake in 1803); the third was
begun in 1808 and dedicated November 12,
1813. The mission was secularized in 1834.
SAN CARLOS DE BORRO MEO.
As narrated in a former chapter, Governor
Portolá, who with a small force had set out from
San Diego to find Monterey Bay, reached that
port May 24, 1770. Father Serra, who came
up by sea on the San Antonia, arrived at the
same place May 31. All things being in readi-
ness the Presidio of Monterey and the mission
of San Carlos de Borromeo were founded on
the same day—June 3, 1770. The boom of ar-
tillery and the roar of musketry accompani-
ments to the service of the double founding
frightened the Indians away from the mission
and it was some time before the savages could
muster courage to return. In June, 1771, the
site of the mission was moved to the Carmelo
river. This was done by Father Serra to re-
move the neophytes from the contaminating in-
fluence of the soldiers at the presidio. The erec-
tion of the stone church still standing was be-
gun in 1793. It was completed and dedicated
in 1797. The largest neophyte population at
San Carlos was reached in 1794, when it num-
bered nine hundred and seventy-one. Between
1800 and 1810 it declined to seven hundred and
forty-seven. In 1820 the population had de-
creased to three hundred and eighty-one and
at the end of the next decade it had fallen to
two hundred and nine. In 1834, when the de-
cree of secularization was put in force, there were
about one hundred and fifty neophytes at the
mission. At the rate of decrease under mission
rule, a few more years would have pro-
duced the same result that secularization did,
namely, the extinction of the mission Indian.
SAN ANTONIO DE PADUA.
The third mission founded in California was
San Antonio de Padua. It was located about
twenty-five leagues from Monterey. Here, on
the 14th of June, 1771, in La Canada de los
Robles, the cañon of oaks beneath a shelter of
branches, Father Serra performed the services
of founding. The Indians seem to have been
more tractable than those of San Diego or Mon-
terey. The first convert was baptized one
month after the establishment of the mission.
San Antonio attained the highest limit of its
neophyte population in 1805, when it had
twelve hundred and ninety-six souls within its
fold. In 1831 there were six hundred and sixty-
one Indians at or near the mission. In 1834, the
date of secularization, there were five hundred
and sixty-seven. After its disestablishment the
property of the mission was quickly squandered
through inefficient administrators. The build-
ings are in ruins.
SAN GABRIEL ARCA N GEL.
San Gabriel Arcángel was the fourth mission
founded in California. Father Junipero Serra,
as previously narrated, had gone north in 1770
and founded the mission of San Carlos Bor-
romeo on Monterey Bay and the following year
he established the mission of San Antonio de
Padua on the Salinas river about twenty-five
leagues south of Monterey.
58 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
On the 6th of August, 1771, a cavalcade of
soldiers and musketeers escorting Padres
Somero and Cambon set out from San Diego
over the trail made by Portolá's expedition in
1769 (when it went north in search of Monterey
Bay) to found a new mission on the River Jesus
de los Temblores or to give it its full name, El
Rio del Dulcisimo Nombre de Jesus de los
Temblores, the river of the sweetest name of
Jesus of the Earthquakes. Not finding a suit-
able location on that river (now the Santa Ana)
they pushed on to the Rio San Miguel, also
known as the Rio de los Temblores. Here
they selected a site where wood and water were
abundant. A stockade of poles was built inclos-
ing a square within which a church was erected,
covered with boughs.
September 8, 1771, the mission was formally
founded and dedicated to the archangel Gabriel.
The Indians who at the coming of the Spaniards
were docile and friendly, a few days after the
founding of the mission suddenly attacked two
soldiers who were guarding the horses. One of
these soldiers had outraged the wife of the chief
who led the attack. The soldier who committed
the crime killed the chieftain with a musket ball
and the other Indians fled. The soldiers then
cut off the chief's head and fastened it to a pole
at the presidio gate. From all accounts the sol-
diers at this mission were more brutal and bar-
barous than the Indians and more in need of
missionaries to convert them than the Indians.
The progress of the mission was slow. At the
end of the second year only seventy-three chil-
dren and adults had been baptized. Father Serra
attributed the lack of conversions to the bad
conduct of the soldiers.
The first buildings at the mission Vieja were
all of wood. The church was 45x18 feet, built of
logs and covered with tule thatch. The church
and other wooden buildings used by the padres
stood within a square inclosed by pointed stakes.
In 1776, five years after its founding, the mis-
sion was moved from its first location to a new
site about a league distant from the old one.
The old site was subject to overflow by the
river. The adobe ruins pointed out to tourists
as the foundations of the old mission are the
debris of a building erected for a ranch house
about sixty years ago. The buildings at the
mission Vieja were all of wood and no trace of
them remains. A chapel was first built at the
new site. It was replaced by a church built of
adobes one hundred and eight feet long by
twenty-one feet wide. The present stone church,
begun about 1794, and completed about 1806,
is the fourth church erected.
The mission attained the acme of its impor-
tance in 1817, when there were seventeen hun-
dred and one neophytes in the mission fold.
The largest grain crop raised at any mission
was that harvested at San Gabriel in 1821, which
amounted to 29,400 bushels. The number of cat-
tle belonging to the mission in 1830 was 25,725.
During the whole period of the mission's exist-
ence, i. e., from 1771 to 1834, according to sta-
tistics compiled by Bancroft from mission rec-
ords, the total number of baptisms was 7,854,
of which 4,355 were Indian adults and 2,459
were Indian children and the remainder gente de
razon or people of reason. The deaths were
5,656, of which 2,916 were Indian adults and
2,363 Indian children. If all the Indian children
born were baptized it would seem (if the sta-
tistics are correct) that but very few ever grew
up to manhood and womanhood. In 1834, the
year of its secularization, its neophyte popula-
tion was 1,32O.
The missionaries of San Gabriel established
a station at Old San Bernardino about 182O. It
was not an asistencia like pala, but merely an
agricultural station or ranch headquarters. The
buildings were destroyed by the Indians in 1834.
S.A.N. LUTS OBISPO DE TOLOSA.
On his journey southward in 1782, President
Serra and Padre Cavaller, with a small escort of
soldiers and a few Lower California Indians, on
September 1, 1772, founded the mission of San
Iluis Obispo de Tolosa (St. Louis, Bishop of
Tolouse). The site selected was on a creek
twenty-five leagues southerly from San An-
tonio. The soldiers and Indians were set at
work to erect buildings. Padre Cavaller was left
in charge of the mission, Father Serra continu-
ing his journey southward. This mission was
never a very important one. Its greatest popu-
lation was in 1803, when there were eight
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 59
hundred and fifty-two neophytes within its juris-
diction. From that time to 1834 their number
declined to two hundred and sixty-four. The
average death rate was 7.30 per cent of the pop-
ulation—a lower rate than at some of the more
populous missions. The adobe church built in
1793 is still in use, but has been so remodeled
that it bears but little resemblance to the church
of mission days.
SAN FRANCISCO DE ASIS.
The expedition under command of Portolà
in 1769 failed to find Monterey Bay but it passed
on and discovered the great bay of San Fran-
cisco. So far no attempt had been made to
plant a mission or presidio on its shores. Early
in 1775, Lieutenant Ayala was ordered to ex-
pione the bay with a view to forming a settle-
ment near it. Rivera had previously explored
the land bordering on the bay where the city
11ow stands. Captain Anza, the discoverer of the
overland route from Mexico to California via
the Colorado river, had recruited an expedition
of two hundred persons in Sonora for the pur-
pose of forming a settlement at San Francisco,
He set out in 1775 and reached Monterey March
Io, 1776. A quarrel between him and Rivera,
who was in command at Monterey, defeated for
a time the purpose for which the settlers had
been brought, and Anza, disgusted with the
treatment he had received from Rivera, aban-
doned the enterprise. Anza had selected a site
for a presidio at San Francisco. After his de-
parture Rivera changed his policy of delay that
had frustrated all of Anza's plans and decided at
once to proceed to the establishment of a pre-
sidio. The presidio was formally founded Sep-
tember 17, 1776, at what is now known as Fort
Point. The ship San Carlos had brought a num-
ber of persons; these with the settlers who had
come up from Monterey made an assemblage of
more than one hundred and fifty persons.
After the founding of the presidio Lieutenant
Moraga in command of the military and Captain
Quiros of the San Carlos, set vigorously at work
to build a church for the mission. A wooden
building having been constructed on the 9th of
October, 1776, the mission was dedicated,
Father Palou conducting the service, assisted by
Fathers Cambon, Nocedal and Peña. The site
selected for the mission was on the Laguna de
los Dolores. The lands at the mission were not
very productive. The mission, however, was
fairly prosperous. In 1820 it owned II,240 cat-
tle and the total product of wheat was I 14,480
bushels. In 1820 there were 1,252 neophytes
attached to it. The death rate was very heavy—
the average rate being 12.4 per cent of the pop-
ulation. In 1832 the population had decreased
to two hundred and four and at the time of
secularization it had declined to one hundred
and fifty. A number of neophytes had been
taken to the new mission of San Francisco So-
lano.
SAN
JUAN CAPISTRANO.
The revolt of the Indians at San Diego de-
layed the founding of San Juan Capistrano a
year. October 30, 1775, the initiatory services
of the founding had been held when a messenger
came with the news of the uprising of the sav-
ages and the massacre of Father Jaume and
Others. The bells which had been hung on a
tree were taken down and buried. The soldiers
and the padres hastened to San Diego. Novem-
ber I, 1776, Fathers Serra, Mugartegui and
Amurrio, with an escort of soldiers, arrived at
the site formerly selected. The bells were dug up
and hung on a tree, an enramada of boughs was
constructed and Father Serra said mass. The
first location of the mission was several miles
northeasterly from the present site at the foot
of the mountain. The abandoned site is still
known a la Mision Vieja (the Old Mission).
Just when the change of location was made is
not known.
The erection of a stone church was begun in
February, I797, and completed in 1806. A
master builder had been brought from Mexico
and under his superintendence the neophytes
did the mechanical labor. It was the largest and
handsomest church in California and was the
pride of mission architecture. The year 1812
was known in California as el ano de los tem-
blores—the year of earthquakes. For months
the seismic disturbance was almost continuous.
On Sunday, December 8, 1812, a severe shock
threw down the lofty church tower, which
crashed through the vaulted roof on the congre-
60 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
gation below. The padre who was celebrating
mass escaped through the sacristy. Of the fifty
persons present only five or six escaped. The
church was never rebuilt. “There is not much
doubt,” says Bancroft, “that the disaster was
due rather to faulty construction than to the
violence of the temblor.” The edifice was of the
usual cruciform shape, about 90x 180 feet on
the ground, with very thick walls and arched
dome-like roof all constructed of stones imbed-
ded in mortar or cement. The stones were not
hewn, but of irregular size and shape, a kind of
structure evidently requiring great skill to en-
sure solidity. The mission reached its maxi-
mum in 1819; from that on till the date of its
secularization there was a rapid decline in the
numbers of its live stock and of its neophytes.
This was one of the missions in which Gov-
ernor Figueroa tried his experiment of forming
Indian pueblos of the neophytes. For a time
the experiment was a partial success, but even-
tually it went the way of all the other missions.
Its lands were granted to private individuals
and the neophytes scattered. Its picturesque
ruins are a great attraction to toulists.
SANTA CLARA.
The mission of Santa Clara was founded Jan-
uary 12, 1777. The site had been selected some
time before and two missionaries designated for
service at it, but the comandante of the terri-
tory, Rivera y Moncada, who was an exceed-
ingly obstinate person, had opposed the found-
ing on various pretexts, but posititve orders
coming from the viceroy Rivera did not longer
delay, so on the 6th of January, 1777, a detach-
ment of soldiers under Lieutenant Moraga, ac-
companied by Father Peña, was sent from San
Francisco to the site selected which was about
sixteen leagues south of San Francisco. Here
under an enramada the Services of dedication
were held. The Indians were not averse to re-
ceiving a new religion and at the close of the
year sixty-seven had been baptized.
The mission was quite prosperous and be-
came one of the most important in the territory.
It was located in the heart of a rich agricul-
tural district. The total product of wheat was
I75,800 bushels. In 1828 the mission flocks and
herds numbered over 30,000 animals. The
neophyte population in 1827 was 1,464. The
death rate was high, averaging 12.63 per cent
of the population. The total number of bap-
tisms was 8,640; number of deaths 6,950. In
1834 the population had declined to 800.
Secularization was effected in 1837.
SAN BUEN AVENTURA.
The founding of San Buenaventura had been
long delayed. It was to have been among the
first missions founded by Father Serra; it proved
to be his last. On the 26th of March, 1782,
Governor de Neve, accompanied by Father
Serra (who had come down afoot from San
Carlos), and Father Cambon, with a convoy of
Soldiers and a number of neophytes, set out
from San Gabriel to found the mission. At the
first camping place Governor de Neve was re-
called to San Gabriel by a message from Col.
Pedro Fages, informing him of the orders of the
council of war to proceed against the Yumas
who had the previous year destroyed the two
missions on the Colorado river and massacred
the missionaries.
On the 29th, the remainder of the company
reached a place on the coast named by Portolà
in 1769, Asuncion de Nuestra Señora, which
had for some time been selected for a mission
site. Near it was a large Indian rancheria. On
Easter Sunday, March 31st, the mission was for-
mally founded with the usual ceremonies and
dedicated to San Buenaventura (Giovanni de
Fidanza of Tuscany), a follower of St. Francis,
the founder of the Franciscans.
The progress of the mission was slow at first,
only two adults were baptized in 1782, the
year of its founding. The first buildings built
of wood were destroyed by fire. The church
still used for service, built of brick and adobe,
was completed and dedicated, September 9, 1809.
The earthquake of December 8, 1812, damaged
the church to such an extent that the tower
and part of the façade had to be rebuilt. After
the earthquake the whole site of the mission
for a time seemed to be sinking. The inhabi-
tants, fearful of being engulfed by the sea, re-
moved to San Joaquin y Santa Ana, where they
remained several months. The mission at-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 61
tained its greatest prosperity in 1816, when its
neophyte population numbered 1,330 and it
owned 23,400 cattle.
SANTA BARBARA.
Governor F elipe de Neve founded the presidio
of Santa Barbara April 21, 1782. Father Serra
had hoped to found the mission at the same time,
but in this he was disappointed. His death in
1784 still further delayed the founding and it
was not until the latter part of 1786 that every-
thing was in readiness for the establishing of
the new mission. On the 22d of November
Father Lasuen, who had succeeded Father
Serra as president of the missions, arrived at
Santa Barbara, accompanied by two missiona-
ries recently from Mexico. He selected a site
about a mile distant from the presidio. The
place was called Taynagan (Rocky Hill) by the
Indians. There was a plentiful supply of stone
on the site for building and an abundance of
water for irrigation.
On the 15th of December, 1786, Father
Lastlen, in a hut of boughs, celebrated the first
mass; but December 4, the day that the fiesta of
Santa Barbara is commemorated, is considered
the date of its founding. Part of the services
were held on that day. A chapel built of adobes
and roofed with thatch was erected in 1787. Sev-
eral other buildings of adobe were erected the
same year. In 1788, tile took the place of
thatch. In 1789, a second church, much larger
than the first, was built. A third church of adobe
was commenced in 1793 and finished in 1794.
A brick portico was added in 1795 and the walls
plastered.
The great earthquake of December, 1812, de-
molished the mission church and destroyed
nearly all the buildings. The years 1813 and
1814 were spent in removing the debris of the
ruined buildings and in preparing for the erec-
tion of new ones. The erection of the present
mission church was begun in 1815. It was com-
pleted and dedicated September Io, 1820.
Father Caballeria, in his History of Santa
Barbara, gives the dimensions of the church as
follows: “Length (including walls), sixty varas;
width, fourteen varas; height, ten varas (a vara
is thirty-four inches).” The walls are of stone
and rest on a foundation of rock and cement.
They are six feet thick and are further strength-
ened by buttresses. Notwithstanding the build-
ing has withstood the storms of four score years,
it is still in an excellent state of preservation.
Its exterior has not been disfigured by attempts
at modernizing.
The highest neophyte population was reached
at Santa Barbara in 1803, when it numbered
1,792. The largest number of cattle was 5,2OO in
1809. In 1834, the year of secularization, the
neophytes numbered 556, which was a decrease
of 155 from the number in 1830. At such a rate
of decrease it would not, even if mission rule
had continued, have taken more than a dozen
years to depopulate the mission.
LA PURISIMA CONCEPCION.
Two missions, San Buenaventura and Santa
Barbara, had been founded on the Santa Bar-
bara channel in accordance with Neve's report of
1777, in which he recommended the founding of
three missions and a presidio in that district.
It was the intention of General La Croix to con-
duct these on a different plan from that prevail-
ing in the older missions. The natives were not
to be gathered into a missionary establishment,
but were to remain in their rancherias, which
were to be converted into mission pueblos. The
Indians were to receive instruction in religion,
industrial arts and self-government while com-
paratively free from restraint. The plan which
no doubt originated with Governor de Neve,
was a good one theoretically, and possibly might
have been practically. The missionaries were
bitterly opposed to it. Unfortunately it was
tried first in the Colorado river missions among
the fierce and treacherous Yumas. The mas-
sacre of the padres and soldiers of these mis-
sions was attributed to this innovation.
In establishing the channel missions the mis-
sionaries opposed the inauguration of this plan
and by their persistence succeeded in setting it
aside; and the old system was adopted, La
Purisima Coſicepcion, or the Immaculate Con-
ception of the Blessed Virgin, the third of the
channel missions, was founded December 8,
1787, by Father Lasuen at a place called by the
natives Algsacupi. Its location is about twelve
62 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
miles from the Ocean on the Santa Ynez river.
Three years after its founding three hundred
converts had been baptized but not all of them
lived at the mission. The first church was a
temporary structure. The second church, built
of adobe and roofed with tile, was completed in
18O2. December 21, 1812, an earthquake de-
molished the church and also about one hundred
adobe houses of the neophytes. A site across
the river and about four miles distant from the
former one, was selected for new buildings. A
temporary building for a church was erected
there. A new church, built of adobe and roofed
with tile, was completed and dedicated in 1818.
The Indians 'revolted in 1824 and damaged
the building. They took possession of it and a
battle lasting four hours was fought between one
hundred and thirty soldiers and four hundred
Indians. The neophytes cut loop holes in the
church and used two old rusty cannon and a
few guns they possessed; but, unused to fire
arms, they were routed with the loss of several
killed. During the revolt which lasted several
months four white men and fifteen or twenty In-
dians were killed. The hostiles, most of whom
fled to the Tulares, were finally subdued. The
leaders were punished with imprisonment and
the others returned to their missions.
This mission's population was largest in 1804,
when it numbered 1,52O. In 1834 there were but
407 neophytes connected with it. It was secular-
ized in February, 1835. During mission rule
from 1787 to 1834, the total number of Indian
children baptized was I,492; died 902, which was
a lower death rate than at most of the southern
missions.
- SANTA CRUZ.
Santa Cruz, one of the smallest of the twenty-
one missions of California, was founded Septem-
ber 25, 1790. The mission was never very pros-
perous. In 1798 many of the neophytes de-
serted and the same year a flood covered the
planting fields and damaged the church. In 1812
the neophytes murdered the missionary in
charge, Padre Andrés Quintana. They claimed
that he had treated them with great cruelty.
Five of those implicated in the murder received
two hundred lashes each and were sentenced to
work in chains from two to ten years. Only
One survived the punishment. The maximum
of its population was reached in 1798, when
there were six hundred and forty-four Indians
in the mission fold. The total number bap-
tized from the date of its founding to 1834 was
2,466; the total number of deaths was 2,034. The
average death rate was Io.93 per cent of the
population. At the time of its secularization in
1834 there were only two hundred and fifty In-
dians belonging to the mission.
LA SOLEDAD.
The mission of our Lady of Solitude was
founded September 29, 1791. The site selected
had borne the name Soledad (solitude) ever
since the first exploration of the country. The
location was thirty miles northeast of San Car-
los de Monterey. La Soledad, by which name
it was generally known, was unfortunate in its
early missionaries. One of them, Padre Gracia,
Was supposed to be insane and the other, Padre
Rubi, was very immoral. Rubi was later on ex-
pelled from his college for licentiousness. At
the close of the century the mission had become
fairly prosperous, but in 1802 an epidemic broke
out and five or six deaths occurred daily. The
Indians in alarm fled from the mission. The
largest population of the mission was seven
hundred and twenty-five in 1805. At the time
of secularization its population had decreased to
three hundred. The total number of baptisms
during its existence was 2,222; number of deaths
I,803.
SAN JOSE.
St. Joseph had been designated by the visita-
dor General Galvez and Father Junipero Serra
as the patron saint of the mission colonization of
California. Thirteen missions had been founded
and yet none had been dedicated to San José.
Orders came from Mexico that one be estab-
lished and named for him. Accordingly a de-
tail of a corporal and five men, accompanied by
Father Lasuen, president of the missions, pro-
ceeded to the site selected, which was about
twelve miles northerly from the pueblo of San
José. There, on June 11, 1797, the mission was
founded. The mission was well located agricul-
turally and became one of the most prosperous
in California. In 1820 it had a population of
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 63
1,754, the highest of any mission except San
Luis Rey. The total number of baptisms from
its founding to 1834 was 6,737; deaths 5,109.
Secularization was effected in 1836-37. The to-
tal valuation of the mission property, not in-
cluding lands or the church, was $155,000.
SAN JUAN BAUTISTA.
In May, 1797, Governor Borica ordered the
comandante at Monterey to detail a corporal
and five soldiers to proceed to a site that had
been previously chosen for a mission which was
about ten leagues northeast from Monterey.
Here the soldiers erected of wood a church,
priest's house, granary and guard house. June
24, 1797, President Lasuen, assisted by Fathers
Catala and Martiari, founded the mission of
San Juan Bautista (St. John the Baptist). At
the close of the year, eighty-five converts had
been baptized. The neighboring Indian tribes
were hostile and some of them had to be killed
before the others learned to behave themselves.
A new church, measuring 60x 160 feet, was com-
pleted and dedicated in 1812. San Juan was the
only mission whose population increased between
1820 and 1830. This was due to the fact that its
numbers were recruited from the eastern tribes,
its location being favorable for Obtaining new
recruits from the gentiles. The largest popula-
tion it ever reached was 1,248 in 1823. In 1834
there were but 850 neophytes at the mission.
SAN MIGUEL.
Midway between the old missions of San An-
tonio and San Luis Obispo, on the 25th of July,
1797, was founded the mission of San Miguel
Arcangel. The two old missions contributed
horses, cattle and sheep to start the new one.
The mission had a propitious beginning; fifteen
children were baptized on the day the mission
was founded. At the close of the century the
number of converts reached three hundred and
eighty-five, of whom fifty-three had died. The
mission population numbered 1,076 in 1814;
after that it steadily declined until, in 1834, there
were only 599 attached to the establishment.
Total number of baptisms was 2,588; deaths
2,038. The average death rate was 6.91 per
cent of the population, the lowest rate in any
of the missions. The mission was secularized
in 1836.
SAN FERNANDO REY DE ESPAN A.
In the closing years of the century explora-
tions were made for new mission sites in Cali-
fornia. These were to be located between mis-
sions already founded. Among those selected
at that time was the site of the mission San Fer-
nando on the Encino Rancho, then occupied by
Francisco Reyes. Reyes surrendered whatever
right he had to the land and the padres occupied
his house for a dwelling while new buildings
were in the course of erection. -
September 8, 1797, with the usual ceremo-
nies, the mission was founded by President
Lasuen, assisted by Father Dumetz. According
to instructions from Mexico it was dedicated to
San Fernando Rey de España (Fernando III.,
King of Spain, 1217-1251). At the end of the
year 1797, fifty-five converts had been gathered
into the mission fold and at the end of the cen-
tury three hundred and fifty-two had been bap-
tized.
The adobe church began before the close of
the century was completed and dedicated in De-
cember, 1806. It had a tiled roof. It was but
slightly injured by the great earthquakes of De-
cember, 1812, which were so destructive to the
mission buildings at San Juan Capistrano, Santa
Barbara, La Purisima and Santa Ynez. This
mission reached its greatest prosperity in 1819,
when its neophyte population numbered I,080.
The largest number of cattle owned by it at one
time was 12,800 in 1819.
Its decline was not so rapid as that of some
of the other missions, but the death rate, espe-
cially among the children, was fully as high. Of
the 1,367 Indian children baptized there during
the existence of mission rule 965, or over seventy
per cent, died in childhood. It was not strange
that the fearful death rate both of children and
adults at the missions sometimes frightened
the neophytes into running away.
SAN LUIS REY DE FRANCI.A.
Several explorations had been made for a mis-
sion site between San Diego and San Juan
Capistrano. There was quite a large Indian
(54 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
population that had not been brought into the
folds of either mission. In October, 1797, a
new exploration of this territory was ordered
and a site was finally selected, although the ag-
ricultural advantages were regarded as not sat-
isfactory.
Governor Borica, February 28, 1798. issued
orders to the comandante at San Diego to
furnish a detail of soldiers to aid in erecting the
necessary buildings. June 13, 1798, President
Lasuen, the successor of President Serra, as
sisted by Fathers Peyri and Santiago, with the
usual services, founded the new mission. It
was named San Luis Rey de Francia (St. Louis,
King of France). Its location was near a river
on which was bestowed the name of the mis-
sion. The mission flourished from its very be-
ginning. Its controlling power was Padre An-
tonio Peyri. He remained in charge of it from
its founding almost to its downfall, in all thirty-
three years. He was a man of great executive
abilities and under his administration it be-
came one of the largest and most prosperous
missions in California. It reached its maximum
in 1826, when its neophyte population numbered
2,869, the largest number at one time connected
with any mission in the territory.
The asistencia or auxiliary mission of San
Antonio was established at Pala, seven leagues
easterly from the parent mission. A chapel was
erected here and regular services held. One of
the padres connected with San Luis Rey was
in charge of this station. Father Peyri left Cal-
ifornia in 1831, with the exiled Governor Vic-
toria. He went to Mexico and from there to
Spain and lastly to Rome, where he died. The
mission was converted into an Indian pueblo in
1834, but the pueblo was not a success. Most
of the neophytes drifted to Los Angeles and
San Gabriel.
American troops were stationed there. It has
recently been partially repaired and is now used
for a Franciscan school under charge of Father
J. J. O'Keefe.
* SANTA YNEZ.
Santa Ynez was the last mission founded in
Southern California. It was established Sep-
tember 17, 1804. Its location is about forty miles
During the Mexican conquest.
northwesterly from Santa Barbara, on the east-
erly side of the Santa Ynez mountains and
eighteen miles southeasterly from La Purisima.
Father Tapis, president of the missions from
1803 to 1812, preached the sermon and was
assisted in the ceremonies by Fathers Cipies,
Calzada and Gutierrez. Carrillo, the comandante
at the presidio, was present, as were also a num-
ber of neophytes from Santa Barbara and La
Purisima. Some of these were transferred to
the new mission.
The earthquake of December, 1812, shook
down a portion of the church and destroyed a
number of the neophytes' houses. In 1815 the
erection of a new church was begun. It was built
of adobes, lined with brick, and was completed
and dedicated July 4, 1817. The Indian revolt of
1824, described in the sketch of La Purisima,
broke out first at this mission. The neophytes
took possession of the church. The mission
guard defended themselves and the padre. At
the approach of the troops from Santa Barbara
the Indians fled to La Purisima.
San Ynez attained its greatest population,
770, in 1816. In 1834 its population had de-
creased to 334. From its founding in 1804 to
1834, when the decrees of secularization were
put in force, 757 Indian children were baptized
and 510 died, leaving only 238, or about thirty
per cent of those baptized to grow up.
S.A. N. R.A.F.W. E.L.
San Rafael was the first mission established
north of the Bay of San Francisco. It was
founded December 14, 1817. At first it was an
asistencia or branch of San Francisco. An epi-
demic had broken out in the Mission Dolores
and a number of the Indians were transferred to
San Rafael to escape the plague. Later on it
attained to the dignity of a mission. In 1828 its
population was 1,140. After 1830 it began to
decline and at the time of its secularization in
1834 there were not more than 500 connected
with it. In the seventeen years of its existence
under mission rule there were 1,873 baptisms and
698 deaths. The average death rate was 6.09
per cent of the population. The mission was
secularized in 1834. All traces of the mission
building have disappeared.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
65
SAN FRANCISCO SOLAN. O.
The mission of San Francisco de Asis had
fallen into a rapid decline. The epidemic that
had carried off a number of the neophytes and
had caused the transfer of a considerable num-
ber to San Rafael had greatly reduced its popu-
lation. Besides, the sterility of the soil in the
vicinity of the mission necessitated going a long
distance for agricultural land and pasturage for
the herds and flocks. On this account and also
for the reason that a number of new converts
might be obtained from the gentiles living in
the district north of the bay, Governor Arguello
and the mission authorities decided to establish
a mission in that region. Explorations were
made in June and July, 1823. On the 4th of
July a site was selected, a cross blessed and
raised, a volley of musketry fired and mass said
at a place named New San Francisco, but after-
wards designated as the Mission of San Fran-
cisco Solano. On the 25th of August work was
begun on the mission building and on the 4th of
April, 1824, a church, 24x IO5 feet, built of wood,
was dedicated. -
It had been intended to remove the neophytes
from the old mission of San Francisco to the
new ; but the padres of the old mission opposed
its depopulation and suppression. A com-
promise was effected by allowing all neophytes
of the old mission who so elected to go to the
new. Although well located, the Mission of
Solano was not prosperous. Its largest popula-
tion, 996, was reached in 1832. The total num-
ber of baptisms were 1,315; deaths, 651. The
average death rate was 7.8 per cent of the pop-
ulation. The mission was secularized in 1835, at
which time there were about 550 neophytes at-
tached to it.
The architecture of the missions was Moorish
—that is, if it belonged to any school. The
padres in most cases were the architects and mas-
ter builders. The main feature of the buildings
was massiveness. Built of adobe or rough stone,
their walls were of great thickness. Most of the
church buildings were narrow, their width being
out of proportion to their length. This was
necessitated by the difficulty of procuring joists
and rafters of sufficient length for wide build-
ings. The padres had no means or perhaps no
*4
knowledge of trussing a roof, and the width
of the building had to be proportioned to the
length of the timbers procurable. Some of the
buildings were planned with an eye for the pic-
turesque, others for utility only. The sites se-
lected for the mission buildings in nearly every
case commanded a fine view of the surrounding
country. In their prime, their white walls loom-
ing up on the horizon could be seen at long
distance and acted as beacons to guide the trav-
eler to their hospitable shelter.
Col. J. J. Warner, who came to California in .
1831, and saw the mission buildings before they
had fallen into decay, thus describes their gen-
eral plan: “As soon after the founding of a
mission as circumstances would permit, a large
pile of buildings in the form of a quadrangle,
composed in part of burnt brick, but chiefly of
sun-dried ones, was erected around a spacious
court. A large and capacious church, which
usually occupied one of the outer corners of the
quadrangle, was a conspicuous part of the pile.
l n this massive building, covered with red tile,
was the habitation of the friars, rooms for guests
and for the major domos and their families. In
other buildings of the quadrangle were hospital
wards, storehouses and granaries, rooms for
carding, spinning and weaving of woolen fab-
rics, shops for blacksmiths, joiners and carpen-
ters, saddlers, shoemakers and soap boilers, and
cellars for storing the product (wine and brandy)
of the vineyards. Near the habitation of the
friars another building of similar material was
placed and used as quarters for a small number
—about a corporal's guard—of soldiers under
command of a non-commissioned officer, to hold
the Indian neophytes in check as well as to pro-
tect the mission from the attacks of hostile In-
dians.” The Indians, when the buildings of the
establishment were complete, lived in adobe
houses built in lines near the quadrangle. Some
of the buildings of the square were occupied by
the alcaldes or Indian bosses. When the In-
dians were gathered into the missions at first
they lived in brush shanties constructed in the
same manner as their forefathers had built them
for generations. In some of the missions these
huts were not replaced by adobe buildings for
a generation or more. Vancouver, who visited
5
66 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
the Mission of San Francisco in 1792, sixteen
years after its founding, describes the Indian
village with its brush-built huts. He says:
“These miserable habitations, each of which was
allotted for the residence of a whole family,
were erected with some degree of uniformity
about three or four feet asunder in straight rows,
leaving lanes or passageways at right angles be-
tween them; but these were so abominably in-
fested with every kind of filth and nastiness as
to be rendered no less offensive than degrading
to the human species.”
Of the houses at Santa Clara, Vancouver
says: “The habitations were not so regularly
disposed nor did it (the village) contain so many
as the village of San Francisco, yet the same
horrid state of uncleanliness and laziness seemed
to pervade the whole.” Better houses were then
in the course of construction at Santa Clara.
“Each house would contain two rooms and a
garret with a garden in the rear.” Vancouver
visited San Carlos de Monterey in 1792, twenty-
two years after its founding. He says: “Not-
withstanding these people are taught and em-
ployed from time to time in many of the occu-
pations most useful to civil society, they had not
made themselves any more comfortable habita-
tions than those of their forefathers; nor did
they seem in any respect to have benefited by
the instruction they had received.”
Captain Beechey, of the English navy, who
visited San Francisco and the missions around
the bay in 1828, found the Indians at San Fran-
cisco still living in their filthy hovels and grind-
ing acorns for food. “San José (mission),” he
says, “On the other hand, was all neatness, clean-
liness and comfort.” At San Carlos he found
that the filthy hovels described by Vancouver
inad nearly all disappeared and the Indians were
comfortably housed. He adds: “Sickness in
general prevailed to an incredible extent in all
the missions.”
CHAPTER VI.
PRESIDIOS OF CALIFORNIA.
SAN DIEGO.
Tº presidio was an essential feature of
the Spanish colonization of America. It
was usually a fortified square of brick or
stone, inside of which were the barracks of the
soldiers, the officers’ quarters, a church, store
houses for provisions and military supplies. The
gates at the entrance were closed at night, and
it was usually provisioned for a siege. In the
colonization of California there were four pre-
sidios established, namely: San Diego, Monte-
rey, San Francisco and Santa Barbara. Each
was the headquarters of a military district and
besides a body of troops kept at the presidio
it furnished guards for the missions in its re-
spective district and also for the pueblos if there
were any in the district. The first presidio was
founded at San Diego. As stated in a previous
chapter, the two ships of the expedition by sea
- for the settlement of California arrived at the
port of San Diego in a deplorable condition
from scurvy. The San Antonia, after a voyage
of fifty-nine days, arrived on April I I ; the San
Carlos, although she had sailed a month earlier,
did not arrive until April 29, consuming one
hundred and ten days in the voyage. Don
Miguel Constansó, the engineer who came on
this vessel, says in his report: “The scurvy had
infected all without exception; in such sort that
on entering San Diego already two men had
died of the said sickness; most of the Seamen,
and half of the troops, found themselves pros-
trate in their beds; only four mariners remained
on their feet, and attended, aided by the troops,
to trimming and furling the sails and other
working of the ship.” “The San Antonia,” says
Constansó, “had the half of its crew equally
affected by the scurvy, of which illness two men
had likewise died.” This vessel, although it had
arrived at the port on the 11th of April, had evi-
dently not landed any of its sick. On the Ist of
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 67
May, Don Pedro Fages, the commander of the
troops, Constansó and Estorace, the second cap-
tain of the San Carlos, with twenty-five soldiers,
set out to find a watering place where they could.
fill their barrels with fresh water. “Following
the west shore of the port, after going a mat-
ter of three leagues, they arrived at the banks
of a river hemmed in with a fringe of willows
and cottonwoods. Its channel must have been
twenty varas wide and it discharges into an
estuary which at high tide could admit the
launch and made it convenient for accomplish-
ing the taking on of water.” * “Hay-
ing reconnoitered the watering place, the Span-
iards betook themselves back on board the
vessels and as these were found to be very far
away from the estuary in which the river dis-
charges, their captains, Vicente Vila and Don
Juan Perez, resolved to approach it as closely
as they could in order to give less work to the
people handling the launches. These labors
were accomplished with satiety of hardship; for
from one day to the next the number of the sick
kept increasing, along with the dying of the
most aggravated cases and augmented the fa-
tigue of the few who remained on their
feet.”
“Immediate to the beach on the side toward
the east a scanty enclosure was constructed
formed of a parapet of earth and fascines, which
was garnished with two cannons. They disem-
barked some sails and awnings from the packets
with which they made two tents capacious
enough for a hospital. At one side the two offi-
cers, the missionary fathers and the surgeon put
up their own tents; the sick were brought in
launches to this improvised presidio and hospi-
tal.” “But these diligencies,” says Constansó,
“were not enough to procure them health.”
* * * “The cold made itself felt with rigor at
night in the barracks and the sun by day, alter-
nations which made the sick suffer cruelly, two
or three of them dying every day. And this
whole expedition, which had been composed of
more than ninety men, saw itself reduced to only
eight soldiers and as many mariners in a state to
attend to the safeguarding of the barks, the
working of the launches, custody of the camp
and service of the sick.”
Rivera y Moncada, the commander of the
first detachment of the land expedition, arrived
at San Diego May 14. It was decided by the
officers to remove the camp to a point near the
river. This had not been done before on ac-
count of the small force able to work and the
lack of beasts of burden. Rivera's men were all
in good health and after a day's rest “all were
removed to a new camp, which was transferred
one league further north on the right side of
the river upon a hill of middling height.”
Here a presidio was built, the remains of
which can still be seen. It was a parapet of
earth similar to that thrown up at the first camp,
which, according to Bancroft, was probably
within the limits of New Town and the last one
in Old Town or North San Diego.
While Portolá's expedition was away search-
ing for the port of Monterey, the Indians made
an attack on the camp at San Diego, killed a
Spanish youth and wounded Padre Viscaino, the
blacksmith, and a Lower California neophyte.
The soldiers remaining at San Diego sur-
rounded the buildings with a stockade. Con-
stansó says, on the return of the Spaniards of
Portolà’s expedition: “They found in good con-
dition their humble buildings, surrounded with
a palisade of trunks of trees, capable of a good
defense in case of necessity.”
“In 1782, the presidial force at San Diego, be-
sides the commissioned officers, consisted of five
corporals and forty-six soldiers. Six men were
constantly on duty at each of the three missions
of the district, San Diego, San Juan Capistrano
and San Gabriel; while four served at the pueblo
of Los Angeles, thus leaving a sergeant, two
corporals and about twenty-five men to garrison
the fort, care for the horses and a small herd of
cattle, and to carry the mails, which latter duty
was the hardest connected with the presidio
service in time of peace. There were a carpenter
and blacksmith constantly employed, besides a
few servants, mostly natives. The population of
the district in 1790, not including Indians, was
22O.”*
Before the close of the century the wooden
palisades had been replaced by a thick adobe
*Bancroft's History of California, Vol. I.
68 . - HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
wall, but even then the fort was not a very for-
midable defense. Vancouver, the English navi-
gator, who visited it in 1793, describes it as
“irregularly built on very uneven ground, which
makes it liable to some inconveniences without
the obvious appearance of any object for Select-
ing such a spot.” It then mounted three Small
brass cannon.
Gradually a town grew up around the pre-
sidio. Robinson, who visited San Diego in
1829, thus describes it: “On the lawn beneath
the hill on which the presidio is built stood
about thirty houses of rude appearance, mostly
occupied by retired veterans, not so well con-
structed in respect either to beauty or stability
as the houses at Monterey, with the exception of
that belonging to our Administrador, Don Juan
Bandini, whose mansion, then in an unfinished
state, bid fair, when completed, to surpass any
other in the country.”
Under Spain there was attempt at least to
keep the presidio in repair, but under Mexican
domination it fell into decay. Dana describes it
as he saw it in 1836: “The first place we went
to was the old ruinous presidio, which stands on
rising ground near the village which it over-
looks. It is built in the form of an open square,
like all the other presidios, and was in a most
ruinous state, with the exception of one side,
in which the comandante lived with his family.
There were only two guns, one of which was
spiked and the other had no carriage. Twelve
half clothed and half starved looking fellows
composed the garrison; and they, it was said,
had not a musket apiece. The small settlement
lay directly below the fort composed of about
forty dark brown looking huts or houses and
three or four larger ones whitewashed, which
belonged to the gente de razon.”
THE PRESIDIO OF MONTEREY.
In a previous chapter has been narrated the
story of Portolá's expedition in search of Mon-
terey Bay, how the explorers, failing to recog-
nize it, passed on to the northward and discov-
ered the great Bay of San Francisco. On their
return they set up a cross at what they supposed
was the Bay of Monterey; and at the foot of
the cross buried a letter giving information to
any ship that might come up the coast in search
of them that they had returned to San Diego.
They had continually been on the lookout for
the San José, which was to co-operate with
them, but that vessel had been lost at sea with
all on board. On their return to San Diego, in
January, 1770, preparations were made for a
return as soon as a vessel should arrive. It
was not until the 16th of April that the San An-
tonia, the only vessel available, was ready to
depart for the second objective point of settle-
ment. On the 17th of April, Governor Portolá,
Lieutenant Fages, Father Crespi and nineteen
soldiers took up their line of march for Monte-
rey. They followed the trail made in 1769 and
reached the point where they had set up the
cross April 24. They found it decorated with
feathers, bows and arrows and a string of fish.
Evidently the Indians regarded it as the white
man's fetich and tried to propitiate it by offer-
ings.
The San Antonia, bearing Father Serra,
Pedro Prat, the surgeon, and Miguel Constansó,
the civil engineer, and supplies for the mission
and presidio, arrived the last day of May. Por-
tolà was still uncertain whether this was really
Monterey Bay. It was hard to discover in the
open roadstead stretching out before them Vis-
caino's land-locked harbor, sheltered from all
winds. After the arrival of the San Antonia the
officers of the land and sea expedition made a
reconnaissance of the bay and all concurred that
at last they had reached the destined port. They
located the Oak under whose wide-spreading
branches Padre Ascension, Viscaino's chaplain,
had celebrated mass in 1602, and the springs of
fresh water near by. Preparations were begun
at once for the founding of mission and presidio.
A shelter of boughs was constructed, an altar
raised and the bells hung upon the branch of a
tree. Father Serra sang mass and as they had
no musical instrument, salvos of artillery and
volleys of musketry furnished an accompani-
ment to the service. After the religious services
the royal Standard was raised and Governor
Portolà took possession of the country in the
name of King Carlos III., King of Spain. The
ceremony closed with the pulling of grass and
the casting of stones around, significant of en-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 69
tire possession of the earth and its products.
After the service all feasted.
Two messengers were sent by Portolà with
dispatches to the city of Mexico. A day's jour-
ney below San Diego they met Rivera and
twenty soldiers coming with a herd of cattle and
a flock of sheep to stock the mission pastures.
Rivera sent back five of his soldiers with Por-
tolá's carriers. The messengers reached Todos
Santos near Cape San Lucas in forty-nine days
from Monterey. From there the couriers were
sent to San Blas by ship, arriving at the city of
Mexico August IO.
at the capital. Marquis Le Croix and Visitador
Galvez received congratulations in the King's
name for the extension of his domain.
Portolà superintended the building of some
rude huts for the shelter of the soldiers, the
officers and the padres.
containing the huts a palisade of poles was con-
structed. July 9, Portolà having turned over
the command of the troops to Lieutenant Fages,
embarked on the San Antonia for San Blas;
with him went the civil engineer, Constansó,
from whose report I have frequently quoted.
Neither of them ever returned to California.
The difficulty of reaching California by ship
on account of the head winds that blow down
the coast caused long delays in the arrival of
vessels with supplies. This brought about a
scarcity of provisions at the presidios and mis-
Sions.
In 1772 the padres of San Gabriel were re-
duced to a milk diet and what little they could
obtain from the Indians. At Monterey and San
Antonio the padres and the soldiers were obliged
to live on vegetables. In this emergency Lieu-
tenant Fages and a squad of soldiers went on a
bear hunt. They spent three months in the
summer of 1772 killing bears in the Cañada de
los Osos (Bear Cañon). The soldiers and mis-
sionaries had a plentiful supply of bear meat.
There were not enough cattle in the country to
admit of slaughtering any for food. The pre-
sidial walls which were substituted for the pal-
isades were built of adobes and stone. The
inclosure measured one hundred and ten yards
on each side. The buildings were roofed with
tiles. “On the north were the main entrance,
There was great rejoicing
Around the square
the guard house, and the warehouses; on the
west the houses of the governor comandante
and other officers, some fifteen apartments in
all; on the east nine houses for soldiers, and a
blacksmith shop; and on the south, besides
nine similar houses, was the presidio church,
opposite the main gateway.”
The military force at the presidio consisted of
cavalry, infantry and artillery, their numbers
varying from one hundred to one hundred and
twenty in all. These soldiers furnished guards
for the missions of San Carlos, San Antonio,
San Miguel, Soledad and San Luis Obispo. The
total population of gente de razon in the district
at the close of the century numbered four hun-
dren and ninety. The rancho “del rey” or
rancho of the king was located where Salinas
City now stands. This rancho was managed by
the soldiers of presidio and was intended to
furnish the military with meat and a supply of
horses for the cavalry. At the presidio-a num-
ber of invalided soldiers who had served out
their time were settled; these were allowed to
cultivate land and raise cattle on the unoccu-
pied lands of the public domain. A town grad-
ually grew up around the presidio square.
Vancouver, the English navigator, visited the
presidio of Monterey in 1792 and describes it as
it then appeared: “The buildings of the pre-
sidio form a parallelogram or long Square com-
prehending an area of about three hundred
yards long by two hundred and fifty wide, mak-
ing one entire enclosure. The external wall is
of the same magnitude and built with the same
materials, and except that the officers' apart-
ments are covered with red tile made in the
neighborhood, the whole presents the same
lonely, uninteresting appearance as that already
described at San Francisco. Like that estab-
lishment, the several buildings for the use of the
officers, soldiers, and for the protection of stores
and provisions are erected along the walls on
the inside of the inclosure, which admits of but
one entrance for carriages or persons on horse-
back; this, as at San Francisco, is on the side
of the square fronting the church which was
rebuilding with stone like that at San Carlos.”
sk >k >k
*Bancroft's History of California, Vol. I.
70 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
“At each corner of the square is a small kind
of block house raised a little above the top of
the wall where swivels might be mounted for its
protection. On the outside, before the entrance
into the presidio, which fronts the shores of
the bay, are placed seven cannon, four nine and
three three-pounders, mounted. The guns are
planted on the open plain ground without
breastwork or other screen for those employed
in working them or the least protection from the
weather.”
THE PRESIDIO OF SAN FRANCISCO.
In a previous chapter I have given an account
of the discovery of San Francisco Bay by Por-
tolá's expedition in 1769. The discovery of that
great bay seems to have been regarded as an
unimportant event by the governmental offi-
cials. While there was great rejoicing at the
city of Mexico over the founding of a mission.
for the conversion of a few naked savages, the
discovery of the bay was scarcely noticed, ex-
cept to construe it into some kind of a miracle.
Father Serra assumed that St. Francis had con-
cealed Monterey from the explorers and led
them to the discovery of the bay in order that
he (St. Francis) might have a mission named
for him. Indeed, the only use to which the
discovery could be put, according to Serra’s
ideas, was a site for a mission on its shores, dedi-
cated to the founder of the Franciscans. Several
explorations were made with this in view. In
1772, Lieutenant Fages, Father Crespí and six-
teen soldiers passed up the western side of the
bay and in 1774 Captain Rivera, Father Palou
and a squad of Soldiers passed up the eastern
shore, returning by way of Monte Diablo,
Amador valley and Alameda creek to the Santa
Clara valley.
In the latter part of the year 1774, viceroy
Bucureli ordered the founding of a mission and
presidio at San Francisco. Hitherto all explora-
tions of the bay had been made by land expedi-
tions. No one had ventured on its waters. In
1775 Lieutenant Juan de Ayala of the royal
navy was sent in the old pioneer mission ship,
the San Carlos, to make a survey of it. August
5, 1775, he passed through the Golden Gate.
He moored his ship at an island called by him
Nuestra Señora de los Angeles, now Angel
Island. He spent forty days in making explora-
tions. His ship was the first vessel to sail upon
the great Bay of San Francisco.
In 1774, Captain Juan Bautista de Anza, com-
mander of the presidio of Tubac in Sonora, had
made an exploration of a route from Sonora via
the Colorado river, across the desert and
through the San Gorgonia pass to San Gabriel
mission. From Tubac to the Colorado river the
route had been traveled before but from the
Colorado westward the country was a terra in-
cognita. He was guided over this by a lower
California neophyte who had deserted from San
Gabriel mission and alone had reached the
rancherias on the Colorado.
After Anza's return to Sonora he was com-
missioned by the viceroy to recruit soldiers and
settlers for San Francisco. October 23, 1775,
Anza set out from Tubac with an expedition
numbering two hundred and thirty-five persons,
composed of soldiers and their families, colon-
ists, musketeers and vaqueros. They brought
with them large herds of horses, mules and cat-
tle. The journey was accomplished without loss
of life, but with a considerable amount of suf-
fering. January 4, 1776, the immigrants ar-
rived at San Gabriel mission, where they stopped
to rest, but were soon compelled to move on,
provisions at the mission becoming scarce. They
arrived at Monterey, March Io. Here they went
into camp. Anza with an escort of Soldiers pro-
ceeded to San Francisco to Select a presidio
site. Having found a site he returned to Mon-
terey. Rivera, the commander of the territory,
had manifested a spirit of jealousy toward Anza
and had endeavored to thwart him in his at-
tempts to found a settlement. Disgusted with
the action of the commander, Anza, leaving his
colonists to the number of two hundred at Mon-
terey took his departure from California. Anza
in his explorations for a presidio site had fixed
upon what is now Fort Point.
After his departure Rivera experienced a
change of heart and instead of trying to delay
the founding he did everything to hasten it. The
imperative orders of the viceroy received at
about this time brought about the change. He
ordered Lieutenant Moraga, to whom Anza had
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 71
turned over the command of his soldiers and
colonists, to proceed at once to San Francisco
with twenty soldiers to found the fort. The San
Carlos, which had just arrived at Monterey, was
ordered to proceed to San Francisco to assist
in the founding. Moraga, with his soldiers ar-
rived June 27, and encamped on the Laguna
de los Dolores, where the mission was a short
time afterwards founded. Moraga decided to
located the presidio at the site selected by Anza
but awaited the arrival of the San Carlos before
proceeding to build. August 18 the vessel ar-
rived. It had been driven down the coast to the
latitude of San Diego by contrary winds and
then up the coast to latitude 42 degrees. On the
arrival of the vessel work was begun at Once On
the fort. A square of ninety-two varas (two
hundred and forty-seven feet) on each side was
inclosed with palisades. Barracks, officers’
quarters and a chapel were built inside the
square. September 17, 1776, was set apart for
the services of founding, that being the day of
the “Sores of our seraphic father St. Francis.”
The royal standard was raised in front of the
square and the usual ceremony of pulling grass
and throwing stones was performed. Posses-
sion of the region round about was taken in the
name of Carlos III., King of Spain. Over one
hundred and fifty persons witnessed the cere-
mony. Vancouver, who visited the presidio in
November, 1792, describes it as a “square area
whose sides were about two hundred yards in
length, enclosed by a mud wall and resembling
a pound for cattle. Above this wall the thatched
roofs of the low small houses just made their
appearance.” The wall was “about fourteen feet
high and five feet in breadth and was first
formed by upright and horizontal rafters of
large timber, between which dried sods and
moistened earth were pressed as close and hard
as possible, after which the whole was cased with
the earth made into a sort of mud plaster which
gave it the appearance of durability.”
In addition to the presidio there was another
fort at Fort Point named Castillo de San Joa-
quin. It was completed and blessed December
8, 1794. “It was of horseshoe shape, about one
hundred by one hundred and twenty feet.” The
structure rested mainly on sand; the brick-faced
adobe walls crumbled at the shock whenever a
salute was fired; the guns were badly mounted
and for the most part worn out, only two of the
thirteen twenty-four-pounders being serviceable
or capable of sending a ball across the entrance
Of the fort.*
PRESIDIO OF SANTA BARBARA.
Cabrillo, in 1542, found a large Indian popula-
tion inhabiting the main land of the Santa Bar-
bara channel. Two hundred and twenty-seven
years later, when Portolà made his exploration,
apparently there had been no decrease in the
number of inhabitants. No portion of the coast
offered a better field for missionary labor and
Father Serra was anxious to enter it. In ac-
cordance with Governor Felipe de Neve's report
of 1777, it had been decided to found three mis-
sions and a presidio on the channel. Various
causes had delayed the founding and it was not
until April 17, 1782, that Governor de Neve
arrived at the point where he had decided to
locate the presidio of Santa Barbara. The
troops that were to man the fort reached San
Gabriel in the fall of 1781. It was thought best
for them to remain there until the rainy sea-
son was over. March 26, 1782, the governor and
Father Serra, accompanied by the largest body
of troops that had ever before been collected in
California, set out to found the mission of San
Buenaventura and the presidio. The governor,
as has been stated in a former chapter, was re-
called to San Gabriel. The mission was founded
and the governor having rejoined the cavalcade
a few weeks later proceeded to find a location
for the presidio.
“On reaching a point nine leagues from San
Buenaventura, the governor called a halt and in
company with Father Serra at once proceeded to
select a site for the presidio. The choice re-
sulted in the adoption of the square now
formed by city blocks 139, 140, I55 and I56,
and bounded in common by the following
streets: Figueroa, Cañon Perdido, Garden and
Anacapa. A large community of Indians were
residing there but orders were given to leave
them undisturbed. The soldiers were at once
*Bancroft's “History of California,” Vol. I.
72 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
directed to hew timbers and gather brush to
erect temporary barracks which, when com-
pleted, were also used as a chapel. A large
wooden cross was made that it might be planted
in the center of the square and possession of
the country was taken in the name of the cross,
the emblem of Christianity.
April 21, 1782, the soldiers formed a square
and with edifying solemnity raised the cross and
secured it in the earth. Father Serra blessed
and consecrated the district and preached a ser-
mon. The royal standard of Spain was un-
furled.” -
An inclosure, sixty varas square, was made of
palisades. The Indians were friendly, and
through their chief Yanoalit, who controlled thir-
teen rancherias, details of them were secured
to assist the soldiers in the work of building.
The natives were paid in food and clothing for
their labor. -
Irrigation works were constructed, consisting
of a large reservoir made of stone and cement,
with a zanja for conducting water to the pre-
sidio. The soldiers, who had families, cultivated
small gardens which aided in their support.
Lieutenant Ortega was in command of the pre-
sidio for two years after its founding. He was
succeeded by Lieutenant Felipe de Goycoechea.
After the founding of the mission in 1786, a
bitter feud broke out between the padres and
the comandante of the presidio. Goycoechea
claimed the right to employ the Indians in the
building of the presidio as he had done before
the coming of the friars. This they denied.
After an acrimonious controversy the dispute
was finally compromised by dividing the Indians
into two bands, a mission band and a presidio
band.
Gradually the palisades were replaced by an
adobe wall twelve feet high. It had a stone
foundation and was strongly built. The plaza or
inclosed square was three hundred and thirty
feet on each side. On two sides of this inclos-
ure were ranged the family houses of the sol-
diers, averaging in size 15x25 feet. On one side
stood the officers’ quarters and the church. On
*Father Cabelleria's History of Santa Barbara.
the remaining side were the main entrance four
varas wide, the store rooms, soldiers' quarters
and a guard room; and adjoining these outside
the walls were the corrals for cattle and horses.
A force of from fifty to sixty soldiers was kept
at the post. There were bastions at two of the
corners for cannon.
The presidio was completed about 1790, with
the exception of the chapel, which was not fin-
ished until 1797. Many of the soldiers when
they had served out their time desired to re-
main in the country. These were given permis-
sion to build houses outside the walls of the
presidio and in course of time a village grew up
around it.
At the close of the century the population of
the gente de razon of the district numbered
three hundred and seventy. The presidio when
completed was the best in California. Van-
couver, the English navigator, who visited it in
November, 1793, says of it: “The buildings ap-
peared to be regular and well constructed; the
walls clean and white and the roofs of the houses
were covered with a bright red tile. The pre-
sidio excels all the others in neatness, cleanli-
ness and other smaller though essential com-
forts; it is placed on an elevated part of the
plain and is raised some feet from the ground
by a basement story which adds much to its
pleasantness.”
During the Spanish régime the settlement at
the presidio grew in the leisurely way that all
Spanish towns grew in California. There was
but little immigration from Mexico and about
the only source of increase was from invalid
soldiers and the children of the soldiers grow-
ing up to manhood and womanhood. It was a
dreary and monotonous existence that the sol-
diers led at the presidios. A few of them had
their families with them. These when the coun-
try became more settled had their own houses
adjoining the presidio and formed the nuclei
of the towns that grew up around the different
forts. There was but little fighting to do and
the soldiers' service consisted mainly of a round
of guard duty at the forts and missions. Oc-
casionally there were conquistas into the In-
dian country to secure new material for con-
verts from the gentiles. The soldiers were oc-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 73
casionally employed in hunting hindas or run-
aways from the missions. These when brought
back were thoroughly flogged and compelled to
wear clogs attached to their legs. Once a month
the soldier couriers brought up from Loreta a
budget of mail made up of official bandos and a
few letters. These contained about all the news
that reached them from their old homes in
Mexico. But few of the soldiers returned to
Mexico when their term of enlistment expired.
In course of time these and their descendants
formed the bulk of California's population.
CHAPTER VII.
PUEBLOS.
mon in Hispano-American countries did
not originate with the Spanish-Amer-
ican colonists. It was older even than Spain
herself. In early European colonization, the
pueblo plan, the common square in the center
of the town, the house lots grouped round it,
the arable fields and the common pasture lands
beyond, appears in the Aryan village, in the an-
cient German mark and in the old Roman
praesidium. The Puritans adopted this form in
their first settlements in New England. Around
the public square or common where stood the
meeting house and the town house, they laid off
their home lots and beyond these were their
cultivated fields and their common pasture lands.
This form of colonization was a combination of
communal interests and individual ownership.
Primarily, no doubt, it was adopted for protec-
tion against the hostile aborigines of the coun-
try, and secondly for social advantage. It re-
versed the order of our own western coloniza-
tion. The town came first, it was the initial
point from which the settlement radiated; while
with our western pioneers the town was an after-
thought, a center point for the convenience of
trade.
When it had been decided to send colonists
to colonize California the settlements naturally
took the pueblo form. The difficulty of obtain-
ing regular supplies for the presidios from Mex-
ico, added to the great expense of shipping such
a long distance, was the principal cause that in-
fluenced the government to establish pueblos de
gente de razon. The presidios received their
shipments of grain for breadstuff from San Blas
/ | N HE pueblo plan of colonization, so com-
by sailing vessels. The arrival of these was un-
certain. Once when the vessels were unusually
long in coming, the padres and the soldiers at
the presidios and missions were reduced to liv-
ing on milk, bear meat and what provisions they
could obtain from the Indians. When Felipe de
Neve was made governor of Alta or Nueva
California in 1776 he was instructed by the vice-
roy to make observations on the agricultural
possibilities of the country and the feasibility of
founding pueblos where grain could be produced
to supply the military establishments.
On his journey from San Diego to San Fran-
cisco in 1777 he carefully examined the coun-
try; and as a result of his observations recom-
mended the founding of two pueblos; one on the
Rio de Porciuncula in the south, and the other
on the Rio de Guadalupe in the north. On the
29th of November, 1777, the Pueblo of San
José de Guadelupe was founded. The colonists
were nine of the presidio soldiers from San
Francisco and Monterey, who had some knowl-
edge of farming and five of Anza's pobladores
who had come with his expedition the previous
years to found the presidio of San Francisco,
making with their families sixty-one persons in
ail. The pueblo was named for the patron saint
of California, San José (St. Joseph), husband of
Santa Maria, Queen of the Angeles.
The site selected for the town was about a
mile and a quarter north of the center of the
present city. The first houses were built of pal.
isades and the interstices plastered with mud.
These huts were roofed with earth and the floor
was the hard beaten ground. Each head of a
family was given a Suerte or sowing lot of two
74 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
hundred varas square, a house lot, “ten dollars
a month and a soldier's rations.” Each, also,
received a yoke of oxen, two cows, a mule, two
sheep and two goats, together with the neces-
sary implements and seed, all of which were to
be repaid in products of the soil delivered at the
royal warehouse. The first communal work
done by the pobladores (colonists) was to dam
the river, and construct a ditch to irrigate their
sowing fields. The dam was not a success and
the first sowing of grain was lost. The site se–
lected for the houses was low and subject to
overflow.
During wet winters the inhabitants were com-
pelled to take a circuitous route of three leagues
to attend church service at the mission of Santa
Clara. After enduring this state of affairs
through seven winters they petitioned the
governor for permission to remove the pu-
eblo further south on higher ground. The gov-
ernor did not have power to grant the request.
The petition was referred to the comandante-
general of the Intendencia in Mexico in 1785.
He seems to have studied over the matter two
years and having advised with the asesor-general
“finally issued a decree, June 21, 1787, to Gov-
ernor Fages, authorizing the settlers to remove
to the “adjacent loma (hill) selected by them as
more useful and advantageous without chang-
ing or altering, for this reason, the limits and
boundaries of the territory or district assigned
to said settlement and to the neighboring Mis-
sion of Santa Clara, as there is no just cause
why the latter should attempt to appropriate to
herself that land.”
Having frequently suffered from floods, it
would naturally be supposed that the inhabi-
tants, permission being granted, moved right
away. They did nothing of the kind. Ten years
passed and they were still located on the old
marshy site, still discussing the advantages of
the new site on the other side of the river.
Whether the padres of the Mission of Santa
Clara opposed the moving does not appear in
the records, but from the last clause of the com-
andante-general's decree in which he says “there
is not just cause why the latter (the Mission of
Santa Clara) should attempt to appropriate to
herself the land,” it would seem that the mission
padres were endeavoring to secure the new site
or at least prevent its occupancy. There was a
dispute between the padres and the pobladores
over the boundary line between the pueblo and
mission that outlived the century. After hav-
ing been referred to the titled officials, civil and
ecclesiastical, a boundary line was finally estab-
lished, July 24, 1801, that was satisfactory to
both. “According to the best evidence I have
discovered,” says Hall in his History of San
José, “the removal of the pueblo took place in
1797,” just twenty years after the founding. In
1798 the juzgado or town hall was built. It
was located on Market street near El Dorado
Street. - -
The area of a pueblo was four square leagues
(Spanish) or about twenty-seven square miles.
This was sometimes granted in a square and
sometimes in a rectangular form. The pueblo
lands were divided into classes: Solares, house
lots; Suertes (chance), sowing fields, so named
because they were distributed by lot; propios,
municipal lands or lands the rent of which went
to defray municipal expenses; ejidas, vacant
Suburbs or commons; delhesas, pasture where
the large herds of the pueblo grazed; realenges,
royal lands also used for raising revenue; these
were unappropriated lands.
From various causes the founding of the sec-
Ond pueblo had been delayed. In the latter part
of 1779, active preparations were begun for car-
rying out the plan of founding a presidio and
three missions on the Santa Barbara Channel
and a pueblo on the Rio Porciuncula to be
named “Reyna de Los Angeles.” The comand-
ante-general of the Four Interior Provinces of
the West (which embraced the Californias, So-
nora, New Mexico and Viscaya), Don Teodoro
de Croix or “El Cavallero de Croix,” “The
Knight of the Cross,” as he usually styled him-
self, gave instructions to Don Fernando de Ri-
vera y Moncada to recruit soldiers and settlers
for the proposed presidio and pueblo in Nueva
California. He, Rivera, crossed the gulf and be-
gan recruiting in Sonora and Sinaloa. His in-
structions were to secure twenty-four settlers,
who were heads of families. They must be ro-
bust and well behaved, so that they might set
a good example to the natives. Their families
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 75
must accompany them and unmarried female
relatives must be encouraged to go, with the
view to marrying them to bachelor Sol-
diers.
According to the regulations drafted by Gov-
ernor Felipe de Neve, June 1, 1779, for the gov-
ernment of the province of California and ap-
proved by the king, in a royal Order of the 24th
of October, 1781, settlers in California from the
older provinces were each to be granted a house
lot and a tract of land for cultivation. Each
poblador in addition was to receive $116.50 a
year for the first two years, “the rations to be
understood as comprehended in this amount,
and in lieu of rations for the next three years
they will receive $60 yearly.”
Section 3 of Title 14 of the Reglamento pro-
vided that “To each poblador and to the com-
munity of the pueblo there shall be given under
condition of repayment in horses and mules fit
to be given and received, and in the payment of
the other large and small cattle at the just prices,
which are to be fixed by tariff, and of the tools
and implements at cost, as it is ordained, two
mares, two cows, and one calf, two sheep and
two goats, all breeding animals, and one yoke of
oxen or steers, one plow point, one hoe, one
spade, one axe, one sickle, one wood knife, One
musket and one leather shield, two horses and
one cargo mule. To the community there shall
likewise be given the males corresponding to
the total number of cattle of different kinds dis-
tributed amongst all the inhabitants, one forge
and anvil, six crowbars, six iron spades or shov-
els and the necessary tools for carpenter and
cast work.” For the government's assistance to
the pobladores in starting their colony the set-
tlers were required to sell to the presidios the
surplus products of their lands and herds at fair
prices, which were to be fixed by the govern-
ment.
The terms offered to the settlers were cer-
tainly liberal, and by our own hardy pioneers,
who in the closing years of the last century were
making their way over the Alleghany mountains
into Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee, they would
have been considered munificent; but to the in-
dolent and energyless mixed breeds of Sonora
and Sinaloa they were no inducement. After
spending nearly nine months in recruiting, Ri-
vera was able to obtain only fourteen pobladores,
but little over half the number required, and two
of these deserted before reaching California.
The soldiers that Rivera had recruited for Cal-
ifornia, forty-two in number, with their families,
were ordered to proceed overland from Alamos,
in Sonora, by way of Tucson and the Colorado
river to San Gabriel Mission. These were com-
manded by Rivera in person.
Leaving Alamos in April, 1781, they arrived
in the latter part of June at the junction of the
Gila and Colorado rivers. After a short delay
to rest, the main company was sent on to San
Gabriel Mission. Rivera, with ten or twelve
soldiers, remained to recruit his live stock before
crossing the desert. Two missions had been es-
tablished on the California side of the Colorado
the previous year. Before the arrival of Rivera
the Indians had been behaving badly. Rivera's
large herd of cattle and horses destroyed the
mesquite trees and intruded upon the Indians’
melon patches. This, with their previous quar-
rel with the padres, provoked the savages to an
uprising. They, on July 17, attacked the two
missions, massacred the padres and the Spanish
settlers attached to the missions and killed Ri-
vera and his soldiers, forty-six persons in all.
The Indians burned the mission buildings.
These were never rebuilt nor was there any at-
tempt made to convert the Yumas. The hos-
tility of the Yumas practically closed the Colo-
rado route to California for many years.
The pobladores who had been recruited for
the founding of the new pueblo, with their fami-
lies and a military escort, all under the command
of Lieut. José Zuniga, crossed the gulf from
Guaymas to Loreto, in Lower California, and by
the 16th of May were ready for their long jour-
ney northward. In the meantime two of the re-
cruits had deserted and one was left behind at
Loreto. On the 18th of August the eleven who
had remained faithful to their contract, with
their families, arrived at San Gabriel. On ac-
count of smallpox among some of the children
the company was placed in quarantine about a
league from the mission.
On the 26th of August, 1781, from San Ga-
briel, Governor de Neve issued his instructions
76 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
for the founding of Los Angeles, which gave
some additional rules in regard to the distribu-
tion of lots not found in the royal reglamento
previously mentioned.
On the 4th of September, 1781, the colonists,
with a military escort headed by Governor Fe-
lip de Neve, took up their line of march from
the Mission San Gabriel to the site selected for
their pueblo on the Rio de Porciuncula. There,
with religious ceremonies, the Pueblo de Nues-
tra Señora La Reina de Los Angeles was for-
mally founded. A mass was said by a priest
from the Mission San Gabriel, assisted by the
choristers and musicians of that mission. There
were salvos of musketry and a procession with
a cross, candlestick, etc. At the head of the
procession the soldiers bore the standard of
Spain and the women followed bearing a ban-
ner with the image of our Lady the Queen of
the Angels. This procession made a circuit of
the plaza, the priest blessing it and the building
lots. At the close of the services Governor de
Neve made an address full of good advice to the
colonists. Then the governor, his military es-
cort and the priests returned to San Gabriel and
the colonists were left to work out their
destiny.
Few of the great cities of the land have had
such humble founders as Los Angeles. Of the
eleven pobladores who built their huts of poles
and tule thatch around the plaza vieja one hun-
dred and twenty-five years ago, not one could
read or write. Not one could boast of an un-
mixed ancestry. They were mongrels in race,
Caucasian, Indian and Negro mixed. Poor in
purse, poor in blood, poor in all the sterner qual-
ities of character that our own hardy pioneers
of the west possessed, they left no impress on
the city they founded; and the conquering race
that possesses the land that they colonized has
forgotten them. No street or landmark in the
city bears the name of any one of them. No
monument or tablet marks the spot where they
planted the germ of their settlement. No Fore-
fathers' day preserves the memory of their serv-
ices and sacrifices. Their names, race and the
number of persons in each family have been
preserved in the archives of California. They
are as follows: -
I. José de Lara, a Spaniard (or reputed to be
one, although it is doubtful whether he was of
pure blood) had an Indian wife and three chil-
dren.
2. José Antonio Navarro, a Mestizo, forty-
two years old; wife a mulattress; three children.
3. Basilio Rosas, an Indian, sixty-eight years
old, had a mulatto wife and two children.
4. Antonio Mesa, a negro, thirty-eight years
old; had a mulatto wife and two children.
5. Antonio Felix Villavicencio, a Spaniard,
thirty years old; had an Indian wife and one
child.
6. José Vanegas, an Indian, twenty-eight
years old; had an Indian wife and one child.
7. Alejandro Rosas, an Indian, nineteen years
old, and had an Indian wife. (In the records,
"wife, Coyote-Indian.”)
8. Pablo Rodriguez, an Indian, twenty-five
years old; had an Indian wife and one child.
9. Manuel Camero, a mulatto, thirty years
old; had a mulatto wife.
10. Luis Quintero, a negro, fifty-five years
old, and had a mulatto wife and five children.
II. José Morena, a mulatto, twenty-two
years old, and had a mulatto wife.
Antonio Miranda, the twelfth person described
in the padron (list) as a Chino, fifty years old
and having one child, was left at Loreto when
the expedition marched northward. It would
have been impossible for him to have rejoined
the colonists before the founding. Presumably
his child remained with him, consequently there
were but forty-four instead of “forty-six persons
in all.” Col. J. J. Warner, in his “Historical
Sketch of Los Angeles,” originated the fiction
that one of the founders (Miranda, the Chino,)
was born in China. Chino, while it does mean a
Chinaman, is also applied in Spanish-American
countries to persons or animals having curly
hair. Miranda was probably of mixed Spanish
and Negro blood, and curly haired. There is
no record to show that Miranda ever came to
Alta California.
When José de Galvez was fitting out the ex-
pedition for occupying San Diego and Monte-
rey, he issued a proclamation naming St. Jo-
seph as the patron saint of his California colon-
ization scheme. Bearing this fact in mind, no
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 77
doubt, Governor de Neve, when he founded San
José, named St. Joseph its patron saint. Hav-
ing named one of the two pueblos for San José
it naturally followed that the other should be
named for Santa Maria, the Queen of the An-
gels, wife of San José.
On the 1st of August, 1769, Portolà’s expedi-
tion, on its journey northward in search of Mon-
terey Bay, had halted in the San Gabriel valley
near where the Mission Vieja was afterwards lo-
cated, to reconnoiter the country and “above
all,” as Father Crespi observes, “for the purpose
of celebrating the jubilee of Our Lady of the
Angels of Porciuncula.” Next day, August 2,
after traveling about three leagues (nine miles),
Father Crespi, in his diary, says: “We came to
a rather wide canada having a great many cot-
tonwood and alder trees. Through it ran a
beautiful river toward the north-northeast and
curving around the point of a cliff it takes a di-
rection to the south. Toward the north-north-
east we saw another river bed which must have
been a great overflow, but we found it dry. This
arm unites with the river and its great floods
during the rainy season are clearly demon-
strated by the many uprooted trees scattered
along the banks.” (This dry river is the Arroyo
Seco.) “We stopped not very far from the river,
to which we gave the name of Porciuncula.”
Porciuncula is the name of a hamlet in Italy
near which was located the little church of Our
Lady of the Angels, in which St. Francis of As-
sisi was praying when the jubilee was granted
him. Father Crespi, speaking of the plain
through which the river flows, says: “This is
the best locality of all those we have yet seen
for a mission, besides having all the resources
required for a large town.”
evidently somewhat of a prophet.
The fact that this locality had for a number
of years borne the name of “Our Lady of the
Angels of Porciuncula” may have influenced
Governor de Neve to locate his pueblo here.
The full name of the town, El Pueblo de Nuestra
Señora La Reyna de Los Angeles, was seldom
used. It was too long for everyday use. In the
earlier years of the town's history it seems to
have had a variety of names. It appears in the
records as El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de Los
Padre Crespi was
Angeles, as El Pueblo de La Reyna de Los An-
geles and as El Pueblo de Santa Maria de Los
Angeles. Sometimes it was abbreviated to
Santa Maria, but it was most commonly spoken
of as El Pueblo, the town. At what time the
name of Rio Porciuncula was changed to Rio
Los Angeles is uncertain. The change no doubt
was gradual.
The site selected for the pueblo of Los An-
geles was picturesque and romantic. From
where Alameda street now is to the eastern
bank of the river the land was covered with a
dense growth of willows, cottonwoods and al-
ders; while here and there, rising above the
Swampy copse, towered a giant aliso (sycamore).
Wild grapevines festooned the branches of the
trees and wild roses bloomed in profusion. Be-
hind the narrow shelf of mesa land where the
pueblo was located rose the brown hills, and in
the distance towered the lofty Sierra Madre
mountains. -
The last pueblo founded in California under
Spanish domination was Villa de Branciforte,
located on the opposite side of the river from
the Mission of Santa Cruz. It was named after
the Viceroy. Branciforte. It was designed as a
coast defense and a place to colonize discharged
soldiers. The scheme was discussed for a con-
siderable time before anything was done. Gov-
ernor Borica recommended “that an adobe
house be built for each settler so that the prev-
alent state of things in San José and Los An-
geles, where the settlers still live in tule huts, be-
ing unable to build better dwellings without
neglecting their fields, may be prevented, the
houses to cost not over two hundred dollars.”
The first detachment of the colonists arrived
May 12, 1797, on the Concepcion in a destitute
condition. Lieutenant Moraga was sent to su-
perintend the construction of houses for the
colonists. He was instructed to build temporary
huts for himself and the guard, then to build
some larger buildings to accommodate fifteen or
twenty families each. These were to be tem-
porary. Only nine families came and they were
of a vagabond class that had a constitutional
antipathy to work. The settlers received the
+Bancroft's History of California, Vol. I.
78 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
same amount of supplies and allowance of
money as the colonists of San José and Los
Angeles. Although the colonists were called
Spaniards and assumed to be of a superior race
to the first settlers of the other pueblos, they
made less progress and were more unruly than
the mixed and mongrel inhabitants of the older
pueblos.
Although at the close of the century three
decades had passed since the first settlement was
made in California, the colonists had made but
little progress. Three pueblos of gente de razon
had been founded and a few ranchos granted to
ex-soldiers. Exclusive of the soldiers, the white
population in the year 18OO did not exceed six
hundred. The people lived in the most primi-
tive manner. There was no commerce and no
manufacturing except a little at the missions.
Their houses were adobe huts roofed with tule
thatch. The floor was the beaten earth and the
scant furniture home-made. There was a scarcity
of cloth for clothing. Padre Salazar relates that
when he was at San Gabriel Mission in 1795 a
man who had a thousand horses and cattle in
proportion came there to beg cloth for a shirt,
for none could be had at the pueblo of Los An-
geles nor at the presidio of Santa Barbara.
Hermanagildo Sal, the comandante of San
Francisco, writing to a friend in 1799, says, “I
send you, by the wife of the pensioner José
Barbo, one piece of cotton goods and an ounce
of Sewing silk. There are no combs and I have
no hope of receiving any for three years.” Think
of waiting three years for a comb!
Eighteen missions had been founded at the
close of the century. Except at a few of the
Older missions, the buildings were temporary
structures. The neophytes for the most part
were living in wigwams constructed like those
they had occupied in their wild state.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE PASSING OF SPAIN’S DOMINATION.
ple. Their great desire was to be let alone
in their American possessions. Philip II.
once promulgated a decree pronouncing death
upon any foreigner who entered the Gulf of
Mexico. It was easy to promulgate a decree or
to pass restrictive laws against foreign trade, but
quite another thing to enforce them.
After the first settlement of California seven-
teen years passed before a foreign vessel entered
any of its ports. The first to arrive were the
two vessels of the French explorer, La Perouse,
who anchored in the harbor of Monterey, Sep-
tember 15, 1786. Being of the same faith, and
France having been an ally of Spain in former
times, he was well received. During his brief
stay he made a study of the mission system and
his observations on it are plainly given. He
found a similarity in it to the slave plantations
of Santo Domingo. November 14, 1792, the
English navigator, Capt. George Vancouver, in
the ship Discovery, entered the Bay of San
A | NHE Spaniards were not a commercial peo-
Francisco. He was cordially received by the
comandante of the port, Hermanagildo Sal, and
the friars of the mission. On the 20th of the
month, with several of his officers, he visited the
Mission of Santa Clara, where he was kindly
treated. He also visited the Mission of San
Carlos de Monterey. He wrote an interesting
account of his visit and his observations on the
country. Vancouver was surprised at the back-
wardness of the country and the antiquated cus-
toms of the people. He says: “Instead of find-
ing a country tolerably well inhabited, and far
advanced in cultivation, if we except its natural
pastures, flocks of sheep and herds of cattle,
there is not an object to indicate the most re-
mote connection with any European or other
civilized nation.” On a subsequent visit, Cap-
tain Vancouver met a chilly reception from the
acting governor, Arrillaga. The Spaniards sus-
pected him of spying out the weakness of their
defenses. Through the English, the Spaniards
became acquainted with the importance and
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. - 79
value of the fur trade. The bays and lagoons of
California abounded in sea otter. Their skins
were worth in China all the way from $30 to
$1oo each. The trade was made a government
monopoly. The skins were to be collected from
the natives, soldiers and others by the mission-
aries, at prices ranging from $2.50 to $10 each,
and turned over to the government officials ap-
pointed to receive them. All trade by private
persons was prohibited. The government was
sole trader. But the government failed to make
the trade profitable. In the closing years of
the century the American smugglers began to
haunt the coast. The restrictions against trade
with foreigners were proscriptive and the penal-
ties for evasion severe, but men will trade under
the most adverse circumstances. Spain was a
long way off, and smuggling was not a very
venal sin in the eyes of layman or churchman.
Fast sailing vessels were fitted out in Boston
for illicit trade on the California coast. Watch-
ing their opportunities, these vessels slipped
into the bays and inlets along the coast. There
was a rapid exchange of Yankee notions for sea
otter skins, the most valued peltry of California,
and the vessels were out to sea before the rev-
enue officers could intercept them. If success-
ſul in escaping capture, the profits of a smug-
gling voyage were enormous, ranging from 500
to 1,000 per cent above cost on the goods ex-
changed; but the risks were great. The smug-
gler had no protection; he was an outlaw. He
was the legitimate prey of the padres, the peo-
ple and the revenue officers. The Yankee smug-
gler usually came out ahead. His vessel was
heavily armed, and when speed or stratagem
failed he was ready to fight his way out of a
Scrape. |
Each year two ships were sent from San
Blas with the memorias—mission and presidio
supplies. These took back a small cargo of the
products of the territory, wheat being the prin-
cipal. This was all the legitimate commerce
allowed California.
The fear of Russian aggression had been one
of the causes that had forced Spain to attempt
the colonization of California. Bering, in 1741,
had discovered the strait that bears his name
and had taken possession, for the Russian gov-
ernment, of the northwestern coast of America.
Four years later, the first permanent Russian
settlement, Sitka, had been made on one of the
coast islands. Rumors of the Russian explora-
tions and settlements had reached Madrid and
in 1774 Captain Perez, in the San Antonia, was
sent up the coast to find out what the Russians
were doing.
Had Russian America contained arable land
where grain and vegetables could have been
grown, it is probable that the Russians and .
Spaniards in America would not have come in
contact; for another nation, the United States.
had taken possession of the intervening coun:
try, bordering the Columbia river.
The supplies of breadstuffs for the Sitka col-
onists had to be sent overland across Siberia
or shipped around Cape Horn. Failure of Sup-
plies sometimes reduced the colonists to sore
straits. In 1806, famine and diseases incident
to starvation threatened the extinction of the
Russian colony. Count Rezānoff, a high Officer
of the Russian government, had arrived at the
Sitka settlement in September, 1805. The des-
titution prevailing there induced him to visit
California with the hope of obtaining relief for
the starving colonists. In the ship Juno (pur-
chased from an American trader), with a scurvy
afflicted crew, he made a perilous voyage down
the stormy coast and on the 5th of April, 1806,
anchored safely in the Bay of San Francisco.
He had brought with him a cargo of goods for
exchange but the restrictive commercial regula-
tions of Spain prohibited trade with foreigners.
Although the friars and the people needed the
goods the governor could not allow the ex-
change. Count Rezānoff would be permitted to
purchase grain for cash, but the Russian's ex-
chequer was not plethoric and his ship was al-
ready loaded with goods. Love that laughs at
locksmiths eventually unlocked the shackles
that hampered commerce. Rezānoff fell in love
with Dona Concepcion, the beautiful daughter
of Don José Arguello, the comandante of San
Francisco, and an old time friend of the gov-
ernor, Arrillaga. The attraction was mutual.
Through the influence of Dona Concepcion, the
friars and Arguello, the governor was induced
to sanction a plan by which cash was the sup-
80 - HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
posed medium of exchange on both sides, but
grain on the one side and goods on the other
were the real currency.
The romance of Rezānoff and Dona Concep-
cion had a sad ending. On his journey through
Siberia to St. Petersburg to obtain the consent
of the emperor to his marriage he was killed
by a fall from his horse. It was several years
before the news of his death reached his af-
fianced bride. Faithful to his memory, she never
married, but dedicated her life to deeds of char-
ity. After Rezānoff's visit the Russians came
frequently to California, partly to trade, but
more often to hunt otter. While on these fur
hunting expeditions they examined the coast
north of San Francisco with the design of plant-
ing an agricultural colony where they could
raise grain to supply the settlements in the far
north. In 1812 they founded a town and built
a fort on the coast north of Bodega Bay, which
they named Ross. The fort mounted ten guns.
They maintained a fort at Bodega Bay and also
a small settlement on Russian river. The Span-
iards protested against this aggression and
threatened to drive the Russians out of the ter–
ritory, but nothing came of their protests and
they were powerless to enforce their demands.
The Russian ships came to California for sup-
plies and were welcomed by the people and the
friars if not by the government officials. The
Russian colony at Ross was not a success. The
ignorant soldiers and the Aluets who formed
the bulk of its three or four hundred inhab-
itants, knew little or nothing about farming and
were too stupid to learn. After the decline of
fur hunting the settlement became unprofitable.
In 1841 the buildings and the stock were sold
by the Russian governor to Capt. John A. Sut-
ter for $30,000. The settlement was abandoned
and the fort and the town are in ruins.
On the 15th of September, 1810, the patriot
priest, Miguel Hidalgo, struck the first blow
for Mexican independence. The revolution
which began in the provincé of Guanajuato was
at first regarded by the authorities as a mere
riot of ignorant Indians that would be speedily
suppressed. But the insurrection spread rap-
idly. Long years of oppression and cruelty had
instilled into the hearts of the people an undy-
ing hatred for their Spanish oppressors. Hidalgo
soon found himself at the head of a motley
army, poorly armed . and undisciplined, but its
numbers swept away opposition. Unfortunately
through Over-confidence reverses came and in
March, 1811, the patriots met an overwhelming
defeat at the bridge of Calderon. Hidalgo was
betrayed, captured and shot. Though sup-
pressed for a time, the cause of independence
was not lost. For eleven years a fratricidal war
was waged—cruel, bloody and devastating. Al-
lende, Mina, Moreles, Aldama, Rayon and other
patriot leaders met death on the field of battle
Or were captured and shot as rebels, but “Free-
dom's battle” bequeathed from bleeding sire to
Son was won at last.
Of the political upheavals that shook Spain
in the first decades of the century only the faint-
est rumblings reached far distant California.
Notwithstanding the many changes of rulers
that political revolutions and Napoleonic wars
gave the mother country, the people of Califor-
nia remained loyal to the Spanish crown, al-
though at times they must have been in doubt
who wore the crown.
Arrillaga was governor of California when
the war of Mexican independence began. Al-
though born in Mexico he was of pure Spanish
parentage and was thoroughly in sympathy with
Spain in the contest. He did not live to see the
end of the war. He died in 1814 and was suc-
ceeded by Pablo Vicente de Sola. Sola was
Spanish born and was bitterly opposed to the
revolution, even going so far as to threaten
death to any one who should speak in favor of
it. He had received his appointment from
Viceroy Calleja, the butcher of Guanajuato, the
cruelest and most bloodthirsty of the vice regal
governors of new Spain. The friars were to a
man loyal to Spain. The success of the repub-
lic meant the downfall of their domination.
They hated republican ideas and regarded
their dissemination as a crime. They were the
ruling power in California. The governors
and the people were subservient to their
wishes.
The decade between 1810 and 1820 was
marked by two important events, the year of the
earthquakes and the year of the insurgents.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 81
The year 1812 was the Ano de los Temblores.
The seismic disturbance that for forty years or
more had shaken California seemed to concen-
trate in power that year and expend its force
on the mission churches. The massive church
of San Juan Capistrano, the pride of mission
architecture, was thrown down and forty per-
sons killed. The walls of San Gabriel Mission
were cracked and some of the saints shaken out
of their niches. At San Buenaventura there
were three heavy shocks which injured the
church so that the tower and much of the facade
had to be rebuilt. The whole mission site
seemed to settle and the inhabitants, fearful
that they might be engulfed by the sea, moved
up the valley about two miles, where they re-
mained three months. At Santa Barbara both
church and the presidio were damaged and at
Santa Inez the church was shaken down. The
quakes continued for several months and the
people were so terrified that they abandoned
their houses and lived in the open air.
The other important epoch of the decade was
El Año de los Insurgentes, the year of the in-
surgents. In November, 1818, Bouchard, a
Frenchman in the service of Buenos Ayres and
provided with letters of marque by San Mar-
tain, the president of that republic, to prey upon
Spanish commerce, appeared in the port of
Monterey with two ships carrying sixty-six
guns and three hundred and fifty men. He at-
tacked Monterey and after an obstinate re-
sistance by the Californians, it was taken by the
insurgents and burned. Bouchard next pillaged
Ortega's rancho and burned the buildings.
Then sailing down the coast he scared the Santa
Barbaraños; then keeping on down he looked
into San Pedro, but finding nothing there to
tempt him he kept on to San Juan Capistrano.
There he landed, robbed the mission of a few
articles and drank the padres' wine. Then he
sailed away and disappeared. He left six of his
men in California, among them Joseph Chap-
man of Boston, the first American resident of
California.
In the early part of the last century there
was a limited commerce with Lima. That
being a Spanish dependency, trade with it was
not prohibited. Gilroy, who arrived in Califor-
nia in 1814, says in his reminiscences:*
“The only article of export then was tallow,
of which one cargo was sent annually to Callao
in a Spanish ship. This tallow sold for $1.50
per hundred weight in silver or $2.00 in trade
or goods. Hides, except those used for tallow
bags, were thrown away. Wheat, barley and
beans had no market. Nearly everything con-
sumed by the people was produced at home.
There was no foreign trade.”
As the revolution in Mexico progressed
times grew harder in California. The mission
memorias ceased to come. No tallow ships from
Callao arrived. The soldiers' pay was years in
arrears and their uniforms in rags. What little
wealth there was in the country was in the
hands of the padres. They were supreme. “The
friars,” says Gilroy, “had everything their own
way. The governor and the military were ex-
pected to do whatever the friars requested. The
missions contained all the wealth of the coun-
try.” The friars supported the government and
supplied the troops with food from the products
of the neophytes’ labor. The crude manufac-
turers of the missions supplied the people with
cloth for clothing and some other necessities.
The needs of the common people were easily
satisfied. They were not used to luxuries nor
were they accustomed to what we would now
consider necessities. Gilroy, in the reminis-
cences heretofore referred to, states that at the
time of his arrival (1814). “There was not a saw-
mill, whip saw or spoked wheel in California.
Such lumber as was used was cut with an axe.
Chairs, tables and wood floors were not to be
found except in the governor's house. Plates
were rare unless that name could be applied to
the tiles used instead. Money was a rarity.
There were no stores and no merchandise to
sell. There was no employment for a laborer.
The neophytes did all the work and all the busi-
ness of the country was in the hands of the
friars.”
*Alta California, June 25, 1865.
S
a-d
6) HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
CHAPTER IX.
FROM EMPIRE
A | NHE condition of affairs in California stead-
ily grew worse as the revolution in Mex-
ico progressed. Sola had made strenuous
efforts to arouse the Spanish authorities of New
Spain to take some action towards benefiting the
territory. After the affair with the insurgent
Bouchard he had appealed to the viceroy for re-
inforcements. In answer to his urgent entreaties
a force of one hundred men was sent from Ma-
zatlan to garrison San Diego and an equal force
from San Blas for Monterey. They reached Cal-
ifornia in August, 1819, and Sola was greatly
rejoiced, but his..joy was turned to deep disgust
when he discovered the true character of the re-
inforcement and arms sent him. The only equip-
ments of the soldiers were a few hundred old
worn-out sabers that Sola declared were unfit
for sickles. He ordered them returned to the
comandante of San Blas, who had sent them.
The troops were a worse lot than the arms sent.
They had been taken out of the prisons or con-
scripted from the lowest class of the population
of the cities. They were thieves, drunkards and
vagabonds, who, as soon as landed, resorted to
robberies, brawls and assassinations. Sola wrote
to the viceroy that the outcasts called troops
sent him from the jails of Tepic and San Blas
by their vices caused continual disorders; their
evil example had debauched the minds of the
Indians and that the cost incurred in their col-
lection and transportation had been worse than
thrown away. He could not get rid of them,
so he had to control them as best he could.
Governor Sola labored faithfully to benefit the
country over which he had been placed and to
arouse the Spanish authorities in Mexico to do
something for the advancement of California;
but the government did nothing. Indeed it was
in no condition to do anything. The revolution
would not down. No sooner was one revolution-
ary leader suppressed and the rebellion ap-
parently crushed than there was an uprising in
TO REPUBLIC.
some other part of the country under a new
leader.
Ten years of intermittent warfare had been
waged—one army of patriots after another had
been defeated and the leaders shot; the strug-
gle for independence was almost ended and the
royalists were congratulating themselves on the
triumph of the Spanish crown, when a sudden
change came and the vice regal government
that for three hundred years had swayed the
destinies of New Spain went down forever.
Agustin Iturbide, a colonel in the royal army,
who in February, 1821, had been sent with a
corps of five thousand men from the capital to
the Sierras near Acapulco to suppress Guerrero,
the last of the patriot chiefs, suddenly changed
his allegiance, raised the banner of the revolu-
tion and declared for the independence of Mex-
ico under the plan of Iguala, so named for the
town where it was first proclaimed. The central
ideas of the plan were “Union, civil and re-
ligious liberty.”
There was a general uprising in all parts of
the country and men rallied to the support of the
Army of the Three Guarantees, religion, union,
independence. Guerrero joined forces with
Iturbide and September 21, 1821, at the head
of sixteen thousand men, amid the rejoicing of
the people, they entered the capital. The viceroy
was compelled to recognize the independence of
Mexico. A provisional government under a
regency was appointed at first, but a few months
later Iturbide was crowned emperor, taking the
title of his most serene majesty, Agustin I., by
divine providence and by the congress of the
nation, first constitutional emperor of Mexico.
Sola had heard rumors of the turn affairs
were taking in Mexico, but he had kept the re-
ports a secret and still hoped and prayed for
the success of the Spanish arms. At length a
vessel appeared in the harbor of Monterey float-
ing an unknown flag, and cast anchor beyond
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 83
the reach of the guns of the castillo. The Sol-
diers were called to arms. A boat from the ship
put off for shore and landed an officer, who de-
clared himself the bearer of dispatches to Don
Pablo Vicente de Sola, the governor of the
province. “I demand,” said he, “to be con-
ducted to his presence in the name of my sov-
ereign, the liberator of Mexico, General Agustin
de Iturbide.” There was a murmur of applause
from the soldiers, greatly to the surprise of their
officers, who were, all loyalists. Governor Sola
was bitterly disappointed. Only a few days be-
fore he had harangued the soldiers in the Square
of the presidio and threatened “to shoot down
any one high or low without the formality of a
trial who dared to say a word in favor of the
traitor Iturbide.”
For half a century the banner of Spain had
floated from the flag staff of the presidio of
Monterey. Sadly Sola ordered it lowered and
in its place was hoisted the imperial flag of the
Mexican Empire. A few months pass, Iturbide
is forced to abdicate the throne of empire and
is banished from Mexico. The imperial stand-
ard is supplanted by the tricolor of the republic.
Thus the Californians, in little more than one
year, have passed under three different forms
of government, that of a kingdom, an empire
and a republic, and Sola from the most
loyal of Spanish governors in the kingdom
of Spain has been transformed in a Mexican
republican.
The friars, if possible, were more bitterly dis-
appointed than the governor. They saw in the
success of the republic the doom of their estab-
lishments. Republican ideas were repulsive to
them. Liberty meant license to men to think
for themselves. The shackles of creed and the
fetters of priestcraft would be loosened by the
growth of liberal ideas. It was not strange,
viewing the question from their standpoint, that
they refused to take the oath of allegiance to
the republic. Nearly all of them were Spanish
born. Spain had aided them to plant their mis-
sions, had fostered their establishments and had
made them supreme in the territory. Their al-
legiance was due to the Spanish crown. They
would not transfer it to a republic and they did
not; to the last they were loyal to Spain in
heart, even if they did acquiesce in the ob-
servance of the rule of the republic.
Sola had long desired to be relieved of the
governorship. He was growing old and was in
poor health. The condition of the country wor-
ried him. He had frequently asked to be re-
lieved and allowed to retire from military duty.
His requests were unheeded; the vice regal
government of New Spain had weightier mat-
ters to attend to than requests or the complaints
of the governor of a distant and unimportant
province. The inauguration of the empire
brought him the desired relief.
Under the empire Alta California was allowed
a diputado or delegate in the imperial congress.
Sola was elected delegate and took his de-
parture for Mexico in the autumn of 1822. Luis
Antonio Arguello, president of the provincial
diputacion, an institution that had come into ex-
istence after the inauguration of the empire, be-
came governor by virtue of his position as
president. He was the first hijo del pais or na-
tive of the country to hold the office of gov-
ernor. He was born at San Francisco in 1784,
while his father, an ensign at the presidio, was
in command there. His opportunities for Ob-
taining an education were extremely meager,
but he made the best use of what he had. He
entered the army at sixteen and was, at the time
he became temporary governor, comandante at
San Francisco.
The inauguration of a new form of govern-
ment had brought no relief to California. The
two Spanish ships that had annually brought
los memorias del rey (the remembrances of the
king) had long since ceased to come with their
supplies of money and goods for the soldiers.
The California ports were closed to foreign com-
merce. There was no sale for the products of
the country. So the missions had to throw open
their warehouses and relieve the necessities of
the government.
The change in the form of government had
made no change in the dislike of foreigners,
that was a characteristic of the Spaniard. Dur-
ing the Spanish era very few foreigners had
been allowed to remain in California. Run-
away sailors and shipwrecked mariners, notwith-
standing they might wish to remain in the coun-
84 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
try and become Catholics, were shipped to
Mexico and returned to their own country.
John Gilroy, whose real name was said to be
John Cameron, was the first permanent English
speaking resident of California. When a boy
of eighteen he was left by the captain of a Hud-
son Bay company's ship at Monterey in 1814.
He was sick with the scurvy and not expected
to live. Nursing and a vegetable diet brought
him out all right, but he could not get away.
He did not like the country and every day for
several years he went down to the beach and
scanned the ocean for a foreign sail. When One
did come he had gotten over his home-sickness,
had learned the language, fallen in love, turned
Catholic and married.
In 1822 William E. P. Hartnell, an English-
man, connected with a Lima business house,
visited California and entered into a contract
with Padre Payeras, the prefect of the missions,
for the purchase of hides and tallow. Hartnell
a few years later married a California lady and
became a permanent resident of the territory.
Other foreigners who came about the same time
as Hartnell and who became prominent in Cal-
ifornia were William A. Richardson, an Eng-
lishman; Capt. John R. Cooper of Boston and
William A. Gale, also of Boston. Gale had first
visited California in 1810 as a fur trader. He
returned in 1822 on the ship Sachem, the pioneer
Boston hide drogher. The hide drogher was
in a certain sense the pioneer emigrant ship
of California. It brought to the coast a
number of Americans who became permanent
residents of the territory. California, on ac-
count of its long distance from the world’s
marts of trade, had but few products for ex-
change that would bear the cost of shipment.
Its chief commodities for barter during the
Mexican era were hides and tallow. The vast
range of country adapted to cattle raising made
that its most profitable industry. Cattle in-
creased rapidly and required but little care or
attention from their owners. As the native Cal-
ifornians were averse to hard labor cattle rais-
ing became almost the sole industry of the
country.
After the inauguration of a republican form
of government in Mexico some of the most
burdensome restrictions on foreign commerce
were removed. The Mexican Congress of 1824
enacted a colonization law, which was quite
liberal. Under it foreigners could obtain land
from the public domain. The Roman Catholic
religion was the state religion and a foreigner,
before he could become a permanent resident of
the country, acquire property or marry, was
required to be baptized and embrace the doc-
trines of that church. After the Mexican Con-
gress repealed the restrictive laws against for-
eign commerce a profitable trade grew up
between the New England ship owners and the
Californians.
Vessels called hide droghers were fitted out
in Boston with assorted cargoes suitable for the
California trade. Making the voyage by way of
Cape Horn they reached California. Stopping
at the various ports along the coast they ex-
changed their stocks of goods and Yankee
notions for hides and tallow. It took from two
to three years to make a voyage to California
and return to Boston, but the profits on the
goods sold and on the hides received in ex-
change were so large that these ventures paid
handsomely. The arrival of a hide drogher
with its department store cargo was heralded
up and down the coast. It broke the monotony
of existence, gave the people something new
to talk about and stirred them up as nothing
else could do unless possibly a revolution.
“On the arrival of a new vessel from the
United States,” says Robinson in his “Life in
California,” “every man, woman, boy and girl
took a proportionate share of interest as to the
qualities of her cargo. If the first inquired for
rice, sugar or tobacco, the latter asked for prints,
silks and satins; and if the boy wanted a Wil-
son's jack knife, the girl hoped that there might
be some satin ribbons for her. Thus the whole
population hailed with eagerness an arrival. Even
the Indian in his unsophisticated style asked for
Panas Colorados and Abalaris—red handker-
chiefs and beads.
“After the arrival of our trading vessel (at San
Pedro) our friends came in the morning flock-
ing on board from all quarters; and soon a busy
scene commenced afloat and ashore. Boats
were passing to the beach, and men, women
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 85
and children partaking in the general excite-
ment. On shore all was confusion, cattle and
carts laden with hides and tallow, gente de razon
and Indians busily employed in the delivery of
their produce and receiving in return its value
in goods. Groups of individuals seated around
little bonfires upon the ground, and horsemen
racing over the plains in every direction. Thus
the day passed, some arriving, some departing,
till long after sunset, the low white road, lead-
ing across the plains to the town (Los Angeles),
appeared a living panorama.”
The commerce of California during the Mex-
ican era was principally carried on by the hide
droghers. The few stores at the pueblos and
presidios obtained their supplies from them
and retailed their goods to customers in the in-
tervals between the arrivals of the department
store droghers.
The year 1824 was marked by a serious out-
break among the Indians of several missions.
Although in the older missionary establish-
ments many of the neophytes had spent half a
century under the Christianizing influence of
the padres and in these, too, a younger genera-
tion had grown from childhood to manhood
under mission tutelage, yet their Christian train-
ing had not eliminated all the aboriginal sav-
agery from their natures. The California Indians
were divided into numerous small tribes, each
speaking a different dialect. They had never
learned, like the eastern Indians did, the ad-
vantages of uniting against a common enemy.
When these numerous small tribes were gath-
ered into the missions they were kept as far as
it was possible separate and it is said the padres
encouraged their feuds and tribal animosities to
prevent their uniting against the missionaries.
Their long residence in the missions had de-
stroyed their tribal distinctions and merged
them into one body. It had taught them, too,
the value of combination.
How long the Indians had been plotting no
one knew. The conspiracy began among the
neophytes of Santa Ynez and La Purisima, but
it spread to the missions of San Luis Obispo,
Santa Barbara, San Buenaventura, San Fer-
nando and San Gabriel. Their plan was to mas-
sacre the padres and the mission guard and
liaving obtained arms to kill all the gente de
razon and thus free themselves from mission
thralldom and regain their old time freedom.
The plotting had been carried on with great
Secrecy. Rumors had passed from mission to
mission arranging the details of the uprising
without the whites suspecting anything. Sunday,
February 22, 1824, was the day set for begin-
ning the slaughter. At the hour of celebrating
mass, when the soldiers and the padres were
within the church, the bloody work was to be-
gin. The plot might have succeeded had not
the Indians at Santa Ynez began their work
prematurely. One account (Hittell's History of
California) says that on Saturday afternoon be-
fore the appointed Sunday they determined to
begin the work by the murder of Padre Fran-
cisco Xavier Uná, who was sleeping in a cham-
ber next the mission church. He was warned
by a faithful page. Springing from his couch
and rushing to a window he saw the Indians ap-
proaching. Seizing a musket from several that
were in the room he shot the first Indian that
reached the threshold dead. He seized a sec-
ond musket and laid another Indian low. The
soldiers now rallied to his assistance and the
Indians were driven back; they set fire to the
mission church, but a small body of troops un-
der Sergeant Carrillo, sent from Santa Barbara
to reinforce the mission guard, coming up at
this time, the Indians fled to Purisima. The
fire was extinguished before the church was
consumed. At Purisima the Indians were more
successful. The mission was defended by Cor-
poral Tapia and five soldiers. The Indians de-
manded that Tapia surrender, but the corporal
refused. The fight began and continued all
night. The Indians set fire to the building, but
all they could burn was the rafters. Tapia, by a
strategic movement, succeeded in collecting all
the soldiers and the women and children inside
the walls of one of the largest buildings from
which the roof had been burnt. From this the
Indians could not dislodge him. The fight was
kept up till morning, when one of the Indians,
who had been a mission alcade, made a prop-
osition to the corporal to surrender. Tapia re-
fused to consider it, but Father Blas Ordaz in-
terfered and insisted on a compromise. After
S6 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
much contention Tapia found himself overruled.
The Indians agreed to spare the lives of all on
condition that the whites laid down their arms.
The soldiers laid down their arms and sur-
rendered two small cannon belonging to the
church. The soldiers, the women and the chil-
dren were then allowed to march to Santa Ynez.
While the fight was going on the Indians killed
four white men, two of them, Dolores Sepulveda
and Ramon Satelo, were on their way to Los
Angeles and came to the mission not suspecting
any danger. Seven Indians were killed in the
fight and a number wounded.
The Indians at Santa Barbara began hostilities
according to their prearranged plot. They made
an attack upon the mission. Captain de la
Guerra, who was in command at the presidio,
marched to the mission and a fight of several
hours ensued. The Indians sheltered them-
selves behind the pillars of the corridor and
fought with guns and arrows. After losing sev-
eral of their number they fled to the hills. Four
soldiers were wounded. The report of the up-
rising reached Monterey and measures were
taken at once to subdue the rebellious
neophytes. A force of one hundred men was
sent under Lieut. José Estrada to co-operate
with Captain de la Guerra against the rebels.
On the 16th of March the soldiers surrounded
the Indians who had taken possession of the
mission church at Purisima and opened fire
upon them. The Indians replied with their cap-
tured cannon, muskets and arrows. Estrada's
artillery battered down the walls of the church.
The Indians, unused to arms, did little execu-
tion. Driven out of the wrecked building, they
attempted to make their escape by flight, but
were intercepted by the cavalry which had been
deployed for that purpose. Finding themselves
hemmed in on all sides the neophytes sur-
rendered. They had lost sixteen killed and a
large number of wounded. Seven of the prison-
ers were shot for complicity in the murder of
Sepulveda and the three other travelers. The
four leaders in the revolt, Mariano Pacomio,
Benito and Bernabe, were sentenced to ten
years hard labor at the presidio and eight oth-
ers to lesser terms. There were four hundred
Indians engaged in the battle.
The Indians of the Santa Barbara missions
and escapes from Santa Ynez and Purisima
made their way over the mountains to the
Tulares. A force of eighty men under com-
mand of a lieutenant was sent against these.
The troops had two engagements with the reb-
els, whom they found at Buenavista Lake and
San Emigdio. Finding his force insufficient to
subdue them the lieutenant retreated to Santa
Barbara. Another force of one hundred and
thirty men under Captain Portilla and Lieuten-
ant Valle was sent after the rebels. Father
Ripoll had induced the governor to offer a gen-
eral pardon. The padre claimed that the In-
dians had not harmed the friars nor committed
sacrilege in the church and from his narrow
view these were about the only venal sins they
could commit. The troops found the fugitive
neophytes encamped at San Emigdio. They
now professed repentance for their misdeeds and
were willing to return to mission life if they
could escape punishment. Padres Ripoll and
Sarria, who had accompanied the expedition,
entered into negotiations with the Indians; par-
don was promised them for their offenses. They
then surrendered and marched back with the
soldiers to their respective missions. This was
the last attempt of the Indians to escape from
mission rule.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 87
CHAPTER X.
FIRST DECADE OF MEXICAN RULE.
colonel of the Mexican army, was ap-
pointed governor of the two Californias,
February 1, 1825. With his staff officers and
a few soldiers he landed at Loreto June
22. After a delay of a few months at Lo-
reto he marched overland to San Diego,
where he arrived about the middle of October.
He summoned Arguello to meet him there,
which he did and turned over the government,
October 31, 1825. Echeandia established his
capital at San Diego, that town being about the
center of his jurisdiction. This did not suit the
people of Monterey, who became prejudiced
against the new governor. Shortly after his
inauguration he began an investigation of the
attitude of the mission friars towards the re-
public of Mexico. He called padres Sanches,
Zalvidea, Peyri and Martin, representatives of
the four southern missions, to San Diego and
demanded of them whether they would take the
oath of allegiance to the Supreme government.
They expressed their willingness and were ac-
cordingly sworn to support the constitution of
1824. Many of the friars of the northern mis-
sions remained contumacious. Among the
most stubborn of these was Padre Vicente
Francisco de Sarria, former president of the
missions. He had resigned the presidency to
escape taking the oath of allegiance and still
continued his opposition. He was put under ar-
rest and an order issued for his expulsion by
the supreme government, but the execution of
the order was delayed for fear that if he were
banished others of the disloyal padres would
abandon their missions and secretly leave the
country. The government was not ready yet to
take possession of the missions. The friars
could keep the neophytes in subjection and
make them work. The business of the country
was in the hands of the friars and any radical
change would have been disastrous.
| OSE MARIA ECHEANDIA, a lieutenant
The national government in 1827 had issued
a decree for the expulsion of Spaniards from
Mexican territory. There were certain classes
of those born in Spain who were exempt from
banishment, but the friars were not among the
exempts. The decree of expulsion reached Cal-
ifornia in 1828; but it was not enforced for the
reason that all of the mission padres except
three were Spaniards. To have sent these out
of the country would have demoralized the mis-
sions. The Spanish friars were expelled from
Mexico; but those in California, although some
of them had boldly proclaimed their willingness
to die for their king and their religion and de-
manded their passports to leave the country,
were allowed to remain in the country. Their
passports were not given them for reasons
above stated. Padres Ripoll and Altimira made
their escape without passports. They secretly
took passage on an American brig lying at
Santa Barbara. Orders were issued to seize the
vessel should she put into any other harbor on
the coast, but the captain, who no doubt had
been liberally paid, took no chance of capture
and the padres eventually reached Spain in
safety. There was a suspicion that the two
friars had taken with them a large amount of
money from the mission funds, but nothing was
proved. It was certain that they carried away
something more than the bag and staff, the only
property allowed them by the rules of their
order. -
The most bitter opponent of the new govern-
ment was Father Luis Antonio Martinez of San
Luis Obispo. Before the clandestine departure
of Ripoll and Altimira there were rumors that
he meditated a secret departure from the coun-
try. The mysterious shipment of $6,000 in gold
belonging to the mission on a vessel called the
Santa Apolonia gave credence to the report of
He had been given a pass-
His
his intended flight.
port but still remained in the territory.
88 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
outspoken disloyalty and his well known suc-
cess in evading the revenue laws and smuggling
goods into the country had made him particu-
larly obnoxious to the authorities. Governor
Echeandía determined to make an example of
him. He was arrested in February, 1830, and
confined in a room at Santa Barbara. In his
trial before a council of war an attempt was
made to connect him with complicity in the Solis
revolution, but the evidence against him was
weak. By a vote of five to one it was decided
to send him out of the country. He was put
on board an English vessel bound for Callao and
there transferred to a vessel bound for Europe;
he finally arrived safely at Madrid.
Under the empire a diputacion or provincial
legislature had been established in California.
Arguello in 1825 had suppressed this while he
was governor. Echeandia, shortly after his ar-
rival, ordered an election for a new diputacion.
The diputacion made the general laws of the
territory. It consisted of seven members called
vocals. These were chosen by an electoral
junta, the members of which were elected by
the people. The diputacion chose a diputado or
delegate to the Mexican Congress. As it was a
long distance for some of the members to travel
to the territorial capital a suplente or substitute
was chosen for each member, so as to assure a
quorum. The diputacion called by Echeandia
met at Monterey, June 14, 1828. The sessions,
of which there were two each week, were held in
the governor's palacio. This diputacion passed
a rather peculiar revenue law. It taxed domestic
aguardiente (grape brandy) $5 a barrel and
wine half that amount in the jurisdictions of
Monterey and San Francisco; but in the juris-
dictions of Santa Barbara and San Diego the
rates were doubled, brandy was taxed $10
a barrel and wine $5. San Diego, Los An-
geles and Santa Barbara were wine producing
districts, while Monterey and San Francisco
were not. As there was a larger consumption of
the product in the wine producing districts than
in the others the law was enacted for revenue
and not for prevention of drinking.
Another peculiar freak of legislation perpe-
trated by this diputacion was the attempt to
change the name of the territory. The supreme
government was memorialized to change the
name of Alta California to that of Montezuma
and also that of the Pueblo de Nuestra Señora
de los Angeles to that of Villa Victoria de la
Reyna de los Angeles and make it the capital
of the territory. A coat of arms was adopted
for the territory. It consisted of an oval with
the figure of an oak tree on one side, an olive
tree on the other and a plumed Indian in the
center with his bow and quiver, just in the
act of stepping across the mythical straits
of Anian. The memorial was sent to Mexico,
but the supreme government paid no attention
to it.
The political upheavals, revolutions and coun-
ter revolutions that followed the inauguration
of a republican form of government in Mexico
demoralized the people and produced a prolific
crop of criminals. The jails were always full
and it became a serious question what to do
with them. It was proposed to make California
a penal colony, similar to England's Botany
Bay. Orders were issued to send criminals to
California as a means of reforming their mor-
als. The Californians protested against the
sending of these undesirable immigrants, but in
vain. In February, 1830, the brig Maria Ester
brought eighty convicts from Acapulco to San
Diego. They were not allowed to land there
and were taken to Santa Barbara. What to
do with them was a serious question with the
Santa Barbara authorities. The jail would not
hold a tenth part of the shipment and to turn
them loose in the sparsely settled country was
dangerous to the peace of the community. Fin-
ally, about thirty or forty of the worst of the
bad lot were shipped over to the island of Santa
Cruz. They were given a supply of cattle, some
fishhooks and a few tools and turned loose on
the island to shift for themselves. They staid
on the island until they had slaughtered and
eaten the cattle, then they built a raft and
drifted back to Santa Barbara, where they
quartered themselves on the padres of the mis-
sion. Fifty more were sent from Mexico a few
months later. These shipments of prison exiles
were distributed around among the settlements.
Some served out their time and returned to their
native land, a few escaped over the border,
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. S9
others remained in the territory after their time
was up and became fairly good citizens.
The colonization law passed by the Mexican
Congress August 18, 1824, was the first break
in the proscriptive regulations that had pre-
vailed in Spanish-American countries since their
settlement. Any foreigner of good character
who should locate in the country and become a
Roman Catholic could obtain a grant of public
land, not exceeding eleven leagues; but no for-
eigner was allowed to obtain a grant within
twenty leagues of the boundary of a foreign
country nor within ten leagues of the sea coast.
The law of April 14, 1828, allowed foreigners
to become naturalized citizens. The applicant
was required to have resided at least two years
in the country, to be or to become a Roman
Catholic, to renounce allegiance to his former
country and to swear to support the constitution
and laws of the Mexican republic. Quite a
number of foreigners who had been residing
a number of years in California took advantage
of this law and became Mexican citizens by nat-
uralization. The colonization law of Novem-
ber 18, 1828, prescribed a series of rules and
regulations for the making of grants of land.
Colonists were required to settle on and culti-
vate the land granted within a specified time or
forfeit their grants. Any one residing outside
of the republic could not retain possession of
his land. The minimum size of a grant as de-
fined by this law was two hundred varas Square
of irrigable land, eight hundred varas Square
of arable land (depending on the seasons) and
twelve hundred varas square grazing land. The
size of a house lot was one hundred varas
Square.
The Californians had grown accustomed to
foreigners coming to the country by sea, but
they were not prepared to have them come over-
land. The mountains and deserts that inter-
vened between the United States and California
were supposed to be an insurmountable barrier
to foreign immigration by land. It was no doubt
with feelings of dismay, mingled with anger,
that Governor Echeandia received the advance
guard of maldito estranjeros, who came across
the continent. Echeandia hated foreigners and
particularly Americans. The pioneer of over-
his first expedition to California.
land travel from the United States to California
was Capt. Jedediah S. Smith. Smith was born
in Connecticut and when quite young came
with his father to Ohio and located in Ashtabula
county, where he grew to manhood amid the
rude surroundings of pioneer life in the west.
By some means he obtained a fairly good educa-
tion. We have no record of when he began the
life of a trapper. We first hear of him as an
employe of General Ashley in 1822. He had
command of a band of trappers on the waters of
the Snake river in 1824. Afterwards he became
a partner of Ashley under the firm name of
Ashley & Smith and subsequently one of the
members of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company.
The latter company had about 1825 established
a post and fort near Great Salt Lake. From
this, August 22, 1826, Captain Smith with a
band of fifteen hunters and trappers started on
His object
was to find some new country that had not been
Occupied by a fur company. Traveling in a south-
westerly direction he discovered a river which
he named Adams (after President John Quincy
Adams) now known as the Rio Virgin. This
stream he followed down to its junction with
the Colorado. Traveling down the latter river
he arrived at the Mojave villages, where he
rested fifteen days. Here he found two wander-
ing neophytes, who guided his party across the
desert to the San Gabriel mission, where he and
his men arrived safely early in December, 1826.
The arrival of a party of armed Americans
from across the mountains and deserts alarmed
the padres and couriers were hastily dispatched
to Governor Echeandia at San Diego. The
Americans were placed under arrest and com-
pelled to give up their arms. Smith was taken
to San Diego to give an account of himself. He
claimed that he had been compelled to enter
the territory on account of the loss of horses
and a scarcity of provisions. He was finally re-
leased from prison upon the endorsement of
several American ship captains and supercar-
goes who were then at San Diego. He was al-
lowed to return to San Gabriel, where he pur-
chased horses and supplies. He moved his camp
to San Bernardino, where he remained until
Pebruary. The authorities had grown uneasy
90 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
at his continued presence in the country and
orders were sent to arrest him, but before this
could be done he left for the Tulare country by
way of Cajon Pass. He trapped on the tribu-
taries of the San Joaquin. By the 1st of May
he and his party had reached a fork of the Sac-
ramento (near where the town of Folsom now
stands). Here he established a summer camp
and the river ever since has been known as the
American fork from that circumstance.
Here again the presence of the Americans
worried the Mexican authorities. Smith wrote
a conciliatory letter to Padre Duran, president
of the missions, informing him that he had
“made several efforts to pass over the moun-
tains, but the snow being so deep I could not
succeed in getting over. I returned to this
place, it being the only point to kill meat, to
wait a few weeks until the snow melts so that I
can go on.” “On May 20, 1827,” Smith writes,
“with two men, seven horses and two mules, I
started from the valley. In eight days we
crossed Mount Joseph, losing two horses and
One mule. After a march of twenty days east-
ward from Mount Joseph (the Sierra Nevadas)
I reached the southwesterly corner of the Great
Salt Lake. The country separating it from the
mountains is arid and without game. Often we
had no water for two days at a time. When
we reached Salt Lake we had left only one horse
and one mule, so exhausted that they could
hardly carry our slight baggage. We had been
forced to eat the horses that had succumbed.”
Smith's route over the Sierras to Salt Lake
was substantially the same as that followed by the
overland emigration of later years. He discov-
ered the Humboldt, which he named the Mary
river, a name it bore until changed by Fremont
in 1845. He was the first white man to cross
the Sierra Nevadas. Smith left his party of
trappers except the two who accompanied him
in the Sacramento valley. He returned next
year with reinforcements and was ordered out
of the country by the governor. He traveled up
the coast towards Oregon. On the Umpqua
river he was attacked by the Indians. All his
party except himself and two others were mas-
sacred. He lost all of his horses and furs. He
reached Fort Vancouver, his clothing torn to
rags and almost starved to death. In 1831 he
started with a train of wagons to Santa Fe on a
trading expedition. While alone searching for
water near the Cimarron river he was set upon
by a party of Indians and killed. Thus perished
by the hands of cowardly savages in the wilds of
New Mexico a man who, through almost in-
credible dangers and sufferings, had explored
an unknown region as vast in extent as that
which gave fame and immortality to the African
explorer, Stanley; and who marked out trails
over mountains and across deserts that Fre-
mont following years afterwards won the title
of “Pathfinder of the Great West.” Smith led
the advance guard of the fur trappers to Cali-
fornia. Notwithstanding the fact that they were
unwelcome visitors these adventurers continued
to come at intervals up to 1845. They trapped
on the tributaries of the San Joaquin, Sacramento
and the rivers in the northern part of the terri-
tory. A few of them remained in the country
and became permanent residents, but most of
them sooner or later met death by the Savages.
Capt. Jedediah S. Smith marked out two of
the great immigrant trails by which the overland
travel, after the discovery of gold, entered Cal-
ifornia, one by way of the Humboldt river over
the Sierra Nevadas, the other southerly from
Salt Lake, Utah Lake, the Rio Virgin, across
the Colorado desert, through the Cajon Pass to
Los Angeles. A third immigrant route was
blazed by the Pattie party. This route led from
Santa Fe, across New Mexico, down the Gila
to the Colorado and from thence across the
desert through the San Gorgonio Pass to Los
Angeles. *
This party consisted of Sylvester Pattie,
James Ohio Pattie, his son, Nathaniel M.
Pryor, Richard Laughlin, Jesse Furguson, Isaac
Stover, William Pope and James Puter. The
Patties left Kentucky in 1824 and followed trap
ping in New Mexico and Arizona until 1827;
the elder Pattie for a time managing the cop-
per mines of Santa Rita. In May, 1827, Pattie
the elder, in command of a party of thirty trap-
pers and hunters, set out to trap the tributaries
of the Colorado. Losses by Indian hostilities,
by dissensions and desertions reduced the party
to eight persons. December 1st, 1827, while
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 91
these were encamped on the Colorado near the
mouth of the Gila, the Yuma Indians Stole all
their horses. They constructed rafts and floated
down the Colorado, expecting to find Spanish
settlements on its banks, where they hoped to
procure horses to take them back to Santa Fe.
They floated down the river until they encoun-
tered the flood tide from the gulf. Finding it
impossible to go ahead on account of the tide
or back on account of the river current, they
landed, cached their furs and traps and with
two days' supply of beaver meat struck Out
westerly across the desert. After traveling for
twenty-four days and suffering almost incredible
hardships they reached the old Mission of Santa
Catalina near the head of the Gulf of California.
Here they were detained until news of their ar-
rival could be sent to Governor Echeandia at
San Diego. A guard of sixteen soldiers was sent
for them and they were conducted to San Diego,
where they arrived February 27, 1828. Their
arms were taken from them and they were put
in prison. The elder Pattie died during their
imprisonment. In September all the party ex-
cept young Pattie, who was retained as a host-
age, were released and permitted to go after
their buried furs. They found their furs had been
ruined by the overflow of the river. Two of the
party, Slover and Pope, made their way back
to Santa Fe; the others returned, bringing with
them their beaver traps. They were again im-
prisoned by Governor Echeandia, but were fin-
ally released.
Three of the party, Nathaniel M. Pryor,
Richard Laughlin and Jesse Furguson, became
permanent residents of California. Young Pat-
tie returned to the United States by way of
Mexico. After his return, with the assistance
of the Rev. Timothy Flint, he wrote an account
of his adventures, which was published in Cin-
cinnati in 1833, under the title of “Pattie's Nar-
rative.” Young Pattie was inclined to exaggera-
tion. In his narrative he claims that with vac-
cine matter brought by his father from the
Santa Rita mines he vaccinated twenty-two
thousand people in California. In Los Angeles
alone, he vaccinated twenty-five hundred,
which was more than double the population of
the town in 1828. He took a contract from the
president of the missions to vaccinate all the
neophytes in the territory. When his job was
finished the president offered him in pay five
hundred cattle and five hundred mules
with land to pasture his stock on condition
he would become a Roman Catholic and
a citizen of Mexico. Pattie scorned the of-
fer and roundly upbraided the padre for taking
advantage of him. He had previously given
Governor Eacheandia a tongue lashing and had
threatened to shoot him on sight. From his
narrative he seems to have put in most of his
time in California blustering and threatening to
shoot somebody.
Another famous trapper of this period was
“Peg Leg” Smith. His real name was Thomas
L. Smith. It is said that in a fight with the
Indians his leg below the knee was shattered by
a bullet. He coolly amputated his leg at the
knee with no other instrument than his hunting
knife. He wore a wooden leg and from this
came his nickname. He first came to California
in 1829. He was ordered out of the country.
He and his party took their departure, but with
them went three or four hundred California
horses. He died in a San Francisco hospital in
I866.
Ewing Young, a famous captain of trappers,
made several visits to California from 1830 to
1837. In 1831 he led a party of thirty hunters
and trappers, among those of his party who
remained in California was Col. J. J. Warner,
who became prominent in the territory and
state. In 1837 Ewing Young with a party of
sixteen men came down from Oregon, where
he finally located, to purchase cattle for the new
settlements on the Willamette river. They
bought seven hundred cattle at $3 per head from
the government and drove them overland to
Oregon, reaching there after a toilsome journey
of four months with six hundred. Young died
in Oregon in 1841. - .
From the downfall of Spanish domination in
1822, to the close of that decade there had been
but few political disturbances in California. The
only one of any consequence was Solis’ and
Herrera's attempt to revolutionize the territory
and seize the government. José Maria Herrera
had come to California as a commissioner of
92 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. º
the commissary department, but after a short
term of service had been removed from office
for fraud. Joaquin Solis was a convict who was
serving a ten years sentence of banishment from
Mexico. The ex-official and the exile with oth-
ers of damaged character combined to overturn
the government.
On the night of November 12, 1829, Solis,
with a band of soldiers that he had induced to
join his standard, seized the principal govern-
ment officials at Monterey and put them in
prison. At Solis’ solicitation Herrera drew up
a pronunciamento. It followed the usual line
of such documents. It began by deploring the
evils that had come upon the territory through
Echeandia's misgovernment and closed with
promises of reformation if the revolutionists
should obtain control of the government. To
obtain the sinews of war the rebels seized
$3,000 of the public funds. This was dis-
tributed among the soldiers and proved a great
attraction to the rebel cause. Solis with twen-
ty men went to San Francisco and the sol-
diers there joined his standard. Next he
marched against Santa Barbara with an army
of one hundred and fifty men. Echeandia on
hearing of the revolt had marched northward
with all the soldiers he could enlist. The two
armies met at Santa Ynez. Solis opened fire on
the governor's army. The fire was returned.
Solis' men began to break away and soon the
army and its valiant leader were in rapid flight.
Pacheco's cavalry captured the leaders of the
revolt. Herrara, Solis and thirteen others were
shipped to Mexico under arrest to be tried for
their crimes. The Mexican authorities, always
lenient to California revolutionists, probably
from a fellow feeling, turned them all loose
and Herrera was sent back to fill his former
Office.
Near the close of his term Governor
Echeandia formulated a plan for converting the
mission into pueblos. To ascertain the fitness
of the neophytes for citizenship he made an in-
vestigation to find out how many could read and
write. He found so very few that he ordered
schools opened at the missions. A pretense was
made of establishing schools, but very little was
accomplished. The padres were opposed to edu-
cating the natives for the same reason that the
Southern slave-holders were opposed to educat-
ing the negro, namely, that an ignorant people
were more easily kept in subjection. Echeandia's
plan of secularization was quite elaborate and
dealt fairly with the neophytes. It received the
sanction of the diputacion when that body met
in July, 1830, but before anything could be done
towards enforcing it another governor was ap-
pointed. Echeandía was thoroughly hated by
the mission friars and their adherents. Robin-
son in his “Life in California” calls him a man
of vice and makes a number of damaging asser-
tions about his character and conduct, which
are not in accordance with the facts. It was dur-
ing Echeandia's term as governor that the motto
of Mexico, Dios y Libertad (God and Liberty),
was adopted. It became immensely popular
and was used on all public documents and often
in private correspondence.
A romantic episode that has furnished a
theme for fiction writers occurred in the last
year of Echeandia’s rule. It was the elopement
of Henry D. Fitch with Doña Josefa, daughter
of Joaquin Carrillo of San Diego. Fitch was a
native of New Bedford, Mass. He came to Cal-
ifornia in 1826 as master of the Maria Ester.
He fell in love with Doña Josefa. There were
legal obstructions to their marriage. Fitch was
a foreigner and a Protestant. The latter objec-
tion was easily removed by Fitch becoming a
Catholic. The Dominican friar who was to per-
form the marriage service, fearful that he might
incur the wrath of the authorities, civil and cler-
ical, refused to perform the ceremony, but sug-
gested that there were other countries where
the laws were less strict and offered to go beyond
the limits of California and marry them. It is
said that at this point Doña Josefa said: “Why
don't you carry me off, Don Enrique?” The
suggestion was quickly acted upon. The next
night the lady, mounted on a steed with her
cousin, Pio Pico, as an escort, was secretly
taken to a point on the bay shore where a boat
was waiting for her. The boat put off to the
Vulture, where Captain Fitch received her on
board and the vessel sailed for Valparaiso,
where the couple were married. A year later
Captain Fitch returned to California with his
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 93
wife and infant son. At Monterey Fitch was
arrested on an order of Padre Sanchez of San
Gabriel and put in prison. His wife was also
placed under arrest at the house of Captain
Cooper. Fitch was taken to San Gabriel for trial,
“his offenses being most heinous.” At her in-
tercession, Governor Echeandia released Mrs.
Fitch and allowed her to go to San Gabriel,
where her husband was imprisoned in one of the
rooms of the mission. This act of clemency
greatly enraged the friar and his fiscal, Pa-
lomares, and they seriously considered the ques-
tion of arresting the governor. The trial
dragged along for nearly a month. Many wit-
nesses were examined and many learned points
of clerical law discussed. Vicar Sanchez finally
gave his decision that the marriage at Val-
paraiso, though not legitimate, was not null and
void, but valid. The couple were condemned
to do penance by "presenting themselves in
church with lighted candles in their hands to
hear high mass for three feast days and recite
together for thirty days one-third of the rosary
of the holy virgin.” In addition to these joint
penances the vicar inflicted an additional pen-
alty on Fitch in these words: “Yet considering
the great scandal which Don Enrique has
caused in this province I condemn him to give
as penance and reparation a bell of at least fifty
pounds in weight for the church at Los An-
geles, which barely has a borrowed one.” Fitch
and his wife no doubt performed the joint pen-
ance imposed upon them, but the church at Los
Angeles had to get along with its borrowed bell.
Don Enrique never gave it one of fifty pounds
or any other weight.
*Bancroft's History of California, Vol. III-I44.
CHAPTER XI.
REVOLUTIONS-THE HIJAR COLONISTS.
ANUEL VICTORIA was appointed
M governor in March, 1830, but did not
reach California until the last month
of the year. Victoria very soon became un-
popular. He undertook to overturn the civil
authority and substitute military rule. He
recommended the abolition of the ayunta-
mientos and refused to call together the ter-
ritorial diputacion. He exiled Don Abel
Stearns and José Antonio Carrillo; and at dif-
ferent times, on trumped-up charges, had half
a hundred of the leading citizens of Los An-
geles incarcerated in the pueblo jail. Alcalde
Vicente Sanchez was the petty despot of the
pueblo, who carried out the tyrannical decrees
of his master, Victoria. Among others who
were imprisoned in the cuartel was José Maria
Avila. Avila was proud, haughty and Over-
bearing. He had incurred the hatred of both
Victoria and Sanchez. Sanchez, under orders
from Victoria, placed Avila in prison, and to
humiliate him put him in irons. Avila brooded
over the indignities inflicted upon him and
vowed to be revenged.
Victoria's persecutions became so unbearable
that Pio Pico, Juan Bandini and José Antonio
Carrillo raised the standard of revolt at San
Diego and issued a pronunciamento, in which
they set forth the reasons why they felt them-
Selves obliged to rise against the tyrant, Vic-
toria. Pablo de Portilla, comandante of the
presidio of San Diego, and his officers, with a
force of fifty soldiers, joined the revolutionists
and marched to Los Angeles. Sanchez's pris-
oners were released and he was chained up in
the pueblo jail. Here Portilla's force was re-
cruited to two hundred men. Avila and a num-
ber of the other released prisoners joined the
revolutionists, and all marched forth to meet
Victoria, who was moving southward with an
armed force to suppress the insurrection. The
two forces met on the plains of Cahuenga, west
of the pueblo, at a place known as the Lomitas
de la Canada de Breita. The sight of his per-
secutor so infuriated Avila that alone he rushed
upon him to run him through with his lance.
Captain Pacheco, of Victoria’s staff, parried the
lance thrust. Avila shot him dead with one of
94 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
his pistols and again attacked the governor and
succeeded in wounding him, when he himself
received a pistol ball that unhorsed him. After
a desperate struggle (in which he seized Vic-
toria by the foot and dragged him from his
horse) he was shot by one of Victoria's soldiers.
I'ortilla's army fell back in a panic to Los An-
geles and Victoria's men carried the wounded
governor to the Mission San Gabriel, where
his wounds were dressed by Joseph Chapman,
who, to his many other accomplishments, added
that of amateur surgeon. Some citizens who
had taken no part in the fight brought the
bodies of Avila and Pacheco to the town.
“They were taken to the same house, the same
hands rendered them the last sad rites, and
they were laid side by side. Side by side knelt
their widows and mingled their tears, while
sympathizing countrymen chanted the solemn
prayers of the church for the repose of the
souls of these untimely dead. Side by side be-
neath the orange and the Olive in the little
churchyard upon the plaza sleep the slayer and
the slain.”
Next day, Victoria, supposing himself mor-
tally wounded, abdicated and turned over the
governorship of the territory to Echeandia. He
resigned the office December 9, 1831, having
been governor a little over ten months. When
Victoria was able to travel he was sent to San
Diego, from where he was deported to Mexico,
San Diego borrowing $125 from the ayunta-
miento of Los Angeles to pay the expense of
shipping him out of the country. Several years
afterwards the money had not been repaid, and
the town council began proceedings to recover
it, but there is no record in the archives to show
that it was ever paid. And thus it was that
California got rid of a bad governor and Los
Angeles incurred a bad debt.
January 10, 1832, the territorial legislature
met at Los Angeles to choose a “gefe politico,”
or governor, for the territory. Echeandia was
invited to preside but replied from San Juan
Capistrano that he was busy getting Victoria
out of the country. The diputacion, after wait-
ing some time and receiving no satisfaction
*Stephen C. Foster.
from Echeandía whether he wanted the office
or not, declared Pio Pico, by virtue of his office
of Senior vocal, “gefe politico.”
No sooner had Pico been sworn into office
than Echeandia discovered that he wanted the
office and wanted it badly. He protested against
the action of the diputacion and intrigued
against Pico. Another revolution was threat-
ened. Los Angeles favored Echeandía, al-
though all the other towns in the territory had
accepted Pico. (Pico at that time was a resi-
dent of San Diego.) A mass meeting was called
On February 12, 1832, at Los Angeles, to dis-
cuss the question whether it should be Pico or
Echeandia. I give the report of the meeting in
the quaint language of the pueblo archives:
“The town, acting in accord with the Most
Illustrious Ayuntamiento, answered in a loud
voice, saying they would not admit Citizen Pio
Pico as ‘gefe politico, but desired that Lieut.-
Col. Citizen José Maria Echeandia be retained
in office until the supreme government appoint.
Then the president of the meeting, seeing the
determination of the people, asked the motive or
reason of refusing Citizen Pio Pico, who was
of unblemished character. To this the people
responded that while it was true that Citizen
Pio Pico was to some extent qualified, yet they
preferred Lieut.-Col. Citizen José M. Echean-
dia. The president of the meeting then asked
the people whether they had been bribed, or
was it merely insubordination that they op-
posed the resolution of the Most Excellent Di-
putacion? Whereupon the people answered
that they had not been bribed, nor were they
insubordinate, but that they opposed the pro-
posed ‘gefe politico' because he had not been
named by the supreme government.”
At a public meeting February 19 the matter
was again brought up. Again the people cried
out “they would not recognize or obey any
other gefe politico than Echeandia.” The Most
Illustrious Ayuntamiento opposed Pio Pico for
two reasons: “First, because his name appeared
first on the plan to oust Gefe Politico Citizen
Manuel Victoria,” and “Second, because he,
Pico, had not sufficient capacity to fulfil the
duties of the office.” Then José Perez and José
Antonio Carrillo withdrew from the meeting,
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 95
saying they would not recognize Echeandia as
“gefe politico.” Pico, after holding the office
for twenty days, resigned for the sake of peace.
And this was the length of Pico's first term as
governor. -
Echeandia, by obstinacy and intrigue, had ob-
tained the coveted office, “gefe politico,” but he
did not long enjoy it in peace. News came
from Monterey that Capt. Agustin V. Zamo-
rano had declared himself governor and was
gathering a force to invade the South and en-
force his authority. Echeandia began at Once
marshaling his forces to oppose him. Ybarra,
Zamarano's military chief, with a force of one
hundred men, by a forced march, reached Paso
de Bartolo, on the San Gabriel river, where,
fifteen years later, Stockton fought the Mexican
troops under Flores. Here Ybarra found Cap-
tain Borroso posted with a piece of artillery and
fourteen men. He did not dare to attack him.
Echeandia and Borroso gathered a force of a
thousand neophytes at Paso de Bartolo, where
they drilled them in military evolutions. Ybar-
ra's troops had fallen back to Santa Barbara,
where he was joined by Zamorano with rein-
forcements. Ybarra's force was largely made up
of ex-convicts and other undesirable characters,
who took what they needed, asking no questions
of the owners. The Angelenos, fearing those
marauders, gave their adhesion to Zamorano's
plan and recognized him as military chief of the
territory. Captain Borroso, Echeandia's faith-
ful adherent, disgusted with the fickleness of
the Angelenos, at the head of a thousand
mounted Indians, threatened to invade the re-
calcitrant pueblo, but at the intercession of the
frightened inhabitants this modern Coriolanus
turned aside and regaled his neophyte retainers
on the fat bullocks of the Mission San Gabriel,
much to the disgust of the padres. The neo-
phyte warriors were disbanded and sent to their
respective missions.
A peace was patched up betwen Zamorano
and Echeandia. Alta California was divided
into two territories. Echeandia was given juris-
diction over all south of San Gabriel and Zamo-
rano all north of San Fernando. This division
apparently left a neutral district, or “no man's
land,” between. Whether Los Angeles was in
this neutral territory the records do not show.
. If it was, it is probable that neither of the gov-
ernors wanted the job of governing the rebel-
lious pueblo.
In January, 1833, Governor Figueroa arrived
in California. Echeandia and Zamorano each
surrendered his half of the divided territory to
the newly appointed governor, and California
was united and at peace. Figueroa proved to
be the right man for the times. He conciliated
the factions and brought order out of chaos.
The two most important events in Figueroa's
term of office were the arrival of the Hijar Col-
ony in California and the secularization of the
missions. These events, were most potent, fac-
tors in the evolution of the territory.
In 1833 the first California colonization
scheme was inaugurated in Mexico. At the
head of this was José Maria Hijar, a Mexican
gentleman of wealth and influence. He was
assisted in its promulgation by José M. Padres,
an adventurer, who had been banished from
California by Governor Victoria. Padres, like
some of our modern real estate boomers, pic-
tured the country as an earthly paradise—an
improved and enlarged Garden of Eden.
Among other inducements held out to the colo-
mists, it is said, was the promise of a division
among them of the mission property and a dis-
tribution of the neophytes for servants.
Headquarters were established at the city
of Mexico and two hundred and fifty colonists
enlisted. Each family received a bonus of
$IO, and all were to receive free transporta-
tion to California and rations while on the jour-
ney. Each head of a family was promised a
farm from the public domain, live stock and
farming implements; these advances to be paid
for on the installment plan. The orignal plan was
to found a colony somewhere north of San
Francisco bay, but this was not carried out.
Two vessels were dispatched with the colonists
—the Morelos and the Natalia. The latter was
compelled to put into San Diego on account of
sickness on board. She reached that port Sep-
tember 1, 1834. A part of the colonists on
board her were sent to San Pedro and from
there they were taken to Los Angeles and San
Gabriel. The Morelos reached Monterey Sep-
96 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
tember 25. Hijar had been appointed governor
of California by President Farias, but after the
sailing of the expedition, Santa Ana, who had
succeeded Farias, dispatched a courier over-
land with a countermanding order. By one of
the famous rides of history, Amador, the courier,
made the journey from the city of Mexico to
Monterey in forty days and delivered his mes-
sage to Governor Figueroa. When Hijar ar-
rived he found to his dismay that he was only
a private citizen of the territory instead of its
governor. The colonization scheme was aban-
doned and the immigrants distributed them-
selves throughout the territory. Generally they
were a good class of citizens, and many of them
became prominent in California affairs.
That storm center of political disturbances,
Los Angeles, produced but one small revolution
during Figueroa's term as governor. A party
of fifty or sixty Sonorans, some of whom were
Hijar colonists who were living either in the
town or its immediate neighborhood, assembled
at Los Nietos on the night of March 7, 1835.
They formulated a pronunciamiento against
Don José Figueroa, in which they first vigor-
ously arraigned him for sins of omission and
commission and then laid down their plan of
government of the territory. Armed with this
formidable document and a few muskets and
lances, these patriots, headed by Juan Gallado,
a cobbler, and Felipe Castillo, a cigarmaker, in
the gray light of the morning, rode into the
pueblo, took possession of the town hall and
the big cannon and the ammunition that had
been stored there when the Indians of San Luis
Rey had threatened hostilities. The slumbering
inhabitants were aroused from their dreams of
peace by the drum beat of war. The terrified
citizens rallied to the juzgado, the ayuntamiento
met, the cobbler statesman, Gallado, presented
his plan; it was discussed and rejected. The
revolutionists, after holding possession of the
pueblo throughout the day, tired, hungry and
disappointed in not receiving their pay for sav-
ing the country, surrendered to the legal author-
ities the real leaders of the revolution and
disbanded. The leaders proved to be Torres,
a clerk, and Apalategui, a doctor, both supposed
to be emissaries of Hijar. They were imprisoned
at San Gabriel. When news of the revolt
reached Figueroa he had Hijar and Padres ar-
rested for complicity in the outbreak. Hijar,
with half a dozen of his adherents, was shipped
back to Mexico. And thus the man who the
year before had landed in California with a
commission as governor and authority to take
possession of all the property belonging to the
missions returned to his native land an exile.
His grand colonization scheme and his “Com-
pania Cosmopolitana” that was to revolutionize
California commerce were both disastrous fail-
111 eS.
Governor José Figueroa died at Monterey
on the 29th of September, 1835. He is generally
regarded as the best of the Mexican governors
sent to California. He was of Aztec extraction
and took a great deal of pride in his Indian
blood.
CHAPTER XII.
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE MISSIONS.
nia have of late been a prolific theme
for a certain class of writers and espe-
cially have they dwelt upon the secularization
of these establishments. Their productions
have added little or nothing to our previous
knowledge of these institutions. Carried away
by sentiment these writers draw pictures of mis-
sion life that are unreal, that are purely imag-
T HE Franciscan Missions of Alta Califor-
inary, and aroused to indignation at the injus-
tice they fancy was done to their ideal institu-
tions they deal out denunciations against the
authorities that brought about Secularization as
unjust as they are undeserved. Such expres-
sions as “the robber hand of secularization,” and
“the brutal and thievish disestablishment of the
missions,” emanate from writers who seem to
be ignorant of the purpose for which the mis-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 97
sions were founded, and who ignore, or who
do not know, the causes which brought about
their secularization. º
It is an historical fact known to all acquainted
with California history that these establishments
were not intended by the Crown of Spain to
become permanent institutions. The purpose
for which the Spanish government fostered and
protected them was to Christianize the Indians
and make of them self-supporting citizens. Very
early in its history, Governor Borica, Fages and
other intelligent Spanish officers in California
discovered the weakness of the mission system.
Governor Borica, writing in 1796, said: “Ac-
cording to the laws the natives are to be free
from tutelage at the end of ten years, the mis-
sions then becoming doctrinairs, but those of
New California, at the rate they are advancing,
will not reach the goal in ten centuries; the rea-
son God knows, and men, too, know something
about it.” -
The tenure by which the mission friars held
their lands is admirably set forth in William
Carey Jones’ “Report on Land Titles in Cali-
fornia,” made in 1850. He says, “It had been
supposed that the lands they (the missions) oc-
cupied were grants held as the property of the
church or of the misson establishments as cor-
porations. Such, however, was not the case;
all the missions in Upper California were estab-
lished under the direction and mainly at the
expense of the government, and the missionaries
there had never any other right than to the
occupation and use of the lands for the purpose
of the missions and at the pleasure of the gov-
ernment. This is shown by the history and
principles of their foundation, by the laws in
relation to them, by the constant practice of
the government toward them and, in fact, by the
rules of the Franciscan order, which forbid its
members to possess property.”
With the downfall of Spanish domination in
Mexico came the beginning of the end of mis-
sionary rule in California. The majority of the
mission padres were Spanish born. In the war
of Mexican independence their sympathies were
with their mother country, Spain. After Mex-
ico attained her independence, some of them
refused to acknowledge allegiance to the repub-
lic. The Mexican authorities feared and dis-
trusted them. In this, in part, they found a pre-
text for the disestablishment of the missions and
the confiscation of the mission estates. There
was another cause or reason for secularization
more potent than the loyalty of the padres to
Spain. Few forms of land monopoly have ever
exceeded that in vogue under the mission system
of California. From San Diego to San Fran-
cisco bay the twenty missions established under
Spanish rule monopolized the greater part of the
fertile land between the coast range and the sea.
The limits of one mission were said to cover
the intervening space to the limits of the next.
There was but little left for other settlers. A
settler could not obtain a grant of land if the
padres of the nearest mission objected.
The twenty-four ranchos owned by the Mis-
sion San Gabriel contained about a million and
a half acres and extended from the Sea to the
San Bernardino mountains. The greatest
neophyte population of San Gabriel was in 1817,
when it reached 1,701. Its yearly average for
the first three decades of the present century
did not exceed 1,500. It took a thousand acres
of fertile land under the mission system to sup-
port an Indian, even the smallest papoose of the
mission flock. It is not strange that the people
clamored for a subdivision of the mission estates;
and secularization became a public necessity.
The most enthusiastic admirer of the missions
to-day, had he lived in California seventy years
ago, would no doubt have been among the loud-
est in his wail against the mission system.
The abuse heaped upon the Mexican authori-
ties for their secularization of these institutions
is as unjust as it is unmerited. The act of the
Mexican Congress of August 17, 1833, was
not the initiative movement towards their dis-
establishment. Indeed in their foundation their
secularization, their subdivision into pueblos,
was provided for and the local authorities were
never without lawful authority over them. In
the very beginning of missionary work in Alta
California the process of secularizing the mis-
sion establishments was mapped out in the fol-
lowing “Instructions given by Viceroy Bucarili
August 17, 1773, to the comandante of the new
establishments of San Diego and Monterey.
7
98 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Article 15, when it shall happen that a mission
is to be formed into a pueblo or village the
comandante will proceed to reduce it to the civil
and economical government, which, according
to the laws, is observed by other villages of this
kingdom; their giving it a name and declaring
for its patron the saint under whose memory
and protection the mission was founded.”
The purpose for which the mission was
founded was to aid in the settlement of the
country, and to convert the natives to Christian-
ity. “These objects accomplished the mission-
ary's labor was considered fulfilled and the es-
tablishment subject to dissolution. This view
of their purpose and destiny fully appears in
the tenor of the decree of the Spanish Cortes
of September 13, 1813. It was passed in conse-
quence of a complaint by the Bishop of Guiana
of the evils that affected that province on ac-
count of the Indian settlements in charge of
missions not being delivered to the ecclesiastical
ordinary, although thirty, forty and fifty years
had passed since the reduction and conversion
of the Indians.”
The Cortes decreed Ist, that all the new
reduciones y doctrinairs (settlements of newly
converted Indians) not yet formed into parishes
of the province beyond the sea which were in
charge of missionary monks and had been ten
years subjected should be delivered immediately
to the respective ecclesiastical ordinaries (bish-
ops) without resort to any excuse or pretext
conformably to the laws and cedulas in that
respect. Section 2nd, provided that the secular
clergy should attend to the spiritual wants of
these curacies. Section 3rd, the missionary
monks relieved from the converted settlements
shall proceed to the conversion of other
heathen.”
The decree of the Mexican Congress, passed
November 20, 1833, for the secularization of the
missions of Upper and Lower California, was
very similar in its provisions to the decree of the
Spanish Cortes of September, 1813. The Mex-
ican government simply followed the example
of Spain and in the conversion of the missions
into pueblos was attempting to enforce a prin-
*William Carey Jones' Report.
ciple inherent in the foundation of the emission-
ary establishments. That secularization resulted
disastrously to the Indians was not the fault
of the Mexican government so much as it was
the defect in the industrial and intellectual
training of the neophytes. Except in the case
of those who were trained for choir services in
the churches there was no attempt made to
teach the Indians to read or write. The padres
generally entertained a poor opinion of the
neophytes' intellectual ability. The reglamento
governing the secularization of the missions,
published by Governor Echeandia in 1830, but
not enforced, and that formulated by the diputa-
cion under Governor Figueroa in 1834, approved
by the Mexican Congress and finally enforced
in 1834-5-6, were humane measures. These reg-
ulations provided for the colonization of the
neophytes into pueblos or villages. A portion of
the personal property and a part of the lands
held by the missions were to be distributed
annong the Indians as follows:
"Article 5–To each head of a family and all
who are more than twenty years old, although
without families, will be given from the lands
of the mission, whether temporal (lands depend-
ent on the seasons) or watered, a lot of ground
not to contain more than four hundred varas
(yards) in length, and as many in breadth not
less than one hundred. Sufficient land for water-
ing the cattle will be given in common. The
outlets or roads shall be marked out by each vil-
lage, and at the proper time the corporation
lands shall be designated.” This colonization
Of the neophytes into pueblos would have
thrown large bodies of the land held by the mis-
sions open to settlement by white settlers. The
personal property of missionary establishments
was to have been divided among their neophyte
retainers thus: “Article 6. Among the said in-
dividuals will be distributed, ratably and justly,
according to the discretion of the political chief,
the half of the movable property, taking as a
basis the last inventory which the missionaries
have presented of all descriptions of cattle. Arti-
cle 7. One-half or less of the implements and
seeds indispensable for agriculture shall be al-
lotted to them.”
The political government of the Indian pu-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 99
eblos was to be organized in accordance with
existing laws of the territory governing other
towns. The neophyte could not sell, mortgage
or dispose of the land granted him; nor could
he sell his cattle. The regulations provided that
“Religious missionaries shall be relieved from
the administration of temporalities and shall
only exercise the duties of their ministry so far
as they relate to spiritual matters.” The nunner-
ies or the houses where the Indian girls were
kept under the charge of a duena until they
were of marriageable age were to be abolished
and the children restored to their parents. Rule
7 provided that “What is called the priest-
hood’ shall immediately cease, female children
whom they have in charge being handed over
to their fathers, explaining to them the care
they should take of them, and pointing out their
obligations as parents. The same shall be done
with the male children.” ".
Commissioners were to be appointed to take
charge of the mission property and superintend
its subdivision among the neophytes. The con-
version of ten of the missionary establishments
into pueblos was to begin in August, 1835. That
of the others was to follow as soon as possible.
San Gabriel, San Fernando and San Juan Capis-
trano were among the ten that were to be
secularized first. For years secularization had
threatened the missions, but hitherto Something
had occurred at the critical time to avert it.
The missionaries had used their influence
against it, had urged that the neophytes were
unfitted for self-support, had argued that the
emancipation of the natives from mission rule
would result in disaster to them. Through all
the agitation of the question in previous years
the padres had labored on in the preservation
and upbuilding of their establishments; but with
the issuing of the secularization decree by the
Mexican Congress, August 17, 1833, the or—
ganization of the Hijar Colony in Mexico and
the instructions of acting president Farias to
Hijar to occupy all the property of the missions
and subdivide it among the colonists on their
arrival in California, convinced the missionaries
that the blow could no longer be averted. The
revocation of Hijar's appointment as governor
and the controversy which followed between
him and Governor Figueroa and the diputacion
for a time delayed the enforcement of the de-
Cree.
In the meantime, with the energy born of de-
spair, eager at any cost to outwit those who
sought to profit by their ruin, the mission fath-
ers hastened to destroy that which through
more than half a century thousands of human
beings had spent their lives to accumulate. The
wealth of the missions lay in their herds of cat-
tle. The only marketable products of these were
the hides and tallow. Heretofore a certain num-
ber of cattle had been slaughtered each week
to feed the neophytes and sometimes when the
ranges were in danger of becoming over-
stocked cattle were killed for their hides and
tallow, and the meat left to the coyotes and the
carrion crows. The mission fathers knew that
if they allowed the possession of their herds to
pass to other hands neither they nor the
neophytes would obtain any reward for years of
The blow was liable to fall at any time.
Haste was required. The mission butchers could
not slaughter the animals fast enough. Con-
tracts were made with the rancheros to kill
on shares. The work of destruction began at
the missions. The country became a mighty
shambles. The matansas were no longer used.
An animal was lassoed on the plain, thrown, its
throat cut and while yet writhing in death agony,
its hide was stripped and pegged upon the
ground to dry. There were no vessels to con-
tain the tallow and this was run into pits in the
ground to be taken out when there was more
time to spare and less cattle to be killed. The
work of destruction went on as long as there
were cattle to kill. So great was the stench
from rotting carcasses of the cattle on the plains
that a pestilence was threatened. The ayunta-
miento of Los Angeles, November 15, 1833,
passed an ordinance compelling all persons
slaughtering cattle for the hides and tallow to
cremate the carcasses. Some of the rancheros
laid the foundations of their future wealth by ap-
propriating herds of young cattle from the mis-
sion ranges.
Hugo Reid, in the letters previously referred
to in this volume, says of this period at San
Gabriel, “These facts (the decree of secularization
labor.
* -
• * * *
100
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
and the distribution of the mission property)
being known to Padre Tomas (Estenaga), he,
in all probability, by order of his superior, com-
menced a work of destruction. The back build-
ings were unroofed and the timber converted
into fire wood. Cattle were killed on the halves
by people who took a lion's share. Utensils
were disposed of and goods and other articles
distributed in profusion among the neophytes.
The vineyards were ordered to be cut down,
which, however, the Indians refused to do.”
After the mission was placed in charge of an
administrator, Padre Tomas remained as min-
ister of the church at a stipend of $1,500 per
annum, derived from the pious fund.
Hugo Reid says of him, “As a wrong im-
pression of his character may be produced from
the preceding remarks, in justice to his memory,
be it stated that he was a truly good man, a sin-
cere Christian and a despiser of hypocrisy. He
had a kind, unsophisticated heart, so that he be-
lieved every word told him. There has never
been a purer priest in California. Reduced in
circumstances, annoyed on many occasions by
the petulancy of administrators, he fulfilled his
duties according to his conscience, with be-
nevolence and good humor. The nuns, who,
when the secular movement came into opera-
tion, had been set free, were again gathered to-
gether under his supervision and maintained at
his expense, as were also a number of old men
and women.”
The experiment of colonizing the Indians in
pueblos was a failure and they were gathered
back into the mission, or as many of them as
could be got back, and placed in charge of ad-
ministrators. “The Indians,” says Reid, “were
made happy at this time in being permitted to
enjoy once more the luxury of a tule dwelling,
from which the greater part had been debarred
for so long; they could now breathe freely
again.” (The close adobe buildings in which
they had been housed in mission days were no
doubt one of the causes of the great mortality
among them.)
“Administrator followed administrator until
the mission could support no more, when
the system was broken up.” " “The
Indians during this period were continually run-
y º
>< ::
ning off. Scantily clothed and still more scant-
ily supplied with food, it was not to be wondered
at. Nearly all the Gabrielinos went north, while
those of San Diego, San Luis and San Juan
Overrun this country, filling the Angeles and
Surrounding ranchos with more servants than
were required. Labor, in consequence, was
very cheap. The different missions, however,
had alcaldes continually on the move, hunting
them up and carrying them back, but to no pur-
pose; it was labor in vain.”
“Even under the dominion of the church in
mission days,” Reid says, “the neophytes were
addicted both to drinking and gaming, with
an inclination to steal;" but after their emanci-
pation they went from bad to worse. Those at-
tached to the ranchos and those located in the
town were virtually slaves. They had bosses
or owners and when they ran away were cap-
tured and returned to their master. The account
book for 1840 of the sindico of Los Angeles
contains this item, “For the delivery of two
Indians to their boss $12.”
In all the large towns there was an Indian
village known as the pueblito or little town.
These were the sink holes of crime and the
favorite resorts of dissolute characters, both
white and red. The Indian village at Los An-
geles between what is now Aliso and First street
became such an intolerable nuisance that on
petition of the citizens it was removed across
the river to the “Spring of the Abilas,” but its
removal did not improve its morals. Vicente
Guerrero, the sindico, discussing the Indian
question before the ayuntamiento said, “The In-
dians are so utterly depraved that no matter
where they may settle down their conduct would
be the same, since they look upon death even
with indifference, provided they can indulge in
their pleasures and vices.” This was their con-
dition in less than a decade after they were freed
from mission control.
What did six decades of mission rule accom-
plish for the Indian? In all the older missions
between their founding and their secularization
three generations of adults had come under the
influence of mission life and training—first, the
adult converts made soon after the founding;
second, their children born at the missions, and
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
101
third, the children of these who had grown to
manhood before the fall of the missions. How
great an improvement had the neophytes of the
third generation made over those of the first?
They had to a great extent lost their original
language and had acquired a speaking knowl-
edge of Spanish. They had abandoned or
forgotten their primitive religious belief, but
their new religion exercised but little influence
on their lives. After their emancipation they
went from bad to worse. Some of the more
daring escaped to the mountains and joining
the wild tribes there became the leaders in
frequent predatory excursions on the horses and
cattle of the settlers in the valleys. They were
hunted down and shot like wild beasts.
What became of the mission estates? As the
cattle were killed off the different ranchos of
the mission domains, settlers petitioned the
ayuntamiento for grants. If upon investigation
it was found that the land asked for was vacant
the petition was referred to the governor for his
approval. In this way the vast mission domains
passed into private hands. The country im-
proved more in wealth and population between
1836 and 1846 than in the previous fifty years.
Secularization was destruction to the mission
and death to the Indian, but it was beneficial
to the country at large. The decline of the mis-
sions and the passing of the neophyte had be-
gun long before the decrees of secularization
were enforced. Nearly all the missions passed
their zenith in population during the second
decade of the century. Even had the mission-
ary establishments not been secularized they
would eventually have been depopulated. At no
time during the mission rule were the number
of births equal to the number of deaths. When
recruits could no longer be obtained from the
Gentiles or wild Indians the decline became
more rapid. The mission annals show that from
I769 to 1834, when secularization was enforced
—an interval of sixty-five years—79,000 con-
verts were baptized and 62,000 deaths recorded.
The death rate among the neophytes was about
twice that of the negro in this country and
four times that of the white race. The extinc-
tion of the neophyte or mission Indian was
due to the enforcement of that inexorable law
or decree of nature, the Survival of the Fittest.
Where a stronger race comes in contact with
a weaker, there can be but one termination
of the contest—the extermination of the
weaker.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE FREE AND soverEIGN STATE OF ALTA CALIFoRNIA.
bed turned over the civil command of
the territory to José Castro, who there-
by became “geſe politico ad interem.” The
military command was given to Lieut.-Col.
Nicolas Gutierrez with the rank of comandante
general. The separation of the two commands
was in accordance with the national law of May
6, 1822.
Castro was a member of the diputacion, but
was not senior vocal or president. José An-
tonio Carrillo, who held that position, was
( tº: FIGUEROA on his death-
diputado or delegate to congress and was at
that time in the city of Mexico. It was he who
secured the decree from the Mexican Congress
May 23, 1835, making Los Angeles the capital
of California, and elevating it to the rank of a
city. The second vocal, José Antonio Estudillo,
was sick at his home in San Diego. José Cas-
tro ranked third. He was the only one of the
diputacion at the capital and at the previous
meeting of the diputacion he had acted as pre-
siding officer. Gutierrez, who was at San Ga-
briel when appointed to the military command,
hastened to Monterey, but did not reach there
until after the death of Figueroa. Castro, on
assuming command, sent a notification of his
appointment to the civil authorities of the dif-
ferent jurisdictions. All responded favorably
except San Diego and Los Angeles. San Diego
claimed the office for Estudillo, second vocal,
and Los Angeles declared against Castro be-
102
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
cause he was only third vocal and demanded that
the diputacion should meet at the legal capital
(Los Angeles) of the territory. This was the
beginning of the capital war that lasted ten years
and increased in bitterness as it increased in
age. The diputacion met at Monterey. It de-
cided in favor of Castro and against removing
the capital to Los Angeles.
Castro executed the civil functions of gefe
politico four months and then, in accordance
with orders from the supreme government, he
turned over his part of the governorship to
Comandante General Gutierrez and again the
two commands were united in One person.
Gutierrez filled the office of “gobernador in-
terno” from January 2, 1836, to the arrival of his
successor, Mariano Chico. Chico had been ap-
pointed governor by President Barragan, Decem-
ber 16, 1835, but did not arrive in California
until April, 1836. Thus California had four
governors within nine months. They changed
so rapidly there was not time to foment a rev-
olution. Chico began his administration by a
series of petty tyrannies. Just before his ar-
rival in California a vigilance committee at Los
Angeles shot to death Gervacio Alispaz and his
paramour, Maria del Rosaria Villa, for the mur-
der of the woman's husband, Domingo Feliz.
Alispaz was a countryman of Chico. Chico had
the leaders arrested and came down to Los
Angeles with the avowed purpose of executing
Prudon, Arzaga and Aranjo, the president, sec-
retary and military commander, respectively, of
the Defenders of Public Security, as the vigi-
lantes called themselves. He announced his
intention of arresting and punishing every man
who had taken part in the banishment of Gov-
ernor Victoria. He summoned Don Abel
Stearns to Monterey and threatened to have him
shot for some imaginary offense. He fulminated
a fierce pronunciamento against foreigners, that
incurred their wrath, and made himself so odious
that he was hated by all, native or foreigner.
He was a centralist and opposed to popular
rights. Exasperated beyond endurance by his
scandalous conduct and unseemly exhibitions of
temper the people of Monterey rose en masse
against him, and so terrified him that he took
passage on board a brig that was lying in the
§
harbor and sailed for Mexico with the threat
that he would return with an armed force to
punish the rebellious Californians, but he never
came back again.
With the enforced departure of Chico, the
civil command of the territory devolved upon
Nicolas Gutierrez, who still held the military
command. He was of Spanish birth and a cen-
tralist or anti-federalist in politics. Although a
mild mannered man he seemed to be impressed
with the idea that he must carry out the arbi-
trary measures of his predecessor. Centralism
was his nemesis. Like Chico, he was opposed
to popular rights and at one time gave Orders
to disperse the diputacion by force. He was
not long in making himself unpopular by at-
tempting to enforce the centralist decrees of the
Mexican Congress.
He quarreled with Juan Bautista Alvarado,
the ablest of the native Californians. Alvarado
and José Castro raised the standard of revolt.
They gathered together a small army of ranch-
eros and an auxiliary force of twenty-five Amer-
ican hunters and trappers under Graham, a
backwoodsman from Tennessee. By a strategic
Imovement they captured the castillo or fort
which commanded the presidio, where Gutierrez
and the Mexican army officials were stationed.
The patriots demanded the surrender of the
presidio and the arms. The governor refused.
The revolutionists had been able to find but
a single cannon ball in the castillo, but this was
sufficient to do the business. A well-directed
shot tore through the roof of the governor's
house, covering him and his staff with the debris
of broken tiles; that and the desertion of most
of his soldiers to the patriots brought him to
terms. On the 5th of November, 1836, he sur-
rendered the presidio and resigned his authority
as governor. He and about seventy of his ad-
herents were sent aboard a vessel lying in the
harbor and shipped out of the country.
With the Mexican governor and his officers
out of the country, the next move of Castro and
Alvarado was to call a meeting of the diputa-
cion or territorial congress. A plan for the
independence of California was adopted. This,
which was known afterwards as the Monterey
plan, consisted of six sections. the most im-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
103
portant of which were as follows: “First, Alta
California hereby declares itself independent
from Mexico until the Federal System of 1824
is restored. Second, the same California is
hereby declared a free and sovereign state; es-
tablishing a congress to enact the special laws
of the country and the other necessary Supreme
powers. Third, the Roman Apostolic Catholic
religion shall prevail; no other creed shall be
allowed, but the government shall not molest
anyone on account of his private opinions.”
The diputacion issued a declaration of independ-
ence that arraigned the mother country, Mexico,
and her officials very much in the style that our
own Declaration gives it to King George III.
and England.
Castro issued a pronunciamiento, ending with
Viva La Federacion! Viva La Libertad! Viva
el Estado Libre y Soberano de Alta California!
Thus amid vivas and proclamations, with the
beating of drums and the booming of cannon,
El Estado Libre de Alta California (The Free
State of Alta California) was launched on the
political sea. But it was rough sailing for the
little craft. Her ship of state struck a rock and
for a time shipwreck was threatened.
For years there had been a growing jealousy
between Northern and Southern California.
Los Angeles, as has been stated before, had by a
decree of the Mexican congress been made the
capital of the territory.
sistently refused to give up the governor and
the archives. In the movement to make Alta
California a free and independent state, the An-
geleſios recognized an attempt on the part of
the people of the north to deprive them of the
capital. Although as bitterly opposed to Mex-
ican governors, and as active in fomenting revo-
lutions against them as the people of Monterey,
the Angeleſios chose to profess loyalty to the
mother country. They opposed the plan of
government adopted by the congress at Mon-
terey and promulgated a plan of their own, in
which they declared California was not free;
that the “Roman Catholic Apostolic religion
shall prevail in this jurisdiction, and any person
publicly professing any other shall be pros-
ecuted by law as heretofore.” A mass meeting
was called to take measures “to prevent the
Monterey had per-
spreading of the Monterey revolution, so that
the progress of the nation may not be
paralyzed,” and to appoint a person to take mil-
itary command of the department.
San Diego and San Luis Rey took the part
of Los Angeles in the quarrel, Sonoma and San
José joined Monterey, while Santa Barbara, al-
ways conservative, was undecided, but finally
issued a plan of her own. Alvarado and Castro
determined to suppress the revolutionary An-
geleſios. They collected a force of one hun-
dred men, made up of natives, with Graham's
contingent of twenty-five American riflemen.
With this army they prepared to move against
the recalcitrant sureños.
The ayuntamiento of Los Angeles began
preparations to resist the invaders. An army of
two hundred and seventy men was enrolled, a
part of which was made up of neophytes. To se-
cure the sinews of war José Sepulveda, second al-
calde, was sent to the Mission San Fernando
to secure what money there was in the hands of
the major domo. He returned with two pack-
ages, which, when counted, were found to con-
tain $2,000.
Scouts patrolled the Santa Barbara road as
far as San Buenaventura to give warning of the
approach of the enemy, and pickets guarded the
Pass of Cahuenga and the Rodeo de Las Aguas
to prevent northern spies from entering and
southern traitors from getting out of the pueblo.
The southern army was stationed at San Fer-
nando under the command of Alferez (Lieut.)
Rocha. Alvarado and Castro, pushing down the
coast, reached Santa Barbara, where they were
kindly received and their force recruited to one
hundred and twenty men with two pieces of
artillery. José Sepulveda at San Fernando sent
to Los Angeles for the cannon at the town
house and $2OO of the mission money to pay his
111611.
On the 16th of January, 1837, Alvarado from
San Buenaventura dispatched a communication
to the ayuntamiento of Los Angeles and the
citizens, telling them what military resources
he had, which he would use against them if it
became necessary, but he was willing to confer
upon a plan of settlement. Sepulveda and An-
tonio M. Osio were appointed commissioners
104
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
and sent to confer with the governor, armed
with several propositions, the substance of
which was that California shall not be free and
the Catholic religion must prevail with the
privilege to prosecute any other religion, “ac-
cording to law as heretofore.” The commission-
ers met Alvarado on “neutral ground,” between
San Fernando and San Buenaventura. A long
discussion followed without either coming to the
point. Alvarado, by a coup d'état, brought it
to an end. In the language of the commission-
ers’ report to the ayuntamiento: “While we
were a certain distance from our own forces with
only four unarmed men and were on the point of
coming to an agreement with Juan B. Alvarado,
we saw the Monterey division advancing upon
us and we were forced to deliver up the instruc-
tions of this illustrious body through fear of
being attacked.” They delivered up not only
the instructions, but the Mission San Fer-
nando. The southern army was compelled to
surrender it and fall back on the pueblo, Rocha
swearing worse than “our army in Flanders”
because he was not allowed to fight. The south-
ern soldiers had a wholesome dread of Gra-
ham's riflemen. These fellows, armed with long
Kentucky rifles, shot to kill, and a battle once
begun somebody would have died for his coun-
try and it would not have been Alvarado's rifle-
111C11.
The day after the surrender of the mission,
January 21, 1837, the ayuntamiento held a ses-
sion and the members were as obdurate and
belligerent as ever. They resolved that it was
only in the interests of humanity that the mis-
sion had been surrendered and their army
forced to retire. “This ayuntamiento, consider-
ing the commissioners were forced to comply,
annuls all action of the commissioners and does
not recognize this territory as a free and sov-
ereign state nor Juan B. Alvarado as its gov-
ernor, and declares itself in favor of the Supreme
Government of Mexico.” A few days later Al-
varado entered the city without opposition, the
Angeleńian soldiers retiring to San Gabriel and
from there scattering to their homes.
On the 26th of January an extraordinary
session of the most illustrious ayuntamiento was
held. Alvarado was present and made a lengthy
speech, in which he said, “The native sons were
subjected to ridicule by the Mexican mandarins
sent here, and knowing our rights we ought to
shake off the ominous yoke of bondage.” Then
he produced and read the six articles of the
Monterey plan, the council also produced a plan
and a treaty of amity was effected. Alvarado
was recognized as governor pro tem. and peace
reigned. The belligerent sureños vied with each
other in expressing their admiration for the new
Order of things. Pio Pico wished to ex-
press the pleasure it gave him to see a “hijo
del pais” in office. And Antonio Osio,
the most belligerent of the sureños, declared
“that sooner than again submit to a Mexican
dictator as governor, he would flee to the forest
and be devoured by wild beasts.” The ayunta-
miento was asked to provide a building for the
government, “this being the capital of the state.”
The hatchet apparently was buried. Peace
reigned in El Estado Libre. At the meeting of
the town council, on the 30th of January, Al-
varado made another speech, but it was neither
conciliatory nor complimentary. He arraigned
the “traitors who were working against the
peace of the country” and urged the members to
take measures “to liberate the city from the
hidden hands that will tangle them in their own
ruin.” The pay of his troops who were ordered
here for the welfare of California is due “and
it is an honorable and preferred debt, therefore
the ayuntamiento will deliver to the government
the San Fernando money,” said he. With a
wry face, very much such as a boy wears when
he is told that he has been spanked for his own
good, the alcalde turned over the balance of
the mission money to Juan Bautista, and the
governor took his departure for Monterey,
leaving, however, Col. José Castro with part of
his army stationed at Mission San Gabriel, os-
tensibly “to support the city's authority,” but in
reality to keep a close watch on the city author-
ities.
Los Angeles was subjugated, peace reigned
and El Estado Libre de Alta California took her
place among the nations of the earth. But
peace's reign was brief. At the meeting of the
ayuntamiento May 27, 1838, Juan Bandini and
Santiago E. Arguello of San Diego, appeared
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
105
with a pronunciamiento and a plan, San
Diego's plan of government. Monterey, Santa
Barbara and Los Angeles had each formulated
a plan of government for the territory, and now
it was San Diego's turn. Agustin V. Zamorano,
who had been exiled with Governor Gutierrez,
had crossed the frontier and was made comand-
ante-general and territorial political chief ad
interim by the San Diego revolutionists. The
plan restored California to obedience to the
supreme government; all acts of the diputa-
cion and the Monterey plan were annulled and
the northern rebels were to be arraigned and
tried for their part in the revolution; and SO On
through twenty articles.
On the plea of an Indian outbreak near San
Diego, in which the redmen, it was said, “were
to make an end of the white race,” the big can-
non and a number of men were secured at Los
Angeles to assist in suppressing the Indians,
but in reality to reinforce the army of the San
Diego revolutionists. With a force of one hun-
dred and twenty-five men under Zamorano and
Portilla, “the army of the supreme government”
moved against Castro at Los Angeles. Castro
retreated to Santa Barbara and Portilla's army
took position at San Fernando.
The civil and military officials of Los Angeles
took the oath to support the Mexican consti-
tution of 1836 and, in their opinion, this
absolved them from all allegiance to Juan Bau-
tista and his Monterey plan. Alvarado hurried
reinforcements to Castro at Santa Barbara, and
Portilla called loudly for “men, arms and
horses,” to march against the northern rebels.
But neither military chieftain advanced, and the
summer wore away without a battle. There
were rumors that Mexico was preparing to send
an army of one thousand men to subjugate the
rebellious Californians. In October came the
news that José Antonio Carrillo, the Machiavelli
of California politics, had persuaded President
Bustamente to appoint. Carlos Carrillo, José's
brother, governor of Alta California.
Then consternation seized the arribeños (up-
pers) of the north and the abajeños (lowers) of
Los Angeles went wild with joy. It was not
that they loved Carlos Carrillo, for he was a
Santa Barbara man and had opposed them in
the late unpleasantness, but they saw in his ap-
pointment an opportunity to get revenge On
Juan Bautista for the way he had humiliated
them. They sent congratulatory messages to
Carrillo and invited him to make Los Angeles
the seat of his government. Carrillo was flat-
tered by their attentions and consented. The
6th of December, 1837, was set for his inaugura-
tion, and great preparations were made for the
event. The big cannon was brought over from
San Gabriel to fire salutes and the city was
ordered illuminated on the nights of the 6th,
7th and 8th of December. Cards of invitation
were issued and the people from the city and
country were invited to attend the inauguration
ceremonies, “dressed as decent as possible,” So
read the invitations.
The widow Josefa Alvarado's house, the fin-
est in the city, was secured for the governor's
palacio (palace). The largest hall in the city
was secured for the services and decorated as
well as it was possible. The city treasury, being
in its usual state of collapse, a subscription for
defraying the expenses was opened and horses,
hides and tallow, the current coin of the pueblo,
were liberally contributed.
On the appointed day, “the most illustrious
ayuntamiento and the citizens of the neighbor-
hood (so the old archives read) met his excellency,
the governor, Don Carlos Carrillo, who made
his appearance with a magnificent accompani-
ment.” The secretary, Narciso Botello, “read in
a loud, clear and intelligible voice, the oath, and
the governor repeated it after him.” At the
moment the oath was completed, the artillery
thundered forth a salute and the bells rang out
a merry peal. The governor made a speech,
when all adjourned to the church, where a mass
was said and a solemn Te Deum sung; after
which all repaired to the house of his excellency,
where the southern patriots drank his health in
bumpers of wine and shouted themselves hoarse
in vivas to the new government. An inaugura-
tion ball was held—the “beauty and the chivalry
of the south were gathered there.” Outside the
tallow dips flared and flickered from the porticos
of the house, bonfires blazed in the streets and
cannon boomed salvos from the old plaza. Los
Angeles was the capital at last and had a gov-
106
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
ernor all to herself, for Santa Barbara refused
to recognize Carrillo, although he belonged
within its jurisdiction.
The Angeleſios determined to subjugate the
Barbarefios. An army of two hundred men,
under Castenada, was sent to capture the city.
After a few futile demonstrations, Castenada's
forces fell back to San Buenaventura.
Then Alvarado determined to subjugate the
Angeleſios. He and Castro, gathering together
an army of two hundred men, by forced marches
reached San Buenaventura, and by a strategic
movement captured all of Castenada's horses
and drove his army into the mission church.
For two days the battle raged and, “cannon to
the right of them,” and “cannon in front of them
volleyed and thundered.” One man was killed
on the northern side and the blood of several
mustangs watered the soil of their native land—
died for their country. The southerners slipped
out of the church at night and fled up the val-
ley on foot. Castro's caballeros captured about
seventy prisoners. Pio Pico, with reinforce-
ments, met the remnant of Castenada's army at
the Santa Clara river, and together all fell back
to Los Angeles. Then there was wailing in the
old pueblo, where so lately there had been re-
joicing. Gov. Carlos Carrillo gathered to-
gether what men he could get to go with him
and retreated to San Diego. Alvarado's army
took possession of the southern capital and
some of the leading conspirators were sent as
prisoners to the castillo at Sonoma.
Carrillo, at San Diego, received a small re-
inforcement from Mexico, under a Captain
Tobar. Tobar was made general and given
command of the southern army. Carrillo, hav-
ing recovered from his fright, sent an order to
the northern rebels to surrender within fifteen
days under penalty of being shot as traitors if
they refused. In the meantime Los Angeles
was held by the enemy. The second alcalde
(the first, Louis Aranas, was a prisoner) called
a meeting to devise some means “to have his
excellency, Don Carlos Carrillo, return to this
capital, as his presence is very much desired by
the citizens to protect their lives and property.”
A committee was appointed to locate Don
Carlos.
Instead of surrendering, Castro and Alvarado,
with a force of two hundred men, advanced
against Carrillo. The two armies met at Campo
de Las Flores. General Tobar had fortified a
cattle corral with rawhides, carretas and cot-
tonwood poles. A few shots from Alvarado's
artillery scattered Tobar’s. rawhide fortifications.
Carrillo surrendered. Tobar and a few of the
leaders escaped to Mexico. Alvarado ordered
the misguided Angeleńian Soldiers to go home
and behave themselves. He brought the captive
governor back with him and left him with his
(Carrillo's) wife at Santa Barbara, who became
surety for the deposed ruler. Not content with
his unfortunate attempts to rule, he again
claimed the governorship on the plea that he
had been appointed by the supreme government.
But the Angeleſios had had enough of him.
Disgusted with his incompetency, Juan Gallardo,
at the session of May 14, 1838, presented a pe-
tition praying that this ayuntamiento do not rec-
ognize Carlos Carrillo as governor, and setting
forth the reasons why we, the petitioners,
“should declare ourselves subject to the north-
ern governor” and why they opposed Car-
rillo.
“First. In having compromised the people
from San Buenaventura south into a declara-
tion of war, the incalculable calamities of which
will never be forgotten, not even by the most
ignorant.
"Second. Not satisfied with the unfortunate
event of San Buenaventura, he repeated the
same at Campo de Las Flores, which, only
through a divine dispensation, California is not
to-day in mourning.” Seventy citizens signed
the petition, but the city attorney, who had done
time in Vallejo's castillo, decided the petition il-
legal because it was written on common paper
when paper with the proper seal could be ob-
tained.
Next day Gallardo returned with his petition
on legal paper. The ayuntamiento decided to
sound the “public alarm” and call the people to-
gether to give them “public speech.” The pub-
lic alarm was sounded. The people assembled
at the city hall; speeches were made on both
sides; and when the vote was taken twenty-two
were in favor of the northern governor, five
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
107
in favor of whatever the ayuntamiento decides,
and Serbulo Vareles alone voted for Don Carlos
Carrillo. So the council decided to recognize
Don Juan Bautista Alvarado as governor and
leave the supreme government to settle the con-
test between him and Carrillo.
Notwithstanding this apparent burying of the
hatchet, there were rumors of plots and in-
trigues in Los Angeles and San Diego against
Alvarado. At length, aggravated beyond en-
durance, the governor sent word to the sureños
that if they did not behave themselves he would
shoot ten of the leading men of the south. As
he had about that number locked up in the
castillo at Sonoma, his was no idle threat. One
by one Alvarado's prisoners of state were re-
leased from Vallejo's bastile at Sonoma and re-
turned to Los Angeles, sadder if not wiser men.
At the session of the ayuntamiento October 20,
1838, the president announced that Senior
Regidor José Palomares had returned from
Sonoma, where he had been compelled to go
by reason of “political differences,” and that he
should be allowed his seat in the council. The
request was granted unanimously. -
At the next meeting Narciso Botello, its for-
mer secretary, after five and a half months' im–
prisonment at Sonoma, put in an appearance and
claimed his office and his pay. Although others
had filled the Office in the interim the illustrious
ayuntamiento, “ignoring for what offense he was
incarcerated, could not suspend his salary.”
But his salary was suspended. The treasury
was empty. The last horse and the last hide had
>een paid out to defray the expense of the in-
auguration festivities of Carlos, the Pretender,
and the civil war that followed. Indeed there
was a treasury deficit of whole caballadas of
horses, and bales of hides. Narciso's back pay
was a preferred claim that outlasted El Estado
Libre. -
The Sureños Of Los Angeles and San Diego,
finding that in Alvarado they had a man of cour-
age and determination to deal with, ceased from
troubling him and submitted to the inevitable.
At the meeting of the ayuntamiento, October 5,
I839, a notification was received, stating that the
Supreme government of Mexico had appointed
Juan Bautista Alvarado governor of the depart-
ment. There was no grumbling or dissent. On
the contrary, the records say, “This illustrious
body acknowledges receipt of the communica-
tion and congratulated his excellency. It will
announce the same to the citizens to-morrow
(Sunday), will raise the national colors, salute
the same with the required number of volleys,
and will invite the people to illuminate their
houses for a better display in rejoicing at such
a happy appointment.” With his appointment
by the supreme government the “free and sov-
ereign state of Alta California” became a dream
Of the past—a dead nation. Indeed, months be-
fore Alvarado had abandoned his idea of found-
ing an independent state and had taken the oath
Of allegiance to the constitution of 1836. The
loyal Sureños received no thanks from the su-
preme government for all their professions, of
loyalty, whilst the rebellious arribeños of the
north obtained all the rewards—the governor,
the capital and the offices. The supreme gov-
ernment gave the deposed governor, Carlos
Carrillo, a grant of the island of Santa Rosa,
in the Santa Barbara Channel, but whether it
was given him as a salve to his wounded dignity
or as an Elba or St. Helena, where, in the event
of his stirring up another revolution, he might
be banished a la Napoleon, the records do not
inform us.
108
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
CHAPTER XIV.
DECLINE AND FALL OF
HILE the revolution begun by Al-
W varado and Castro had not established
California's independence, it had effect-
ually rid the territory of Mexican dictators.
A native son was governor of the depart-
ment of the Californians (by the constitu-
tion of 1836 Upper and Lower California had
been united into a department); another native
son was comandante of its military forces. The
membership of the departmental junta, which
had taken the place of the diputacion, was
largely made up of sons of the soil, and natives
filled the minor offices. In their zeal to rid
themselves of Mexican office-holders they had
invoked the assistance of another element that
was ultimately to be their undoing.
During the revolutionary era just passed the
foreign population had largely increased. Not
only had the foreigners come by sea, but they
lad come by land. Capt. Jedediah S. Smith, a
New England-born trapper and hunter, was the
first man to enter California by the overland
route. A number of trappers and hunters came
in the early '30s from New Mexico by way of
the old Spanish trail. This immigration was
largely American, and was made up of a bold,
adventurous class of men, some of them not
the most desirable immigrants. Of this latter
class were some of Graham's followers.
By invoking Graham's aid to put him in
power, Alvarado had fastened upon his shoul-
ders an old Man of the Sea. It was easy enough
to enlist the services of Graham's riflemen, but
altogether another matter to get rid of them.
Now that he was firmly established in power,
Alvarado would, no doubt, have been glad to be
rid entirely of his recent allies, but Graham and
his adherents were not backward in giving him
to understand that he owed his position to them,
and they were inclined to put themselves on an
equality with him. This did not comport with
his ideas of the dignity of his office. To be
MEXICAN DOMINATION.
hailed by some rough buckskin-clad trapper
with “Ho! Bautista; come here, I want to speak
with you,” was an affront to his pride that the
governor of the two Californias could not
quietly pass over, and, besides, like all of his
countrymen, he disliked foreigners.
There were rumors of another revolution, and
it was not difficult to persuade Alvarado that
the foreigners were plotting to revolutionize Cal-
ifornia. Mexico had recently lost Texas, and
the same class of “malditos extranjeros” (wicked
Strangers) were invading California, and would
ultimately possess themselves of the country. Ac-
cordingly, secret orders were sent throughout
the department to arrest and imprison all for-
eigners. Over one hundred men of different
nationalities were arrested, principally Amer-
icans and English. Of these forty-seven were
shipped to San Blas, and from there marched
overland to Tepic, where they were imprisoned
for several months. Through the efforts of the
British consul, Barron, they were released.
Castro, who had accompanied the prisoners to
Mexico to prefer charges against them, was
placed under arrest and afterwards tried by
court-martial, but was acquitted. He had been
acting under orders from his superiors. After
an absence of over a year twenty of the exiles
landed at Monterey on their return from Mex-
ico. Robinson, who saw them land, says:
“They returned neatly dressed, armed with rifles
and swords, and looking in much better condi-
tion than when they were sent away, or probably
than they had ever looked in their lives before.”
The Mexican government had been compelled
to pay them damages for their arrest and im-
prisonment and to return them to California.
Graham, the reputed leader of the foreigners,
was the owner of a distillery near Santa Cruz,
and had gathered a number of hard characters
around him. It would have been no loss had he
never returned.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
109
The only other event of importance during
Alvarado's term as governor was the capture of
Monterey by Commodore Ap Catesby Jones, of
the United States navy. This event happened
after Alvarado's successor, Micheltorena, had
landed in California, but before the government
had been formally turned over to him.
The following extract from the diary of a
pioneer, who was an eye-witness of the affair,
gives a good description of the capture:
“MONTEREY, Oct. 19, 1842. –At 2 p.m. the
United States man-of-war United States, Com-
modore Ap Catesby Jones, came to anchor close
alongside and in-shore of all the ships in port.
About 3 p. m. Capt. Armstrong came ashore,
accompanied by an interpreter, and went direct
to the governor's house, where he had a private
conversation with him, which proved to be a
demand for the surrender of the entire coast of
California, upper and lower, to the United
States government. When he was about to go
on board he gave three or four copies of a
proclamation to the inhabitants of the two Cali-
fornias, assuring them of the protection of their
lives, persons and property. In his notice to the
governor (Alvarado) he gave him only until the
following morning at 9 a. m. to decide. If he
received no answer, then he would fire upon the
town.”
“I remained on shore that night and went
down to the governor's with Mr. Larkin and
Mr. Eagle. The governor had had some idea
of running away and leaving Monterey to its
fate, but was told by Mr. Spence that he should
not go, and finally he resolved to await the re-
sult. At 12 at night some persons were sent
on board the United States who had been ap-
pointed by the governor to meet the commodore
and arrange the terms of the surrender. Next
morning at half-past ten o'clock about one hun-
dred sailors and fifty marines disembarked. The
sailors marched up from the shore and took pos-
session of the fort. The American colors were
hoisted. The United States fired a salute of thir-
teen guns; it was returned by the fort, which fired
twenty-six guns. The marines in the meantime
had marched up to the government house. The
officers and soldiers of the California govern-
ment were discharged and their guns and other
arms taken possession of and carried to the fort.
The stars and stripes now wave over us. Long
may they wave here in California!”
“Oct. 21, 4 p.m.—Flags were again changed,
the vessels were released, and all was quiet again.
The commodore had received later news by
Some Mexican newspapers.”
Commodore Jones had been stationed at Cai-
lao with a squadron of four vessels. An English
fleet was also there, and a French fleet was
cruising in the Pacific. Both these were sup-
posed to have designs on California. Jones
learned that the English admiral had received
orders to sail next day. Surmising that his des-
tination might be California, he slipped out of
the harbor the night before and crowded all sail.
to reach California before the English admiral.
The loss of Texas, and the constant influx of im-
migrants and adventurers from the United
States into California, had embittered the Mex-
ican government more and more against
foreigners. Manuel Micheltorena, who had
served under Santa Anna in the Texas war,
was appointed January 19, 1842, comandante-
general inspector and gobernador propietario of
the Californias.
Santa Anna was president of the Mexican re-
public. His experience with Americans in
Texas during the Texan war of independence,
in 1836-37, had decided him to use every
effort to prevent California from sharing the fate
of Texas.
Micheltorena, the newly-appointed governor,
was instructed to take with him sufficient force
to check the ingress of Americans. He recruited
a force of three hundred and fifty men, prin-
cipally convicts enlisted from the prisons of
Mexico. His army of thieves and ragamuffins
landed at San Diego in August, I842.
Robinson, who was at San Diego when one
of the vessels conveying Micheltorena's cholos
(convicts) landed, thus describes them: “Five
days afterward the brig Chato arrived with
ninety soldiers and their families. I saw them
land, and to me they presented a state of
wretchedness and misery unequaled. Not one
individual among them possessed a jacket or
pantaloons, but, naked, and like the savage In-
dians, they concealed their nudity with dirty,
11()
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
miserable blankets. The females were not much
better off, for the scantiness of their mean ap-
parel was too apparent for modest observers.
They appeared like convicts, and, indeed, the
greater portion of them had been charged with
crime, either of murder or theft.”
Micheltorena drilled his Falstaffian army at
San Diego for several weeks and then began his
march northward; Los Angeles made great
preparations to receive the new governor. Seven
years had passed since she had been decreed the
capital of the territory, and in all these years
she had been denied her rights by Monterey.
A favorable impression on the new governor
might induce him to make the ciudad his capital.
. The national fiesta of September I6 was post-
poned until the arrival of the governor. The
best house in the town was secured for him
and his staff. A grand ball was projected
and the city illuminated the night of his arrival.
A camp was established down by the river and
the cholos, who in the meantime had been given
white linen uniforms, were put through the drill
and the manual of arms. They were incorrigible
thieves, and stole for the very pleasure of steal-
ing. They robbed the hen roosts, the orchards,
the vineyards and the vegetable gardens of the
citizens. To the Angeleſios the glory of their
city as the capital of the territory faded in the
presence of their empty chicken coops and
plundered orchards. They longed to speed the
departure of their now unwelcome guests. After
a stay of a month in the city Micheltorena and
his army took up their line of march northward.
He reached a point about twenty miles north
of San Fernando, when, on the night of the
24th of October, a messenger aroused him from
his slumbers with the news that the capital had
been captured by the Americans. Micheltorena
seized the occasion to make political capital for
himself with the home government. He spent
the remainder of the night in fulminating proc-
lamations against the invaders fiercer than the
thunderbolts of Jove, copies of which were dis-
patched post haste to Mexico. He even wished
himself a thunderbolt “that he might fly over
intervening space and annihilate the invaders.”
Then, with his own courage and doubtless that
of his brave cholos aroused to the highest
pitch, instead of rushing on the invaders, he and
his army fled back to San Fernando, where,
afraid to advance or retreat, he halted until news
reached him that Commodore Jones had re-
stored Monterey to the Californians. Then his
valor reached the boiling point. He boldly
marched to Los Angeles, established his head-
quarters in the city and awaited the coming
of Commodore Jones and his officers from Mon-
terey.
On the 19th of January, 1843, Commodore
Jones and his staff came to Los Angeles to meet
the governor. At the famous conference in
the Palacio de Don Abel, Micheltorena pre-
sented his articles of convention. Among other
ridiculous demands were the following: “Ar-
ticle VI. Thomas Ap C. Jones will deliver fif-
teen hundred complete infantry uniforms to re-
place those of nearly one-half of the Mexican
force, which have been ruined in the violent
march and the continued rains while they were
on their way to recover the port thus invaded.”
“Article VII. Jones "to pay $15,000 into the
national treasury for expenses incurred from the
general alarm; also a complete set of musical
instruments in place of those ruined on this
occasion.” Judging from Robinson's descrip-
tion of the dress of Micheltorena's cholos it is
doubtful whether there was an entire uniform
among them.
“The commodore's first impulse,” writes a
member of his staff, “was to return the papers
without comment and to refuse further com-
munication with a man who could have the ef-
frontery to trump up such charges as those for
which indemnification was claimed.” The com-
modore on reflection put aside his personal feel-
ings, and met the governor at the grand ball in
Sanchez hall, held in honor of the occasion.
The ball was a brilliant affair, “the dancing
ceased only with the rising of the sun next
morning.” The commodore returned the articles
without his signature. The governor did not
again refer to his demands. Next morning,
January 21, 1843, Jones and his officers took
their departure from the city “amidst the beat-
ing of drums, the firing of cannon and the ring-
*Bancroft's History of California, Vol. IV.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
111
ing of bells, saluted by the general and his wife
from the door of their quarters. On the 31st
of December, Micheltorena had taken the oath
of office in Sanchez' hall, which stood on the
east side of the plaza. Salutes were fired, the
bells were rung and the city was illuminated
for three evenings. For the second time a gov-
ernor had been inaugurated in Los Angeles.
Micheltorena and his cholo army remained in
Los Angeles about eight months. The An-
geleſios had all the capital they cared for. They
were perfectly willing to have the governor and
his army take up their residence in Monterey.
The cholos had devoured the country like an
army of chapules (locusts) and were willing to
move on. Monterey would no doubt have gladly
transferred what right she had to the capital
iſ at the same time she could have transferred
to her old rival, Los Angeles, Micheltorena's
cholos. Their pilfering was largely enforced
by their necessities. They received little or no
pay, and they often had to steal or starve. The
leading native Californians still entertained their
old dislike to “Mexican dictators” and the ret-
inue of three hundred chicken thieves accom-
panying the last dictator intensified their hatred.
Micheltorena, while not a model governor,
lºad many good qualities and was generally liked
by the better class of foreign residents. He
made an earnest effort to establish a system of
public education in the territory. Schools were
established in all the principal towns, and ter-
ritorial aid from the public funds to the amount
of $500 each was given them. The school at
Los Angeles had over One hundred pupils in
attendance. His worst fault was a disposition
to meddle in local affairs. He was unreliable
and not careful to keep his agreements. He
might have succeeded in giving California a
stable government had it not been for the antip-
athy to his soldiers and the old feud between
the “hijos del pais” and the Mexican dictators.
These proved his undoing. The native sons
under Alvarado and Castro rose in rebellion.
In November, 1844, a revolution was inaugu-
rated at Santa Clara. The governor marched
with an army of one hundred and fifty men
against the rebel forces, numbering about two
hundred. They met at a place called the La-
guna de Alvires. A treaty was signed in which
Micheltorena agreed to ship his cholos back to
Mexico.
This treaty the governor deliberately broke.
He then intrigued with Capt. John A. Sutter of
New Helvetia and Isaac Graham to obtain as-
sistance to crush the rebels. January 9, 1845,
Micheltorena and Sutter formed a junction of
their forces at Salinas—their united commands
numbering about five hundred men. They
1narched against the rebels to crush them. But
the rebels did not wait to be crushed. Alvarado
and Castro, with about ninety men, started for
Los Angeles, and those left behind scattered
to their homes. Alvarado and his men reached
Los Angeles on the night of January 20, 1845.
The garrison stationed at the curate's house
was surprised and captured. One man was
killed and several wounded. Lieutenant Me-
dina, of Micheltorena's army, was the com-
mander of the pueblo troops. Alvarado's army
encamped on the plaza and he and Castro set
to work to revolutionize the old pueblo. The
leading Angelenos had no great love for Juan
Bautista, and did not readily fall into his
schemes. They had not forgotten their en-
forced detention in Vallejo's bastile during the
Civil war. An extraordinary session of the
ayuntamiento was called January 2I. Alvarado
and Castro were present and made eloquent ap-
peals. The records say: “The ayuntamiento
listened, and after a short interval of silence and
meditation decided to notify the senior member
of the department assembly of Don Alvarado
and Castros' wishes.”
They were more successful with the Pico
brothers. Pio Pico was senior vocal, and in
case Micheltorena was disposed he, by virtue of
his office, would become governor. Through
the influence of the Picos the revolution gained
ground. The most potent influence in spread-
ing the revolt was the fear of Micheltorena's
army of chicken thieves. Should the town be
captured by them it certainly would be looted.
The department assembly was called together.
A peace commission was sent to meet Michel–
torena, who was leisurely marching southward.
and intercede with him to give up his proposed
invasion of the south. He refused. Then the
112
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
assembly pronounced him a traitor, deposed
him by vote and appointed Pio Pico governor.
Recruiting went on rapidly. Hundreds of sad-
dle horses were contributed, “old rusty guns
were repaired, hacked swords sharpened, rude
lances manufactured” and cartridges made for
the cannon. Some fifty foreigners of the South
joined Alvarado's army; not that they had
much interest in the revolution, but to protect
their property against the rapacious invaders—
the cholos—and Sutter's Indians,” who were as
much dreaded as the cholos. On the I9th of
February, Micheltorena reached the Encinos,
and the Angelenian army marched out through
Cahuenga Pass to meet him. On the 20th the
two armies met on the southern edge of the
San Fernando valley, about fifteen miles from
Los Angeles. Each army numbered about four
hundred men. Micheltorena had three pieces
of artillery and Castro two. They opened on
each other at long range and seem to have
fought the battle throughout at very long range.
A mustang or a mule (authorities differ) was
killed.
Wilson, Workman and McKinley of Castro's
army decided to induce the Americans on the
Other side, many of whom were their personal
friends, to abandon Micheltorena. Passing up
a ravine, they succeeded in attracting the atten-
tion of some of them by means of a white flag.
Gantt, Hensley and Bidwell joined them in the
ravine. The situation was discussed and the
Americans of Micheltorena's army agreed to
desert him if Pico would protect them in their
land grants. Wilson, in his account of the bat-
tle, says: “I knew, and so did Pico, that these
land questions were the point with those young
Americans. Before I started on my journey or
embassy, Pico was sent for; on his arrival
among us I, in a few words, explained to him
what the party had advanced. ‘Gentlemen,” said
he, are any of you citizens of Mexico?' They
answered ‘No.’ ‘Then your title deeds given
you by Micheltorena are not worth the paper
*Sutter had under his command a company of In-
dians. He had drilled these in the use of firearms.
The employing of these savages by Micheltorena was
bitterly resented by the Californians.
† Pub. Historical Society of Southern
Vol. III.
California,
they are written on, and he knew it well when
he gave them to you; but if you will abandon
his cause I will give you my word of honor as
a gentleman, and Don Benito Wilson and Don
Juan Workman to carry out what I promise,
that I will protect each one of you in the land
that you now hold, and when you become citi-
zens of Mexico I will issue you the proper ti-
tles.’ They said that was all they asked, and
promised not to fire a gun against us. They also
asked not to be required to fight on our side,
which was agreed to.
“Micheltorena discovered (how, I do not know)
that his Americans had abandoned him. About
an hour afterwards he raised his camp and
flanked us by going further into the valley to-
wards San Fernando, then marching as though
he intended to come around the bend of the
river to the city. The Californians and we for-
eigners at Once broke up our camp and came
back through the Cahuenga Pass, marched
through the gap into the Feliz ranch, on the
Los Angeles River, till we came into close
proximity to Micheltorena's camp. It was now
night, as it was dark when we broke up our
camp. Here we waited for daylight, and some
of our men commenced maneuvering for a fight
with the enemy. A few cannon shots were
fired, when a white flag was discovered flying
from Micheltorena's front. The whole matter
then went into the hands of negotiators ap-
pointed by both parties and the terms of sur-
render were agreed upon, one of which was that
Micheltorena and his obnoxious officers and
men were to march back up the river to the
Cahuenga Pass, then down on the plain to the
west of Los Angeles, the most direct line to
San Pedro, and embark at that point on a vessel
then anchored there to carry them back to Mex-
ico.” Sutter was taken prisoner, and his Indians,
after being corralled for a time, were sent back
to the Sacramento.
The roar of the battle of Cahuenga, or the
Alamo, as it is sometimes called, could be dis-
tinctly heard in Los Angeles, and the people
remaining in the city were greatly alarmed.
William Heath Davis, in his Sixty Years in Cal-
ifornia, thus describes the alarm in the town:
“Directly to the north of the town was a high
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
113
hill” (now known as Mt. Lookout). “As soon
as firing was heard all the people remaining in
the town, men, women and children, ran to the
top of this hill. As the wind was blowing from
the north, the firing was distinctly heard, five
leagues away, on the battle-field throughout the
day. All business places in town were closed.
The scene on the hill was a remarkable one,
women and children, with crosses in their hands,
kneeling and praying to the saints for the safety
of their fathers, brothers, sons, husbands, lovers,
cousins, that they might not be killed in the bat-
tle; indifferent to their personal appearance,
tears streaming from their eyes, and their hair
blown about by the wind, which had increased
to quite a breeze. Don Abel Stearns, myself and
others tried to calm and pacify them, assuring
them that there was probably no danger; some-
what against our convictions, it is true, judg-
ing from what we heard of the firing and from
our knowledge of Micheltorena's disciplined
force, his battery, and the riflemen he had with
him. During the day the scene on the hill con-
tinued. The night that followed was a gloomy
one, caused by the lamentations of the women
and children.” -
Davis, who was supercargo on the Don
Quixote, the vessel on which Micheltorena and
his soldiers were shipped to Mexico, claims that
the general “had ordered his command not to
injure the Californians in the force opposed to
him, but to fire over their heads, as he had no
desire to kill them.” -
Another Mexican-born governor had been
deposed and deported, gone to join his fellows,
Victoria, Chico and Gutierrez. In accordance
with the treaty of Cahuenga and by virtue of
his rank as senior member of the departmental
assembly, Pio Pico became governor. The hijos
del pais were once more in the ascendency.
José Castro was made comandante-general. Al-
varado was given charge of the custom house at
Monterey, and José Antonio Carrillo was ap-
pointed commander of the military district of
the south. Los Angeles was made the capital,
although the archives and the treasury remained
in Monterey. The revolution apparently had
been a success. In the proceedings of the Los
Angeles ayuntamiento, March 1, 1845, appears
S
this record: “The agreements entered into at
Cahuenga between Gen. Emanuel Michel-
torena and Lieut.-Col. José Castro were then
read, and as they contain a happy termination of
affairs in favor of the government, this Illustri-
ous Body listened with satisfaction and SO an-
swered the communication.”
The people joined with the ayuntamiento in
expressing their “satisfaction” that a “happy
termination” had been reached of the political
disturbances which had distracted the country.
But the end was not yet. Pico did his best to
conciliate the conflicting elements, but the old
sectional jealousies that had divided the people
of the territory would crop out. José Antonio
Carrillo, the Machiavel of the south, hated Cas-
tro and Alvarado and was jealous of Pico's good
fortune. He was the superior of any of them
in ability, but made himself unpopular by his
intrigues and his sarcastic speech. When Cas-
tro and Alvarado came south to raise the stand-
ard of revolt they tried to win him over. He
did assist them. He was willing enough to plot
against Micheltorena, but after the overthrow
of the Mexican he was equally ready to plot
against Pico and Castro. In the summer of
1845 he was implicated in a plot to depose Pico,
who, by the way, was his brother-in-law. Pico
placed him and two of his fellow conspirators,
Serbulo and Hilario Varela, under arrest. Car-
rillo and Hilario Varela were shipped to Mazat-
lan to be tried for their misdeed. Serbulo Va-
rela made his escape from prison. The two
exiles returned early in 1846 unpunished and
ready for new plots.
Pico was appointed gobernador proprietario,
or constitutional governor of California, Sep-
tember 3, 1845, by President Herrera. The su-
preme government of Mexico never seemed to
take offense or harbor resentment against the
Californians for deposing and sending home a
governor. As the officials of the supreme gov-
ernment usually obtained office by revolution,
they no doubt had a fellow feeling for the revolt-
ing Californians. When Micheltorena returned
to Mexico he was coldly received and a com-
missioner was sent to Pico with dispatches vir-
tually approving all that had been done.
Castro, too, gave Pico a great deal of uneasi-
114
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
ness. He ignored the governor and managed
the military affairs of the territory to suit him-
self. His headquarters were at Monterey and
doubtless he had the sympathy if not the en-
couragement of the people of the north in his
course. But the cause of the greatest uneasi-
ness was the increasing immigration from the
United States. A stream of emigrants from the
western states, increasing each year, poured
down the Sierra Nevadas and spread over the
rich valleys of California. The Californians rec-
ognized that through the advent of these “for-
eign adventurers,” as they called them, the “man-
ifest destiny” of California was to be absorbed by
the United States.
Mexico for men and arms and had been an-
swered by the arrival of Micheltorena and his
cholos. Pico appealed and for a time the Cali-
fornians were cheered by the prospect of aid.
Alvarado had appealed to .
In the summer of 1845 a force of six hundred
veteran soldiers, under command of Colonel
Iniestra, reached Acapulco, where ships were ly-
ing to take them to California, but a revolution
broke out in Mexico and the troops destined for
the defense of California were used to overthrow
President Herrera and to seat Paredes. Cali-
fornia was left to work out her own destiny
unaided or drift with the tide—and she drifted.
In the early months of 1846 there was a rapid
succession of important events in her history,
each in passing bearing her near and nearer to
a manifest destiny—the downfall of Mexican
domination in California. These will be pre-
sented fully in the chapter on the Acquisition of
California by the United States. But before
taking up these we will turn aside to review life
in California in the olden time under Spanish
and Mexican rule.
CHAPTER XV.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT—HOMES AND HOME-LIFE QF
THE CALIFORNIANS.
nia was semi-military and semi-clerical.
The governors were military officers and
had command of the troops in the territory, and
looked after affairs at the pueblos; the friars
were supreme at the missions. The municipal
government of the pueblos was vested in ayun-
tamientos. The decree of the Spanish Cortés
passed May 23, 1812, regulated the membership
of the ayuntamiento according to the popula-
tion of the town—“there shall be one alcalde
(mayor), two regidores (councilmen), and one
procurador-syndico (treasurer) in all towns
which do not have more than two hundred in-
habitants; one alcalde, four regidores and one
syndico in those the population of which ex-
ceeds two hundred, but does not exceed five
hundred.” When the population of a town ex-
ceeded one thousand it was allowed two al-
caldes, eight regidores and two syndicos. Over
the members of the ayuntamiento in the early
years of Spanish rule was a quasi-military offi-
| | NDER Spain the government of Califor-
cer called a comisionado, a sort of petty dictator
or military despot, who, when occasion required
or inclination moved him, embodied within him-
self all three departments of government, judi-
ciary, legislative and executive. After Mexico
became a republic the office of comisionado was
abolished. The alcalde acted as president of
the ayuntamiento, as mayor and as judge of
the court of first instance. The second alcalde
took his place when that officer was ill or ab-
sent. The syndico was a general utility man.
He acted as city or town attorney, tax collector
and treasurer. The secretary was an important
officer; he kept the records, acted as clerk of
the alcalde’s court and was the only municipal
officer who received pay, except the syndico,
who received a commission on his collections.
In 1837 the Mexican Congress passed a decree
abolishing ayuntamientos in capitals of depart-
ments having a population of less than four
thousand and in interior towns of less than
eight thousand. In 1839 Governor Alvarado
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
115
reported to the Departmental Assembly that no
town in California had the requisite population.
The ayuntamientos all closed January I, I840.
They were re-established in 1844. During their
abolition the towns were governed by prefects
and justices of the peace, and the special laws
or ordinances were enacted by the departmental
assembly. -
The jurisdiction of the ayuntamiento often
extended over a large area of country beyond
the town limits. That of Los Angeles, after the
secularization of the missions, extended over a
country as large as the state of Massachusetts.
The authority of the ayuntamiento was as ex-
tensive as its jurisdiction. It granted town lots
and recommended to the governor grants of
land from the public domain. In addition to
passing ordinances its members sometimes
acted as executive officers to enforce them. It
exercised the powers of a board of health, a
board of education, a police commission and a
street department. During the civil war be-
tween Northern and Southern California, in
1837-38, the ayuntamiento of Los Angeles
raised and equipped an army and assumed the
right to govern the southern half of the terri-
tory.
The ayuntamiento was spoken of as Muy
Ilustre (Most Illustrious), in the same sense
that we speak of the honorable city council, but
it was a much more dignified body than a city
council. The members were required to attend
their public functions “attired in black apparel.
so as to add solemnity to the meetings.” They
served without pay, but if a member was absent
from a meeting without a good excuse he was
liable to a fine. As there was no pay in the office
and its duties were numerous and onerous, there
was not a large crop of aspirants for council-
men in those days, and the Office usually sought
the man. It might be added that when it caught
the right man it was loath to let go of him.
The misfortunes that beset Francisco Pantoja
aptly illustrate the difficulty of resigning in the
days when office sought the man, not man the
office. Pantoja was elected fourth regidor of
the ayuntamiento of Los Angeles in 1837. In
those days wild horses were very numerous.
When the pasture in the foothills was exhausted
they came down into the valleys and ate up
the feed needed for the cattle. On this account,
and because most of these wild horses were
worthless, the rancheros slaughtered them. A
corral was built with wings extending out on
the right and left from the main entrance. When
the corral was completed a day was set for a
wild horse drive. The bands were rounded tip
and driven into the corral. The pick of the
caballados were lassoed and taken out to be
broken to the saddle and the refuse of the drive
killed. The Vejars had obtained permission
from the ayuntamiento to build a corral between
the Cerritos and the Salinas for the purpose of
corralling wild horses. Pantoja, being some-
thing of a sport, petitioned his fellow regidores
for a twenty days' leave of absence to join in
the wild horse chase. A wild horse chase was
wild sport and dangerous, too. Somebody was
sure to get hurt, and Pantoja in this one was
one of the unfortunates. When his twenty days'
leave of absence was up he did not return to
his duties of regidor, but instead sent his res-
ignation on plea of illness. His resignation was
not accepted and the president of the ayunta-
miento appointed a committee to investigate
his physical condition. There were no physi-
cians in Los Angeles in those days, so the com-
mittee took along Santiago McKinley, a canny
Scotch merchant, who was reputed to have some
knowledge of surgery. The committee and the
improvised surgeon held an ante-mortem in-
quest on what remained of Pantoja. The com-
mittee reported to the council that he was a
physical wreck; that he could not mount a
horse nor ride one when mounted. A native
Californian who had reached such a state of
physical dilapidation that he could not mount
a horse might well be excused from official du-
ties. To excuse him might establish a danger-
ous precedent. The ayuntamiento heard the
report, pondered over it and then sent it and
the resignation to the governor. The governor
took them under advisement. In the meantime
a revolution broke out and before peace was re-
stored and the governor had time to pass upon
the case Pantoja's term had expired by limita-
tion.
That modern fad of reform legislation, the
116
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
referendum, was in full force and effect in Cali-
fornia three-quarters of a century ago. When
some question of great importance to the com-
munity was before the ayuntamiento and the
regidores were divided in opinion, the alarma
publica or public alarm was sounded by the
beating of the long roll on the drum and all the
citizens were summoned to the hall of Sessions.
Any one hearing the alarm and not heed-
ing it was fined $3. When the citizens were con-
vened the president of the ayuntamiento, Speak-
ing in a loud voice, stated the question and the
people were given “public speech.” The ques-
tion was debated by all who wished to speak.
When all had had their say it was decided by a
show of hands.
The ayuntamientos regulated the Social func-
tions of the pueblos as well as the civic. Ordi-
nance 5, ayuntamiento proceedings of Los
Angeles, reads: “All individuals serenading pro-
miscuously around the street of the city at night
without first having obtained permission from
the alcalde will be fined $1.50 for the first of
fense, $3 for the second offense, and for the
third punished according to law.” Ordinance 4,
adopted by the ayuntamiento of Los Angeles,
January 28, 1838, reads: “Every person not
having any apparent occupation in this city or
its jurisdiction is hereby ordered to look for
work within three days, counting from the day
this ordinance is published; if not complied
with, he will be fined $2 for the first offense, $4
for the second offense, and will be given com-
pulsory work for the third.” From the reading
of the ordinance it would seem if the tramp
kept looking for work, but was careful not to
find it, there could be no offense and conse-
quently no fines or compulsory work.
Some of the enactments of the old regidores
would fade the azure out of the blue laws of
Connecticut in severity. In the plan of gov-
ernment adopted by the sureños in the rebellion
of 1837 appears this article: “Article 3. The
Roman Catholic Apostolic religion shall pre-
vail throughout this jurisdiction; and any per-
son professing publicly any other religion shall
be prosecuted.”
Here is a blue law of Monterey, enacted
March 23, 1816: “All persons must attend mass
and respond in a loud voice, and if any persons
should fail to do so without good cause they
will be put in the stocks for three hours.”
The architecture of the Spanish and Mexican
eras of California was homely almost to ugliness.
There was no external ornamentation to the
dwellings and no internal conveniences. There
was but little attempt at variety and the houses
were mostly of one style, square walled, tile cov-
ered, or flat roofed with pitch, and usually but
one story high. Some of the mission churches
were massive, grand and ornamental, while
others were devoid of beauty and travesties on
the rules of architecture. Every man was his
own architect and master builder. He had no
choice of material, or, rather, with his ease-
loving disposition, he chose to use that which
was most convenient, and that was adobe clay,
made into sun-dried brick. The Indian was the
brickmaker, and he toiled for his taskmasters,
like the Hebrew of old for the Egyptian, making
bricks without straw and without pay. There
were no labor strikes in the building trades then.
The Indian was the builder, and he did not
know how to strike for higher wages, because
lie received no wages, high or low. The adobe
bricks were moulded into form and set up to
dry. Through the long summer days they
baked in the hot sun, first on one side, then on
the other; and when dried through they were
laid in the wall with mud mortar. Then the
walls had to dry and dry perhaps through an-
other summer before the house was habitable.
Time was the essense of building contracts then.
There was but little wood used in house con- .
struction then. It was only the aristocrats who
could indulge in the luxury of wooden floors.
Most of the houses had floors of the beaten
earth. Such floors were cheap and durable.
Gilroy says, when he came to Monterey in 1814,
only the governor's house had a wooden floor.
A door of rawhide shut out intruders and
wooden-barred windows admitted sunshine and
air.
The legendry of the hearthstone and the fire-
side which fills so large a place in the home life
and literature of the Anglo-Saxon had no part
in the domestic system of the old-time Califor-
nian. He had no hearthstone and no fireside,
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
117
nor could that pleasing fiction of Santa Claus
coming down the chimney with toys on Christ-
mas eve that so delights the children of to-day
have been understood by the youthful Califor-
nian of long ago. There were no chimneys in
California. The only means of warming the
houses by artificial heat was a pan (or brasero)
of coals set on the floor. The people lived out
of doors in the open air and invigorating sun-
shine; and they were healthy and long-lived.
Their houses were places to sleep in or shelters
from rain.
The furniture was meager and mostly home-
made. A few benches or rawhide-bottomed
chairs to sit on; a rough table; a chest or two
to keep the family finery in ; a few cheap prints
of saints on the walls—these formed the furnish-
ings and the decorations of the living rooms of
the common people. The bed was the pride and
the ambition of the housewife. Even in humble
dwellings, sometimes, a snowy counterpane and
lace-trimmed pillows decorated a couch whose
base was a dried bullock's hide stretched on a
rough frame of wood. A shrine dedicated to the
patron saint of the household was a very essen-
tial part of a well-regulated home.
Fashions in dress did not change with the sea-
sons. A man could wear his grandfather's hat
and his coat, too, and not be out of the fashion.
Robinson, writing of California in 1829, says:
“The people were still adhering to the costumes
of the past century.” It was not until after 1834,
when the Hijar colonists brought the latest fash-
ions from the City of Mexico, that the style of
dress for men and women began to change. The
next change took place after the American con-
quest. Only two changes in half a century, a
garment had to be very durable to become un-
fashionable.
The few wealthy people in the territory
dressed well, even extravagantly. Robinson de-
scribes the dress of Tomas Yorba, a wealthy
ranchero of the Upper Santa Ana, as he saw
him in 1829: “Upon his head he wore a black
silk handkerchief, the four corners of which
hung down his neck behind. An embroidered
shirt; a cravat of white jaconet, tastefully tied;
a blue damask vest; short clothes of crimson
velvet; a bright green cloth jacket, with large
silver buttons, and shoes of embroidered deer-
skin composed his dress. I was afterwards in-
formed by Don Manuel (Dominguez) that on
some occasions, such as some particular feast
day or festival, his entire display often exceeded
in value a thousand dollars.”
“The dress worn by the middle class of fe-
males is a chemise, with short embroidered
sleeves, richly trimmed with lace; a muslin pet-
ticoat, flounced with scarlet and secured at the
waist by a silk band of the same color; shoes of
velvet or blue satin; a cotton reboso or scarf;
pearl necklace and earrings; with hair falling in
broad plaits down the back.” After 1834 the
men generally adopted calzoneras instead of the
knee breeches or short clothes of the last cen-
tury. ' *
“The calzoneras were pantaloons with the ex-
terior seam open throughout its length. On the
upper edge was a strip of cloth, red, blue or
black, in which were buttonholes. On the other
edge were eyelet holes for buttons. In some
cases the calzonera was sewn from hip to the
middle of the thigh; in others, buttoned. From
the middle of the thigh downward the leg was
covered by the bota or leggins, used by every
one, whatever his dress.” The short jacket,
with silver or bronze buttons, and the silken
sash that served as a connecting link between
the calzoneras and the jacket, and also supplied
the place of what the Californians did not wear,
suspenders, this constituted a picturesque cos-
tume, that continued in vogue until the con-
quest, and with many of the natives for years
after. “After 1834 the fashionable women of Cal-
ifornia exchanged their narrow for more flowing
garments and abandoned the braided hair for
the coil and the large combs till then in use for
smaller combs.”f
For outer wraps the serapa for men and the
rebosa for women were universally worn. The
texture of these marked the social standing of
the wearer. It ranged from cheap cotton and
coarse serge to the costliest silk and the finest
French broadcloth. The costume of the neo-
phyte changed but once in centuries, and that
*Robinson, Life in California.
#Bancroft's Pastoral California.
:
118
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
:
sº º
:
i
was when he divested himself of his coat of
mud and smear of paint and put on the mission
shirt and breech clout. Shoes he did not wear
and in time his feet became as hard as the hoofs
of an animal. The dress of the mission women
consisted of a chemise and a skirt; the dress of
the children was a shirt and sometimes even this
was dispensed.
Filial obedience and respect for parental au-
thority were early impressed upon the minds of
the children. The commandment, “Honor thy
father and mother,” was observed with an ori-
ental devotion. A child was never too old or too
large to be exempt from punishment. Stephen
C. Poster used to relate an amusing story of a
case of parental disciplining he once saw at LOS
Angeles. An old lady, a grandmother, was be-
laboring, with a barrel stave, her son, a man
thirty years of age. The son had done some-
thing of which the mother did not approve. She
sent for him to come over to the maternal home
to receive his punishment. He came. She took
him out to the metaphorical woodshed, which,
in this case, was the portico of her house, where
she stood him up and proceeded to administer
corporal punishment. With the resounding
thwacks of the stave, she would exclaim, “I’ll
teach you to behave yourself.” “I’ll mend your
manners, sir.” “Now you'll be good, won't
you?” The big man took his punishment with-
out a thought of resisting or rebelling. In fact,
he seemed to enjoy it. It brought back feel-
ingly and forcibly a memory of his boyhood
days. -
In the earlier years of the republic, before
revolutionary ideas had perverted the usages of
the Californians, great respect was shown to
those in authority, and the authorities were
strict in requiring deference from their constit-
uents. In the Los Angeles archives of 1828 are
the records of an impeachment trial of Don
Antonio Maria Lugo, held to depose him from
the office of judge of the plains. The principal
duty of such a judge was to decide cases of dis-
puted ownership of horses and cattle. Lugo
seems to have had an exalted idea of the dignity
:
of his office. Among the complaints presented
at the trial was one from young Pedro Sanchez,
in which he testified that Lugo had tried to ride
his horse over him in the street because he,
Sanchez, would not take off his hat to the juez
del campo and remain standing uncovered while
the judge rode past. Another complainant at the
same trial related how at a rodeo Lugo ad-
judged a neighbor's boy guilty of contempt of
court because the boy gave him an impertinent
answer, and then he proceeded to give the boy
an unmerciful whipping. So heinous was the
offense in the estimation of the judge that the
complainant said, “had not Lugo fallen over a
chair he would have been beating the boy yet.”
Under Mexican domination in California
there was no tax levied on land and improve ,
ments. The municipal funds of the pueblos were
obtained from revenue on wine and brandy;
from the licenses of saloons and other business
houses; from the tariff on imports; from per-
mits to give balls or dances; from the fines of
transgressors, and from the tax on bull rings
and cock pits. Then men's pleasures and vices
paid the cost of governing. In the early '40s
the city of Los Angeles claimed a population of
two thousand, yet the municipal revenues rarely
exceeded $1,000 a year. With this small amount
the authorities ran a city government and kept
out of debt. It did not cost much to run a city
government then. There was no army of high-
salaried officials with a horde of political heelers
quartered on the municipality and fed from the
public crib at the expense of the taxpayer. Poli-
ticians may have been no more honest then
than now, but where there was nothing to steal
there was no stealing. The alcaldes and regi-
dores put no temptation in the way of the poli-
ticians, and thus they kept them reasonably
honest, or at least they kept them from plunder-
ing the taxpayers by the simple expedient of
having no taxpayers.
The functions of the various departments of
the municipal governments were economically
administered. Street cleaning and lighting were
performed at individual expense instead of pub-
lic. There was an ordinance in force in Los
Angeles and Santa Barbara and probably in
other municipalities that required each owner of
a house every Saturday to sweep and clean in
front of his premises to the middle of the street.
His neighbor on the opposite side met him half
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
119
way, and the street was swept without expense
to the pueblo. There was another ordinance
that required each owner of a house of more
that two rooms on a main street to hang a
lighted lantern in front of his door from twilight
to eight o'clock in winter and to nine in sum-
mer. There were fines for neglect of these duties.
There was no fire department in the pueblos.
The adobe houses with their clay walls, earthen
floors, tiled roofs and rawhide doors were as
nearly fireproof as any human habitation could
be made. The cooking was done in detached
kitchens and in beehive-shaped ovens without
flues. The houses were without chimneys, so
the danger from fire was reduced to a minimum.
A general conflagration was something un-
known in the old pueblo days of California.
There was no paid police department. Every
able-bodied young man was subject to military
duty. A volunteer guard or patrol was kept on
duty at the cuartels or guard houses. The
guards policed the pueblos, but they were not
paid. Each young man had to take his turn at
guard duty. g
CHAPTER XVI.
TERRITORIAL EXPANSION BY CONQUEST.
by the United States of territorial ex-
pansion by conquest. “It was,” says
General Grant, “an instance of a republic fol-
lowing the bad example of European mon-
archies in not considering justice in their desire
to acquire additional territory.” The “additional
territory” was needed for the creation of slave
states. The southern politicians of the extreme
pro-slavery school saw in the rapid settlement
of the northwestern states the downfall of their
domination and the doom of their beloved insti-
tution, slavery. Their peculiar institution could
not expand northward and on the south it had
reached the Mexican boundary. The only way
of acquiring new territory for the extension of
slavery on the south was to take it by force from
the weak Republic of Mexico. The annexation
of Texas brought with it a disputed boundary
line. The claim to a strip of country between
the Rio Nueces and the Rio Grande furnished a
convenient pretext to force Mexico to hostili-
ties. Texas as an independent state had never
exercised jurisdiction over the disputed terri-
tory. As a state of the Union after annexation
she could not rightfully lay claim to what she
never possessed, but the army of Occupation
took possession of it as United States property,
and the war was on. In the end we acquired a
large slice of Mexican territory, but the irony
A | NHE Mexican war marked the beginning
Of fate decreed that not an acre of its soil should
be tilled by slave labor.
The causes that led to the acquisition of Cali-
fornia antedated the annexation of Texas and
the invasion of Mexico. After the adoption of
liberal colonization laws by the Mexican gov-
ernment in 1824, there set in a steady drift
of Americans to California. At first they came
by sea, but after the opening of the overland
route in 1841 they came in great numbers by
land. It was a settled conviction in the minds
of these adventurous nomads that the manifest
destiny of California was to become a part of the
United States, and they were only too willing to
aid destiny when an opportunity offered. The
opportunity came and it found them ready for it.
Capt. John C. Fremont, an engineer and ex-
plorer in the services of the United States, ap-
peared at Monterey in January, 1846, and ap-
plied to General Castro, the military comandante,
for permission to buy supplies for his party of
sixty-two men who were encamped in the San
Joaquin valley, in what is now Kern county.
Permission was given him. There seems to
have been a tacit agreement between Castro and
Fremont that the exploring party should not
enter the settlements, but early in March the
whole force was encamped in the Salinas val-
ley. Castro regarded the marching of a body
of armed men through the country as an act of
120
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
hostility, and ordered them out of the country.
Instead of leaving, Fremont intrenched himself
on an eminence known as Gabilian Peak (about
thirty miles from Monterey), raised the stars
and stripes over his barricade, and defied Castro.
Castro maneuvered his troops on the plain
below, but did not attack Fremont. After two
days' waiting Fremont abandoned his position
and began his march northward. On May 9,
when near the Oregon line, he was overtaken
by Lieutenant Gillespie, of the United States
navy, with a dispatch from the president. Gil-
lespie had left the United States in November,
1845, and, disguised, had crossed Mexico from
Vera Cruz to Mazatlan, and from there had
reached Monterey. The exact nature of the
dispatches to Fremont is not known, but pre-
sumably they related to the impending war be-
tween Mexico and the United States, and the
necessity for a prompt seizure of the country
to prevent it from falling into the hands of Eng-
land. Fremont returned to the Sacramento,
where he encamped.
On the 14th of June, 1846, a body of Amer-
ican settlers from the Napa and Sacramento
valleys, thirty-three in number, of which Ide,
Semple, Grigsby and Merritt seem to have been
the leaders, after a night's march, took posses-
sion of the old castillo or fort at Sonoma, with
its rusty muskets and unused cannon, and made
Gen. M. G. Vallejo, Lieut.-Col. Prudon, Capt.
Salvador Vallejo and Jacob P. Leese, a brother-
in-law of the Vallejos, prisoners. There seems
to have been no privates at the castillo, all offi-
cers. Exactly what was the object of the Amer-
ican settlers in taking General Vallejo prisoner
is not evident. General Vallejo was one of the
few eminent Californians who favored the an-
nexation of California to the United States. He
is said to have made a speech favoring such a
movement in the junta at Monterey a few
months before. Castro regarded him with sus-
picion. The prisoners were sent under an
armed escort to Fremont's camp. William B.
Ide was elected captain of the revolutionists
who remained at Sonoma, to “hold the fort.”
He issued a pronunciamiento in which he de-
clared California a free and independent gov-
ernment, under the name of the California Re-
public. A nation must have a flag of its own,
So one was improvised. It was made of a piece
of cotton cloth, or manta, a yard wide and five
feet long. Strips of red flannel torn from the
shirt of one of the men were stitched on the
bottom of the flag for stripes. With a blacking
brush, or, as another authority says, the end
of a chewed stick for a brush, and red paint,
William L. Todd painted the figure of a grizzly
bear passant on the field of the flag. The na-
tives called Todd's bear “cochino,” a pig; it
resembled that animal more than a bear. A
five-pointed star in the left upper corner,
painted with the same coloring matter, and the
words “California republic” printed on it in ink,
completed the famous bear flag.
The California republic was ushered into ex-
istence June 14, 1846, attained the acme of its
power July 4, when Ide and his fellow patriots
burnt a quantity of powder in salutes, and fired
off oratorical pyrotechnics in honor of the new
republic. It utterly collapsed on the 9th of July,
after an existence of twenty-five days, when
news reached Sonoma that Commodore Sloat
had raised the stars and stripes at Monterey and
taken possession of California in the name of
the United States. Lieutenant Revere arrived
at Sonoma on the 9th and he it was who low-
ered the bear flag from the Mexican flagstaff,
where it had floated through the brief existence
of the California republic, and raised in its place
the banner of the United States.
Commodore Sloat, who had anchored in
Monterey Bay July 2, 1846, was for a time un-
decided whether to take possession of the coun-
try. He had no official information that war
had been declared between the United States
and Mexico; but, acting on the supposition
that Captain Fremont had received definite in-
structions, on the 7th of July he raised the flag
and took possession of the custom-house and
government buildings at Monterey. Captain
Montgomery, on the 9th, raised it at San Fran-
cisco, and on the same day the bear flag gave
place to the stars and stripes at Sonoma.
General Castro was holding Santa Clara and
San José when he received Commodore Sloat's
proclamation informing him that the commo-
dore had taken possession of Monterey. Cas-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD,
121
tro, after reading the proclamation, which was
written in Spanish, formed his men in line, and
addressing them, said: “Monterey is taken by
the Americans. What can I do with a handful
of men against the United States? I am going
to Mexico. All of you who wish to follow me,
‘About face!' All that wish to remain can go to
their homes.” A very small part of his force
followed him. *
Commodore Sloat was superseded by Com-
modore Stockton, who set about organizing an
expedition to subjugate the southern part of the
territory which remained loyal to Mexico. Fre-
mont's exploring party, recruited to a battalion
of one hundred and twenty men, had marched
to Monterey, and from there was sent by vessel
to San Diego to procure horses and prepare to
act as cavalry.
While these stirring events were transpiring
in the north, what was the condition in the
south where the capital, Los Angeles, and the
bulk of the population of the territory were
located? Pio Pico had entered upon the duties
of the governorship with a desire to bring peace
and harmony to the distracted country. He ap-
pointed Juan Bandini, one of the ablest states-
men of the south, his secretary. After Bandini
resigned he chose J. M. Covarrubias, and later
José M. Moreno filled the office.
The principal offices of the territory had been
divided equally between the politicians of the
north and the south. While Los Angeles be-
came the capital, and the departmental assembly
met there, the military headquarters, the ar-
chives and the treasury remained at Monterey.
But, notwithstanding this division of the spoils
of office, the old feud between the arribeños
and the abajeños would not down, and soon the
old-time quarrel was on with all its bitterness.
Castro, as military comandante, ignored the
governor, and Alvarado was regarded by the
sureños as an emissary of Castro's. The de-
partmental assembly met at Los Angeles, in
March, 1846. Pico presided, and in his opening
message set forth the unfortunate condition of
affairs in the department. Education was neg-
lected; justice was not administered; the mis-
*=
*Hall's History of San José.
sions were so burdened by debt that but few
of them could be rented; the army was disor-
ganized and the treasury empty.
Not even the danger of war with the Amer-
icans could make the warring factions forget
their fratricidal strife. Castro's proclamation
against Fremont was construed by the sureños
into a scheme to inveigle the governor to the
north so that the comandante-general could de-
pose him and seize the office for himself. Cas-
tro's preparations to resist by force the en-
croachments of the Americans were believed
by Pico and the Angelenians to be fitting out
of an army to attack Los Angeles and over-
throw the government. $
On the 16th of June, Pico left Los Angeles
for Monterey with a military force of a hundred
men. The object of the expedition was to op-
pose, and, if possible, to depose Castro. He
left the capital under the care of the ayunta-
miento. On the 20th of June, . Alcalde Gallardo
reported to the ayuntamiento that he had posi-
tive information “that Don Castro had left
Monterey and would arrive here in three days
with a military force for the purpose of captur-
ing this city.” (Castro had left Monterey with
a force of seventy men, but he had gone north
to San José.) The sub-prefect, Don Abel
Stearns, was authorized to enlist troops to pre-
serve order. On the 23d of June three compa-
nies were organized, an artillery company under
Miguel Pryor, a company of riflemen under
Benito Wilson, and a cavalry company under
Gorge Palomares. Pico, with his army at San
Luis Obispo, was preparing to march against
Monterey, when the news reached him of the
capture of Sonoma by the Americans, and next
day, July 12th, the news reached Los Angeles
just as the council had decided on a plan of
defense against Castro, who was five hundred
miles away. Pico, on the impulse of the mo-
ment, issued a proclamation, in which he
arraigned the United States for perfidy and
treachery, and the gang of “North American
adventurers,” who captured Sonoma “with the
blackest treason the spirit of evil can invent.”
His arraignment of the “North American na-
tion” was so severe that some of his American
friends in Los Angeles took umbrage at his
122
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
pronunciamento. He afterwards tried to recall
it, but it was too late; it had been published.
Castro, finding the “foreign adventurers" too
numerous and too aggressive in the northern
part of the territory, determined, with what men
he could induce to go with him, to retreat to
the south; but before so doing he sent a medi-
ator to Pico to negotiate a treaty of peace and
amity between the factions. On the I2th of
July the two armies met at Santa Margarita,
near San Luis Obispo. Castro brought the
news that Commodore Sloat had hoisted the
United States flag at Monterey and taken pos-
session of the country for his government. The
meeting of the governor and the comandante-
general was not very cordial, but in the presence
of the impending danger to the territory they
concealed their mutual dislike and decided to
do their best to defend the country they both
loved.
Sorrowfully they began their retreat to the
capital; but even threatened disaster to their
common country could not wholly unite the
north and the south. The respective armies,
Castro's numbering about one hundred and fifty
men, and Pico's one hundred and twenty, kept
about a day's march apart. They reached Los
Angeles, and preparations were begun to resist
the invasion of the Americans. Pico issued a
proclamation ordering all able-bodied men be-
tween fifteen and sixty years of age, native and
naturalized, to take up arms to defend the coun-
try; any able-bodied Mexican refusing was to
be treated as a traitor. There was no enthusi-
asm for the cause. The old factional jealousy
and distrust was as potent as ever.
of the south would obey none but their own
officers; Castro's troops, who considered them-
selves regulars, ridiculed the raw recruits of
the sureños, while the naturalized foreigners of
American extraction secretly sympathized with
their own people.
Pico, to counteract the malign influence of his
Santa Barbara proclamation and enlist the sym-
pathy and more ready adhesion of the foreign
element of Los Angeles, issued the following
circular: (This circular or proclamation has
never before found its way into print. I find
no allusion to it in Bancroft's or Hittell's His-
The militia .
tories. A copy, probably the only one in exist-
ence, was donated some years since to the
Historical Society of Southern California.)
/*-*—,
ſº OF
S-V-'
Gobierno del Dep.
de Californias.
“CIRCULAR.—As owing to the unfortunate
condition of things that now prevails in this
department in consequence of the war into
which the United States has provoked the Mex-
ican nation, some ill feeling might spring up
between the citizens of the two countries, out of
which unfortunate occurrences might grow, and
as this government desires to remove every
cause of friction, it has seen fit, in the use of its
power, to issue the present circular.
“The Government of the department of Cali-
fornia declares in the most solemn manner that
all the citizens of the United States that have
come lawfully into its territory, relying upon
the honest administration of the laws and the
Observance of the prevailing treaties, shall not
be molested in the least, and their lives and
property shall remain in perfect safety under the
protection of the Mexican laws and authorities
legally constituted.
“Therefore, in the name of the supreme gov-
ernment of the nation, and by virtue of the
authority vested upon me, I enjoin upon all the
inhabitants of California to observe towards the
citizens of the United States that have lawfully
come among us, the kindest and most cordial
conduct, and to abstain from all acts of violence
against their persons or property; provided they
remain neutral, as heretofore, and take no part
in the invasion effected by the armies of their
nation. -
“The authorities of the various municipalities
and corporations will be held strictly responsi-
ble for the faithful fulfillment of this order, and
shall, as soon as possible, take the necessary
measures to bring it to the knowledge of the
people. God and Liberty.
“PIO PICO.
“Jose MATLAS MARENO, Secretary pro tem.”
Angeles, July 27, 1846.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
123
When we consider the conditions existing in
California at the time this circular was issued,
its sentiments reflect great credit on Pico for
his humanity and forbearance. A little over a
month before, a party of Americans seized
General Vallejo and several other prominent
Californians in their homes and incarcerated
them in prison at Sutter's Fort. Nor was this
outrage mitigated when the stars and stripes
were raised. The perpetrators of the outrage
were not punished. These native Californians
were kept in prison nearly two months without
any charge against them. Besides, Governor
Pico and the leading Californians very well
knew that the Americans whose lives and prop-
erty this proclamation was designed to protect
would not remain neutral when their country-
men invaded the territory. Pio Pico deserved
better treatment from the Americans than he
received. He was robbed of his landed posses-
sions by unscrupulous land sharks, and his char-
acter defamed by irresponsible historical scrib-
blers. g
Pico made strenuous efforts to raise men and
means to resist the threatened invasion. He had
mortgaged the government house to de Celis
for $2,000, the mortgage to be paid “as soon as
order shall be established in the department.”
This loan was really negotiated to fit out the
expedition against Castro, but a part of it was
expended after his return to Los Angeles in
procuring supplies while preparing to meet the
American army. The government had but little
credit. The moneyed men of the pueblo were
averse to putting money into what was almost
sure to prove a lost cause. The bickerings and
jealousies between the factions neutralized to a
considerable degree the efforts of Pico and Cas-
tro to mobilize the army.
Castro established his camp on the mesa east
of the river. Here he and Andres Pico under-
took to drill the somewhat incongruous collec-
tion of hombres in military maneuvering. Their
entire force at no time exceeded three hundred
men. These were poorly armed and lacking in
discipline.
We left Stockton at Monterey preparing an
expedition against Castro at Los Angeles. On
taking command of the Pacific squadron, July
29, he issued a proclamation. It was as bom-
bastic as the pronunciamiento of a Mexican
governor. Bancroft says: “The paper was
made up of falsehood, of irrelevent issues and
bombastic ranting in about equal parts, the
tone being offensive and impolitic even in those
inconsiderable portions which were true and
legitimate.” His only object in taking posses-
Sion of the country was “to save from destruc-
tion the lives and property of the foreign resi-
dents and citizens of the territory who had in-
voked his protection.” In view of Pico's humane
circular and the uniform kind treatment that the
Californians accorded the American residents,
there was very little need of Stockton's interfer-
ence on that score. Commodore Sloat did not
approve of Stockton's proclamation or of his
policy.
On the 6th of August, Stockton reached San
Pedro and landed three hundred and sixty
sailors and marines. These were drilled in mili-
tary movements on land and prepared for the
march to Los Angeles.
Castro sent two commissioners, Pablo de La
Guerra and José M. Flores, to Stockton, asking
for a conference and a cessation of hostilities
while negotiations were pending. They asked
that the United States forces remain at San
Pedro while the terms of the treaty were under
discussion. These requests Commodore Stock-
ton peremptorily refused, and the commissioners
returned to Los Angeles without stating the
terms on which they proposed to treat. *
In several so-called histories, I find a very
dramatic account of this interview. On the ar-
rival of the commissioners they were marched
up to the mouth of an immense mortar,
shrouded in skins save its huge aperture. Their
terror and discomfiture were plainly discernible.
Stockton received them with a stern and forbid-
ding countenance, harshly demanding their mis-
sion, which they disclosed in great confusion,
They bore a letter from Castro proposing a
truce, each party to hold its own possessions
until a general pacification should be had. This
proposal Stockton rejected with contempt, and
dismissed the commissioners with the assurance
that only an immediate disbandment of his
forces and an unconditional surrender would
124
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
shield Castro from the vengeance of an incensed
foe. The messengers remounted their horses
in dismay and fled back to Castro.” The mortar
story, it is needless to say, is pure fabrication,
yet it runs through a number of so-called his-
tories of California. Castro, on the 9th of Au-
gust, held a council of war with his officers at
the Campo en La Mesa. He announced his in-
tention of leaving the country for the purpose of
reporting to the supreme government, and of
returning at some future day to punish the
usurpers. He wrote to Pico: “I can count only
one hundred men, badly armed, worse supplied
and discontented by reason of the miseries they
suffer; so that I have reason to fear that not
even these men will fight when the necessity
arises.” And this is the force that some imag-
inative historians estimate at eight hundred to
one thousand men.
Pico and Castro left Los Angeles on the
Inight of August IO, for Mexico; Castro going
by the Colorado River route to Sonora, and
Pico, after being concealed for a time by his
brother-in-law, Juan Froster, at the Santa Mar-
garita and narrowly escaping capture by Fre-
mont's men, finally reached Lower California
and later on crossed the Gulf to Sonora.
Stockton began his march on Los Angeles
August II. He took with him a battery of four
guns. The guns were mounted on carretas, and
each gun drawn by four oxen. He had with
him a good brass band.
Major Fremont, who had been sent to San
Diego with his battalion of one hundred and
seventy men, had, after considerable skirmish-
ing among the ranchos, secured enough horses
to move, and on the 8th of August had begun
his march to join Stockton. He took with him
one hundred and twenty men, leaving about
fifty to garrison San Diego.
Stockton consumed three days on the march.
Fremont's troops joined him just south of the
city, and at 4 p. m. of the 13th the combined
force, numbering nearly five hundred men, en-
tered the town without opposition, “our entry,”
says Major Fremont, “having more the effect
of a parade of home guards than of an enemy
taking possession of a conquered town.” Stock-
ton reported finding at Castro's abandoned camp
ten pieces of artillery, four of them spiked. Fre-
mont says he (Castro) “had buried part of his
guns.” Castro's troops that he had brought
down with him took their departure for their
northern homes soon after their general left,
breaking up into small squads as they advanced.
The Southern troops that Pico had recruited dis-
persed to their homes before the arrival of the
Americans. Squads of Fremont's battalion were
sent out to scour the country and bring in any of
the Californian Officers or leading men whom
they could find. These, when found, were
paroled.
Another of those historical myths, like the
mortar story previously mentioned, which is
palmed off on credulous readers as genuine his-
tory, runs as follows: “Stockton, while en route
from San Pedro to Los Angeles, was informed
by a courier from Castro ‘that if he marched
upon the town he would find it the grave of him-
self and men.’ ‘Then,' answered the commodore,
tell the general to have the bells ready to toll
at eight o'clock, as I shall be there by that
time.’” As Castro left Los Angeles the day
before Stockton began his march from San
Pedro, and when the commodore entered the
city the Mexican general was probably two
hundred miles away, the bell tolling myth goes
to join its kindred myths in the category of his-
tory as it should not be written.
On the 17th of August, Stockton issued a sec-
ond proclamation, in which he signs himself
commander-in-chief and governor of the terri-
tory of California. It was milder in tone and
more dignified than the first. He informed the
people that their country now belonged to the
United States. For the present it would be
governed by martial law. They were invited
to elect their local officers if those now in office
refused to serve.
Four days after the capture of Los Angeles,
The Warren, Captain Hull, commander, an-
chored at San Pedro. She brought official no-
tice of the declaration of war between the
United States and Mexico. Then for the first
time Stockton learned that there had been an
official declaration of war between the two
countries. United States officers had waged
war and had taken possession of California upon
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
12.5
the strength of a rumor that hostilities existed
between the countries. x
The conquest, if conquest it can be called, was
accomplished without the loss of a life, if we
except the two Americans, Fowler and Cowie,
of the Bear Flag party, who were brutally mur-
dered by a band of Californians under Padillo,
and the equally brutal shooting of Beryessa and
the two de Haro boys by the Americans at San
Rafael. These three men were shot as Spies,
but there was no proof that they were such, and
they were not tried. These murders occurred
before Commodore Sloat raised the stars and
stripes at Monterey.
On the 15th of August, 1846, just thirty-seven
days after the raising of the stars and stripes
at Monterey, the first newspaper ever published
in California made its appearance. It was pub-
lished at Monterey by Semple and Colton and
named The Californian. Rev. Walter Colton
was a chaplain in the United States navy and
came to California on the Congress with Com-
modore Stockton. He was made alcalde of
Monterey and built, by the labor of the chain
gang and from contributions and fines, the
first schoolhouse in California, named for him
Colton Hall. Colton thus describes the other
member of the firm, Dr. Robert Semple: “My
partner is an emigrant from Kentucky, who
stands six feet eight in his stockings. He is in
a buckskin dress, a foxskin cap; is true with his
rifle, ready with his pen and quick at the type
case.” Semple came to California in 1845, with
the Hastings party, and was one of the leaders
in the Bear Flag revolution. The type and
press used were brought to California by Au-
gustin V. Zamorano in 1834, and by him sold
to the territorial government, and had been
used for printing bandos and pronunciamentos.
The only paper the publishers of The Californian
could procure was that used in the manufacture
of cigarettes, which came in sheets a little
larger than foolscap. The font of type was
short of w”s, so two v's were substituted for
that letter, and when these ran out two u’s were
used. The paper was moved to San Francisco
in 1848 and later on consolidated with the Cali-
fornia Star.
CHAPTER XVII.
REVOLT OF THE CALIFORNIANS.
the territory. The leaders of the Cali-
fornians had escaped to Mexico, and
Stockton, regarding the conquest as completed,
set about organizing a government for the con-
quered territory. Fremont was to be appointed
military governor. Detachments from his bat-
talion were to be detailed to garrison different
towns, while Stockton, with what recruits he
could gather in California, and his sailors and
marines, was to undertake a naval expedition
against the west coast of Mexico, land his forces
at Mazatlan or Acapulco and march overland
to “shake hands with General Taylor at the
gates of Mexico.” Captain Gillespie was made
military commandant of the southern depart-
ment, with headquarters at Los Angeles, and as-
signed a garrison of fifty men. Commodore
Stockton left Los Angeles for the north Sep-
j | OSTILITIES had ceased in all parts of
tember 2. Fremont, with the remainder of his
battalion, took up his line of march for Monte-
rey a few days later. Gillespie's orders were to
place the city under martial law, but not to en-
force the more burdensome restrictions upon
quiet and well-disposed citizens. A conciliatory
policy in accordance with instructions of the
secretary of the navy was to be adopted and the
people were to be encouraged to “neutrality;
self-government and friendship.”
Nearly all historians who have written upon
this subject lay the blame for the subsequent
uprising of the Californians and their revolt
against the rule of the military commandant,
Gillespie, to his petty tyrannies. Col. J. J.
Warner, in his Historical Sketch of Los An-
geles County, says: “Gillespie attempted by a
coercive system to effect a moral and social
change in the habits, diversions and pastimes of
126
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
the people and to reduce them to his standard
of propriety.” Warner was not an impartial
judge. He had a grievance against Gillespie
which embittered him against the captain. Gil-
lespie may have been lacking in tact, and his
schooling in the navy under the tyrannical
régime of the quarterdeck of sixty years ago
was not the best training to fit him for govern-
ment, but it is hardly probable that in two
weeks' time he undertook to enforce a “coercive
system” looking toward an entire change in the
moral and social habits of the people. Los An-
geles under Mexican domination was a hotbed
of revolutions. It had a turbulent and restless
element among its inhabitants that was never
happier than when fomenting strife and con-
spiring to overthrow those in power. Of this
class Colton, writing in 1846, says: “They drift
about like Arabs. If the tide of fortune turns
against them they disband and scatter to the
four winds. They never become martyrs to any
cause. They are too numerous to be brought
to punishment by any of their governors, and
thus escape justice.” There was a conservative
class in the territory, made up principally of
the large landed proprietors, both native and
foreign-born, but these exerted small influence
in controlling the turbulent. While Los An-
geles had a monopoly of this turbulent and rev-
olutionary element, other settlements in the
territory furnished their full quota of that class
of political knight errants whose chief pastime
was revolution, and whose capital consisted of
a gaily caparisoned steed, a riata, a lance, a
dagger and possibly a pair of horse pistols.
These were the fellows whose “habits, diver-
sions and pastimes” Gillespie undertook to re-
duce “to his standard of propriety.”
That Commodore Stockton should have left
Gillespie so small a garrison to hold the city
and surrounding country in subjection shows
that either he was ignorant of the character of
the people, or that he placed too great reliance
in the completeness of their subjection. With
Castro's men in the city or dispersed among the
neighboring ranchos, many of them still retain-
ing their arms, and all of them ready to rally
at a moment’s notice to the call of their leaders:
with no reinforcements nearer than five hundred
miles to come to the aid of Gillespie in case of
an uprising, it was foolhardiness in Stockton to
entrust the holding of the most important place
in California to a mere handful of men, half
disciplined and poorly equipped, without forti-
fications for defense or supplies to hold out in
case of a siege.
Scarcely had Stockton and Fremont, with
their men, left the city before trouble began.
The turbulent element of the city fomented
strife and seized every occasion to annoy and
harass the military commandant and his men.
While his “petty tyrannies,” so called, which
were probably nothing more than the enforce-
ment of martial law, may have been somewhat
provocative, the real cause was more deep
seated. The Californians, without provocation
on their part and without really knowing the
cause why, found their country invaded, their
property taken from them and their government
in the hands of an alien race, foreign to them
in customs and religion. They would have been
a tame and spiritless people indeed, had they
Ineglected the opportunity that Stockton's blun-
dering gave them to regain their liberties. They
did not waste much time. Within two weeks
from the time Stockton sailed from San Pedro
hostilities had begun and the city was in a state
of siege.
Gillespie, writing in the Sacramento States-
man in 1858, thus describes the first attack:
“On the 22d of September, at three o'clock in
the morning, a party of sixty-five Californians
and Sonorenos made an attack upon my Small
command quartered in the government house.
We were not wholly surprised, and with twenty-
one rifles we beat them back without loss to our-
selves, killing and wounding three of their num-
ber. When daylight came, Lieutenant Hensley,
with a few men, took several prisoners and
drove the Californians from the town. This
party was merely the nucleus of a revolution
commenced and known to Colonel Fremont be-
fore he left Los Angeles. In twenty-four hours,
six hundred well-mounted horsemen, armed
with escopetas (shotguns), lances and one fine
brass piece of light artillery, surrounded Los
Angeles and summoned me to surrender. There
were three old honey-combed iron guns (spiked)
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
127
in the corral of my quarters, which we at Once
cleared and mounted upon the axles of carts.”
Serbulo Varela, a young man of Some ability,
but of a turbulent and reckless character, had
been the leader at first, but as the uprising as-
sumed the character of a revolution, Castro's Old
officers came to the front. Capt. José Maria
Flores was chosen comandante-general; José
Antonio Carrillo, major-general; and Andres
Pico, comandante de escuadron. The main
camp of the insurgents was located on the mesa,
east of the river, at a place called Paredon
Blanco (White Bluff).
On the 24th of September, from the camp
at White Bluff, was issued the famous Pronun-
ciamiento de Barelas y otros Californias contra
Los Americanos (The Proclamation of Barelas
and other Californians against the Americans).
It was signed by Serbulo Varela (spelled Bare-
las), Leonardo Cota and over three hundred
others. Although this proclamation is gener-
ally credited to Flores, there is no evidence to
show that he had anything to do with framing
it. He promulgated it over his signature Octo-
ber I. It is probable that it was written by
Varela and Cota. It has been the custom of
American writers to sneer at this production as
florid and bombastic. In fiery invective and
fierce denunciation it is the equal of Patrick
Henry's famous “Give me liberty or give me
death!” Its recital of wrongs is brief, but to
the point. “And shall we be capable of permit-
ting ourselves to be subjugated and to accept in
silence the heavy chains of slavery? Shall we
lose the soil inherited from our fathers, which
cost them so much blood? Shall we leave Our
families victims of the most barbarous Servi-
tude? Shall we wait to see our wives outraged,
our innocent children beaten by American
whips, our property sacked, our temples pro-
faned, to drag out a life full of shame and dis-
grace? No! a thousand times no! Compatriots,
death rather than that! Who of you does not
feel his heart beat and his blood boil on con-
templating our situation? Who will be the
Mexican that will not be indignant and rise in
arms to destroy our oppressors? We believe
there will be not one so vile and cowardly!”
Gillespie had left the government house (lo-
cated on what is now the site of the St. Charles
Hotel) and taken a position on Fort Hill, where
he had erected a temporary barricade of sacks
filled with earth and had mounted his cannon
there. The Americans had been summoned to
surrender, but had refused. They were besieged
by the Californians. There was but little firing
between the combatants, an occasional sortie
and a volley of rifle balls by the Americans
when the Californians approached too near.
The Californians were well mounted, but poorly
armed, their weapons being principally muskets,
shotguns, pistols, lances and riatas; while the
Americans were armed with long-range rifles,
of which the Californians had a wholesome
dread. The fear of these arms and his cannon
doubtless saved Gillespie and his men from
capture.
On the 24th Gillespie dispatched a messenger
to find Stockton at Monterey, or at San Fran-
cisco if he had left Monterey, and apprise him
of the perilous situation of the Americans at
Los Angeles. Gillespie's dispatch bearer, John
Brown, better known by his California nick-
name, Juan Flaco Or Lean John, made one of
the most wonderful rides in history. Gillespie
furnished Juan Flaco with a package of cigar-
etees, the paper of each bearing the inscription,
“Believe the bearer;” these were stampd with
Gillespie's seal. Brown started from Los Angeles
at 8 p. m., September 24, and claimed to have
reached Yerba Buena at 8 p. m. of the 28th,
a ride of six hundred and thirty miles in four
days. This is incorrect. Colton, who was al-
calde of Monterey at that time, notes Brown's
arrival at that place on the evening of the 29th.
Colton, in his “Three Years in California,” says
that Brown rode the whole distance (Los An-
geles to Monterey) of four hundred and sixty
miles in fifty-two hours, during which time he
had not slept. His intelligence was for Com-
modore Stockton and, in the nature of the case,
was not committed to paper, except a few words
rolled in a cigar fastened in his hair. But the
commodore had sailed for San Francisco and
it was necessary he should go one hundred and
forty miles further. He was quite exhausted
and was allowed to sleep three hours. Before
day he was up and away on his journey. Gil-
128
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
lespie, in a letter published in the Los Angeles
Star, May 28, 1858, describing Juan Flaco's ride
says: “Before sunrise of the 29th he was lying
in the bushes at San Francisco, in front of the
Congress frigate, waiting for the early market
boat to come on shore, and he delivered my
dispatches to Commodore Stockton before 7
o'clock.”
In trying to steal through the picket line of
the Mexicans at Los Angeles, he was discovered
and pursued by a squad of them. A hot race
ensued. Finding the enemy gaining on him he
forced his horse to leap a wide ravine. A shot
from one of his pursuers mortally wounded his
horse, which, after running a short distance, fell
dead. Flaco, carrying his spurs and riata, made
his way on foot in the darkness to Las Virgines,
a distance of twenty-seven miles. Here he se-
cured another mount and again set off on his
perilous journey. The trail over which Flaco
held his way was not like “the road from Win-
chester town, a good, broad highway leading
down,” but instead a Camino de heradura, bridle
path, now winding up through rocky cañons,
skirting along the edge of precipitous cliffs, then
zigzagging down chaparral covered mountains;
now over the sands of the sea beach and again
across long stretches of brown mesa, winding
through narrow valleys and Out onto the rolling
hills—a trail as nature made it, unchanged by
the hand of man. Such was the highway over
which Flaco's steeds “stretched away with ut-
most speed.” Harassed and pursued by the
enemy, facing death night and day, with scarcely
a stop or a stay to eat or sleep, Juan Flaco rode
six hundred miles.
“Of all the rides since the birth of time,
Told in story or sung in rhyme,
The fleetest ride that ever was sped,”
was Juan Flaco's ride from Los Angeles to San
Francisco. Longfellow has immortalized the
“Ride of Paul Revere,” Robert Browning tells
in stirring verse of the riders who brought the
good news from Ghent to Aix, and Buchanan
Read thrills us with the heroic measures of Sher-
idan's Ride. No poet has sung of Juan Flaco's
wonderful ride, fleeter, longer and more perilous
than any of these. Flaco rode six hundred miles
through the enemy's country, to bring aid to a
besieged garrison, while Revere and Jorris and
Sheridan, were in the country of friends or pro-
tected by an army from enemies.
Gillespie's situation was growing more and
more desperate each day. B. D. Wilson, who
with a company of riflemen had been on an
expedition against the Indians, had been ordered
by Gillespie to join him. They reached the
Chino ranch, where a fight took place between
them and the Californians. Wilson's men being
Out of ammunition were compelled to sur-
render. In the charge upon the adobe, where
Wilson and his men had taken refuge, Carlos
I}allestaros had been killed and several Cali-
fornians wounded. This and Gillespie's stubborn
resistance had embittered the Californians against
him and his men. The Chino prisoners had been
saved from massacre after their surrender by
the firmness and bravery of Varela. If Gillespie
continued to hold the town his obstinacy might
bring down the vengeance of the Californians
not only upon him and his men, but upon many
of the American residents of the south, who had
favored their countrymen.
Finally Flores issued his ultimatum to the
Americans, surrender within twenty-four hours
or take the consequences of an onslaught by
the Californians, which might result in the mas-
Sacre of the entire garrison. In the meantime
he kept his cavalry deployed on the hills, com-
pletely investing the Americans. Despairing of
assistance from Stockton, on the advice of Wil-
son, who had been permitted by Flores to inter-
cede with Gillespie, articles of capitulation were
drawn up and signed by Gillespie and the leaders
of the Californians. On the 30th of September
the Americans marched out of the city with all
the honors of war, drums beating, colors flying
and two pieces of artillery mounted on carts
drawn by oxen. They arrived at San Pedro
without molestation and four or five days later
embarked on the merchant ship Vandalia, which
remained at anchor in the bay. Gillespie in
his march was accompanied by a few of the
American residents and probably a dozen of the
Chino prisoners, who had been exchanged for
the same number of Californians, whom he
had held under arrest most likely as hostages.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
129
Gillespie took two cannon with him when he
evacuated the city, leaving two spiked and broken
on Fort Hill. There seems to have been a pro-
viso in the articles of capitulation requiring him
to deliver the guns to Flores on reaching the
embarcadero. If there was such a stipulation Gil-
lespie violated it. He spiked the guns, broke off
the trunnions and rolled one of them into the bay.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE DEFEAT AND RETREAT OF MERVINE'S MEN.
geles was followed by similar uprisings
in the different centers of population
where American garrisons were stationed. Upon
the receipt of Gillespie's message Commodore
Stockton ordered Captain Mervine to proceed
at once to San Pedro to regain, if possible, the
lost territory. Juan Flaco had delivered his
message to Stockton on September 30. Early
on the morning of October Ist, Captain Mer-
vine got under way for San Pedro. “He went
ashore at Sausalito,” says Gillespie, “on some
trivial excuse, and a dense fog coming on he
was compelled to remain there until the 4th.”
Of the notable events occurring during the
conquest of California there are few others of
which there are so contradictory accounts as
that known as the battle of Dominguez Ranch,
where Mervine was defeated and compelled to re-
treat to San Pedro. Historians differ widely
in the number engaged and in the number killed.
The following account of Mervine's expedition
I take from a log book kept by Midshipman and
Acting-Lieut. Robert C. Duvall of the Savannah.
He commanded a company during the battle.
This book was donated to the Historical So-
ciety of Southern California by Dr. J. E. Cowles
of Los Angeles, a nephew of Lieutenant Duvall.
The account given by Lieutenant Duvall is one
of the fullest and most accurate in existence.
“At 9.30 a. m.” (October 1, 1846), says Lieu-
tenant Duvall, “we commenced working out of
the harbor of San Francisco on the ebb tide.
The ship anchored at Sausalito, where, on ac-
count of a dense fog, it remained until the 4th,
when it put to sea. On the 7th the ship entered
the harbor of San Pedro. At 6:30 p.m., as we
/ | N HE revolt of the Californians at Los An-
were standing in for anchorage, we made Out
the American merchant ship Vandalia, having
on her decks a body of men. On passing she
saluted with two guns, which was repeated with
three cheers, which we returned. * * * *
Brevet Capt. Archibald Gillespie came on board
and reported that he had evacuated the Pueblo
de Los Angeles on account of the overpowering
force of the enemy and had retired with his
men on board the Vandalia after having spiked
his guns, one of which he threw into the water.
He also reported that the whole of California
below the pueblo had risen in arms against our
authorities, headed by Flores, a Mexican cap-
tain on furlough in this country, who had but
a few days ago given his parole of honor not
to take up arms against the United States. We
made preparations to land a force to march to
the pueblo at daylight.
“October 8, at 6 a. m., all the boats left the
ship for the purpose of landing the forces, num-
bering in all two hundred and ninety-nine men,
including the volunteers under command of Cap-
tain Gillespie. At 6:30 all were landed without
opposition, the enemy in small detachments re-
treating toward the pueblo. From their move-
ments we apprehended that their whole force
was near. Captain Mervine sent on board ship
for a reinforcement of eighty men, under com-
mand of Lieut. R. B. Hitchcock. At 8 a. m.
the several companies, all under command of
Capt William Mervine, took up the line of
march for the purpose of retaking the pueblo.
The enemy retreated as our forces advanced.
(On landing, William A. Smith, first cabin boy,
was killed by the accidental discharge of a Colt's
pistol.) The reinforcements under the com-
9
130
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
mand of Lieut. R. B. Hitchcock returned on
board ship. For the first four miles our march
was through hills and ravines, which the enemy
might have taken advantage of, but preferred to
Occupy as spectators only, until our approach.
A few shots from our flankers (who were the
volunteer riflemen) would start them off; they
returned the compliment before going. The
remainder of our march was performed over a
continuous plain overgrown with wild mustard,
rising in places to six or eight feet in height.
The ground was excessively dry, the clouds of
dust were suffocating and there was not a breath
of wind in motion. There was no water on our
line of march for ten or twelve miles and we
suffered greatly from thirst. t
“At 2:30 p. m. we reached our camping
ground. The enemy appeared in considerable
numbers. Their numbers continued to increase
until sundown, when they formed on a hill near
us, gradually inclining towards our camp. They
were admirably formed for a cavalry charge.
We drew up our forces to meet them, but find-
ing they were disposed to remain stationary,
the marines, under command of Captain Mars-
ton, the Colt's riflemen, under command of
Lieut. I. B. Carter and myself, and the volun-
teers, under command of Capt. A. Gillespie, were
ordered to charge on them, which we did. They
stood their ground until our shots commenced
“telling’ on them, when they took to flight in
every direction. They continued to annoy us by
firing into our camp through the night. About 2
a.m. they brought a piece of artillery and fired
into our camp, the shot striking the ground
near us. The marines, riflemen and volunteers
were sent in pursuit of the gun, but could see
or hear nothing of it. -
“We left our camp the next morning at 6
o'clock. Our plan of march was in column by
platoon. We had not proceeded far before the
enemy appeared before us drawn up on each
side of the road, mounted on fine horses, each
man armed with a lance and carbine. They also
had a field piece (a four-pounder), to which were
hitched eight or ten horses, placed on the road
ahead of us.
“Captain Mervine, thinking it was the enemy's
intention to throw us into confusion by using
their gun on us loaded with round shot and
copper grape shot and then charge us with their
cavalry, ordered us to form a square—which was
the Order of march throughout the battle. When
Within about four hundred yards of them the
enemy opened on us with their artillery. We
made frequent charges, driving them before us,
and at one time causing them to leave some of
their cannon balls and cartridges; but owing to
the rapidity with which they could carry off
the gun, using their lassos on every part, en-
abled them to choose their own distance, en-
tirely Out of all range of our muskets. Their
horsemen kept out of danger, apparently con-
tent to let the gun do the fighting. They kept
up a constant fire with their carbines, but these
did no harm. The enemy numbered between
one hundred and seventy-five and two hundred
Strong.
"Finding it impossible to capture the gun, the
retreat was sounded. The captain consulted
with his officers on the best steps to be taken.
It was decided unanimously to return on board
ship. To continue the march would sacrifice
a number of lives to no purpose, for, admitting
We could have reached the pueblo, all com-
munications would be cut off with the ship, and
we would further be constantly annoyed by their
artillery without the least chance of capturing
it. It was reported that the enemy were be-
tween five and six hundred strong at the city
and it was thought he had more artillery. On
retreating they got the gun planted on a hill
ahead of us. •
“The captain made us an address, saying to
the troops that it was his intention to march
straight ahead in the same orderly manner in
which we had advanced, and that Sooner than
he would surrender to such an enemy, he would
sacrifice himself and every other man in his
command. The enemy fired into us four times
on the retreat, the fourth shot falling short, the
report of the gun indicating a small quantity of
powder, after which they remained stationary
and manifested no further disposition to molest
us. We proceeded quietly on our march to the
landing, where we found a body of men under
command of Lieutenant Hitchcock with two
nine-pounder cannon gotten from the Vandalia
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
131
to render us assistance in case we should need it.
“We presented truly a pitiable condition,
many being barely able to drag one foot after
the other from excessive fatigue, having gone
through the exertions and excitement in battle
and afterwards performing a march of eighteen
or twenty miles without rest. This is the first
battle I have ever been engaged in, and, having
taken particular notice of those around me, I
can assert that no men could have acted more
bravely. Even when their shipmates were fall-
ing by their sides, I saw but one impulse and
that was to push forward, and when retreat was
ordered I noticed a general reluctance to turn
their backs to the enemy.
“The following is a list of the killed. and
wounded: Michael Hoey, Ordinary Seaman,
killed; David Johnson, ordinary seaman, killed;
William H. Berry, ordinary seaman, mortally
wounded; Charles Sommers, musician, mortally
wounded; John Tyre, seaman, severely
wounded; John Anderson, Seaman, Severely
wounded; recovery doubtful. The following-
named were slightly wounded: William Con-
land, marine; Hiram Rockvill, marine; H. Lin-
land, marine; James Smith, marine.
“On the following morning we buried the
bodies of William A. Smith, Charles Sommers,
David Johnson and Michael Hoey on an island
in the harbor.
“At 1 I a. m. the captain called a council of
commissioned officers regarding the proper
course to adopt in the present crisis, which de-
cided that no force should be landed, and that
the ship remain here until further orders from
the commodore, who is daily expected.”
Entry in the log for Sunday, I Ith: “William
H. Berry, ordinary seaman, departed this life
from the effect of wounds received in battle.
Sent his body for interment to Dead Man's
Island, so named by us. Mustered the com-
mand at quarters, after which performed divine
service.”
From this account it will be seen that the
number killed and died of wounds received in
battle was four; number wounded six, and one
accidentally killed before the battle. On October
22d, Henry Lewis died and was buried on the
island. Lewis' name does not appear in the list
of wounded. It is presumable that he died of
disease. Six of the crew of the Savannah were
buried on Dead Man's Island, four of whom
were killed in battle. Lieutenant Duvall gives
the following list of the officers in the “Expedi-
tion on the march to retake Pueblo de Los An-
geles:” Capt. William Mervine, commanding;
Capt. Ward Marston, commanding marines;
Brevet Capt. A. H. Gillespie, commanding vol-
unteers; Lieut. Henry W. Queen, adjutant;
Lieut. B. F. Pinckney, commanding first com-
pany; Lieut. W. Rinckindoff, commanding sec-
ond company; Lieut. I. B. Carter, Colt's rifle-
men; Midshipman R. D. Minor, acting lieuten-
ant second company; Midshipman S. P. Griffin,
acting lieutenant first company; Midshipman P.
G. Walmough, acting lieutenant second com-
pany; Midshipman R. C. Duvall, acting lieuten-
ant Colt's riflemen; Captain Clark and Captain
Goodsall, commanding pikemen; Lieutenant
Hensley, first lieutenant volunteers; Lieutenant
Russeau, second lieutenant volunteers.
The piece of artillery that did such deadly
execution on the Americans was the famous Old
Woman's gun. It was a bronze four-pounder, or
pedréro (swivel-gun) that for a number of years
had stood on the plaza in front of the church,
and was used for firing salutes on feast days and
Other occasions. When on the approach of
Stockton's and Fremont's forces Castro aban-
doned his artillery and fled, an old lady, Dona
Clara Cota de Reyes, declared that the gringos
should not have the church's gun; so, with the
assistance of her daughters, she buried it in a
cane patch near her residence, which stood on
the east side of Alameda street, near First.
When the Californians revolted against Gil-
lespie's rule the gun was unearthed and used
against him. The Historical Society of South-
ern California has in its possession a brass
grapeshot, one of a charge that was fired into
the face of Fort Hill at Gillespie's men when
they were posted on the hill. This gun was in
the exhibit of trophies at the New Orleans Ex-
position in 1885. The label on it read: “Trophy
53, No. 63, Class 7. Used by Mexico against
the United States at the battle of Dominguez'
Ranch, October 9, 1846; at San Gabriel and the
Mesa, January 8 and 9, 1847; used by the United
132
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
States forces against Mexico at Mazatlan, No-
vember 11, 1847; Urios (crew all killed or
wounded), Palos Prietos, December 13, 1847,
and Lower California, at San José, February I5,
1848.”
Before the battle the old gun had been
mounted on forward axle of a Jersey wagon,
which a man by the name of Hunt had brought
across the plains the year before. It was lashed
to the axle by means of rawhide thongs, and
was drawn by riatas, as described by Lieutenant
Duvall. The range was obtained by raising or
lowering the pole of the wagon. Ignacio Aguilar
acted as gunner, and having neither lanyard or
pent-stock to fire it, he touched off the gun with
the lighted end of a cigarette. Never before or
since, perhaps, was a battle won with such crude
artillery. José Antonio Carrillo was in com-
mand of the Californians. During the skirmish-
ing of the first day he had between eighty and
ninety men. During the night of the 8th Flores
joined him with a force of sixty men. Next
morning Flores returned to Los Angeles, taking
with him twenty men. Carrillo's force in the
battle numbered about one hundred and twenty
men. Had Mervine known that the Californians
had fired their last shot (their powder being ex-
hausted) he could have pushed on and captured
the pueblo.
The expulsion of Gillespie's garrison from
Los Angeles and the defeat of Mervine's force
raised the spirits of the Californians, and there
was great rejoicing at the pueblo. Detachments
of Flores' army were kept at Sepulveda's rancho,
the Palos Verdes, and at Temple's rancho of the
Cerritos, to watch the Savannah and report any
attempt at landing. The leaders of the revolt
were not so sanguine of success as the rank and
file. They were without means to procure arms
and supplies. There was a scarcity of ammuni-
tion, too. An inferior article of gunpowder was
manufactured in limited quantities at San
Gabriel. The only uniformity in weapons was
in lances. These were rough, home-made af-
fairs, the blade beaten out of a rasp or file, and
the shaft a willow pole about eight feet long.
These weapons were formidable in a charge
against infantry, but easily parried by a swords-
man in a cavalry charge.
After the defeat of Mervine, Flores set about
reorganizing the territorial government. He
called together the departmental assembly. It
met at the capital (Los Angeles) October 26th.
The members present, Figueroa, Botello, Guerra
and Olvera, were all from the south. The as-
sembly decided to fill the place of governor,
vacated by Pico, and that of comandante-gen-
eral, left vacant by the flight of Castro.
José Maria Flores, who was now recognized
as the leader of the revolt against American rule,
was chosen to fill both offices, and the two of-
fices, as had formerly been the custom, were
united in One person. He chose Narciso Bo-
tello for his secretary. Plores, who was Mex-
ican born, was an intelligent and patriotic officer.
He used every means in his power to prepare
his forces for the coming conflict with the
Americans, but with little success. The old
jealousy of the hijos del pais against the Mex-
ican would crop out, and it neutralized his
efforts. There were bickerings and complaints
in the ranks and among the officers. The na-
tives claimed that a Californian ought to be
chief in command.
The feeling of jealousy against Flores at
length culminated in open revolt. Flores had
decided to send the prisoners taken at the Chino
fight to Mexico. His object was twofold—first,
to enhance his own glory with the Mexican
government, and, secondly, by showing what
the Californians had already accomplished to
obtain aid in the coming conflict. As most of
these men were married to California wives,
and by marriage related to many of the leading
California families of the south, there was at
once a family uproar and fierce denunciations
of Flores. But as the Chino prisoners were
foreigners, and had been taken while fighting
against the Mexican government, it was neces-
sary to disguise the hostility to Flores under
some other pretext. He was charged with the
design of running away to Sonora with the pub-
lic funds. On the night of December 3, Francisco
Rico, at the head of a party of Californians, took
possession of the cuartel, or guard house, and
arrested Flores. A special session of the as-
sembly was called to investigate the charges.
Flores expressed his willingness to give up
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
133
his purpose of sending the Chino prisoners to
Mexico, and the assembly found no foundation
to the charge of his design of running away
with the public funds, nor did they find any
funds to run away with. Flores was liberated,
and Rico imprisoned in turn.
Flores was really the last Mexican governor
of California. Like Pico, he was elected by the
territorial legislature, but he was not confirmed
by the Mexican congress. Generals Scott and
Taylor were keeping President Santa Anna and
his congress on the move so rapidly they had no
time to spare for California affairs.
Flores was governor from October 26, 1846,
to January 8, 1847. -
With a threatened invasion by the Americans
and a divided people within, it was hard times
in the old pueblo. The town had to supply
the army with provisions. The few who pos-
sessed money hid it away and all business was
suspended except preparations to meet the
invaders,
CHAPTER XIX.
THE FINAL CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA.
that the revolt of the Californians was
a serious affair, ordered Fremont's bat-
talion, which had been recruited to one hun-
dred and sixty men, to proceed to the south to
co-operate with him in quelling the rebellion.
The battalion sailed on the Sterling, but shortly
after putting to sea, meeting the Vandalia, Fre-
mont learned of Mervine's defeat and also that
no horses could be procured in the lower coun-
try; the vessel was put about and the battalion
landed at Monterey, October 28. It was decided
to recruit the battalion to a regiment and
mounting it to march down the coast. Recruit-
ing was actively begun among the newly ar-
rived immigrants. Horses and saddles were
procured by giving receipts on the government,
payable after the close of the war or by confisca-
Cº. STOCKTON, convinced
tion if it brought returns quicker than receipts.
The report of the revolt in the south quickly
spread among the Californians in the north and
they made haste to resist their spoilers. Manuel
Castro was made comandante of the military
forces of the north, headquarters at San Luis
Obispo. Castro collected a force of about one
hundred men, well mounted but poorly armed.
His purpose was to carry on a sort of guerrilla
warfare, capturing men and horses from the
enemy whenever an opportunity offered.
Fremont, now raised to the rank of lieuten-
ant-colonel in the regular army with head-
quarters at Monterey, was rapidly mobilizing his
motley collection of recruits into a formidable
force. Officers and men were scouring the
country for recruits, horses, accouterments and
supplies. Two of these recruiting squads en-
countered the enemy in considerable force and
an engagement known as the battle of Natividad
ensued. Capt. Charles Burroughs with thirty-
four, men and two hundred horses, recruited at
Sacramento, arrived at San Juan Bautista, No-
vember 15, on his way to Monterey on the same
day Captain Thompson, with about the same
number of men recruited at San José, reached
San Juan. The Californians, with the design of
capturing the horses, made a night march from
their camp on the Salinas. At Gomez rancho
they took prisoner Thomas O. Larkin, the
American consul, who was on his way from
Monterey to San Francisco on official business.
On the morning of the 16th the Americans be-
gan their march for Monterey. At Gomez
rancho their advance learned of the presence of
the enemy and of the capture of Larkin. A
squad of six or eight scouts was sent out to find
the Californians. The scouts encountered a
detachment of Castro's force at Encinalitos
(Little Oaks) and a fight ensued. The main body
of the enemy came up and surrounded the grove
of oaks. The scouts, though greatly outnum-
bered, were well armed with long range rifles and
held the enemy at bay, until Captains Burroughs
134
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
and Thompson brought up their companies.
Burroughs, who seems to have been the ranking
officer, hesitated to charge the Californians, who
had the superior force, and besides he was fear-
ful of losing his horses and thus delaying Fre-
mont's movements. But, taunted with cowardice
and urged on by Thompson, a fire eater, who
was making loud protestations of his bravery,
Burroughs ordered a charge. The Americans,
badly mounted, were soon strung out in an ir-
regular line. The Californians, who had made a
feint of retreating, turned and attacked with
vigor, Captain Burroughs and four or five others
were killed. The straggling line fell back on the
main body and the Californians, having ex-
pended their ammunition, retreated. The loss
in killed and wounded amounted to twelve or
fifteen on each side.
The only other engagement in the north was
the bloodless battle of Santa Clara. Fremont's
methods of procuring horses, cattle and other
supplies was to take them and give in payment
demands on the government, payable after the
close of the war. After his departure the same
method was continued by the officers of the
garrisons at San Francisco, San José and Mon-
terey. Indeed, it was their only method of pro-
curing supplies. The quartermasters were
without money and the government without
credit. On the 8th of December, Lieutenant
Bartlett, also alcalde of Yerba Buena, with a
squad of five men started down the peninsula
toward San José to purchase supplies. Fran-
cisco Sanchez, a rancher, whose horse and cattle
corrals had been raided by former purchasers,
with a band of Californians waylaid and cap-
tured Bartlett and his men. Other California
rancheros who had lost their stock in similar
raids rallied to the support of Sanchez and soon
he found himself at the head of one hundred
men. The object of their organization was
rather to protect their property than to fight. The
news soon spread that the Californians had re-
volted and were preparing to massacre the
Americans. Captain Weber of San José had a
company of thirty-three men organized for de-
fense. There was also a company of twenty
men under command of Captain Aram stationed
at the ex-mission of Santa Clara. On the 29th
of December, Capt. Ward Marston with a de-
tachment of thirty-four men and a field piece in
charge of Master de Long and ten sailors was
sent to Santa Clara. The entire force collected
at the seat of war numbered one hundred and
one men. On January 2 the American force
encountered the Californians, one hundred
Strong, on the plains of Santa Clara. Firing at
long range began and continued for an hour or
more. Sanchez sent in a flag of truce asking an
armistice preparatory to the settlement of diffi-
culties. January 3, Captain Maddox arrived
from Monterey with fifty-nine mounted men,
and on the 7th Lieutenant Grayson came with
fifteen men. On the 8th a treaty of peace was
concluded, by which the enemy surrendered
Lieutenant Bartlett and all the other prisoners,
as well as their arms, including a small field
piece and were permitted to go to their homes.
Upon “reliable authority” four Californians were
reported killed, but their graves have never been
discovered nor did their living relatives, so far
as known, mourn their loss.
Stockton with his flagship, the Congress, ar-
rived at San Pedro on the 23d of October, 1846.
The Savannah was still lying at anchor in the
harbor. The commodore had now at San Pedro
a force of about eight hundred men; but, not-
withstanding the contemptuous opinion he held
of the Californian soldiers, he did not march
against the pueblo. Stockton in his report
says: “Elated by this transient success (Mer-
vine's defeat), which the enemy with his usual
want of veracity magnified into a great victory,
they collected in large bodies on all the adjacent
hills and would not permit a hoof except their
own horses to be within fifty miles of San
Pedro.” But “in the face of their boasting in-
solence” Stockton landed and again hoisted “the
glorious stars and stripes in the presence of
their horse covered hills.” “The enemy had
driven off every animal, man and beast from
that section of the country; and it was not pos-
sible by any means in our power to carry pro-
visions for our march to the city.” The city
was only thirty miles away and American sol-
diers have been known to carry rations in their
haversacks for a march of one hundred miles.
The “transient success” of the insolent enemy
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
135
had evidently made an impression on Stockton.
He estimated the California force in the vicinity
of the landing at eight hundred men, which was
just seven hundred too high. He determined
to approach Los Angeles by way of San Diego,
and on the last day of October he sailed for that
port. B. D. Wilson, Stephen C. Foster and
others attribute Stockton's abandonment of an
attack on Los Angeles from San Pedro to a
trick played on him by José Antonio Carrillo.
Carrillo was in command of the detachment
stationed at the Cerritos and the Palos Verdes.
Carrillo was anxious to obtain an interview with
Stockton and if possible secure a cessation of
hostilities until the war then progressing in
Mexico should be decided, thus settling the
fate of California. B. D. Wilson, one of the
Chino prisoners, was sent with a Mexican Ser-
geant to raise a white flag as the boats of the
Congress approached the landing and present
Carrillo's proposition for a truce. Carrillo, with
the intention of giving Stockton an exaggerated
idea of the number of his troops and thus Ob-
taining more favorable terms in the proposed
treaty, collected droves of wild horses from the
plains; these his caballeros kept in motion, pass-
ing and repassing through a gap in the hills,
which was in plain view from Stockton's vessel.
Owing to the dust raised by the cavalcade it was
impossible to discover that most of the horses
were riderless. The troops were signalled to re-
turn to the vessel, and the commodore shortly
afterwards sailed to San Diego. Carrillo al-
ways regretted that he made too much demon-
stration.
As an illustration of the literary trash that
has been palmed off for California history, I
give an extract from Frost's Pictorial History
of California, a book written the year after
the close of the Mexican war by Prof.
John Frost, a noted compiler of histories, who
writes L.L. D. after his name. It relates to
Stockton's exploits at San Pedro. “At the
Rancho Sepulveda (the Palos Verdes) a large
force of Californians were posted, Commodore
Stockton sent one hundred men forward to re-
ceive the fire of the enemy and then fall back
on the main body without returning it. The
main body of Stockton's army was formed in a
triangle with the guns hid by the men. By the
retreat of the advance party the enemy were
decoyed close to the main force, when the wings
(of the triangle) were extended and a deadly fire
from the artillery opened upon the astonished
Californians. More than one hundred were
killed, the same number wounded and one hun-
dred prisoners taken.” The mathematical ac-
curacy of Stockton's artillerists was truly
astonishing. They killed a man for every one
wounded and took a prisoner for every man
they killed. As Flores' army never amounted
to more than three hundred, if we are to believe
Frost, Stockton had all the enemy “present or
accounted for.” This silly fabrication of Frost's
runs through a number of so-called histories of
California. Stockton was a brave man and a
very energetic commander, but he would boast
of his achievements, and his reports are unre-
liable.
As previously mentioned, Fremont after his
return to Monterey proceeded to recruit a force
to move against Los Angeles by land from Mon-
terey. His recruits were principally obtained
from the recently arrived immigrants. Each man
was furnished with a horse and was to receive
$25 a month. A force of about four hundred
and fifty was obtained. Fremont left Monterey
November 17 and rendezvoused at San Juan
Bautista, where he remained to the 29th of the
month organizing his battalion. On the 29th
of November he began his march southward to
co-operate with Stockton against Flores.
After the expulsion of Gillespie and his men
from Los Angeles, detachments from Flores'
army were sent to Santa Barbara and San
Diego to recapture these places. At Santa Bar-
bara Fremont had left nine men of his battalion
under Lieut. Theodore Talbot to garrison the
town. A demand was made on the garrison to
surrender by Colonel Garfias of Flores' army.
Two hours were given the Americans to decide.
Instead of surrendering they fell back into the
hills, where they remained three or four days,
hoping that reinforcements might be sent them
from Monterey. Their only subsistence was the
flesh of an old gray mare of Daniel Hill's that
they captured, brought into camp and killed.
They secured one of Micheltorena's cholos that
136
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
had remained in the country and was living in
a cañon among the hills for a guide. He fur-
nished them a horse to carry their blankets and
conducted them through the mountains to the
San Joaquin valley. Here the guide left them
with the Indians, he returning to Santa Barbara.
The Indians fed them on chia (wild flaxseed),
mush and acorn bread. They traveled down the
San Joaquin valley. On their journey they lived
on the flesh of wild horses, seventeen of which
they killed. After many hardships they reached
Monterey on the 8th of November, where they
joined Fremont's battalion.
Captain Merritt, of Fremont's battalion, had
been left at San Diego with forty men to hold
the town when the battalion marched north to
co-operate with Stockton against Los Angeles.
Immediately after Gillespie's retreat, Francisco
Rico was sent with fifty men to capture the
place. He was joined by recruits at San Diego.
Merritt being in no condition to stand a siege,
took refuge on board the American whale ship
Stonington, which was lying at anchor. After
remaining on board the Stonington ten days,
taking advantage of the laxity of discipline
among the Californians, he stole a march on
them, recapturing the town and one piece of
artillery. He sent Don Miguel de Pedrorena,
who was one of his allies, in a whale boat with
four sailors to San Pedro to obtain supplies
and assistance. Pedrorena arrived at San Pedro
on the 13th of October with Merritt's dis-
patches. Captain Mervine chartered the whale
ship Magnolia, which was lying in the San
Pedro harbor, and dispatched Lieutenant Minor,
Midshipman Duvall and Morgan with thirty-
three sailors and fifteen of Gillespie's volun-
teers to reinforce Merritt. They reached San
Diego on the 16th. The combined forces of
Minor and Merritt, numbering about ninety
men, put in the greater part of the next two
weeks in dragging cannon from the old fort
and mounting them at their barracks, which
were located on the hill at the edge of the plain
on the west side of the town, convenient to
water. They succeeded in mounting six brass
nine-pounders and building two bastions of
adobes, taken from an old house. There was
constant skirmishing between the hostile parties,
but few fatalities. The Americans claimed to
have killed three of the enemy, and one Amer-
ican was ambushed and killed.
The Californians kept well out of range, but
prevented the Americans from obtaining sup-
plies. Their provisions were nearly exhausted,
and when reduced to almost the last extreme
they made a successful foraging expedition and
procured a supply of mutton. Midshipman Du-
vall thus describes the adventure: “We had
with us an Indian (chief of a numerous tribe)
who, from his knowledge of the country, we
thought could avoid the enemy; and getting
news of a number of sheep about thirty-five miles
to the South on the coast, we determined to send
him and his companion to drive them onto an
island which at low tide connected with the
mainland. In a few days a signal was made on
the island, and the boats of the whale ship
Stonington, stationed off the island, were sent
to it. Our good old Indian had managed,
through his cunning and by keeping concealed
in ravines, to drive onto the island about six hun-
dred sheep, but his companion had been caught
and killed by the enemy. I shall never forget
his famished appearance, but pride in his Indian
triumph could be seen playing in his dark eyes.
“For thirty or forty days we were constantly
expecting, from the movements of the enemy,
an attack, soldiers and officers sleeping on their
arms and ready for action. About the Ist of
November, Commodore Stockton arrived, and,
after landing Captain Gillespie with his com-
pany and about forty-three marines, he suddenly
disappeared, leaving Lieutenant Minor governor
of the place and Captain Gillespie command-
ant.”*
Foraging continued, the whale ship Ston-
ington, which had been impressed into the
government service, being used to take parties
down the coast, who made raids inland and
brought back with them cattles and horses.
It was probably on one of these excursions
that the flag-making episode occurred, of which
there are more versions than Homer had birth-
places. The correct version of the story is as
follows: A party had been sent under com-
*Log Book of Acting Lieutenant Duvall.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
137
mand of Lieutenant Hensley to Juan Bandini's
rancho in Lower California to bring up bands
of cattle and horses. Bandini was an adherent
of the American cause. He and his family re-
turned with the cavalcade to San Diego. At
their last camping place before reaching the
town, Hensley, in a conversation with Bandini,
regretted they had no flag with them to display
on their entry into the town. Señora Bandini
volunteered to make one, which she did from
red, white and blue dresses of her children.
This flag, fastened to a staff, was carried at the
head of the cavalcade when it made its triumphal
entry into San Diego. The Mexican govern-
ment confiscated Bandini's ranchos in Lower
California on account of his friendship to the
Americans during the war.
Skirmishing continued almost daily. José
Antonio Carrillo was now in command of the
Californians, their force numbering about one
hundred men. Commodore Stockton returned
and decided to fortify. Midshipman Duvall, in
the Log Book referred to in the previous chap-
ter, thus describes the fort: “The commodore
now commenced to fortify the hill which over-
looked the town by building a fort, constructed
by placing three hundred gallon casks full of
sand close together. The inclosure was twenty
by thirty yards. A bank of earth and small gravel
was thrown up in front as high as the top of
the casks and a ditch dug around on the outside.
Inside a ball-proof vault of ketch was built out
of plank and lined on the inside with adobes, on
top of which a swivel was mounted. The en-
trance was guarded by a strong gate, with a
drawbridge in front across the ditch or moat.
The whole fortification was completed and the
guns mounted on it in about three weeks. Our
men working on the fort were on short allow-
ance of beef and wheat, and for a time without
bread, tea, sugar or coffee, many of them being
plaints.
“About the Ist of December, information hav-
ing been received that General Kearny was at
Warner's Pass, about eighty miles distant, with
one hundred dragoons on his march to San
Diego, Commodore Stockton immediately sent
an escort of fifty men under command of Cap-
tain Gillespie, accompanied by Past Midshipmen
Beale and Duncan, having with them one piece
of artillery. They reached General Kearny with-
out molestation. On the march the combined
force was surprised by about ninety-three Cal-
ifornians at San Pasqual, under command of
Andres Pico, who had been sent to that part
of the country to drive off all the cattle and
horses to prevent us from getting them. In
the battle that ensued General Kearny lost in
killed Captains Johnston and Moore and Lieu-
tenant Hammond, and fifteen dragoons. Seven-
teen dragoons were severely wounded. The
enemy captured one piece of artillery. General
Kearny and Captains Gillespie and Gibson were
severely wounded; also one of the engineer offi-
cers. Some of the dragoons have since died.”
“After the engagement General Kearny took
position on a hill covered with large rocks. It
was well suited for defense. Lieutenant Godey
of Gillespie's volunteers, the night after the
battle, escaped through the enemy's line of sen-
tries and came in with a letter from Captain
Turner to the commodore. Whilst among the
rocks, Past Midshipman Beale and Kit Carson
managed, under cover of night, to pass out
through the enemy's ranks, and after three days'
and nights' hard marching through the moun-
tains without water, succeeded in getting safely
into San Diego, completely famished. Soon
after arriving Lieutenant Beale fainted away,
and for some days entirely lost his reason.”
On the night of Beale's arrival, December 9,
about 9 p.m., detachments of two hundred sail-
ors and marines from the Congress and Ports-
mouth, under the immediate command of Cap-
tain Zeilin, assisted by Lieutenants Gray,
Hunter, Renshaw, Parrish, Thompson and
Tilghman and Midshipmen Duvall and Morgan,
each man carrying a blanket, three pounds of
jerked beef and the same of hard-tack, began
their march to relieve General Kearny. They
marched all night and camped on a chaparral
covered mountain during the day. At 4 p. m.
of the second night's march they reached
Kearny’s camp, surprising him. Godey, who
had been sent ahead to inform Kearny that as-
sistance was coming, had been captured by the
138
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
enemy. General Kearny had burnt and de-
stroyed all his baggage and camp equipage, sad-
dles, bridles, clothing, etc., preparatory to
forcing his way through the enemy's line.
Burdened with his wounded, it is doubtful
whether he could have escaped. Midshipman
Duvall says: “It would not be a hazard of
Opinion to say he would have been overpowered
and compelled to surrender.” The enemy dis-
appeared on the arrival of reinforcements. The
relief expedition, with Kearny’s men, reached
San Diego after two days' march.
A brief explanation of the reason why Kearny
was at San Pasqual may be necessary. In June,
1846, Gen. Stephen W. Kearny, commander of
the Army of the West, as his command was
designated, left Fort Leavenworth with a force
of regulars and volunteers to take possession of
New Mexico. The conquest of that territory
was accomplished without a battle. Under or-
ders from the war department, Kearny began his
march to California with a part of his force to
co-operate with the naval forces there. Octo-
ber 6, near Socorro, N. M., he met Kit Carson
with an escort of fifteen men en route from Los
Angeles to Washington, bearing dispatches
from Stockton, giving the report of the con-
quest of California. Kearny required Carson to
turn back and act as his guide. Carson was
very unwilling to do so, as he was within a few
days’ journey of his home and family, from
whom he had been separated for nearly two
He had been guide for Fremont on his
He, however, obeyed
years.
exploring expedition.
Rearny’s orders.
General Kearny sent back about three hun-
dred of his men, taking with him one hundred
and twenty. After a toilSome march by way
of the Pima villages, Tucson, the Gila and
across the Colorado desert, they reached the
Indian village of San Pasqual (about forty miles
from San Diego), where the battle was fought.
It was the bloodiest battle of the conquest;
Rearny’s men, at daybreak, riding on broken
down mules and half broken horses, in an ir-
regular and disorderly line, charged the Califor-
nians. While the American line was stretched
out over the plain Capt. Andres Pico, who was
in command, wheeled his column and charged
the Americans. A fierce hand to hand fight en-
sued, the Californians using their lances and lar-
iats, the Americans clubbed guns and sabers. Of
Rearny’s command eighteen men were killed and
nineteen wounded; three of the wounded died.
Only one, Capt. Abraham R. Johnston (a rela-
tive of the author's), was killed by a gunshot;
all the others were lanced. The mules to one
of the howitzers became unmanageable and ran
into the enemy's lines. The driver was killed
and the gun captured. One Californian was
captured and several slightly wounded; none
were killed. Less than half of Kearny’s one
hundred and seventy men” took part in the
battle. His loss in killed and wounded was fifty
per cent of those engaged. Dr. John S. Grif-
fin, for many years a leading physician of Los
Angeles, was the surgeon of the command.
The foraging expeditions in Lower Califor-
nia having been quite successful in bringing in
cattle, horses and mules, Commodore Stockton
hastened his preparation for marching against
Los Angeles. The enemy obtained information
of the projected movement and left for the
pueblo.
"The Cyane having arrived,” says Duvall,
"our force was increased to about six hundred
men, most of whom, understanding the drill,
performed the evolutions like regular soldiers.
Everything being ready for our departure, the
commodore left Captain Montgomery and offi-
cers in command of the town, and on the 29th of
December took up his line of march for Los An-
geles. General Kearny was second in command
and having the immediate arrangement of the
forces, reserving for himself the prerogative
which his rank necessarily imposed upon him.
Owing to the weak state of our oxen we had
not crossed the dry bed of the river San Diego
before they began breaking down, and the carts,
which were thirty or forty in number, had to be
dragged by the men. The general urged on the
commodore that it was useless to commence
such a march as was before us with our present
means of transportation, but the commodore
insisted on performing at least one day's march
*General Kearny’s original force of one hundred and
º - e e y
twenty had been increased by Gillespie's command,
numbering fifty men.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
139
even if we should have to return the next day.
We succeeded in reaching the valley of the
Soledad that night by dragging our carts. Next
day the commodore proposed to go six miles
farther, which we accomplished, and then con-
tinued six miles farther. Having obtained some
fresh oxen, by assisting the carts up hill we
made ten or twelve miles a day. At San Luis
Rey we secured men, carts and oxen, and after
that our days' marches ranged from fifteen to
twenty-two miles a day.
“The third day out from San Luis Rey a white
flag was seen ahead, the bearer of which had a
communication from Flores, signing himself
‘Commander-in-Chief and Governor of Califor-
nia, asking for a conference for the purpose of
coming to terms, which would be alike ‘honor-
able to both countries.’ The commodore refused
to answer him in writing, saying to the bearer
of the truce that his answer was, he knew no
such person as Governor Flores; that he him-
self was the only governor in California; that
he knew a rebel by that name, a man who had
given his parole of honor not to take up arms
against the government of the United States,
who, if the people of California now in arms
against the forces of the United States would
deliver up, he (Stockton) would treat with them
on condition that they surrender their arms
and retire peaceably to their homes and he
would grant them, as citizens of the United
States, protection from further molestation.’
This the embassy refused to entertain, saying
‘they would prefer to die with Flores than to
surrender on such terms.' "
“On the 8th of January, 1847, they met us on
the banks of the river San Gabriel with between
five and six hundred men mounted on good
horses and armed with lances and carbines,
having also four pieces of artillery planted on
the heights about three hundred and fifty yards
distant from the river. Owing to circumstances
which have occurred since the surrender of the
enemy, I prefer not mentioning the particulars
of this day's battle and also that of the day fol-
lowing, or of referring to individuals concerned
in the successful management of our forces.”
(The circumstance to which Lieutenant Duvall
refers was undoubtedly the quarrel between
Stockton and Kearny after the capture of Los
Angeles.) “It is sufficient to say that on the 8th
of January we succeeded in crossing the river
and driving the enemy from the heights. Hav-
ing resisted all their charges, dismounted one
of their pieces and put them to flight in every
direction, we encamped on the ground they had
occupied during the fight.
“The next day the Californians met us on the
plains of the mesa. For a time the fighting was
carried on by both sides with artillery, but that
proving too hot for them they concentrated
their whole force in a line ahead of us and at a
given signal divided from the center and came
down on us like a tornado, charging us on all
sides at the same time; but they were effectually
defeated and fled in every direction in the ut-
most confusion. Many of their horses were left
dead on the field. Their loss in the two battles,
as given by Andres Pico, second in command,
was eighty-three killed and wounded; our loss,
three killed (one accidentally), and fifteen or
twenty wounded, none dangerously. The enemy
abandoned two pieces of artillery in an Indian
village near by.”
I have given at considerable length Midship-
man Duvall's account of Stockton's march from
San Diego and of the two battles fought, not
because it is the fullest account of those events,
but because it is original historical matter, never
having appeared in print before, and also be-
cause it is the observations of a participant
written at the time the events occurred. In it
the losses of the enemy are greatly exaggerated,
but that was a fault of his superior officers as
well. Commodore Stockton, in his official re-
ports of the two battles, gives the enemy's loss
in killed and wounded “between seventy and
eighty.” And General Kearny, in his report of
the battle of San Pasqual, claimed it as a vic-
tory, and states that the enemy left six dead on
the field. The actual loss of the Californians
in the two battles (San Gabriel river and La
Mesa) was three killed and ten or twelve
wounded.*
*The killed were Ignacio Sepulveda, Francisco
Rubio, and El Guaymeno, a Yaqui Indian.
L40
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
While the events recorded in this chapter
were transpiring at San Diego and its vicinity,
what was the state of affairs in the capital, Los
Angeles? After the exultation and rejoicing
over the expulsion of Gillespie's garrison, Mer-
vine's defeat and the victory over Kearny at
San Pasqual there came a reaction. Dissension
continued between the leaders. There was lack
of arms and laxity of discipline. The army was
but little better than a mob. Obedience to Or-
ders of a superior was foreign to the nature of a
Californian. His wild, free life in the saddle
made him impatient of all restraint. Then the
impossibility of successful resistance against
the Americans became more and more apparent
as the final conflict approached. Fremont's
army was moving down on the doomed city
from the north, and Stockton's was coming up
from the south. Either one of these, in num-
bers, exceeded the force that Flores could bring
into action; combined they would crush him
out of existence. The California troops were
greatly discouraged and it was with great diffi-
culty that the officers kept their men together.
There was another and more potent element of
disintegration. Many of the wealthier natives
and all the foreigners, regarding the contest as
hopeless, secretly favored the American cause,
and it was only through fear of loss of property
that they furnished Flores and his officers any
supplies for the army.
During the latter part of December and the
first days of January Flores' army was stationed
at the San Fernando Mission, on the lookout
for Fremont's battalion; but the more rapid
advance of Stockton's army compelled a change
of base. On the 6th and 7th of January Flores
moved his army back secretly through the
What Stockton,
Cahuenga Pass, and, passing to the southward
of the city, took position where La Jaboneria
(the Soap factory) road crosses the San Gabriel
river. Here his men were stationed in the thick
willows to give Stockton a surprise. Stockton
received information of the trap set for him and
after leaving the Los Coyotes swung off to the
right until he struck the Upper Santa Ana road.
The Californians had barely time to effect a
change of base and get their cannon planted
when the Americans arrived at the crossing.
Stockton called the engagement there the bat-
tle of San Gabriel river; the Californians call it
the battle of Paso de Bartolo, which is the bet-
ter name. The place where the battle was fought
is on bluff just south of the Upper Santa Ana
road, near where the Southern California
railroad crosses the old San Gabriel river. (The
ford or crossing was formerly known as Pico's
Crossing.) There was, at the time of the bat-
tle, but one San Gabriel river. The new river
channel was made in the great flood of 1868.
Emory, Duvall and other
American officers call the battle of the Plains
of the Mesa the Californians call the battle of
La Mesa, which is most decidedly a better name
than the “Plains of the Plain.” It was fought at
a ravine, the Canada de Los Alisos, near the
southeastern corner of the Los Angeles city
boundary. In these battles the Californians had
four pieces of artillery, two iron nine-pounders,
the old woman's gun and the howitzer captured
from Kearny. Their powder was very poor. It
was made at San Gabriel. It was owing to this
that they did so little execution in the fight.
That the Californians escaped with so little
punishment was probably due to the wretched
marksmanship of Stockton's sailors and marines.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
141
CHAPTER XX.
CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION
FTER the battle of La Mesa, the Amer-
| \ icans, keeping to the south, crossed the
Los Angeles river at about the point
where the south boundary line of the city
crosses it and camped on the right bank. Here,
under a willow tree, those killed in battle were
buried. Lieutenant Emory, in his “Notes of a
Military Reconnoissance,” says: “The town,
known to contain great quantities of wine and
aguardiente, was four miles distant (four miles
from the battlefield). From previous experience
of the difficulty of controlling men when enter-
ing towns, it was determined to cross the river
San Fernando (Los Angeles), halt there for
the night and enter the town in the morning,
with the whole day before us.
“After we had pitched our camp, the enemy
came down from the hills, and four hundred
horsemen with four pieces of artillery drew off
towards the town, in order and regularity, whilst
about sixty made a movement down the river on
our rear and left flank. This led us to suppose
they were not yet whipped, as we thought, and
that we should have a night attack.
“January IO (1847)—. Just as we had raised
our camp, a flag of truce, borne by Mr. Celis, a
Castilian; Mr. Workman, an Englishman, and
Alvarado, the owner of the rancho at the Alisos,
was brought into camp. They proposed, on
behalf of the Californians, to surrender their
dear City of the Angels provided we would re-
spect property and persons. This was agreed
to, but not altogether trusting to the honesty
of General Flores, who had once broken his
parole, we moved into the town in the same
order we should have done if expecting an at-
tack. It was a wise precaution, for the streets
were full of desperate and drunken fellows, who
brandished their arms and saluted us with every
term of reproach. The crest, overlooking the
town, in rifle range, was covered with horsemen
engaged in the same hospitable manner. -
OF THE CAPITAL.
“Our men marched steadily on, until crossing
the ravine leading into the public square (plaza),
When a fight took place amongst the Califor-
nians on the hill; one became disarmed and to
avoid death rolled down the hill towards us,
his adversary pursuing and lancing him in the
most cold-blooded manner. The man tumbling
down the hill was supposed to be one of our
vaqueros, and the cry of “rescue him' was
raised. The crew of the Cyane, nearest the
Scene, at Once and without any orders, halted
and gave the man that was lancing him a volley;
strange to say, he did not fall. The general
gave the jack tars a cursing, not so much for
the firing without orders, as for their bad marks-
manship.”
Shortly after the above episode, the Cali-
fornians did open fire from the hill on the
vaqueros in charge of the cattle. (These
vaqueros were Californians in the employ of the
Americans and were regarded by their country-
men as traitors.) A company of riflemen was
ordered to clear the hill. A single volley ef-
fected this, killing two of the enemy. This was
the last bloodshed in the war; and the second
conquest of California was completed as the first
had been by the capture of Los Angeles. Two
hundred men, with two pieces of artillery, were
stationed on the hill.
The Angeleſios did not exactly welcome the
invaders with “bloody hands to inhospitable
graves,” but they did their best to let them know
they were not wanted. The better class of the
native inhabitants closed their houses and took
refuge with foreign residents or went to the
ranchos of their friends in the country. The
fellows of the baser sort, who were in pos-
session of the city, exhausted their vocabularies
of abuse on the invading gringos. There was
one paisano who excelled all his countrymen in
this species of warfare. It is a pity his name
has not been preserved in history with that of
142
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
other famous scolds and kickers. He rode by
the side of the advancing column up Main street,
firing volleys of invective and denunciation at
the hated gringos. At certain points of his
tirade he worked himself to such a pitch of
indignation that language failed him; then he
would solemnly go through the motions of
“Make ready, take aim!” with an old shotgun
he carried, but when it came to the order “Fire!”
discretion got the better of his valor; he low-,
ered his gun and began again, firing invective
at the gringo soldiers; his mouth would go off
if his gun would not.
Commodore Stockton's headquarters were in
the Abila house, the second house on Olvera
street, north of the plaza. The building is still
Standing, but has undergone many changes in
fifty years. A rather amusing account was re-
cently given me by an old pioneer of the manner
in which Commodore Stockton got possession
of the house. The widow Abila and her daugh-
ters, at the approach of the American army, had
abandoned their house and taken refuge with
Don Luis Vignes of the Aliso. Vignes was a
Frenchman and friendly to both sides. The
widow left a young Californian in charge of her
house (which was finely furnished), with strict
orders to keep it closed. Stockton had with him
a fine brass band, something new in California.
When the troops halted on the plaza, the band
began to play. The boyish guardian of the
Abila casa could not resist the temptation to
open the door and look out. The enchanting
music drew him to the plaza. Stockton and his
staff, hunting for a place suitable for headquar-
ters, passing by, found the door invitingly open,
entered, and, finding the house deserted, took
possession. The recreant guardian returned to
find himself dispossessed and the house in pos-
session of the enemy. “And the band played on.”
It is a fact not generally known that there
were two forts planned and partially built on
Fort Hill during the war for the conquest of
California. The first was planned by Lieut. Wil-
liam H. Emory, topographical engineer of Gen-
eral Kearny’s staff, and work was begun on it
by Commodore Stockton's sailors and marines.
The second was planned by Lieut. J. W. David-
son, of the First United States Dragoons, and
built by the Mormon battalion. The first was
not completed and not named. The Second was
named Fort Moore. Their location seems to
have been identical. The first was designed to
hold one hundred men. The second was much
larger. Flores' army was supposed to be in the
neighborhood of the city ready to make a dash
into it, so Stockton decided to fortify.
“On January I Ith,” Lieutenant Emory writes,
"I was ordered to select a site and place a fort
capable of containing a hundred men. With
this in view a rapid reconnoissance of the town
was made and the plan of a fort sketched, so
placed as to enable a small garrison to com-
mand the town and the principal avenues to it,
the plan was approved.”
“January 12. I laid off the work and before
night broke the first ground. The population
of the town and its dependencies is about three
thousand; that of the town itself about fifteen
hundred. Here all the revolutions
have had their origin, and it is the point upon
which any Mexican force from Sonora would
be directed. It was therefore desirable to estab-
lish a fort which, in case of trouble, should en-
able a small garrison to hold out till aid might
come from San Diego, San Francisco or Mon-
terey, places which are destined to become cen-
ters of American settlements.”
“January I 3. It rained steadily all day and
nothing was done on the work. At night I
worked ou the details of the fort.”
“January 15. The details to work on the
fort were by companies. I sent to Captain
Tilghman, who commanded on the hill, to de-
tach one of the companies under his command
to commence the work. He furnished, on the
16th, a company of artillery (seamen from the
Congress) for the day's work, which was per-
formed bravely, and gave me great hopes of
success.”
On the 18th Lieutenant Emory took his de-
parture with General Kearny for San Diego.
From there he was sent with despatches, via
Panama, to the war department. In his book
he says: “Subsequent to my departure the en-
tire plan of the fort was changed, and I am not
the projector of the work finally adopted for
defense of that town.”
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
143
As previously stated, Fremont's battalion
began its march down the coast on the 29th of
November, 1846. The winter rains set in with
great severity. The volunteers were scantily
provided with clothing and the horses were in
poor condition. Many of the horses died of
starvation and hard usage. The battalion en-
countered no opposition from the enemy on its
march and did no fighting. On the IIth of
January, a few miles above San Fernando, Colo-
nel Fremont received a message from General
Kearny informing him of the defeat of the
enemy and the capture of Los Angeles. That
night the battalion encamped in the mission
buildings at San Fernando. From the mission
that evening Jesus Pico, a cousin of Gen. An-
dres Pico, set out to find the Californian army
and open negotiations with its leaders. Jesus
Pico, better known as Tortoi, had been arrested
at his home near San Luis Obispo, tried by
court-martial and sentenced to be shot for
breaking his parole. Fremont, moved by the
pleadings of Pico's wife and children, pardoned
him. He became a warm admirer and devoted
friend of Fremont's.
He found the advance guard of the Califor-
nians encamped at Verdugas. He was detained
here, and the leading officers of the army were
summoned to a council. Pico informed them
of Fremont's arrival and the number of his men.
With the combined forces of Fremont and
Stockton against them, their cause was hopeless.
He urged them to surrender to Fremont, as they
could obtain better terms from him than from
Stockton.
General Flores, who held a commission in the
Mexican army, and who had been appointed by
the territorial assembly governor and comand-
ante-general by virtue of his rank, appointed
Andres Pico general and gave him command
of the army. The same night he took his de-
parture for Mexico, by way of San Gorgonio
Pass, accompanied by Colonel Garfias, Diego
Sepulveda, Manuel Castro, Segura, and about
thirty privates. General Pico, on assuming com-
mand, appointed Francisco Rico and Francisco
de La Guerra to go with Jesus Pico to confer
with Colonel Fremont. Fremont appointed as
commissioners to negotiate a treaty, Major P.
B. Reading, Major William H. Russell and
Capt. Louis McLane. On the return of Guerra
and Rico to the Californian camp, Gen. Andres
Pico appointed as commissioners, José Antonio
Carrillo, commander of the cavalry squadron,
and Agustin Olvera, diputado of the assembly,
and moved his army near the river at Cahuenga.
On the I3th Fremont moved his camp to the
Cahuenga. The commissioners met in the de-
serted ranch-house, and the treaty was drawn
up and signed.
The principal conditions of the treaty or ca-
pitulation of “Cahuenga,” as it was termed, were
that the Californians, on delivering up their ar-
tillery and public arms, and promising not again
to take arms during the war, and conforming
to the laws and regulations of the United States,
shall be allowed peaceably to return to their
homes. They were to be allowed the same rights
and privileges as are allowed to citizens of the
United States, and were not to be compelled
to take an oath of allegiance until a treaty of
peace was signed between the United States and
Mexico, and were given the privilege of leaving
the country if they wished to. An additional
section was added to the treaty on the 16th at
Los Angeles releasing the officers from their
paroles. Two cannon were surrendered, the
howitzer captured from General Kearny at San
Pasqual and the woman's gun that won the bat-
tle of Dominguez. On the I4th, Fremont's bat-
talion marched through the Cahuenga Pass to
Los Angeles in a pouring rainstorm, and en-
tered it four days after its surrender to Stock-
ton. The conquest of California, was com-
pleted. Stockton approved the treaty, although
it was not altogether satisfactory to him. On
the 16th he appointed Colonel Fremont gov-
ernor of the territory, and William H. Russell,
of the battalion, secretary of state.
This precipitated a quarrel between Stockton
and Kearny, which had been brewing for some
time. General Kearny claimed that under his
instructions from the government he should be
recognized as governor. As he had directly under
his command but the one company of dragoons
that he brought across the plain with him, he
was unable to enforce his authority. He left on
the 18th for San Diego, taking with him the
144 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
officers of his staff. On the 20th Commo-
dore Stockton, with his sailors and marines,
marched to San Pedro, where they all em-
barked on a man-of-war for San Diego to re-
join their ships. Shortly afterwards Commo-
dore Stockton was superseded in the command
of the Pacific squadron by Commodore Shu-
brick.
CHAPTER XXI.
TRANSFORMATION.
TRANSITION AND
HE capitulation of Gen. Andres Pico at
Cahuenga put an end to the war in Cali-
fornia. The instructions from the secre-
tary of war were to pursue a policy of concilia-
tion towards the Californians with the ultimate
design of transforming them into American citi-
zens. Colonel Fremont was left in command at
Los Angeles. He established his headquarters
on the second floor of the Bell block (corner of
Los Angeles and Aliso streets), then the best
building in the city. One company of his bat-
talion was retained in the city; the others, under
command of Captain Owens, were quartered at
the Mission San Gabriel.
The Mormons had been driven out of Illinois
and Missouri. A sentiment of antagonism had
been engendered against them and they had
begun their migration to the far west, pre-
sumably to California. They were encamped on
the Missouri river at Kanesville, now Council
Bluffs, preparatory to crossing the plains, when
hostilities broke out between the United States
and Mexico, in April, 1846. A proposition was
made by President Polk to their leaders to raise
a battalion of five hundred men to serve as
United States volunteers for twelve months.
These volunteers, under command of regular
army officers, were to march to Santa Fe, or,
if necessary, to California, where, at the expira-
tion of their term of enlistment, they were to be
discharged and allowed to retain their arms.
Through the influence of Brigham Young and
other leaders, the battalion was recruited and
General Kearny, commanding the Army of the
West, detailed Capt. James Allen, of the First
United States Dragoons, to muster them into
the service and take command of the battalion.
On the 16th of July, at Council Bluffs, the bat-
talion was mustered into service and on the I4th
of August it began its long and weary march.
About eighty women and children, wives and
families of the officers and some of the enlisted
men, accompanied the battalion on its march.
Shortly after the beginning of the march, Allen,
who had been promoted to lieutenant-colonel,
fell sick and died. The battalion was placed
temporarily under the command of Lieut. A. J.
Smith, of the regular army. At Santa Fe
Lieut.-Col. Philip St. George Cooke took com-
mand under orders from General Kearny. The
battalion was detailed to open a wagon road by
the Gila route to California. About sixty of
the soldiers who had become unfit for duty and
all the women except five were sent back and
the remainder of the force, after a toilsome jour-
ney, reached San Luis Rey, Cal., January 29,
I847, where it remained until ordered to Los
Angeles, which place it reached March 17.
Captain Owens, in command of Fremont's
battalion, had moved all the artillery, ten pieces,
from Los Angeles to San Gabriel, probably with
the design of preventing it falling into the hands
of Colonel Cooke, who was an adherent of
General Kearny. General Kearny, under addi-
tional instructions from the general government,
brought by Colonel Mason from the war depart-
ment, had established himself as governor at
Monterey. With a governor in the north and
one in the South, antagonistic to each other,
California had fallen back to its normal condi-
tion under Mexican rule. Colonel Cooke,
shortly after his arrival in the territory, thus de-
scribes the condition prevailing: “General
Kearny is supreme somewhere up the coast.
Colonel Fremont is supreme at Pueblo de Los
Angeles; Colonel Stockton is commander-in-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
145
chief at San Diego; Commodore Shubrick the
same at Monterey; and I at San Luis Rey; and
we are all supremely poor, the government hav-
ing no money and no credit, and we hold the
territory because Mexico is the poorest of all.”
Col. R. B. Mason was appointed inspector of
the troops in California and made an Official
visit to Los Angeles. In a misunderstanding
about some official matters he used insulting
language to Colonel Fremont. Fremont
promptly challenged him to fight a duel. The
challenge was accepted; double-barreled shot-
guns were chosen as the weapons and the
Rancho Rosa del Castillo as the place of meet-
ing. Mason was summoned north and the duel
was postponed until his return. General Kearny,
hearing of the proposed affair of honor, put a
stop to further proceedings by the duelists.
Col. Philip St. George Cooke, of the Mormon
battalion, was made commander of the military
district of the south with headquarters at Los
Angeles. Fremont's battalion was mustered out
of service. The Mormon soldiers and the two
companies of United States Dragoons who
came with General Kearny were stationed at
Los Angeles to do guard duty and prevent any
uprising of the natives.
Colonel Fremont's appointment as governor
of California had never been recognized by
General Kearny. So when the general had
made himself supreme at Monterey he ordered
Fremont to report to him at the capital and
turn over the papers of his governorship. Fre-
mont did so and passed out of Office. He was
nominally governor of the territory about two
months. His appointment was made by Com-
modore Stockton, but was never confirmed by
the president or secretary of war. His jurisdic-
tion did not extend beyond Los Angeles. He
left Los Angeles May 12 for Monterey. From
that place, in company with General Kearny,
on May 31, he took his departure for the states.
The relations between the two were strained.
While ostensibly traveling as one company,
each officer, with his staff and escort, made sep-
arate camps. At Fort Leavenworth General
Kearny placed Fremont under arrest and pre-
ferred charges against him for disobedience of
orders. He was tried by court-martial at Wash-
ington and was ably defended by his father-in-
law, Colonel Benton, and his brother-in-law,
William Carey Jones. The court found him
guilty and fixed the penalty, dismissal from the
service. President Polk remitted the penalty
and ordered Colonel Fremont to resume his
sword and report for duty. He did so, but
shortly afterward resigned his commission and
left the army.
While Colonel Cooke was in command of
the southern district rumors reached Los An-
geles that the Mexican general, Bustamente,
with a force of fifteen hundred men, was pre-
paring to reconquer California. “Positive infor-
mation,” writes Colonel Cooke, under date of
April 20, 1847, “has been received that the
Mexican government has appropriated $600,000
towards fitting out this force.” It was also re-
ported that cannon and military stores had been
landed at San Vicente, in Lower California.
Rumors of an approaching army came thick and
fast. The natives were supposed to be in league
with Bustamente and to be secretly preparing
for an uprising. Precautions were taken against
a surprise. A troop of cavalry was sent to
Warner's ranch to patrol the Sonora road as
far as the desert. The construction of a fort
On the hill fully commanding the town, which
had previously been determined upon, was
begun and a company of infantry posted on
the hill.
On the 23d of April, three months after work
had ceased on Emory's fort, the construction of
the second fort was begun and pushed vigor-
ously. Rumors continued to come of the ap-
proach of the enemy. May 3, Colonel Cooke
writes: “A report was received through the
most available sources of information that Gen-
eral Bustamente had crossed the Gulf of Cali-
fornia near its head, in boats of the pearl fishers,
and at last information was at a rancho on the
western road, seventy leagues below San
Diego.” Colonel Stevenson's regiment of New
York volunteers had recently arrived in Cali-
fornia. Two companies of that regiment had
been sent to Los Angeles and two to San
Diego. The report that Colonel Cooke had re-
ceived reinforcement and that Los Angeles was
being fortified was supposed to have frightened
10
146
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Bustamente into abandoning his invasion of
California. Bustamente's invading army was
largely the creation of somebody's fertile imag-
ination. The scare, however, had the effect of
hurrying up work on the fort. May 13, Colo-
nel Cooke resigned and Col. J. B. Stevenson
succeeded him in the command of the southern
military district.
Colonel Stevenson continued work on the
fort and on the 1st of July work had progressed
so far that he decided to dedicate and name it
on the 4th. He issued an official order for the
celebration of the anniversary of the birthday of
American independence at this port, as he called
Los Angeles. “At sunrise a Federal salute will
be fired from the field work on the hill which
commands this town and for the first time from
this point the American standard will be dis-
played. At II o'clock all the troops of the
district, consisting of the Mormon battalion, the
two companies of dragoons and two companies
of the New York volunteers, were formed in a
hollow square at the fort. The Declaration of
Independence was read in English by Captain
Stuart Taylor and in Spanish by Stephen C.
Foster. The native Californians, seated on their
horses in rear of the soldiers, listened to Don
Esteban as he rolled out in sonorous Spanish the
Declaration's arraignment of King George III.,
and smiled. They had probably never heard of
King George or the Declaration of Independ-
ence, either, but they knew a pronunciamiento
when they heard it, and after a pronunciamiento
in their governmental system came a revolution,
therefore they smiled at the prospect of a gringo
revolution. “At the close of this ceremony
(reading of the Declaration) the field work will
be dedicated and appropriately named; and at
12 o'clock a national salute will be fired. The
field work at this post having been planned and
the work conducted entirely by Lieutenant Da-
vidson of the First Dragoons, he is requested
to hoist upon it for the first time on the morn-
ing of the 4th the American standard.” “ * *
The commander directs that from and after the
4th instant the fort shall bear the name of
Moore. Benjamin D. Moore, after whom the fort
was named, was captain of Company A, First
United States Dragoons. He was killed by a
lance thrust in the disastrous charge at the bat-
tle of San Pasqual. This fort was located on
what is now called Fort Hill, near the geograph-
ical center of Los Angeles. It was a breastwork
about four hundred feet long with bastions and
embrasures for cannon. The principal em-
brasure commanded the church and the plaza,
two places most likely to be the rallying points
in a rebellion. It was built more for the sup-
pression of a revolt than to resist an invasion.
It was in a commanding position; two hundred
men, about its capacity, could have defended it
against a thousand if the attack came from the
front; but as it was never completed, in an at-
tack from the rear it could easily have been cap-
tured with an equal force.
Col. Richard B. Mason succeeded General
Kearny as commander-in-chief of the troops
and military governor of California. Col. Philip
St. George Cooke resigned command of the
military district of the south May 13, joined
General Kearny at Monterey and went east
with him. As previously stated, Col. J. D. Ste-
venson, of the New York volunteers, succeeded
him. His regiment, the First New York, but
really the Seventh, had been recruited in the
eastern part of the state of New York in the
summer of 1846, for the double purpose of con-
quest and colonization. The United States gov-
ernment had no intention of giving up California
once it was conquered, and therefore this regi-
ment came to the coast well provided with pro-
visions and implements of husbandry. It came
to California via Cape Horn in three transports.
The first ship, the Perkins, arrived at San
Francisco, March 6, 1847; the second, the Drew,
March 19; and the third, the Loo Choo, March
26. Hostilities had ceased in California before
their arrival. Two companies, A and B, under
command of Lieutenant-Colonel Burton, were
sent to Lower California, where they saw hard
service and took part in several engagements.
The other companies of the regiment were sent
to different towns in Alta California to do gar-
rison duty.
Another military organization that reached
California after the conquest was Company F
of the Third United States Artillery. It landed
at Monterey January 28, 1847. It was com-
PHISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
147
manded by Capt. C. Q. Thompkins. With
it came Lieuts. E. O. C. Ord, William T. Sher-
man and H. W. Halleck, all of whom became
promiſhent in California affairs and attained na-
tional reputation during the Civil war. The
Mormon battalion was mustered out in July,
I847. One company under command of Cap-
tain Hunt re-enlisted. The others made their
way to Utah, where they joined their brethren
who the year before had crossed the plains and
founded the City of Salt Lake. The New York
volunteers were discharged in August, 1848.
After the treaty of peace, in 1848, four compa-
nies of United States Dragoons, under com-
mand of Major L. P. Graham, marched from
Chihuahua, by way of Tucson, to California.
Major Graham was the last military commander
of the south.
Commodore W. Branford Shubrick succeeded
Commodore Stockton in command of the naval
forces of the north Pacific coast. Jointly with
General Kearny he issued a circular or proc-
lamation to the people of California, printed in
English and Spanish, setting forth “That the
president of the United States, desirous to give
and secure to the people of California a share
of the good government and happy civil organ-
ization enjoyed by the people of the United
States, and to protect them at the same time
from the attacks of foreign foes and from inter-
nal commotions, has invested the undersigned
with separate and distinct powers, civil and mil-
itary; a cordial co-operation in the exercise of
which, it is hoped and believed, will have the
happy results desired. -
“To the commander-in-chief of the naval
forces the president has assigned the regula-
tion of the import trade, the conditions on which
vessels of all nations, our own as well as foreign,
may be admitted into the ports of the territory,
and the establishment of all port regulations.
To the commanding military officer the presi-
dent has assigned the direction of the operations
on land and has invested him with administra-
tive functions of government over the people
and territory occupied by the forces of the
United States.
“Done at Monterey, capital of California, this
Ist day of March, A. D. 1847. W. Branford
Shubrick, commander-in-chief of the naval
forces. S. W. Kearny, Brig.-Gen. United States
Army, and Governor of California.”
Under the administration of Col. Richard B.
Mason, the successor of General Kearny as
military governor, the reconstruction, or, more
appropriately, the transformation period began.
The orders from the general government were
to conciliate the people and to make no radical
changes in the form of government. The Mex-
ican laws were continued in force. Just what
these laws were, it was difficult to find out. No
code commissioner had codified the laws and it
sometimes happened that the judge made the
law to suit the case. Under the old régime the al-
calde was often law-giver, judge, jury and exe-
cutioner, all in one. Occasionally there was fric-
tion between the military and civil powers, and
there were rumors of insurrections and inva-
sions, but nothing came of them. The Califor-
nians, with easy good nature so characteristic
of them, made the best of the situation. “A
thousand things,” says Judge Hays, “combined
to smooth the asperities of war. Fremont had
been courteous and gay; Mason was just and
firm. The natural good temper of the popula-
tion favored a speedy and perfect conciliation.
The American officers at once found themselves
happy in every circle. In suppers, balls, visiting
in town and country, the hours glided away with
pleasant reflections.”
There were, however, a few individuals who
were not happy unless they could stir up dis-
sensions and cause trouble. One of the chief of
these was Serbulo Varèla, agitator and revolu-
tionist. Varela, for some offense not specified
in the records, had been committed to prison by
the second alcalde of Los Angeles. . Colonel Ste-
venson turned him out of jail, and Varela gave
the judge a tongue lashing in refuse Castilian.
The judge's official dignity was hurt. He sent
a communication to the ayuntamiento saying:
“Owing to personal abuse which I received at
the hands of a private individual and from the
present military commander, I tender my resig-
nation.”
The ayuntamiento sent a communication to
Colonel Stevenson asking why he had turned
Varela out of jail and why he had insulted the
148
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
judge. The colonel curtly replied that the mili-
tary would not act as jailers over persons guilty
of trifling offenses while the city had plenty of
persons to do guard duty at the jail. As to the
abuse of the judge, he was not aware that any
abuse had been given, and would take no further
notice of him unless he stated the nature of the
insult offered him. The council decided to no-
tify the governor of the outrage perpetrated by
the military commander, and the second alcalde
said since he could get no satisfaction for insults
to his authority from the military despot, he
would resign; but the council would not accept
his resignation, so he refused to act, and the city
had to worry along with one alcalde.
Although foreigners had been coming to Cali-
fornia ever since 1814, their numbers had not
increased very rapidly. Nearly all of these had
found their way there by sea. Those who had
become permanent residents had married native
Californian women and adopted the customs of
the country. Capt. Jedediah S. Smith, in 1827,
crossed the Sierra Nevada mountains from Cali-
fornia and by way of the Humboldt, or, as he
named it, the Mary River, had reached the Great
Salt Lake. From there through the South Pass
of the Rocky mountains the route had been
traveled for several years by the fur trappers.
This latter became the great emigrant route to
California a few years later. A southern route
by way of Santa Fe had been marked out and
the Pattee party had found their way to the
Colorado by the Gila route, but so far no emi-
grant trains had come from the States to Cali-
fornia with women and children. The first of
these mixed trains was organized in western
Missouri in May, 184I. The party consisted of
sixty-nine persons, including men, women and
children. This party divided at Soda Springs,
half going to Oregon and the others keeping on
their way to California. They reached the San
Joaquin valley in November, 1841, after a toil-
some journey of six months. The first settle-
ment they found was Dr. Marsh's ranch in what
is now called Contra Costa county. Marsh gave
them a cordial reception at first, but afterwards
treated them meanly.
Fourteen of the party started for the Pueblo
de San José. At the Mission of San José,
twelve miles from the Pueblo, they were all ar-
rested by order of General Vallejo. One of the
men was sent to Dr. Marsh to have him come
forthwith and explain why an armed force of
his countrymen were roaming around the coun-
try without passports. Marsh secured their re-
lease and passports for all the party. On his
return home he charged the men who had re-
mained at his ranch $5 each for a passport, al-
though the passports had cost him nothing. As
there was no money in the party, each had to
put up some equivalent from his scanty posses-
sions. Marsh had taken this course to reim-
burse himself for the meal he had given the
half-starved emigrants the first night of their
arrival at his ranch.
In marked contrast with the meanness of
Marsh was the liberality of Captain Sutter. Sut-
ter had built a fort at the junction of the Amer-
ican river and the Sacramento in 1839 and had
obtained extensive land grants. His fort was
the frontier post for the overland emigration.
Gen. John Bidwell, who came with the first
emigrant train to California, in a description of
“Life in California Before the Gold Discovery,”
says: “Nearly everybody who came to Califor-
nia then made it a point to reach Sutter's Fort.
Sutter was one of the most liberal and hospita-
ble of men. Everybody was welcome, one man
or a hundred, it was all the same.”
Another emigrant train, known as the Work-
man-Rowland party, numbering forty-five per-
Sons, came from Santa Fe by the Gila route to
Los Angeles. About twenty-five of this party
were persons who had arrived too late at West-
port, Mo., to join the northern emigrant party,
so they went with the annual caravan of St.
Louis traders to Santa Fe and from there, with .
traders and trappers, continued their journey to
California. From 1841 to the American con-
quest immigrant trains came across the plains
every year.
One of the most noted of these, on account of
the tragic fate that befell it, was the Donner
party. The nucleus of this party, George and
Jacob Donner and James K. Reed, with their
families, started from Springfield, Ill., in the
spring of 1846. By accretions and combinations,
when it reached Fort Bridger, July 25, it had
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
149
increased to eighty-seven persons—thirty-six
men, twenty-one women and thirty children,
under the command of George Donner. A new
route called the Hastings Cut-Off, had just been
opened by Lansford W. Hastings. This route
passed to the south of Great Salt Lake and
struck the old Fort Hall emigrant road on the
Humboldt. It was claimed that the “cut-off”
shortened the distance three hundred miles.
The Donner party, by misrepresentations, were
induced to take this route. The cut-off proved
to be almost impassable. They started on the
cut-off the last day of July, and it was the end
of September when they struck the old emigrant
trail on the Humboldt. They had lost most of
their cattle and were nearly out of provisions.
From this on, unmerciful disaster followed them
fast and faster. In an altercation, Reed, one of
the best, men of the party, killed Snyder. He
was banished from the train and compelled to
leave his wife and children behind. An old
Belgian named Hardcoop and Wolfinger, a
German, unable to keep up, were abandoned to
die on the road. Pike was accidentally shot by
Foster. The Indians stole a number of their
cattle, and one calamity after another delayed
them. In the latter part of October they had
reached the Truckee. Here they encountered a
heavy snow storm, which blocked all further
progress. They wasted their strength in trying
to ascend the mountains in the deep snow that
had fallen. Finally, finding this impossible, they
turned back and built cabins at a lake since
known as Donner Lake, and prepared to pass
the winter. Most of their oxen had strayed
away during the storm and perished. Those
still alive they killed and preserved the meat.
A party of fifteen, ten men and five women,
known as the “Forlorn Hope,” started, Decem-
ber 16, on snowshoes to cross the Sierras. They
had provisions for six days, but the journey
consumed thirty-two days. Eight of the ten
men perished, and among them the noble Stan-
ton, who had brought relief to the emigrants
from Sutter's Fort before the snows began to
fall. The five women survived. Upon the ar-
rival of the wretched survivors of the “Forlorn
Hope,” the terrible sufferings of the snow-bound
immigrants were made known at Sutter's Fort,
and the first relief party was organized, and on
the 5th of February started for the lake. Seven
of the thirteen who started succeeded in reach-
ing the lake. On the 19th they started back
with twenty-one of the immigrants, three of
whom died on the way. A second relief, under
Reed and McCutchen, was organized. Reed
had gone to Yerba Buena to seek assistance. A
public meeting was called and $1,500 subscribed.
The second relief started from Johnston's
Ranch, the nearest point to the mountains, on
the 23d of February and reached the camp on
March 1st. They brought out seventeen. Two
others were organized and reached Donner
Lake, the last on the 17th of April. The only
survivor then was Keseburg, a German, who
was hated by all the company. There was a
strong suspicion that he had killed Mrs. Don-
ner, who had refused to leave her husband (who
was too weak to travel) with the previous relief.
There were threats of hanging him. Keseburg
had saved his life by eating the bodies of the
dead. Of the original party of eighty-seven, a
total of thirty-nine perished from starvation.
Most of the survivors were compelled to resort
to cannabalism. They were not to blame if they
did.
150
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
CHAPTER XXII.
MEXICAN LAWS AND AMERICAN OFFICIALS.
May 31, 1847, Col. Richard B. Mason
became governor and commander-in-
chief of the United States forces in California
by order of the president. Stockton, Kearny
and Fremont had taken their departure, the
dissensions that had existed since the conquest
of the territory among the conquerors ceased,
and peace reigned.
There were reports of Mexican invasions and
suspicions of Secret plottings against gringo
rule, but the invaders came not and the plottings
never produced even the mildest form of a Mexi-
can revolution. Mexican laws were adminis-
tered for the most part by military officers. The
municipal authorities were encouraged to con-
tinue in power and perform their governmental
functions, but they were indifferent and some-
times rebelled. Under Mexican rule there was
no trial by jury. The alcalde acted as judge
and in criminal cases a council of war settled the
fate of the criminal. The Rev. Walter Colton,
while acting as alcalde of Monterey, in 1846-47,
impaneled the first jury ever summoned in Cali-
fornia. “The plaintiff and defendant,” he writes,
“are among the principal citizens of the country.
The case was one involving property on the one
side and integrity of character on the other. Its
merits had been pretty widely discussed, and
had called forth an unusual interest. One-third
of the jury were Mexicans, one-third Califor-
nians and the other third Americans. This mix-
ture may have the better answered the ends of
justice, but I was apprehensive at one time it
would embarrass the proceedings; for the plaint-
iff spoke in English, the defendant in French;
the jury, save the Americans, Spanish, and the
witnesses, all the languages known to California.
By the tact of Mr. Hartnell, who acted as inter-
| |º the departure of General Kearny,
preter, and the absence of young lawyers, we
got along very well.
"The examination of witnesses lasted five or
six hours. I then gave the case to the jury,
stating the questions of fact upon which they
were to render their verdict. They retired for
an hour and then returned, when the foreman
handed in their verdict, which was clear and
explicit, though the case itself was rather com-
plicated. To this verdict both parties bowed
without a word of dissent. The inhabitants who
witnessed the trial said it was what they liked,
that there could be no bribery in it, that the
Opinion of twelve honest men should set the
case forever at rest. And so it did, though
neither party completely triumphed in the issue.
One recovered his property, which had been
taken from him by mistake, the other his char-
acter, which had been slandered by design.”
The process of Americanizing the people was
no easy undertaking. The population of the
country and its laws were in a chaotic condition.
It was an arduous task that Colonel Mason and
the military commanders at the various pueblos
had to perform, that of evolving order out of
the chaos that had been brought about by the
change in nations. The native population
neither understood the language nor the cus-
tons of their new rulers, and the newcomers
among the Americans had very little toleration
for the slow-going Mexican ways and methods
they found prevailing. To keep peace between
the factions required more tact than knowledge
of law, military or civil, in the commanders.
Los Angeles, under Mexican domination, had
been the storm center of revolutions, and here
under the new régime the most difficulty was
encountered in transforming the quondam rev-
olutionists into law-abiding and peaceful Amer-
ican citizens. The ayuntamiento was convened
in 1847, after the conquest, and continued in
power until the close of the year. When the
time came round for the election of a new ayun-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
151
tamiento there was trouble. Stephen C. Foster,
Colonel Stevenson's interpreter, submitted a
paper to the council stating that the govern-
ment had authorized him to get up a register of
voters. The ayuntamiento voted to return the
paper just as it was received. Then the colonel
made a demand of the council to assist Stephen
in compiling a register of voters. Regidor Cha-
vez took the floor and said such a register
should not be gotten up under the auspices of
the military, but, since the government had so
disposed, thereby outraging this honorable
body, no attention should be paid to said com-
munication. But the council decided that the
matter did not amount to much, so they granted
the request, much to the disgust of Chavez.
The election was held and a new ayuntamiento
elected. At the last meeting of the old council,
December 29, 1847, Colonel Stevenson ad-
dressed a note to it requesting that Stephen C.
Foster be recognized as first alcalde and judge
of the first instance. The council decided to
turn the whole business over to its successor, to
deal with as it sees fit.
Colonel Stevenson's request was made in ac-
cordance with the wish of Governor Mason
that a part of the civil offices be filled by Amer-
icans. The new ayuntamiento resented the in-
terference. How the matter terminated is best
told in Stephen C. Foster's own words: “Colo-
nel Stevenson was determined to have our in-
auguration done in style. So on the day ap-
pointed, January 1, 1848, he, together with
myself and colleague, escorted by a guard of
soldiers, proceeded from the colonel's quarters
to the alcalde’s office. There we found the re-
tiring ayuntamiento and the new one awaiting
our arrival. The oath of office was adminis-
tered by the retiring first alcalde. We knelt to
take the oath, when we found they had changed
their minds, and the alcalde told us that if two
of their number were to be kicked out they
would all go. So they all marched out and left
us in possession. Here was a dilemma, but
Colonel Stevenson was equal to the emergency.
He said he could give us a swear as well as the
alcalde. So we stood up and he administered
to us an oath to support the constitution of
the United States and administer justice in ac-
cordance with Mexican law. I then knew as
much about Mexican law as I did about Chinese,
and my colleague knew as much as I did. Guer-
rero gathered up the books that pertained to his
office and took them to his house, where he
established his office, and I took the archives
and records across the street to a house I had
rented, and there I was duly installed for the
Inext seventeen months, the first American al-
calde and carpet-bagger in Los Angeles.”
Colonel Stevenson issued a call for the elec-
tion of a new ayuntamiento, but the people
stayed at home and no votes were cast. At the
close of the year the voters had gotten over
their pet and when a call was made a council
was elected, but only Californians (hijos del
pais) were returned. The ayuntamientos con-
tinued to be the governing power in the pueblos
until superseded by city and county govern-
ments in 1850.
The most difficult problem that General Kear-
ny in his short term had to confront and, un-
solved, he handed down to his successor, Colo-
nel Mason, was the authority and jurisdiction
of the alcaldes. Under the Mexican régime
these officers were supreme in the pueblo over
which they ruled. For the Spanish transgressor
fines of various degrees were the usual penalty;
for the mission neophyte, the lash, well laid on,
and labor in the chain gang. There was no
written code that defined the amount of pun-
ishment; the alcalde meted out justice and some-
times injustice, as suited his humor. Kearny
appointed John H. Nash alcalde of Sonoma.
Nash was a rather erratic individual, who had
taken part in the Bear Flag revolution. When
the offices of the prospective California Re-
public were divided among the revolutionists,
he was to be the chief justice. After the col-
lapse of that short-lived republic, Nash was
elected alcalde. His rule was so arbitrary and
his decisions so biased by favoritism or preju-
dice that the American settlers soon protested
and General Kearny removed him or tried to.
He appointed L. W. Boggs, a recently arrived
immigrant, to the office. Nash refused to sur-
render the books and papers of the office. Lieut.
W. T. Sherman was detailed by Colonel Mason,
after his succession to the office of governor, to
152
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
proceed to Sonoma and arrest Nash. Sherman
quietly arrested him at night and before the
bellicose alcalde's friends (for he had quite a fol-
lowing) were aware of what was going On,
marched him off to San Francisco. He was
put on board the Dale and sent to Monterey.
Pinding that it was useless for him to resist the
authority of the United States, its army and
navy as well, Nash expressed his willingness to
submit to the inevitable, and surrendered his
Office. He was released and ceased from troub-
ling. Another strenuous alcalde was William
Blackburn, of Santa Cruz. He came to the
country in 1845, and before his elevation to the
honorable position of a judge of the first in-
stance he had been engaged in making shingles
in the redwoods. He had no knowledge of law
and but little acquaintance with books of any
kind. His decisions were always on the side of
justice, although some of the penalties imposed
were somewhat irregular.
In Alcalde Blackburn's docket for August 14,
I847, appears this entry: “Pedro Gomez was
tried for the murder of his wife, Barbara Gomez,
and found guilty. The sentence of the court is
that the prisoner be conducted back to prison,
there to remain until Monday, the 16th of Au-
gust, and then be taken out and shot.” August
17, sentence carried into effect on the 16th ac-
cordingly. WILLIAM BLACKBURN, Alcalde.
It does not appear in the records that Black-
burn was the executioner. He proceeded to
dispose of the two orphaned children of the
murderer. The older daughter he indentured to
Jacinto Castro “to raise until she is twenty-one
years of age, unless sooner married, said Ja-
cinto Castro, obligating himself to give her a
good education, three cows and calves at her
marriage or when of age.” The younger daugh-
ter was disposed of on similar terms to A. Rod-
riguez. Colonel Mason severely reprimanded
Blackburn, but the alcalde replied that there
was no use making a fuss Over it; the man was
guilty, he had a fair trial before a jury and de-
served to die. Another case in his court illus-
trates the versatility of the judge. A Spanish
boy, out of revenge, sheared the mane and tail
of a neighbor's horse. The offense was proved,
but the judge was Sorely perplexed when he
came to sentence the culprit. He could find no
law in his law books to fit the case. After pon-
dering over the question a while, he gave this
decision: “I find no law in any of the statutes
to fit this case, except in the law of Moses, “An
eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Let the
prisoner be taken out in front of this office and
there sheared close.”
diately executed.
Another story is told of Blackburn, which
may or may not be true. A mission Indian who
had committed murder took the right of sanc-
tuary in the church, and the padre refused to
give him up. Blackburn wrote to the governor,
stating the case. The Indian, considering him-
self safe while with the padre, left the church
in company with the priest. Blackburn seized
him, tried him and hung him. He then reported
to the governor: “I received your order to sus-
pend the execution of the condemned man, but
I had hung him. When I see you I will ex-
plain the affair.”
Some of the military commanders of the pre-
sidios and pueblos gave Governor Mason as
much trouble as the alcaldes. These, for the
most part, were officers of the volunteers who
had arrived after the conquest. They were un-
used to “war's alarms,” and, being new to
the country and ignorant of the Spanish lan-
guage, they regarded the natives with suspicion.
They were on the lookout for plots and revolu-
tions. Sometimes they found these incubating
and undertook to crush them, only to discover
that the affair was a hoax or a practical joke.
The Cañon Perdido (lost cañon) of Santa Bar-
bara episode is a good illustration of the
trouble one “finicky” man can make when en-
trusted with military power.
In the winter of 1847-48 the American bark
Elisabeth was wrecked on the Santa Barbara
coast. Among the flotsam of the wreck was a
brass cannon of uncertain calibre; it might have
been a six, a nine or a twelve pounder. What
the capacity of its bore matters not, for the gun
unloaded made more noise in Santa Barbara
than it ever did when it belched forth shot and
shell in battle. The gun, after its rescue from
a watery grave, lay for some time on the beach,
The sentence was imme-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
153
devoid of carriage and useless, apparently, for
offense or defense.
One dark night a little Squad of native Cali-
fornians stole down to the beach, loaded the
gun in an ox cart, hauled it to the estero and
hid it in the sands. What was their object in
taking the gun no one knows. Perhaps they
did not know themselves. It might come handy
1n a revolution, or maybe they only intended to
play a practical joke on the gringos. Whatever
their object, the outcome of their prank must
have astonished them. There was a company
(F) of Stevenson's New York volunteers sta-
tioned at Santa Barbara, under command of
Captain Lippett. Lippett was a fussy, nervous
individual who lost his head when anything un-
usual occurred. In the theft of the cannon he
thought he had discovered a California revolu-
tion in the formative stages, and he determined
to crush it in its infancy. He sent post haste a
courier to Governor Mason at Monterey, in-
forming him of the prospective uprising of the
natives and the possible destruction of the
troops at Santa Barbara by the terrible gun the
enemy had stolen.
Colonel Mason, relying on Captain Lippett's
report, determined to give the natives a lesson
that would teach them to let guns and revolu-
tions alone. He issued an order from headquar-
ters at Monterey, in which he said that ample
time having been allowed for the return of the
gun, and the citizens having failed to produce
it, he ordered that the town be laid under a con-
tribution of $500, assessed in the following man-
ner: A capitation tax of $2 on all males Over
twenty years of age; the balance to be paid by
the heads of families and property-holders in the
proportion of the value of their respective real
and personal estate in the town of Santa Bar-
bara and vicinity. Col. J. D. Stevenson was ap-
pointed to direct the appraisement of the prop-
erty and the collection of the assessment. If
any failed to pay his capitation, enough of his
property was to be seized and sold to pay his
enforced contribution.
The promulgation of the order at Santa Bar-
bara raised a storm of indignation at the old
pueblo. Colonel Stevenson came up from Los
Angeles and had an interview with Don Pablo
de La Guerra, a leading citizen of Santa Bar-
bara. Don Pablo was wrathfully indignant at
the insult put upon his people, but after talking
over the affair with Colonel Stevenson, he be-
came Somewhat mollified. He invited Colonel
Stevenson to make Santa Barbara his headquar-
ters and inquired about the brass band at the
lower pueblo. Stevenson took the hint and or-
dered up the band from Los Angeles. July 4th
had been fixed upon as the day for the payment
of the fines, doubtless with the idea of giving
the Californians a little celebration that would
remind them hereafter of Liberty's natal day.
Colonel Stevenson contrived to have the band
reach Santa Barbara on the night of the 3d.
The band astonished Don Pablo and his family
with a serenade. The Don was so delighted
that he hugged the colonel in the most approved
style. The band serenaded all the Dons of note
in town and tooted until long after midnight,
then started in next morning and kept it up
till ten o'clock, the time set for each man to con-
tribute his “dos pesos" to the common fund.
By that time every hombre on the list was so
filled with wine, music and patriotism that the
greater portion of the fine was handed over
without protest. The day ciosed with a grand
ball. The beauty and the chivalry of Santa Bar-
bara danced to the music of a gringo brass
band and the brass cannon for the nonce was
forgotten.
But the memory of the city's ransom rankled,
and although an American band played Spanish
airs, American injustice was still remembered.
When the city's survey was made in 1850 the
nomenclature of three streets, Cañon Perdido
(Lost Cannon street), Quinientos (Five Hun-
dred Street) and Mason street kept the cannon
episode green in the memory of the Barbarelios.
When the pueblo, by legislative act, became a
ciudad, the municipal authorities selected this
device for a seal: In the center a cannon em-
blazoned, encircled with these words, Vale
Quinientos Pesos—Worth $500, or, more liber-
ally translated, Good-bye, $500, which, by the
way, as the sequel of the story will show, is the
better translation. This seal was used from the
incorporation of the city in 1850 to 1860, when
another design was chosen.
154
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
After peace was declared, Colonel Mason sent
the $500 to the prefect at Santa Barbara, with
instructions to use it in building a city jail; and
although there was pressing need for a jail, the
jail was not built. The prefect's needs were
pressing, too. Several years passed; then the
city council demanded that the prefect turn the
money into the city treasury. He replied that
the money was entrusted to him for a specific
purpose, and he would trust no city treasurer
with it. The fact was that long before he had
lost it in a game of monte.
Ten years passed, and the episode of the lost
cannon was but a dimly remembered story of
the olden time. The old gun reposed peacefully
in its grave of sand and those who buried it
had forgotten the place of its interment. One
stormy night in December, 1858, the estero
(creek) cut a new channel to the ocean. In
the morning, as some Barbarefios were survey-
ing the changes caused by the flood, they saw
the muzzle of a large gun protruding from the
cut in the bank. They unearthed it, cleaned off
the sand and discovered that it was El Cañon
Perdido, the lost cannon. It was hauled up
State street to Cañon Perdido, where it was
mounted on an improvised carriage. But the
sight of it was a reminder of an unpleasant in-
cident. The finders sold it to a merchant for
$80. He shipped it to San Francisco and sold
it at a handsome profit for old brass.
Governor Pio Pico returned from Mexico to
California, arriving at San Gabriel July 17, 1848.
Although the treaty of peace between the
United States and Mexico had been signed and
proclaimed, the news had not reached Califor-
nia. Pico, from San Fernando, addressed let-
ters to Colonel Stevenson at Los Angeles and
Governor Mason at Monterey, Stating that as
Mexican governor of California he had come
back to the country with the object of carrying
out the armistice which then existed between
the United States and Mexico. He further
stated that he had no desire to impede the es-
tablishment of peace between the two countries;
and that he wished to see the Mexicans and
Americans treat each other in a spirit of frater-
inity. Mason did not like Pico's assumption of
the title of Mexican governor of California, al-
though it is not probable that Pico intended to
assert any claim to his former position. Gov-
ernòr Mason sent a special courier to Los An-
geles with Orders to Colonel Stevenson to
arrest the ex-governor, who was then at his
Santa Margarita rancho, and send him to Mon-
terey, but the news of the ratification of the
treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo reached Los An-
geles before the arrest was made, and Pico was
spared this humiliation.
The treaty of peace between the United States
and Mexico was signed at Guadalupe Hidalgo,
a hamlet a few miles from the City of Mexico,
February 2, 1848; ratifications were exchanged
at Queretaro, May 30 following, and a procla-
mation that peace had been established between
the two countries was published July 4, 1848.
Under this treaty the United States assumed the
payment of the claims of American citizens
against Mexico, and paid, in addition, $15,000,-
OOO to Mexico for Texas, New Mexico and
Alta California. Out of what was the Mexican
territory of Alta California there has been
carved all of California, all of Nevada, Utah and
Arizona and part of Colorado and Wyoming.
The territory acquired by the treaty of Guada-
lupe Hidalgo was nearly equal to the aggre-
gated area of the thirteen original states at the
time of the Revolutionary war.
The news of the treaty of peace reached Cali-
fornia August 6, 1848. On the 7th Governor
Mason issued a proclamation announcing the
ratification of the treaty. He announced that
all residents of California, who wished to be-
come citizens of the United States, were ab-
solved from their allegiance to Mexico. Those
who desired to retain their Mexican citizenship
could do so, provided they signified such inten-
tion within one year from May 30, 1848. Those
who wished to go to Mexico were at liberty to
do so without passports. Six months before,
Governor Mason had issued a proclamation pro-
hibiting any citizen of Sonora from entering
California except on official business, and then
only under flag of truce. He also required all
Sonorans in the country to report themselves
either at Los Angeles or Monterey.
The war was over; and the treaty of peace
had made all who so elected, native or foreign
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
15:
born, American citizens. Strict military rule
was relaxed and the people henceforth were to
be self-governing. American and Californian
were one people and were to enjoy the same
rights and to be subject to the same penalties.
The war ended, the troops were no longer
needed. Orders were issued to muster out the
volunteers. These all belonged to Stevenson's
New York regiment. The last company of the
Mormon battalion had been discharged in April.
The New York volunteers were scattered all
along the coast from Sonoma to Cape St. Lucas,
doing garrison duty. They were collected at
different points and mustered out. Although
those stationed in Alta California had done
no fighting, they had performed arduous Serv-
ice in keeping peace in the conquered territory.
Most of them remained in California after their
discharge and rendered a good account of them-
selves as citizens.
CHAPTER XXIII.
GOLD !
; :
EBASTIAN VISCAINO, from the bay of
S Monterey, writing to the King of Spain
three hundred years ago, says of the In-
dians of California: “They are well acquainted
with gold and silver, and said that these were
found in the interior.”
ing to make a good impression on the mind of
the king in regard to his discoveries, and the
remark about the existence of gold and silver.
in California was thrown to excite the cupidity
of his Catholic majesty. The traditions of the
existence of gold in California before any was
discovered are legion. Most of these have been
evolved since gold was actually found. Col. J.
J. Warner, a pioneer of 1831, in his Historical
Sketch of Los Angeles County, briefly and very
effectually disposes of these rumored discov-
eries. He says: “While statements respecting
the existence of gold in the earth of California
and its procurement therefrom have been made
and published as historical facts, carrying back
the date of the knowledge of the auriferous
character of this state as far as the time of the
visit of Sir Francis Drake to this coast, there is
no evidence to be found in the written or oral
history of the missions, the acts and correspond-
ence of the civil or military officers, or in the
unwritten and traditional history of Upper Cali-
fornia that the existence of gold, either with
ores or in its virgin state, was ever suspected
by any inhabitant of California previous to 1841,
and, furthermore, there is conclusive testimony
GOLD !
Viscaino was endeavor-
GOLD !
that the first known grain of native gold dust
was found upon or near the San Francisco ranch,
about forty-five miles north-westerly from Los
Angeles City, in the month of June, 1841. This
discovery consisted of grain gold fields (known
as placer mines), and the auriferous fields dis-
covered in that year embraced the greater part
of the country drained by the Santa Clara river
from a point some fifteen or twenty miles from
its mouth to its source, and easterly beyond
Mount San Bernardino.”
The story of the discovery as told by Warner
and by Don Abel Stearns agrees in the main
facts, but differs materially in the date. Stearns
says gold was first discovered by Francisco
Lopez, a native of California, in the month of
March, 1842, at a place called San Francisquito,
about thirty-five miles northwest from this city
(Los Angeles). The circumstances of the dis-
covery by Lopez, as related by himself, are as
follows: “Lopez, with a companion, was out in
search of some stray horses, and about midday
they stopped under some trees and tied their
horses out to feed, they resting under the shade,
when Lopez, with his sheath-knife, dug up some
wild onions, and in the dirt discovered a piece
of gold, and, searching further, found some
more. He brought these to town, and showed
them to his friends, who at once declared there
must be a placer of gold. This news being cir-
culated, numbers of the citizens went to the
place, and commenced prospecting in the neigh-
156
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
borhood, and found it to be a fact that there was
a placer of gold.”
Colonel Warner says: “The news of this dis-
covery soon spread among the inhabitants from
Santa Barbara to Los Angeles, and in a few
weeks hundreds of people were engaged in
washing and winnowing the sands and earth of
these gold fields.” 3.
Warner visited the mines a few weeks after
their discovery. He says: “From these mines
was obtained the first parcel of California gold
dust received at the United States mint in Phila-
delphia, and which was sent with Alfred Robin-
son, and went in a merchant ship around Cape
Horn.” This shipment of gold was 18.34 ounces
before and 18.1 ounces after melting; fineness,
.925; value, $344.75, or over $19 to the Ounce,
a very superior quality of gold dust. It was
deposited in the mint July 8, 1843.
It may be regarded as a settled historical fact
that the first authenticated discovery of gold
in Alta California was made on the San Fran-
cisco rancho in the San Feliciano Cañon, Los
Angeles county. This cañon is about ten miles
northwest of Newhall station on the Southern
Pacific railroad, and about forty miles northwest
of Los Angeles.
The date of the discovery is in doubt. A peti-
tion to the governor (Alvarado) asking permis-
sion to work the placers, signed by Francisco
Lopez, Manuel Cota and Domingo Bermudez is
on file in the California archives. It recites:
“That as Divine Providence was pleased to give
us a placer of gold on the 9th of last March in
the locality of San Francisco rancho, that be-
longs to the late Don Antonio del Valle.” This
petition fixes the day of the month the discovery
was made, but unfortunately omits all other
dates. The evidence is about equally divided
between the years 1841 and 1842.
It is impossible to obtain definite information
in regard to the yield of the San Fernando
placers, as these mines are generally called.
William Heath Davis, in his “Sixty Years in
California,” states that from $80,000 to $100,000
was taken out for the first two years after their
discovery. He says that Mellus at one time
shipped $5,000 of dust on the ship Alert. Ban-
croft says: “That by December, 1843, two thou-
Sand ounces of gold had been taken from the
San Fernando mines.” Don Antonio Coronel
informed the author that he, with the assistance
of three Indian laborers, in 1842, took out $600
worth of dust in two months. De Mofras, in his
book, states that Carlos Baric, a Frenchman, in
1842, was obtaining an ounce a day of pure gold
from his placer.
These mines were worked continuously from
the time of their discovery until the American
conquest, principally by Sonorians. The dis-
covery of gold at Coloma, January 24, 1848,
drew away the miners, and no work was done
On these mines between 1848 and 1854. After
the latter dates work was resumed, and in 1855,
Francisco Garcia, working a gang of Indians,
is reported to have taken out $65,000 in one
season. The mines are not exhausted, but the
scarcity of water prevents working them profit-
ably.
It is rather a singular coincidence that the
exact dates of both the first and second authen-
ticated discoveries of gold in California are still
among the undecided questions of history. In
the first, we know the day but not the year; in
the second, we know the year but not the day
of the month on which Marshall picked up the
first nuggets in the millrace at Coloma. For a
number of years after the anniversary of Mar-
shall's discovery began to be observed the 19th
of January was celebrated. Of late years Jan-
tiary 24 has been fixed upon as the correct date,
but the Associated Pioneers of the Territorial
Days of California, an association made up of
nmen who were in the territory at the time of
Marshall’s discovery or came here before it
became a state, object to the change. For nearly
thirty years they imave held their annual dinners
on January 18, “the anniversary of the discovery
of gold at Sutter's sawmill, Coloma, Cal.” This
society has its headquarters in New York City.
In a circular recently issued, disapproving of
the change of date from the 18th to the 24th, the
trustees of that society say: “Upon the organi-
zation of this society, February II, 1875, it was
decided to hold its annual dinners on the anni-
versary of the discovery of gold at Sutter's saw-
mill, Coloma, Cal. Through the Hon. Newton
Booth, of the United States Senate, this infor-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
157
mation was sought, with the result of a commu-
nication from the secretary of the state of Cali-
fornia to the effect ‘that the archives of the
state of California recorded the date as of Jan-
uary 18, 1848. Some years ago this date was
changed by the society at San Francisco to that
of January 24, and that date has been adopted
by other similar societies located upon the
Pacific and Atlantic coasts.
the matter under advisement, with the result
that the new evidence upon which it was pro-
posed to change the date was not deemed suffi-
cient to justify this society in ignoring its past
records, founded on the authority of the state
of California; therefore it has never accepted
the new date.”
Marshall himself was uncertain about the
exact date. At various times he gave three
different dates—the 18th, 19th and 20th, but
never moved it along as far as the 24th. In the
past thirty years three different dates—the 18th,
19th and 24th of January—have been celebrated
as the anniversary of Marshall's gold dis-
covery.
The evidence upon which the date was changed
to the 24th is found in an entry in a diary kept
by H. W. Bigler, a Mormon, who was working
for Marshall on the millrace at the time gold
was discovered. The entry reads: “January 24.
This day some kind of metal that looks like
goold was found in the tailrace.” On this
authority about ten years ago the California
Pioneers adopted the 24th as the correct date
of Marshall's discovery.
While written records, especially if made at
the time of the occurrence of the event, are
more reliable than oral testimony given long
after, yet when we take into consideration the
conflicting stories of Sutter, Marshall, the Win–
ners and others who were immediately con-
cerned in some way with the discovery, we must
concede that the Terriforial Pioneers have good
reasons to hesitate about making a change in
the date of their anniversary. In 13r. Trywhitt
Brook’s “Four Months Among the Gold Find-
ers,” a book published in London in 1849, and
long since out of print, we have S11tter's version
of Marshall's discovery given only three months
after that discovery was made. Dr. Brooks
This society took
visited Sutter's Fort early in May, 1848, and
received from Sutter himself the story of the
find. Sutter stated that he was sitting in his
room at the fort, one afternoon, when Marshall,
whom he supposed to be at the mill, forty miles
up the American river, suddenly burst in upon
him. Marshall was so wildly excited that Sutter,
suspecting that he was crazy, looked to see
whether his rifle was in reach. Marshall declared
that he had made a discovery that would give
them both millions and millions of dollars. Then
he drew his sack and poured out a handful of
nuggets on the table. Sutter, when he had
tested the metal and found that it was gold,
became almost as excited as Marshall. He
eagerly asked if the workmen at the mill knew
of the discovery. Marshall declared that he had
not spoken to a single person about it. They
both agreed to keep it secret. Next day Sutter
and Marshall arrived at the sawmill. The day
after their arrival, they prospected the bars of
the river and the channels of some of the dry
creeks and found gold in all.
“On our return to the mill,” says Sutter, “we
were astonished by the work-people coming up
to us in a body and showing us some flakes of
gold similar to those we had ourselves procured.
Marshall tried to laugh the matter off with them,
and to persuade them that what they had found
was only some shining mineral of trifling value;
but one of the Indians, who had worked at a
gold mine in the neighborhood of La Paz,
Lower California, cried out: ‘Ora! Ora!' (gold!
gold!), and the secret was out.”
Captain Sutter continues: “I heard afterward
that one of them, a sly Kentuckian, had dogged
us about and, that, looking on the ground to see
if he could discover what we were in search of,
he lighted on some of the flakes himself.”
If this account is correct, Bigler's entry in
his diary was made on the day that the workmen
found gold, which was five or six days after
Marshall's first find, and consequently the 24th
is that much too late for the true date of the
discovery. The story of the discovery given in
the “Life and Adventures of James W. Mar-
snail,” by George Frederick Parsons, differs
materially from Sutter's account. The date of
the discovery given in that book is January 19,
15S
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
1848. On the morning of that day Marshall,
after shutting off the water, walked down the
tailrace to see what sand and gravel had been
removed during the night. (The water was
turned into the tailrace during the night to cut
it deeper.) While examining a mass of debris,
“his eye caught the glitter of something that lay
lodged in a crevice on a riffle of soft granite
some six inches under water.” Picking up the
nugget and examining it, he became satisfied
that it must be one of three substances—mica,
sulphurets of copper, or gold. Its weight satis-
fied him that it was not mica. Knowing that
gold was malleable, he placed the specimen on
a flat rock and struck it with another; it bent,
but did not crack or break. He was satisfied
that it was gold. He showed the nugget to his
men. In the course of a few days he had col-
lected several ounces of precious metal. “Some
four days after the discovery it became necessary
for him to go below, for Sutter had failed to
send a supply of provisions to the mill, and the
men were on short commons. While on his way
down he discovered gold in a ravine at a place
afterwards known as Mormon island. Arrived
at the fort, he interviewed Sutter in his private
office and showed him about three ounces of
gold nuggets. Sutter did not believe it to be
gold, but after weighing it in scales against $3.25
worth of silver, all the coin they could raise at
the fort, and testing it with nitric acid obtained
from the gun shop, Sutter became convinced and
returned to the mill with Marshall. So little did
the workmen at the mill value the discovery that
they continued to work for Sutter until the mill
was completed, March I I, six weeks after the
nuggets were found in the tailrace.
The news of the discovery spread slowly. It was
two months in reaching San Francisco, although
the distance is not over one hundred and twenty-
five miles. The great rush to the mines from
San Francisco did not begin until the middle of
May, nearly four months after the discovery. On
the Ioth of May, Dr. Brooks, who was in San
Francisco, writes: “A number of people have ac-
tually started off with shovels, mattocks and
pans to dig the gold themselves. It is not likely,
however, that this will be allowed, for Captain
Folsom has already written to Colonel Mason
about taking possession of the mine on behalf of
the government, it being, he says, on public land.”
As the people began to realize the richness
and extent of the discovery, the excitement in-
creased rapidly. May 17, Dr. Brooks writes:
"This place (San Francisco) is now in a perfect
furore of excitement; all the workpeople have
struck. Walking through the town to-day, I
observed that laborers were employed only upon
about half a dozen of the fifty new buildings
which were in course of being run up. The
majority of the mechanics at this place are mak-
ing preparations for moving off to the mines,
and several people of all classes—lawyers, store-
keepers, merchants, etc., are smitten with the
fever; in fact, there is a regular gold mania
springing up. I counted no less than eighteen
houses which were closed, the owners having
left. If Colonel Mason is moving a force to
the American Fork, as is reported here, their
journey will be in vain.”
Colonel Mason's soldiers moved without
Orders—they nearly all deserted, and ran off to
the mines.
The first newspaper announcement of the
discovery appeared in The Californian of March
I5, 1848, nearly two months after the discovery.
But little attention was paid to it. In the issue
of April 19, another discovery is reported. The
item reads: “New gold mine. It is stated that
a new gold mine has been discovered on the
American Fork of the Sacramento, supposed to
be on the land of W. A. Leidesdorff, of this
place. A specimen of the gold has been ex-
hibited, and is represented to be very pure.”
On the 29th of May, The Californian had sus-
pended publication. “Othello's occupation is
gone,” wails the editor. “The majority of our
subscribers and many of our advertising patrons
have closed their doors and places of business
and left town, and we have received one order
after another conveying the pleasant request that
the printer will please stop my paper or my ad,
as I am about leaving for Sacramento.”
The editor of the other paper, The California
Star, made a pilgrimage to the mines in the lat-
ter part of April, but gave them no extended
write-up. “Great country, fine climate,” he wrote
on his return. “Full flowing streams, mighty
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
159
timber, large crops, luxuriant clover, fragrant
flowers, gold and silver,” were his comments on
what he saw. The policy of both papers seems
to have been to ignore as much as possible the
gold discovery. To give it publicity was for a
time, at least, to lose their occupation.
In The Star of May 20, 1848, its eccentric
editor, E. C. Kemble, under the caption “El
Dorado Anew,” discourses in a dubious manner
upon the effects of the discovery and the extent
of the gold fields: “A terrible visitant we have
had of late. A fever which has well-nigh de-
populated a town, a town hard pressing upon a
thousand souls, and but for the gracious inter-
position of the elements, perhaps not a goose
would have been spared to furnish a quill to pen
the melancholy fate of the remainder. It has
preyed upon defenseless old age, subdued the
elasticity of careless youth angi attacked indis-
criminately sex and class, from town councilman
to tow-frocked cartman, from tailor to tippler,
of which, thank its pestilential powers, it has
beneficially drained (of tipplers, we mean) every
villainous pulperia in the place.
“And this is the gold fever, the only form of
that popular southerner, yellow jack, with which
we can be alarmingly threatened. The insatiate
maw of the monster, not appeased by the easy
conquest of the rough-fisted yeomanry of the
north, must needs ravage a healthy, prosperous
place beyond his dominion and turn the town
topsy-turvy in a twinkling.
“A fleet of launches left this place on Sunday
and Monday last bound up the Sacramento river,
close stowed with human beings, led by love of
filthy lucre to the perennial yielding gold mines
of the north. When any man can find two ounces
a day and two thousand men can find their
hands full, of work, was there ever anything so
superlatively silly!
“Honestly, though, we are inclined to believe
the reputed wealth of that section of country,
thirty miles in extent, all sham, a superb take-in
as was ever got up to guzzle the gullible. But
it is not improbable that this mine, or, properly,
placer of gold can be traced as far south as the
city of Los Angeles, where the precious metal
has been found for a number of years in the bed
of a stream issuing from its mountains, said
to be a continuation of this gold chain which
courses southward from the base of the Snowy
mountains. But our best information respecting
the metal and the quantity in which it is gath-
ered varies much from many reports current, yet
it is beyond a question that no richer mines of
gold have ever been discovered upon this con-
tinent.
“Should there be no paper forthcoming on
Saturday next, our readers may assure them-
selves it will not be the fault of us individually.
To make the matter public, already our devil has
rebelled, our pressman (poor fellow) last seen
was in search of a pickaxe, and we feel like Mr.
Hamlet, we shall never again look upon the
likes of him. Then, too, our compositors have,
in defiance, sworn terrible oaths against type-
sticking as vulgar and unfashionable. Hope has
not yet fled us, but really, in the phraseology
of the day, ‘things is getting curious.’”
And things kept getting more and more curi-
Ous. The rush increased. The next issue of
The Star (May 27) announces that the Sacra-
mento, a first-class craft, left here Thursday last
thronged with passengers for the gold mines,
a motley assemblage, composed of lawyers, mer-
chants, grocers, carpenters, cartmen and cooks,
all possessed with the desire of becoming rich.
The latest accounts from the gold country are
highly flattering. Over three hundred men are
engaged in washing gold, and numbers are con-
tinually arriving from every part of the country.
Then the editor closes with a wail: “Persons
recently arrived from the country speak of
ranches deserted and crops neglected and suf-
fered to waste. The unhappy consequence of
this state of affairs is easily foreseen. One more
twinkle, and The Star disappeared in the gloom.
On June 14 appeared a single sheet, the size of
foolscap. The editor announced: “In fewer
words than are usually employed in the an-
nouncement of similar events, we appear before
the remnant of a reading community on this
occasion with the material or immaterial in-
formation that we have stopped the paper, that
its publication ceased with the last regular issue
(June 7). On the approach of autumn, we shali
again appear to announce The Star's redivus.
We have done. Let our parting word be hasto
160
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
luego.” (Star and Californian reappeared No-
vember 14, 1848. The Star had absorbed The
Californian. E. C. Kemble was its editor and
proprietor.)
Although there was no paper in existence on
the coast to spread the news from the gold
fields, it found its way out of California, and
the rush from abroad began. It did not acquire
great force in 1848, but in 1849 the immigration
to California exceeded all previous migrations
in the history of the race.
Among the first foreigners to rush to the
mines were the Mexicans of Sonora. Many of
these had had some experience in placer mining
... their native country, and the report of rich
placers in California, where gold could be had
for the picking up, aroused them from their lazy
self-content and stimulated them to go in search
of it. Traveling in squads of from fifty to one
hundred, they came by the old Auza trail across
the Colorado desert, through the San Gorgonio
Pass, then up the coast and on to the mines.
They were a job lot of immigrants, poor in purse
and poor in brain. They were despised by the
native Californians and maltreated by the Amer-
icans. Their knowledge of mining came in play,
and the more provident among them soon man-
aged to pick up a few thodsand dollars, and then
returned to their homes, plutocrats. The im-
provident gambled away their earnings and re-
mained in the country to add to its criminal ele-
ment. The Oregonians came in force, and all
the towns in California were almost depopulated
of their male population. Tºy the close of 1848,
there were ten thousand men at work in the
mines.
The first official report of the discovery was
sent to Washington by Thomas O. Larkin, June
I, and reached its destination about the middle
of September. Lieutenant Beale, by way of
Mexico, brought dispatches dated a month later,
which arrived about the same time as Larkin's
report. These accounts were published in the
eastern papers, and the excitement began.
In the early part of December, Lieutenant
Loeser arrived at Washington with Governor
Mason's report of his observations in the mines
made in August. But the most positive evidence
was a tea caddy of gold dust containing about
two hundred and thirty ounces that Governor
Mason had caused to be purchased in the mines
with money from the civil service fund. This the
lieutenant had brought with him. It was placed
on exhibition at the war office. Here was tan-
gible evidence of the existence of gold in Cali-
fornia, the doubters were silenced and the ex-
citement was on and the rush began.
By the Ist of January, 1849, vessels were fit-
ting out in every seaport on the Atlantic coast
and the Gulf of Mexico. Sixty ships were an-
nounced to sail from New York in February and
Seventy from Philadelphia and Boston. All kinds
of crafts were pressed into the service, some to
go by way of Cape Horn, others to land their
passengers at Vera Cruz, Greytown and Chagres,
the voyagers to take their chances on the Pa-
cific side for a passage on some unknown ves-
sel.
With opening of Spring, the overland travel
began. IForty thousand men gathered at differ-
ent points on the Missouri river, but principally
at St. Joseph and Independence. Horses, mules,
oxen and cows were used for the propelling
power of the various forms of vehicles that were
to convey the provisions and other impedimenta
of the army of gold seekers. By the 1st of May
the grass was grown enough on the plains to
furnish feed for the stock, and the vanguard of
the grand army of gold hunters started. For
two months, company after company left the
rendezvous and joined the procession until for
one thousand miles there was an almost un-
broken line of wagons and pack trains. The
first half of the journey was made with little
inconvenience, but on the last part there was
great suffering and loss of life. The cholera
broke out among them, and it is estimated that
five thousand died on the plains. The alkali
desert of the Humboldt was the place where the
immigrants suffered most. Exhausted by the
long journey and weakened by lack of food,
many succumbed under the hardship of the des-
ert journey and died. The crossing of the Sierras
was attended with great hardships. From the
loss of their horses and oxen, many were com-
pelled to cross the mountains on foot. Their
provisions exhausted, they would have perished
but for relief sent out from California. The
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
161
greatest sufferers were the woman and children,
who in considerable numbers made the perilous
journey.
The overland immigration of 1850 exceeded
that of 1849. According to record kept at Fort
Laramie, there passed that station during the
season thirty-nine thousand men, two thousand
five hundred women and six hundred children,
making a total of forty-two thousand one hun-
dred persons. These immigrants had with them
when passing Fort Laramie twenty-three thou-
sand horses, eight thousand mules, three thou-
sand six hundred oxen, seven thousand cows
and nine thousand wagons. -
Besides those coming by the northern route,
that is by the South Pass and the Humboldt
river, at least ten thousand found their way to
the land of gold by the old Spanish trail, by the
Gila route and by Texas, Coahuila and Chihua-
bua into Arizona, and thence across the Colo-
rado desert to Los Angeles, and from there by
the coast route or the San Joaquin valley to the
mines. .*
The Pacific Mail Steamship Company had
been organized before the discovery of gold in
California. March 3, 1847, an act of Congress
was passed authorizing the secretary of the navy
to advertise for bids to carry the United States
mails by one line of steamers between New
York and Chagres, and by another line between
Panama and Astoria, Ore. On the Atlantic side
the contract called for five ships of one thousand
five hundred tons burden, on the Pacific side two
of one thousand tons each, and one of six hun-
dred tons. These were deemed sufficient for the
trade and travel between the Atlantic and Pacific
coasts of the United States. The Pacific Mail
Steamship Company was incorporated April 12,
1848, with a capital stock of $500,000. October
6, 1848, the California, the first steamer for the
Pacific, sailed from New York, and was followed
in the two succeeding months by the Oregon
and the Panama. The California sailed before
the news of the gold discovery had reached New
York, and she had taken no passengers. When
she arrived at Panama, January 30, 1849, she
encountered a rush of fifteen hundred gold hunt-
ers, clamorous for a passage. These had reached
Chagres on sailing vessels, and ascended the
Chagres river in bongos or dugouts to Gor-
gona, and from thence by land to Panama. The
California had accommodations for only one
hundred, but four hundred managed to find
some place to stow themselves away. The price
of tickets rose to a fabulous sum, as high as
$1,000 having been paid for a steerage passage.
The California entered the bay of San Francisco
February 28, 1849, and was greeted by the boom
of cannon and the cheers of thousands of people
iining the shores of the bay. The other two
steamers arrived on time, and the Pacific Mail
Steamship Company became the predominant
factor in California travel for twenty years, or up
to the completion of the first transcontinental
railroad in 1869. The charges for fare on these
steamers in the early '50s were prohibitory to
men of small means. From New York to
Chagres in the saloon the fare was $150, in the
cabin $120. From Panama to San Francisco in
the saloon, $250; cabin, $2OO. Add to these the
expense of crossing the isthmus, and the argo-
naut was out a goodly sum when he reached the
land of the golden fleece, indeed, he was often
fleeced of his last dollar before he entered the
Golden Gate.
The first effect of the gold discovery on San
Francisco, as we have seen, was to depopulate
it, and of necessity suspend all building Opera-
tions. In less than three months the reaction
began, and the city experienced one of the most
magical booms in history. Real estate doubled
in some instances in twenty-four hours. The
Californian of September 3, 1848, says: “The
vacant lot on the corner of Montgomery and
Washington streets was offered the day previous
for $5,000 and next day sold readily for $10,000.”
Lumber went up in value until it was sold at a
dollar per square foot. Wages kept pace with
the general advance. Sixteen dollars a day was
mechanic's wages, and the labor market was not
overstocked even at these high rates. With the
approach of winter, the gold seekers came flock-
ing back to the city to find shelter and to spend
their suddenly acquired wealth. The latter was
easily accomplished, but the former was more
difficult. Any kind of a shelter that would keep
out the rain was utilized for a dwelling. Rows
of tents that circled around the business por-
11
162
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
tion, Shanties patched together from pieces of
packing boxes and sheds thatched with brush
from the chaparral-covered hills constituted
the principal dwellings at that time of the future
metropolis of California. The yield of the mines
for 1848 has been estimated at ten million
dollars. This was the result of only a few
months’ labor of not to exceed at any time ten
thousand men. The rush of miners did not
reach the mines until July, and mining opera-
tions were mainly suspended by the middle of
October.
New discoveries had followed in quick suc-
cession Marshall's find at Coloma until by the
close of 1848 gold placers had been located on
all the principal tributaries of the Sacramento
and San Joaquin rivers. Some of the richest
yields were obtained from what was known as
“Dry Diggins.” These were dry ravines from
which pay dirt had to be packed to water for
washing or the gold separated by dry washing,
tossing the earth into the air until it was
blown away by the wind, the gold, on account
of its weight, remaining in the pan.
A correspondent of the Californian, writing
August 15, 1848, from what he designates as
“Dry Diggins,” gives this account of the rich-
ness of that gold field: “At the lower mines
(Mormon Island) the miners count the success
of the day in dollars; at the upper mines near
the mill (Coloma), in ounces, and here in
pounds. The only instrument used at first was
a butcher knife, and the demand for that ar-
ticle was so great that $40 has been refused
for One.
“The earth is taken out of the ravines which
make out of the mountains and is carried in
wagons or packed on horses from one to three
miles to water and washed. Four hundred dol-
lars is the average to the cart load. In one in-
stance five loads yielded $16,000. Instances are
known here where men have carried the earth
on their backs and collected from $800 to $1,500
a day.”
The rapidity with which the country was ex-
plored by prospectors was truly remarkable.
The editor of the Californian, who had sus-
pended the publication of his paper on May 29
to visit the mines, returned and resumed it on
July 15 (1848). In an editorial in that issue he
gives his observations: “The country from the
Ajuba (Yuba) to the San Joaquin rivers, a dis-
tance of one hundred and twenty miles, and
from the base toward the summit of the moun-
tains as far as Snow Hill, about seventy miles,
has been explored, and gold found in every
part. There are probably three thousand men,
including Indians, engaged in collecting gold.
The amount collected by each man who works
ranges from $10 to $350 per day. The publisher
Of this paper, while on a tour alone to the min-
ing district, collected, with the aid of a shovel,
pick and pan, from $44 to $128 a day, averag-
ing about $100. The largest piece of gold
known to be found weighed four pounds.”
Among other remarkable yields the Californian
reports these: “One man dug $12,OOO in six
days, and three others obtained
pounds of pure metal in one day.”
thirty-six
CHAPTER XXIV.
MAKING A STATE.
the military governor of California since
the departure of General Kearny in
May, 1847, had grown weary of his task. He
had been in the military service of his country
thirty years and wished to be relieved. His
request was granted, and on the 12th of April,
1849, Brevet Brigadier General Bennett Riley,
Cº. R. B. MASON, who had been
his successor, arrived at Monterey and the next
day entered upon his duties as civil governor.
Gen. Persifer F. Smith, who had been appointed
commander of the Pacific division of the United
States army, arrived at San Francisco Febru-
ary 26, 1849, and relieved Colonel Mason of
his military command. A brigade of troops
six hundred and fifty strong had been sent to
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
163
California for military service on the border
and to maintain order. Most of these promptly
deserted as soon as an opportunity offered and
found their way to the mines.
Colonel Mason, who under the most trying
circumstances had faithfully served his govern-
ment and administered justice to the people of
California, took his departure May 1, 1849.
The same year he died at St. Louis of cholera.
A year had passed since the treaty of peace
with Mexico had been signed, which made Cali-
fornia United States territory, but Congress
had done nothing toward giving it a govern-
ment. The anomalous condition existed of citi-
zens of the United States, living in the United
States, being governed by Mexican laws admin-
istered by a mixed constituency of Mexican-
born and American-born officials. The pro-
slavery element in Congress was determined to
foist the curse of human slavery on a portion
of the territory acquired from Mexico, but the
discovery of gold and the consequent rush of
freemen to the territory had disarranged the
plans of the slave-holding faction in Congress,
and as a consequence all legislation was at a
standstill.
The people were becoming restive at the long
delay. The Americanized Mexican laws and
forms of government were unpopular and it
was humiliating to the conqueror to be gov-
erned by the laws of the people conquered.
The question of calling a convention to form a
provisional government was agitated by the
newspapers and met a hearty response from the
people. Meetings were held at San José, De-
cember 11, 1848; at San Francisco, December
21, and at Sacramento, January 6, 1849, to
consider the question of establishing a pro-
visional government. It was recommended by
the San José meeting that a convention be held
at that place on the second Monday of January.
The San Francisco convention recommended
the 5th of March; this the Monterey committee
considered too early as it would take the dele-
gates from below fifteen days to reach the pu-
eblo of San José. There was no regular mail
and the roads in February (when the delegates
would have to start) were impassable. The
committee recommended May I as the earliest
date for the meeting to consider the question of
calling of a convention. Sonoma, without wait-
ing, took the initiative and elected ten delegates
to a provisional government convention. There
was no unanimity in regard to the time of meet-
ting or as to what could be done if the conven-
tion met. It was finally agreed to postpone the
time of meeting to the first Monday of August,
when, if Congress had done nothing towards
giving California some form of government bet-
ter than that existing, the convention should
meet and organize a provisional government.
The local government of San Francisco had
become so entangled and mixed up by various
councils that it was doubtful whether it had
any legal legislative body. When the term of
the first council, which had been authorized
by Colonel Mason in 1848, was about to ex-
pire an election was held December 27, to
choose their successors. Seven new council-
men were chosen. The old council declared
the election fraudulent and ordered a new one.
An election was held, notwithstanding the pro-
test of a number of the best citizens, and an-
other council chosen. So the city was blessed
or cursed with three separate and distinct coun-
cils. The old council voted itself out of ex-
istence and then there were but two, but that
was one too many. Then the people, disgusted
with the condition of affairs, called a public
meeting, at which it was decided to elect a
legislative assembly of fifteen members, who
should be empowered to make the necessary
laws for the government of the city. An election
was held on the 21st of February, 1849, and a
legislative assembly and justices elected. Then
Alcalde Levenworth refused to turn over the
city records to the Chief Magistrate-elect Nor-
ton. On the 22d of March the legislative as-
sembly abolished the office of alcalde, but
Levenworth still held on to the records. He
was finally compelled by public opinion and a
writ of replevin to surrender the official records
to Judge Norton. The confusion constantly
arising from the attempt to carry on a govern-
ment that was semi-military and semi-Mexican
induced Governor Riley to order an election to
be held August Ist, to elect delegates to a
convention to meet in Monterey September 1st,
164
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
1849, to form a state constitution or territorial
organization to be ratified by the people and
submitted to Congress for its approval. Judges,
prefects and alcaldes were to be elected at the
same time in the principal municipal districts.
The constitutional convention was to consist of
thirty-seven delegates, apportioned as follows:
San Diego two, Los Angeles four, Santa Bar-
bara two, San Luis Obispo two, Monterey five,
San José five, San Francisco five, Sonoma four,
Sacramento four, and San Joaquin four. In-
stead of thirty-seven delegates as provided for
in the call, forty-eight were elected and seated.
The convention met September I, I849, at
Monterey in Colton Hall. This was a stone
building erected by Alcalde Walter Colton for
a town hall and school house. The money to
build it was derived partly from fines and partly
from subscriptions, the prisoners doing the
greater part of the work. It was the most
commodious public building at that time in the
territory.
Of the forty-eight delegates elected twenty-
two were natives of the northern states; fifteen
of the slave states; four were of foreign birth,
and seven were native Californians. Several of
the latter neither spoke nor understood the
English language and William E. P. Hartnell
was appointed interpreter. Dr. Robert Semple
of Bear Flag fame was elected president, Will-
iam G. Marcy and J. Ross Browne reporters.
Early in the session the slavery question was
disposed of by the adoption of a section declar-
ing that neither slavery or involuntary servitude,
unless for the punishment of crimes, shall ever
be tolerated in this state. The question of fix-
ing the boundaries of the future state excited
the most discussion. The pro-slavery faction
was led by William M. Gwin, who had a few
months before migrated from Mississippi to
California with the avowed purpose of repre-
senting the new state in the United States sen-
ate. The scheme of Gwin and his southern as-
sociates was to make the Rocky mountains the
eastern boundary. This would create a state
with an era of about four hundred thousand
square miles. They reasoned that when the
admission of the state came before congress the
southern members would oppose the admission
of SO large an area under a free state constitu-
tion and that ultimately a compromise might
be effected. California would be split in two
from east to west, the old dividing line, the
parallel of 36° 30', would be established and
Southern California come into the Union as a
slave state. There were at that time fifteen
free and fifteen slave states. If two states, one
free and one slave, could be made out of Califor-
nia, the equilibrium between the opposing fac-
tions would be maintained. The Rocky moun-
tain boundary was at one time during the ses-
Sion adopted, but in the closing days of the
session the free state men discovered Gwin's
scheme and it was defeated. The present boun-
daries were established by a majority of two.
A committee had been appointed to receive
propositions and designs for a state Seal. Only
one design was offered. It was presented by
Caleb Lyon of Lyondale, as he usually signed
his name, but was drawn by Major Robert S.
Garnett, an army officer. It contained a figure
of Minerva in the foreground, a grizzly bear
feeding on a bunch of grapes; a miner with an
uplifted pick; a gold rocker and pan; a view of
the Golden Gate with ships riding at anchor
in the Bay of San Francisco; the peaks of the
Sierra Nevadas in the distance; a sheaf of wheat;
thirty-one stars and above all the word
“Eureka” (I have found it), which might apply
either to the miner or the bear. The design
seems to have been an attempt to advertise the
resources of the state. General Vallejo wanted
the bear taken out of the design, or if allowed
to remain, that he be made fast by a lasso in the
hands of a vaquero. This amendment was re-
jected, as was also one submitted by O. M.
Wozencraft to strike out the figures of the gold
digger and the bear and introduce instead bales
of merchandise and bags of gold. The original
design was adopted with the addition of the
words, “The Great Seal of the State of Califor-
nia.” The convention voted to give Lyon $1,000
as full compensation for engraving the seal and
furnishing the press and all appendages.
Garnett, the designer of the seal, was a Vir-
ginian by birth. He graduated from West
Point in 1841, served through the Mexican war
and through several of the Indian wars on the
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
165
Pacific coast. At the breaking out of the re-
bellion in 1861 he joined the Confederates and
was made a brigadier general. He was killed
at the battle of Carrick's Ford July 15, 1861.
The constitution was completed on the IIth
of October and an election was called by Gov-
ernor Riley to be held on the 13th of November
to vote upon the adoption of the constitution
and to elect state officers, a legislature and mem-
bers of congress.
At the election Peter H. Burnett, recently
from Oregon territory, who had been quite
active in urging the organization of a state gov-
ernment, was chosen governor; John McDou-
gall, lieutenant governor, and George W.
Wright and Edward Gilbert members of con-
gress. San José had been designated by the
constitutional convention the capital of the state
pro tem.
The people of San José had pledged them-
selves to provide a suitable building for the
meeting of the legislature in hopes that their
town might be made the permanent capital.
They were unable to complete the building de-
signed for a state capital in time for the meet-
ing. The uncomfortable quarters furnished
created a great deal of dissatisfaction. The leg-
islature consisted of sixteen Senators and thirty-
six assemblymen. There being no county Or-
ganization, the members were elected by
districts. The representation was not equally
distributed; San Joaquin district had more sen-
ators than San Francisco. The Senate and as-
sembly were organized on the 17th of Decem-
ber. E. K. Chamberlain of San Diego was
elected president pro tem. of the senate and
Thomas J. White of Sacramento speaker of the
assembly. The governor and lieutenant-gov-
ernor were sworn in on the 20th. The state
government being organized the legislature
proceeded to the election of United States sen-
ators. The candidates were T. Butler King,
John C. Fremont, William M. Gwin, Thomas
J. Henly, John W. Geary, Robert Semple and
H. W. Halleck. Fremont received twenty-nine
out of forty-six votes on the first ballot and was
declared elected. Of the aspirants, T. Butler
King and William M. Gwin represented the
ultra pro-slavery element. King was a cross-
roads politician from down in Georgia, who
had been sent to the coast as a confidential
agent of the government. The officers of the
army and navy were enjoined to “in all matters
aid and assist him in carrying out the views of
the government and be guided by his advice and
council in the conduct of all proper measures
within the scope of those instructions.” He
made a tour of the mines, accompanied by Gen-
eral Smith and his staff; Commodore Ap Catesby
Jones and staff and a cavalry escort under Lieu-
tenant Stoneman. He wore a black stovepipe
hat and a dress coat. He made himself the
laughing stock of the miners and by traveling
in the heat of the day contracted a fever that
very nearly terminated his existence. He had
been active so far as his influence went in trying
to bring California into the Union with the hope
of representing it in the senate. Gwin had
come a few months before from Mississippi with
the same object in view. Although the free
state men were in the majority in the legislature
they recognized the fact that to elect two sena-
tors opposed to the extension of slavery would
result in arraying the pro-slavery faction in con-
gress against the admission of the state into
the Union. Of the two representatives of the
South, Gwin was the least objectionable and on
the second ballot he was elected. On the
21st Governor Burnett delivered his message.
It was a wordy document, but not marked by
any very brilliant ideas or valuable suggestions.
Burnett was a southerner from Missouri. He
was hobbied on the subject of the exclusion of
free negroes. The African, free to earn his own
living unrestrained by a master, was, in his
Opinion, a menace to the perpetuity of the com-
monwealth. .
On the 22d the legislature elected the remain-
ing state officers, viz.: Richard Roman, treas-
urer; John I. Houston, controller; E. J. C.
Kewen, attorney general; Charles J. Whiting,
surveyor-general; S. C. Hastings, chief jus-
tice; Henry Lyons and Nathaniel Bennett, as-
sociate justices. The legislature continued in
session until April 22, 1850. Although it was
nicknamed the “Legislature of a thousand
drinks,” it did a vast amount of work and did
most of it well. It was not made up of hard
166
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
drinkers. The majority of its members were
above the average legislator in intelligence,
temperance and patriotism. The members were
not there for pay or for political preferment. They
were there for the good of their adopted state and
labored conscientiously for its benefit. The Op-
probrious nickname is said to have originated
thus: A roystering individual by the name of
Green had been elected to the senate from Sac-
ramento as a joke. He regarded the whole pro-
ceedings as a huge joke. He kept a supply of
liquors on hand at his quarters and when the
legislature adjourned he was in the habit of call-
ing: “Come, boys, let us take a thousand
drinks.”
The state had set up housekeeping without a
cent on hand to defray expenses. There was not
a quire of paper, a pen, nor an inkstand belong-
ing to the state and no money to buy supplies.
After wrestling with the financial problem some
time an act authorizing a loan of $2OO,OOO for
current expenses was passed. Later on in the
session another act was passed authorizing the
bonding of the state for $300,000 with interest
at the rate of three per cent a month. The
legislature divided the state into twenty-seven
counties, created nine judicial districts, passed
laws for the collection of revenue, taxing all
real and personal property and imposing a poll
tax of $5 on all male inhabitants over twen-
ty-one and under fifty years of age.
California was a self-constituted State. It
had organized a state government and put it into
successful operation without the Sanction of
congress. Officials, state, county and town, had
been elected and had sworn to support the con-
stitution of the state of California and yet there
was really no state of California. It had not
been admitted into the Union. It was only a
state de facto and it continued in that condition
nine months before it became a state de jure.
'Wher, the question of admitting California
into the Union came before congress it evoked
a bitter controversy. The Senate was equally
divided, thirty senators from the slave states
and the same number from the free. There
were among the southern Senators Some broad
minded and patriotic men, willing to do what
was right, but they were handicapped by an
ultra pro-slavery faction, extremists, who
would willingly sacrifice the Union if by that
they could extend and perpetuate that sum of
all villainies, human slavery. This faction in
the long controversy resorted to every known
parliamentary device to prevent the admission of
California under a free state constitution. To
admit two senators from a free state would de-
stroy the balance of power. That gone, it could
never be regained by the south. The north was,
increasing in power and population, while the
south, under the blighting influence of slavery,
was retrograding.
Henry Clay, the man of compromises, under-
took to bridge over the difficulty by a set of
resolutions known as the Omnibus bill. These
were largely concessions to the slave holding
faction for the loss of the territory acquired by
the Mexican war. Among others was this, that
provision should be made by law for the restitu-
tion of fugitive slaves in any state or territory
of the Union. This afterward was embodied
into what was known as the fugitive slave law
and did more perhaps than any other cause to
destroy the south's beloved institution.
These resolutions were debated through
many months and were so amended and changed
that their author could scarcely recognize them.
Most of them were adopted in some form and
effected a temporary compromise.
On August 13th the bill for the admission
of California finally came to a vote. It passed
the senate, thirty-four ayes to eighteen noes.
Even then the opposition did not cease. Ten
of the southern pro-slavery extremists, led by
Jefferson Davis, joined in a protest against the
action of the majority, the language of which
was an insult to the senate and treason to the
government. In the house the bill passed by a
vote of one hundred and fifty ayes to fifty-six
ultra southern noes. It was approved and signed
by President Fillmore September 9, 1850. On
the IIth of September the California senators
and congressmen presented themselves to be
sworn in. The slave holding faction in the sen-
ate, headed by Jefferson Davis, who had been
one of the most bitter opponents to the admis-
sion, objected. But their protest availed them
nothing. Their ascendency was gone. We
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
167
might sympathize with them had their fight
been made for a noble principle, but it was not.
From that day on until the attempt was made
in 1861 these men schemed to destroy the
Union. The admission of California as a free
state was the beginning of the movement to
destroy the Union of States.
The news of the admission of California
reached San Francisco on the morning of Oc-
tober 18, by the mail steamer Oregon, nearly six
weeks. after congress had admitted it. Business
was at once suspended, the courts were ad-
journed and the people went wild with excite-
ment. Messengers, mounted on fleet steeds,
spread the news throughout the state. News-
papers from the states containing an account
of the proceedings of congress at the time of
admission sold for $5 each. It was decided to
hold a formal celebration of the event on the
29th and preparations were begun for a grand
demonstration. Neither labor nor money was
spared to make the procession a success. The
parade was cosmopolitan in the fullest meaning
of that word. There were people in it from
almost every nation under the sun. The Chi-
nese made quite an imposing spectacle in the
parade. Dressed in rich native costumes, each
carrying a gaudily painted fan, they marched
under command of their own marshals, Ali He
and Ah Sing. At their head proudly marched
a color bearer carrying a large blue silk ban-
ner, inscribed the “China boys.” Following
them came a triumphal car, in which was seated
thirty boys in black trousers and white shirts,
representing the thirty states. In the center of
this group, seated on a raised platform, was a
young girl robed in white with gold and silver
gauze floating about her and supporting a
breast plate, upon which was inscribed “Cali-
fornia, the Union, it must and shall be pre-
served.” The California pioneers carried a ban-
ner on which was represented a New Englander
in the act of stepping ashore and facing a na-
tive Californian with lasso and serape. In the
center the state seal and the inscription, “Far
west, Eureka 1846, California pioneers, or—
ganized August, 1850.” Army and navy offi-
cers, soldiers, sailors and marines, veterans of
the Mexican war, municipal officers, the fire de-
partment, Secret and benevolent societies and as-
sociations, with a company of mounted native
Californians bearing a banner with thirty-one
stars on a blue satin ground with the inscription
in gold letters, California, E Pluribus Unum, all
these various organizations and orders with
their marshals and aids mounted on gaily
caparisoned steeds and decked out with their
gold and silver trimmed scarfs, made an impos-
ing display that has seldom if ever been equaled
since in the metropolis of California.
At the plaza a flag of thirty-one stars was
raised to the mast head. An oration was de-
livered by Judge Nathaniel Bennett and Mrs.
Wills recited an original ode of her own compo-
sition. The rejoicing over, the people settled
down to business. Their unprecedented action
in organizing a state government and putting it
into operation without the sanction of congress
had been approved and legalized by that body.
Like the Goddess Minerva, represented on its
great seal, who sprung full grown from the
brain of Jupiter, California was born a fully ma-
tured state. She passed through no territorial
probation. No state had such a phenomenal
growth in its infancy. No state before or since
has met with such bitter opposition when it
sought admission into the family of states.
Never before was there such a medley of nation-
alities—Yankees, Mexicans, English, Germans,
French, Spaniards, Peruvians, Polynesians,
Mongolians—organized into a state and made
a part of the body politic molens volens.
The constitutional convention of 1849 did not
definitely fix the state capital. San José was
designated as the place of meeting for the legis-
lature and the organization of the state govern-
ment. San José had offered to donate a square
of thirty-two acres, valued at $60,000, for cap-
itol grounds and provide a suitable building for
the legislature and state officers. The offer was
accepted, but when the legislature met there
December 15, 1849, the building was unfinished
and for a time the meetings of the legislature
were held at a private residence. There was a
great deal of complaining and dissatisfaction.
The first capitol of the state was a two-story
adobe building 40x60, which had been intended
for a hotel. It was destroyed by fire April 29,
168
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
1853. The accommodations at San José were
so unsatisfactory that the legislature decided
to locate the capital at some other point. Prop-
ositions were received from Monterey, from
Reed of San José, from Stevenson & Parker of
New York of the Pacific and from Gen. M. G.
Vallejo. Vallejo's proposition was accepted.
He offered to donate one hundred and fifty-six
acres of land in a new town that he proposed
to lay out on the straits of Carquinez (now Val-
lejo) for a capital site and within two years to
give $370,000 in money for the erection of pub-
lic buildings. He asked that his proposition be
submitted to a vote of the people at the next
general election. His proposition was accepted
by the legislature. At the general election, Octo-
ber 7, 1850, Vallejo received seventy-four hun-
dred and seventy-seven votes; San José twelve
hundred and ninety-two, and Monterey three
hundred and ninety-nine. The second legisla-
ture convened at San José. General Vallejo ex-
erted himself to have the change made in accord-
ance with the previous proposition. The cit-
izens of San José made an effort to retain the
capital, but a bill was passed making Vallejo
the permanent seat of government after the
close of the session, provided General Vallejo
should give bonds to carry out his proposals.
In June Governor McDougal caused the gov-
ernmental archives to be removed from San
José to Vallejo.
When the members of the third legislature
met at the new capital January 2, 1852, they
found a large unfurnished and partly unfinished
wooden building for their reception. Hotel ac-
commodations could not be obtained and there
was even a scarcity of food to feed the hungry
lawmakers. Sacramento offered its new court
house and on the 16th of January the legislature
convened in that city. The great flood of
March, 1852, inundated the city and the law-
makers were forced to reach the halls of legis-
lation in boats and again there was dissatisfac-
tion. Then Benicia came to the front with an
offer of her new city hall, which was above
high water mark. General Vallejo had become
financially embarrassed and could not carry out
his contract with the state, so it was annulled.
The offer of Benicia was accepted and on May
18, 1853, that town was declared the permanent
capital. -
In the legislature of 1854 the capital question
again became an issue. Offers were made by
Several aspiring cities, but Sacramento won with
the proffer of her court house and a block of
land betwen I and J, Ninth and Tenth streets.
Then the question of the location of the capital
got into the courts. The supreme court de-
cided in favor of Sacramento. Before the legis-
lature met again the court house that had been
offered to the state burned down. A new and
more commodious one was erected and rented
to the state at $12,OOO a year. Oakland made
an unsuccessful effort to obtain the capital.
Finally a bill was passed authorizing the erection
of a capitol building in Sacramento at a cost
not to exceed $500,000. Work was begun on
the foundation in October, 1860. The great
flood of 1861-62 inundated the city and ruined
the foundations of the capitol. San Francisco
made a vigorous effort to get the capital re-
moved to that city, but was unsuccessful. Work
was resumed on the building, the plans were
changed, the edifice enlarged, and, finally, after
many delays, it was ready for occupancy in De-
cember, 1869. From the original limit of half a
million dollars its cost when completed had
reached a million and a half. The amount ex-
pended on the building and grounds to date
foots up $2,600,000.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
169
CHAPTER XXV.
THE ARGO NAUTS.
was first applied to the early Cali-
fornia gold seekers I have not been
able to ascertain. The earliest allusion to the
similarity of Jason's voyage after the Golden
Fleece and the miners' rush to the gold fields of
California is found in a caricature published in
the London Punch in 1849. On the shore of
an island is a guide board bearing the inscrip-
tion “California;” near it is a miner digging gold
and presumably singing at his work. In a
boat near the shore is a fat individual, a typical
“Johnny Bull.” He is struggling desperately
with two individuals who are holding him back
from leaping into the water, so fascinated is he
by the song of the miner. Under the drawing
are the words, “The Song of the Sirens.”
If we include among the argonauts all who
traveled by land or voyaged by sea in search of
the golden fleece in the days of '49 we will have
a motley mixture. The tales of the fabulous rich-
ness of the gold fields of California spread rap-
1dly throughout the civilized world and drew to
the territory all classes and conditions of men,
the bad as well as the good, the indolent as well
as the industrious, the vicious as well as the
virtuous. They came from Europe, from South
America and from Mexico. From Australia
and Tasmania came the ex-convict and the
ticket-of-leave man; from the isles of the sea
came the Polynesian, and from Asia the Hindoo
and the “Heathen Chinee.”
The means of reaching the land of gold were
as varied as the character of the people who
came. Almost every form of vehicle was pressed
into service on land. One individual, if not more,
made the trip trundling his impedimenta in a
wheelbarrow. Others started out in carriages,
intent on making the journey in comfort and
ease, but finished on foot, weary, worn and
ragged. When the great rush came, old sailing
vessels that had long been deemed unseaworthy
W HEN or by whom the name argonaut
were fitted out for the voyage to California. It
must have been the providence that protects
fools which prevented these from going to the
bottom of the ocean. With the desperate
chances that the argonauts took on these old
tubs, it is singular that there were so few ship-
wrecks and so little loss of life. Some of these
were such slow sailers that it took them the
greater part of a year to round Cape Horn and
reach their destination. On one of these some
passengers, exasperated at its slowness, landed
near Cape St. Lucas and made the long journey
up the peninsula of Lower California and on to
San Francisco on foot, arriving there a month
before their vessel. Another party undertook to
make the voyage from Nicaragua in a whale
boat and actually did accomplish seven hundred
miles of it before they were picked up in the last
extremities by a sailing vessel.
The Sierra Nevada region, in which gold was
first found, comprised a strip about thirty miles
wide and two hundred miles long from north
to south in the basins of the Feather, Yuba,
Dear, American, Cosumne, Mokolumne, Stanis.
laus, Tuolumne and Merced rivers, between the
elevations of one thousand and five thousand
feet. In all these streams miners washed gold
in 1848. The placer mines on the Upper Sacra-
mento and in the Shasta region were discovered
and worked late in the fall of 1848. The Kla-
math mines were discovered later.
The southern mines, those on the San Joaquin,
Fresno, Kern and San Gabriel rivers, were lo-
cated between 1851 and 1855. Gold was found
in some of the ravines and creeks of San Diego
county. Practically the gold belt of California
extends from the Mexican line to Oregon, but
at some points it is rather thin. The first gold
digging was done with butcher knives, the gold
lunter scratching in the sand and crevices of
the rock to find nuggets. Next the gold pan
came into use and the miners became experts
170
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
in twirling the pan in a pool of water, so as to
wash out the sand and gravel and leave the gold
dust in the pan. Isaac Humphreys, who had
mined gold in Georgia, was the first person to
use a rocker or gold cradle in California. Al-
though a very simple piece of machinery those
who reached the mines early found it quite an
expensive one. Dr. Brooks in his diary, under
date of June 11, 1848, writes: “On Tuesday we
set to work upon our cradle. We resolved uport
the construction of two and for this purpose
went down to the store in a body to see about
the boards. We found timber extravagantly
dear, being asked $40 a hundred feet. The next
question was as to whether we should hire a
carpenter. We were told there was one or two
in the diggings, who might be hired, though
at a very extravagant rate. Accordingly Brad-
ley and I proceeded to see one of these gentle-
men, and found him washing away with a hollow
log and a willow branch sieve. He offered to
help us at the rate of $35 a day, we finding pro-
visions and tools, and could not be brought to
charge less. We thought this by far too ex-
travagant and left him, determined to undertake
the work ourselves. After two days’ work of
seven men they produced two rough cradles
and found that three men with a cradle or rocker
could wash out as much gold in a day as six
could with pans in the same time.”
A rocker or gold cradle had some resemblance
to a child's cradle with similar rockers and was
rocked by means of a perpendicular handle
fastened to the cradle box. The cradle box con-
sisted of a wooden trough about twenty inches
wide and forty inches long with sides four or
five inches high. The lower end was left open.
On the upper end sat the hopper, a box twenty
inches square with sides four inches high and
a bottom of sheet iron or zinc pierced with holes
one-half inch in diameter. Where zinc or iron
could not be obtained a sieve of willow rods
was used. Under the hopper was an apron of
canvas, which sloped down from the lower end
of the hopper to the upper end of the cradle
box. A wooden riffle bar an inch square was
nailed across the bottom of the cradle box about
its middle, and another at its lower end. Under
the cradle box were nailed rockers, and near
the middle an upright handle by which motion
was imparted. If water and pay dirt were con-
venient two men were sufficient to operate the
machine. Seated on a stooi or rock the operator
rocked with one hand, while with a long handled
dipper he dipped water from a pool and poured
it on the sand and gravel in the hopper. When
the sand and earth had been washed through
the holes in the sieve the rocks were emptied
and the hopper filled again from the buckets of
pay dirt supplied by the other partner. The gold
was caught on the canvas apron by the riffle
bars, while the thin mud and sand were washed
Out of the machine by the water.
In the dry diggings a method of separating
the gold from the earth was resorted to prin-
cipally by Sonorans. The pay dirt was dug and
dried in the sun, then pulverized by pounding
into fine dust. With a batéa or bowl-shaped
Indian basket filled with this dust, held in both
hands, the Mexican skillfully tossed the earth
in the air, allowing the wind to blow away the
dust and catching the heavier particles and the
gold in the basket, repeating the process until
there was little left but the gold.
The Long Tom was a single sluice with a
sieve and a box underneath at the end and rif-
fle bars to stop the gold. The pay dirt was shov-
eled in at the upper end and a rapid current of
water washed away the sand and earth, the gold
falling into the receptacle below. Ground sluic-
ing was resorted to where a current of water
from a ditch could be directed against a bank of
earth or hill with a sloping bedrock. The stream
of water washing against the upper side of the
bank caved it down and carried the loose earth
through a string of sluices, depositing the gold
in the riffle bars in the bottom of the sluices.
In the creeks and gulches where there was
not much fall, sluice mining was commonly re-
sorted to. A string of sluice boxes was laid,
each fitting into the upper end of the one below,
and in the lower ones riffle bars were placed
to stop the gold. The sluice boxes were placed
on trestles four feet from the ground and given
an incline of five or six inches to the rod. The
gravel from the bedrock up as far as there was
any pay dirt was shoveled into the upper boxes
and a rapid current of water flowing through the
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
171
boxes carried away the gravel and rocks, the
gold remaining in the riffles. Quicksilver was
placed between the riffles to catch the fine gold.
The gold amalgamated with quicksilver was
cleaned out of the boxes at the end of the day's
work and separated from the quicksilver in a re-
tort. These were the principal methods of mining
used by the argonauts. The machinery and ap-
pliances were simple and inexpensive. Hy-
draulic mining came in later, when larger cap-
ital was required and the mines had fallen into
the hands of corporations. *
When the news spread throughout the states
of the wonderful “finds” of gold in California,
the crudest ideas prevailed in regard to how
the precious metal was to be extracted from
the earth. Gold mining was an almost un-
known industry in the United States. Only
in a few obscure districts of North Caro-
lina and Georgia had gold been found, and
but very few people outside of these dis-
tricts had ever visited the mines. Not one in
ten thousand of those who joined the rush
to California in 1849 had ever seen a grain of
virgin gold. The idea prevailed among the gold
seekers that the gold being found in grains it
could be winnowed from the sand and earth in
which it was found like wheat is separated from
chaff. Imbued with this idea Yankee ingenuity
set to work to invent labor-saving machines
that would accomplish the work quickly and
enrich the miner proportionally. The ships that
bore the argonauts from their native land car-
ried out a variety of these gold machines, all
guaranteed to wrest from the most secret re-
cesses the auriferous deposits in nature's
treasure vaults. These machines were of all
varieties and patterns. They were made of cop-
per, iron, zinc and brass. Some were operated
by means of a crank, others had two cranks,
while others were worked with a treadle. Some
required that the operator should stand, others
allowed the miner to sit in an arm chair and
work in comfort. -
Haskins, in his “Argonauts of California,”
describes one of these machines that was
brought around the Horn in the ship he came
on: “It was in the shape of a huge fanning
mill, with sieves properly arranged for sorting
the gold ready for bottling. All chunks too
large for the bottle would be consigned to the
pork barrel.” (The question of bringing home
the gold in bottles or barrels had been seriously
discussed and decided in favor of barrels be-
cause these could be rolled and thus save cost
of transportation from the mines.)
“This immense machine which, during our
passage, excited the envy and jealousy of all
who had not the means and opportunity of se-
curing a similar one required, of course, the
Services of a hired man to turn the crank, whilst
the proprietor would be busily engaged in shov-
eling in pay dirt and pumping water; the greater
portion of the time, however, being required,
as was firmly believed, in corking the bottles
and fitting the heads in the barrels. This ma-
chine was owned by a Mr. Allen of Cambridge,
Mass., who had brought with him a colored
servant to manage and control the crank por-
tion of the invaluable institution.
“Upon landing we found lying on the sand
and half buried in the mud hundreds of similar
machines, bearing silent witness at once to the
value of our gold saving machines without the
necessity of a trial.”
Nor was it the argonaut alone who came by
sea that brought these machines. Some of
these wonderful inventions were hauled across
the plains in wagons, their owners often sacri-
‘ficing the necessities of life to save the prized
machine. And, when, after infinite toil and trou-
ble, they had landed their prize in the mines,
they were chagrined to find it the subject of jest
and ridicule by those who had some experience
in mining.
The gold rush came early in the history of
California placer mining. The story of a rich
strike would often depopulate a mining camp in
a few hours. Even a bare rumor of rich dig-
gings in some indefinite locality would send
scores of miners tramping off on a wild goose
chase into the mountains. Some of these
rushes originated through fake stories circu-
lated for sinister purpose; others were caused
by exaggerated stories of real discoveries.
One of the most famous fakes of early days
was the Gold Lake rush of 1850. This wonder-
ful lake was supposed to be located about two
17.2
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
hundred miles northeast of Marysville, on the
divide between the Feather and the Yuba rivers.
The Sacramento Transcript of June 19, 1850,
says: “We are informed by a gentleman from
Marysville that it is currently reported there that
the Indians upon this lake use gold for their
commonest purposes; that they have a ready
way of knocking out square blocks, which they
use for seats and couches upon which to place
their beds, which are simply bundles of wild
oats, which grow so profusely in all sections of
the state. According to report also they use for
fishhooks crooked pieces of gold and kill their
game with arrows made of the same material.
They are reported to be thunderstruck at the
movements of the whites and their eagerness
to collect and hoard the materials of the very
ground upon which they tread.
"A Story is current that a man at Gold Lake
saw a large piece of gold floating on the lake
which he succeeded in getting ashore. So
clear are the waters that another man saw a
rock of gold on the bottom. After many ef-
forts he succeeded in lassoing the rock. Three
days afterward he was seen standing holding on
to his rope.”
The Placer Times of Marysville reports that
the specimens brought into Marysville are of a
value from $1,500 down. Ten ounces is re-
ported as no unusual yield to the pan. The
first party of sixty which started out under
guidance of one who had returned successful
were assured that they would not get less than
$500 each per day. We were told that two hun-
dred had left town with a full supply of pro-
visions and four hundred mules. Mules and
horses have doubled in value. Many places of
5usiness are closed. The diggings at the lake
are probably the best ever discovered.” The
Times of June 19 says: “It is reported that up
to last Thursday two thousand persons had
taken up their journey. Many who were work-
ing good claims deserted them for the new dis-
covery. Mules and horses were about impos-
sible to obtain. Although the truth of the re-
port rests on the authority of but two or three
who have returned from Gold Lake, yet few
are found who doubt the marvelous revelations.
A party of Kanakas are said to have wintered
at Gold Lake, subsisting chiefly on the flesh of
their animals. They are said to have taken out
$75,000 the first week. When a conviction takes
such complete possession of a whole com-
munity, who are fully conversant with all the
exaggerations that have had their day, it is
scarcely prudent to utter even a qualified dissent
from what is universally believed.”
The denouement of the Gold Lake romance
Imay be found in the Transcript of July 1, 1850.
"The Gold Lake excitement, so much talked of
and acted upon of late, has almost subsided.
A crazy man comes in for a share of the re-
sponsibility. Another report is that they have
found one of the pretended discoverers at
Marysville and are about to lynch him. In-
deed, we are told that a demonstration against
the town is feared by many. People who have
returned after traveling some one hundred and
fifty to two hundred miles say that they left vast
numbers of people roaming between the sources
of the Yuba and the Feather rivers.”
Scarcely had the deluded argonauts returned
from a bootless search for the lake of gold when
another rumored discovery of gold fields of
fabulous richness sent them rushing off toward
the sea coast. Now it was 'Gold Bluff that lured
them away. On the northwest coast of Califor-
nia, near the of the Klamath river,
precipitous bluffs four hundred feet high mark
the coast line of the Ocean. A party of pros-
pectors in the fall of 1850, who had been up
in the Del Norte country, were making their
way down to the little trading and trapping sta-
tion of Trinidad to procure provisions. On
reaching the bluffs, thirty miles above Trinidad,
they were astonished to find stretching out be-
fore them a beach glittering with golden sands.
They could not stop to gather gold; they were
starving. So, scraping up a few handfuls of the
glittering sands, they hastened on. In due
time they reached San Francisco, where they
exhibited their sand, which proved to be nearly
half gold. The report of the wonderful find was
spread by the newspapers and the excitement
began. Companies were formed and claims lo-
cated at long range. One company of nine
locators sent an expert to examine their claims.
He, by a careful mathematical calculation, as-
mouth
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
173
certained that the claim would yield forty-three
million dollars to each partner. As there were
fifteen miles of gold beach, the amount of gold
in the sands was sufficient to demonetize the
precious metal. A laudable desire to benefit
the human race possessed some of the claim
owners. They formed joint stock companies with
shares at $100 each. Gold Bluff mining stock
went off like the proverbial hot cakes and pros-
pectors went off as rapidly. Within two days
after the expert's wonderful story was spread
abroad nine ships were fitted out for Gold Bluff.
The first to arrive off the Bluff was the vessel
containing a party of the Original discoverers.
In attempting to land in a boat, the boat was
upset in the breakers and five of the six Occu-
pants were drowned, Bertram, the leader of the
party making the discovery, alone escaping.
The vessel put back to Trinidad and the gold
bunters made their way up the coast to the
Bluff. But alas for their golden dreams!
Where they had hoped to gather gold by the
ship load no gold was found. Old Ocean had
gathered it back into his treasure vaults.
The bubble burst as suddenly as it had ex-
panded. And yet there was gold at Gold Bluff
and there is gold there yet. If the ocean could
be drained or coffer dammed for two hundred
miles along the gold coast of northern Califor-
nia and Oregon, all the wealth of Alaska would
be but the panning out of a prospect hole com-
pared to the richness that lies hidden in the
sands of Gold Beach. For years after the
bursting of the Gold Bluff bubble, when the
tide was low, the sands along Gold Beach were
mined with profit.
The Kern river excitement in the spring of
1855 surpassed everything that had preceded it.
Seven years of mining had skimmed the rich-
ness of the placers. The northern and central
gold fields of California had been thoroughly
prospected. The miners who had been accus--
tomed to the rich strikes of early years could
not content themselves with moderate returns.
They were on the qui vive for a rich strike and
ready for a rush upon the first report of one.
The first discoveries on the Kern river were
made in the summer of 1854, but no excitement
followed immediately. During the fall and win-
ter rumors were set afloat of rich strikes on the
head waters of that stream. The stories grew
as they traveled. One that had a wide circula-
tion and was readily accepted ran about as fol-
lows: “A Mexican doctor had appeared in Mari-
posa loaded down with gold nuggets. He re-
ported that he and four companions had found
a region paved with gold. The very hills were
yellow with outcroppings. While gloating over
their wealth and loading it into sacks the In-
dians attacked them and killed his four com-
panions. He escaped with one sack of gold. He
proposed to Organize a company large enough
to exterminate the Indians and then bring out
the gold on pack mules.” This as well as other
stories as improbable were spread broadcast
throughout the state. Many of the reports of
wonderful strikes were purposely magnified by
merchants and dealers in mining supplies who
were overstocked with unsalable goods; and
by transportation companies with whom busi-
ness was slack. Their purpose was accom-
plished and the rush was on. It began in Jan-
uary, 1855. Every steamer down the coast to
Los Angeles was loaded to the guards with
adventurers for the mines. The sleepy Old
metropolis of the cow counties waked up to
find itself suddenly transformed into a bustling
mining camp. The Southern Californian of Feb-
ruary 8, 1855, thus describes the situation: “The
road from our valley is literally thronged with
people on their way to the mines. Hundreds
of people have been leaving not only the city,
but every portion of the county. Every descrip-
tion of vehicle and animal has been brought
into requisition to take the exultant seekers
after wealth to the goal of their hopes. Im-
mense ten-mule wagons strung out one after
another; long trains of pack mules and men
mounted and on foot, with picks and shovels;
boarding-house keepers with their tents; mer-
chants with their stocks of miners' necessaries
and gamblers with their ‘papers' are constantly
leaving for the Kern river mines. The wildest
stories are afloat. If the mines turn out $10
a day to the man everybody ought to be satis-
fied. The opening of these mines has been a
Godsend to all of us, as the business of the en-
tire country was on the point of taking to a
174
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
tree. The great scarcity of money is seen in
the present exorbitant rates of interest which it
commands; 8, IO and even 15 per cent a month
is freely paid and the supply even at these rates
is too meager to meet the demands.” As the
rush increased our editor grows more jubilant.
In his issue of March 7, he throws out these
headlines: “Stop the Press! Glorious News
from Kern River! Bring Out the Big Gun!
There are a thousand gulches rich with gold
and room for ten thousand miners. Miners
averaged $50 a day. One man with his own
hands took out $16O in a day. Five men in ten
days took out $4,500.”
Another stream of miners and adventurers
was pouring into the mines, by way of the San
Joaquin valley. From Stockton to the Kern
river, a distance of three hundred miles, the
road was crowded with men on foot, on stages,
on horseback and on every form of convey-
ance that would take them to the new El DO-
rado. In four months five or six thousand men
had found their way into the Kern river basin.
There was gold there, but not enough to go
around. A few struck it rich, the many struck
nothing but “hard luck” and the rush out began.
Those who had ridden into the valley footed it
out, and those who had footed it in on sole
leather footed it out on their natural Soles.
After the wild frenzy of Kern river, the press
of the state congratulated the public with the
assurance that the era of wild rushes was past—
“what had been lost in money had been gained
in experience.” As if prospectors ever profited
by experience! Scarcely had the victims of Kern
river resumed work in the old creeks and cañons
they had deserted to join in the rush when a
rumor came, faint at first, but gathering
strength at each repetition, that rich diggings
had been struck in the far north. This time
it is Frazer river. True, Frazer river is in the
I}ritish possessions, but what of that? There
are enough miners in California to seize the
country and hold it until the cream of the mines
has been skimmed. Rumors of the richness
of mines increased with every arrival of a
steamer from the north. Captains, pursers,
mates, cooks and waiters all confirmed the sto-
ries of rich strikes. Doubters asserted that the
dust and nuggets exhibited had made the trip
from San Francisco to Victoria and back. But
they were silenced by the assurance that the
transportation company was preparing to double
the number of its vessels on that route. Com-
modore Wright was too smart to run his steam-
ers on fake reports, and thus the very thing that
should have caused suspicion was used to con-
firm the truth of the rumors. The doubters
doubted no more, but packed their outfits for
I razer river. California was played-out. Where
could an honest miner pan out $100 a day
in California now? He could do it every day
in Prazer; the papers said so. The first notice
of the mines was published in March, 1858. The
rush began the latter part of April and in four
months thirty thousand men, one-sixth of the
voting population of the state, had rushed to
the mines.
The effect of the craze was disastrous to busi-
ness in California. Farms were abandoned and
crops lost for want of hands to harvest them.
Rich claims in old diggings were sold for a trifle
of their value. Lots on Montgomery street that
a few years later were worth $1,500 a front foot
were sold for $1 OO. Real estate in the interior
towns was sacrificed at 50 to 75 per cent less
than it was worth before the rush began. But
a halt was called in the mad rush. The returns
were not coming in satisfactorily. Iły the mid-
dle of July less than $1 OO,OOO in dust had
reached San Francisco, only about $3 for each
man who had gone to the diggings. There was
gold there and plenty of it, so those interested
in keeping up the excitement said: “The Frazer
river is high; wait till it subsides.” But it did
not subside, and it has not subsided since. If
the Frazer did not subside the excitement did,
and that suddenly. Those who had money
enough or could borrow from their friends got
away at once. Those who had none hung
around Victoria and New Westminster until
they were shipped back at the government's ex-
pense. The Frazer river craze was the last of the
mad, unreasoning “gold rushes.” The Washoe
excitement of '59 and the “Ho! for Idaho of
1863-64” had some of the characteristics of the
early gold rushes, but they soon settled down to
steady business and the yield from these fairly
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
175
recompensed those who were frugal and indus-
trious.
Never before perhaps among civilized people
was there witnessed such a universal leveling
as occurred in the first years of the mining ex-
citement in California. “As the labor required
was physical instead of mental, the usual supe-
riority of head workers over hand workers dis-
appeared entirely. Men who had been gov-
ernors and legislators and judges in the old
states worked by the side of Outlaws and con-
victs; scholars and students by the side of men
who could not read or write; those who had
been masters by the side of those who had been
slaves; old social distinctions were obliterated;
everybody did business on his own account, and
not one man in ten was the employe and much
less the servant of another. Social distinctions
appeared to be entirely obliterated and no man
was considered inferior to another. The hard-
fisted, unshaven and patch-covered miner was
on terms of perfect equality with the well-
dressed lawyer, surgeon or merchant; and in
general conferences, discussions and even con-
versations the most weather-beaten and strongly
marked face, or, in other words, the man who
had seen and experienced the most, notwith-
standing his wild and tattered attire, was lis-
tened to with more attention and respectful con-
sideration than the man of polished speech and
Striking antithesis. One reason of this was that in
those days the roughest-looking man not infre-
quently knew more than anybody else of what
was wanted to be known, and the raggedest man
not infrequently was the most influential and
sometimes the richest man in the locality.”
This independent spirit was characteristic of
the men of '48 and '49. Then nearly everybody
was honest and theft was almost unknown.
With the advent of the criminal element in
1850 and later there came a change. Before that
a pan of gold dust could be left in an open tent
unguarded, but with the coming of the Sydney
ducks from Australia and men of their class it
became necessary to guard property with sedu-
lous care.
* Hittell's History of California, Vol. III.
CHAPTER XXVI.
SAN FRANCISCO.
the first house on the Yerba Buena cove.
It was a shanty of rough board, which he
replaced a year later with an adobe building.
He was granted a lot in 1836 and his building
stood near what is now the corner of Dupont
and Clay streets. Richardson had settled at
Sausalito in 1822. He was an Englishman by
birth and was one of the first foreigners to settle
in California.
Jacob P. Leese, an American, in partnership
with Spear & Hinckley, obtained a lot in 1836
and built a house and store near that of Captain
Richardson. There is a tradition that Mr. Leese
began his store building on the first of July and
finished it at ten o'clock on the morning of
July 4, and for a house warming celebrated the
glorious Fourth in a style that astonished the
natives up and down the coast. The house was
sixty feet long and twenty-five broad, and, if
| N 1835 Capt. William A. Richardson built
completed in three days, Mr. Leese certainly de
serves the credit of having eclipsed some of
the remarkable feats in house building that were
performed after the great fires of San Francisco
in the early '50s. Mr. Leese and his neighbor,
Captain Richardson, invited all the high-toned
Spanish families for a hundred miles around to
the celebration. The Mexican and American
flags floated over the building and two six-
pounders fired salutes. At five o'clock the
guests sat down to a sumptuous dinner which
lasted, toasts and all, till IO o'clock, and then
came dancing; and, as Mr. Leese remarks in his
diary: “Our Fourth ended on the evening of
the fifth.” Mr. Leese was an energetic person.
He built a house in three days, gave a Fourth of
July celebration that lasted two days, and inside
of a week had a store opened and was doing a
thriving business with his late guests. He fell
in love with the same energy that he did busi-
176
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
ness. Among the guests at his 4th of July
celebration were the Vallejos, the nabobs of
Sonoma. Leese courted one of the girls and in
a few months after the celebration married her.
Their daughter, Rosalie Leese, was the first
child born in Yerba Buena. Such was the be-
ginning of San Francisco.
This settlement was on a crescent-shaped cove
that lay between Clark's Point and the Rincon.
The locality was known as Yerba Buena (good
herb), a species of mint to which the native Cal-
ifornians attributed many medicinal virtues.
The peninsula still bore the name that had been
applied to it when the mission and presidio
were founded, San Francisco. Yerba Buena
was a local appellation and applied only to the
little hamlet that had grown up on the cove.
This settlement, although under the Mexican
government, was not a Mexican town. The
foreign element, the American predominating,
had always been in the ascendency. At the time
of the conquest, among its two hundred inhab-
itants, were representatives of almost every civ-
ilized nation on the globe. It was a cosmopol-
itan town. In a very short time after the con-
quest it began to take on a new growth and was
recognized as the coming metropolis of Califor-
nia. The curving beach of the cove at One
point (Jackson street) crossed the present line
of Montgomery street.
Richardson and Leese had built their stores
and warehouses back from the beach because of
a Mexican law that prohibited the building of a
house on the beach where no custom house ex-
isted. All houses had to be built back a certain
number of varas from high-water mark. This
regulation was made to prevent smuggling. Be-
tween the shore line of the cove and anchorage
there was a long stretch of shallow water. This
made transportation of goods from ship to
shore very inconvenient and expensive. With
the advent of the Americans and the inaugura-
tion of a more progressive era it became neces-
sary for the convenient landing of ships and for
the discharging and receiving of their cargoes
that the beach front of the town should be im-
proved by building wharves and docks. The dif-
ficulty was to find the means to do this. The
general government of the United States could
not undertake it. The war with Mexico was
still in progress. The only available way was
to sell off beach lots to private parties, but who
was to give title was the question. Edwin Bry-
ant, February 22, 1847, had succeeded Wash-
ington Bartlett as alcalde. Bryant was a pro-
gressive man, and, recognizing the necessity of
improvement in the shipping facilities of the
town, he urged General Kearny, the acting
governor, to relinquish, on the part of the gen-
eral government, its claim to the beach lands in
front of the town in favor of the municipality
under certain conditions. General Kearny
really had no authority to relinquish the claim
of the general government to the land, for the
simple reason that the general government had
not perfected a claim. The country was held
as conquered territory. Mexico had made no
concession of the land by treaty. It was not
certain that California would be ceded to the
United States. Under Mexican law the gov-
ernor of the territory, under certain conditions,
had the right to make grants, and General Kear-
ny, assuming the power given a Mexican gov-
ernor, issued the following decree: “I, Brig.-
Gen. S. W. Kearny, Governor of California,
by virtue of authority in me vested by the Pres-
ident of the United States of America, do hereby
grant, convey, and release unto the Town of San
Francisco, the people or corporate authorities
thereof, all the right, title and interest of the
Government of the United States and of the
Territory of California in and to the Beach and
Water Lots on the East front of said Town of
San Francisco included between the points
known as the Rincon and Fort Montgomery,
excepting such lots as may be selected for the
use of the United States Government by the
senior officers of the army and navy now there;
provided, the said ground hereby ceded shall
be divided into lots and sold by public auction to
the highest bidder, after three months' notice
previously given; the proceeds of said sale to .
be for the benefit of the town of San Francisco.
Given at Monterey, capital of California, this
Ioth day of March, 1847, and the seventy-first
year of the independence of the United States.”
S. W. KEARN.Y,
Brig.-Gen'l & Gov. of California.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
177
In pursuance of this decree, Alcalde Bryant.
advertised in the Californian that the ground
described in the decree, known as Water Lots,
would be surveyed and divided into convenient
building lots and sold to the highest bidder on
the 29th of June (1847). He then proceeds in
the advertisement to boom the town. “The site
of the town of San Francisco is known by all
navigators and mercantile men acquainted with
the subject to be the most commanding com-
mercial position on the entire western coast of
the Pacific ocean, and the Town itself is no
doubt destined to become the commercial em-
porium of the western side of the North Ameri-
can continent.” The alcaldes' assertions must
have seemed rather extravagant to the dwellers
in the little burgh on the cove of Yerba Buena.
But Bryant was a far-seeing man and proved
himself in this instance to be a prophet.
It will be noticed that both General Kearny
and Alcalde Bryant call the town San Francisco.
Alcalde Bartlett, the predecessor in office of
Alcalde Bryant, had changed its name just be-
fore he was recalled to his ship. He did not
like the name Yerba Buena, so he summarily
changed it. He issued a proclamation setting
forth that hereafter the town should be known
as San Francisco. Having proclaimed a change
of name, he proceeded to give his reasons:
Yerba Buena was a paltry cognomen for a cer-
tain kind of mint found on an island in the
bay; it was a merely local name, unknown be-
yond the district, while San Francisco had long
been familiar on the maps. “Therefore it is
hereby ordained, etc.” Bartlett builded better
than he knew. It would have been a sad mis-
take for the city to have carried the “outlandish
name which Americans would mangle in pro-
nouncing,” as the alcalde said.
The change was made in the latter part of
January, 1847, but it was some time before the
new name was generally adopted.
The California Star, Sam Brannan's paper,
which had begun to shine January 9, 1847, in
its issue of March 20, alluding to the change,
says: “We acquiesce in it, though we prefer
the old name. When the change was first at-
tempted we viewed it as a mere assumption of
authority, without law of precedent, and there-
fore we adhered to the old name—Yerba
Buena.”
“It was asserted by the late alcalde, Washing-
ton Bartlett, that the place was called San
Francisco in some old Spanish paper which he
professed to have in his possession; but how
could we believe a man even about that which
it is said “there is nothing in it, who had so
often evinced a total disregard for his own honor
and character and the honor of the country
which gave him birth and the rights of his fel-
low citizens in the district?” Evidently the edi-
tor had a grievance and was anxious to get even
with the alcalde. Bartlett demanded an inves-
tigation of Some charges made against his ad-
ministration. He was cleared of all blame. He
deserves the thanks of all Californians in sum-
marily suppressing Yerba Buena and preventing
it from being fastened on the chief city of the
State.
There was at that time (on paper) a city of
Francisca. The city fathers of this budding me-
tropolis were T. O. Larkin and Robert Semple.
In a half-column advertisement in the Califor-
nian of April 20, 1847, and several subsequent
issues, headed “Great Sale of City Lots,” they set
forth the many advantages and merits of
Francisca. The streets are eighty feet wide, the
alleys twenty feet wide, and the lots fifty yards
front and forty yards back. The whole city
comprises five square miles.”
“Francisca is situated on the Straits of Car-
quinez, on the north side of the Bay of San
Francisco, about thirty miles from the mouth
of the bay and at the head of ship navigation.
In front of the city is a commodious bay, large
enough for two hundred ships to ride at anchor,
safe from any wind.” “ * * “The entire
trade of the great Sacramento and San Joaquin
valleys, a fertile country of great width and near
seven hundred miles long from north to south,
must of necessity pass through the narrow chan-
nel of Carquinez and the bay and country is
so situated that every person who passes from
one side of the bay to the other will find the
nearest and best way by Francisca.” Francisca,
with its manifold natural advantages, ought to
have been a great city, the metropolis of Cali-
fornia, but the Fates were against it. Alcalde
12
17S
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Bartlett, probably without any design of doing
so, dealt it a fearful blow when he dubbed the
town of the good herb, San Francisco. Two
cities with names so nearly alike could not live
and thrive in the same state. Francisca became
Benicia. The population of San Francisco (or
Yerba Buena, as it was then called) at the time
that Captain Montgomery raised the stars and
Stripes and took possession of it probably did
not exceed two hundred. Its change of masters
accelerated its growth. The Californian of Sep-
tember 4, 1847 (fourteen months after it came
under the flag of the United States), gives the
following statistics of its population and prog-
ress: Total white male population, 247; female,
I23; Indians, male, 26; female, 8; South Sea
Islanders, male, 39; female I; negroes, male,
9; female I; total population, 454.
Nearly every country on the globe had repre-
sentatives in its population, and the various vo-
cations by which men earn a living were
well represented. Minister, one; doctors, three;
lawyers, three; surveyors, two; agriculturists,
eleven; bakers, seven; blacksmiths, six; brew-
er, one; butchers, seven; cabinetmakers, two;
carpenters, twenty-six; cigarmaker, one; coop-
ers, three; clerks, thirteen; gardener, one;
grocers, five; gunsmiths, two; hotel-keepers,
three; laborers, twenty; masons, four; mer-
chants, eleven; miner, one; morocco case
maker, one; navigators (inland), six; navigator
(ocean), one; painter, one; printer, one; sol-
dier, one; shoemakers, four; silversmith, one;
tailors, four; tanners, two; watchmaker, one;
weaver, one. Previous to April 1, 1847, accord-
ing to the Californian, there had been erected in
the town seventy-nine buildings, classified as
follows: Shanties, twenty-two; frame buildings,
thirty-one; adobe buildings, twenty-six. Since
April I, seventy-eight buildings have been
erected, viz.: Shanties, twenty; frame buildings,
forty-seven; adobe buildings, eleven. “Within
five months last past,” triumphantly adds the
editor of the Californian, “as many buildings
have been built as were erected in all the pre-
vious years of the town's existence.”
The town continued to grow with wonderful
rapidity throughout the year 1847, considering
that peace had not yet been declared and the
destiny of California was uncertain. According
to a School census taken in March, 1848, by
the Board of Trustees, the population was:
Males, five hundred and seventy-five; females,
one hundred and seventy-seven; and “children
of age to attend School,” sixty, a total of eight
hundred and twelve. Building kept pace with
the increase of population until the “gold fever”
became epidemic. Dr. Brooks, writing in his
diary May 17, says: “Walking through the town
to-day, I observed that laborers were employed
only upon about half a dozen of the fifty new
buildings which were in the course of being
run up.”
The first survey of lots in the town had been
made by a Frenchman named Vioget. No
names had been given to the streets. This sur-
vey was made before the conquest. In 1847,
Jasper O’Farrell surveyed and platted the dis-
trict extending about half a mile in the different
directions from the plaza. The streets were
named, and, with a very few changes, still retain
the names then given. In September the coun-
cil appointed a committee to report upon the
building of a wharf. It was decided to con-
struct two wharves, one from the foot of Clay
street and the other from the foot of Broadway.
Money was appropriated to build them and they
had been extended some distance seaward when
the rush to the mines suspended operations.
After considerable agitation by the two news-
papers and canvassing for funds, the first school-
house was built. It was completed December
4, 1847, but, for lack of funds, or, as the Star
says, for lack of energy in the council, school
was not opened on the completion of the house.
In March the council appropriated $400 and
April 1, 1848, Thomas Douglas, a graduate of
Yale College, took charge of the school. San
Francisco was rapidly developing into a pro-
gressive American city. Unlike the older towns
of California, it had but a small Mexican popu-
lation. Even had not gold been discovered, it
would have grown into a commercial city of con-
siderable size. -
The first effect of the gold discovery and the
consequent rush to the mines was to bring
everything to a standstill. As Kemble, of the
Star, puts it, it was “as if a curse had arrested
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
179
our onward course of enterprise; everything
wears a desolate and sombre look; everywhere
all is dull, monotonous, dead.” The return of
the inhabitants in a few months and the influx
of new arrivals gave the town a boom in the
fall of 1848. Building was only limited by the
lack of material, and every kind of a makeshift
was resorted to to provide shelter against win-
terrains. From the many attempts at describ-
ing the town at this stage of its development, I
select this from “Sights in the Gold Regions,” a
book long since out of print. Its author, T. T.
Johnson, arrived at San Francisco April 1, 1849.
“Proceeding on our survey, we found the
streets, or, properly, the roads, laid out reg-
ularly, those parallel with the water being a
succession of terraces, and these ascending the
hills or along their sides being in some instances
cut down ten or twelve feet below the surface.
Except a portion of the streets fronting upon
the cove, they are all of hard-beaten, Sandy clay,
as solid as if macadamized. About three hun-
dred houses, stores, shanties and sheds, with a
great many tents, composed the town at that
period. The houses were mostly built of rough
boards and unpainted; brown cottons or calico
nailed against the beams and joists answered for
wall and ceiling of the better class of tenements.
With the exception of the brick warehouse of
Howard and Mellus, the establishments of the
commercial houses of which we had heard so
much were inferior to the Outhouses of the
country seats on the Hudson; and yet it would
puzzle the New York Exchange to produce
merchant princes of equal importance.” “ ” *
“We strolled among the tents in the outskirts
of the town. Here was ‘confusion worse Con-
founded, chiefly among Mexicans, Peruvians
and Chilians. Every kind, size, color and shape
of tent pitched helter-skelter and in the most
awkward manner were stowed full of everything
under the sun.”
In the first six months of 1849 fifteen thou-
sand souls were added to the population of San
Francisco; in the latter half of that year about
four thousand arrived every month by sea alone.
At first the immigrants were from Mexico,
Chile, Peru and the South American ports gen-
erally; but early in the spring the Americans
began to arrive, coming by way of Panama and
Cape Horn, and later across the plains. Europe
sent its contingent by sea via Cape Horn; and
China, Australia and the Hawaiian Islands
added to the city's population an undesirable
element. A large majority of those who came
by sea made their way to the mines, but many
SOOn returned to San Francisco, some to take
their departure for home, others to become resi-
dents. At the end of the year San Francisco
had a population of twenty-five thousand. The
following graphic description of life in San
Francisco in the fall of 49 and spring of '50 I take
from a paper, “Pioneer Days in San Francisco,”
written by John Williamson Palmer, and pub-
lished in the Century Magazine (1890): “And
how did they all live? In frame houses of one
story, more commonly in board Shanties and
canvas tents, pitched in the midst of sand or
mud and various rubbish and strange filth and
fleas; and they slept on rude cots or on soft
planks, under horse blankets, on tables, coun-
ters, floors, on trucks in the open air, in bunks
braced against the weather-boarding, forty of
them in one loft; and so they tossed and
scratched and swore and laughed and sang and
Skylarked, those who were not tired or drunk
enough to sleep. And in the working hours
they bustled, and jostled, and tugged, and
sweated, and made money, always made money.
They labored and they lugged; they worked on
lighters, drove trucks, packed mules, rang bells,
carried messages, ‘waited' in restaurants,
‘marked’ for billiard tables, served drinks in
bar rooms, “faked’ on the plaza, ‘cried' at auc-
tions, toted lumber for houses, ran a game of
ſaro or roulette in the El Dorado or the Bella
Union, or manipulated three-card monte on
the head of a barrel in front of the Parker
House; they speculated, and, as a rule, gam-
bled. -
“Clerks in stores and offices had munificent
salaries. Five dollars a day was about the small-
est stipend even in the custom house, and one
Baptist preacher was paid $10,000 a year. La-
borers received $1 an hour; a pick or a shovel
was worth $10; a tin pan or a wooden bowl
$5, and a butcher knife $30. At one time car-
penters who were getting $12 a day struck
180
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL REC() R.D.
for $16. Lumber rose to $500 per thou-
sand feet, and every brick in a house cost
a dollar one way or another. Wheat, flour
and salt pork sold at $40 a barrel; a small
loaf of bread was fifty cents and a hard-boiled
egg a dollar. You paid $3 to get into the cir-
cus and $55 for a private box at the theater.
Forty dollars was the price for ordinary coarse
boots, and a pair that came above the knees
and would carry you gallantly through the quag-
mires brought a round hundred. When a shirt
became very dirty the wearer threw it away and
bought a new one. Washing cost $15 a dozen
in 1849.
“Rents were simply monstrous; $3,000 a
month in advance for a ‘store' hurriedly built of
rough boards. Wright & Co. paid $75,000 for
the wretched little place on the corner of the
plaza that they called the Miners' Bank, and
$36,OOO was asked for the use of the Old Adobe
as a custom-house. The Parker House paid
$120,000 a year in rents, nearly one-half of that
amount being collected from gamblers who held
the second floor; and the canvas tent next door
used as a gambling saloon, and called the El
Dorado, was good for $40,000 a year. From
IO to I 5 per cent a month was paid in advance
for the use of money borrowed on substantial
security. The prices of real estate went up
among the stars; $8,000 for a fifty-vara lot that
had been bought in 1849 for $2O. A lot pur-
chased two years before for a barrel of aguar-
(iiente sold for $18,OOO. Yet, for all that, every-
body made money.
“The aspect of the streets of San Francisco at
this time was such as one may imagine of an
unsightly waste of sand and mud churned by
the continual grinding of heavy wagons and
trucks and the tugging and floundering of
horses, mules and oxen; thoroughfares irregu-
lar and uneven, ungraded, unpaved, unplanked,
obstructed by lumber and goods, alternate
humps and holes, the actual dumping-places of
the town, handy receptacles for the general
sweepings and rubbish and indescribable offal
and filth, the refuse of an indiscriminate popu-
lation pigging together in shanties and tents.
And these conditions extended beyond the
actual settlement into the chaparral and under-
brush that covered the sand hills on the north
and west.
“The flooding rains of winter transformed
what should have been thoroughfares into
treacherous quagmires set with holes and traps
fit to smother horse and man. Loads of brush-
Wood and branches of trees cut from the hills
were thrown into these swamps; but they served
no more than a temporary purpose and the in-
mates of tents and houses made such bridges
and crossings as they could with boards, boxes
and barrels. Men waded through the slough
and thought themselves lucky when they sank
no deeper than their waists.”
It is said that two horses mired down in the
Imud of Montgomery street were left to die of
starvation, and that three drunken men were
suffocated between Washington and Jackson
streets. It was during the winter of '49 that the
famous sidewalk of flour sacks, cooking stoves
and tobacco boxes was built. It extended from
Simmons, Hutchinson & Co.'s store to Adams
Express office, a distance of about seventy-five
yards. The first portion was built of Chilean
flour in One hundred pound sacks, next came the
cooking Stoves in a long row, and then followed
a double row of tobacco boxes of large size,
and a yawning gap of the walk was bridged by
a piano. Chile flour, cooking stoves, tobacco
and pianos were cheaper material for building
walks, owing to the excessive supply of these,
than lumber at $600 a thousand.
In the summer of 49 there were more than
three hundred sailing vessels lying in the harbor
of San Francisco, from which the sailors had
deserted to go to the mines. Some of these ves-
sels rotted where they were moored. Some
were hauled up in the sand or mud flats and
used for store houses, lodging houses and sa-
loons. As the water lots were filled in and built
upon, these ships sometimes formed part of
the line of buildings on the street. The brig
Euphemia was the first jail owned by the city;
the store ship Apollo was converted into a
lodging house and saloon, and the Niantic Hotel
at the corner of Sansome and Clay streets was
built on the hull of the ship Niantic. As the
wharves' were extended out into the bay the
space between was filled in from the sand hills
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
181
and houses built along the wharves. In this
way the cove was gradually filled in. The high
price of lumber and the great scarcity of houses
brought about the importation from New York,
Boston, Philadelphia and London of houses
ready framed to set up. For a time im-
mense profits were made in this, but an ex-
cessive shipment like that of the articles of
which the famous sidewalk was made brought
down the price below cost, and the business
ceased. -
The first of the great fires that devastated San
Francisco occurred on Christmas eve, 1849. It
started in Denison's Exchange, a gambling
house on the east side of the plaza. It burned
the greater part of the block between Wash-
ington and Clay streets and Kearny and Mont-
gomery streets. The loss was estimated at a
million and a quarter dollars. The second great
fire occurred on May 4, 1850. It burned Over
the three blocks between Montgomery and
Dupont streets, bounded by Jackson and Clay
streets, and the north and east sides of Ports-
mouth square. The loss was estimated at
$4,000,000. It started in the United States Ex-
change, a gambling den, at four o'clock in the
morning, and burned for seven hours. The fire
was believed to be of incendiary Origin and sev-
eral suspicious characters were arrested, but
nothing could be proved against them. A num-
ber of the lookers-on refused to assist in arrest-
ing the progress of the flames unless paid for
their labor; and $3 an hour was demanded and
paid to some who did.
On the 14th of June, 1850, a fire broke out in
the Sacramento House, on the east side of Kear-
ny street, between Clay and Sacramento. The
entire district from Kearny street between Clay
and California to the water front was burned
over, causing a loss of $3,000,000. Over three
hundred houses were destroyed. The fourth
great fire of the fateful year of 1850 occurred
September 17. It started on Jackson street and
destroyed the greater part of the blocks be-
tween Dupont and Montgomery streets from
Washington to Pacific streets. The loss in this
was not so great from the fact that the district
contained mostly one-story houses. It was esti-
mated at half a million dollars. December 14
of the same year a fire occurred on Sacramento
street below Montgomery. Although the dis-
trict burned over was not extensive, the loss
was heavy. The buildings were of corrugated
iron, supposed to be fireproof, and were filled
with valuable merchandise. The loss amounted
to $1,000,000. After each fire, building was re-
Sumed almost before the embers of the fire that
consumed the former buildings were extin-
guished. After each fire better buildings were
constructed. A period of six months’ exemp-
tion had encouraged the inhabitants of the fire-
afflicted city to believe that on account of the
better class of buildings constructed the danger
of great conflagrations was past, but the worst
was yet to come. At II p. m. May 3, 1851, a
fire, started by incendiaries, broke out on the
South side of the plaza. A strong northwest
wind swept across Kearny street in broad
sheets of flame, first southeastward, then, the
wind changing, the flames veered to the north
and east. All efforts to arrest them were use-
less; houses were blown up and torn down in
attempts to cut off communication, but the en-
gines were driven back step by step, while some
of the brave firemen fell victims to the fire fiend.
The flames, rising aloft in whirling volumes,
swept away the frame houses and crumbled up
with intense heat the supposed fireproof struc-
tures. After ten hours, when the fire abated for
want of material to burn, all that remained of
the city were the sparsely settled outskirts. All
of the business district between Pine and Pa-
cific streets, from Kearny to the Battery on
the water front, was in ruins. Over one thou-
sand houses had been burned. The loss of prop-
erty was estimated at $10,000,000, an amount
greater than the aggregate of all the preceding
fires. A number of lives were lost. During the
progress of the fire large quantities of goods
were stolen by bands of thieves. The sixth and
last of the great conflagrations that devastated
the city occurred on the 22d of June, 1851. The
fire started in a building on Powell street and
ravaged the district between Clay and Broadway,
from Powell to Sansome. Four hundred and
fifty houses were burned, involving a loss of
$2,500,000. An improved fire department,
more stringent building regulations and a bet-
1S2
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
ter water supply combined to put an end to the
era of great fires.
After the great fires of 1851 had swept over
the city there was practically nothing left of
the old metropolis of the early gold rush. The
hastily constructed wooden shanties were gone;
the corrugated iron building imported from
New York and London, and warranted to be
fireproof, had proved to be worthless to with-
stand great heat; the historic buildings had dis-
appeared; the new city that, Phoenix-like, arose
from the ashes of the old was a very different
city from its predecessor that had been wiped
from the earth by successive conflagrations.
Stone and brick buildings covered the former
site of wooden structures. The unsightly mud
flats between the wharves were filled in from the
sand hills and some of the streets paved. The
year 1853 was memorable for the rapid progress
of the city. Assessed property values increased
from $18,OOO,OOO to $28,OOO,OOO. Real estate
values went soaring upward and the city was on
the high tide of prosperity; but a reaction came
in 1855. The rush to the mines had ceased, im-
migration had fallen off, and men had begun to
retrench and settle down to steady business
habits. Home productions had replaced im-
ports, and the people were abandoning mining
for farms. The transition from gold mining to
grain growing had begun. All these affected
the city and real estate declined. Lots that sold
for $8,000 to $10,000 in 1853 could be bought
for half that amount in 1855. Out of one thou-
sand business houses, three hundred were va-
cant. Another influence that helped to bring
about a depression was the growing political
corruption and the increased taxation from pec-
ulations of dishonest officials.
The defalcations and forgeries of Harry
Meigs, which occurred in 1854, were a terrible
blow to the city. Meigs was one of its most
trusted citizens. He was regarded as the em-
bodiment of integrity, the stern, incorruptible
man, the watch-dog of the treasury. By his
upright conduct he had earned the sobriquet of
Honest Harry Meigs. Over-speculation and
reaction from the boom of 1853 embarrassed
him. He forged a large amount of city scrip
and hypothecated it to raise money. His forger-
ies were suspected, but before the truth was
known he made his escape on the barque
America to Costa Rica and from there he made
his way to Peru. His forgeries amounted to
$1,500,000, of which $1,000,000 was in comp-
troller's warrants, to which he forged the names
of Mayor Garrison and Controller Harris. The
vigilance committee of 1856 cleared the political
atmosphere by clearing the city, by means of
hemp and deportation, of a number of bad
characters. The city was just beginning to re-
gain its former prosperity when the Frazer river
excitement brought about a temporary depres-
sion. The wild rush carried away about one-
sixth of its population. These all came back
again, poorer and perhaps wiser; at least, their
necessities compelled them to go to work and
weaned them somewhat of their extravagant
habits and their disinclination to work except for
the large returns of earlier days. Since 1857 the
growth of the city has been steady, unmarked
by real estate booms; nor has it been retarded
by long periods of financial depression.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CRIME, CRIMINALS AND VIGILANCE COMMITTEES.
among its white inhabitants during the
Spanish and Mexican eras of its history.
The conditions were not conducive to the de-
velopment of a criminal element. The inhabit-
ants were a pastoral people, pursuing an out-
door vocation, and there were no large towns
or cities where the viciously inclined could con-
Tº was but little crime in California
gregate and find a place of refuge from justice.
“From 1819 to 1846, that is, during the entire
period of Mexican domination under the Repub-
lic,” says Bancroft, “there were but six murders
among the whites in all California.” There were
no lynchings, no mobs, unless some of the rev-
olutionary uprisings might be called such, and
but one vigilance committee.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
183
San Francisco is credited with the origin of
that form of popular tribunal known as the vigi-
lance committee. The name “vigilance com-
mittee” originated with the uprising, in 1851, of
the people of that city against the criminal ele-
ment; but, years before there was a city of San
Francisco, Los Angeles had originated a tri-
bunal of the people, had taken criminals from
the lawfully constituted authorities and had tried
and executed them. The causes which called
into existence the first vigilance committee in
California were similar to those that created the
later ones, namely, laxity in the administration
of the laws and distrust in the integrity of
those chosen to administer them. During the
“decade of revolutions,” that is, between 1830.
and 1840, the frequent change of rulers and the
struggles of the different factions for power en-
gendered in the masses a disregard, not only
for their rulers, but for law and order as well.
Criminals escaped punishment through the
law's delays. No court in California had power
to pass sentence of death on a civilian until its
findings had been approved by the superior tri-
bunal of Mexico. In the slow and tedious proc-
esses of the different courts, a criminal stood a
good show of dying of old age before his case
reached final adjudication. The first committee
of vigilance in California was organized at Los
Angeles, in the house of Juan Temple, April 7,
1836. It was called “Junta Defensora de La
Seguridad Publica,” United Defenders of the
Public Security (or safety). Its motto, which ap-
pears in the heading of its “acta," and is there
credited as a quotation from Montesquieu's Ex-
position of the Laws, Book 26, Chapter 23, was,
“Salus populi suprema lex est” (The safety of
the people is the supreme law). There is a
marked similarity between the proceedings of
the Junta Defensora of 1836 and the San Fran-
cisco vigilance committee of 1856; it is not
probable, however, that any of the actors in the
latter committee participated in the former.
Although there is quite a full account of the
proceedings of the Junta Defensora in the Los
Angeles city archives, no historian heretofore
except Bancroft seems to have found it.
The circumstances which brought about the
organization of the Junta Defensora are as fol-
lows: The wife of Domingo Feliz (part owner
of the Los Feliz Rancho), who bore the poet-
ical name of Maria del Rosario Villa, became
infatuated with a handsome but disreputable
Sonoran vaquero, Gervacio Alispaz by name.
She abandoned her husband and lived with Alis-
paz as his mistress at San Gabriel. Feliz sought
to reclaim his erring wife, but was met by in-
Sults and abuse from her paramour, whom he
once wounded in a personal altercation. Feliz
finally invoked the aid of the authorities. The
woman was arrested and brought to town. A
reconciliation was effected between the husband
and wife. Two days later they left town for the
rancho, both riding one horse. On the way
they were met by Alispaz, and in a personal en-
counter Feliz was stabbed to death by the wife's
paramour. The body was dragged into a ra-
vine and covered with brush and leaves. Next
day, March 29, the body was found and brought
to the city. The murderer and the woman were
arrested and imprisoned. The people were filled
with horror and indignation, and there were
threats of summary vengeance, but better coun-
sel prevailed.
On the 30th the funeral of Feliz took place,
and, like that of James King of William, twenty
years later, was the occasion for the renewal of
the outcry for vengeance. The attitude of the
people became so threatening that on the 1st
of April an extraordinary session of the ayun-
tamiento was held. A call was made upon the
citizens to form an organization to preserve the
peace. A considerable number responded and
were formed into military patrols under the
command of Don Juan B. Leandry. The illus-
trious ayuntamiento resolved “that whomsoever
shall disturb the public tranquillity shall be pun-
ished according to law.” The excitement ap-
parently died out, but it was only the calm that
precedes the storm. The beginning of the
Easter ceremonies was at hand, and it was
deemed a sacrilege to execute the assassins in
holy week, so all further attempts at punishment
were deferred until April 7, the Monday after
Easter, when at dawn, by previous understand-
ing, a number of the better class of citizens
gathered at the house of Juan Temple, which
tood on the site of the new postoffice. An or-
184
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
ganization was effected. Victor Prudon, a na-
tive of Breton, France, but a naturalized citizen
of California, was elected president; Manuel
Arzaga, a native of California, was elected sec-
retary, and Francisco Araujo, a retired army
officer, was placed in command of the armed
force. Speeches were made by Prudon, and by
the military commandant and others, setting
forth the necessity of their organization and jus-
tifying their actions. It was unanimously de-
cided that both the man and the woman should
be shot; their guilt being evident, no trial was
deemed necessary. -
An address to the authorities and the people
was formulated. A copy of this is preserved in
the city archives. It abounds in metaphors.
It is too long for insertion here. I make a few
eXtraCtS : Believing that immorality
has reached such an extreme that public secur-
ity is menaced and will be lost if the dike of a
solemn example is not opposed to the torrent
of atrocious perfidy, we demand of you that you
execute or deliver to us for immediate execution
the assassin, Gervacio Alispaz, and the unfaith-
ful Maria del Rosario Villa, his accomplice.
>k >{< Nature trembles at the sight of these
venomous reptiles and the soil turns barren in
its refusal to support their detestable existence.
Let the infernal pair perish! It is the will of the
people. We will not lay down our arms until our
petition is granted and the murderers are exe-
cuted. The proof of their guilt is so clear that
justice needs no investigation. Public vengeance
demands an example and it must be given. The
blood of the Alvarez, of the Patinos, of the
Jenkins, is not yet cold—they, too, being the
unfortunate victims of the brutal passions of
their murderers. Their bloody ghosts shriek
for vengeance. Their terrible voices re-echo
from their graves. The afflicted widow, the for-
saken orphan, the aged father, the brother in
mourning, the inconsolable mother, the public
––all demand speedy punishment of the guilty.
We swear that outraged justice shall be avenged
to-day or we shall die in the attempt. The blood
of the murderers shall be shed to-day or ours
will be to the last drop. It will be published
throughout the world that judges in Los An-
geles tolerate murderers, but that there are
tive Californians.
virtuous citizens who sacrifice their lives in
Order to preserve those of their countrymen.”
“A committee will deliver to the First Consti-
tutional Alcalde a copy of these resolutions,
that he may decide whatever he finds most con-
venient, and one hour's time will be given him
in which to do so. If in that time no answer has
been received, then the judge will be responsible
before God and man for what will follow. Death
to the murderers!
“God and liberty. Angeles, April 7, 1836.”
Fifty-five signatures are attached to this doc-
timent; fourteen of these are those of natural-
ized foreigners and the remainder those of na-
The junta was made up of
the best citizens, native and foreign. An extraor-
dinary Session of the ayuntamiento was called.
The members of the junta, fully armed, marched
to the city hall to await the decision of the
authorities. The petition was discussed in the
council, and, in the language of the archives:
“This Illustrious Body decided to call said
Breton Prudon to appear before it and to com-
pel him to retire with the armed citizens so that
this Illustrious Body may deliberate at liberty.”
“This was done, but he declined to appear
before this body, as he and the armed citizens
were determined to obtain Gervacio Alispaz and
Maria del Rosario Villa. The ayuntamiento
decided that as it had not sufficient force to
compel the armed citizens to disband, they
being in large numbers and composed of the
best and most respectable men of the town, to
send an answer saying that the judges could
not accede to the demand of the armed citi-
zens.”
The members of the Junta Defensora then
marched in a body to the jail and demanded the
keys of the guard. These were refused. The
keys were secured by force and Gervacio Alispaz
taken out and shot. The following demand was
then sent to the first alcalde, Manuel Requena:
“It is absolutely necessary that you deliver
to this junta the key of the apartment where
Maria del Rosario Villa is kept.
“God and liberty,
“VICTOR PRUDON, President.
“MANUEL ARzAGA, Secretary.”
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
185
To this the alcaide replied: “Maria del Rosa-
rio Villa is incarcerated at a private dwelling,
whose owner has the key, with instructions not
to deliver the same to any one. The prisoner is
left there at the disposition of the law only.
“God and liberty. g
“MANUEL REQUENA, Alcalde.”
Af
The key was obtained. The wretched Maria
was taken to the place of execution on a car-
réta and shot. The bodies of the guilty pair
were brought back to the jail and the following
communication sent to the alcalde:
“Junta of the Defenders of Public Safety.
“To the 1st Constitutional Alcalde:
“The dead bodies of Gervacio Alispaz and
Maria del Rosario Villa are at your disposal.
We also forward you the jail keys that you may
deliver them to whomsoever is on guard. In
case you are in need of men to serve as guards,
we are all at your disposal.
“God and liberty. Angeles, April 7, 1836.
“VICTOR PRUDON, Pres.
“MANUEL ARZAGA, Sec.”
A few days later the Junta Defensora de La
Seguridad Publica disbanded; and so ended the
only instance in the seventy-five years of Span-
ish and Mexican rule in California, of the people,
by popular tribunal, taking the administration of
justice out of the hands of the legally consti-
tuted authorities.
The tales of the fabulous richness of the gold
fields of California were quickly spread through-
out the world and drew to the territory all
classes and conditions of men, the bad as well
as the good, the vicious as well as the virtuous;
the indolent, the profligate and the criminal
came to prey upon the industrious. These con-
glomerate elements of society found the Land
of Gold practically without law, and the vicious
among them were not long in making it a land
without order. With that inherent trait, which
makes the Anglo-Saxon wherever he may be
an organizer, the American element of the gold
seekers soon adjusted a form of government to
suit the exigencies of the land and the people.
There may have been too much lynching, too
much vigilance committee in it and too little
respect for lawfully constituted authorities, but
it was effective and was suited to the social
conditions existing.
In 1851 the criminal element became so dom-
inant as to seriously threaten the existence of
the chief city, San Francisco. Terrible conflagra-
tions had swept over the city in May and June
of that year and destroyed the greater part of
the business portion. The fires were known to
be of incendiary origin. The bold and defiant
attitude of the vicious classes led to the or—
ganization by the better element, of that form
of popular tribunal called a committee of vigi-
lance. The law abiding element among the cit-
izens disregarding the legally constituted
authorities, who were either too weak or too
corrupt to control the law-defying, took the
power in their own hands, organized a vigilance
committee and tried and executed by hanging
four notorious criminals, namely: Jenkins,
Stuart, Whitaker and McKenzie.
During the proceedings of the vigilance com-
Imittee a case of mistaken identity came near
costing an innocent man his life. About 8
o'clock in the evening of February 18, two men
entered the store of a Mr. Jansen on Mont-
gomery street and asked to see some blankets.
As the merchant stooped to get the blankets
one of the men struck him with a sling shot and
both of them beat him into insensibility. They
then opened his desk and carried away all the
gold they could find, about $2,000. The police
arrested two men on suspicion of being the rob-
bers. One of the men was identified as James
Stuart, a noted criminal, who had murdered
Sheriff Moore at Auburn. He gave the name of
Thomas Burdue, but this was believed to be one
of Stuart's numerous aliases. The men were
identified by Mr. Jansen as his assailants. They
were put on trial. When the court adjourned
over to the next day a determińed effort was
made by the crowd to seize the men and hang
them. They were finally taken out of the hands
of the officers and given a trial by a jury selected
by a committee of citizens. The jury failed to
agree, three of the jury being convinced that
the men were not Jansen's assailants. Then the
mob made a rush to hang the jury, but were
kept back by a show of revolvers. The prison-
186
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
ers were turned over to the court. One of
them, Wildred, broke jail and escaped. Burdue
was tried, convicted and sentenced to fourteen
years' imprisonment. Before the sentence of
the court was executed he was taken to Marys-
ville and arraigned for the murder of Sheriff
Moore. A number of witnesses swore positively
that the man was Stuart; others swore even more
positively that he was not. A close examination
revealed that the prisoner bore every distin-
guishing mark on his person by which Stuart
could be identified. He was convicted and sen-
tenced to be hanged in thirty days. In the mean-
time the vigilance committee of 1856 was or-
ganized and the real Stuart accidentally fell into,
the hands of the vigilantes at San Francisco.
He was arrested for a theft he had not com-
mitted and recognized by one of the committee's
guards that he had formerly employed in the
mines. By adroit questioning he was forced to
confess that he was the real Stuart, the murderer
of Sheriff Moore and the assailant of Jansen.
His confederate in the robbery was Whitaker,
one of the four hanged by the committee. Bur-
due was finally released, after having twice
stood under the shadow of the gallows for the
crimes of his double. The confessions of Stuart
and Whitaker implicated a number of their pals.
Some of these were convicted and sent to prison
and others fled the country; about thirty were
banished. Nearly all of the criminals were ex-
convicts from Australia and Tasmania.
The vigorous measures adopted by the com-
mittee purified the city of the vicious class that
had preyed upon it. Several of the smaller
towns and some of the mining camps organized
vigilance committees and a number of the
knaves who had fled from San Francisco met a
deserved fate in other places.
In the early '50s the better elements of San
Francisco's population were so engrossed in
business that they had no time to spare to look
after its political affairs; and its government
gradually drifted into the hands of vicious and
corrupt men. Many of the city authorities had
obtained their offices by fraud and ballot stuf-
fing and “instead of protecting the community
against scoundrels they protected the scoundrels
against the community.” James King of Will-
dº
iam, an ex-banker and a man of great courage
and persistence, started a small paper called
the Daily Evening Bulletin. He vigorously as-
sailed the criminal elements and the city and
county officials. His denunciations aroused pub-
lic sentiment. The murder of United States
Marshal Richardson by a gambler named Cora
still further inflamed the public mind. It was
feared that by the connivance of some of the
corrupt county officials Cora would escape pun-
ishment. His trial resulted in a hung jury.
There was a suspicion that some of the jury-
men were bribed. King continued through the
Bulletin to hurl his most bitter invectives against
the corrupt officials. They determined to silence
him. He published the fact that James Casey,
a Supervisor from the twelfth ward, was an ex-
convict of Sing Sing prison. Casey waylaid
King at the corner of Montgomery and Wash-
ington Streets and in a cowardly manner shot
him down. The shooting occurred on the 14th
of May, 1856. Casey immediately surrendered
himself to a deputy sheriff, Lafayete M. Byrne,
who was near. King was not killed, but an ex-
amination of the wound by the physicians de-
cided that there was no hopes of his recovery.
Casey was conducted to the city prison and as
a mob began to gather, for greater safety he
was taken to the county jail. A crowd pursued
him crying, “Hang him,” “kill him.” At the
jail the mob was stopped by an array of deputy
sheriffs, police officers and a number of Casey's
friends, all armed. The excitement spread
throughout the city. The Old vigilance com-
mittee of 1851, or rather a new organization out
of the remnant of the old, was formed. Five
thousand men were enrolled in a few days.
Arms were procured and headquarters estab-
lished on Sacramento street between Davis and
Front. The men were divided into companies.
William T. Coleman, chairman of the vigilance
committee of 1851, was made president or No. I,
and Isaac Bluxome, Jr., the secretary, was No.
33. Each man was known by number. Charles
Doane was elected chief marshal of the military
division.
The San Francisco Herald (edited by John
Nugent), then the leading paper of the city, came
out with a scathing editorial denouncing the
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
187
vigilance committee. The merchants at once
withdrew their advertising patronage. Next
morning the paper appeared reduced from forty
columns to a single page, but still hostile to the
committee. It finally died for want of patron-
age.
On Sunday, May 18, 1856, the military di-
vision was ready to storm the jail if necessary to
obtain possession of the prisoners, Casey and
Cora. The different companies, marching from
their headquarters by certain prescribed routes,
all reached the jail at the same time and com-
pletely invested it. They had with them two
pieces of artillery. One of these guns was
planted so as to command the door of the jail.
There were fifteen hundred vigilantes under
arms. A demand was made on Sheriff Scannell
for the prisoners, Cora and Casey. The prison
guard made no resistance, the prisoners were
surrendered and taken at Once to the vigilantes'
headquarters. º
On the 20th of May the murderers were put
on trial; while the trial was in progress the
death of King was announced. Both men were
convicted and sentenced to be hanged. King's
funeral, the largest and most imposing ever seen
in San Francisco, took place on the 23d. While
the funeral cortege was passing through the
streets Casey and Cora were hanged in front of
the windows of the vigilance headquarters.
About an hour before his execution Cora was
married to a notorious courtesan, Arabella
Ryan, but commonly called Belle Cora. A
Catholic priest, Father Accolti, performed the
ceremony.
Governor J. Neely Johnson, who at first
seemed inclined not to interfere with the vig-
ilantes, afterwards acting under the advice of
David S. Terry, Volney E. Howard and others
of “the law and order faction,” issued a proc-
lamation commanding the committee to disband,
to which no attention was paid. The governor
then appointed William T. Sherman major-gen-
eral. Sherman called for recruits to suppress
the uprising. Seventy-five or a hundred, mostly
gamblers, responded to his call. General Wool,
in command of the troops in the department of
the Pacific, refused to loan Governor Johnson
arms to equip his “law and order” recruits and
General Sherman resigned. Volney E. Howard
was then appointed major-general. His princi-
pal military service consisted in proclaiming
what he would do to the “pork merchants” who
constituted the committee. He did nothing ex-
cept to bluster. A squad of the vigilance po-
lice attempted to arrest a man named Maloney.
Maloney was at the time in the company of
David S. Terry (then chief justice of the state)
and several other members of the “law and or-
der” party. They resisted the police and in the
melee Terry stabbed the sergeant of the squad,
Sterling A. Hopkins, and then he and his as-
sociates made their escape to the armory of the
San Francisco Blues, one of their strongholds.
When the report of the stabbing reached
headquarters the great bell sounded the alarm
and the vigilantes in a very brief space of time
surrounded the armory building and had their
cannon planted to batter it down. Terry, Ma-
loney, and the others of their party in the build-
ing, considering discretion the better part of
valor, surrendered and were at once taken to
Fort Gunnybags,” the vigilantes' headquarters.
The arms of the “law and order” party at their
various rendezvous were surrendered to the vig-
ilantes and the companies disbanded.
Terry was closely confined in a cell at the
headquarters of the committee; Hopkins, after
lingering some time between life and death,
finally recovered. Terry was tried for assault
on Hopkins and upon several other persons, was
found guilty, but, after being held as a prisoner
for some time, was finally released. He at once
joined Johnson and Howard at Sacramento,
where he felt much safer than in San Francisco.
He gave the vigilantes no more trouble.
On the 29th of July, Hethrington and Brace
were hanged from a gallows erected on Davis
street, between Sacramento and Commercial.
Both of these men had committed murder.
These were the last executions by the commit-
tee. The committee transported from the state
thirty disreputable characters and a number de-
ported themselves. A few, and among them the
*The vigilantes built around the building which they
used for headquarters a breastwork made of gunny-
sacks filled with sand. Cannon were planted at the
corners of the redout.
188
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
notorious Ned McGowan, managed to keep con-
cealed until the storm was over. A few of the
expatriated returned after the committee dis-
solved and brought suit for damages, but failed
to recover anything. The committee had paid
the fare of the exiles. It was only the high
toned rascals who were given a cabin passage
that brought the suits. The committee finished
its labors and dissolved with a grand parade on
the 18th of August (1856). It did a good work.
Por several years after, San Francisco from be-
ing one of the worst, became one of the best
governed cities in the United States. The com-
mittee was made up of men from the northern
and western states. The so-called “law and
order” party was mostly composed of the pro-
slavery office-holding faction that ruled the state
at that time.
When the vigilance committees between 1851
and 1856 drove disreputable characters from
San Francisco and the northern mines, many of
them drifted southward and found a lodgment
for a time in the southern cities and towns. LOS
Angeles was not far from the Mexican line, and
any one who desired to escape from justice,
fleet mounted, could speedily put himself be-
yond the reach of his pursuers. All these
causes and influences combined to produce a
saturnalia of crime that disgraced that city in
the early '50s.
Gen. J. H. Bean, a prominent citizen of
Southern California, while returning to Los An-
geles from his place of business at San Gabriel
late one evening in November, 1852, was at-
tacked by two men, who had been lying in wait
for him. One seized the bridle of his horse and
jerked the animal back on his haunches: the
other seized the general and pulled him from the
saddle. Bean made a desperate resistance, but
was overpowered and stabbed to death. The
assassination of General Bean resulted in the
organization of a vigilance committee and an
effort was made to rid the country of desper-
adoes. A number of arrests were made. Three
suspects were tried by the committee for various
crimes. One, Cipiano Sandoval, a poor cob-
bler of San Gabriel, was charged with complicity
in the murder of General Bean. He strenuously
maintained that he was innocent. He, with the
Other two, were sentenced to be hanged. On
the following Sunday morning the doomed men
were conducted to the top of Fort Hill, where
the gallows stood. Sandoval made a brief
speech, again declaring his innocence. The
others awaited their doom in silence. The trap
fell and all were launched into eternity. Years
afterward one of the real murderers on his
deathbed revealed the truth and confessed his
part in the crime. The poor cobbler was inno-
Cent.
In 1854 drunkenness, gambling, murder and
all forms of immorality and crime were ram-
pant in Los Angeles. The violent deaths, it is
said, averaged one for every day in the year. It
Was a common question at the breakfast table,
“Well, how many were killed last night?” Little
or no attention was paid to the killing of an
Indian or a half breed; it was only when a gente
de razon was the victim that the community was
aroused to action.
The Rern river gold rush, in the winter of
1854–55, brought from the northern mines fresh
relays of gamblers and desperadoes and crime
increased. The Southern Californian of March
7, 1855, commenting on the general lawlessness
prevailing, says: “Last Sunday night was a
brisk night for killing. Four men were shot
and killed and several wounded in shooting af-
frays.”
A worthless fellow by the name of David
|}rown, who had, without provocation, killed a
companion named Clifford, was tried and sen-
tenced to be hanged with one Felipe Alvitre, a
Mexican, who had murdered an American
named Ellington, at El Monte. There was a
feeling among the people that Brown, through
quibbles of law, would escape the death penalty,
and there was talk of lynching. Stephen C.
Foster, the mayor, promised that if justice was
not legally meted out to Brown by the law, then
he would resign his office and head the lynching
party. January 10, 1855, an order was received
from Judge Murray, of the supreme court, stay-
ing the execution of Brown, but leaving Alvitre
to his fate. January 12 Alvitre was hanged by
the sheriff in the jail yard in the presence of an
immense crowd. The gallows were taken down
and the guards dismissed. The crowd gathered
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
1S9
outside the jail yard. Speeches were made.
The mayor resigned his office and headed the
mob. The doors of the jail were broken down;
Brown was taken across Spring street to a
large gateway opening into a corral and hanged
from the crossbeam. Foster was re-elected by
an almost unanimous vote at a special election.
The city marshal, who had opposed the action
of the vigilantes, was compelled to resign.
During 1855 and 1856 lawlessness increased.
There was an organized band of about one hun-
dred Mexicans, who patroled the highways,
robbing and murdering. They threatened the
extermination of the Americans and there were
fears of a race war, for many who were not
members of the gang sympathized with them.
In 1856 a vigilance committee was organized
with Myron Norton as president and H. N.
Alexander as secretary. A number of dis-
reputable characters were forced to leave town.
The banditti, under their leaders, Pancho Dan-
iel and Juan Flores, were plundering and com-
mitting outrages in the neighborhood of San
Juan Capistrano.
On the night of January 22, 1857, Sheriff
James R. Barton left Los Angeles with a posse,
consisting of William H. Little, Charles K.
Baker, Charles F. Daley, Alfred Hardy and
Frank Alexander with the intention of captur-
ing some of the robbers. At Sepulveda's ranch
next morning the sheriff's party was warned that
the robbers were some fifty strong, well armed
and mounted, and would probably attack them.
Twelve miles further the sheriff and his men en-
countered a detachment of the banditti. A
short, sharp engagement took place. Barton,
Baker, Little and Daley were killed. Hardy and
Alexander made their escape by the fleetness
of their horses. When the news reached Los
Angeles the excitement became intense. A
public meeting was held to devise plans to rid
the community not only of the roving gang of
murderers, but also of the criminal classes in
the city, who were known to be in sympathy
with the banditti. All suspicious houses were
searched and some fifty persons arrested. Sev-
eral companies were organized; the infantry to
guard the city and the mounted men to scour
the country. Companies were also formed at
San Bernardino and El Monte, while the mil-
itary authorities at Fort Tejon and San Diego
despatched soldiers to aid in the good work of
exterminating crime and criminals.
The robbers were pursued into the mountains
and nearly all captured. Gen. Andres Pico,
with a company of native Californians, was most
efficient in the pursuit. He captured Silvas and
Ardillero, two of the most noted of the gang,
and hanged them where they were cap-
tured. Fifty-two were lodged in the city jail.
Of these, eleven were hanged for various crimes
and the remainder set free. Juan Flores, one
of the leaders, was condemned by popular vote
and on February 14, 1857, was hanged near the
top of Fort Hill in the presence of nearly the
entire population of the town. He was only
twenty-one years of age. Pancho Daniel, an-
other of the leaders, was captured on the 19th
of January, 1858, near San José. He was found
by the sheriff, concealed in a haystack. After
his arrest he was part of the time in jail and part
of the time out on bail. He had been tried three
times, but through law quibbles had escaped
conviction. A change of venue to Santa Bar-
bara had been granted. The people determined
to take the law in their own hands. On the
morning of November 30, 1858, the body of
Pancho was hanging from a beam across the
gateway of the jail yard. Four of the banditti
were executed by the people of San Gabriel,
and Leonardo Lopez, under sentence of the
court, was hanged by the sheriff. The gang was
broken up and the moral atmosphere of Los
Angeles somewhat purified.
November 17, 1862, John Rains of Cuca-
monga ranch was murdered near Azusa. De-
cember 9, 1863, the sheriff was taking Manuel
Cerradel to San Quentin to serve a ten years'
sentence. When the sheriff went aboard the tug
boat Cricket at Wilmington, to proceed to the
Senator, quite a number of other persons took
passage. On the way down the harbor, the
prisoner was seized by the passengers, who
were vigilantes, and hanged to the rigging; after
hanging twenty minutes the body was taken
down, stones tied to the feet and it was thrown
overboard. Cerradel was implicated in the mur-
der of Rains.
190
RECORD.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAI
In the fall of 1863 lawlessness had again be-
come rampant in Los Angeles; one of the chiefs
of the criminal class was a desperado by the
name of Boston Daimwood. He was suspected
of the murder of a miner on the desert
and was loud in his threats against the lives
of various citizens. He and four other well-
known criminals, Wood, Chase, Ybarra and
Olivas, all of whom were either murder-
ers or horse thieves, were lodged in jail. On
, the 21st of November two hundred armed
citizens battered down the doors of the jail,
took the five wretches out and hanged them to
the portico of the old court house on Spring
Street, which stood on the present site of the
Phillips block.
On the 24th of October, 1871, occurred in
Los Angeles a most disgraceful affair, known
as the Chinese massacre. It grew out of One
of those interminable feuds between rival
tongs of highbinders, over a woman. Desul-
tory firing had been kept up between the rival
factions throughout the day. About 5:30 p. m.
Policeman Bilderrain visited the seat of war, an
old adobe house on the corner of Arcadia street
and “Nigger alley,” known as the Coronel build-
ing. Finding himself unable to quell the dis-
turbance he called for help. Robert Thompson,
an old resident of the city, was among the first
to reach the porch of the house in answer to the
police call for help. He received a mortal wound
from a bullet fired through the door of a Chi-
nese store. He died an hour later in Woll-
weber's drug store. The Chinese in the mean-
time barricaded the doors and windows of the
old adobe and prepared for battle. The news
of the fight and of the killing of Thompson
spread throughout the city and an immense
crowd gathered in the streets around the build-
ing with the intention of wreaking vengeance on
the Chinese.
The first attempt by the mob to dislodge the
Chinamen was by cutting holes through the flat
brea covered roof and firing pistol shots into the
interior of the building. One of the besieged
crawled out of the building and attempted to
escape, but was shot down before half way
across Negro alley. Another attempted to es-
cape into Los Angeles street; he was seized, .
dragged to the gate of Tomlinson's corral on
New High Street, and hanged.
About 9 o'clock a part of the mob had suc-
ceeded in battering a hole in the eastern end of
the building; through this the rioters, with
demoniac howlings, rushed in, firing pistols to
the right and left. Huddled in corners and hid-
den behind boxes they found eight terror-
stricken Chinamen, who begged piteously for
their lives. These were brutally dragged out
and turned over to the fiendish mob. One was
dragged to death by a rope around his neck;
three, more dead than alive from kicking and
beating, were hanged to a wagon on Los An-
geles street; and four were hanged to the gate-
way of Tomlinson's corral. Two of the victims
were mere boys. While the shootings and hang-
ings were going on thieves were looting the
Other houses in the Chinese quarters. The
houses were broken into, trunks, boxes and
other receptacles rifled of their contents, and
any Chinamen found in the buildings were
dragged forth to slaughter. Among the vic-
tims was a doctor, Gene Tung, a quiet, inof-
fensive old man. He pleaded for his life in good
English, offering his captors all his money,
some $2,OOO to $3,000. He was hanged, his
money stolen and one of his fingers cut off to
obtain a ring he wore. The amount of money
stolen by the mob from the Chinese quarters
was variously estimated at from $40,000 to
$50,000.
About 9:30 p. m. the law abiding citizens,
under the leadership of Henry Hazard, R. M.
Widney, H. C. Austin, Sheriff Burns and oth-
ers, had rallied in sufficient force to make an
attempt to quell the mob. Proceeding to China-
town they rescued several Chinamen from the
rioters. The mob finding armed opposition
quickly dispersed.
The results of the mob's murderous work
were ten men hanged on Los Angeles street,
some to wagons and some to awnings; five
hanged at Tomlinson's corral and four shot to
death in Negro alley, nineteen in all. Of all the
Chinamen murdered, the only one known to be
implicated in the highbinder war was Ah Choy.
All the other leaders escaped to the country
before the attack was made by the mob. The
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
191
grand jury, after weeks of investigation, found
indictments against one hundred and fifty per-
sons alleged to have been actively engaged in
the massacre. The jury's report severely cen-
sured “the officers of this county, as well as of
this city, whose duty it is to preserve peace,”
and declared that they “were deplorably ineffi-
cient in the performance of their duty during
the scenes of confusion and bloodshed which
disgraced our city, and has cast a reproach upon
the people of Los Angeles county.” Of all those
indicted but six were convicted. These were
sentenced to from four to six years in the state's
prison, but through some legal technicality they
were all released after serving a part of their
Senten Ce.
The last execution in Los Angeles by a vig-
ilance committee was that of Michael Lachenias,
a French desperado, who had killed five or six
men. The offense for which he was hanged was
the murder of Jacob Bell, a little inoffensive
man, who owned a small farm near that of
Lachenias, south of the city. There had been
a slight difference between them in regard to
the use of water from a zanja. Lachenias, with-
out a word of warning, rode up to Bell, where
he was at work in his field, drew a revolver and
shot him dead. The murderer then rode into
town and boastingly informed the people of
what he had done and told them where they
would find Bell's body. He then surrendered
himself to the officers and was locked up in
jail.
Public indignation was aroused. A meeting
was held in Stearns' hall on Los Angeles street.
A vigilance committee was formed and the de-
tails of the execution planned. On the morning
of the 17th of December, 1870, a body of three
hundred armed men marched to the jail, took
Lachenias out and proceeded with him to Tom-
linson's corral on Temple and New High streets,
and hanged him. The crowd then quietly dis-
persed.
A strange metamorphosis took place in the
character of the lower classes of the native Cal-
ifornians after the conquest. (The better classes
were not changed in character by the changed
conditions of the country, but throughout were
true gentlemen and most worthy and honorable
citizens.) Before the conquest by the Ameri-
cans they were a peaceful and contented people.
There were no organized bands of Outlaws
among them. After the discovery of gold the
evolution of a banditti began and they produced
some of the boldest robbers and most daring
highwaymen the world has seen.
The injustice of their conquerors had much to
do with producing this change. The Ameri-
cans not only took possession of their country
and its government, but in many cases they de-
spoiled them of their ancestral acres and their
personal property. Injustice rankles; and it is
not strange that the more lawless among the
11ative population sought revenge and retalia-
tion. They were often treated by the rougher
American element as aliens and intruders, who
had no right in the land of their birth. Such
treatment embittered them more than loss of
property. There were those, however, among
the natives, who, once entered upon a career
of crime, found robbery and murder congenial
occupations. The plea of injustice was no ex-
tenuation for their crimes.
Joaquin Murieta was the most noted of the .
Mexican and Californian desperadoes of the
early '50s. He was born in Sonora of good fam-
ily and received some education. He came to
California with the Sonoran migration of 1849,
and secured a rich claim on the Stanislaus. He
was dispossessed of this by half a dozen Amer-
ican desperadoes, his wife abused and both
driven from the diggings. He next took up a
ranch on the Calaveras, but from this he was
driven by two Americans. He next tried min-
ing in the Murphy diggings, but was unsuccess-
ful. His next occupation was that of a monte
player. While riding into town on a horse bor-
rowed from his half-brother he was stopped by
an American, who claimed that the horse was
stolen from him. Joaquin protested that the
horse was a borrowed one from his half-brother
and offered to procure witnesses to prove it.
He was dragged from the saddle amid cries of
“hang the greaser.” He was taken to the ranch
of his brother. The brother was hanged to the
limb of a tree, no other proof of his crime being
needed than the assertion of the American that
the horse was his. Joaquin was stripped, bound
I92
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
to the same tree and flogged. The demon was
aroused within him, and no wonder, he vowed
revenge on the men who had murdered his
brother and beaten him. Faithfully he carried
out his vow of vengeance. Had he doomed
Only these to slaughter it would have been but
little loss, but the implacable foe of every
American, he made the innocent suffer with the
guilty. He was soon at the head of a band of
desperadoes, varying in numbers from twenty to
forty. For three years he and his band were the
terror of the state. From the northern mines
to the Mexican border they committed robberies
and murders. Claudio and some of his sub-
ordinates were killed, but the robber chief
seemed to bear a charmed life. Large rewards
were offered for him dead or alive and numerous
attempts were made to take him. Capt. Harry
Love at the head of a band of rangers August,
1853, came upon Joaquin and six of his gang
in a camp near the Tejon Pass. In the fight that
ensued Joaquin and Three Fingered Jack were
killed. With the loss of their leaders the or—
ganization was broken up.
The last organized band of robbers which
terrorized the southern part of the state was
that of Vasquez. Tiburcio Vasquez was born
in Monterey county, of Mexican parents, in
1837. Early in life he began a career of crime.
After committing a number of robberies and
thefts he was captured and sent to San Quentin
for horse stealing. He was discharged in 1863,
but continued his disreputable career. He
united with Procopio and Soto, two noted ban-
dits. Soto was killed by Sheriff Morse of Ala-
meda county in a desperate encounter. Vasquez
and his gang of outlaws committed robberies
throughout the southern part of the state, rang-
ing from Santa Clara and Alameda counties to
the Mexican line. Early in May, 1874, Sheriff
William Rowland of Los Angeles county, who
had repeatedly tried to capture Vasquez, but
whose plans had been foiled by the bandit's
spies, learned that the robber chief was mak-
ing his headquarters at the house of Greek
George, about ten miles due west of Los An-
geles, toward Santa Monica, in a cañon of the
Cahuenga mountains. The morning of May 15
was set for the attack. To avert suspicion
Sheriff Rowland remained in the city. The at-
tacking force, eight in number, were under
command of Under-Sheriff Albert Johnson, the
other members of the force were Major H. M.
Mitchell, attorney-at-law; J. S. Bryant, city con-
stable; E. Harris, policeman; W. E. Rogers,
citizen; B. F. Hartley, chief of police; and D.
K. Smith, citizen, all of Los Angeles, and a Mr.
Beers, of San Francisco, special correspondent
of the San Francisco Chronicle.
At 4 a.m. on the morning of the 15th of May
the posse reached Major Mitchell's bee ranch
in a small cañon not far from Greek George's.
I'rom this point the party reconnoitered the
bandit's hiding place and planned an attack. As
the deputy sheriff and his men were about to
move against the house a high box wagon drove
up the cañon from the direction of Greek
George's place. In this were two natives; the
sheriff's party climbed into the high wagon box
and, lying down, compelled the driver to drive
up to the back of Greek George's house,
threatening him and his companion with death
on the least sign of treachery. Reaching the
house they surrounded it and burst in the door.
Vasquez, who had been eating his breakfast, at-
tempted to escape through a small window.
The party opened fire on him. Being wounded
and finding himself surrounded on all sides, he
surrendered. He was taken to the Los Angeles
jail. His injuries proved to be mere flesh
wounds. He received a great deal of maudlin
sympathy from silly women, who magnified him
into a hero. He was taken to San José, tried
for murder, found guilty and hanged, March 19,
1875. His band was thereupon broken up and
dispersed.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
FILIBUSTERS AND FILIBUSTERING.
/ | N HE rush of immigration to California in
the early '50s had brought to the state
a class of adventurers who were too
lazy or too proud to work. They were ready
to engage in almost any lawless undertaking
that promised plunder and adventure. The de-
feat of the pro-slavery politicians in their at-
tempts to fasten their “peculiar institution” upon
any part of the territory acquired from Mex-
ico had embittered them. The more un-
scrupulous among them began to look around
for new fields, over which slavery might be ex-
tended. As it could be made profitable only in
southern lands, Cuba, Mexico and Central
America became the arenas for enacting that
form of piracy called “filibustering.” The object
of these forays, when organized by Americans,
was to seize upon territory as had been done
in Texas and erect it into an independent gov-
ernment that ultimately would be annexed to
the United States and become slave territory.
Although the armed invasion of countries with
which the United States was at peace was a di-
rect violation of its neutrality laws, yet the fed-
eral office-holders in the southern states and in
California, all of whom belonged to the pro-
slavery faction, not only made no attempt to
prevent these invasions, but secretly aided them
or at least sympathized with them to the extent
of allowing them to recruit men and depart
without molestation. There was a glamour of
romance about these expeditions that influenced
unthinking young men of no fixed principles
to join them; these were to be pitied. But the
leaders of them and their abettors were cold,
selfish, scheming politicians, willing, if need be,
to overthrow the government of the nation and
build on its ruins an oligarchy of slave holders.
The first to organize a filibuster expedition in
California was a Frenchman. Race prejudices
were strong in early mining days. The United
States had recently been at war with Mexico.
The easy conquest of that country had bred a
contempt for its peoples. The Sonoran migra-
tion, that begun soon after the discovery of
gold in California, brought a very undesirable
class of immigrants to the state. Sailing vessels
had brought from the west coast of South
America another despised class of mongrel
Spanish. It exasperated the Americans to see
these people digging gold and carrying it out
of the country. This antagonism extended, more
or less, to all foreigners, but was strongest
against men of the Latin races. Many French-
men, through emigration schemes gotten up
in Paris, had been induced to come to Califor-
nia. Some of these were men of education and
good standing, but they fell under the ban of
prejudices and by petty persecutions were
driven out of the mines and forced to earn a
precarious living in the cities. There was a
great deal of dissatisfaction among the French-
men with existing conditions in California, and
they were ready to embark in any scheme that
promised greater rewards. Among the French
population of San Francisco was a man of noble
family, Count Gaston Roaul de Raousset-Boul-
bon. He had lost his ancestral lands and was
in reduced circumstances. He was a man of
education and ability, but visionary. He con-
ceived the idea of establishing a French colony
on the Sonora border and opening the mines
that had been abandoned on account of Apache
depredations. By colonizing the border he
hoped to put a stop to American encroachments.
He divulged his scheme to the French consul,
Dillon, at San Francisco, who entered heartily
into it. Raousset was sent to the City of Mex-
ico, where he obtained from President Arista
the desired concession of land and the promise
of financial assistance from a leading banking
house there on condition that he proceed at
13
194
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
once to Sonora with an armed company of
Frenchmen. Returning to San Francisco he
quickly recruited from among the French resi-
dents two hundred and fifty men and with these
he sailed for Guaymas, where he arrived early
in June, 1852. He was well received at first,
but soon found himself regarded with suspicion.
He was required by the authorities to remain
at Guaymas. After a month's detention he was
allowed to proceed through Hermosilla to the
Arizona border.
When about one hundred miles from Arispe
he received an order from General Blanco, then
at Hermosilla, to report to him. While halting
at El Caric to consider his next move he re-
ceived a reinforcement of about eighty French
colonists, who had come to the country the year
before under command of Pindray. Pindray
had met his death in a mysterious manner. It
was supposed that he was poisoned. The colon-
ist had remained in the country. Raousset sent
one of his men, Garnier, to interview Blanco.
General Blanco gave his ultimatum—First, that
the Frenchmen should become naturalized citi-
zens of Mexico; or, secondly, they should wait
until letters of security could be procured from
the capital, when they might proceed to Arizona
and take possession of any mines they found;
or, lastly, they might put themselves under the
leadership of a Mexican officer and then proceed.
Raousset and his followers refused to accede to
any of these propositions. Blanco began col-
lecting men and munitions of war to oppose the
French. Raousset raised the flag of revolt and
invited the inhabitants to join him in gaining
the independence of Sonora. After drilling his
men a few weeks and preparing for hostilities
he began his march against Hermosilla, distant
one hundred and fifty miles. He met with no
opposition, the people along his route welcom-
ing the French. General Blanco had twelve
hundred men to defend the city. But instead of
preparing to resist the advancing army he sent
delegates to Raousset to offer him money to let
the city alone. Raousset sent back word that
at 8 o'clock he would begin the attack; and at
II would be master of the city. He was as good
as his word. The Frenchmen charged the Mex-
icans and although the opposing force num-
bered four to one of the assailants, Raousset's
men captured the town and drove Blanco's
troops out of it. The Mexican loss was two
hundred killed and wounded. The French loss
seventeen killed and twenty-three wounded
Raousset's men were mere adventurers and were
in the country without any definite purpose.
Could he have relied on them, he might have
captured all of Sonora.
He abandoned Hermosilla. Blanco, glad to
get rid of the filibusters on any terms, raised
$1 I,OOO and chartered a vessel to carry them
back to San Francisco. A few elected to re-
main. Raousset went to Mazatlan and a few
months later he reached San Francisco, where
he was lionized as a hero. Upon an invitation
from Santa Ana, who had succeeded Arista as
president, he again visited the Mexican capital
in June, 1853. Santa Ana was profuse in prom-
ises. He wanted Raousset to recruit five hun-
dred Frenchmen to protect the Sonora frontier
against the Indians, promising ample remunera-
tion and good pay for their services. Raousset,
finding that Santa Ana's promises could not be
relied upon, and that the wiley schemer was
about to have him arrested, made his escape to
Acapulco, riding several horses to death to
reach there ahead of his pursuers. He embarked
immediately for San Francisco.
In the meantime another filibuster, William
Walker, with forty-one followers had landed at
La Paz November 3, 1853, and proclaimed a
new nation, the Republic of Lower California.
Santa Ana, frightened by this new invasion, be-
gan making overtures through the Mexican con-
sul, Luis del Valle, at San Francisco to secure
French recruits for military service on the Mex-
ican frontier. Del Valle applied to the French
consul, Dillon, and Dillon applied to Raousset.
Raousset soon secured eight hundred recruits
and chartered the British ship Challenge to take
them to Guaymas. Then the pro-slavery federal
officials at San Francisco were aroused to ac-
tion. The neutrality laws were being violated.
It was not that they cared for the laws, but they
feared that this new filibustering scheme might
interfere with their pet, Walker, who had, in ad-
dition to the Republic of Lower California,
founded another nation, the Republic of Sonora,
EHISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
195
in both of which he had decreed slavery. The
ship was seized, but after a short detention was
allowed to sail with three hundred French-
1116.11.
Del Valle was vigorously prosecuted by the
federal authorities for violation of a section of
the neutrality laws, which forbade the enlistment
within the United States of soldiers to serve un-
der a foreign power. Dillon, the French con-
sul, was implicated and on his refusal to testify
in court he was arrested. He fell back on his
dignity and asserted that his nation had been in-
sulted through him and closed his consulate.
For a time there were fears of international
trouble. *
Del Valle was found guilty of violating the g
neutrality laws, but was never punished. The
pro-slavery pet, Walker, and his gang were
driven out of Mexico and the federal officials
had no more interest in enforcing neutrality
laws. Meanwhile Raousset, after great diffi-
culties, had joined the three hundred French-
men at Guaymas. A strip of northern Sonora
had been sold under what is known as the Gads-
den purchase to the United States. There was
no longer any opportunity to secure mines there
from Mexico, but Raousset thought he could
erect a barrier to any further encroachments of
the United States and eventually secure Mexico
for France. His first orders on reaching Guay-
mas to the commander of the French, Desmaris,
was to attack the Mexican troops and capture
the city. His order did not reach Desmaris. His
messenger was arrested and the Mexican au-
thorities begun collecting forces to oppose
Raousset. Having failed to receive reinforce-
ments, and his condition becoming unendurable,
he made an attack on the Mexican forces, twelve
hundred strong. After a brave assault he was
defeated. He surrendered to the French consul
on the assurance that his life and that of his
men would be spared. He was treacherously
surrendered by the French consul to the Mex-
ican general. He was tried by a court-martial,
found guilty and sentenced to be shot. On the
morning of August 12, 1854, he was executed.
His misguided followers were shipped back to
San Francisco. So ended the first California
filibuster.
The first American born filibuster who or—
ganized one of these piratical expeditions was
William Walker, a native of Tennessee. He
came to California with the rush of 1850. He
had started out in life to be a doctor, had studied
law and finally drifted into journalism. He be-
longed to the extreme pro-slavery faction. He
located in San Francisco and found employment
on the Herald. His bitter invective against the
courts for their laxity in punishing crime raised
the ire of Judge Levi Parsons, who fined Walker
$500 for contempt of court and ordered him
innprisoned until the fine was paid. Walker re-
fused to pay the fine and went to jail. He at
once bounded into notoriety. He was a mar-
tyr to the freedom of the press. A public in-
dignation meeting was called. An immense
crowd of sympathizers called on Walker in jail.
A writ of habeas corpus was sued out and he
was released from jail and discharged. In the
legislature of 1852 he tried to have Parson im-
peached, but failed. He next opened a law of
fice in Marysville.
The success of Raousset-Boulbon in his first
expedition to Sonora had aroused the ambition
of Walker to become the founder of a new gov-
ernment. His first efforts were directed towards
procuring from Mexico a grant on the Sonora
border; this was to be colonized with Americans,
who would protect the Mexican frontier from
Apache incursion. This was a mere subterfuge
and the Mexican authorities were not deceived
by it—he got no grant. To forestall Raousset-
Boulbon, who was again in the field with his
revolutionary scheme, Walker opened a recruit-
ing office. Each man was to receive a square
league of land and plunder galore. The bait
took, meetings were held, Scrip sold and re-
cruits flocked to Walker. The brig Arrow was
chartered to carry the liberators to their des-
tination. The pro-slavery officials, who held all
the offices, winked at this violation of the neu-
trality laws. There was but one man, General
Hitchcock, who dared to do his duty. He seized
the vessel; it was released, and Hitchcock re-
moved from command. Jefferson Davis was
secretary of war and Hitchcock was made to feel
his wrath for interfering with one of Davis' pet
projects, the extension of slavery. Walker
196
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
sailed in another vessel, the Caroline, taking
with him forty-one of his followers, well armed
with rifles and revolvers to develop the re-
sources of the country.
The vessel with Walker and his gang sneaked
into La Paz under cover of a Mexican flag. He
seized the unsuspecting governor and other offi-
cials and then proclaimed the Republic of Lower
California. He appointed from his following a
number of officials with high sounding titles.
He adopted the code of Louisiana as the law of
the land. This, as far as he was able, introduced
into the country human slavery, which indeed
was about the sole purpose of his filibuster-
ing schemes. Fearing that the Mexican gov-
ernment might send an expedition across the
gulf to stop his marauding, he slipped out of
the harbor and sailed up to Todas Santos, so as
to be near the United States in case the Mexican
government should make it uncomfortable for
him. With this as headquarters he began prepa-
rations for an invasion of Sonora. His delectable
followers appropriated to their own use what-
ever they could find in the poverty-stricken
country. The news of the great victory at La
Paz reached San Francisco and created great
enthusiasm among Walker's sympathizers. His
vice-president, Watkins, enrolled three hundred
recruits and sent them to him, “greatly to the
relief of the criminal calendar.”
Walker began to drill his recruits for the con-
quest of Sonora. These patriots, who had ral-
lied to the support of the new republic, under
the promise of rich churches to pillage and well-
stocked ranches to plunder, did not take kindly
to a diet of jerked beef and beans and hard drill-
ing under a torrid sun. Some rebelled and it
became necessary for Walker to use the lash
and even to shoot two of them for the good of
the cause. The natives rebelled when they found
their cattle and frijoles disappearing and the so-
called battle of La Gualla was fought between
the natives and a detachment of Walker's forag-
ers, several of whom were killed. The news of
this battle reached San Francisco and was mag-
nified into a great victory. The new republic
had been baptized in the blood of its martyrs.
After three months spent in drilling, Walker
began his march to Sonora with but, one hun-
dred men, and a small herd of cattle for food.
Most of the others had deserted. In his jour-
ney across the desert the Indians stole some of
his cattle and more of his men deserted. On
reaching the Colorado river about half of his
force abandoned the expedition and marched
to Fort Yuma, where Major Heintzelman re-
lieved their necessities. Walker with thirty-five
men had started back for Santa Tomas. They
brought up at Tia Juana, where they crossed
the American line, surrendered and gave their
paroles to Major McKinstry of the United
States army. When Walker and his Falstaffian
army reached San Francisco they were lionized
as heroes. All they had done was to kill a few
inoffensive natives on the peninsula and steal
their cattle. Their valiant leader had proclaimed
two republics and decreed (on paper) that slav-
ery should prevail in them. He had had sev-
eral of his dupes whipped and two of them shot,
which was probably the most commendable
thing he had done. His proclamations were
ridiculous and his officers with their high sound-
ing titles had returned from their burlesque con-
quest with scarcely rags enough on them to
cover their nakedness. Yet, despite all this,
the attempt to enlarge the area of slave territory
covered him with glory and his rooms were the
resort of all the pro-slavery officials of Califor-
nia.
The federal officials made a show of prosecut-
ing the filibusters. Watkins, the vice-president
of the Republic of Lower California and So-
mora, was put on trial in the United States dis-
trict court. The evidence was so plain and the
proof so convincing that the judge was com-
pelled to convict against his will. This delightful
specimen of a pro-slavery justice expressed
from the bench his sympathy for “those spirited
men who had gone forth to upbuild the broken
altars and rekindle the extinguished fires of lib-
erty in Mexico and Lower California.” With
such men to enforce the laws, it was not strange
that vigilance committees were needed in Cal-
ifornia. Watkins and Emory, the so-called sec-
retary of state, were fined each $1,500. The
fines were never paid and no effort was ever
made to compel their payment. The secretary
of war and the secretary of the navy were put
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
197
on trial and acquitted. This ended the shame-
ful farce.
Walker's next expedition was to Nicaragua in
1855. A revolution was in progress there. He
joined forces with the Democratic party or anti-
legitimists. He took but fifty-six men with
him. These were called the American phalanx.
His first engagement was an attack upon the
fortified town of Rivas. Although his men
fought bravely, they were defeated and two of
his best officers, Kewen and Crocker, killed.
His next fight was the battle of Virgin Bay, in
which, with fifty Americans and one hundred
and twenty natives, he defeated six hundred
legitimists. He received reinforcements from
California and reorganized his force. He
seized the Accessory Transit Company's lake
steamer La Virgin against the protest of the
company, embarked his troops on board of it
and by an adroit movement captured the capi-
tal city, Granada. His exploits were heralded
abroad and recruits flocked to his support. The
legitimist had fired upon a steamer bringing pas-
sengers up the San Juan river and killed several.
Walker in retaliation ordered Mateo Mazorga,
the legitimist secretary of state, whom he had
taken prisoner at Granada, shot. Peace was de-
clared between the two parties and Patrico
Rivas made president. Rivas was president only
in name; Walker was the real head of the gov-
ernment and virtually dictator.
He was now at the zenith of his power. By a
series of arbitrary acts he confiscated the AC-
cessory Transit Company's vessels and charter.
This company had become a power in California
travel and had secured the exclusive transit of
passengers by the Nicaragua route, then the
most popular route to California.
By this action he incurred the enmity of Van-
derbilt, who henceforth worked for his down-
fall. The confiscation of the transit company's
right destroyed confidence in the route, and
travel virtually ceased by it. This was a blow
to the prosperity of the country. To add to
Walker's misfortunes, the other Central Amer-
ican states combined to drive the hated foreign-
ers out of the country. He had gotten rid of
Rivas and had secured the presidency for him-
self. He had secured the repeal of the Nic-
aragua laws against Slavery and thus paved the
way for the introduction of his revered institu-
tion. His army now amounted to about twelve
hundred men, mostly recruited from California
and the slave states. The cholera broke out
among his forces and in the armies of the allies
and numbers died. His cause was rapidly wan-
ing. Many of his dupes deserted. A series of
disasters arising from his blundering and in-
capacity, resulted in his overthrow. He and
sixteen of his officers were taken out of the
country on the United States sloop of war, St.
Mary's. The governor of Panama refused to
allow him to land in that city. He was sent
across the isthmus under guard to Aspinwall
and from there with his staff took passage to
New Orleans. His misguided followers were
transported to Panama and found their way
back to the United States.
Upon arriving at New Orleans he began re-
cruiting for a new expedition. One hundred and
fifty of his “emigrants” sailed from Mobile; the
pro-slavery federal officials allowing them to
depart. They were wrecked on Glover's reef,
about seventy miles from Balize. They were
rescued by a British vessel and returned to Mo-
bile. Walker, with one hundred and thirty-two
armed emigrants, landed at Punta Arenas, No-
vember 25, 1857, and hoisted his Nicaraguan
flag and called himself commander-in-chief of
the army of Nicaragua. He and his men began
a career of plunder: seized the fort or cas-
tillo on the San Juan river; captured steam-
crs, killed several inhabitants and made
prisoners of others. Commander Paulding,
of the United States flagship Wabash, then
on that coast, regarded these acts as rapine
and murder, and Walker and his men as out-
laws and pirates. He broke up their camp, dis-
armed Walker and his emigrants and sent them
to the United States for trial. But instead of
Walker and his followers being tried for piracy
their pro-slavery abettors made heroes of them.
Walker's last effort to regain his lost prestige
in Nicaragua was made in 1860. With two hun-
dred men, recruited in New Orleans, he landed
near Truxillo, in Honduras. His intention was
to make his way by land to Nicaragua. He very
soon found armed opposition. His new recruits
198
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
were not inclined to sacrifice themselves to make
him dictator of some country that they had no
interest in. So they refused to stand up against
the heavy odds they encountered in every fight.
Finding his situation growing desperate, he was
induced to surrender himself to the captain of
the British man-of-war Icarus. The authorities
of Honduras made a demand on the captain for
Walker. That British officer promptly turned
the filibuster over to them. He was tried by
a court-martial, hastily convened, found guilty
of the offenses charged, and condemned to die.
September 25, 1860, he was marched out and,
in accordance with his sentence, shot to death.
Walker's career is an anomaly in the history
of mankind. Devoid of all the characteristics of
a great leader, without a commanding presence,
puny in size, homely to the point of ugliness,
in disposition, cold, cruel, selfish, heartless, stol-
idly indifferent to the suffering of others, living
only to gratify the cravings of his inordinate
ambition—it is strange that such a man could
attract thousands to offer their lives for his
aggrandizement and sacrifice themselves for a
cause of which he was the exponent, a cause the
most ignoble, the extension of human slavery,
that for such a man and for such a cause thou-
sands did offer up their lives is a sad commen-
tary on the political morality of that time. It
is said that over ten thousand men joined
Walker in his filibustering schemes and that
fifty-seven hundred of these found graves in
Nicaragua. Of the number of natives killed in
battle or who died of disease, there is no record,
but it greatly exceeded Walker's losses.
While Walker was attaining some success in
Nicaragua, another California filibuster entered
the arena. This was Henry A. Crabb, a Stock-
ton lawyer. Like Walker, he was a native of
Tennessee, and, like him, too, he was a rabid
pro-slavery advocate. He had served in the
assembly and one term in the state senate. It
is said he was the author of a bill to allow slave-
holders who brought their slaves into California
before its admission to take their human chattels
back into bondage. He was originally a Whig,
but had joined the Know-Nothing party and was
a candidate of that party for United States sen-
ator in 1856; but his extreme southern princi-
ples prevented his election. He had married a
Spanish wife, who had numerous and influential
relatives in Sonora. It was claimed that Crabb
had received an invitation from some of these to
bring down an armed force of Americans to
Overthrow the government and make himself
master of the country. Whether he did or did
not receive such an invitation, he did recruit a
body of men for some kind of service in Sonora.
With a force of one hundred men, well armed
with rifles and revolvers, he sailed, in January,
1857, on the steamer Sea Bird, from San Fran-
cisco to San Pedro and from there marched over-
land. As usual, no attempt was made by the
federal authorities to prevent him from invading
a neighboring country with an armed force.
He entered Sonora at Sonita, a small town
one hundred miles from Yuma. His men helped
themselves to what they could find. When ap-
proaching the town of Cavorca they were fired
upon by a force of men lying in ambush. The
fire was kept up from all quarters. They made a
rush and gained the shelter of the houses. In
the charge two of their men had been killed and
eighteen wounded. In the house they had taken
possession of they were exposed to shots from
a church. Crabb and fifteen of his men at-
tempted to blow open the doors of the church
with gunpowder, but in the attempt, which
failed, five of the men were killed, and seven,
including Crabb, wounded. After holding out
for five days they surrendered to the Mexicans,
Gabilondo, the Mexican commander, promising
to spare their lives. Next morning they were
marched out in squads of five to ten and shot.
Crabb was tied to a post and a hundred balls
fired into him; his head was cut off and placed
in a jar of mescal. The Only one spared was a
boy of fifteen, Charles E. Evans. A party of
sixteen men whom Crabb had left at Sonita
was surprised and all massacred. The boy
Evans was the only one left to tell the fate of the
ill-starred expedition. This put an end to fili-
bustering expeditions into Sonora.
These armed forays on the neighboring coun-
tries to the south of the United States ceased
with the beginning of the war of secession.
They had all been made for the purpose of ac-
quiring slave territory. The leaders of them
FHISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
199
were southern men and the rank and file were
mostly recruited from natives of the slave states.
Bancroft truthfully says of these filibustering
expeditions: “They were foul robberies, covered
by the flimsiest of political and social pretenses,
gilded by false aphorisms and profane distortion
of sacred formulae. Liberty dragged in the mud
for purposes of theft and human enslavement;
the cause of humanity bandied in filthy mouths
to promote atrocious butcheries; peaceful,
blooming valleys given over to devastation and
ruin; happy families torn asunder, and widows
and Orphans cast adrift to nurse affliction; and
finally, the peace of nations imperiled, and the
morality of right insulted. The thought of such
results should obliterate all romance, and turn
pride to shame. They remain an ineffaceable
stain upon the government of the most progres-
sive of nations, and veil in dismal irony the
dream of manifest destiny.”
CHAPTER XXIX.
FROM GOLD TO GRAIN AND FRUITS.
tions there was but little cultivation of
the soil in California. While the gardens
of some of the missions, and particularly those
of Santa Barbara and San Buenaventura, pre-
sented a most appetizing display of fruit and
vegetables, at the ranchos there were but mea-
ger products. Gilroy says that when he came
to the country, in 1814, potatoes were not cul-
tivated and it was a rare thing outside of the
mission gardens to find any onions or cabbages.
A few acres of wheat and a small patch of maize
or corn furnished bread, or, rather, tortillas for
a family. At the missions a thick soup made of
boiled wheat or maize and meat was the stand-
ard article of diet for the neophytes. This was
portioned out to them in the quantity of about
three pints to each person. Langsdorff, who
witnessed the distribution of soup rations to the
Indians at Santa Clara, says: “It appeared in-
comprehensible how any one could three times a
day eat so large a portion of such nourishing
food.” The neophytes evidently had healthy ap-
| | NDER the Spanish and Mexican jurisdic-
petites. Frijoles (beans) were the staple vege-
table dish in Spanish families. These were
served up at almost every meal. The bill of
fare for a native Californian family was very
simple.
A considerable amount of wheat was raised
at the more favorably located missions. It was
not raised for export, but to feed the neophytes.
The wheat fields had to be fenced in, or perhaps
it would be more in accordance with the facts
to say that the cattle had to be fenced out. As
timber was scarce, adobe brick did duty for
fencing as well as for house building. Some-
times the low adobe walls were made high and
Safe by placing on top of them a row of the
skulls of Spanish cattle with the long, curving
horns attached to them pointing outward. These
were brought from the matanzas or slaughter
corrals where there were thousands of them
lying around. It was almost impossible for
man or beast to scale such a fence.
The agricultural implements of the early Cali-
fornians were few and simple. The Mexican
plow was a forked stick with an iron point fas-
tened to the fork or branch that penetrated the
ground. It turned no furrow, but merely
Scratched the surface of the ground. After sow-
ing it was a race between the weeds and the
grain. It depended on the season which won.
If the season was cold and backward, so that
the seed did not sprout readily, the weeds got
the start and won out easily. And yet with such
primitive cultivation the yield was sometimes
astonishing. At the Mission San Diego the
crop of wheat one year produced one hundred
and ninety-five fold. As the agriculturist had
a large area from which to select his arable land,
only the richest soils were chosen. Before the
discovery of gold there was little or no market
200
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
for grain, and each ranchero raised only enough
for his own use. For a time there was some
trade with the Russians in grain to supply their
settlements in Alaska, but this did not continue
long. . -
When some of the Americans who came in
the gold rush began to turn their attention to
agriculture they greatly underrated the produc-
tiveness of the country. To men raised where
the summer rains were needed to raise a crop
it seemed impossible to produce a crop in a
country that was rainless for six or eight months
of the year. All attempts at agriculture hitherto
had been along the rivers, and it was generally
believed that the plains back from the water
courses could never be used for any other pur-
pose than cattle raising.
The mining rush of '49 found California with-
out vegetables and fresh fruit. The distance
was too great for the slow transportation of
that day to ship these into the country. Those
who first turned their attention to market gar-
dening made fortunes. The story is told of an
old German named Schwartz who had a small
ranch a few miles below Sacramento. In 1848,
when everybody was rushing to the mines, he
remained on his farm, unmoved by the stories
of the wonderful finds of gold. Anticipating a
greater rush in 1849, he planted several acres
in watermelons. As they ripened he took them
up to the city and disposed of them at prices
ranging from $1 to $5, according to size. He
realized that season from his melons alone
$30,000. The first field of cabbages was grown
by George H. Peck and a partner in 1850. From
defective seed or some other cause the cabbage
failed to come to a head. Supposing that the
defect was in the climate and not in the cabbage,
the honest rancher marketed his crop in San
Francisco, carrying a cabbage in each hand
along the streets until he found a customer. To
the query why there were no heads to them
the reply was, “That's the way cabbages grow
in California.” He got rid of his crop at the
rate of $1 apiece for each headless cabbage.
But all the vegetable growing experiments were
not a financial success. The high price of po-
tatoes in 1849 started a tuber-growing epidemic
in 1850. Hundreds of acres were planted to
"spuds” in the counties contiguous to San
Francisco, the agriculturists paying as high as
fifteen cents per pound for seed. The yield was
enormous and the market was soon overstocked.
The growers who could not dispose of their
potatoes stacked them up in huge piles in the
fields; and there they rotted, filling the country
around with their effluvia. The next year uo-
body planted potatoes, and prices went up to
the figures of '49 and the spring of '50.
The size to which vegetables grew astonished
the amateur agriculturists. Beets, when allowed
to grow to maturity, resembled the trunks of
trees; onions looked like squash, while a patch
of pumpkins resembled a tented field; and corn
grew SO tall that the stalks had to be felled to
get at the ears. Onions were a favorite vege-
table in the mining camps on account of their
anti-scorbutic properties as a preventive of
Scurvy. The honest miner was not fastidious
about the aroma. They were a profitable crop,
too. One ranchero in the Napa valley was re-
ported to have cleared $8,000 off two acres of
Onions.
With the decline of gold mining, wheat be-
came the staple product of central California.
The nearness to shipping ports and the large
yields made wheat growing very profitable. In
the years immediately following the Civil war
the price ranged high and a fortune was some-
times made from the products of a single field.
It may be necessary to explain that the field
might contain anywhere from five hundred to
a thousand acres. The grain area was largely
extended by the discovery that land in the
upper mesas, which had been regarded as only
fit for pasture land, was good for cereals. The
land in the southern part of the state, which
was held in large grants, continued to be de-
voted to cattle raising for at least two decades
after the American conquest. After the dis-
covery of gold, cattle raising became immensely
profitable. Under the Mexican régime a steer
was worth what his hide and tallow would bring
or about $2 or $3. The rush of immigration in
1849 sent the price of cattle up until a fat bul-
lock sold for from $30 to $35. The profit to a
ranchero who had a thousand or more marketa-
ble cattle was a fortune. A good, well-stocked
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
201
cattle ranch was more valuable than a gold
mine.
The enormous profits in cattle raising dazed
the Californians. Had they been thrifty and
economical, they might have grown rich. But
the sudden influx of wealth engendered extrava-
gant habits and when the price of cattle fell, as
it did in a few years, the spendthrift customs
were continued. When the cattle market was
dull it was easy to raise money by mortgaging
the ranch. With interest at the rate of 5 per
cent per month, compounded monthly, it did
not take long for land and cattle both to change
hands. It is related of the former Owner of
the Santa Gertrudes rancho that he borrowed
$500 from a money lender, at 5 per cent a
month, to beat a poker game, but did not suc-
ceed. Then he borrowed more money to pay
the interest on the first and kept on doing so
until interest and principal amounted to $100,-
OOO; then the mortgage was foreclosed and
property to-day worth $1,000,000 was lost for
a paltry $500 staked on a poker game.
Gold mining continued to be the prevailing
industry of northern California. The gold pro-
duction reached its acme in 1853, when the
total yield was $65,000,000. From that time
there was a gradual decline in production and
in the number of men employed. Many had
given up the hopes of striking it rich and quit
the business for something more certain and
less illusive. The production of gold in 1852
was $60,000,000, yet the average yield to each
man of the one hundred thousand engaged in
it was only about $600, or a little over $2 per
day to the man, scarcely living wages as prices
were then. It has been claimed that the cost of
producing the gold, counting all expenditures,
was three times the value of that produced.
Even if it did, the development of the country
and impulse given to trade throughout the
world would more than counterbalance the loss.
At the time of the discovery of gold nearly all
of the fruit raised in California was produced at
Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. In Spanish and
Mexican days, Los Angeles had been the prin-
cipal wine-producing district of California. Al-
though wine, as well as other spirituous liquors,
were in demand, the vineyardists found it more
profitable to ship their grapes to San Francisco
than to manufacture them into wine. Grapes
retailed in the city of San Francisco at from
twelve and one-half to twenty-five cents a
pound. The vineyards were as profitable as
the cattle ranches. The mission Indians did the
labor in the vineyards and were paid in aguar-
diente on Saturday night. By Sunday morning
they were all drunk; then they were gathered
up and put into a corral. On Monday morning
they were sold to pay the cost of their dissipa-
tion. It did not take many years to kill off the
Indians. The city has grown over the former
sites of the vineyards. ſ
The first Orange trees were planted at the
Mission San Gabriel about the year 1815 and
a few at Los Angeles about the same time. But
little attention was given to the industry by the
Californians. The first extensive grove was
planted by William Wolfskill in 1840. The im-
pression then prevailed that oranges could be
grown only on the low lands near the river.
The idea of attempting to grow them on the
mesa lands was Scouted at by the Californians
and the Americans. The success that attended
the Riverside experiment demonstrated that
they could be grown on the mesas, and that the
fruit produced was superior to that grown on
the river bottoms. This gave such an impetus
to the industry in the south that it has distanced
all others. The yearly shipment to the eastern
markets is twenty thousand car loads. The cit-
rus belt is extending every year.
The Californians paid but little attention to
the quality of the fruit they raised. The seed
fell in the ground and sprouted. If the twig
survived and grew to be a tree, they ate the fruit,
asking no question whether the quality might
be improved. The pears grown at the missions
and at some of the ranch houses were hard and
tasteless. It was said they never ripened. A
small black fig was cultivated in a few places,
but the quantity of fruit grown outside of the
mission gardens was very small.
The high price of all kinds of fruit in the early
'50s induced the importation of apple, peach,
pear, plum and prune trees. These thrived and
soon supplied the demand. Before the advent
of the railroads and the shipment east the quan-
202
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
tity of deciduous fruit produced had outgrown
the demand, and there was no profit in its pro-
duction. All this has been changed by eastern
shipment.
Sheep were brought to the country with the
first missionary expeditions. The Indian in his
primitive condition did not use clothing. A
coat of mud was his only garment and he was
not at all particular about the fit of that. After
his conversion the missionaries put clothing on
him, or, rather, on part of him. He was given a
shirt, which was a shirt of Nessus, being made of
the coarse woolen cloth manufactured at the
mission. It was irritating to the skin and com-
pelled the poor wretches to keep up a continual
scratching; at least, that is what Hugo Reid
tells us. During the Civil war and for several
years after, the sheep industry was very profit-
able. The subdivision of the great ranchos and
the absorption of the land for grain growing and
fruit culture have contracted the sheep ranges
until there is but little left for pasture except the
foothills that are too rough for cultivation.
Up to 1863 the great Spanish grants that cov-
ered the southern part of the state had, with a
few exceptions, been held intact and cattle rais-
ing had continued to be the principal industry.
For several seasons previous to the famine years
of 1863 and 1864 there had been heavy rainfalls
and consequently feed was abundant. With the
price of cattle declining, the rancheros over-
stocked their ranges to make up by quantity for
decrease in value. When the dry year of
1863 set in, the feed on ranches was soon ex-
hausted and the cattle starving. The Second
famine year following, the cattle industry was
virtually wiped out of existence and the cattle-
owners ruined. In Santa Barbara, where
the cattle barons held almost imperial Sway,
and, with their army of retainers, controlled the
political affairs of the county, of the two hun-
dred thousand cattle listed on the assessment
roll of 1862, only five thousand were alive when
grass grew in 1865. On the Stearns' ranchos in
Los Angeles county, one hundred thousand
head of cattle and horses perished, and the
owner of a quarter million acres and a large
amount of city property could not raise money
enough to pay his taxes.
Many of the rancheros were in debt when the
hard times came, and others mortgaged their
land at usurious rates of interest to carry them
through the famine years. Their cattle dead,
they had no income to meet the interest on the
cancerous mortgage that was eating up their
patrimony. The result was that they were com-
pelled either to sell their land or the mortgage
was foreclosed and they lost it. This led to the
subdivision of the large grants into small hold-
ings, the new proprietors finding that there was
more profit in selling them off in small tracts
than in large ones. This brought in an intelli-
gent and progressive population, and in a few
years entirely revolutionized the agricultural
conditions of the south. Grain growing and
fruit raising became the prevailing industries.
The adobe ranch house with its matanzas and
its Golgotha of cattle skulls and bones gave
place to the tasty farm house with its flower
garden, lawn and orange grove.
The Californians paid but little attention to
improving the breed of their cattle. When the
only value in an animal was the hide and tallow,
it did not pay to improve the breed. The hide
of a long-horned, mouse-colored Spanish steer
would sell for as much as that of a high-bred
Durham or Holstein, and, besides, the first
could exist where the latter would starve to
death. After the conquest there was for some
time but little improvement. Cattle were brought
across the plains, but for the most part these
were the mongrel breeds of the western states
and were but little improvement on the Spanish
stock. It was not until the famine years vir-
tually exterminated the Spanish cattle that bet-
ter breeds were introduced.
As with cattle, SO also it was with horses.
ILittle attention was given to improving the
breed. While there were a few fine race horses
and saddle horses in the country before its
American occupation, the prevailing equine was
the mustang. He was a vicious beast, nor was
it strange that his temper was bad. He had to
endure starvation and abuse that would have
killed a more aristocratic animal. He took care
of himself, subsisted on what he could pick up
and to the best of his ability resented ill treat-
ment. Horses during the Mexican régime were
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 203
used only for riding. Oxen were the draft ani-
mals. The mustang had one inherent trait that
did not endear him to an American, and that
was his propensity to “buck.” With his nose
between his knees, his back arched and his legs
stiffened, by a series of short, quick jumps, he
could dismount an inexperienced rider with
neatness and dispatch. The Californian took
delight in urging the bronco to “buck” so that
he (the rider) might exhibit his skillful horse-
manship. The mustang had some commenda-
ble traits as well. He was sure-footed as a goat
and could climb the steep hillsides almost equal
to that animal. He had an easy gait under the
saddle and could measure off mile after mile
without a halt. His power of endurance was
wonderful. He could live off the country when
apparently there was nothing to subsist on ex-
cept the bare ground. He owed mankind a debt
of ingratitude which he always stood ready to
pay when an opportunity offered. The passing
of the mustang began with the advent of the
American farmer. g
The founding of agricultural colonies began
in the '50s. One of the first, if not the first, was
the German colony of Anaheim, located thirty
miles south of Los Angeles. A company of
Germans organized in San Francisco in 1857
for the purpose of buying land for the cultiva-
tion of the wine grape and the manufacture of
wine. The organization was a stock company.
Eleven hundred acres were purchased in a
Spanish grant. This was subdivided into twenty
and forty acre tracts; an irrigating ditch
brought in from the Santa Ana river. A por-
tion of each subdivision was planted in vines
and these were cultivated by the company until
they came into bearing, when the tracts were
divided among the stockholders by lot, a cer-
tain valuation being fixed on each tract. The
man obtaining a choice lot paid into the fund
a certain amount and the One receiving an infe-
'rior tract received a certain amount, so that each
received the same value in the distribution. The
colony proved quite a success, and for thirty
years Anaheim was one of the largest wine-
producing districts in the United States. In
1887 a mysterious disease destroyed all the vines
and the vineyardists turned their attention
to the cultivation of Oranges and English
walnuts.
The Riverside colony, then in San Bernardino
county, now in Riverside county, was founded
in 1870. The projectors of the colony were
eastern gentlemen. At the head of the organiza-
tion was Judge J. W. North. They purchased
four thousand acres of the Roubidoux or Jurupa
rancho and fourteen hundred and sixty acres of
government land from the California Silk Cen-
ter Association. This association had been or-
ganized in 1869 for the purpose of founding a
colony to cultivate mulberry trees and manu-
facture silk. It had met with reverses, first in
the death of its president, Louis Prevost, a man
skilled in the silk business, next in the revoca-
tion by the legislature of the bounty for mul-
berry plantations, and lastly in the subsidence
of the sericulture craze. To encourage silk cul-
ture in California, the legislature, in 1866, passed
an act authorizing the payment of a bounty of
$250 for every plantation of five thousand mul-
berry trees two years old. This greatly stimu-
lated the planting of mulberry trees, if it did
not greatly increase the production of silk. In
1869 it was estimated that in the central and
southern portions of the state there were ten
millions of mulberry trees in various stages of
growth. Demands for the bounty poured in
upon the commissioners in such numbers that
the state treasury was threatened with bank-
ruptcy. The revocation of the bounty killed
the silk worms and the mulberry trees; and
those who had been attacked with the sericulture
craze quickly recovered. The Silk Center As-
sociation, having fallen into hard lines, offered
its lands for sale at advantageous terms, and in
September, 1870, they were purchased by the
Southern California Colony Association. The
land was bought at $3.50 per acre. It was mesa
or table land that had never been cultivated.
It was considered by old-timers indifferent sheep
pasture, and Roubidoux, it is said, had it struck
from the tax roll because it was not worth tax-
ing.
The company had the land subdivided and
laid off a town which was first named Jurupa,
but afterwards the name was changed to River-
side. The river, the Santa Ana, did not flow
204
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
past the town, but the colonists hoped to make
a goodly portion of its waters do so. The lands
were put on sale at reasonable prices, a ditch
at a cost of $50,000 was constructed. Experi-
ments were made with oranges, raisin grapes
and deciduous fruits, but the colony finally set-
tled down to orange producing. In 1873 the
introduction of the Bahia or navel orange gave
an additional impetus to orange growing in the
colony, the fruit of that species being greatly
Superior to any other. This fruit was propa-
gated by budding from two trees received from
Washington, D. C., by J. A. Tibbetts, of River-
side.
The Indiana colony, which later became Pasa-
dena, was founded in 1873 by some gentlemen
from Indiana. Its purpose was the growing of
citrus fruits and raisin grapes, but it has grown
into a city, and the Orange groves, once the
pride of the colony, have given place to business
blocks and stately residences.
During the early '70s a number of agricul-
tural colonies were founded in Fresno county.
These were all fruit-growing and raisin-pro-
ducing enterprises. They proved successful and
Fresno has become the largest raisin-pro-
ducing district in the state.
CHAPTER XXX.
THE CIVIL WAR–LOYALTY AND DISLOYALTY.
as a free state did not, in the opinion of
the ultra pro-slavery faction, preclude the
possibility of securing a part of its territory for
the “peculiar institution” of the south. The
question of state division which had come up
in the constitutional convention was again agi-
tated. The advocates of division hoped to cut
off from the southern part, territory enough for
a new state. The ostensible purpose of division
was kept concealed. The plea of unjust taxa-
tion was made prominent. The native Califor-
nians who under Mexican rule paid no taxes on
their land were given to understand that they
were bearing an undue proportion of the cost
of government, while the mining counties, pay-
ing less tax, had the greater representation. The
native Californians were opposed to slavery, an
open advocacy of the real purpose would defeat
the division scheme.
The leading men in the southern part of the
state were from the slave states. If the state
were divided, the influence of these men would
carry the new state into the Union with a con-
stitution authorizing slave-holding and thus the
south would gain two senators. The division
question came up in some form in nearly every
session of the legislature for a decade after Cali-
fornia became a state.
A | NHE admission of California into the Union
In the legislature of 1854-55, Jefferson Hunt,
of San Bernardino county, introduced a bill in
the assembly to create and establish, “out of
the territory embraced within the limits of the
state of California, a new state, to be called the
state of Columbia.” The territory embraced
within the counties of Santa Cruz, Santa Clara,
San Joaquin, Calaveras, Amador, Tuolumne,
Stanislaus, Mariposa, Tulare, Monterey, Santa
Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Los Angeles, San
18ernardino and San Diego, with the islands on
the coast, were to constitute the new state.
“The people residing within the above mentioned
territory shall be and they are hereby author-
ized, so soon as the consent of the congress of
the United States shall be obtained thereto, to
proceed to Organize a state government under
such rules as are prescribed by the constitution
of the United States.” The bill was referred to
a select committee of thirteen members repre-
Senting different sections of the state. This
Committee reported as a substitute, “An Act to
create three states out of the territory of Cali-
fornia," and also drafted an address to the peo-
ple of California advocating the passage of the
act. The eastern boundary line of California
was to be moved over the mountains to the one
hundred and nineteenth degree of longitude west
of Greenwich, which would have taken about
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
205
half of the present state of Nevada. The north-
ern state was to be called Shasta, the central
California and the southern Colorado.
The southern boundary of the state of Shasta
began at the mouth of Maron's river; thence
easterly along the boundary line between Yerba
and Butte counties and between Sierra and Plu-
mas to the summit of the Sierra Nevadas and
thence easterly to the newly established state line.
The northern boundary of the state of Colo-
rado began at the mouth of the Pajara river,
running up that river to the summit of the
Coast Range; thence in a straight line to the
mouth of the Merced river, thence up that river
to the summits of the Sierra Nevadas and then
due east to the newly established state line.
The territory not embraced in the states of
Colorado and Shasta was to constitute the state
of California.
The taxable property of Shasta for the year
I854 was $7,000,000 and the revenue $100,000;
that of Colorado $9,764,OOO and the revenue
$186,000. These amounts the committee consid-
ered sufficient to support the state governments.
The bill died on the files.
The legislature of 1859 was intensely pro-
slavery. The divisionists saw in it an oppor-
tunity to carry out their long-deferred scheme.
The so-called Pico law, an act granting the
consent of the legislature to the formation of a
different government for the southern counties
of this state, was introduced early in the ses-
sion, passed in both houses and approved by
the governor April 18, 1859. The boundaries
of the proposed state were as follows: “All of
that part or portion of the present territory of
this state lying all south of a line drawn east-
ward from the west boundary of the state along
the sixth standard parallel south of the Mount
Diablo meridian, east to the summit of the
coast range; thence southerly following said
summit to the seventh standard parallel; thence
due east on said standard, parallel to its inter-
section with the northwest boundary of Los
Angeles county; thence northeast along said
boundary to the eastern boundary of the state,
including the counties of San Luis Obispo,
Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, San Diego, San
Pernardino and a part of Buena Vista, shall be
segregated from the remaining portion of the
state for the purpose of the formation by con-
gress, with the concurrent action of said portion
(the consent for the segregation of which is
hereby granted), of a territorial or other gov-
ernment under the name of the “Territory of
Colorado,” or such other name as may be
deemed meet and proper.”
Section second provided for the submitting
the question of “For a Territory” or “Against
a Territory” to the people of the portion sought
to be segregated at the next general election;
“and in case two-thirds of the whole number of
voters voting thereon shall vote for a change of
government, the consent hereby given shall be
deemed consummated.” In case the vote was
favorable the Secretary of state was to send a
certified copy of the result of the election and
a copy of the act annexed to the president of
the United States and to the senators and rep-
resentatives of California in congress. At the
general election in September, 1859, the ques-
tion was submitted to a vote of the people of
the southern counties, with the following result:
For. Against.
Los Angeles county. . . . . . . . . . . I,4O7 44 I
San Bernardino ............... 44 I 29
San Diego . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2O7 24
San Luis Obispo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . IO 283
Santa Barbara . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395 5I
Tulare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 © tº
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,477 828
The bill to create the county of Buena Vista
from the southern portion of Tulare failed to
pass the legislature, hence the name of that
county does not appear in the returns. The
result of the vote showed that considerably more
than two-thirds were in favor of a new state.
The results of this movement for division and
the act were sent to the president and to con-
gress, but nothing came of it. The pro-slavery
faction which with the assistance of its coad-
jutors of the north had so long dominated con-
gress had lost its power. The southern senators
and congressmen were preparing for secession
and had weightier matters to think of than the
division of the state of California. Of late years,
a few feeble attempts have been made to stir up
206
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
the old question of state division and even to
resurrect the old “Pico law.”
For more than a decade after its admission
into the Union, California was a Democratic
state and controlled by the pro-slavery wing of
that party. John C. Fremont and William H.
Gwin, its first senators, were southern born,
Fremont in South Carolina and Gwin in Ten-
nessee. Politics had not entered into their
election, but the lines were soon drawn. Fre-
mont drew the short term and his services in
the senate were very brief. He confidently
expected a re-election, but in this he was
doomed to disappointment. The legislature of
1851, after balloting one hundred and forty-two
times, adjourned without electing, leaving Cali-
fornia with but one senator in the session of
1850-51. In the legislature of 1852 John B.
Willer was elected. He was a northern man
with southern principles. His chief opponent
for the place was David Colbert Broderick, a
man destined to fill an important place in the
political history of California. He was an Irish-
man by birth, but had come to America in his
boyhood. He had learned the stone cutters'
trade with his father. His early associations
were with the rougher element of New York
City. Aspiring to a higher position than that
of a stone cutter he entered the political field
and soon arose to prominence. At the age of
26 he was nominated for Congress, but was de-
feated by a small majority through a split in the
party. In 1849 he came to California, where he
arrived sick and penniless. With F. D. Kohler,
an assayer, he engaged in coining gold. The
profit from buying gold dust at $14 an ounce
and making it into $5 and $10 pieces put him
in affluent circumstances.
His first entry into politics in California was
his election to fill a vacancy in the senate of the
first legislature. In 1851 he became president
of the senate. He studied law, history and liter-
ature and was admitted to the bar. He was ap-
pointed clerk of the supreme court and had as-
pirations for still higher positions. Although
Senator Gwin was a Democrat, he had managed
to control all the federal appointments of Fill-
more, the Whig president, and he had filled the
offices with pro-slavery Democrats.
No other free state in the Union had such
Odious laws against negroes as had California.
The legislature of 1852 enacted a law “respect-
ing fugitives from labor and slaves brought to
this state prior to her admission to the Union.”
“Under this law a colored man or woman could
be brought before a magistrate, claimed as a
slave, and the person so seized not being per-
mitted to testify, the judge had no alternative
but to issue a certificate to the claimant, which
certificate was conclusive of the right of the per-
son or persons in whose favor granted, and pre-
vented all molestation of such person or per-
Sons, by any process issued by any court, judge,
justice or magistrate or other person whomso-
ever.” Any one who rendered assistance to a
fugitive was liable to a fine of $500 or imprison-
ment for two months. Slaves who had been
brought into California by their masters before
it became a state, but who were freed by the
adoption of a constitution prohibiting slavery,
were held to be fugitives and were liable to
arrest, although they had been free for several
years and some of them had accumulated con-
siderable property. By limitation the law should
have become inoperative in 1853, but the legis-
lature of that year re-enacted it, and the suc-
ceeding legislatures of 1854 and 1855 continued
it in force. The intention of the legislators
who enacted the law was to legalize the kid-
napping of free negroes, as well as the arrest of
fugitives. Broderick vigorously opposed the
prosecution of the colored people and by so
doing called down upon his head the wrath of
the pro-slavery chivalry. From that time on he
was an object of their hatred. While successive
legislatures were passing laws to punish black
men for daring to assert their freedom and their
right to the products of their honest toil, white
villains were rewarded with political preferment,
provided always that they belonged to the domi-
nant wing of the Democratic party. The Whig
party was but little better than the other, for the
same element ruled in both. The finances of
the state were in a deplorable condition and
continually growing worse. The people's money
was recklessly squandered. Incompetency was
*Bancroft’s History of California, Vol. VI.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
207
the rule in office and honesty the exception.
Ballot box stuffing had been reduced to a me-
chanical science, jury bribing was one of the
fine arts and suborning perjury was a recognized
profession. During one election in San Fran-
cisco it was estimated that $1,500,000 was spent
in one way or another to influence voters. Such
was the state of affairs just preceding the up-
rising of the people that evolved in San Fran-
cisco the vigilance committee of 1856.
At the state election in the fall of 1855 the
R now Nothings carried the state. The native
American or Know Nothing party was a party
of few principles. Opposition to Catholics and
foreigners was about the only plank in its plat-
form. There was a strong opposition to for-
eign miners in the mining districts and the
pro-slavery faction saw in the increased foreign
immigration danger to the extension of their
beloved institution into new territory. The
most potent cause of the success of the new
party in California was the hope that it might
bring reform to relieve the tax burdened people.
But in this they were disappointed. It was made
up from the same element that had so long mis-
governed the state.
The leaders of the party were either pro-
slavery men of the south or northern men with
southern principles. Of the latter class was J.
Neely Johnson, the governor-elect. In the leg-
islature of 1855 the contest between Gwin and
Broderick, which had been waged at the polls
the previous year, culminated after thirty-eight
ballots in no choice and Gwin's place in the
senate became vacant at the expiration of his
term. In the legislature of 1856 the Know Noth-
ings had a majority in both houses. It was
supposed that they would elect a Senator to
succeed Gwin. There were three aspirants: H.
A. Crabb, formerly a Whig, E. C. Marshall and
Henry S. Foote, formerly Democrats. All were
southerners and were in the new party for of-
fice. The Gwin and Broderick influence was
strong enough to prevent the Know Nothing
legislature from electing a senator and Califor-
nia was left with but one representative in the
upper house of Congress.
The Know Nothing party was short lived. At
the general election in 1856 the Democrats
swept the state. Broderick, by his ability in or—
ganizing and his superior leadership, had se-
cured a majority in the legislature and was in a
position to dictate terms to his opponents. Wel-
1er's Senatorial term would soon expire and
Gwin's already two years vacant left two places
to be filled. Broderick, who had heretofore
been contending for Gwin's place, changed his
tactics and aspired to fill the long term. Ac-
cording to established custom, the filling of the
vacancy would come up first, but Broderick, by
superior finesse, succeeded in having the caucus.
nominate the successor to Weller first. Ex-
Congressman Latham's friends were induced to
favor the arrangement on the expectation that
their candidate would be given the short term.
Broderick was elected to the long term on the
first ballot, January 9, 1857, and his commission
was immediately made out and signed by the
governor. For years he had bent his energies
to securing the Senatorship and at last he had
obtained the coveted honor. But he was not
satisfied yet. He aspired to control the federal
patronage of the state; in this way he could
reward his friends. He could dictate the elec-
tion of his colleague for the short term. Both
Gwin and Latham were willing to concede to
him that privilege for the sake of an election.
Latham tried to make a few reservations for
some of his friends to whom he had promised
places. Gwin offered to surrender it all with-
out reservation. He had had enough of it.
Gwin was elected and next day published an
address, announcing his obligation to Broderick
and renouncing any claim to the distribution of
the federal patronage.
Then a wail long and loud went up from the
chivalry, who for years had monopolized all the
offices. That they, southern gentlemen of aris-
tocratic antecedents, should be compelled to ask
favors of a mudsill of the north was too hu-
miliating to be borne. Latham, too, was indig-
nant and Broderick found that his triumph was
but a hollow mockery. But the worst was to
come. He who had done so much to unite the
warring Democracy and give the party a glo-
rious victory in California at the presidential
election of 1856 fully expected the approbation
of President Buchanan, but when he called on
208
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
lº
that old gentleman he was received coldly and
during Buchanan's administration he was ig-
nored and Gwin's advice taken and followed in
making federal appointments. He returned to
California in April, 1857, to secure the nomina-
tion of his friends on the state ticket, but in
this he was disappointed. The Gwin ele-
ment was in the ascendency and John
B. Weller received the nomination for gov-
ernor. He was regarded as a martyr, having
been tricked out of a re-election to the sen-
ate by Broderick. There were other martyrs of
the Democracy, who received balm for their
wounds and sympathy for their sufferings at
that convention. In discussing a resolution de-
nouncing the vigilance committee, O'Meara in
his “History of Early Politics in California,”
says: “Col. Joseph P. Hoge, the acknowledged
leader of the convention, stated that the com-
mittee had hanged four men, banished twenty-
eight and arrested two hundred and eighty; and
that these were nearly all Democrats.
On Broderick's return to the senate in the
session of 1857-58, he cast his lot with Senator
Douglas and opposed the admission of Kansas
under the infamous Lecompton constitution.
This cut him loose from the administration
wing of the party.
In the state campaign of 1859 Broderick ral-
lied his followers under the Anti-Lecompton
standard and Gwin his in support of the Bu-
chanan administration. The party was hope-
lessly divided. Two Democratic tickets were
blaced in the field. The Broderick ticket, with
John Currey as governor, and the Gwin, with
Milton Latham, the campaign was bitter. Brod-
erick took the stump and although not an orator
his denunciations of Gwin were scathing and
merciless and in his fearful earnestness he be-,
came almost eloquent. Gwin in turn loosed
the vials of his wrath upon Broderick and
criminations and recriminations flew thick and
fast during the campaign. It was a campaign
of vituperation, but the first aggressor was
Gwin.
Judge Terry, in a speech before the Lecomp-
ton convention at Sacramento in June, 1859,
after flinging out sneers at the Republican party,
characterized Broderick's party as sailing “under
the flag Of Douglas, but it is the banner of the
black Douglass, whose name is Frederick, not
Stephen.” This taunt was intended to arouse
the wrath of Broderick. He read Terry's speech
while seated at breakfast in the International
hotel at San Francisco. Broderick denounced
Terry's utterance in forcible language and
closed by saying: “I have hitherto spoken of
him as an honest man, as the only honest
man on the bench of a miserable, corrupt su-
preme court, but now I find I was mistaken. I
take it all back.” A lawyer by the name of Per-
ley, a friend of Terry's, to whom the remark was
directed, to obtain a little reputation, challenged
Broderick. Broderick refused to consider Per-
ley's challenge on the ground that he was not
his (Broderick's) equal in standing and beside
that he had declared himself a few days before
a British subject. Perley did not stand very
high in the community. Terry had acted as a
second for him in a duel a few years before.
Broderick, in his reply to Perley, said: “1
have determined to take no notice of attacks
from any source during the canvass. If I were
to accept your challenge, there are probably
many other gentlemen who would seek similar
opportunities for hostile meetings for the pur-
pose of accomplishing a political object or to
obtain public notoriety. I cannot afford at the
present time to descend to a violation of the
Constitution and state laws to subserve either
their or your purposes.”
Terry a few days after the close of the cam-
paign sent a letter to Broderick demanding a
retraction of the offensive remarks. Broderick,
well knowing that he would have to fight some
representative of the chivalry if not several of
them in succession, did not retract his remarks.
He had for several years, in expectation of such
a result in a contest with them, practiced
himself in the use of fire arms until he had be-
come quite expert.
A challenge followed, a meeting was arranged
to take place in San Mateo county, ten miles
from San Francisco, on the I2th of September.
Chief of Police Burke appeared on the scene
and arrested the principals. They were released
by the court, no crime having been committed.
They met next morning at the same place; ex-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
209
Congressman McKibben and David D. Colton
were Broderick's seconds. Calhoun Benham
and Thomas Hayes were Terry's. The pistols
selected belonged to a friend of Terry's. Brod-
erick was ill, weak and nervous, and it was said
that his pistol was quicker on the trigger than
Terry's. When the word was given it was dis-
charged before it reached a level and the ball
struck the earth, nine feet from where he stood.
Terry fired, striking Broderick in the breast.
He sank to the earth mortally wounded and died
three days afterwards. Broderick dead was a
greater man than Broderick living. For years
he had waged a contest against the representa-
tives of the slave oligarchy in California and the
great mass of the people had looked on with
indifference, even urging on his pursuers to the
tragic end. Now that he was killed, the cry went
up for vengeance on his murderers. Terry was
arrested and admitted to bail in the sum of
$10,000. The trial was put off on some pretext
and some ten months later he obtained a change
of venue to Marin county on the plea that he
could not obtain a fair and impartial trial in San
Francisco. His case was afterwards dismissed
without trial by a pro-slavery judge named
Hardy. Although freed by the courts he was
found guilty and condemned by public opinion.
He went south and joined the Confederates at
the breaking out of the Civil war. He some
time after the close of the war returned to Cal-
ifornia. In 1880 he was a presidential elector
on the Democratic ticket. His colleagues on
the ticket were elected, but he was defeated.
He was killed at Lathrop by a deputy United
States marshal while attempting an assault on
United States Supreme Judge Field.
In the hue and cry that was raised on the
death of Broderick, the chivalry read the doom
of their ascendency. Gwin, as he was about to
take the steamer on his return to Washington,
“had flaunted in his face a large canvas frame,
on which was painted a portrait of Broderick
and this: ‘It is the will of the people that the
murderers of Broderick do not return again to
California;' and below were also these words
attributed to Mr. Broderick: “They have killed
me because I was opposed to the extension of
slavery, and a corrupt administration.’”
Throughout his political career Broderick was
a consistent anti-slavery man and a friend of
the common people. Of all the politicians of the
ante-bellum period, that is, before the Civil war,
he stands to-day the highest in the estimation of
the people of California. Like Lincoln, he was
a self-made man. From a humble origin,
unaided, he had fought his way up to a lofty po-
sition. Had he been living during the war
against the perpetuity of human slavery, he
would have been a power in the senate or pos-
sibly a commander on the field of battle. As it
was, during that struggle in his adopted State,
his name became a synonym of patriotism and
love for the Union.
Milton S. Latham, who succeeded John B.
Weller as governor in 1860, was, like his pred-
ecessor, a northern man with southern prin-
ciples. Almost from the date of his arrival in
California he had been an office-holder. He was
a man of mediocre ability. He was a state di-
visionist and would have aided in that scheme
by advocating in the senate of the United States
(to which body he had been elected three days
after his inauguration) the segregation of the
southern counties and their formation into a
new state with the hopes of restoring the equi-
librium between the north and the south. But
the time had passed for such projects. The
lieutenant-governor, John G. Downey, suc-
ceeded Latham. Downey gained great popu-
larity by his veto of the “bulkhead bill.” This
was a scheme of the San Francisco Dock and
Wharf Company to build a stone bulkhead
around the city water front in consideration of
having the exclusive privilege of collecting
wharfage and tolls for fifty years. Downey lost
much of his popularity, particularly with the
Union men, during the Civil war on account of
his sympathy with the Confederates.
At the state election in September, 1861, Le-
land Stanford was chosen governor. He was
the first Republican chosen to that office. He
received fifty-six thousand votes. Two years
before he had been a candidate for that office
and received only ten thousand votes, so rap-
idly had public sentiment changed. The news
of the firing upon Fort Sumter reached San
Francisco April 24, twelve days after its oc-
14
210
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
currence. It came by pony express. The be-
ginning of hostilities between the north and the
south stirred up a strong Union sentiment. The
great Union mass meeting held in San Fran-
cisco May 11, 1861, was the largest and most
enthusiastic public demonstration ever held on
the Pacific coast. The lines were sharply drawn
between the friends of the government and its
enemies. Former political alliances were for-
gotten. Most of the Anti-Lecompton or Doug-
las Democrats arrayed themselves on the side
of the Union. The chivalry wing of the Dem-
ocratic party were either open or secret sym-
pathizers with the Confederates. Some of them
were bold and outspoken in their disloyalty.
The speech of Edmund Randolph at the Dem-
ocratic convention July 24, 1861, is a sample
of such utterances. * * * “To me it seems
a waste of time to talk. For God's sake, tell
me of battles fought and won. Tell me of
usurpers overthrown; that Missouri is again a
free state, no longer crushed under the armed
heel of a reckless and odious despot. Tell me
that the state of Maryland lives again; and, Oh!
gentlemen, let us read, let us hear, at the first
moment, that not one hostile foot now treads
the soil of Virginia! (Applause and cheers.)
If this be rebellion, I am a rebel. Do you want
a traitor, then I am a traitor. For God's sake,
speed the ball; may the lead go quick to his
heart, and may our country be free from the
despot usurper that now claims the name
of the president of the United States.” (Cheers.)
Some of the chivalry Democrats, most of whom
had been holding office in California for years,
went south at the breaking out of the war to
fight in the armies of the Confederacy, and
among these was Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston,
who had been superseded in the command of
the Pacific Department by Gen. Edwin V. Sum-
ner. Johnston, with a number of fellow sym-
pathizers, went south by the Overland route and
was killed a year later, at the battle of Shiloh,
while in command of the Confederate army.
One form of disloyalty among the class
known as “copperheads” (northern men with
southern principles) was the advocacy of a Pa-
*Tuthill's History of California.
cific republic. Most prominent among these
was ex-Governor John B. Weller. The move-
ment was a thinly disguised method of aiding
the southern Confederacy. The flag of the
inchoate Pacific republic was raised in Stock-
ton January 16, 1861. It is thus described by
the Stockton Argus: “The flag is of silk of the
medium size of the national ensign and with
the exception of the Union (evidently a mis-
nomer in this case) which contains a lone star
upon a blue ground, is covered by a painting
representing a wild mountain scene, a huge
grizzly bear standing in the foreground and the
words ‘Pacific Republic' near the upper border.”
The flag raising was not a success. At first it
was intended to raise it in the city. But as it
became evident this would not be allowed, it was
raised to the mast head of a vessel in the slough.
It was not allowed to float there long. The hal-
yards were cut and a boy was sent up the mast
to pull it down. The owner of the flag was con-
Vinced that it was not safe to trifle with the
loyal sentiment of the people.
At the gubernatorial election in September,
1863, Frederick F. Low, Republican, was
chosen over John G. Downey, Democrat, by a
majority of Over twenty thousand. In some parts
of the state Confederate sympathizers were
largely in the majority. This was the case in
Los Angeles and in some places in the San
Joaquin valley. Several of the most outspoken
were arrested and sent to Fort Alcatraz, where
they soon became convinced of the error of
their ways and took the oath of allegiance.
When the news of the assassination of Lincoln
reached San Francisco, a mob destroyed the
newspaper plants of the Democratic Press,
edited by Beriah Brown; the Occidental, edited
by Zach. Montgomery; the News Letter, edited
by F. Marriott, and the Monitor, a Catholic
paper, edited by Thomas A. Brady. These were
virulent copperhead sheets that had heaped
abuse upon the martyred president. Had the
proprietors of these journals been found the
mob would, in the excitement that prevailed,
have treated them with violence. After this
demonstration Confederate sympathizers kept
silent.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
211
CHAPTER XXXI.
TRADE, TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION.
California was the two mission transport
ships that came every year to bring sup-
plies for the missions and presidios and take
back what few products there were to send.
The government fixed a price upon each and
every article of import and export. There was
no cornering the market, no bulls or bears in
the wheat pit, no rise or fall in prices except
when ordered by royal authority. An Arancel
de Precios (fixed rate of prices) was issued at
certain intervals, and all buying and selling was
governed accordingly. These arancels included
everything in the range of human needs—phys-
ical, spiritual or mental. According to a tariff
of prices promulgated by Governor Fages in
1788, which had been approved by the audencia
and had received the royal sanction, the price
of a Holy Christ in California was fixed at
$1.75, a wooden spoon six cents, a horse $9, a
deerskin twenty-five cents, red pepper eighteen
cents a pound, a dozen of quail twenty-five
cents, brandy seventy-five cents per pint, and
so on throughout the list.
In 1785 an attempt was made to open up
trade between California and China, the com-
modities for exchange being seal and Otter
skins for quicksilver. The trade in peltries was
to be a government monopoly. The skins were
to be collected from the natives by the mission
friars, who were to sell them to a government
agent at prices ranging from $2.50 to $10 each.
The neophytes must give up to the friars all
the skins in their possession. All trade by citi-
zens or soldiers was prohibited and any one
attempting to deal in peltries otherwise than
the regularly ordained authorities was liable, if
found out, to have his goods confiscated.
Spain's attempt to engage in the fur trade was
not a success. The blighting monopoly of
church and state nipped it in the bud. It died
A | NHE beginning of the ocean commerce of
out, and the government bought quicksilver,
on which also it had a monopoly, with coin in-
stead of otter skins. •
After the government abandoned the fur trade
the American smugglers began to gather up
the peltries, and the California producer re-
ceived better prices for his furs than the mis-
Sionaries paid. -
The Yankee Smuggler had no arancel of
prices fixed by royal edict. His price list va-
ried according to circumstances. As his trade
was illicit and his vessel and her cargo were in
danger of confiscation if he was caught, his scale
of prices ranged high. But he paid a higher
price for the peltries than the government, and
that was a consolation to the seller. The com—
merce with the Russian settlements of the
northwest in the early years of the century fur-
nished a limited market for the grain produced
at Some of the missions, but the Russians
helped themselves to the otter and the seal of
California without saying “By your leave” and
they were not welcome visitors.
During the Mexican revolution, as has been
previously mentioned, trade sprang up between
Lima and California in tallow, but it was of
short duration. During the Spanish era it can
hardly be said that California had any com-
mérce. Foreign vessels were not allowed to
enter her ports except when in distress, and
their stay was limited to the shortest time pos-
sible required to make repairs and take on
supplies. -
It was not until Mexico gained her inde-
pendence and removed the proscriptive regu-
lations with which Spain had hampered com-
merce that the hide droghers opened up trade
between New England and California. This
trade, which began in 1822, grew to consider-
able proportions. The hide droghers were emi-
grant ships as well as mercantile vessels. By
212
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
these came most of the Americans who settled
in California previous to 1840. The hide and
tallow trade, the most important item of com-
merce in the Mexican era, reached its maximum
in 1834, when the great mission herds were, by
order of the padres, slaughtered to prevent them
from falling into the hands of the government
commissioners. Thirty-two vessels came to the
coast that year, nearly all of which were en-
gaged in the hide and tallow trade.
During the year 1845, the last of Mexican
rule, sixty vessels visited the coast. These
were not all trading vessels; eight were men-
of-war, twelve were whalers and thirteen came
on miscellaneous business. The total amount
received at the custom house for revenue during
that year was $140,000. The majority of the
vessels trading on the California coast during
the Mexican era sailed under the stars and
stripes. Mexico was kinder to California than
Spain, and under her administration commer-
cial relations were established to a limited ex-
tent with foreign nations. Her commerce at
best was feeble and uncertain. The revenue laws
and their administration were frequently
changed, and the shipping merchant was never
sure what kind of a reception his cargo would
receive from the custom house officers. The
duties on imports from foreign countries were
exorbitant and there was always more or less
smuggling carried on. The people and the
padres, when they were a power, gladly wel-
comed the arrival of a trading vessel on the
coast and were not averse to buying goods that
had escaped the tariff if they could do so with
safety. As there was no land tax, the revenue
on goods supported the expenses of the govern-
ment.
Never in the world's history did any country
develop an Ocean commerce so quickly as did
California after the discovery of gold. When
the news spread abroad, the first ships to
arrive came from Peru, Chile and the South
Sea islands. The earliest published notice of
the gold discovery appeared in the Baltimore
Sun, September 20, 1848, eight months after it
was made. At first the story was ridiculed, but
as confirmatory reports came thick and fast,
preparations began for a grand rush for the
gold mines. Vessels of all kinds, seaworthy
and unseaworthy, were overhauled and fitted
out for California. The American trade with
California had gone by way of Cape Horn or
the Straits of Magellan, and this was the route
that was taken by the pioneers. Then there
were short cuts by the way of the Isthmus of
Panama, across Mexico and by Nicaragua. The
first vessels left the Atlantic seaports in No-
vember, 1848. By the middle of the winter one
inundred vessels had sailed from Atlantic and
Gulf seaports, and by spring one hundred and
fifty more had taken their departure, all of them
loaded with human freight and with supplies of
every description. Five hundred and forty-
nine vessels arrived in San Francisco in nine
months, forty-five reaching that port in one day.
April 12, 1848, before the treaty of peace
with Mexico had been proclaimed by the Presi-
dent, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company was
incorporated with a capital of $500,000. Asto-
ria, Ore., was to have been the Pacific terminus
of the company's line, but it never got there.
The discovery of gold in California made San
Francisco the end of its route. The contract
with the government gave the company a sub-
sidy of $2OO,OOO for maintaining three steamers
on the Pacific side between Panama and Asto-
ria. The first of these vessels, the California,
sailed from New York October 6, 1848, for San
Francisco and Astoria via Cape Horn. She
was followed in the two succeeding months by
the Oregon and the Panama. On the Atlantic
side the vessels of the line for several years
were the Ohio, Illinois and Georgia. The ves-
sels on the Atlantic side were fifteen hundred
tons burden, while those on the Pacific were a
thousand tons. Freight and passengers by the
Panama route were transported across the isth-
mus by boats up the Chagres river to Gorgona,
and then by mule-back to Panama. In 1855 the
Panama railroad was completed. This greatly
facilitated travel and transportation. The At-
lantic terminus of the road was Aspinwall, now
called Colon.
Another line of travel and commerce between
the states and California in early days was the
Nicaragua route. By that route passengers on
the Atlantic side landed at San Juan del Norte
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
213
or Greytown. From there they took a river
steamer and ascended the Rio San Juan to Lake
Nicaragua, then in a larger vessel they crossed
the lake to La Virgin. From there a distance
of about twelve miles was made on foot or on
mule-back to San Juan del Sur, where they re-
embarked on board the ocean steamer for San
Francisco.
The necessity for the speedy shipment of mer-
chandise to California before the days of trans-
continental railroads at a minimum cost evolved
the clipper ship. These vessels entered quite
early into the California trade and soon displaced
the short, clumsy vessels of a few hundred tons
burden that took from six to ten months to
make a voyage around the Horn. The clipper
ship Flying Cloud, which arrived at San Fran-
cisco in August, 1851, made the voyage from
New York in eighty-nine days. These vesses
were built long and narrow and carried heavy
sail. Their capacity ranged from one to two
thousand tons burden. The overland railroads
took away a large amount of their business.
Capt. Jedediah S. Smith, as previously stated,
was the real pathfinder of the western moun-
tains and plains. He marked out the route
from Salt Lake by way of the Rio Virgin, the
Colorado and the Cajon Pass to Los Angeles
in 1826. This route was extensively traveled
by the belated immigrants of the early '50s.
Those reaching Salt Lake City too late in the
season to cross the Sierra Nevadas turned
southward and entered California by Smith's
trail.
The early immigration to California came by
way of Fort Hall. From there it turned south-
erly. At Fort Hall the Oregon and California
immigrants separated. The disasters that be-
fell the Donner party were brought upon them
by their taking the Hastings cut-off, which was
represented to them as saving two hundred and
fifty miles. It was shorter, but the time spent
in making a wagon road through a rough coun-
try delayed them until they were caught by the
snows in the mountains. Lassen's cut-off was
another route that brought disaster and delays
to many of the immigrants who were induced
to take it. The route up the Platte through the
South Pass of the Rocky mountains and down
the Humboldt received by far the larger amount
of travel.
The old Santa Fe trail from Independence to
Santa Fe, and from there by the old Spanish
trail around the north bank of the Colorado
across the Rio Virgin down the Mojave river
and through the Cajon Pass to Los Angeles,
was next in importance. Another route by
which much of the southern emigration came
was what was known as the Gila route. It
started at Fort Smith, Ark., thence via El Paso
and Tucson and down the Gila to Yuma, thence
across the desert through the San Gorgono
Pass to Los Angeles. In 1852 it was estimated
one thousand wagons came by this route. There
was another route still further south than this
which passed through the northern states of
Mexico, but it was not popular on account of
the hostility of the Mexicans and the Apaches.
The first overland stage line was established
in 1857. The route extended from San Antonio
de Bexar, Tex., to San Diego, via El Paso, Mes-
sillo, Tucson and Colorado City (now Yuma).
The service was twice a month. The contract
was let to James E. Burch, the Postal Depart-
1ment reserving “the right to curtail or discon-
tinue the service should any route subsequently
put under contract cover the whole or any por-
tion of the route.” The San Diego Herald,
August 12, 1857, thus notes the departure of the
first mail by that route: “The pioneer mail
train from San Diego to San Antonio, Tex.,
t;nder the contract entered into by the govern-
ment with Mr. James Burch, left here on the
9th inst. (August 9, 1857) at an early hour in
the morning, and is now pushing its way for the
east at a rapid rate. The mail was of course
carried on pack animals, as will be the case
until wagons which are being pushed across will
have been put on the line. The first
mail from the other side has not yet arrived,
although somewhat overdue, and conjecture is
rife as to the cause of the delay.” The eastern
*~ -º- - 9
>$ $ 5:
mail arrived a few days later.
The service continued to improve, and the
fifth trip from the eastern terminus to San
Diego “was made in the extraordinary short
214
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
time of twenty-six days and twelve hours,” and
the San Diego Herald on this arrival, October
6, 1857, rushed out an extra “announcing the
very gratifying fact of the complete triumph of
the southern route notwithstanding the croak-
ings of many of the opponents of the adminis-
tration in this state.” But the “triumph of the
southern route” was of short duration. In
September, 1858, the stages of the Butterfield
line began making their semi-weekly trips.
This route from its western terminus, San Fran-
cisco, came down the coast to Gilroy, thence
through Pacheco Pass to the San Joaquin val-
ley, up the valley and by way of Fort Tejon to
Los Angeles; from there eastward by Temecula
and Warner's to Yuma, thence following very
nearly what is now the route of the Southern
Pacific Railroad through Arizona and New Mex-
ico to El Paso, thence turning northward to
Fort Smith, Ark. There the route divided, one
branch going to St. Louis and the other to
Memphis. The mail route from San Antonio
to San Diego was discontinued.
The Butterfield stage line was one of the long-
est continuous lines ever organized. Its length
was two thousand eight hundred and eighty
miles. It began operation in September, 1858.
The first stage from the east reached Los
Angeles October 7 and San Francisco October
IO. A mass-meeting was held at San Francisco
the evening of October II “for the purpose of
expressing the sense entertained by the people
of the city of the great benefits she is to re-
ceive from the establishment of the Overland
mail.” Col. J. B. Crocket acted as president
and Frank M. Pixley as secretary. The speaker
of the evening in his enthusiasm said: “In my
opinion one of the greatest blessings that could
befall California would be to discontinue at once
all communication by steamer between San
Francisco and New York. On yesterday we
received advices from New York, New Orleans
and St. Louis in less than twenty-four days via
El Paso. Next to the discovery of gold this is
the most important fact yet developed in the
history of California.” W. L. Ormsby, special
correspondent of the New York Herald, the
first and only through passenger by the over-
land mail coming in three hours less than
twenty-four days, was introduced to the audi-
ence and was greeted with terrific applause. He
gave a description of the route and some inci-
dents of the journey.
The government gave the Butterfield com-
pany a subsidy of $600,000 a year for a service
of two mail coaches each way a week. In 1859
the postal revenue from this route was only
$27,000, leaving Uncle Sam more than half a
million dollars out of pocket. At the breaking
out of the Civil war the southern overland mail
route was discontinued and a contract was made
with Butterfield for a six-times-a-week mail by
the central route via Salt Lake City, with a
branch line to Denver. The eastern terminus
was at first St. Joseph, but on account of the
war it was changed to Omaha. The western
terminus was Placerville, Cal., time twenty
days for eight months, and twenty-three days
for the remaining four months. The contract
was for three years at an annual subsidy of
$1,000,000. The last overland stage contract
for carrying the mails was awarded to Wells,
Fargo & Co., October 1, 1868, for $1,750,000
per annum, with deductions for carriage by rail-
way. The railway was rapidly reducing the dis-
tance of stage travel.
The only inland commerce during the Mexi-
can era was a few bands of mules sold to New
Mexican traders and driven overland to Santa
Fe by the old Spanish trail and one band of
cattle sold to the Oregon settlers in 1837 and
driven by the coast route to Oregon City. The
Californians had no desire to open up an inland
trade with their neighbors and the traders and
trappers who came overland were not welcome.
After the discovery of gold, freighting to the
mines became an important business. Supplies
had to be taken by pack trains and wagons,
Freight charges were excessively high at first.
In 1848, “it cost $5 to carry a hundred pounds
of goods from Sutter's Fort to the lower
mines, a distance of twenty miles, and $10 per
hundred weight for freight to the upper mines,
a distance of forty miles. Two horses can draw
one thousand five hundred pounds.” In Decem-
ber, 1849, the roads were almost impassable
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
215
and teamsters were charging from $40 to $50 a
hundred pounds for hauling freight from Sacra-
mento to Mormon Island.
In 1855 an inland trade was opened up be-
tween Los Angeles and Salt Lake City. The
first shipment was made by Banning and Alex-
ander. The wagon train consisted of fifteen
ten-mule teams heavily freighted with merchan-
dise. The venturé was a success financially.
The train left Los Angeles in May and returned
in September, consuming four months in the
journey. The trade increased and became quite
an important factor in the business of the south-
ern part of the state. In 1859 sixty wagons
were loaded for Salt Lake in the month of
January, and in March of the same year one
hundred and fifty loaded with goods were sent
to the Mormon capital. In 1865 and 1866 there
was a considerable shipment of goods from Los
Angeles to Idaho and Montana by wagon trains.
These trains went by way of Salt Lake. This
trade was carried on during the winter months
when the roads over the Sierras and the Rocky
mountains were blocked with snow.
Freighting by wagon train to Washoe formed
a very important part of the inland commerce
of California between 1859 and 1869. The im-
mense freight wagons called “prairie schooners”
carried almost as much as a freight car. The
old-time teamster, like the old-time stage driver,
was a unique character. Both have disappeared.
Their occupation is gone. We shall never look
on their like again.
The pony express rider came early in the his–
tory of California. Away back in 1775, when
the continental congress made Benjamin Frank-
lin postmaster-general of the United Colonies,
on the Pacific coast soldier couriers, fleet
mounted, were carrying their monthly budgets
of mail between Monterey in Alta California,
and Loreto, near the southern extremity of the
peninsula of Lower California, a distance of one
thousand five hundred miles.
In the winter of 1859-60 a Wall street lobby
was in Washington trying to get an appropria-
tion of $5,000,000 for carrying the mails one
year between New York and San Francisco.
William H. Russell, of the firm of Russell, Ma-
jors & Waddell, then engaged in running a
daily stage line between the Missouri river and
Salt Lake City, hearing of the lobby's efforts,
offered to bet $2OO,OOO that he could put on a
mail line between San Francisco and St. Joseph
that could make the distance, one thousand nine
hundred and fifty miles, in ten days. The wager
was accepted. Russell and his business man-
ager, A. B. Miller, an old plains man, bought
the fleetest horses they could find in the west
and employed one hundred and twenty-five
riders selected with reference to their light
weight and courage. It was essential that the
horses should be loaded as lightly as possible.
The horses were stationed from ten to twenty
miles apart and each rider was required to ride
seventy-five miles. For change of horses and
mail bag two minutes were allowed, at each
station. One man took care of the two horses
kept there. Everything being arranged a start
was made from St. Joseph, April 3, 1860. The
bet was to be decided on the race eastward. At
meridian On April 3, 1860, a signal gun on a
steamer at Sacramento proclaimed the hour of
starting. At that signal Mr. Miller's private
saddle horse, Border Ruffian, with his rider
bounded away toward the foothills of the Sierra
Nevadas. The first twenty miles were covered
in forty-nine minutes. All went well till the
Platte river was reached. The river was swollen
by recent rain. Rider and horse plunged boldly
into it, but the horse mired in the quicksands
and was drowned. The rider carrying the mail
bag footed it ten miles to the next relay sta-
tion. When the courier arrived at the sixty-
mile station out from St. Joseph he was one
hour behind time. The last one had just three
hours and thirty minutes in which to make the
sixty miles and win the race. A heavy rain
was falling and the roads were slippery, but
with six horses to make the distance he won
with five minutes and a fraction to spare. And
thus was finished the longest race for the larg—
est stake ever run in America.
The pony express required to do its work
nearly five hundred horses, about one hundred
and ninety stations, two hundred station keepers
and over a hundred riders. Each rider usually
rode the horses on about seventy-five miles,
216
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
but sometimes much greater distances were
made. Robert H. Haslam, Pony Bob, made on
one occasion a continuous ride of three hundred
and eighty miles and William F. Cody, now.fa-
mous as Buffalo Bill, in one continuous trip
rode three hundred and eighty-four miles,
stopping only for meals, and to change
horses.
The pony express was a semi-weekly Service.
Fifteen pounds was the limit of the weight of
the waterproof mail bag and its contents. The
postage or charge was $5 on a letter of half an
ounce. The limit was two hundred letters, but
sometimes there were not more than twenty in
a bag. The line never paid. The shortest time
ever made by the pony express was seven days
and seventeen hours. This was in March, 1861,
when it carried President Lincoln's message.
At first telegraphic messages were received at
St. Joseph up to five o'clock p. m. Of the day
of starting and sent to San Francisco on the
express, arriving at Placerville, which was then
the eastern terminus of the line. The pony ex-
press was suspended October 27, 1861, on the
completion of the telegraph.
The first stage line was established between
Sacramento and Mormon Island in September,
1849, fare $16 to $32, according to times.
Sacramento was the great distributing point for
the mines and was also the center from which
radiated numerous stage lines. In 1853 a dozen
lines were owned there and the total capital in-
vested in staging was estimated at $335,OOO.
There were lines running to Coloma, Nevada,
Placerville, Georgetown, Yankee Jim's, Jack-
son, Stockton, Shasta and Auburn. In 1851
Stockton had seven daily stages. The first stage
line between San Francisco and San José was
established in April, 1850, fare $32. A number
of lines were consolidated. In 1860 the Califor-
nia stage company controlled eight lines north-
ward, the longest extending seven hundred and
ten miles to Portland with sixty stations, thirty-
five drivers and five hundred horses, eleven
drivers and one hundred and fifty horses per-
taining to the rest. There were seven indepen-
dent lines covering four hundred and sixty-four
miles, chiefly east and south, the longest to Vir-
ginia City.” These lines disappeared with the
advent of the railroad.
The pack train was a characteristic feature of
early mining days. Many of the mountain
camps were inaccessible to wagons and the only
means of shipping in goods was by pack train.
A pack train consisted of from ten to twenty
mules each, laden with from two hundred to
four hundred pounds. The load was fastened on
the animal by means of a pack saddle which
was held in its place by a cinch tightly laced
around the animal's body. The sure-footed
mules could climb steep grades and wind round
narrow trails on the side of steep mountains
without slipping or tumbling over the cliffs.
Mexicans were the most expert packers.
The scheme to utilize camels and dromedaries
as beasts of burden on the arid plains of the
southwest was agitated in the early fifties. The
chief promoter if not the originator of the
project was Jefferson Davis, afterwards presi-
dent of the Southern Confederacy. During the
last days of the congress of 1851, Mr. Davis
offered an amendment to the army appropria-
tion bill appropriating $30,000 for the purchase
of thirty camels and twenty dromedaries. The
bill was defeated. When Davis was secretary
of war in 1854, congress appropriated $30,000
for the purchase and importation of camels and
in December of that year Major C. Wayne was
sent to Egypt and Arabia to buy seventy-five.
He secured the required number and shipped
them on the naval store ship Supply. They
were landed at Indianola, Tex., February IO,
1857. Three had died on the voyage. About
half of the herd were taken to Albuquerque,
where an expedition was fitted out under the
command of Lieutenant Beale for Fort Tejon,
Cal.; the other half was employed in packing on
the plains of Texas and in the Gadsen Purchase,
as Southern Arizona was then called.
It very soon became evident that the camel
experiment would not be a success. The Amer-
ican teamster could not be converted into an
Arabian camel driver. From the very first meet-
ing there was a mutual antipathy between the
* Sacramento Union, January 1, 1861.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
217
American mule whacker and the beast of the
prophet. The teamsters when transformed into
camel drivers deserted and the troopers refused
to have anything to do with the misshapen
beasts. So because there was no one to load
and navigate these ships of the desert their
voyages became less and less frequent, until
finally they ceased altogether; and these desert
ships were anchored at the different forts in
the southwest. After the breaking out of the
Civil war the camels at the forts in Texas and
New Mexico were turned loose to shift for
themselves. Those in Arizona and California
were condemned and sold by the government to
two Frenchmen who used them for packing,
first in Nevada and later in Arizona, but tiring
of the animals they turned them out on the
desert. Some of these camels or possibly their
descendants are still roaming over the arid
plains of southern Arizona and Sonora.
The first telegraph was completed September
1 I, 1853. It extended from the business quar-
ter of San Francisco to the Golden Gate and
was used for signalling vessels. The first long
line connected Marysville, Sacramento, Stock-
ton and San José. This was completed October
24, 1853. Another line about the same time
was built from San Francisco to Placerville by
way of Sacramento. A line was built southward
from San José along the Butterfield overland
mail route to Los Angeles in 1860. The Over-
land Telegraph, begun in 1858, was completed
November 7, 1861. -
The first express for the States was sent un-
der the auspices of the California Star (news-
paper). The Star of March 1, 1848, contained
the announcement that “We are about to send
letters by express to the States at fifty cents
each, papers twelve and a half cents; to start
April 15; any mail arriving after that time will
be returned to the writers. The Star refused
to send copies of its rival, The Californian, in its
express.
The first local express was started by Charles
L. Cady in August, 1847. It left San Francisco
every Monday and Fort Sacramento, its other
terminus, every Thursday. Letters twenty-five
cents. Its route was by way of Saucelito, Napa
and Petaluma to Sacramento.
Weld & Co.'s express was established in Oc-
tober, 1849. This express ran from San Fran-
cisco to Marysville, having its principal offices
in San Francisco, Benicia and Sacramento. It
was the first express of any consequence estab-
1ished in California. Its name was changed to
Hawley & Co.'s express. The first trip was
made in the Mint, a sailing vessel, and took
six days. Afterward it was transferred to the
steamers Hartford and McKim. The company
paid these boats $800 per month for the use of
One state room; later for the same accommoda–
tion it paid $1,500 per month. The Alta Cali-
fornia of January 7, 1850, says: “There are so
many new express companies daily starting that
we can scarcely keep the run of them.”
The following named were the principal com-
panies at that time: Hawley & Co., Angel,
Young & Co., Todd, Bryan, Stockton Express,
Henly, McKnight & Co., Brown, Knowlton &
Co. The business of these express companies
consisted largely in carrying letters to the
mines. The letters came through the postoffice
in San Francisco, but the parties to whom they
were addressed were in the mines. While the
miner would gladly give an ounce to hear from
home he could not make the trip to the Bay at
a loss of several hundred dollars in time and
money. The express companies obviated this
difficulty. The Alta of July 27, 1850, says: “We
scarcely know what we should do if it were not
for the various express lines established which
enable us to hold communication with the mines.
With the present defective mail communication
we should scarcely ever be able to hear from
the towns throughout California or from the
remote portions of the Placers north or south.
Hawley & Co., Todd & Bryan and Besford &
Co. are three lines holding communication with
different sections of the country. Adams & Co.
occupy the whole of a large building on Mont-
gomery street.” -
Adams & Co., established in 1850, soon be-
came the leading express company of the coast.
It absorbed a number of minor companies. It
established relays of the fastest horses to carry
the express to the mining towns. As early as
1852 the company's lines had penetrated the re-
mote mining camps. Some of its riders per-
218
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
formed feats in riding that exceeded the famous
pony express riders. Isaac W. Elwell made the
trip between Placerville and Sacramento in two
hours and fifty minutes, distance sixty-four
miles; Frank Ryan made seventy-five miles in
four hours and twenty minutes. On his favorite
horse, Colonel, he made twenty miles in fifty-
five minutes. Adams & Co. carried on a bank-
ing business and had branch banks in all the
leading mining towns. They also became a po-
litical power. In the great financial crash of
1855 they failed and in their failure ruined thou-
sands of their depositors. Wells, Fargo & Co.
express was organized in 1851. It weathered
the financial storm that carried down Adams &
Co. It gained the confidence of the people of
the Pacific coast and has never betrayed it. Its
business has grown to immense proportions. It
is one of the leading express companies of the
world.
CHAPTER XXXII.
RAILROADS.
tion began only two years after the first
passenger railway was put in Operation
in the United States. The originator of the
scheme to secure the commerce of Asia by a
transcontinental railway from the Atlantic to
the Pacific was Hartwell Carver, grandson of
the famous explorer, Jonathan Carver. He
published articles in the New York Courier and
Inquirer in 1832 elaborating his idea, and
memorialized congress on the subject. The
western terminus was to be on the Columbia
river. His road was to be made of stone. There
were to be sleeping cars and dining cars at-
tached to each train. In 1836, John Plumbe,
then a resident of Dubuque, Iowa, advocated
the building of a railroad from Lake Michigan
to Oregon. At a public meeting held in Du-
buque, March 26, 1838, which Plumbe ad-
dressed, a memorial to congress was drafted
“praying for an appropriation to defray the ex-
pense of the survey and location of the first link
in the great Atlantic and Pacific railroad, name-
ly, from the lakes to the Mississippi.” Their
application was favorably received and an ap-
propriation being made the same year, which
was expended under the direction of the secre-
tary of war, the report being of a very favorable
character.”
Plumbe received the indorsement of the Wis-
A | N HE agitation of the Pacific railroad ques-
*Bancroft's History of California, Vol. VII., p. 499.
consin legislature of 1839-40 and a memorial
was drafted to congress urging the continuance
of the work. Plumbe went to Washington to
urge his project. But the times were out of
joint for great undertakings. The financial
panic of 1837 had left the government revenues
in a demoralized condition. Plumbe's plan was
to issue stock to the amount of $100,000,000
divided in shares of $5 each. The government
was to appropriate alternate sections of the
public lands along the line of the road. Five
million dollars were to be called in for the first
installment. After this was expended in building,
the receipts from the sale of the lands was to
continue the building of the road. One hundred
miles were to be built each year and twenty
years was the time set for the completion of the
road. A bill granting the subsidy and authoriz-
ing the building of the road was introduced in
Congress, but was defeated by the southern
members who feared that it would foster the
growth of free states.
The man best known in connection with the
early agitation of the Pacific railroad scheme
was Asa Whitney, of New York. For a time he
acted with Carver in promulgating the project,
but took up a plan of his own. Whitney wanted
a strip of land sixty miles wide along the whole
length of the road, which would have given
about one hundred million acres of the public
domain. Whitney's scheme called forth a great
deal of discussion. It was feared by some
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
219
timorous souls that such a monopoly would
endanger the government and by others that
it would bankrupt the public treasury. The agi-
tation was kept up for several years. The
acquisition of California and New Mexico threw
the project into politics. The question of de-
pleting the treasury or giving away the public
domain no longer worried the pro-slavery poli-
ticians in congress. The question that agitated
them now was how far south could the road
be deflected so that it would enhance the value
of the lands over which they hoped to spread
their pet institution—human slavery.
Another question that agitated the members
of congress was whether the road should be
built by the government—should be a national
road. The route which the road should take
was fought over year after year in congress.
The south would not permit the north to have
the road for fear that freemen would absorb the
public lands and build up free states. It was
the old dog-in-the-manger policy so character-
istic of the southern proslavery politicians.
The California newspapers early took up the
discussion and routes were thick as leaves in
Valambrosa. In the Star of May 13, 1848, Dr.
John Marsh outlines a route which was among
the best proposed: “From the highest point on
the Bay of San Francisco to which seagoing
vessels can ascend; thence up the valley of the
San Joaquin two hundred and fifty miles;
thence through a low pass (Walker's) to the
valley of the Colorado and thence through Ari-
zona and New Mexico by the Santa Fe trail to
Independence, Mo.” -
Routes were surveyed and the reports of the
engineers laid before congress; memorials were
received from the people of California praying
for a road; bills were introduced and discussed,
but the years passed and the Pacific railroad
was not begun. Slavery, that “sum of all vil-
lainies,” was an obstruction more impassable
than the mountains and deserts that intervened
between the Missouri and the Pacific. Southern
politicians, aided and abetted by Gwin of Cali-
fornia neutralized every attempt.
One of the first of several local railroad
projects that resulted in something more than
resolutions, public meetings and the election of
a board of directors that never directed any-
thing was the building of a railroad from San
Francisco to San José. The agitation was be-
gun early in 1850 and by February, 1851, $100,-
OOO had been subscribed. September 6 of that
year a company was organized and the pro-
jected road given the high sounding title of the
Pacific & Atlantic railroad. Attempts were
made to secure subscriptions for its stock in
New York and in Europe, but without success.
Congress was appealed to, but gave no assist-
ance and all that there was to the road for ten
years was its name. In 1859 a new organization
was effected under the name of the San Fran–
cisco & San José railroad company. An at-
tempt was made to secure a subsidy of $900,-
OOO from the three counties through which the
road was to pass, but this failed and the corpora-
tion dissolved. Another organization, the
fourth, was effected with a capital stock of
$2,000,000. The construction of the road was
begun in October, 1860, and completed to San
José January 16, 1864.
The first railroad completed and put into suc-
cessful operation in California was the Sacra-
mento Valley road. It was originally intended
to extend the road from Sacramento through
Placer and Sutter counties to Mountain City,
in Yuba county, a distance of about forty miles.
It came to a final stop at a little over half that
distance. Like the San José road the question
of building was agitated several years before
anything was really done. In 1853 the company
was reorganized under the railroad act of that
year. Under the previous organization sub-
scriptions had been obtained. The Sacramento
Union of September 19, 1852, says: “The books
of the Sacramento Valley railroad company
were to have been opened in San Francisco
Wednesday. Upwards of $2OO,OOO of the neces-
sary stock has been subscribed from here.”
The Union of September 24 announces, “That
over $600,000 had already been subscribed at
San Francisco and Sacramento.” Under the re-
organization a new board was elected November
I 2, 1853. C. L. Wilson was made president;
F. W. Page, treasurer, and W. H. Watson, sec-
retary. Theodore D. Judah, afterwards famous
in California railroad building, was employed as
220
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
engineer and the construction of the road began
in February, 1855. It was completed to Fol-
som a distance of twenty-two miles from Sacra-
mento and the formal opening of the road for
business took place February 22, 1856. Accord-
ing to the secretary's report for 1857 the earn-
ings of that year averaged $18,000 per month.
The total earnings for the year amounted to
$216,000; the expenses $84,000, leaving a profit
of $132,000. The cost of the road and its equip-
ment was estimated at $700,000. From this
showing it would seem that California's first
railroad ought to have been a paying invest-
ment, but it was not. Money then was worth
5 per cent a month and the dividends from the
road about 18 per cent a year. The difference
between one and a half per cent and 5 per cent
a month brought the road to a standstill.
Ten years had passed since California had
become a state and had its representatives in
congress. In all these years the question of a
railroad had come up in some form in that body,
yet the railroad seemingly was as far from a
consummation as it had been a decade before.
In 1859 the silver mines of the Washoe were
discovered and in the winter of 1859-60 the
great silver rush began. An almost continuous
stream of wagons, pack trains, horsemen and
footmen poured over the Sierra Nevadas into
Carson Valley and up the slopes of Mount
Davidson to Virginia City. The main line of
travel was by way of Placerville, through John-
son's Pass to Carson City. An expensive toll
road was built over the mountains and monster
freight wagons hauled great loads of merchan-
dise and mill machinery to the mines. “In 1863
the tolls on the new road amounted to $300,000
and the freight bills on mills and merchandise
summed up $13,000,000.”
The rush to Washoe gave a new impetus to
railroad projecting. A convention of the whole
coast had been held at San Francisco in Sep-
tember, 1859, but nothing came of it beyond
propositions and resolutions. Early in 1861,
Theodore P. Judah called a railroad meeting at
the St. Charles hotel in Sacramento. The feasi-
bility of a road over the mountains, the large
*Bancroft's History of California, Vol. VII., p. 541.
of the men in the enterprise was rich.
amount of business that would come to that
road from the Washoe mines and the necessity
of Sacramento moving at once to secure that
trade were pointed out. This road would be the
beginning of a transcontinental line and Sacra-
mento had the opportunity of becoming its
terminus. Judah urged upon some of the lead-
ing business men the project of organizing a
company to begin the building of a transconti-
mental road. The Washoe trade and travel
would be a very important item in the business
of the road.
On the 28th of June, 1861, the Central Pacific
Railroad company was organized under the
general incorporation law of the state. Leland
Stanford was chosen president, C. P. Hunting-
ton, Vice-president, Mark Hopkins, treasurer,
James Bailey, secretary, and T. D. Judah, chief
engineer. The directors were those just named
and E. B. Crocker, John F. Morse, D. W. Strong
and Charles Marsh. The capital stock of the
company was $8,500,000 divided into eighty-five
thousand shares of $100 each. The shares taken
by individuals were few, Stanford, Huntington,
Hopkins, Judah and Charles Crocker subscrib-
ing for one hundred and fifty each; Glidden &
Williams, one hundred and twenty-five shares;
Charles A. Lombard and Orville D. Lombard,
three hundred and twenty shares; Samuel
Hooper, Benjamin J. Reed, Samuel P. Shaw,
fifty shares each; R. O. Ives, twenty-five shares:
Edwin B. Crocker, ten shares; Samuel Bran-
man, two hundred shares; cash subscriptions of
which IO per cent was required by law to be
paid down realizing but a few thousand dollars
with which to begin so important a work as a
railroad across the Sierra Nevada.”
The total amount subscribed was $158,000,
scarcely enough to build five miles of road on
the level plains if it had all been paid up. None
Indeed,
as fortunes go now, none of them had more than
a competence. Charles Crocker, who was one
of the best off, in his sworn statement, placed
the value of his property at $25,000; C. P.
Huntington placed the value of his individual
possessions at $7,222, while Leland Stanford and
* Bancroft's History of California, Vol. VII.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
221
his brother together owned property worth
$32,950. The incubus that so long had pre-
vented building a Pacific railroad was removed.
The war of secession had begun. The Southern
senators and representatives were no longer in
congress to obstruct legislation. The thirty-
second and the thirty-fifth parallel roads South-
ern schemes, were out of the way or rather the
termini of these roads were inside the confeder-
ate lines.
A bill “to aid in the construction of a railroad
and telegraph line from the Missouri river to
the Pacific ocean and to secure to the govern-
ment the use of the same for postal, military and
other purposes passed both houses and became
a law July 1, 1862. The bill provided for the
building of the road by two companies. The
Union Pacific (which was to be a union of
several roads already projected) was given the
construction of the road to the eastern boundary
of California, where it would connect with the
Central Pacific. Government bonds were to be
given to the companies to the amount of $16,OOO
per mile to the foot of the mountains and
$48,000 per mile through the mountains when
forty miles of road had been built and approved
by the government commissioners. In addition
to the bonds the companies were to receive
“every alternate section of public land desig-
nated by odd numbers to the amount of five
alternate sections per mile on each side of the
railroad on the line thereof and within the limits
of ten miles on each side of the road not sold,
reserved or otherwise disposed of by the United
States.” Mineral lands were exempted and any
lands unsold three years after the completion of
the entire road were subject to a preemption
like other public lands at a price not exceeding
$1.25 per acre, payable to the company.
The government bonds were a first mortgage
on the road. The ceremony of breaking ground
for the beginning of the enterprise took place at
Sacramento, February 22, 1863, Governor
Stanford throwing the first shovelful of earth,
and work was begun on the first eighteen miles
of the road which was let by contract to be
finished by August, 1863. The Central Pacific
company was in hard lines. Its means were not
sufficient to build forty miles which must be
completed before the subsidy could be received.
In October, 1863, Judah who had been instru-
mental in securing the first favorable legisſation
set out a second time for Washington to ask
further assistance from congress. At New York
he was stricken with a fever and died there. To
him more than any other man is due the credit
of securing for the Pacific coast its first trans-
continental railroad. In July, 1864, an amended
act was passed increasing the land grant from
six thousand four hundred acres to twelve
thousand eight hundred per mile and reducing
the number of miles to be built annually from
fifty to twenty-five. The company was allowed
to bond its road to the same amount per mile
as the government subsidy.
The Western Pacific, which was virtually a
continuation of the Central Pacific, was organ-
ized in December, 1862, for the purpose of
building a railroad from Sacramento via Stock-
ton to San José. A branch of this line was
constructed from Niles to Oakland, which was
made the terminus of the Central Pacific. The
Union Pacific did not begin construction until
1865, while the Central Pacific had forty-four
miles constructed. In 1867 the Central Pacific
had reached the state line. It had met with
many obstacles in the shape of lawsuits and
unfavorable comments by the press. From the
state line it pushed out through Nevada and
on the 28th of April, 1869, the two companies
met with their completed roads at Promontory
Point in Utah, fifty-three miles west of Ogden.
The ceremony of joining the two roads took
place May Io. The last tie, a handsomely fin-
ished piece of California laurel, was laid and
Governor Stanford with a silver hammer drove
a golden spike. The two locomotives, one
from the east and one from the west, bumped
noses and the first transcontinental railroad
was completed. .
The Southern Pacific Railroad company of
California was incorporated in December, 1865.
It was incorporated to build a railroad from
some point on the bay of San Francisco through
the counties of Santa Clara, Monterey, San
Luis Obispo, Tulare, Los Angeles to San
Diego and thence easterly through San Diego
to the eastern boundary of the state there to
•) •))
*a*4 =
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
connect with a railroad from the Mississippi
river. -
* “If July, 1866, congress granted to the At-
lantic and Pacific Railroad company to aid in
the construction of its road and telegraph line
from Springfield, Mo., by the most eligible route
to Albuquerque in New Mexico and thence by
the thirty-fifth parallel route to the Pacific, an
amount of land equal to that granted to the
Central Pacific. By this act the Southern Pa-
cific Railroad was authorized to connect with
the Atlantic and Pacific near the boundary line
of California, at such point as should be deemed
most suitable by the companies and should have
therefore the same amount of land per mile as
the Atlantic and Pacific.”
In 1867 the Southern Pacific company de-
cided to change its route and instead of build-
1ng down through the coast counties to go east-
ward from Gilroy through Pacheco's pass into
the upper San Joaquin valley through Fresno,
Kern and San Bernardino to the Colorado river
near Fort Mojave. This contemplated change
left the lower coast counties out in the cold and
caused considerable dissatisfaction, and an at-
tempt was made to prevent it from getting a
land subsidy. Congress, however, authorized
the change, as did the California legislature of
1870, and the road secured the land.
The San Francisco and San José Railroad
came into possession of the Southern Pacific
company, San Francisco donating three thou-
sand shares of stock in that road on condition
that the Southern Pacific company, after it se-
cured the San José road, should extend it to
the southeastern boundary of the state. In 1869
a proposition was made to the supervisors of
San Francisco to donate $1,000,000 in bonds of
the city to the Southern Pacific company, on
condition that it build two hundred miles south
from Gilroy, the bonds to be delivered on the
completion and stocking of each section of fifty
miles of road. The bonds were voted by the
people of the city. The road was built to
Soledad, seventy miles from Gilroy, and then
stopped. The different branch roads in the San
José and Salinas valley were all consolidated
* Bancroft, VII., p. 594.
under the name of the Southern Pacific. The
Central Pacific and the Southern Pacific, al-
though apparently different organizations, were
really one company.
The Southern Pacific built southward from
Lathrop, a station on the Central Pacific’s line,
a railroad up the valley by way of Tehachapi
Pass to Los Angeles. While this road was in
course of construction in 1872 a proposition was
made to the people of Los Angeles through the
county board of supervisors to vote a subsidy
equal to 5 per cent of the entire amount of the
taxable property of the county on condition that
the Southern Pacific build fifty miles of its main
line to Yuma in the county. Part of the subsidy
was to be paid in bonds of the Los Angeles &
San Pedro Railroad, amounting to $377,OOO and
sixty acres of land for depot purposes. The
total amount of subsidy to be given was $610,-
OOO. The proposition was accepted by the
people, the railroad company in addition to its
Original offer agreeing to build a branch road
twenty-seven miles long to Anaheim. This was
done to head off the Tom Scott road which
had made a proposition to build a branch road
from San Diego to Los Angeles to connect with
the Texas Pacific road which the year before
had been granted a right of way from Marshall,
Tex., to San Diego, and was preparing to build
its road. The Southern Pacific completed its
road to Los Angeles in September, 1876, and
reached the Colorado river on its way east in
April, 1877. It obtained the old franchise of the
Texas Pacific and continued its road eastward
to El Paso, Tex., where it made connections
with roads to New Orleans and other points
south and east, thus giving California its second
transcontinental railroad. This road was com-
pleted to El Paso in 1881.
The Atlantic & Pacific road with which the
Southern Pacific was to connect originally,
suffered from the financial crash of 1873 and
suspended operations for a time. Later it en-
tered into a combination with the Atchison, To-
peka & Santa Fe and St. Louis & San Francisco
railroad companies. This gave the Atchison
road a half interest in the charter of the Atlantic
& Pacific. The two companies built a main line
jointly from Albuquerque (where the Atchison
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 223
road ended) west to the Colorado river at the
Needles. Their intention was to continue the
road to Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The California Southern and the California
Southern Extension companies were organized
to extend the Atlantic & Pacific from Barstow
to San Diego. These companies consolidated
and completed a road from San Diego to San
Bernardino September 13, 1883. The Southern
Pacific interfered. It attempted to prevent the
California Southern from crossing its tracks at
Colton by placing a heavy engine at the point
of crossing, but was compelled to move the en-
gine to save it from demolition. It built a branch
from Mojave station to connect with the At-
lantic & Pacific in which it had an interest.
This gave connection for the Atlantic & Pacific
over the Southern Pacific lines with both Los
Angeles and San Francisco. This was a serious
blow to the California Southern, but disasters
never come singly. The great flood of January,
1884, swept down through the Temecula Cañon
and carried about thirty miles of its track out
to sea. It was doubtful under the circumstances
whether it would pay to rebuild it. Finally the
Southern Pacific agreed to sell its extension
from Barstow to the Needles to the California
Southern, reserving its road from Barstow to
Mojave. Construction was begun at Once on
the California Southern line from Barstow to
San Bernardino and in November, 1885, the
road was completed from Barstow to San
Diego. In October, 1886, the road passed un-
der control of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa
Fe. In the spring of 1887 the road was ex-
tended westerly from San Bernardino to meet
the San Gabriel valley road which had been
built eastward from Los Angeles through Pasa-
dena. The completed line reached Los Angeles
in May, 1887, thus giving California a third
transcontinental line. .
After many delays the gap in the Southern
Pacific coast line was closed and the first trains
from the north and the south passed over its
entire length between Los Angeles and San
Francisco on the 31st of March, 1901, nearly
thirty years after the first section of the road
was built.
The Oregon & California and the Central
Pacific were consolidated in 1870. The two
ends of the road were united at Ashland, Ore.,
in 1887. The entire line is now controlled by
the Southern Pacific, and, in connection with
the Northern Pacific and the Oregon Railway
& Navigation Road at Portland, forms a fourth
transcontinental line for California.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE INDIAN QUESTION.
school of writers, who take their history of
California from “Ramona” and their infor-
mation on the “Indian question” under the rule
of the mission padres from sources equally fic-
titious, to draw invidious comparisons between
the treatment of the Indian by Spain and Mex-
ico when mission rule was dominant in Cali-
fornia and his treatment by the United States
after the conquest.
That the Indian was brutally treated and un-
mercifully slaughtered by the American miners
and rancheros in the early '50s none will deny;
that he had fared but little better under the rule
I' IS quite the fashion now with a certain
of Spain and Mexico is equally true. The tame
and submissive Indians of the sea coast with
whom the mission had to deal were a very
different people from the mountain tribes with
whom the Americans came in conflict.
We know but little of the conquistas or gentile
hunts that were occasionally sent out from the
mission to capture subjects for conversion. The
history of these was not recorded. From “The
narrative of a voyage to the Pacific and Berings
strait with the Polar expedition; performed in
his majesty's ship Blossom, under command of
Capt. F. W. Beechey, R. N., in the years
1825–26–27–28, we have the story of one of these
224
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
conquistas or convert raids. Captain Beechey
visited California in 1828. While in California
he studied the missions, or at least those he vis-
ited, and after his return to England published
his observations. His observations have great
value. He was a disinterested observer and
gave a plain, straightforward, truthful account
of what he saw, without prejudice or partiality.
His narrative dispels much of the romance that
some modern writers throw around mission life.
This conquista set out from the Mission San
José.
“At a particular period of the year also, when
the Indians can be spared from agricultural con-
cerns of the establishment, many are permitted
to take the launch of the mission and make ex-
cursions to the Indian territory. All are anx-
ious to go on such occasions. Some to visit
friends, some to procure the manufactures of
their barbarian countrymen (which, by the by,
are often better than their own) and some with a
secret determination never to return. On these
occasions the padres desire them to induce as
many of their unconverted brethren as possible
to accompany them back to the mission; of
course, implying that this is to be done only by
persuasion; but the boat being furnished with a
cannon and musketry and in every respect
equipped for war, it too often happens that the
neophytes and the gente de racom, who super-
intend the direction of the boat, avail them-
selves of their superiority with the desire of in-
gratiating themselves with their master and re-
ceiving a reward. There are besides repeated
acts of aggression, which it is necessary to pun-
ish, all of which furnish proselytes. Women and
children are generally the first objects of cap-
ture, as their husbands and parents sometimes
voluntarily follow them into captivity. These
misunderstandings and captivities keep up a per-
petual enmity amongst the tribes whose thirst
for revenge is insatiable.”
We had an opportunity of witnessing the
tragical issue of one of these holyday excursions
of the neophytes of the Mission San José. The
launch was armed, as usual, and placed under
the superintendence of an alcalde of the mission,
who appears from Gne statement (for there are
several), converted the party of pleasure either
into an attack for procuring proselytes or of
revenge upon a particular tribe for some ag-
gression in which they were concerned. They
proceeded up the Rio San Joachin until they
came to the territory of a particular tribe named
Consemenes, when they disembarked with the
gun and encamped for the night near the vil-
lage of LOS Gentiles, intending to make an at-
tack upon them next morning, but before they
were prepared the gentiles, who had been ap-
prised of their intention and had collected a
large body of their friends, became the assail-
ants and pressed so hard upon the party that,
notwithstanding they dealt death in every direc-
tion with their cannon and musketry and were
inspired with confidence by the contempt in
which they held the valor and tactics of their un-
converted countrymen, they were overpowered
by numbers and obliged to seek their safety in
flight and to leave the gun in the woods. Some
regained the launch and were saved and others
found their way overland to the mission, but
thirty-four of the party never returned to tell
their tale. &
“There were other accounts of the unfortu-
nate affair, one of which accused the padre of
authorizing the attack. The padre was greatly
displeased at the result of the excursion, as the
loss of so many Indians to the mission was of
great consequence and the confidence with
which the victory would inspire the Indians was
equally alarming. -
“He therefore joined with the converted In-
dians in a determination to chastise and strike
terror into the victorious tribe and in concert
with the governor planned an expedition against
them. The mission furnished money, arms, In-
dians and horses and the presidio troops, headed
by Alferez Sanches, a veteran, who had been
frequently engaged with the Indians and was
acquainted with that part of the country. The
expedition set out November 19, and we heard
nothing of it until the 27th, but two days after
the troops had taken to the field some immense
columns of smoke rising above the mountains
in the direction of the Cosemmes bespoke the
conflagration of the village of the persecuted
gentiles; and on the day above mentioned the
veteran Sanches made a triumphant entry into
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
225
the Mission of San José, escorting forty miser-
able women and children. The gun which had
been lost in the first battle was retaken and
other trophies captured. -
“This victory, so glorious according to the
ideas of the conquerors, was achieved with the
loss of only one man on the part of the Chris-
tians, who was mortally wounded by the burst-
ing of his own gun; but on the part of the enemy
it was considerable, as Sanches the morning
after the battle counted forty-one men, women
and children dead. It is remarkable that none
of the prisoners was wounded and it is greatly
to be feared that the Christians, who could
scarcely be prevented from revenging the death
of their relatives upon those who were brought
to the mission, glutted their brutal passions on
all who fell into their hands.
“The prisoners they had captured were imme-
diately enrolled in the list of the mission, except
a nice little boy whose mother was shot while
running away with him in her arms, and he was
sent to the presidio and, as I heard, given to
the Alferez as a reward for his services. The
poor little orphan had received a slight wound in
his forehead; he wept bitterly at first and refused
to eat, but in time became reconciled to his
fate. . -
“Those who were taken to the mission were
immediately converted and were daily taught by
the neophytes to repeat the Lord's prayer and
certain hymns in the Spanish language. I hap-
pened to visit the mission about this time and
saw these unfortunate beings under tuition.
They were clothed in blankets and arranged in
a row before a blind Indian, who understood
their dialect and was assisted by an alcalde to
keep order. Their tutor began by desiring them
to kneel, informing them that he was going to
teach them the names of the persons composing
the trinity and they were to repeat in Spanish
what he dictated. The neophytes being ar-
ranged, the speaker began: ‘Santisima Trini-
dad, Dios, Jesu Christo, Espiritu Santo,” paus-
ing between each name to listen if the simple
Indians, who had never before spoken a word
of Spanish, pronounced it correctly or anything
near the mark. After they had repeated these
names satisfactorily, their blind tutor, after a
pause, added ‘Santos' and recapitulated the
names of a great many saints, which finished the
morning's lesson.
“They did not appear to me to pay much at-
tention to what was going forward and I ob-
served to the padre that I thought their teachers
had an arduous task, but he said they had never
found any difficulty; that the Indians were ac-
customed to change their own gods and that
their conversion was in a measure habitual to
them. -
“The expenses of the late expedition fell heav-
ily upon the mission and I was glad to find the
padre thought it was paying very dear for se
few converts, as in all probability it will lessen
his desire to undertake another expedition and
the poor Indians will be spared the horrors of
being butchered by their own countrymen or
dragged from their homes into captivity.”
This conquista and the results that followed
were very similar to some of the so-called In-
dian wars that took place after the American
occupation. The Indians were provoked to hos-
tilities by outrage and injustice. Then the
military came down on them and wiped them
out of existence.
The unsanitary condition of the Indian vil-
lages at some of the missions was as fatal as an
Indian war. The Indian was naturally filthy, but
in his native state he had the whole country to
roam over. If his village became too filthy and
the vermin in it too aggressive, he purified it
by fire—burned up his wigwam. The adobe
houses that took the place of the brush hovel,
which made up the early mission villages, could
not be burned to purify them. No doubt the
heavy death rate at the missions was due largely
to the uncleanly habits of the neophytes. The
statistics given in the chapter on the Franciscan
missions show that in all the missionary estab-
lishments a steady decline, a gradual extinction
of the neophyte population, had been in prog-
ress for two to three decades before the mis-
sions were secularized. Had secularization been
delayed or had it not taken place in the course
of a few decades, at the rate the neophytes were
dying off the missions would have become de-
populated. The death rate was greater than the
birth rate in all of them and the mortality among
15
226
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
the children was greater even than among the
adults. After secularization the neophytes
drifted to the cities and towns where they could
more readily gratify their passion for strong
drink. Their mission training and their Chris-
tianity had no restraining influence upon them.
Their vicious habits, which were about the only
thing they had acquired by their contact with
the whites, soon put an end to them. -
During the Spanish and Mexican eras North-
ern California remained practically a terra in-
cognita. Two missions, San Rafael and San
Francisco Solano, and the castillo at Sonora,
had been established as a sort of protection to
the northern frontier. A few armed incursions
had been made into the country beyond these
to punish Indian horse and cattle thieves. Gen-
eral Vallejo, who was in command of the
troops on the frontera del norte, had always
endeavored to cultivate friendly relations with
the gentiles, but the padres disliked to have
these near the missions on account of their in-
fluence on the neophytes. Near the Mission
San Rafael, in 1833, occurred one of those In-
dian massacres not uncommon under Spanish
and Mexican rule. A body of gentiles from the
rancherias of Pulia, encouraged by Figueroa
and Vallejo, came to the Mission San Rafael
with a view to establishing friendly relations.
The padre put off the interview until next day.
During the night a theft was committed, which
was charged to the gentiles. Fifteen of them
were seized and sent as prisoners to San Fran-
cisco. Padre Mercado, fearing that their coun-
trymen might retaliate, sent out his major doma
Molina with thirty-seven armed neophytes, who
surprised the gentiles in their rancheria, killed
twenty-One, wounded many more and captured
twenty men, women and children. Vallejo was
indignant at the shameful violation of his prom-
ises of protection to the Indians. He released
the prisoners at San Francisco and the captives
at the mission and tried to pacify the wrathful
gentiles. Padre Mercado was suspended from
his ministry for a short time, but was afterward
freed and returned to San Rafael.”
There was a system of Indian slavery in ex-
*Bancroft's History of California, Vol. III.
istence in California under the rule of Spain and
Mexico. Most of the wealthier Spanish and
Mexican families had Indian servants. In the
raids upon the gentiles the children taken by the
soldiers were sometimes sold or disposed of to
families for servants. Expeditions were gotten
up upon false pretexts, while the main purpose
was to steal Indian children and sell them to
families for servants. This practice was carried
on by the Americans, too, after the conquest.
For a time after the discovery of gold the In-
dians and the miners got along amicably. The
first miners were mainly old Californians, used
to the Indians, but with the rush of '49 came
many rough characters who, by their injustice,
soon stirred up trouble. Sutter had employed a
large number of Indians on his ranches and in
various capacities. These were faithful and hon-
est. Some of them were employed at his mill
in Coloma and in the diggings. In the spring
of '49 a band of desperadoes known as the
Mountain Hounds murdered eight of these at
the mill. Marshall, in trying to defend them,
came near being lynched by the drunken brutes.
The injustice done the Indians soon brought
On a number of so-called Indian wars. These
were costly affairs to the state and in less than
two years had plunged the young common-
wealth into a debt of nearly $1,000,000. In a
copy of the Los Angeles Star for February 28,
1852, I find this enumeration of the wars and
the estimated cost of each: The Morehead ex-
pedition, $120,000; General Bean's first expedi-
tion, $66,000; General Bean's second expedition,
$50,000; the Mariposa war, $230,000; the El
Dorado war, $300,000. The Morehead war orig-
inated out of an injustice done the Yuma In-
dians. These Indians, in the summer of 1849,
had obtained an old scow and established a ferry
across the Colorado river below the mouth of the
Gila, and were making quite a paying business
out of it by ferrying emigrants across the river.
A Dr. A. L. Lincoln, from Illinois, had estab-
lished a ferry at the mouth of the Gila early in
1850. Being short handed he employed eight
men of a party of immigrants, and their leader,
Jack Glanton, who seems to have been a despera-
do. Glanton insulted a Yuma chief and the In-
dians charged him with destroying their boat
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 227
and killing an Irishman they had employed.
Watching their chance the Yumas killed eleven
of the ferrymen, including Lincoln and
Glanton. Governor Burnett ordered Major-Gen-
eral Bean to march against the Yumas. Bean
sent his quartermaster-general, Joseph C. More-
head. Morehead, on Bean's orders, provid-
ed necessaries for a three months' campaign
at most extravagant prices, paying for them in
drafts on the state treasury. Morehead started
out from Los Angeles with forty men, but by
the time he reached the Colorado river he had
recruited his force to one hundred and twenty-
five men. The liquid supplies taken along doubt-
less stimulated recruiting. They reached the
Colorado in the summer of 1850, and camped at
the ferry. The Indians at their approach fled
up the river. After two months’ services they
were disbanded. William Carr, one of the three
ferrymen who escaped, was wounded and came to
Los Angeles for treatment. The doctor who
treated him charged the state $500. The man
who boarded him put in a bill of $120; and the
patriot who housed him wanted $45 for house
rent. Bean's first and second expeditions were
very similar in results to the Morehead cam-
paign. The El Dorado expedition or Rogers'
war, as it was sometimes called, was another of
Governor Burnett's fiascos. He ordered Will-
iam Rogers, sheriff of El Dorado county, to call
out two hundred men at the state's expense to
punish the Indians for killing some whites who
had, in all probability, been the aggressors and
the Indians had retaliated. It was well known
that there were men in that part of the country
who had wantonly killed Indians for the pleas-
ure of boasting of their exploits.
Nor were the whites always the aggressors.
There were bad Indians, savages, who killed
without provocation and stole whenever an op-
portunity offered. In their attempts at retalia-
tion the Indians slaughtered indiscriminately
and the innocent more often were their victims
than the guilty. On the side of the whites it
was a war of extermination waged in many in-
stances without regard to age or sex; on the
part of the Indian it was a war of retaliation
waged with as little distinction.
The extermination of the aborigines was fear-
fully rapid. Of over ten thousand Indians in
Yuba, Placer, Nevada and Sierra counties in
1849 not more than thirty-eight hundred re-
mained in 1854. Much of this decrease had been
brought about by dissipation and disease engen-
dered by contact with the whites. Reservations
were established in various parts of the state,
where Indians abounded, but the large salaries
paid to agents and the numerous opportunities
for peculation made these positions attractive
to politicians, who were both incompetent and
dishonest. The Indians, badly treated at the
reservations, deserted them whenever an Oppor-
tunity offered.
A recital of the atrocities committed upon
each other in the northwestern part of the state
during a period of nearly twenty years would fill
a volume. The Indian with all his fiendishness
was often outmatched in cruelty by his pale
faced brother. The Indian Island massacre was
scarcely ever equaled in the annals of Indian
cruelties. Indian Island lies nearly opposite
the city of Eureka in Humboldt Bay. On this
island, fifty years ago, was a large rancheria
of inoffensive Indians, who lived chiefly by fish-
ing. They had not been implicated in any of
the wars or raids that had disturbed that part
of the country. They maintained many of their
old customs and had an annual gathering, at
which they performed various rites and cere-
monies, accompanied by dancing. A number of
the Indians from the mainland joined them at
these times. Near midnight of February 25,
1860, a number of boats filled with white men
sped silently out to the island. The whites
landed and quietly surrounded the Indians, who
were resting after their orgies, and began the
slaughter with axes, knives and clubs, splitting
skulls, knocking out brains and cutting the
throats of men, women and children. Of the
two hundred Indians on the island only four or
five men escaped by swimming to the mainland.
The same night a rancheria at the entrance of
Humboldt Bay and another at the mouth of Eel
river were attacked and about one hundred
Indians slaughtered. The fiends who commit-
ted these atrocities belonged to a secret or-
ganization. No rigid investigation was ever
made to find out who they were. The grand
228
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
jury mildly condemned the outrage and there
the matter ended.
The Indians kept up hostilities, rendering
travel and traffic unsafe on the borders of Hum-
boldt, Klamath and Trinity counties. Governor
Stanford in 1863 issued a proclamation for the
enlistment of six companies of volunteers from
the six northwestern counties of the state.
These recruits were organized into what was
known as the Mountaineer battalion with Lieut.-
Col. Stephen G. Whipple in command. A num-
ber of Indian tribes united and a desultory war-
fare began. The Indians were worsted in nearly
every engagement. Their power was broken
and in February, 1865, fragments of the different
tribes were gathered into the Hoopa Valley
reservation. The Mountaineer battalion in what
was known as the “Two Years' War” settled the
Indian question from Shasta, to the sea for all
time.
The Modoc war was the last of the Indian
disturbances in the state. The Modocs inhab-
ited the country about Rhett Lake and Lost
river in the northeast part of the state, bordering
On Oregon. Their history begins with the mas-
sacre of an immigrant train of sixty-five per-
sons, men, women and children, on their way
from Oregon to California. This brought upon
them a reprisal by the whites in which forty-
One Out of forty-six Indians who had been in-
vited by Benjamin Wright to a pow wow after
they had laid aside their arms were set upon by
Wright and his companions with revolvers and
all killed but five. In 1864 a treaty had been
made with the Modocs by which they were to
reside on the Klamath reservation. But tiring
of reservation life, under their leader, Captain
Jack, they returned to their old homes on Lost
river. A company of United States troops and
several volunteers who went along to see the
fun were sent to bring them back to the reser-
vation. They refused to go and a fight ensued
in which four of the volunteers and one of the
regulars were killed, and the troops retreated.
The Modocs after killing several settlers gath-
ered at the lava beds near Rhett Lake and
prepared for war.
Lieutenant-Colonel Wheaton with about four
hundred men attacked the Indians in the lava
beds January 17, 1873. Captain Jack had but
fifty-one men. When Wheaton retreated he had
lost thirty-five men killed and a number
wounded, but not an Indian had been hurt. A
few days after the battle a peace commission
was proposed at Washington. A. B. Meacham,
Jesse Applegate and Samuel Case were ap-
pointed. Elijah Steele of Yreka, who was on
friendly terms with the Indians, was sent for.
He visited the lava beds with the interpreter,
Fairchild, and had a big talk. He proposed to
them to surrender and they would be sent to
Angel Island near San Francisco, fed and cared
for and allowed to select any reservation they
wished. Steele, on his return to camp, reported
that the Indians accepted the terms, but Fair-
child said they had not and next day on his re-
turn Steele found out his mistake and barely
escaped with his life. Interviews continued
without obtaining any definite results, some of
the commission became disgusted and returned
home. General Canby, commanding the depart-
ment, had arrived and taken charge of affairs.
Commissioner Case resigned and Judge Ros-
borough was appointed in his place and the Rev.
E. Thomas, a doctor of divinity in the Metho-
(list church, was added to the commission. A
man by the name of Riddle and his wife Toby,
a Modoc, acted as go-betweens and negotiations
continued.
A pow wow was arranged at the council tent
at which all parties were to meet unarmed, but
Toby was secretly informed that it was the in-
tention of the Modocs to massacre the commis-
Sioners as had been done to the Indian com-
missioners twenty years before by Benjamin
Wright and his gang. On April Io, while
Meacham and Dyer, the superintendent of the
Nlamath reservation, who had joined the com-
missioners, were away from camp, the Rev.
Dr. Thomas made an agreement with a dele-
gation from Captain Jack for the commission
and General Canby to meet the Indians at the
council tent. Meacham on his return opposed
the arrangement, fearing treachery. The doctor
insisted that God had done a wonderful work
in the Modoc camp, but Meacham shocked the
pious doctor by saying “God had not been in
the Modoc camp this winter.”
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
229
Two of the Indian leaders, Boston Charley
and Bogus Charley, came to headquarters to
accompany the commission. Riddle and his
wife, Toby, bitterly opposed the commissioners'
going, telling them they would be killed, and
Toby going so far as to seize Meacham's horse
to prevent him from going, telling him, “You get
kill.” Canby and the doctor insisted upon going,
despite all protests, the doctor saying, “Let us go
as we agreed and trust in God.” Meacham and
Dyer secured derringers in their side pockets
before going. When the commissioners, the
interpreters, Riddle and his wife, reached the
council tent they found Captain Jack, Schonchin
John, Black Jim, Shancknasty Jim, Ellen's
Man and Hooker Jim sitting around a fire at
the council tent. Concealed behind some
rocks a short distance away were two young
Indians with a number of rifles. The two Char-
leys, Bogus and Boston, who had come with the
commissioners from headquarters, informed the
Indians that the commissioners were not armed.
The interview began. The Indians were very
insolent. Suddenly, at a given signal, the Indians
uttered a war whoop, and Captain Jack drew
a revolver from under his coat and shot Gen-
eral Canby. Boston Charley shot Dr. Thomas,
who fell, rose again, but was shot down
while begging for his life. The young Indians
had brought up the rifles and a fusillade was
begun upon the others. All escaped without in-
jury except Meacham, who, after running some
distance, was felled by a bullet fired by Hooker
Jim, and left for dead. He was saved from being
scalped by the bravery of Toby. He recovered,
however, although badly disfigured. While this
was going on, Curly Haired Doctor and several
other Modocs, with a white flag, inveigled Lieu-
tenants Boyle and Sherwood beyond the lines.
Seeing the Indians were armed, the officers
turned to flee, when Curly Haired Jack fired and
broke Lieutenant Sherwood's thigh. He died a
few days later. The troops were called to arms
when the firing began, but the Indians escaped
to the lava beds. After a few days’ preparation,
Colonel Gillem, who was in command, began an
attack on the Indian stronghold. Their position
was shelled by mountain howitzers. In the
fighting, which lasted four days, sixteen soldiers
were killed and thirteen wounded. In a recon-
noissance under Captain Thomas a few days
later, a body of seventy troops and fourteen Warm
Spring Indians ran into an ambush of the In-
dians and thirteen soldiers, including Thomas,
were killed. Gen. Jefferson C. Davis was placed
in command. The Indians were forced out of the
lava beds, their water supply having been cut
off. They quarreled among themselves, broke
up into parties, were chased down and all cap-
tured. Captain Jack and Schonchin John, the
two leaders, were shackled together. General
Davis made preparations to hang these and six
or eight others, but orders from Washington
stopped him. The leading Indians were tried
by court-martial. Captain Jack, Schonchin
John, Black Jim and Boston Charley were hung,
two others were sentenced to imprisonment for
life. The other Modocs, men, women and chil-
dren, were sent to a fort in Nebraska and after-
wards transferred to the Quaw Paw Agency in
Indian Territory. This ended the Modoc war
and virtually put an end to the Modoc Indians.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
SOME POLITICAL HISTORY.
HE first Chinese emigrants to California
arrived in the brig Eagle, from Hong
Kong, in the month of February, 1848.
They were two men and one woman. This was
before the discovery of gold was known abroad.
What brought these waifs from the Flowery
Kingdom to California does not appear in the
record. February 1, 1849, there were fifty-four
Chinamen and one Chinawoman in the territory.
January 1, 1850, seven hundred and eighty-nine
men and two women had arrived. January 1,
1851, four thousand and eighteen men and seven
230
IHISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
women; a year later their numbers had in-
creased to eight thousand one hundred and
twenty-one men and eight women; May 7, 1852,
eleven thousand seven hundred and eighty men
and seven women had found their way to the
land of gold. The Alta California, from which
I take these figures, estimated that between
seven and ten thousand more would arrive in
the state before January 1, 1853. The editor
sagely remarks: “No one fears danger or mis-
fortune from their excessive numbers.” There
was no opposition to their coming; on the con-
trary, they were welcomed and almost lionized.
The Alta of April 27, 1851, remarks: “An
American barque yesterday brought eighty
worshippers of the Sun, moon and many stars.
These Celestials make excellent citizens and we
are pleased to notice their daily arrival in large
numbers.” The Alta describes a Great Chinese
meeting on Portsmouth Square, which took
place in 1851. It seems to have been held for
the purpose of welcoming the Chinese to Cali-
fornia and at the same time doing missionary
work and distributing religious tracts among
them. The report says: “A large assemblage
of citizens and several ladies collected on the
plaza to witness the ceremonies. Ah Hee assem-
bled his division and Ah Sing marched his into
Kearny street, where the two divisions united
and then marched to the square. Many carried
fans. There were several peculiar looking Chi-
namen among them. One, a very tall, Old Celes-
tial with an extensive tail, excited universal at-
tention. He had a huge pair of spectacles upon
his nose, the glasses of which were about the
size of a telescope lens. He also had a singu-
larly colored fur mantle or cape upon his shoul-
ders and a long sort of robe. We presume he
must be a mandarin at least.
“Vice Consul F. A. Woodworth, His Honor,
Major J. W. Geary, Rev. Albert Williams, Rev.
A. Fitch and Rev. F. D. Hunt were present.
Ah Hee acted as interpreter. The Rev. Hunt
gave them some orthodox instruction in which
they were informed of the existence of a coun-
try where the China boys would never die; this
made them laugh quite heartily. Tracts, scrip-
tural documents, astronomical works, almanacs
and other useful religious and instructive docu-
ments printed in Chinese characters were dis-
tributed among them.”
I give the report of another meeting of “The
Chinese residents of San Francisco,” taken
from the Alta of December Io, 1849. I quote
it to show how the Chinese were regarded when
they first came to California and how they were
flattered and complimented by the presence of
distinguished citizens at their meetings. Their
treatment a few years later, when they were
mobbed and beaten in the streets for no fault
of theirs except for coming to a Christian coun-
try, must have given them a very poor opinion
of the white man's consistency. “A public
meeting of the Chinese residents of the town
was held on the evening of Monday, November
19, at the Canton Restaurant on Jackson street.
The following preamble and resolutions were
presented and adopted:
“‘Whereas, It becomes necessary for us,
strangers as we are in a strange land, unac-
quainted with the language and customs of our
adopted country, to have some recognized coun-
selor and advisor to whom we may all appeal
with confidence for wholesome instruction, and,
“‘Whereas, We should be at a loss as to what
course of action might be necessary for us to
pursue therefore,
“‘Resolved, That a committee of four be ap-
pointed to wait upon Selim E. Woodworth, Esq.,
and request him in behalf of the Chinese resi-
dents of San Francisco to act in the capacity of
arbiter and advisor for them.’
“Mr. Woodworth was waited upon by Ah Hee,
Jon Ling, Ah Ting and Ah Toon and kindly
consented to act. The whole affair passed off
in the happiest manner. Many distinguished
guests were present, Hon. J. W. Geary, alcalde;
E. H. Harrison, ex-collector of the port, and
others.”
At the celebration of the admission of Cali-
fornia into the Union the “China Boys” were a
prominent feature. One report says: “The
Celestials had a banner of crimson satin on
which were some Chinese characters and the in-
scription ‘China Boys.' They numbered about
fifty and were arrayed in the richest stuff and
commanded by their chief, Ah Sing.”
While the “China Boys” were feted and flat-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
231
tered in San Francisco they were not so enthu-
siastically welcomed by the miners. The legis-
lature in 1850 passed a law fixing the rate of
license for a foreign miner at $20 per month.
This was intended to drive out and keep out of
the mines all foreigners, but the rate was so
excessively high that it practically nullified the
enforcement of the law and it was repealed in
1851. As the Chinese were only allowed peace-
able possession of mines that would not pay
white man's wages they did not make fortunes
in the diggings. If by chance the Asiatics
should happen to strike it rich in ground aban-
doned by white men there was a class among
the white miners who did not hesitate to rob the
Chinamen of their ground. -
As a result of their persecution in the mines
the Chinese flocked to San Francisco and it was
not long until that city had more “China Boys”
than it needed in its business. The legislature
of 1855 enacted a law that masters, owners or
consignors of vessels bringing to California
persons incompetent to become citizens under
the laws of the state should pay a fine of $50 for
every such person landed. A suit was brought
to test the validity of the act; it was declared
unconstitutional. In 1858 the foreign miner's
tax was $10 per month and as most of the other
foreigners who had arrived in California in the
early '50s had by this time become citizens by
naturalization the foreigners upon whom the
tax bore most heavily were the Chinese who
could not become citizens. As a consequence
many of them were driven out of the mines and
this again decreased the revenue of the mining
counties, a large part of which was made up of
poll tax and license. -
The classes most bitterly opposed to the Chi-
nese in the mines were the saloon-keepers, the
gamblers and their constituents. While the
Chinaman himself is a most inveterate gambler
and not averse to strong drink he did not divest
himself of his frugal earnings in the white man’s
saloon or gambling den, and the gentry who
kept these institutions were the first, like Bill
Nye in Bret Harte's poem, to raise the cry,
“We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor.”
While the southern politicians who were the
rttlers of the state before the Civil war were
opposed to the Chinese and legislated against
them, it was not done in the interest of the white
laborer. An act to establish a coolie system of
servile labor was introduced in the pro-slavery
legislature of 1854. It was intended as a sub-
stitute for negro slavery. Senator Roach, a free
state man, exposed its iniquity. It was defeated.
The most intolerant and the most bitter oppo-
nents of the Chinese then and later when opposi-
tion had intensified were certain servile classes of
Europeans who in their native countries had al-
ways been kept in a state of servility to the aris-
tocracy, but when raised to the dignity of Amer-
ican citizens by naturalization proceeded to
celebrate their release from their former serf-
dom by persecuting the Chinese, whom they re-
garded as their inferiors. The outcry these peo-
ple made influenced politicians, who pandered to
them for the sake of their votes to make laws
and ordinances that were often burlesques on
legislation.
In 1870 the legislature enacted a law impos-
ing a penalty of not less than $1,000 nor more
than $5,000 or imprisonment upon any one
bringing to California any subject of China or
Japan without first presenting evidence of his
or her good character to the commissioner of
immigration. The supreme court decided the
law unconstitutional. Laws were passed pro-
hibiting the employment of Chinese on the pub-
lic works; prohibiting them from owning real
estate and from obtaining licenses for certain
kinds of business. The supervisors of San Fran–
cisco passed an ordinance requiring that the
hair of any male prisoner convicted of an of-
fense should be cut within one inch of his head.
This, of course, was aimed at Chinese convicts
and intended to deprive them of their queues
and degrade them in the estimation of their peo-
ple. It was known as the Pig Tail Ordinance;
the mayor vetoed it. Another piece of class
legislation by the San Francisco supervisors im-
posed a license of $15 a quarter on laundries
using no horses, while a laundry using a one-
horse wagon paid but $2 per quarter. The Chi-
nese at this time (1876) did not use horses in
their laundry business. The courts decided
against this ordinance.
Notwithstanding the laws and ordinances
232
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
against them the Chinese continued to come
and they found employment of some kind to
keep them from starving. They were indus-
trious and economical; there were no Chinese
tramps. Although they filled a want in the
state, cheap and reliable labor, at the beginning
of its railroad and agricultural development,
they were not desirable citizens. Their habits
and morals were bad. Their quarters in the
cities reeked with filth and immorality. They
maintained their Asiatic customs and despised
the “white devils” among whom they lived,
which, by the way, was not strange considering
the mobbing and maltreatment they received
from the other aliens. They made merchandise
of their women and carried on a revolting sys-
tem of female slavery.
The Burlingame treaty guaranteed mutual
protection to the citizens of China and the
United States on each other's soil; to freedom in
religious opinions; to the right to reside in
either country at will and other privileges ac-
corded to civilized nations. Under this treaty
the Chinese could not be kept out of California
and agitation was begun for the modification or
entire abrogation of the treaty.
For a number of years there had been a steady
decline in the price of labor. Various causes
had contributed to this. The productiveness of
the mines had decreased; railroad communica-
tion with the east had brought in a number of
workmen and increased competition; the efforts
of the labor unions to decrease the hours of labor
and still keep up the wages at the old standard
had resulted in closing up some of the manu-
facturing establishments, the proprietors finding
it impossible to compete with eastern factories.
All these and other causes brought about a de-
pression in business and brought on in 1877-78
a labor agitation that shook the foundations of
our social fabric. The hard times and decline in
wages was charged against the Chinese. No
doubt the presence of the Mongolians in Cali-
fornia had considerable to do with it and par-
ticularly in the lower grades of employment
but the depression was mainly caused from
over-production and the financial crisis of 1873,
which had affected the whole United States.
Another cause local to California was the wild
mania for stock gambling that had prevailed in
California for a number of years. The bonanza
kings of the Washoe by getting up corners in
stocks running up fraudulent values and then
unloading on Outside buyers had impoverished
thousands of people of small means and enriched
themselves without any return to their dupes.
Hard times always brings to the front a class
of noisy demagogues who with no remedy to
prescribe increase the discontent by vitupera-
tive abuse of everybody outside of their sym-
pathizers. The first of the famous sand lot mass
meetings of San Francisco was held July 23,
1877, on a vacant lot on the Market street
side of the city hall. Harangues were made and
resolutions passed denouncing capitalists, de-
claring against subsidies to steamship and rail-
road lines, declaring that the reduction of wages
was part of a conspiracy for the destruction of
the republic and that the military should not be
employed against strikers. An anti-coolie club
was formed and on that and the two succeeding
evenings a number of Chinese laundries were
destroyed. In a fight between the police (aided
by the committee of safety) and the rioters sev-
eral of the latter were killed. Threats were
made to destroy the railroad property and burn
the vessels of the Pacific Mail Steamship Com-
pany unless the Chinese in their employ were
immediately discharged.
Among the agitators that this ebullition of dis-
content threw to the front was an Irish dray-
man named Dennis Kearney. He was shrewd
enough to see that some notoriety and political
capital could be made by the organization of a
Workingmen's party.
On the 5th of October a permanent organiza-
tion of the Workingmen's party of California was
effected. Dennis Kearney was chosen president,
J. G. Day, vice-president, and H. L. Knight, sec-
retary. The principles of the party were the con-
densed essence of selfishness. The working
classes were to be elevated at the expense of
every other. “We propose to elect none but com-
petent workingmen and their friends to any of—
fice whatever.” “The rich have ruled us till they
have ruined us.” “The republic must and shall
be preserved, and only workingmen will do it.”
“This party will exhaust all peaceable means of
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
233
attaining its ends, but it will not be denied jus-
tice when it has the power to enforce it.” “It
will encourage no riot or outrage, but it will
not volunteer to repress or put down or arrest,
or prosecute the hungry and impatient who
manifest their hatred of the Chinamen by a cru-
sade against John or those who employ him.”
These and others as irrelevant and immaterial
were the principles of the Workingmen's party
that was to bring the millennium. The move-
ment spread rapidly, clubs were formed in every
ward in San Francisco and there were organiza-
tions in all the cities of the state. The original
leaders were all of foreign birth, but when the
movement became popular native born dema-
gogues, perceiving in it an opportunity to Ob-
tain office, abandoned the old parties and joined
the new.
Kearney now devoted his whole time to agi-
tation, and the applause he received from his
followers pampered his inordinate conceit. His
language was highly incendiary. He advised
every workingman to own a musket and one
hundred rounds of ammunition and urged the
formation of military companies. He posed as
a reformer and even hoped for martyrdom. In
one of his harangues he said: “If I don't get
killed I will do more than any reformer in the
history of the world. I hope I will be assassi-
nated, for the success of the movement depends
on that.” The incendiary rant of Kearney and
his fellows became alarming. It was a tame
meeting, at which no “thieving millionaire,
scoundrelly official or extortionate railroad mag-
nate” escaped lynching by the tongues of la-
borite reformers. The charitable people of the
city had raised by subscription $2O,OOO to al-
leviate the prevailing distress among the poor.
It was not comforting to a rich man to hear
himself doomed to “hemp' hemp! hemp!”
simply because by industry, economy and enter-
prise he had made a fortune. It became evident
that if Kearney and his associates were allowed
to talk of hanging men and burning the city
some of their dupes would put in practice the
teachings of their leaders. The supervisors,
urged on by the better class of citizens, passed
an ordinance called by the sand-lotters “Gibbs’
gag law.” On the 29th of October, Kearney and
his fellow agitators, with a mob of two or three
thousand followers, held a meeting on Nob Hill,
where Stanford, Crocker, Hopkins and other
railroad magnates had built palatial residences.
He roundly denounced as thieves the nabobs of
Nob Hill and declared that they would soon feel
the power of the workingmen. When his party
was thoroughly organized they would march
through the city and compel the thieves to give
up their plunder; that he would lead them to the
city hall, clear out the police, hang the pros-
ecuting attorney, burn every book that had a
particle of law in it, and then enact new laws
for the workingmen. These and other utter-
ances equally inflammatory caused his arrest
while addressing a meeting on the borders of
the Barbary coast. Trouble was expected, but
he quietly submitted and was taken to jail and a
few days later Day, Knight, C. C. O'Donnell and
Charles E. Pickett were arrested on charges of
inciting riot and taken to jail. A few days in
jail cooled them off and they began to “squeal.”
They addressed a letter to the mayor, saying
their utterances had been incorrectly reported
by the press and that if released they were will-
ing to submit to any wise measure to allay the
excitement. They were turned loose after two
weeks' imprisonment and their release was cele-
brated on Thanksgiving Day, November 29, by
a grand demonstration of sand lotters—seven
thousand of whom paraded the streets.
It was not long before Kearney and his fel-
lows were back on the sand lots hurling out
threats of lynching, burning and blowing up.
On January 5 the grand jury presented indict-
ments against Kearney, Wellock, Knight,
O'Donnell and Pickett. They were all released
on the rulings of the judge of the criminal court
on the grounds that no actual riot had taken
place. -
The first victory of the so-called Working-
men's party was the election of a state senator in
Alameda county to fill a vacancy caused by the
death of Senator Porter. An individual by the
name of John W. Bones was elected. On ac-
count of his being long and lean he was known
as Barebones and sometimes Praise God Bare-
bones. . His only services in the senate were the
perpetration of some doggerel verses and a
234
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
speech or two on Kearney's theme, “The Chi-
Inese Must Go.” At the election held June 19,
1878, to choose delegates to a constitutional
convention of the one hundred and fifty-two
delegates the Workingmen elected fifty-seven,
thirty-one of whom were from San Francisco.
The convention met at Sacramento, September
28, 1878, and continued to sit in all one hundred
and fifty-seven days. It was a mixed assem-
blage. There were some of the ablest men in
the state in it, and there were some of the most
narrow minded and intolerant bigots there. The
Workingmen flocked by themselves, while the
non-partisans, the Republicans and Democrats,
for the most part, acted in unison. Opposition
to the Chinese, which was a fundamental prin-
ciple of the Workingmen's creed, was not con-
fined to them alone; some of the non-partisans
were as bitter in their hatred of the Mongolians
as the Kearneyites. Some of the crudities pro-
posed for insertion in the new constitution were
laughable for their absurdity. One sand lotter
proposed to amend the bill of rights, that all men
are by nature free and independent, to read, “All
men who are capable of becoming citizens of the
United States are by nature free and inde-
pendent.” One non-partisan wanted to incor-
porate into the fundamental law of the state
Kearney's slogan, “The Chinese Must Go.”
After months of discussion the convention
evolved a constitution that the ablest men in
that body repudiated, some of them going so far
as to take the stump against it. But at the elec-
tion it carried by a large majority. Kearney
continued his sand lot harangues. In the sum-
mer of 1879 he made a trip through the south-
ern counties of the state, delivering his diatribes
against the railroad magnates, the land mo-
nopolists and the Chinese. At the town of Santa
Ana, now the county seat of Orange county, in
his harangue he made a vituperative attack
upon the McFadden Brothers, who a year or
two before had built a steamer and run it in op-
position to the regular coast line steamers until
forced to sell it on account of losses incurred by
the competition. Kearney made a number of
false and libelous statements in regard to the
transaction. While he was waiting for the stage
to San Diego in front of the hotel he was con-
fronted by Rule, an employee of the McFad-
den's, with an imperious demand for the name of
Kearney's informant. Kearney turned white
with fear and blubbered out something about
not giving away his friends. Rule struck him
a blow that sent him reeling against the build-
ing. Gathering himself together he made a rush
into the hotel, drawing a pistol as he ran. Rule
pursued him through the dining room and out
across a vacant lot and into a drug store, where
he downed him and, holding him down with his
knee on his breast, demanded the name of his
informer. One of the slandered men pulled
Rule off the “martyr” and Kearney, with a face
resembling a beefsteak, took his departure to
San Diego. From that day on he ceased his
vituperative attacks on individuals. He had met
the Only argument that could convince him of
the error of his ways. He lost caste with his
fellows. This braggadocio, who had boasted of
leading armies to conquer the enemies of the
Workingmen, with a pistol in his hand had
ignominiously fled from an unarmed man and
had taken a humiliating punishment without a
show of resistance. His following began to de-
sert him and Kearney went if the Chinese did
not. The Workingmen's party put up a state
ticket in 1879, but it was beaten at the polls and
went to pieces. In 1880 James Angell of Mich-
igan, John F. Swift of California, and William
H. Trescott of South Carolina were appointed
commissioners to proceed to China for the pur-
pose of forming new treaties. An agreement
was reached with the Chinese authorities by
which laborers could be debarred for a certain
period from entering the United States. Those
in the country were all allowed the rights that
aliens of other countries had. The Senate ratified
the treaty May 5th, 1881.
The following is a list of the governors of Cal-
ifornia, Spanish, Mexican and American, with
date of appointment or election: Spanish:
Gaspar de Portolà, 1767: Felipe Barri, 1771;
Felipe de Neve, 1774; Pedro Fages, 1790; José
Antonio Romeu, 1790; José Joaquin de Ar-
rillaga, 1792; Diego de Borica, 1794; José Joa-
quin de Arrillaga, 1800; José Arguello, 1814:
Pablo Vicente de Sola, 1815. Mexican gov-
ernors: Pablo Vicente de Sola, 1822; Luis
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
235
Arguello, 1823; José Maria Echeandia, 1825;
Manuel Victoria, 1831; Pio Pico, 1832; José
Maria Echeandia, Agustin Zamorano, 1832;
José Figueroa, 1833; José Castro, 1835; Nicolas
Gutierrez, 1836; Mariano Chico, 1836; Nicolas
Gutierrez, 1836; Juan B. Alvarado, 1836; Man-
uel Micheltorena, 1842; Pio Pico, 1845. Amer-
ican military governors: Commodore Robert
F. Stockton, 1846; Col. John C. Fremont; Jan-
uary, 1847; Gen. Stephen W. Kearny, March
1, 1847; Col. Richard B. Mason, May 31, 1847:
Gen. Bennet Riley, April 13, 1849. American
governors elected: Peter H. Burnett, 1849.
John McDougal, Lieutenant-governor, became
governor on resignation of P. H. Burnett in
January, 1851; John Bigler, 1851; John Bigler,
1853; J. Neely Johnson, 1855; John B. Weller,
1857; M. S. Latham, 1859; John G. Downey,
lieutenant-governor, became governor in 1859
by election of Latham to United States senate;
Leland Stanford, 1861; Frederick F. Low, 1863;
Henry H. Haight, 1867; Newton Booth, 1871;
Romualdo Pacheco, lieutenant governor, be-
came governor February, 1875, on election of
Booth to the United States senate; William Ir–
win, 1875; George C. Perkins, 1879; George
Stoneman, 1882; Washington Bartlett, 1886;
Robert W. Waterman, lieutenant-governor, be-
came governor September 12, 1887, upon the
death of Governor Bartlett; H. H. Markham,
1890; James H. Budd, 1894; Henry T. Gage,
1898; Ceorge C. Pardee, 1902; James H. Gillett,
1906. - -
CHAPTER XXXV.
EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONs.
not the patrons of education. They
bent all their energies towards pros-
elyting. Their object was to fit their converts
for the next world. An ignorant Soul might
be as happy in paradise as the most learned.
Why educate the neophyte? He was converted,
and then instructed in the work assigned him
at the mission. There were no public Schools
at the missions. A few of the brightest of
the neophytes, who were trained to sing in
the church choirs, were taught to read, but the
great mass of them, even those of the third gen-
eration, born and reared at the missions, were
as ignorant of book learning as were their great-
grandfathers, who ran naked among the oak
trees of the mesas and fed on acorns.
Nor was there much attention paid to edu-
cation among the gente de rason of the pre-
sidios and pueblos. But few of the common
people could read and write. Their ancestors
lad made their way in the world without book
learning. Why should the child know more
than the parent? And trained to have great filial
regard for his parent, it was not often that
the progeny aspired to rise higher in the scale
/ | N HE Franciscans, unlike the Jesuits, were
of intelligence than his progenitor. Of the
eleven heads of families who founded Los An-
geles, not one could sign his name to the title
deed of his house lot. Nor were these an ex-
ceptionally ignorant collection of hombres. Out
of fifty men comprising the Monterey company
in 1785, but fourteen could write. In the com-
pany stationed at San Francisco in 1794 not a
soldier among them could read or write; and
forty years later of one hundred men at Sonoma
not one could write his name. -
The first community want the American pio-
neers supplied was the school house. Wher-
ever the immigrants from the New England
and the middle states planted a settlement, there,
at the same time, they planted a school house.
The first community want that the Spanish
pabladores (colonists) supplied was a church.
The school house was not wanted or if wanted it
was a long felt want that was rarely or never
satisfied. At the time of the acquisition of Cal-
ifornia by the Americans, seventy-seven years
from the date of its first settlement, there was
not a public school house owned by any pre-
sidio, pueblo or city in all its territory.
The first public school in California was
236
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
opened in San José in December, 1794, seven-
teen years after the founding of that pueblo.
The pioneer teacher of California was Manuel
de Vargas, a retired sergeant of infantry. The
school was opened in the public granary.
Vargas, in 1795, was offered $250 to open a
school in San Diego. As this was higher wages
than he was receiving he accepted the offer.
José Manuel Toca, a gamute or ship boy, ar-
rived on a Spanish transport in 1795 and the
same year was employed at Santa Barbara as
schoolmaster at a yearly salary of $125. Thus
the army and the navy pioneered education in
California.
Governor Borica, the founder of public
schools in California, resigned in 18OO and was
succeeded by Arrillaga. Governor Arrillaga, if
not opposed to, was at least indifferent to the
education of the common people. He took life
easy and the schools took long vacations; in-
deed, it was nearly all vacation during his term.
Governor Sola, the successor of Arrillaga, made
an effort to establish public schools, but the in-
difference of the people discouraged him. In
the lower pueblo, Los Angeles, the first school
was opened in 1817, thirty-six years after the
founding of the town. The first teacher there
was Maximo Piña, an invalid soldier. He re-
ceived $140 a year for his services as school-
master. If the records are correct, his was the
only school taught in Los Angeles during the
Spanish régime. One year of schooling to forty
years of vacation, there was no educational
cramming in those days.
the Spanish era were invalid soldiers, possessed
of that dangerous thing, a “little learning;' and
it was very little indeed. About all they could
teach was reading, writing and the doctrina
Christiana. They were brutal tyrants and their
school government a military despotism. They
did not spare the rod or the child, either. The
rod was too mild an instrument of punishment.
Their implement of torture was a cat-o'-nine-
tails, made of hempen cords with iron points.
To fail in learning the doctrina Christiana was
an unpardonable sin. For this, for laughing
aloud, playing truant or other offenses no more
heinous, the guilty boy “was stretched face
downward upon a bench with a handkerchief
The schoolmasters of .
thrust into his mouth as a gag and lashed with a
dozen or more blows until the blood ran down
his little lacerated back.” If he could not im-
bibe the Christian doctrine in any other way,
it was injected into him with the points of the
lash.
Mexico did better for education in California
than Spain. The school terms were lengthened
and the vacation shortened proportionally. Gov-
ernor Echeandia, a man hated by the friars, was
an enthusiastic friend of education. “He be-
lieved in the gratuitous and compulsory educa-
tion of rich and poor, Indians and gente de
racon alike.” He held that learning was the
corner-stone of a people's wealth and it was the
duty of the government to foster education.
When the friars heard of his views “they called
upon God to pardon the unfortunate ruler un-
able to comprehend how vastly superior a re-
ligious education was to one merely secular.”
Echeandia made a brave attempt to establish a
public school system in the territory. He de-
manded of the friars that they establish a school
at each mission for the neophytes; they prom-
ised, but, with the intention of evading, a show
was made of Opening Schools. Soon it was re-
ported that the funds were exhausted and the
schools had to close for want of means to Sup-
port them. Nor was Echeandia more successful
with the people. He issued an order to the
commanding officers at the presidios to compel
parents to send their children to school. The
school at Monterey was opened, the alcalde act-
ing as schoolmaster. The school furniture con-
sisted of one table and the school books were
one arithmetic and four primers. The school
funds were as meager as the school furniture.
Echeandia, unable to contend against the enmity
of the friars, the indifference of the parents and
the lack of funds, reluctantly abandoned his
futile fight against ignorance.
One of the most active and earnest friends of
the public schools during the Mexican era was
the much abused Governor Micheltorena. He
made an earnest effort to establish a public
school system in California. Through his efforts
schools were established in all the principal
*Bancroft’s California Pastoral.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
237
towns and a guarantee of $500 from the ter-
ritorial funds promised to each school. Michel-
torena promulgated what might be called the
first school law of California. It was a decree
issued May 1, 1844, and consisted of ten articles,
which prescribed what should be taught in the
schools, school hours, school age of the pupils
and other regulations. Article IO named the
most holy virgin of Guadalupe as patroness of
the schools. Her image was to be placed in
each school. But, like all his predecessors,
Micheltorena failed; the funds were soon ex-
hausted and the schools closed. -
Even had the people been able to read there
would have been nothing for them to read but
religious books. The friars kept vigilant watch
that no interdicted books were brought into the
country. If any were found they were seized
and publicly burned. Castro, Alvarado and Val-
lejo were at one time excommunicated for read-
ing Rousseau's works, Telemachus and other
books on the prohibited list. Alvarado having
declined to pay Father Duran some money he
owed him because it was a sin to have anything
to do with an excommunicated person, and
therefore it would be a sin for the father to take
money from him, the padre annulled the sen-
tence, received the money and gave Alvarado
permission to read anything he wished.
During the war for the conquest of California
and for some time afterwards the schools were
all closed. The wild rush to the gold mines in
1848 carried away the male population. No One
would stay at home and teach school for the
paltry pay given a schoolmaster. The ayunta-
miento of Los Angeles in the winter of 1849-50
appointed a committee to establish a school.
After a three months’ hunt the committee re-
ported “that an individual had just presented
himself who, although he did not speak English,
yet could he teach the children many useful
things; and besides the same person had man-
aged to get the refusal of Mrs. Pollerena's house
for school purpose.” At the next meeting of the
ayuntamiento the committee reported that the
individual who had offered to teach had left for
the mines and neither a school house nor a
schoolmaster could be found.
In June, 1850, the ayuntamiento entered into
a contract with Francisco Bustamente, an ex-
soldier, “to teach to the children first, second
and third lessons and likewise to read script, to
write and count and so much as I may be com—
petent to teach them orthography and good
morals.” Bustamente was to receive $60 per
month and $20 for house rent. This was the
first school opened in Los Angeles after the
conquest.
“The first American school in San Francisco
and, we believe, in California, was a merely pri-
vate enterprise. It was opened by a Mr. Mars-
ton from one of the Atlantic states in April,
1847, in a small shanty which stood on the block
between Broadway and Pacific streets, west of
Dupont street. There he collected some twenty
or thirty pupils, whom he continued to teach for
almost a whole year, his patrons paying for tui-
tion.”*
In the fall of 1847 a school house was built
On the southwest corner of Portsmouth square,
fronting on Clay street. The money to build it
was raised by subscription. It was a very mod-
est structure—box shaped with a door and two
windows in the front and two windows in each
end. It served a variety of purposes besides that
of a School house. It was a public hall for all
kinds of meetings. Churches held service in it.
The first public amusements were given in it.
At one time it was used for a court room. The
first meeting to form a state government was
held in it. It was finally degraded to a police
office and a station house. For some time after
it was built no school was kept in it for want of
funds.
On the 21st of February, 1848, a town meet-
ing was called for the election of a board of
school trustees and Dr. F. Fourguard, Dr. J.
Townsend, C. L. Ross, J. Serrini and William
H. Davis were chosen. On the 3d of April fol-
lowing these trustees opened a school in the
school house under the charge of Thomas
Douglas, A. M., a graduate of Yale College and
an experienced teacher of high reputation. The
board pledged him a salary of $1,000 per an-
num and fixed a tariff of tuition to aid towards
its payment; and the town council, afterwards,
*Annals of San Francisco.
238
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
to make up any deficiency, appropriated to the
payment of the teacher of the public School in
this place $200 at the expiration of twelve
months from the commencement of the school.
“Soon after this Mr. Marston discontinued his
private school and Mr. Douglas collected Some
forty pupils.”
The school flourished for eight or ten weeks.
Gold had been discovered and rumors were
coming thick and fast of fortunes made in a day.
A thousand dollars a year looked large to Mr.
Douglas when the contract was made, but in the
light of recent events it looked rather small.
A man in the diggings might dig out $1,000 in a
week. So the schoolmaster laid down the
pedagogical birch, shouldered his pick and hied
himself away to the diggings. In the rush for
gold, education was forgotten. December 12,
1848, Charles W. H. Christian reopened the
school, charging tuition at the rate of $10. Evi-
dently he did not teach longer than it took him
to earn money to reach the mines. April 23,
1849, the Rev. Albert Williams, pastor of the
First Presbyterian church, obtained the use of
the school house and opened a private School,
charging tuition. He gave up school teaching
to attend to his ministerial duties. In the fall
of '49 John C. Pelton, a Massachusetts school-
master, arrived in San Francisco and December
26 opened a school with three pupils in the Bap-
tist church on Washington street. He fitted up
the church with writing tables and benches at
his own expense, depending on voluntary con-
tributions for his support. In the spring of
1850 he applied to the city council for relief and
for his services and that of his wife he received
$500 a month till the summer of 1851, when he
closed his school.
Col. T. J. Nevins, in June, 1850, obtained rent
free the use of a building near the present inter-
section of Mission and Second streets for school
purposes. He employed a Mr. Samuel New-
ton as teacher. The school was opened July
13. The school passed under the supervision
of several teachers. The attendance was small
at first and the school was supported by con-
tributions, but later the council voted an ap-
* Annals of San Francisco.
propriation. The school was closed in 1851.
Colonel Nevins, in January, 1851, secured a
fifty-vara lot at Spring Valley on the Presidio
road and built principally by subscription a
large School building, employed a teacher and
opened a free School, supported by contributions.
The building was afterwards leased to the city
to be used for a free school, the term of the
lease running ninety-nine years. This was the
first school building in which the city had an
Ownership. Colonel Nevins prepared an ordi-
nance for the establishment, regulation and
support of free common schools in the city.
The Ordinance was adopted by the city council
September 25, 1851, and was the first ordinance
establishing free schools and providing for their
maintenance in San Francisco.
A bill to provide for a public school system
was introduced in the legislature of 1850, but
the committee on education reported that it
would be two or three years before any means
would become available from the liberal pro-
visions of the constitution; in the meantime
the persons who had children to educate could
do it out of their own pockets. So all action
was postponed and the people who had children
paid for their tuition or let them run without
schooling.
The first school law was passed in 1851. It
was drafted mainly by G. B. Lingley, John C.
Pelton and the superintendent of public instruc-
tion, J. G. Marvin. It was revised and amended
by the legislatures of 1852 and 1853. The state
school fund then was derived from the sale and
rental of five hundred thousand acres of state
land; the estates of deceased persons escheated
to the state; state poll tax and a state tax of
five cents on each $100 of assessed property.
Congress in 1853 granted to California the 16th
and 36th sections of the public lands for school
purposes. The total amount of this grant was
six million seven hundred and sixty-five thou-
sand five hundred and four acres, of which
forty-six thousand and eighty acres were to be
deducted for the founding of a state university
or college and six thousand four hundred acres
for public buildings.
The first apportionment of state funds was
made in 1854. The amount of state funds for
JHISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 2:39
that year.was $52,961. The county and mu-
nicipal school taxes amounted to $157,702.
These amounts were supplemented by rate bills
to the amount of $42,557. In 1856 the state
fund had increased to $69,961, while rate bills
had decreased to $28,619. That year there were
thirty thousand and thirty-nine children of
school age in the state, of these only about
fifteen thousand were enrolled in the schools.
In the earlier years, following the American
conquest, the schools were confined almost en-
tirely to the cities. The population in the coun-
try districts was too sparse to maintain a school.
The first school house in Sacramento was built
in 1849. It was located on I street. C. H. T.
Palmer opened school in it in August. It was
supported by rate bills and donations. He gath-
ered together about a dozen pupils. The school
was soon discontinued. Several other parties
in succession tried school keeping in Sacra-
mento, but did not make a success of it. It was
not until 1851 that a permanent school was es-
tablished. A public school was taught in Mon-
terey in 1849 by Rev. Willey. The school was
kept in Colton Hall. The first public school
house in Los Angeles was built in 1854. Hugh
Overns taught the first free school there in 1850.
The amount paid for teachers’ salaries in 1854
was $85,860 ; in 1906 it reached $5,666,045. The
total expenditures in 1854 for school purposes
amounted to $275,606; in 1906 to $8,727,008.
The first high school in the state was established.
in San Francisco in 1856. In 1906 there were
one hundred and ninety high schools, with an
attendance of eighteen thousand eight hundred
and seventy-nine students. Four millions of dol-
lars were invested in high school buildings, fur-
niture and grounds, and one thousand teachers
were employed in these schools.
THE UNIVERSITY OF THE PACIFIC.
This institution was chartered in August,
1851, as the California Wesleyan College, which
name was afterwards changed by act of the leg-
islature to that it now bears. The charter was
obtained under the general law of the state as
it then was, and on the basis of a subscription
of $27,500 and a donation of some ten acres of
land adjacent to the village of Santa Clara. A
school building was erected in which the pre-
paratory department was opened in May, 1852,
under the charge of Rev. E. Banister as prin-
cipal, aided by two assistant teachers, and be-
fore the end of the first session had over sixty
pupils. Near the close of the following year
another edifice was so far completed that the
male pupils were transferred to it, and the Fe-
male Collegiate Institute, with its special course
of study, was organized and continued in the
Original building. In 1854 the classes of the
college proper were formed and the requisite
arrangement with respect to president, faculty,
and course of study made. In 1858 two young
men, constituting the first class, received the de-
gree of A. B., they being the first to receive
that honor from any college in California. In
1865 the board of trustees purchased the Stock-
ton rancho, a large body of land adjoining the
town of Santa Clara. This was subdivided into
lots and small tracts and sold at a profit. By
this means an endowment was secured and an
excellent site for new college building obtained.
THE COLLEGE OF CALIFORNIA.
The question of founding a college or uni-
versity in California had been discussed early in
1849, before the assembling of the constitutional
convention at San José. The originator of the
idea was the Rev. Samuel H. Willey, D. D., of
the Presbyterian church. At that time he was
stationed at Monterey. The first legislature
passed a bill providing for the granting of col-
lege charters. The bill required that application
should be made to the supreme court, which was
to determine whether the property possessed by
the proposed college was worth $20,000, and
whether in other respects a charter should be
granted. A body of land for a college site had
been offered by James Stokes and Kimball H.
Dimmick to be selected from a large tract they
owned on the Guadalupe river, near San José.
When application was made for a college char-
ter the supreme court refused to give a charter .
to the applicants on the plea that the land
was unsurveyed and the title not fully deter-
mined.
The Rev. Henry Durant, who had at one time
been a tutor in Yale College, came to California
240
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
in 1853 to engage in teaching. At a meeting
of the presbytery of San Francisco and the Con-
gregational Association of California held in
Nevada City in May, 1853, which Mr. Durant
attended, it was decided to establish an acad-
emy at Oakland. There were but few houses
in Oakland then and the only communication
with San Francisco was by means of a little
Steamer that crossed the bay two or three times
a day. A house was obtained at the corner of
Broadway and Fifth street and the academy
opened with three pupils. A site was selected
for the school, which, when the streets were
Opened, proved to be four blocks, located be-
tween Twelfth and Fourteenth, Franklin and
Harrison streets. The site of Oakland at that
time was covered with live oaks and the sand
was knee deep. Added to other discourage-
ments, titles were in dispute and squatters were
seizing upon the vacant lots. A building was
begun for the school, the money ran out and
the property was in danger of seizure on a me-
chanics' lien, but was rescued by the bravery
and resourcefulness of Dr. Durant.
In 1855 the College of California was char-
tered and a search begun for a permanent site.
A number were offered at various places in the
state. The trustees finally selected the Berkeley
site, a tract of one hundred and sixty acres on
Strawberry creek near Oakland, opposite the
Golden Gate. The college school in Oakland
was flourishing. A new building, Academy
Hall, was erected in 1858. A college faculty
was organized. The Rev. Henry Durant and
the Rev. Martin Kellogg were chosen pro-
fessors and the first college class was organized
in June, 1860. The college classes were taught
in the buildings of the college school, which
were usually called the College of California.
The college classes were small and the endow-
ment smaller. The faculty met with many dis-
couragements. It became evident that the in-
stitution could never become a prominent one
in the educational field with the limited means
of support it could command. In 1863 the idea
of a state university began to be agitated. A bill
was passed by the state legislature in 1866, de-
voting to the support of a narrow polytechnical
school, the federal land grants to California for
the support of agricultural schools and a college
of mechanics. The trustees of the College of
California proposed in 1867 to transfer to the
state the college site at Berkeley, opposite the
Golden Gate, together with all the other assets
remaining after the debts were paid, on con-
dition that the state would build a University of
California on the site at Berkeley, which should
be a classical and technological college.
lu NIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.
A bill for the establishing of a state university
was introduced in the legislature March 5, 1868,
by Hon. John W. Dwinelle of Alameda county.
After some amendments it was finally passed,
March 21, and on the 27th of the same month a
bill was passed making an appropriation for the
Support of the institution.
The board of regents of the university was
organized June 9, 1868, and the same day Gen.
George B. McClellan was elected president of
the university, but at that time being engaged in
building Stevens Battery at New York he de-
clined the honor. September 23, 1869, the
scholastic exercises of the university were be-
gun in the buildings of the College of Califor-
nia in Oakland and the first university class was
graduated in June, 1873. The new buildings of
the university at Berkeley were occupied in
September, 1873. Prof. John Le Conte was act-
ing president for the first year. Dr. Henry
Durant was chosen to fill that position and was
succeeded by D. C. Gilman in 1872. The corner-
stone of the Agricultural College, called the
South Hall, was laid in August, 1872, and that
of the North Hall in the spring of 1873.
The university, as now constituted, consists
of Colleges of Letters, Social Science, Agricul-
ture, Mechanics, Mining, Civil Engineering,
Chemistry and Commerce, located at Berkeley;
the Lick Astronomical Department at Mount
Hamilton; and the professional and affiliated
colleges in San Francisco, namely, the Hastings
College of Law, the Medical Department, the
Post-Graduate Medical Department, the Col-
ſege of Dentistry and Pharmacy, the Veterinary
Department and the Mark Hopkins Institute of
Art. The total value of the property belonging
to the university at this time is about $5,000,000
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
241
à
and the endowment funds nearly $3,000,000.
The total income in 1900 was $475,254.
LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY.
“When the intention of Senator Stanford to
found a university in memory of his lamented
son was first announced, it was expected from .
the broad and comprehensive views which he
was known to entertain upon the subject, that
his plans, when formed, would result in no ordi-
nary college endowment or educational scheme,
but when these plans were laid before the people
their magnitude was so far beyond the most ex-
travagant of public anticipation that all were as-
tonished at the magnificence of their aggregate,
the wide scope of their detail and the absolute
grandeur of their munificence. The brief his–
tory of California as an American state com-
prises much that is noble and great, but nothing
in that history will compare in grandeur with
this act of one of her leading citizens. The
records of history may be searched in vain for
a parallel to this gift of Senator Stanford to the
state of his adoption. * * * By this act
Senator Stanford will not only immortalize the
memory of his son, but will erect for himself a
monument more enduring than brass or marble,
for it will be enshrined in the hearts of succeed-
ing generations for all time to come.”
Senator Stanford, to protect the endowments
he proposed to make, prepared a bill, which was
passed by the legislature, approved by the gov-
ernor and became a law March 9, 1885. It is
entitled “An act to advance learning, the arts
and sciences and to promote the public welfare,
by providing for the conveyance, holding and
protection of property, and the creation of trusts
for the founding, endowment, erection and
maintenance within this state of universities,
colleges, schools, seminaries of learning, me-
chanical institutes, museums and galleries of
art.”
Section 2 specifies how a grant for the above
purposes may be made: “Any person desiring
in his lifetime to promote the public welfare by
founding, endowing and having maintained
within this state a university, college, school,
* Monograph of Leland Stanford Junior University.
seminary of learning, mechanical institute, mu-
seum or gallery of art or any or all thereof, may,
to that end, and for such purpose, by grant in
writing, convey to a trustee, or any number of
trustees named in such grant (and their suc-
cessors), any property, real or personal, belong-
ing to such person, and situated or being within
this state; provided, that if any such person be
married and the property be community prop-
erty, then both husband and wife must join in
such grant.” The act contains twelve sections.
After the passage of the act twenty-four trus-
tees were appointed. Among them were judges
of the supreme and superior courts, a United
States senator and business men in various
lines.
Among the lands deeded to the university by
Senator Stanford and his wife were the Palo
Alto estate, containing seventy-two hundred
acres. This ranch had been devoted principally
to the breeding and rearing of thoroughbred
horses. On this the college buildings were to
be erected. The site selected was near the town
of Palo Alto, which is thirty-four miles south
from San Francisco on the railroad to San José,
in Santa Clara county.
Another property donated was the Vina
rancho, situated at the junction of Deer creek
with the Sacramento river in Tehama county.
It consisted of fifty-five thousand acres, of
which thirty-six thousand were planted to vines
and orchard and the remainder used for grain
growing and pasture.
The third rancho given to the support of the
university was the Gridley ranch, containing
about twenty-one thousand acres. This was sit-
uated in Butte county and included within its
limits some of the richest wheat growing lands
in the state. At the time it was donated its as-
sessed value was $1,000,000. The total amount
of land conveyed to the university by deed of
trust was eighty-three thousand two hundred
3.CreS.
The name selected for the institution was Le-
land Stanford Junior University. The corner-
stone of the university was laid May 14, 1887,
by Senator and Mrs. Leland Stanford. The site
of the college buildings is about one mile west
from Palo Alto. In his address to the trustees
16
242
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
November 14, 1885, Senator Stanford said: “We
do not expect to establish a university and fill
it with students at once. It must be the growth
of time and experience. Our idea is that in the
first instance we shall require the establishment
of colleges for both sexes; then of primary
Schools, as they may be needed; and out of all
these will grow the great central institution for
more advanced study.” The growth of the uni-
versity has been rapid. In a very few years after
its founding it took rank with the best institu-
tions of learning in the United States.
NORMAL SCEIOOLS.
The legislature of 1862 passed a bill author-
izing the establishment of a state normal school
for the training of teachers at San Francisco or
at such other place as the legislature may here-
after direct. The school was established and
conducted for several years at San Francisco,
but was eventually moved to San José, where a
site had been donated. A building was erected
and the school became a flourishing institution.
The first building was destroyed by fire and the
present handsome and commodious building
erected on a new site. The first normal school
established in the state was a private one, con-
ducted by George W. Minns. It was started in
ſº
San Francisco in 1857, but was discontinued
after the organization of the state school in 1863,
Minns becoming principal. A normal school
was established by the legislature at Los An-
geles in 1881. It was at first a branch of the
state School at San José and was under control
of the same board of trustees and the same prin-
cipal. Later it was made an independent insti-
tution with a board and principal of its own.
Normal schools have been established at
Chico (1889), San Diego (1897) and San Fran-
cisco (1899). The total number of teachers em-
ployed in the five state normal schools in 1900
was one hundred and one, of whom thirty-seven
were men and sixty-four women. The whole
number of students in these at that time was
two thousand and thirty-nine, of whom two hun-
dred and fifty-six were men and one thousand
eight hundred and thirty-nine women.
The total receipts for the support of these
schools from all sources were for the year end-
ing June 30, 1906, $429,416; the total expendi-
tures for the same time were $316,127; the value
of the normal school property of the state is
about $1,017,195. The educational system and
facilities of California, university, college, nor-
mal school and public school, rank with the best
in the United States.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
CITIES OF CALIFORNIA—THEIR ORIGIN AND GROWTH.
California for seventy-seven years after
the date of the first settlement made in
it, they founded but few towns and but one of
those founded had attained the dignity of a city
at the time of the American conquest. In a
previous chapter I have given sketches of the
founding of the four presidios and three pueblos
under Spanish rule. Twenty missions were es-
tablished under the rule of Spain and one under
the Mexican Republic. While the country in-
creased in population under the rule of Mex-
ico, the only new settlement that was formed
was the mission at Solano.
Fº Spain and Mexico possessed
Pueblos grew up at the presidios and some of
the mission settlements developed into towns.
The principal towns that have grown up around
the mission sites are San Juan Capistrano, San
Gabriel, San Buenaventura, San Miguel, San
Luis Obispo, Santa Clara and San Rafael.
The creation of towns began after the Ameri-
cans got possession of the country. Before the
treaty of peace between the United States and
Mexico had been made, and while the war was
in progress, two enterprising Americans, Robert
Semple and T. O. Larkin, had created on paper
an extensive city on the Straits of Carquinez.
The city of Francisca “comprises five miles,”
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
243
so the proprietors of the embryo metropolis an-
nounced in the Californian of April 20, 1847,
and in subsequent numbers. According to the
theory of its promoters, Francisca had the
choice of sites and must become the metropolis
of the coast. “In front of the city,” says their
advertisement, “is a commodious Bay, large
enough for two hundred ships to ride at anchor
safe from any wind. The country around the
city is the best agricultural portion of California
on both sides of the Bay; the straits being only
One mile wide, an easy crossing may always be
made. The entire trade of the great Sacra-
mento and San Joaquin Valleys (a fertile coun-.
try of great width and nearly seven hundred
miles long from North to South) must of neces-
sity pass through the narrow channel of Car-
quinez and the Bay, and the country is so situ-
ated that every person who passes from one side
of the Bay to the other will find the nearest and
best way by Francisca.”
In addition to its natural advantages the pro-
prietors offered other attractions and induce-
ments to settlers. They advertised that they
would give “seventy-five per cent of the net pro-
ceeds of the ferries and wharves for a school
fund and the embellishment of the city”; “they
have also laid out several entire squares for
school purposes and several others for public
walks” (parks). Yet, notwithstanding all the
Superior attractions and natural advantages of
Francisca, people would migrate to and locate
at the wind-swept settlement on the Cove of
Yerba Buena. And the town of the “good
herb” took to itself the name of San Francisco
and perforce compelled the Franciscans to be-
come Benicians. Then came the discovery of
gold and the consequent rush to the mines, and
although Francisca, or Benicia, was on the
route, or one of the routes, somehow San
Francisco managed to get all the profits out of
the trade and travel to the mines.
The rush to the land of gold expanded the
little settlement formed by Richardson and Leese
on the Cove of Yerba Buena into a great city
that in time included within its limits the mis-
sion and the presidio. The consolidation of the
city and county governments gave a simpler
form of municipal rule and gave the city room
to expand without growing outside of its mu-
nicipal jurisdiction. The decennial Federal cen-
sus from 1850 to the close of the century indi-
cates the remarkable growth of San Francisco.
Its population in 1850 was 21,000; in 1860, 56,-
8O2; in 1870, 149,473; in 1880, 234,OOO ; in 1890,
298,997; in 1900, 342,742.
In Chapter XXVI, page 175 et seq. of this
volume, I have given the early history of San
Francisco, or Yerba Buena, as it was called at
first. I have there given an account of its
growth and progress from the little hamlet on
Yerba Buena cove until it became the metropolis
of the Pacific coast. In that chapter I have told
briefly the story of the “Six Great Fires” that,
between December, 1849, and July, I851, devas-
tated the city. These wiped out of existence
every trace of the make-shift and nondescript
houses of the early gold period. After each fire
the burned district was rebuilt with hastily con-
structed houses, better than those destroyed, but
far from being substantial and fire-proof struc-
tures. The losses from these fires, although
great at the time, would be considered trivial
now. In the greatest of these—the fifth–start-
ing on the night of May 3, 1851, and raging for
ten hours, the property loss was estimated to be
between ten and twelve million dollars. There
were many lives lost. Over one thousand houses
were destroyed. The brick blocks and corru-
gated iron houses that by this time had replaced
the flimsy structures of the earlier period in the
business quarter of the city were supposed to be
fire-proof, but the great conflagration of May
3d and 4th, 1851, disapproved this claim. They
were consumed or melted down by the excessive
heat of that great fire. &
It became evident to the business men and
property holders that a better class of buildings
must be constructed, more stringent building
regulations enforced, and a more abundant wa-
ter supply secured. All these in due time were
obtained, and the era of great fires apparently
ended. As it expanded beyond the business
quarter it became a city of wooden walls. But
few dwelling houses were built of brick or stone,
and south of Market street many of the business
244
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
houses too were built of wood. Ninety per cent.
Of all the buildings in the modern city were frame
Structures. -
After the great fires of the early '50s San Fran-
cisco seemed to have become practically immune
from destructive conflagrations. Other large
cities of its class had suffered from great fires.
Chicago, in 1871, had been swept out of existence
by a fire that destroyed $170,000,000 of property.
Boston, in 1872, had been forced to give up to the
fire fiend $75,000,000 of its wealth; and Balti-
more, in I904, had suffered a property loss of
$50,000,000. San Francisco for more than half a
century had suffered but little loss from fires.
Those that had started were usually confined to
the building or the block in which they originat-
ed. The efficiency of its fire fighters, its fire-
proof business blocks, and the supposed inde-
structibility of the redwood walls of its dwelling
houses had engendered in its inhabitants a sense
of security against destructive fires.
The emblem on the seal of the city and county
of San Francisco—the Phoenix rising from the
flames in front of the Golden Gate—adopted in
1852, after the last of the “Six Great Fires,” had
little significance to the inhabitants of the modern
city. The story of the Great Fires was ancient
history. Nil desperandum—motto of the in-
vincibles who rebuilt the old city six times—
had no particular meaning to their descendants
except as a reminder of the energy, enterprise
and unconquerable determination of the men of
the olden, golden days. History would not re-
peat itself. The day of great fires for San Fran-
cisco was past. This dream of the immunity of
their city from destructive conflagrations was to
receive a rude awakening.
THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE AND FIRE.
On the morning of April 18, 1906, at thirteen
minutes past 5 o'clock, its four hundred thousand
inhabitants were aroused from their slumbers by
the terrifying shock of an earthquake. The
temblor was not a new visitor to San Francisco.
Earthquake shocks had shaken it at intervals ever
since its founding, but these had done little dam-
age and had come to be regarded more as a bug-
bear to frighten new arrivals than anything to
violence of it.
be feared. The earthquake of October, 1868, was
the most severe of those in the past. Five lives
were lost in it by falling walls. The walls of
Imany buildings were cracked. But one of the
most dangerous elements of the last great tem-
blor did not exist then, that is the electric wire.
The live wire has become one of the most dread-
ed agents in great fires. i
The impressions produced by the shock and the
sights witnessed during the progress of the fire
are thus graphically described by James Hopper
in “Everybody’s Magazine” for June (1906):
“Right away it was incredible—the violence of
the quake. It started with a directness, a savage
determination that left no doubt of its purpose.
It pounced upon the earth as some sideral bull-
dog, with a rattle of hungry eagerness. The
earth was a rat, shaken in the grinding teeth,
shaken, shaken, shaken with periods of slight
weariness followed by new bursts of vicious rage.
As far as I can remember my impressions were
as follows: First for a few seconds a feeling of
incredulity, capped immediately with one of final-
ity, of incredulity at the violence of the vibra-
tions. ‘It’s incredible, incredible,' I think I said
aloud. Then the feeling of finality: “It’s the
end—St. Pierre, Samoa, Vesuvius, Formosa, San
Francisco—this is death.’ Simultaneously with
that a picture of the city swaying beneath the
curl of a tidal wave foaming to the sky. Then in-
credulity again at the length of it, at the sullen
Incredulity again at the mere
length of the thing, the fearful stubbornness of
it. Then curiosity—I must see it.
“I got up and walked to the window. I start-
ed to open it, but the pane obligingly fell out-
ward and I poked my head out, the floor like a
geyser beneath my feet. Then I heard the roar
of the bricks coming down in cataracts and the
groaning of twisted girders all over the city, and
at the same time I saw the moon, a calm crescent
in the green sky of dawn. Below it the skeleton
frame of an unfinished sky-scraper was swaying
from side to side with a swing as exaggerated
and absurd as that of a palm in a stage tempest.
“Just then the quake, with a sound as of a snarl,
rose to its climax of rage, and the back wall of
my building for three stories above me fell. I
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
245
saw the mass pass across my vision Swift as a
shadow. It struck some little wooden houses in
the alley below. I saw them crash in like emptied
egg shells and the bricks pass through the roof
as through tissue paper.
“The vibrations ceased and I began to dress.
Then I noted the great silence. Throughout the
long quaking, in this great house full of people
I had not heard a cry, not a sound, not a Sob, not
a whisper. And now, when the roar of crumbling
buildings was over and only a brick falling here
and there like the trickle of a spent rain, this
silence continued, and it was an awful thing.
But now in the alley some one began to groan.
It was a woman's groan, Soft and low.
“I went down the stairs and into the streets,
and they were full of people, half-clad, dishev-
elled, but silent, absolutely silent, as if suddenly
they had become speechless idiots. I went into
the little alley at the back of the building, but it
was deserted and the crushed houses seemed
empty. I went down Post street toward the cen-
ter of town, and in the morning's garish light I
saw many men and women with gray faces, but
none spoke. All of them, they had a singular
hurt expression, not one of physical pain, but
rather one of injured sensibilities, as if Some
trusted friend, say, had suddenly wronged them,
or as if some one had said something rude to
them.” < * * * * * * * * *
He made his way to the Call building, where
he met the city editor, who said to him : “The
Brunswick hotel at Sixth and Folsom is down
with hundreds inside her. You cover that.”
“Going up into the editorial rooms of the Call,
with water to my ankles, I seized a bunch of copy
paper and started up Third street. At Tehama
street I saw the beginning of the fire which was
to sweep all the district south of Market street.
It was swirling up the narrow way with a Sound
that was almost a scream. Before it the humble
population of the district were fleeing, and in its
path, as far as I could see, frail shanties went
down like card houses. And this marks the true
character of the city's agony. Especially in the
populous districts south of Market street, but
also throughout the city, hundreds were pinned
down by the debris, some to a merciful death,
others to live hideous minutes. The flames swept
over them while the saved looked on impotently.
Over the tragedy the fire threw its flaming man-
tle of hypocrisy, and the full extent of the holo-
caust will never be known, will remain ever a
poignant mystery.”
“The firemen there were beginning the tre-
mendous and hopeless fight which, without inter-
mission, they were to continue for three days.
Without water (the mains had been burst by the
quake) they were attacking the fire with axes,
with hooks, with sacks, with their hands, re-
treating sullenly before it only when its feverish
breath burned their clothing and their skins.”
>{< >{< :: >{< >{<
He secured an automobile at the hire of $50 a
day to cover the progress of the fire.
“We started first to cover the fire I had seen on
its westward course from Third street. From
that time I have only a vague kaleidoscopic vi-
sion of whirring at whistling speed through a
city of the damned. We tried to make the fallen
Brunswick hotel at Sixth and Folsom streets.
We could not make it. The scarlet steeple chaser
beat us to it, and when we arrived the crushed
structure was only the base of one great flame
that rose to heaven with a single twist. By that
time we knew that the earthquake had been but
a prologue, and that the tragedy was to be writ-
ten in fire. We went westward to get the western
limit of the blaze.”
“Already we had to make a huge circle to get
above it. The whole district south of Market
street was now a pitiful sight. By thousands the
multitudes were pattering along the wide streets
leading out, heads bowed, eyes dead, silent and
stupefied. We stopped in passing at the South-
ern Pacific hospital. Carts, trucks, express
wagons, vehicles of all kinds laden with wounded,
were blocking the gate. Upon the porch stood
two internes, and their white aprons were red-
spotted as those of butchers. There were one
hundred and twenty-five wounded inside and
eight dead. Among the wounded was Chief Sul-
livan of the fire department. A chimney of the
California hotel had crushed through his house
at the first shock of the earthquake, and he and
his wife had been taken out of the debris with
246
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
incredible difficulty. He was to die two days
later, spared the bitter, hopeless effort which his
men were to know.”
>{< >k >{< >{< >k
“At Thirteenth and Valencia streets a policeman
and a crowd of volunteers were trying to raise
the debris of a house where a man and women
were pinned. One block farther we came to a
place where the ground had sunk six feet. A
fissure ran along Fourteenth street for several
blocks and the car tracks had been jammed along
their length till they rose in angular projections
three or four feet high. As we were examining
the phenomenon in a narrow way called Treat
avenue a quake occurred. It came upon the far-
end of endurance of the poor folk crowding the
alley. Women sank to their knees, drew their
shawls about their little ones, and broke out in
piercing lamentations, while men ran up and
down aimlessly, wringing their hands. An old
woman led by a crippled old man came wailing
down the steps of a porch, and she was blind. In
the center of the street they both fell and all the
poor encouragement we could give them could
not raise them. They had made up their minds
to die.”
>{< :k >{< >|< * >k
“On Valencia street, between Eighteenth and
Nineteenth, the Valencia hotel, a four-story
wooden lodging-house was down, its four stories
telescoped to the height of one, its upper rooms
ripped open with the cross section effect of a
doll-house. A squad of policemen and Some fifty
volunteers were working with rageful energy at
the tangle of walls and rafters. Eleven men were
known to have escaped, eight had been taken Out
dead, and more than one hundred were still in
the ruins. The street here was sunk six feet, and
again, as I was to see it many times more, I saw
that strange angular rise of the tracks as if the
ground had been pinched between some gigantic
fingers.”
“We went down toward the fire now. We
met it on Eighth street. From Third it had
come along in a swath four blocks wide. From
Market to Folsom, from Second to Eighth, it
spread its heaving red sea, and with a roar it was
rushing on, its advance billow curling like a
monster comber above a flotsam of fleeing hu-
manity. There were men, women and children.
Men, women and children—really that is about
all I remember of them, except that they were
miserable and crushed. Here and there are still
little Snap-shots in my mind—a woman carrying
in a cage a green and red parrot, squawking
incessantly “Hurry, hurry, hurry;' a little
smudge-faced girl with long-lashed brown eyes
holding in her arms a blind puppy; a man with
naked torSO carrying upon his head a hideous
chromo; another with a mattress and a cracked
mirror. But by this time the cataclysm itself, its
manifestation, its ferocious splendor, hypnotized
the brain, and humans sank into insignificance as
ants caught in the slide of a mountain. One more
scene I remember. On Eighth street, between
Folsom and Howard, was an empty sand lot
right in the path of the conflagration. It was
full of refugees, and what struck me was their
immobility. They sat there upon trunks, upon
bundles of clothing. On each side, like the claws
of a crab, the fire was closing in upon them. They
sat there motionless, as if cast in bronze, as if
indeed they were wrought upon some frieze rep-
resenting the Misery of Humanity. The fire
roared, burning coals showered them, the heat
rose, their clothes smoked, and they still sat there,
upon their little boxes, their bundles of rags, their
goods, the pathetic little hoard which they had
been able to treasure in their arid lives, a fixed
determination in their staring eyes not to leave
again, not to move another step, to die there and
then, with the treasures for the saving of which
their bodies had no further strength.”
The vibrations of the first earthquake shock
had scarcely ceased before the fire broke out in a
Inumber of different localities. The first alarm
came from Clay and Drumm streets on the city
front. Others followed in rapid succession until
by the afternoon of the first day the fire had al-
most entirely circled the lower section of the city.
The firemen made a brave fight at various points
to stay its progress, but the water mains had been
broken and their engines were useless. Then the
only hope to arrest the march of the fire fiend was
dynamite. The steady boom, boom of that ex-
plosive as hour after hour passed and house after
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
247
house was blown up told of the losing fight that
was being waged against the destroying element.
The wooden houses south of lower Market
street, one of the sections first attacked by the fire
fiend, were quickly destroyed and the fire swept
on to the westward. By Wednesday night it had
swept up to and leaped across Market street. The
tall buildings of the Call, Chronicle and Examiner
at Third and Market streets succumbed and the
great business blocks of the neighborhood were
gutted by the flames, only their outer shells re-
mained. By Thursday morning the flames had
swept over Sansome and Montgomery to Kear-
ney and in places beyond.
Jack London, in “Collier’s” of May 5th, gives
the following dramatic description of the scenes
in the heart of the business section :
“At nine o'clock Wednesday evening I walked
down through the very heart of the city. I
walked through miles and miles of magnificent
buildings and towering skyscrapers. Here was
no fire. All was in perfect order. The police
patrolled the streets. Every building had its
watchman at the door. And yet it was doomed,
all of it. There was no water. The dynamite
was giving out. And at right angles two differ-
ent conflagrations were sweeping down upon it.
“At one o'clock in the morning I walked down
through the same section. Everything still stood
intact. There was no fire. And yet there was a
change. A rain of ashes was falling. The
watchmen at the doors were gone. The police
had been withdrawn. There were no firemen, no
fire-engines, no men fighting with dynamite.
The district had been absolutely abandoned. I
stood at the corner of Kearney and Market, in
the very heart of San Francisco. Kearney street
was deserted. Half a dozen blocks away it was
burning on both sides. The street was a wall of
flame. And against this wall of flame, silhouetted
sharply, were two United States cavalrymen sit-
ting their horses, calmly watching. That was
all. Not another person was in sight. In the
intact heart of the city two troopers sat their
horses and watched.
“Surrender was complete. There was no wa-
ter. The sewers had long since been pumped
dry. There was no dynamite. Another fire had
broken out further up-town, and now from three
sides conflagrations were Sweeping down. The
fourth side had been burned earlier in the day.
In that direction stood the tottering walls of the
Examiner building, the burned-out Call building,
the smouldering ruins of the Grand hotel, and the
gutted, devastated, dynamited Palace hotel. The
following will illustrate the sweep of the flames
and the inability of men to calculate their speed.
At eight o'clock Wednesday evening I passed
through Union Square. It was packed with
refugees. Thousands of them had gone to bed
on the grass. Government tents had been set up,
supper was being cooked, and the refugees were
lining up for free meals.
“At half-past one in the morning three sides of
Union Square were in flames. The fourth side,
where stood the great St. Francis hotel, was still
holding out. An hour later, ignited from top and
sides, the St. Francis was flaming heavenward.
Union Square, heaped high with mountains of
trunks, was deserted. Troops, refugees, and all
had deserted. .
“Remarkable as it may seem, Wednesday
night, while the whole city crashed and roared
into ruin, was a quiet night. There were no
crowds. There was no shouting and yelling.
There was no hysteria, no disorder. I passed
Wednesday night in the path of the advancing
flames, and in all those terrible hours I saw not
one woman who wept, not one man who was ex-
cited, not one person who was in the slightest
degree panic-stricken.
“Before the flames, throughout the night, fled
tens of thousands of homeless ones. Some were
wrapped in blankets. Others carried bundles of
bedding and dear household treasures. Some-
times a whole family was harnessed to a carriage
or delivery wagon that was weighted down with
their possessions. Baby buggies, toy wagons
and go-carts were used as trucks, while every
other person was dragging a trunk. Yet every-
body was gracious. The most perfect courtesy
obtained. Never, in all San Francisco's history,
were her people so kind and courteous as on this .
night of terror.”
“All night these tens of thousands fled before
248
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
the flames. Many of them, the poor people from
the labor ghetto, had fled all day as well. They
had left their homes burdened with possessions.
Now and again they lightened up, flinging out
upon the street clothing and treasures they had
dragged for miles. - i
“They held on longest to their trunks, and over
these trunks many a strong man broke his heart
that night. The hills of San Francisco are steep,
and up these hills, mile after mile, were the trunks
dragged. Everywhere were trunks, with across
them lying their exhausted owners, men and wo–
men. Before the march of the flames were flung
picket lines of soldiers. And a block at a time, as
the flames advanced, these pickets retreated. One
of their tasks was to keep the trunk-pullers mov-
ing. The exhausted creatures, stirred on by the
menace of bayonets, would arise and struggle up
the steep pavements, pausing from weakness
every five or ten feet.
“Often, after surmounting a heart-breaking
hill, they would find another wall of flame advanc-
ing upon them at right angles and be compelled
to change anew the line of their retreat. In
the end, completely played out, after toiling for
a dozen hours like giants, thousands of them were
compelled to abandon their trunks.
“It was in Union Square that I saw a man of-
fering $1,000 for a team of horses. He was in
charge of a truck piled high with trunks from
some hotel. It had been hauled here into what
was considered safety, and the horses had been
taken out. The flames were on three sides of the
Square, and there were no horses.”
>{< >{< >{< >{< >{<
“An hour later, from a distance, I saw the
truck-load of trunks burning merrily in the mid-
dle of the street.” *
All day Thursday the fight was waged, the
flames steadily advancing to the westward. It
was determined to make the last stand on Van
Ness avenue, the widest street in the city. It was
solidly lined with magnificent dwellings, the resi-
dences of many of the wealthy inhabitants. Here
the fire fighters rallied. Here all the remaining
resources for fighting the destroying element
were collected, dynamite, barrels of powder from
the government stores and a battery of marine
guns. The mansions lining the avenue for near-
ly a mile in length were raked with artillery or
blown up with dynamite and powder. Here and
there the flames leaped across the line of defense
and ignited buildings beyond. Two small
streams of water were secured from unbroken
pipes and the fires that broke out beyond the line
of defense were beaten out, principally by the use
of wet blankets and rugs. By midnight of the
19th the fire was under control, and by Friday
morning the flames were conquered. A change
of wind during the night had aided the fire fight-
ers to check its westward march. As the wind
drove it back, it swept around the base of Tele-
graph Hill and destroyed all the poor tenement
houses near the base of that hill that it had spared
On its first advance, except a little oasis on the
upper slope that had been saved by a liberal use
of Italian wine. In the great fire of May 4, 1851,
De Witt & Harrison saved their warehouse,
which stood on the west side of Sansome street
between Pacific and Broadway, scarce a stone's
throw from Telegraph Hill, by knocking in the
heads of barrels of vinegar and covering the
building with blankets soaked in that liquid in
place of water, which could not be obtained.
Eighty thousand gallons were used, but the on-
ward march of the flames in that direction was
stopped. How many gallons of wine were sac-
rificed will never be known.
The earthquake shock had scarcely ceased be-
fore General Funston, in command of the mil-
itary forces at the Presidio, called out the troops
and sent them down into the stricken city, to aid
in keeping order and fighting the fire. Mayor
Schmitz issued a proclamation placing the city
under martial law. Across the streets were
thrown cordons of soldiers, who forced the dazed
and half-crazed crowd to keep away from the
danger of the advancing fire and falling walls.
In addition to their other duties the military had
to undertake the repression of crime. Even amid
the scenes of suffering, desolation and death,
thieves looted stores and robbed the dead bodies,
and ghouls, half-drunk with liquor, committed
deeds of unspeakable horror. These when
caught received short shrift. They were shot
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
249
down without trial. Several regiments of the
National Guard, from different parts of the state,
were called out and they did efficient service in
San Francisco, Oakland and Alameda. The Pre-
sidio, Golden Gate Park and other parks were
converted into refugee camps and rations issued.
Military Organization was prompt and effective.
Four days after the fire there were military
butchers, blacksmiths, carpenters, chimney inspec-
tors and sanitary inspectors. Strict military reg-
ulations were enforced in the various camps and
a constant watch was kept up to prevent the
breaking out of epidemic diseases. Train loads
of provisions and clothing were hurried from all
parts of the state and beyond for the immediate
relief of the sufferers. Contributions of money
flowed in from all over the country, until the to-
tal ran up into the millions. The railroads fur-
nished free transportation to all who had friends
in other cities of the state. The Red Cross Re-
lief Society, at the head of which is James D.
Phelan, ex-mayor of San Francisco, had taken
up the burden of caring for the destitute until
they could take care of themselves.
The actual number of lives lost by the earth-
quake will never be known; many who were
pinned down in the wrecked buildings would
have escaped with slight injuries had not the fire
followed so quickly after the earthquake shock.
The total number of deaths officially reported
up to the last of May was three hundred and
thirty-three. The property loss ranges from two
hundred to two hundred and fifty millions of dol-
lars. Insurance covered about one hundred and
twenty millions; whether all of this will be paid
is yet to be decided.
The fire devastated two hundred and sixty-nine
blocks, covering an area of nearly three thousand
acres, or about five square miles. In this vast
fire-swept desert there were three little oases
that the destroyer had left unscathed. In the
very heart of this desert stood the mint with its
accumulated treasure unharmed by fire or earth-
quake shock. Thirty-five years ago, when Gen.
O. H. La Grange was superintendent of the mint,
he had sunk an artesian well within the inclosure.
He received neither thanks nor encouragement
from the government for his work. When the
fire Surged around it the employes and ten sol-
diers were housed within it; for seven hours they
fought against the onslaught of flames that
dashed against the building. The courageous
fighters, aided by the thick walls and the water
supply from the artesian well, won the victory
and the building with its treasure was saved.
Throughout the days and nights that the fire
raged the tall tower of the Ferry building loomed
up through the smoke of the burning city, the
hands of the silent clock mutely pointing to 13
minutes past 5, the moment the temblor began
its work. -
The post office, with but nominal damages,
survived the wreck and ruin of the city. The
palatial homes of the bonanza kings and rail-
road magnates, built on Nob Hill thirty years
ago, were wiped out of existence. Of Mark
Hopkins Art Institute with its treasures of art
Only a chimney is left. Of the Stanford house,
the Crocker mansion, the Huntington palace and
the Flood residence only broken pillars, ruined
arches, heaps of bricks, shattered glass and piles
of ashes tell how complete a leveler of distinction
fire is. Chinatown, the plague spot of San Fran-
cisco and the old time béte noir of Denis Kearney
and his followers, has been obliterated from the
map of the city. Not a vestige is left to mark
where it was, but is not. Kearney’s slogan, “The
Chinese must go,” is again reiterated; and it is
questionable whether the almond-eyed followers
of Confucius will be allowed to relocate in their
former haunts.
OAKLAND, ALAM EDA AND BERKELEY.
The cities across the bay from San Francisco,
Oakland, Alameda and Berkeley, escaped with
but slight damage. A number of buildings were
wrecked and chimneys thrown down, but the fire
did not follow the shock and the aggregated loss
of property in all three did not exceed $2,OOO,OOO.
There were five lives lost in Oakland. These
cities became great camps of refuge for the
homeless of San Francisco. The hospitality of
their people was taxed to the utmost to take care
of the San Francisco sufferers, who fled from
their stricken city as SOOn as the means of exit
were available.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
STANFORD UNIVERSITY.
With a strange partiality the temblor spared
the buildings of the State University at Berkeley.
Located only a dozen miles from San Francisco,
Scarcely a brick was displaced from a chimney,
but it wrought ruin to many of the noble build-
ings of Stanford University, thirty-four miles dis-
tant from the metropolis. The Memorial
Ghurch, the unfinished library, the new gymna-
sium, part of the art museum, the Stanford resi-
dence at Palo Alto and the memorial arch were
badly wrecked. Some of them were hopelessly
ruined. Encina hall (the men's dormitory) was
injured by the fall of stone chimneys and one
student was killed. The loss in all will amount
to $3,000,000.
SAN JOSE.
The city of San Jose seemed to be in the line
of march chosen by the temblor. The business
center was wrecked, its court house destroyed
and many of its dwellings badly damaged. For-
tunately it escaped a visitation by fire. Nineteen
lives were lost and the property loss exceeded
$2,000,000.
SANTA ROSA.
The city of Santa Rosa, the capital of Sonoma
county, in proportion to its wealth and the num-
ber of its inhabitants, suffered more severely than
any other city in California. The business por-
tion of the city, which was closely grouped
around the Court House Square, was entirely de-
stroyed. As there were no suburban stores the
supply of provisions was cut off. The breaking
off of communication left the outside world ig-
norant of Santa Rosa's fate. For a time she was
left entirely to her own resources to aid her suf-
ferers. As in San Francisco, fire followed the
temblor, which increased greatly the loss of life
and property. The water mains were not brok-
en and within three hours the fire was practically
under control.
Among the buildings destroyed by earthquake
and fire were the court house, the new Masonic
temple, the public library, six hotels, a five-story
brewery, a shoe factory, a four-story flour mill,
two theaters, the Odd Fellows hall, and a num-
ber of office buildings, flats and apartment
houses. The number of dead reported was fifty-
six. The injured and missing numbered eighty-
SeVe11.
The business houses in San Mateo, Belmont,
Palo Alto and Redwood City were nearly all
wrecked. Many of the stately mansions and rose-
embowered cottages that line the road between
San Francisco and San Jose on the western side
of the bay were thrown from their foundations
and chimneys falling on the roofs had cut their
way to the ground.
On the eastern side the towns of San Leandro
and Haywards that were badly damaged in the
earthquake of 1868 escaped this last temblor
unharmed. Santa Clara, Gilroy and Salinas suf-
fered in about the same proportion as San Jose.
At Monterey the Del Monte hotel was injured
by the falling of the chimneys through the roof.
Two persons, a bridal couple from Arizona, were
killed by the falling of a chimney.
Hollister, Napa and Santa Cruz suffered con-
siderable damage. The greatest loss of life at
any public institution occurred at the Agnews In-
Sane Asylum. It contained ten hundred and
eighty-eight patients, besides physicians, nurses
and attendants; of these, as nearly as can be as-
certained, one hundred and ten inmates and em-
ployes were killed. The buildings were entirely
destroyed. The inmates who escaped injury
were housed in tents and guards stationed around
the inclosure to keep them from running away.
Temporary buildings are in the course of con-
struction. There was no loss of life or property
south of Monterey. The shock throughout the
southern part of the state was very slight.
OAIKLAND.
Oakland, the third city in population among
the cities of California, is the youngest of the
large cities. It is purely American by birth.
Its site during Spanish and Mexican rule was
uninhabited and was covered with Oak trees and
chaparral. The territory which Oakland covers
was part of a five-league grant made to Luis
Maria Peralta, a Spanish soldier, who came to
the presidio of San Francisco in 1790. August
16, 1820, Governor Sola granted him the Rancho
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
251
San Antonio. His military service had extended
over a period of forty years. In 1842 he divided
the grant among his five sons, the portion em-
braced in Oakland falling to the allotment of
Vicente.
The first permanent settlers and the fathers
of Oakland were Moore, Carpentier and Adams,
who squatted on the land in the Summer of I850.
The Peraltas made an attempt to evict them,
but failed. This trio of squatters obtained a
lease from Peralta, laid out a town and sold lots,
giving quit-claim deeds. They erected houses
and are considered the founders of the town.
Other squatters followed their example and pos-
sessed themselves of the Peraltas’ land. This
involved the settlers in litigation, and it was
many years before titles were perfected. The
Peralta litigants finally won.
May 4, 1852, the town of Oakland was incor-
porated. March 25, 1854, it was incorporated as
a city, and Horace W. Carpentier was elected
the first mayor. The first ferry charter was
granted in 1853. Defective titles and the water-
front war between the city authorities and H. W.
Carpentier retarded its growth for a number
of years. In 1860 its population was about
I,500. The completion of the overland railroad,
which made Oakland its western terminus,
greatly accelerated its growth. The water-front
war was continued; instead of Carpentier, the
city now had the Central Pacific Railroad Com-
pany to contend with. The controversy was
finally ended in 1882, and the city won.
population of Oakland in 1890 was 48,682; in
I900, 66,960. According to a recent census
(November, 1902), it exceeds 88,000.
SACRAMIENTO.
Sutter built his fort near the junction of the
Sacramento and American rivers in 1839. It
was then the most northerly settlement in Cali-
fornia and became the trading post for the north-
ern frontier. It was the outpost to which the
tide of overland immigration flowed before and
after the discovery of gold. Sutter's settle-
ment was also known as New Helvetia. After
the discovery of gold at Coloma it was, during
1848, the principal supply depot for the mines.
The
business. Sam Brannan, in June, 1848, estab-
lished a store outside of the fort, in a long adobe
building. His Sales amounted to over $100,000
a month. His profits were enormous. Gold
dust was a drug on the market and at one time
passed for $8 an ounce, less than half its value.
In September, 1848, Priest, Lee & Co. estab-
lished a business house at the fort and did an
immense business. The fort was not well lo-
cated for a commercial center. It was too far
away from the river by which all the freight
from San Francisco was shipped. The land at
the embarcadero was subject to overflow and
was deemed unsuited for the site of a city. Sut-
terville was laid out on rising ground three miles
below. A survey of lots was extended from
the fort to the embarcadero and along the river
bank. This embryo town at the embarcadero
took the name of Sacramento from the river.
Then began a rivalry between Sutterville and
Sacramento. The first house in Sacramento,
corner of Front and I streets, was erected in
January, I849. The proprietors of Sutterville,
McDougal1 & Co., made an attempt to attract
trade and building to their town by giving away
lots, but Sutter beat them at that game, and
Sacramento surged ahead. Sam Brannan and
Priest, Lee & Co. moved their stores into Sac-
ramento. The fort was deserted and Sutterville
ceased to contend for supremacy. In four
months lots had advanced from $50 to $1,000
and business lots' to $3,000. A regular steam-
boat Service on the river was inaugurated in
August, 1849, and sailing vessels that had come
around the Horn to avoid trans-shipment worked
their way up the river and landed their goods at
the embarcadero. The first number of the
Placer Times was issued April 28, 1849. The
Steamboat rates of passage between San Fran-
cisco and Sacramento were: Cabin, $30; steer-
age, $20; freight, $2.50 per one hundred pounds.
By the winter of 1849 the population of the town
had reached five thousand and a year later it
had doubled. Lots in the business section were
held at $30,000 to $50,000 each. The great flood
of 1849-50, when four-fifths of the city was
under water, somewhat dampened the enthusi-
asm of the citizens, but did not check the growth
Sutter had a store at the fort and did a thriving of the city. Sacramento became the trading
252
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
center of the mines. In 1855 its trade, princi-
pally with the mines, amounted to $6,000,000.
It was also the center of the stage lines, a dozen
of which led out from it.
It became the state capital in 1853, and al-
though disastrous floods drove the legislators
from the capital several times, they returned
when the waters subsided. The great flood of
1861-62 inundated the city and compelled an
immense outlay for levees and for raising the
grades of the streets. Sacramento was made the
terminus of the Central Pacific Railroad sys-
tem, and its immense workshops are located
there. Its growth for the past thirty years has
been slow but steady. Its population in 1896
was 26,386; in 1900, 29,282. -
SAN JOSE.
The early history of San José has been given
in the chapter on Pueblos. After the American
conquest the place became an important busi-
ness center. It was the first state capital and
the removal of the capital for a time checked its
progress. In 1864 it was connected with San
Francisco by railroad. The completion of the
railroad killed off its former port, Alviso, which
had been laid out as a city in 1849. Nearly all
the trade and travel before the railroad was built
had gone by way of Alviso down the bay to
San Francisco. San José and its suburb, Santa
Clara, early became the educational centers of
California. The first American college founded
in the state was located at Santa Clara and the
first normal school building erected in the state
was built at San José. The population of San
José in 1880 was 12,570; in 1900, 21,500.
STOCKTON.
In 1844 the Rancho Campo de los Franceses,
Camp of the French, or French Camp, on which
the city of Stockton is located, was granted to
William Gulnac by Governor Micheltorena. It
contained eleven leagues of 48,747 acres of land.
Capt. Charles M. Weber, the founder of Stock-
ton, was a partner of Gulnac, but not being a
Mexican citizen, he could not obtain a land
grant. After Gulnac obtained the grant he con-
veyed a half interest in it to Weber. Weber
shortly afterward purchased his partner's inter-
est and became sole owner of the grant. Some
attempts were made to stock it with cattle, but
Indian depredations prevented it. In 1847, after
the country had come into the possession of the
Americans, Weber removed from San José,
which had been his place of residence since his
arrival in California in 1841, and located on his
ranch at French Camp. He erected some huts
for his vaqueros and fortified his corral against
Indians. In 1848 the site of the city was sur-
veyed and platted under the direction of Captain
Weber and Maj. R. P. Hammond. The rancho
was surveyed and sectionized and land offered
On most advantageous terms to settlers. Cap-
tain Weber was puzzled to find a fitting name
for his infant metropolis. He hesitated between
Tuleburgh and Castoria (Spanish for beaver).
Tules were plentiful and so were beaver, but
as the town grew both would disappear, so he
finally selected Stockton, after Commodore
Stockton, who promised to be a godfather to
the town, but proved to be a very indifferent
step-father; he never did anything for it. The
discovery of gold in the region known as the
Southern mines brought Stockton into promi-
nence and made it the metropolis of the south-
ern mining district. Captain Weber led the party
that first discovered gold on the Mokelumne
river. The freight and travel to the mines on
the Mokelumne, Tuolumne and Stanislaus rivers
passed through Stockton, and its growth was
rapid. In October, 1849, the Alta California
reports lots in it selling from $2,500 to $6,000
each, according to situation. At that time it had
a population of about one thousand souls and a
floating population, that is, men coming and
going to the mines, of about as many more. The
houses were mostly cotton-lined shacks. Lum-
ber was $1 a foot and carpenters' wages $16 per
day. There were neither mechanics nor mate-
rial to build better structures. Every man was
his own architect and master builder. Cloth
was Scarce and high and tacks at one time were
worth $5 a package; even a cloth house was no
cheap affair, however flimsy and cheap it might
appear. On the morning of December 23, 1849,
the business portion of the town was swept out
of existence by fire. Rebuilding was begun al-
most before the embers of the departed city
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
253
were cold and a better city arose from the ashes
of the first. After the wild rush of mining days
was over, Stockton drifted into a center of agri-
cultural trade and it also became a manufactur-
ing city. Its growth has been steady, devoid of
booms or periods of inflation, followed by col-
lapse. Its population in 1890 was I4,424; in
1900, 17,506. -
FRESNO CITY.
Fresno City was founded by the Southern
Pacific Railroad in May, 1872. The road at that
time was in the course of construction. The
outlook for a populous town was not brilliant.
Stretching for miles away from the town site in
different directions was an arid-looking plain.
The land was fertile enough when well watered,
but the few settlers had no capital to construct
irrigating canals.
In 1875 began the agricultural colony era.
The land was divided into twenty-acre tracts. A
number of persons combined together and by
their united capital and community labor con-
structed irrigating canals and brought the land
under cultivation. The principal product is
the raisin grape. Fresno City became the
county seat of Fresno county in 1874. It is now
the largest and most important city of the
Upper San Joaquin Valley. Its population in
1890 was Io,818; in IQOO, I2,470.
VALI.EJO.
Vallejo was founded for the state capital. It
was one of several towns which had that tem-
porary honor in the early '50s, when the state
capitol was on wheels, or at least on the move.
The Original name of the place was Eureka.
General Vallejo made a proposition to the leg-
islature of 1850 to grant the state one hundred
and fifty-six acres of land and to donate and
pay to the state within two years after the ac-
ceptance of his proposition $370,000, to be used
in the erection of public buildings. The legisla-
ture accepted his proposition. The location of
the state capital was submitted to a vote of the
people at the election on October 7, 1850, and
Vallejo received more votes than the aggre-
gated vote of all its competitors. Buildings
were begun, but never completed. The legisla-
ture met there twice, but on account of insuffi-
cient accommodations sought other places
where they were better cared for. General Val-
lejo's proposition at his own request was can-
celled. In 1854 Mare Island, in front of Val-
lejo, was purchased by the general government
for a United States navy yard and naval depot.
The government works gave employment to
large numbers of men and involved the expendi-
ture of millions of dollars. The town began to
prosper and still continues to do so. Its popu-
lation in 1890 was 6,343; in 1900, 7,965.
NEVADA CITY.
No mining town in California was so well and
So favorably known in the early '50s as Nevada
City. The first discovery of gold near it was
made in September, 1849; and the first store
and cabin erected. Rumors of rich strikes
spread abroad and in the spring of 1850 the rush
of gold-seekers came. In 1851 it was estimated
that within a circuit of seven miles there was a
population of 3O,OOO. In 1856 the business sec-
tion was destroyed by fire. It was then the
third city in population in the state. It has had
its periods of expansion and contraction, but
still remains an important mining town. Its
population in 1880 was 4,022; in 1890, 2,524;
in 1900, 3,250.
GRASS VALLEY.
The first cabin in Grass Valley was erected in
I849. The discoveries of gold quartz raised
great expectations. A quartz mill was erected
in 1850, but this new form of mining not being
understood, quartz mining was not a success;
but with improved machinery and better meth-
Ods, it became the most important form of min-
ing. Grass Valley prospered and surpassed its
rival, Nevada City. Its population in 1900 was
4,719. -
ElJREKA.
In the two hundred years that Spain and Mex-
ico held possession of California its northwest
coast remained practically a terra incognita, but
it did not remain so long after the discovery of
gold. Gold was discovered on the head waters
of the Trinity river in 1849 and parties of pros-
pectors during 1849 and 1850 explored the
254
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
country between the head waters of the Trinity
and Klamath rivers and the coast. Rich mines
were found and these discoveries led to the
founding of a number of towns on the coast
which aspired to be the entrepots for the Sup-
plies to the mines. The most successful of these
proved to be Eureka, on Humboldt Bay. It
was the best located for commerce and soon
outstripped its rivals, Arcata and Bucksport.
Humboldt county was formed in 1854, and Eu-
reka, in 1856, became the county seat and was
incorporated as a city. It is the largest ship-
ping point for lumber on the coast. It is also
the commercial center of a rich agricultural and
dairying district. Its population in 1880 was
2,639; in 1890, 4,858; in IQOO, 7,327.
MARYSVILLE.
The site on which Marysville stands was first
known as New Mecklenburg and was a trading
post of two houses. In October, 1848, M. C.
Nye purchased the rancho and opened a store
at New Mecklenburg. The place then became
known as Nye’s rancho. In 1849 a town was
laid out and named Yubaville.
changed to Marysville in honor of the wife of
the proprietor of the town Covilland. His wife
was Mary Murphy, of the Donner party. Marys-
ville, being at the head of navigation of the
The name was
north fork of the Sacramento, became the en-
trepot for mining supplies to the miners in the
rich Yuba mines. After the decline of mining
it became an agricultural center for the upper
portion of the Sacramento. Its population in
1880 was 4,300; in 1890, 3,991 ; in 1900, 3,397.
REDDING.
The Placer Times of May 8, 1850, contains
this notice of Reading, now changed to Red-
ding: “Reading was laid off early in 1850 by
P. B. Reading at the headwaters of the Sacra-
mento within forty-five miles of the Trinity
diggings. Reading is located in the heart of a
most extensive mining district, embracing as it
does, Cottonwood, Clear, Salt, Dry, Middle and
Olney creeks, it is in close proximity to the Pitt
and Trinity rivers. The pet steamer, Jack
Hayes, leaves tomorrow morning (May 9, 1850)
for Reading. It has been hitherto considered
impossible to navigate the Sacramento to this
height.” The town grew rapidly at first, like
all mining towns, and like most of such towns
it was swept out of existence by fire. It was
devastated by fire in December, 1852, and again
in June, 1853. Its original name, Reading, got
mixed with Fort Redding and it now appears on
all railroad maps and guides as Redding. Its
population in 1890 was I,821 ; in 1900, 2,940.
CHAPTER XXXVII,
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.
INTRODUCTORY.
NDER the rule of Spain and Mexico
U there was no form of municipal govern-
ment in California corresponding to our
county government. The ayuntamientos of the
cities and towns exercised jurisdiction over
the inhabitants of the adjacent ranchos, but
there were no lines drawn to define the area
of an ayuntamiento's domains. There was
no tax on land in those days; the revenue
to support the municipal government was de-
rived from fines of offenders against the law,
from licenses of pulperias, cock pits, bull
fights, dances and so forth. Men's vices and
pleasures paid the cost of governing; consequent-
ly inhabitants were of more value for income
than acres.
During the interregnum that lasted from the
downfall of Mexican domination in California
to the inauguration of a state government—a pe-
riod of three years and a half—Mexican laws
were continued in force. Alcades and regidores
administered the ordinances in force before the
conquest or made new ones to suit the changed
conditions of the country.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 255
The territorial government was semi-military
and semi-civil; a form exceedingly unsatisfactory
to the American immigrants who had flocked to
the country after the discovery of gold. Al-
though the conquerors had adopted the codes
and forms of government they found in the coun-
try partly to conciliate the conquered, yet the
natives were dissatisfied. Military command-
ers interferred in the administration of law by
the alcades and regidores and there was friction
between the native Californian and the newly ar-
rived gringo.
For three years the people waited for Con-
gress to establish some American form of gov-
ernment for the territory, but none was given
them. The admission of California into the Un-
ion was a bone of contention between the pro-
slavery and anti-slavery politicians in Congress.
At that time the two factions were equally bal-
anced in the senate. To admit it either as a free
or a slave state destroyed the political equilib-
rium, and to the politicians the necessity of
maintaining a balance of power was of more
importance than the welfare of California.
Tired of waiting and driven to desperation by
the inchoate condition of affairs in the territory
the people organized and put in force a state
government without asking authority from Con-
gress. For almost one year California had a
defacto state government before it was admitted
into the Union. -
The first legislature met at San Jose, Decem-
ber 15, 1849. Among the first acts passed by
it was one dividing the 1nchoate state into twen-
ty-seven counties and another providing a form
of county government. A large portion of Cal-
ifornia at that time was a terra incognita. There
were no good maps existing. Many of the legis-
lators were recent arrivals in the state and they
had vague ideas of the territory they were sub-
dividing. As a result some of the county bound-
aries were erratic and uncertain.
SAN DIEGO COUNTY.
The boundaries of San Diego county as de-
fined in an “act subdividing the state into coun-
ties and establishing the seats of justice therein,”
passed February 18, 1850, are as follows:
“Commencing on the coast of the Pacific at the
mouth of the creek called San Mateo, and run-
ning up said creek to its source; thence due
north to the northeast boundary of the state;
thence following said boundary in a southeaster-
ły direction to the Colorado river; thence down
the middle of the channel of said river to the
mouth of the Gila river; thence following the
boundary line as established by the treaty of the
thirtieth of May, one thousand eight hundred
and forty-eight, between the United States and
Mexico, to the Pacific Ocean and three En-
glish miles therein; thence in a northwesterly
direction running parallel with the coast to a
point due west of the mouth of the creek San
Mateo, and thence due east to the mouth of said
creek, which was the place of beginning. The
seat of justice shall be San Diego.”
A line drawn from the source of San Mateo
creek “due north to the northeast boundary of
the state” intersected the state boundary in the
neighborhood of Death Valley, about three hun-
dred miles north of the southern limits of San
Diego county, and gave that county an area of
nearly forty thousand Square miles. The coun-
ty took in all of the Colorado desert and a large
portion of the Mojave. It was in imperial coun-
ty in area, but short on inhabitants. Its pop-
ulation, according to the census of 1850, was
798, of which 650 was accredited to the city of
San Diego. The first county assessment, which
was made in 1850, gave the value of the ranch
lands at $255,281 and the aggregate value of
all kinds of property was fixed at $517,258; of
this amount $264,210 was accredited to Old
Town; $80,050 to New Town, and $30,000 to
Middle Town. These three towns or subdivi-
sions constituted the city of San Diego. The
back country seems to have been of little value.
The legislature of 1849-50 passed an act March
2, 1850, “to provide for holding the first county
election.” This act required “each prefect in
this state, immediately after the passage of this
act, to designate a suitable number of election
precincts in each county of his district, and give
notice thereof by advertisement published in
Some newspaper printed in each county of said
district, if there be one; if not, then by notičes
posted in at least three public places in each of
said counties.”
256
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Don José Antonio Estudillo was then pre-
fect of San Diego. As there was no newspaper
published in the county, he posted notices call-
ing an election to be held on April 1, 1850.
The following is a list of the county officials
then chosen : -
District Attorney. . . . . . . William C. Ferrell
County Judge. . . . . . . . . . John Hays
County Clerk. . . . . . . . . . JRichard Rust
County Attorney. . . . . . . (Thos. W. Sutherland
County Surveyor. . . . . . . JHenry Clayton
Sheriff. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Agostin Haraszthy
Recorder. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Henry C. Matseil
Assessor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . José Antonio Estudillo
Coroner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .John Brown
Treasurer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Juan Bandini
Bandini refused to accept and Philip Cros-
thwaite was appointed. Of the ten county of-
ficials who served, but one was a native Cali-
fornian, so early had the passing of the 1.ative
begun. -
The court of sessions, a legislatve body com-
posed of the county judge and two justices of
the peace, was the motive power that set the
county machinery in motion. At the meeting
of the court of sessions on the second Monday
of June the county government was organized.
THE FIRST INDIAN WAR.
Scarcely had the county been organized when
it was called upon to furnish volunteers to sup-
press an Indian outbreak at Yuma. A correct
account of the Yuma Indian war of 1850 has
never been published. From depositions of one
of the men who escaped when Dr. Lincoln and
ten of his men were massacred at the ferry on
the Colorado, and from the deposition of Jere-
miah Hill, who arrived at the Colorado river two
days after the massacre, I have compiled the
following account of the origin of the trouble
between the Yumas and the whites which
brought on the war. These depositions were
taken at Los Angeles in May, 1850, by Don Abel
Stearns, alcalde, and judge of the First Instance.
These depositions and several others relating to
the Yuma depredations upon immigrants are
now in possession of the Historical Society of
Southern California, and are the only correct
accounts of that massacre in existence.
Dr. A. L. Lincoln, an educated man, a native
of Illinois and a relative of President Lincoln,
came from Guaymas, Mexico, to California in
1849, by the Colorado river route. After visit-
ing the mines be returned to the Colorado river,
and in the latter part of 1849 established a ferry
at the junction of the Colorado and Gila rivers.
The Sonoran migration to the gold mines of
California was then at its height and the ferry
business was immensely profitable.
John J. Glanton, the leader of a party of twen-
ty men, mainly Texans and Missourians, arrived
at the ferry February 12, 1850. Glanton and at
least a portion of his party, So it was claimed,
"had been engaged in hunting Apaches for a
Scalp premium in Sonora and Chihuahua, but
had been driven out by the Mexican govern-
ment when it was discovered that they brought
in the scalps of friendly Indians or even of
Mexicans.” Dr. Lincoln, being short of hands,
employed Glanton and eight of his men to as-
sist him, and the six men then in his employ
remaining made a party of fifteen. Lincoln
would have been glad to have gotten rid of Glan-
ton when he discovered his true character, but
that worthy constituted himself chief manager
of the ferry. His overbearing conduct and ill-
treatment of the Indians as told of in the depo-
sition of Jeremiah Hill no doubt brought about
the massacre of the eleven ferrymen. Although
the Yuma Indians were notorious thieves, the
Americans and the Sonoranians had not been at-
tacked by them, nor had they harmed them ex-
cept by pilfering previous to Glanton’s arrival.
On the 25th of April, two days after the mas-
Sacre at the ferry, a party of fourteen Amer-
icans, of whom the deponent, Jeremiah Hill, was
one, arrived at the river. I quote from his depo-
sition taken by Alcade Don Abel Stearns at Los
Angeles, May 23, 1850:
“We had stayed all day and night of the 25th
(April) at Our camp, about ten miles beyond
Glanton's ferry; on this day, in the afternoon
about 4 o'clock, ten Yumas, unarmed, came
up to our camp, by one of whom we sent for the
chief, for the purpose, as we assured them, of
having a talk with him and making him some
presents.
*Bancroft's “History of Arizona and New Mexico.”
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
257
“The chief came the same night about 7
o'clock; we gave him shirts, handkerchiefs, jew-
elry, pinole, etc., after which we asked him in
reference to the massacre of Glanton. The chief
said that General Anderson the previous sum-
mer had left the Indians a boat which he had
built for the purpose of ferrying his company
across the Colorado river, upon condition that
the Yumas would cross all Americans at $1 for
a horse, $1 for a man and $1 for the cargo
(pack), and that upon a violation of this con-
tract by any higher charge than this, said boat
should be forfeited. This boat was used at the
lower crossing, commonly called ‘Algodones'
(cotton-woods). No American had come to
cross at the Indian ferry since the departure of
General Anderson, but that many Mexicans had,
which made Glanton mad, and that he (the
chief) knew of no other offense the Indians had
given Glanton; that one day Glanton sent his
men down and had the Indian boat destroyed,
and took an American whom they (the Indians)
had with them engaged in working their boat
up to his camp with all of said American's money
and that Glanton had shot said American and
thrown him into the river.
“The chief said that he then went up to see
Glanton and made an offer that Glanton should
cross all the men and baggage, while the chief
should cross the animals of the immigrants and
thus they would get along quietly. Whereupon
Glanton kicked him out of the house and beat
him over the head with a stick; the chief said
he would have hit him back, but he was afraid,
as the Americans could shoot too straight.
“This was before Glanton went to San Diego
(according to the chief’s statement) for the pur-
pose of purchasing whiskey and provisions.
The chief said he immediately on receiving this
insult went back and held a council of his people.
The result was a determination to kill all the
Americans at the ferry and another chief was
sent up to see the position of the Americans, who
found that Glanton was gone to San Diego.
They then determined to wait until he returned,
as the main object, the chief said, was to kill
Glanton. The chief who had been sent up, as
just stated, went up afterwards from day to
day to the American camp, and finally one day
came back with the report that Glanton had re-
turned. Then the chief who had been before
insulted went up and found Glanton and his men
drinking; they gave him something to drink, and
also his dinner. After dinner five of the Amer-
icans laid down and went to sleep in a hut,
leaving him sitting there; others were ferry-
ing and were on the opposite side; three had
gone up on this side for some purpose. The
chief said he watched till he thought the five
were asleep, when he went out to his people on
this side, who were all hid in the bushes just
below the house; a portion of them he sent up
after the three Americans who were up cutting
poles, instructing his men to get possession of
their arms; he had previously posted 500 In-
dians on the other side, with instructions to mix
among the Americans and Mexicans and get
into the boat without suspicion. He himself
then went up on the little mound, perhaps as
high as his head, but commanding a view of all
his Indians and the whole scene; from this
Imound he was to give the signal. There he was
to beckon to those hid in the bushes to come
near the American tents, which they were im-
mediately to enter and give a yell as they killed
the Americans, whereupon he was to give the
sign with a pole having a scarf on it to the In-
dians on the other side as well as those who
were watching the three above. He gave the
signal when those in the boat and at the houses
were all killed. The Indians who had been sent
after the three Americans ran, and these three
succeeded in getting into a little skiff and es-
caped by going down the river.”
The three Americans who escaped were Will-
iam Carr, Marcus L. Webster and Joseph A. An-
derson. They were engaged in cutting poles
about three hundred yards from the river at the
time of the massacre. A party of Indians num-
bering fifteen or twenty was sent to kill them.
The Indians attempted to get their axes from
them on the pretense of assisting them in cut-
ting poles. The Americans, discovering signs
of treachery, drew their pistols and the Indians
fled. The Americans then escaped to a small
boat and pushed out into the river. After two
days and nights in the bushes they finally reached
a Mexican camp, where they were fed and pro-
17
258
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
tected from the Indians. They eventually made
their way to San Diego. Carr in his deposition
describes the manner in which Dr. Lincoln, Glan-
ton and the others at the ferry were killed.
These particulars he learned from the Mexicans,
who were encamped near the river at the time
of the massacre,
“As usual, that day the Indians had been
playing about the establishment, Some on One
side of the river, some on the other, though on
that day they seemed to have collected in a very
large number; though neither, by their arms or
other circumstances, excited any suspicion.
Glanton and Dr. A. L. Lincoln were asleep at
the time of the attack. A Mexican woman who
was at the time sewing in Lincoln's tent told
deponent that the chief of the Yumas came in
and hit the doctor on the head with a stone,
whereupon he sprang to his feet, but was im-
mediately killed with a club. Another woman
relates the death of Glanton as occurring in the
same manner. The three others were killed, the
manner not known, and none had an opportunity
of killing any of the Indians. Three of the tribe
were killed in the fight with deponent's party.
Deponent is well convinced that the men who
crossed the river were all killed, and the Mex-
icans say that the bodies of five of them were
brought over to this side and burned, as also
were the bodies of Dr. Lincoln, Glanton and
others killed on shore. Dr. Lincoln's dog and
two other dogs were tied to his body and that
of Glanton and burnt alive with them. A large
quantity of meat was thrown into the fire at the
same time. The houses were also burnt down.
The bodies of John A. Johnson, William Prewett
and John Dorsey were burnt up with the cook's
house, which had been set fire to. One of the
men in the boat was a negro; his name John
Jackson; he made some resistance and in the
scuffle was thrown overboard and drowned. It
seems that the attack was made just as those
who had crossed with the boat struck the shore,
the Indians being in the habit of jumping in to
help them. The Indians immediately dressed
themselves in the clothes of the men, a circum-
stance that deceived deponent when he first
reached the river, as above stated, for he then
supposed he saw the men on the other side and
called to them to make haste over with the boat.
The names of the five thus killed in the boat
were Thomas Harlin, of Texas; Henderson
Smith, of Missouri; John Gunn, of Missouri;
Thomas Watson, of Philadelphia; James A. Mill-
er, of New Jersey. Dr. Lincoln was from Il-
linois; John J. Glanton, of San Antonio, Texas;
John Jackson, of New York; Prewitt, of Texas,
and Dorsey, of Missouri. Deponent knows
that there were in the hands of Dr. Lincoln
$50,000 in silver, but knows not the amount of
gold; supposes it to be between $2O,OOO and
$30,000; all this is of the proceeds of the ferry
during the time the said company occupied it,
to-wit, from about the first of March last. The
company also owns $6,000 now deposited with
Judge Hays, of San Diego, California, and also
twenty-two mules and two horses and provi-
sions, all at San Diego.”
When the report of the massacre of the fer-
ryman reached the state capital Governor Bur-
nett ordered the sheriff of Los Angeles county
to enroll forty men and the sheriff of San Diego
twenty. These were to be placed under the
command of Major General Bean of the state
militia, a resident of San Diego. Bean ordered
the quartermaster general, Joseph C. Morehead,
to provide supplies for the expedition. More-
head in his report says: “The duty of raising
the men, arming, equipping and provisioning
them, devolved upon me, and I was directed to
furnish the commands as many as I could mus-
ter, all the necessaries for a three months’ cam-
paign, and I was ordered to pay in drafts on
the treasury of this state for all purchases I
might make for the expedition.” As the state
treasury was empty those selling supplies charged
extravagant prices.
Morehead found considerable difficulty both
in Los Angeles and San Diego to secure recruits.
Finally, on the 25th of August, he reported a
force of forty men and provisions and supplies
for one hundred. He took up his line of march
for the Colorado; on reaching it his force num-
bered seventy-five men. These were recruited
from parties of immigrants that he met on the
road, all being anxious to revenge Some insult
or wrong they had received in passing through
the territory of the Indians. After arriving at
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
259
his destination he continued to recruit until he
had one hundred and twenty-five men enrolled.
Whether the expedition killed any Indians is not
known. General Bean, Morehead’s Superior of—
ficer, made no report. General Morehead in his
report to the governor refers to a report that he
made to General Bean, giving “details of my
operations on the Gila.” Morehead in his re-
port says: “The Yuma Indians, a warlike tribe,
were taught to know that they could not trifle
with the American government with impunity
and that it would be prompt to punish any ag-
gression upon its rights.”
Governor Burnett, after ordering the enroll-
ment of the troops, seems to have lost sight of
the expedition. From a letter of Morehead’s to
the state treasurer he discovered he had an army
in the field and a very expensive one. He is-
sued an order to General Bean to disband his
troops. Bean ordered Morehead to return, but
that valiant soldier claimed he was affording
protection to the immigrants by the Gila route.
The governor sent a peremptory order for the
troops to return. This was obeyed and this end-
ed the Gila Expedition, or, as it was sometimes
called, the Glanton war. For the time it lasted
(about two months) and the force engaged, it
was one of the most costly wars known to his-
tory. It cost the infant state $120,000. It was
true of this expedition, as has been said of other
expeditions against the Indians, that it cost the
government his weight in gold to kill an Indian.
The actual cost to the state averaged $1,000 for
every enlisted man. Notwithstanding the les-
son the Gila Expedition gave the Indians, they
continued their depredations on the immigrants.
On November 27, 1850, Colonel Heintzleman ar-
rived from San Diego to establish a garrison
and protect the immigrants. His post at first
was called Camp Independence, but in March,
1851, it was transferred to the site of the old
Spanish missions (destroyed by the Yumas in
1781) and named Fort Yuma.
THE SECOND INDIAN WAR.
Scarcely had the soldiers of the Glanton war
been discharged before there was another out-
break of the Indians in San Diego county and
another call for volunteers. The origin of this
war is unparalleled in the annals of Indian war-
fare. It originated from the same cause as did
Our Revolutionary war—“taxation without rep-
resentation.” The Indian probably cared very
little for representation at the white man's coun-
cil fires, but taxation aroused his indignation.
After the fall of the missions some of the
more intelligent of the neophytes acquired small
bands of cattle. These bands grew into consid-
erable herds. These were herded in the moun-
tain valleys beyond the Spanish grants, which
lay almost entirely along the coast. During the
Mexican rule in California these Indian cattle
kings were not taxed. After the inauguration
of the American system of government the ex-
cessive fees and salaries allowed county officials
necessitated the resort to various expedients to
increase the tax roll. Some one with a genius
for evil devised the scheme of taxing the per-
Sonal property of the Indians. Agostin Har-
aszthy, the first sheriff of San Diego county and
ex officio tax collector, also city marshal, was
famous for his capacity to draw down salaries,
and his dexterity to rake in fees. It was, no
doubt, a pleasure to him to find a new field for
the exercise of his genius for grabbing. When
the Indians refused to pay the tax imposed upon
them he seized their cattle and sold them. This
roused the red man's wrath. He regarded the
Sheriff and his posse as robbers. -
Principal among the Indian cattle owners was
Antonio Garra, chief of the San Luis Rey tribe.
Garra had great influence among the various
Indian tribes. He was intelligent and energetic
and brave. In early life he lived at the Mission
San Luis Rey, was baptized there and had re-
ceived a rudimentary education. He could read
and write. Indignant at his treatment by the
sheriff, he conceived the idea of forming a con-
federation of all the southern Indian tribes to
drive the Americans out of the country. He
hoped to draw into the plot the native Cali-
fornians. He wrote letters to several of these,
urging them to join the conspiracy against the
Americans, but received no encouragement from
them. He sent messengers to the chiefs of the
Coahuillas, the Yumas and the Cocopahs. These
tribes all had their grievances against the Amer-
260
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
1cans and were willing to join any plot that
promised revenge and plunder.
One of Antonio Garra's schemes as divulged
later by some of his adherents was to surprise
and capture Fort Yuma, and with the small
arms and artillery taken there to attack Los An-
geles and San Diego. As a preliminary to the
carrying out of his ambitious designs and to
procure supplies for his campaign of extermin-
ation of the Americans an attack was made on
Warner's rancho, located about sixty miles east-
erly of San Diego.
Jonathan Trumbull Warner, better known as
Juan José Warner or Juan Largo (Long John),
was a native of Connecticut. He came to Cali-
fornia with Ewing Young's party in 1831. For
a time after his arrival in the territory he fol-
lowed trapping. Then he settled in Los An-
geles and became a naturalized citizen of Mex-
ico. He obtained a land grant from the Mex-
jcan government of 26,OOO acres of valley and
mesa land in the San Diego Mountains. This
lie stocked with cattle and horses. He was liv-
ing there at the time of the American conquest.
The Agua Caliente or Hot Springs on this
rancho were a favorite resort of the Indians.
After the discovery of gold, Warner opened a
store at his rancho and carried a stock of goods
amounting to about $5,000. His customers were
Indians, vaqueros and gold seekers coming to
California by the Gila route. Warner's display
of goods no doubt tempted the Indians to raid
his store and ranch. A friendly Indian had
warned Mrs. Warner of the contemplated attack
and Warner sent his family to San Diego.
There are different and widely differing ac-
counts of the attack on Warner's rancho pub-
lished in state and county histories. The fol-
lowing is Warner's testimony given at the trial
of Antonio Garra and is undoubtedly correct:
“On Saturday morning, November 23, 1851,
about sunrise, I was awakened by a war-whoop,
and, having had cause to suspect, I ran to the
door and met my Indian boy, who said the
Coahuillas are on us, and then I saw two horses
that I had made fast and which they had suc-
ceeded in getting loose; and on presenting my-
self at the door, gun in hand, they immediately
Secreted themselves. I succeeded in killing one
and shortly afterwards shot another while I was
running from my house to an Outhouse. Near
me were at least twenty Indians. There was no
person in my house but a sick Mulatto boy and
an indian boy. I returned to the house and pro-
cured another gun and Succeeded in getting a
horse saddled and made my Indian boy, an in-
terpreter, inquire of them what they wanted. He
ran away and joined them. I then returned to
my house and found it stripped of everything.
The Indians had fled. The great body of them,
I think, was about two miles off. While riding
away I overtook an Indian who had some of my
property. When I ordered him to return it to
my house he dropped his load and attempted to
draw an arrow, when I shot him.
“I was subsequently one of a number who
were at Agua Caliente and there I saw the bodies
of Ridgley, Slack and Fidler and, although much
disfigured, yet I recognized them. My work
horses were not stolen, neither were my breed-
ing mares that day. There must have been some
IOO or 150 Indians.” -
“Can you gives the names of any Indian or
Indians who made an attack upon your house?”
“NO.”
“Do you know Juan Bautista?
“I (10.”
“Were you fired upon first?”
“I was.”
“Were any mounted **
“None that I saw.”
“Who is looked upon as chief of the party
that made the attack upon your house?”
“Antonio Garra.
“I know nothing further of the Agua Cal-
iente's murder except that I saw the dead bodies.
I believe those who attacked me are of the San
Luis Rey Indians, of whom the prisoner is chief.”
Four Americans encamped at the Agua Cal-
iente were treacherously murdered by the In-
dians. Five Americans and two Mexicans driv-
ing a band of sheep into California, shortly aft-
er they crossed the Colorado river into Cali-
fornia, were attacked by a large force of Yumas
and Coahuillas. Five of the party were killed
and the band of sheep stolen.
These atrocities alarmed the people of south-
ern California. San Diego was placed under
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
261
martial law, and a call issued for volunteers. A
company was raised in San Diego and placed
under command of Major Fitzgerald. A com-
pany of 60 men was raised at Los Angeles for
field service and another of which B. D. Wilson
was captain, for home guards to protect the
city should Antonio Garra undertake to carry out
his ambitious schemes of conquest. All the mil-
itia were under command of Major General
Joshua H. Bean. The volunteers were armed
with refuse muskets from the United States ord-
nance stores. These guns were useless and were
more dangerous to the man behind the gun than
to the man before. The volunteers did con-
siderable scouting, but killed no Indians.
After the attack on Warner’s rancho and the
murder of the Americans, Garro, knowing that
retaliation would be visited upon them, ordered
the Indians to flee to the mountains. Major
Heintzleman with a body of regulars pursued
them into their mountain refuge and in a fight
at Los Coyotes on Christmas day of 1851 killed
a number of them. The Coahuillas and San
Luis Indians surrendered and sued for peace.
After the battle Major Heintzleman, the com-
manding officer of the department of the South,
ordered a council of war for the trial of four
minor chiefs known to have been implicated in
the murder of the Americans at Agua Caliente.
These were: Francisco Mocate, chief of the
San Ysidor Indians; Louis, alcalde of Agua Cal-
iente; Jacobo or Oui-sil and Juan Bautista, of
Coton. They were condemned to be shot. They
were marched out to the place of execution.
Kneeling at the head of their graves in the
presence of their fellow prisoners they were ex-
ecuted.
On December 13, 1851, Bill Marshall, an
American, and Juan Verde, a Mexican, were
hung at Old Town for complicity in the murder
of the Americans and the sacking of Warner's
rancho. Marshall came to San Diego in a whale
ship in 1844. He deserted and made his way to
the Indian settlements and married a daughter
of one of the chiefs of the San Dieguenos. His
reputation was not the best, but there was no
proof that he was concerned in the outbreak.
He confessed that he knew that Slack and the
three other Americans at Agua Caliente were to
be killed. He made no effort to warn them for
fear of the Indians. Garra at his trial stated
that Marshall and Verde had nothing to do with
the killing of the Americans. They were tried
and found guilty. Verde confessed to a career
of crime and no doubt deserved his fate. Mar-
shall died protesting his innocence, a victim to
keeping bad company.
Antonio Garra took refuge with Juan Antonio,
chief of the White Water Indians. He was cap-
tured through the connivance of Juan Antonio
and surrendered to the military authorities. A
court martial was convened at Old Town to try
him. Gen. J. H. Bean of the militia, who had
his headquarters in San Diego during the war,
was made president, and Major McKinstry, of
the regular army, was appointed counsel for
Garra. Three charges were preferred against
the Indian chief—first, treason ; second, murder ;
third, theft. Major McKinstry quickly disposed of
the charge of treason. He proved that Garra was
not a citizen of the United States, and, owing no
allegiance to the government, he could not com-
mit treason. He was a prisoner of war. Garra
was found guilty of murder and theft and was
sentenced to be shot January Io, I852.
Garra on his trial claimed that it was the
Coahuilla Indians who sacked Warner's rancho ;
that he was sick and stopped at San Tsicho, but
was forced to go on by the Coahuillas. Lieuten-
ant Hamilton in his evidence stated that Garra
sent Bill Marshall and Juan Verde to murder
the Americans at Agua Caliente, but not having
confidence in these two persons he sent an In-
dian named Jacobo to follow them and see that
his orders were executed. Garra had issued or-
ders to attack Warner's ranch and threatened to
kill any one who did not obey. The attack was
made by Panito's and Razon's people, Antonio's
heart failed him before the attack, but Panito
said they said they would do it whether Garra
directed it or not. After the sacking and the
murders Garra gave orders to the Indians to flee
to the mountains.
Antonio in his address before the court mar-
tial said: “I tried to obtain revenge for the
forced payment of taxes which the Americans
demanded. We did not rise for the mere wish
262
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
of revolting, but to resist the collection of taxes
which the Indians think is very unjust.”
EXECUTION OF ANTONIO GARRA.
“The prisoner took his place at the head of
his executioners and marched to his grave, evi-
dently determined to show his captors that an
Indian could die like a brave man. Arriving
at the grave the prisoner placed himself at its
head and only after repeated solicitations and
commands of his father confessor was he in-
duced to ask pardon of the large crowd assem-
bled, which he did after his own manner. Lift-
ing his eyes and gazing at the assemblage, he
said, with a smile of contempt: ‘Gentlemen, I
ask your pardon for all my offenses and expect
yours in return.'
“Then, suffering his eyes to be bandaged, he
kneeled at the head of his grave. The provost-
marshal gave the command: “Ready | Aim
Fire!’ At that moment the sun's last rays were
tinting the hills of Point Loma and the bells of
the neighboring church chimed vespers. The
soul of a truly brave man winged its flight to the
realms of eternity. The occasion cast a gloom
over the assembled hundreds, who, whilst ac-
knowledging the justness of Antonio's fate, failed
not to drop a tear over the grave of a brave man
and once powerful chieftain.”—San Diego Her-
ald, January 17, 1852.
Thus died a patriot who had struck in de-
fense of a principle as just as that which actuated
Hampden, the knights at Runnymede, or Our
own Revolutionary fathers at Lexington. In his
retaliation for a wrong inflicted upon himself
and his people his untutored sense of justice had
failed to discriminate between the private in-
dividual and the collective embraced in what is
called the government. Instead of dying as a
soldier and a patriot he went to his death stig-
matized a murderer and a thief.
The second Indian war, like the first, was
fearfully expensive. General Joshua H. Bean
had been the commanding officer of the militia
in both wars, but had not taken the field. Bean’s
Second Expedition, as the Garra war was called,
cost the infant state $1 I6,OOO. In neither war
did the militia kill an Indian. Even those con-
demned to be shot were executed by the reg-
ulars. The Yumas continued hostilities after
the surrender of the Coahuillas. Major Heintzle-
man in the spring of 1852 pursued them up the
Colorado river seventy miles, burning their vil-
lages, destroying their melon fields and fighting
them whenever they made a stand. They be-
haved themselves after this punishment.
CHAPTER XXXVIII. .
SAN DIEGO COUNTY –Continued.
THE P'UEBLO OF SAN DIEGO.
was no settlement in San Diego county out-
side of the city that could be called a town. At
each of the large ranchos there was a small set-
tlement made up of servants and vaqueros and
their families. Some of these were designated
as precincts when a general election was called,
and at a few some one acted as a justice of the
peace.
The history of the county and of the city are
identical for nearly two decades. The back
country so often spoken of was undeveloped and
| 1850 and for a number of years after there
the very few events that happened at points
back from the bay are unimportant. The early
history of Old San Diego, or Old Town, as it
is usually called, has been given in the chapter
on the Founding of the Presidios,
The pueblo of San Diego was organized Jan-
uary I, I835. It is not, as some writers have
claimed, the oldest municipality in California.
The pueblos of San José and Los Angeles ante-
date it many years. Los Angeles having passed
beyond the pueblo stage was made a ciudad
(city) the same year (1835) that the pueblo of
San Diego was organized. The first ayunta-
miento or town council, elected December, 1834,
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
263
was composed of an alcalde, two regidores and
a sindico procurador.
The first survey of the pueblo lands was made
by Henry D. Fitch in 1845. The Mexican gov-
ernment granted the pueblo eleven leagues or
48,884 acres. This grant to the pueblo was con-
firmed by the United States Land Commission
in 1853. San Diego was more fortunate than
Los Angeles, whose claim of sixteen square
leagues was cut down to four, or Santa Barbara,
which claimed eight, but had to be content with
four. San Diego in area, fifty years ago, was
the largest town in the United States. Its
boundary lines inclosed about 75 square miles;
its population, however, was less than ten to the
square mile.
THE FOUNDING OF NEW TOWN.
March 18, 1850, the ayuntamiento of San Di-
ego sold to William Heath Davis, José A.
Aguirre, Andrew B. Grey, Thomas D. Johns and
Miguel de Pedrorena 160 acres of land a few
miles south of Old Town, near the army bar-
racks, for the purpose of creating a “new port.”
William Heath Davis, one of the oldest living
pioneers of California and author of “Sixty
Years in California,” in an interview published
in the San Diego Sun twenty years ago, gives
the following account of the origin of New
Town : -
“Of the new town of San Diego, now the
city of San Diego, I can say that I was its
founder. In 1850 the American and Mexican
commissions appointed to establish the bound-
ary line were at Old Town. Andrew B. Gray,
the chief engineer and surveyor for the United
States, who was with the commission, intro-
duced himself to me one day at Old Town. In
February, 1850, he explained to me the advan-
tages of the locality known as ‘Puenta de los
Muertos’ (Point of the Dead), from the circum-
stances that in the year 1787 a Spanish squadron
anchored within a stone's throw of the present
site of the city of San Diego. During the stay
of the fleet, surveying the bay of San Diego for
the first time, several sailor and marines died
and were interred on a sand spit, adjacent to
where my wharf stood, and was named as above.
The piles of my structure are still imbedded in
the sands as if there had been premeditation to
mark them as the tomb marks of those deceased
early explorers of the Pacific Ocean and of the
inlet of San Diego during the days of Spain's
greatness. I have seen Puenta de los Muertos
on Pantoja's chart of his explorations of the
waters of the Pacific.
“Messrs. José Antonio Aquirre, Miguel de
Pedrorena, Andrew B. Gray, T. D. Johns and
myself were the projectors of what is now
known as the city of San Diego. All my co-pro-
prietors have since died, and I remain alone of
the party and am a witness of the marvelous
events and changes that have since transpired in
this vicinity during more than a generation.
“The first building in new San Diego was put
up by myself as a private residence. The build-
ing still stands, being known as the San Diego
hotel. I also put up a number of other houses;
the cottage built by Andrew Gray is still stand-
ing and is called ‘The Hermitage.’ George F.
Hooper also built a cottage, which is still stand-
ing near my house, in new San Diego. Under
the conditions of our deed we were to build a
substantial wharf and warehouse. The other pro-
prietors of the town deeded to me their interest
in block 20, where the wharf was to be built.
The wharf was completed in six months after
getting the title, in March, 1850, at a cost of
$60,000. The piles of the old wharf are still to
be seen on the old wharf site in block 20. At
that time I predicted that San Diego would be-
come a great commercial seaport, from its fine
geographical position and from the fact that it
was the only good harbor south of San Francis-
co. Had it not been for our Civil war, railroads
would have reached here years before Stanford's
road was built, for our wharf was ready for
business.”
The fate of this wharf of high anticipations
and brilliant prospects was prosaic and com-
monplace.
troops en route to Arizona were quartered at
the army barrack near the wharf. The great
flood of that year cut off for a time all com-
munication with the back country and detained
the troops there most of the winter. The sup-
ply of firewood ran out and the weather was
cold—so the “gallant six hundred,” led by the
In 1862, some six hundred Union.
\
264
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
quarter-master, charged the wharf and ware-
house, and when they were through charging
all that was left of that wharf was a few teredo-
eaten piles. The soldiers burned the wharf and
warehouse for fuel. Davis filed a claim against
the government for $60,000 damages on account
of the destruction of his wharf and warehouse
by the soldiers. But the government did not
“honor the charge he made.” After many de-
lays his claim was finally pared down to $6,000
and allowed for that amount.
THE PIONEER NEWSPAPER AND ITS PROPRIETOR.
Considering the difficulties of transporting
printing presses to California immediately after
the discovery of gold, it is remarkable how many
of those “levers that move the world” found
their way into the new El Dorado. They were
brought by every known route—around the
Horn, across the Isthmus of Panama on mule
back, and over the plains by teams. The
pioneer press of San Diego and its pioneer
newspaper have interesting histories. The
pioneer newspaper died nearly fifty years ago,
but the pioneer press is said to be still in use
at Independence, Inyo county, hale and hearty.
The story of Ames and his press of which the
following is the substance, appeared a few years
since in the Overland Monthly and has since
been published in several local newspapers. I
give it for what it is worth :
“The press was bought in New York in 1848
by Judson Ames and taken to Baton Rouge, the
home of Gen. Zachary Taylor, the nominee of
the Whig party for president. Ames started a
Whig campaign paper called 'The Dime Catcher.
General Taylor was elected, and there was no
further need for the campaign paper. For a
time Ames continued the publication of the
paper as a Whig organ, but The Dime Catcher
could not capture “bits’ enough to pay expenses
and its publication was suspended.
“With a press on his hands, Ames cast around
for an opening but finding none he packed up
his printing plant and joined the gold rush to
California. He came via the Isthmus of Pana-
ma. Landing at Chagres, he secured a boat
and a crew of native to pole him and his press
up the Chagres river. On the way up a sud-
(len lurch threw the press overboard. After
considerable labor and delay he fished it out of
the river and got it aboard the boat. He landed
at Cruces and finally succeeded in getting his
press and material packed on mules and safely
landed at Panama.
“Panama was crowded with gold seekers
awaiting transportation to California. The
prices for passage were prohibitive to persons
of limited means. Ames was perforce compelled
to await an opportunity to get transportation for
himself and his printing press. While waiting
he set it up and issued a paper called the Pama–
ma Herald, printed half in Spanish and half in
English. It was the pioneer paper of Panama.
After the rush had in a measure subsided he
continued his journey and landed without fur-
ther mishap at San Francisco.”
Here, according to the story in the Overland
Monthly, he met Senator William M. Gwin, who
induced him by flattering promises to locate at
San Diego and advocate the building of a Pa-
cific Railroad (by a southern route) of which
San Diego would be the western terminus.
This story is evidently largely apochryphal.
Ames in his salutatory “To our Patrons” pub-
fished in the first issue of the San Diego Her-
ald, May 29, 1851, gives this account of his ad-
VentureS :
“After surmounting difficulties and suffering
anxieties that would have disheartened any but
a ‘live Yankee' we are enabled to present the
first number of the Herald to the public. We
issued our prospectus in December last and sup-
posed at the time that we had secured the mate-
rial for our paper; but when we came to put our
hand on it, it wasn’t there.
“Determining to lose no time we took the
first boat for New Orleans, where we selected
our office and had returned as far as the Isth-
mus when Dame Misfortune gave us another
kick, Snagged our boat and sunk everything in
the Chagres river. After fishing a day or two
we got enough to get out a paper and pushed
on for Gorgono, letting the balance go to Davy
Jones’ locker. Then came the tug of war in
getting our press and heavy boxes of type across
the Isthmus. Three weeks of anxiety and toil
prostrated us with Panama fever, by which we
missed our passage in the regular mail steamer
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
265
—the only boat that touched at San Diego—
thereby obliging us to go on board a propeller
bound for San Francisco. This boat sprung a
leak off the Gulf of Tehauntepec-came near
sinking—run on a sand bank—and finally got
into Acapulco, where she was detained a week
in repairing. We at last arrived in San Fran-
cisco, just in time to lose more of our material
by the late fire Well, here we are at last, as
good as new, and just as Our paper is going to
press the thought occurs to us that we ought to
make this explanation to those who gave us
their subscriptions last December, to account for
Our tardy appearance.
“In politics the Herald will be independent
but not neutral; it will be the organ and engine
of no party but the impartial advocate of such
measures as shall seem best calculated to pro-
mote the general welfare of the state and ad-
vance local interests and prosperity of Lower
California or more immediately of the district of
San Diego.”
The Herald was a four column paper 12x18
inches. The subscription price was $10 per an-
num, one half in advance. The first issue con-
tained a column and a half list of letters re-
maining in the postoffice. Some of these let-
ters had remained there since the establishment
of the postoffice in 1848. The advertisements in
the Herald were nearly all of business houses in
San Francisco. The rates for advertising were
$4 for a square of eight lines.
The outlook was not encouraging. The town
was small and non-progressive; a large portion
of the inhabitants were native Californians
whose early education had been neglected.
There did not seem to be that long felt want
that the newspaper alone can fill. Yet, with all
its uncongenial surroundings the paper attained
a widespread fame, not, however, through its
founder, but through a substitute to whom for
a short time Ames entrusted the editorial tripod,
scissors and paste pot of the Herald.
“Lieut. George H. Derby, of the United
States Topographical Corps, had been sent down
by the government in August, 1852, to super-
intend the turning of the channel of the San
Diego river into False bay, to prevent it from
carrying sand into the bay of San Diego. Der-
by was a wit as well as an engineer, and a
famous caricaturist.”
J_ieutenant Derby, better known by his mom
de plume, John Phoenix, on taking charge of the
Herald made the following announcement in
the editorial columns:
“Facilius decensus averni, which may be liter-
ally translated—it is easy to go to San Francis-
co—Big Ames has gone. Departed in the
Goliath in hope of obtaining new subscribers for
this interesting journal, perchance hoping to be
paid by Old Ones. During his absence, which I
hope will not exceed two weeks, I am to re-
main in charge of the Herald—the literary part
thereof to the extent of two and a half columns.
Should any gentleman differing with me in opin-
ion feel anxious to give utterance to his thoughts,
I can only say, ‘My dear sir, the Herald is a
neutral paper and while I have charge of it its
light shall shine for all.” Express yourself
therefore fully but concisely in an ably written
article; hand it to me and I will with pleasure
present it to the world through the columns of
this widespread journal. Merely reserving for
myself the privilege of using you up as I shall
infallibly do and to a fearful extent if facts are
facts, reason is reasonable, and I know myself
intimately of which at present I have no man-
ner of doubt.’” Phoenix’s excuse for using the
singular pronoun in his editorial was that not
having a tape worm he could not be plural,
therefore he used “I.” Phoenix thus apolo-
gizes for his first issue: “Very little news will
be found in the Herald this week. The fact is
there never is much news in it and it is well that
it is so. The climate here is so delightful that
residents in the enjoyment of the dolce far
niente care very little about what is going on
elsewhere and residents of other places care
very little about what is going on in San Diego,
So all parties are likely to be gratified with the
little paper.”
Ames, in a mild way, had been supporting the
Democratic ticket, headed by John Bigler for
governor. Derby hoisted the Whig ticket with
William Waldo for governor, following this were
the names of candidates for county offices. This
he named the Phoenix ticket. Ames at San
Francisco was confronted by the Democratic
266
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
candidates with the evidence of his paper’s re-
creancy and his hopes of subsidy vanished.
He returned to San Diego. Derby thus de-
scribes the meeting: “The Thomas Neunt
(steamer Thomas Hunt) had arrived and a
rumor had reached our ears that ‘Boston' was
on board. Public anxiety had been excited to
the highest pitch to witness the result of the
meeting between us. It had been stated pub-
licly that ‘Boston’ would whip us the moment he
arrived, but though we thought a conflict
probable, we had never been very sanguine as
to its terminating in that manner. Coolly we
gazed from the window of the office upon the
New Town road; high above it waved a whip
lash, and we said, Boston cometh, and his driv-
ing is like that of Jehu, the son of Nimshi, for
he driveth furiously.” Calmly we seated our-
selves in the arm chair and continued our labors
upon our Magnificent Pictorial. Anon a step,
a heavy step, was heard upon the stairs, and
Boston stood before us. * * * We rose
and with an unfaitering voice said, ‘Well, Judge,
how do you do?” He made no reply, but com-
menced taking off his coat. We removed ours,
also our cravat. * * * The sixth and last
round is described by the pressmen and com-
positors as having been fearfully scientific. We
held Boston down over the press by our nose
(which we had inserted between his teeth for
that purpose), and while our hair was employed
in holding one of his hands we held the other in
our left and with the “sheep's foot’ brandished
above our head shouted to him, “Say Waldo!’
“Never!' he gasped.
“At this moment we discovered that we had
been laboring under a ‘misunderstanding,' and
through the amicable intervention of the press-
man, who thrust a roller between our faces
(which gave the whole affair a very dark com-
plexion), the matter was finally settled on the
most friendly terms, and without prejudice to
the honor of either party.” He closes his de-
scription with the statement that “the public
can believe precisely as much as they please; if
they disbelieve the whole of it, we shall not be
at all offended.”
Lieutenant Derby while stationed at Fort
Yuma in 1853 mapped the main channel of the
lower Colorado river. His was the first and
one of our most accurate surveys ever made of
that changeable river. He published a humor-
ous book under the title of Phoenixiana. It had
an immense’ sale for a time, but has long been
out of print. He died a few years later of soft-
ening of the brain.
It is hardly necessary to state that the mill
between “Boston” and Phoenix was purely im-
aginary. Ames on taking charge of the paper
announces his return thus:
“Turned up again | Here we are againſ
Phoenix has played the devil during our ab-
sence but he has done it in such a good hum-
ored manner that we have not a word to say.
He has done things which he ought not to have
done and has left undone things which he ought
to have done but as what evil he has done cannot
be undone we may as well dry up and let it
slide.”
Ames was more of a rustler than a writer.
He frequently turned over the Herald to some
one to manage while he made a journey to San
Francisco, Sacramento or some other place. In
1855 he transferred it to William H. Noyes with
the remark that “he will give a better paper
than I have done.” He went east, returned a
year later and resumed the management of the
paper.
Ames had worn out San Diego or San Diego
had worn out Ames. The people of San Ber-
nardino were anxious to have a newspaper, a
party from Los Angeles had made them a propo-
sition to establish a paper in the town for a
bonus of $250. The Herald had been made in
1853 the official newspaper of San Bernardino
county. Ames offered to establish his paper in
San Bernardino city on condition that the citi-
zens send teams to San Diego to haul his plant
to its new destination. The offer was accepted.
Ames discontinued the publication of the San
Diego Herald in 1860. The historic press jour-
neyed to the Morman city by the road of
Temécula cañon. The San Bernardino Herald
was founded. Its life was short; it died in 1861.
Ames died a few months later.
TRAVEL BY SEA AND LAND.
During the decade between 1850 and 1860
HJSTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
267
the town made but little growth. There was
considerable travel between it and the other
ports of the coast. In 1851 and for six or seven
years later, “the fast-sailing United States mail
steamer 'Ohio, Captain Haley, will run as a
regular packet, making her trip once in every
two weeks between San Francisco and San
Diego, touching at the intermediate points of
Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa
Barbara and San Pedro,” so says an advertise-
ment in the Los Angeles Star of May 31, 1851.
In 1853 and 1854 the “Southerner,” of the
Southern Accommodation Line, was making
regular semi-monthly trips between San Fran-
cisco and San Diego, stopping at intermediate
points. The steamer “Sea Bird,” of Goodwin &
Co.'s line, was making trips three times a month,
leaving San Francisco the 4th, I4th and 24th of
each month. The “Thomas Hunt” also was
running between San Francisco and San Diego.
Once a month the Panama steamer put into the
port with the eastern mail. In 1851 a semi-
monthly mail by land was established between
Los Angeles and San Diego.
But the event that promised the greatest out-
come for San Diego during the decade was the
establishment of an overland mail between San
Antonio de Bexar, Tex., and San Diego. The
route was by the way of El Paso, Messillo,
Tucson and Colorado City (now Yuma)—I,500
miles. The service was semi-monthly. The
contract was let to James E. Burch, the postal
department reserving “the right to curtail or
discontinue the service should any route subse-
quently put under contract cover the whole or
any portion of the route.”
The San Diego Herald, August 12, 1857, thus
notes the departure of the first train: “The
pioneer mail train from San Diego to San An-
tonio, Tex., under the contract entered into by
the government with James Burch, left here on,
the 9th inst. (August 9, 1857) at an early hour
in the morning, and is now pushing its way for
the east at a rapid rate. The mail was, of
course, carried on pack animals, as will be the
case until the wagons which are being pushed
across will have been put on the line. The first
train from this side left in charge of R. W.
Laine, who was accompanied by some of the
most active and reliable young men in the coun-
ty, the party taking relay mules with them for
use on the desert. The intention is to push on
at the rate of fifty or sixty miles a day to Tuc-
son, where entering the Apache country proper,
a large party will be organized to afford proper
protection as far as El Paso del Norte or further
if necessary. The first mail from the other side
has not yet arrived, although somewhat over-
(lue, and conjecture is rife as to the cause of the
delay. Until the arrival of the next express
from Fort Yuma we will probably receive no
tidings from the country through which the
mail has to pass, but for our own part we see
no reason for alarm in the case. The train
leaving here took a large number of letters for
Fort Yuma, Tuscon, Calabasas, El Paso, etc., in
addition to the regular eastern mail.” The east-
ern arrived a few days later and the San
Diegans went wild with joy and built in imag-
ination a city of vast proportions on the bay.
The service continued to improve and the fifth
trip from the eastward terminus “was made in
the extraordinary short time of twenty-six days
and twelve hours,” and the San Diego Herald
on its arrival, October 6, rushed out an extra
“announcing the very gratifying fact of the com-
plete triumph of the southern route, notwith-
standing the croaking of many of the oppo-
ments of the Administration of this state.” “The
first mail,” so said the extra, “from San Diego
had arrived at San Antonio in good style and
created naturally a great excitement, the Texans
taking fully as much interest in the establish-
ment of the line as the Californians.”
But the triumph of the “southern route” was
of short duration. September, 1858, the stages
of the Butterfield line began making their semi-
weekly trips. This line came down the coast
to Gilroy, then through the Pacheco Pass, up
the San Joaquin valley and by way of Fort
Tejon to Los Angeles; then eastward by Teme-
cula and Warner's ranch to Yuma, then across
Arizona and New Mexico to El Paso, where it
turned north to St. Louis and Memphis, its
eastern termini. San Diego and San Antonio
were side-tracked and the Southern route dis-
continued.
268
|HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
OLD TOWN AND NEW TOWN IN STATU QUO.
After this temporary spurt of enterprise, San
Diego lapsed into its old poco tiempo ways.
Old Town remained in statu quo and New
Town did not expand. There had been rumors
of a railroad in 1854 and in 1857, but the mut-
tering of the coming storm between the north
and the south had frightened capital and the
hope of a railroad had been given up. During
the Civil war, there were some troops always at
the barracks, sometimes one company, Some-
times two or three. The soldiers stationed there
did not add much to the revenue of the town.
The pay of a private was $13 a month in green-
backs, which, converted into coin at the rate of
thirty to forty cents silver for a dollar currency,
did not give the defenders of the country lavish
amounts of spending money. A considerable
amount of the supplies for the troops were
landed at San Diego and sent to Fort Yuma by
wagon trains. This gave employment to a num-
ber of men and teams and added to the business
of the town.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
SAN DIEGO COUNTY –Continued.
URING the decade between 1850 and
1860 there was little or nothing done to
develop San Diego's back country. From
San Mateo to... the Mexican border and from
the ocean front to the mountains the choice
land of the county was held in vast Mexi-
can grants. Even the limited market that the
town afforded for fruit and other agricul-
tural products was poorly supplied. In
1855 a wagon road was constructed between
San Diego and San Bernardino by way of the
Temécula cañon. The Herald of May 12, 1855,
chronicles the arrival of Mr. Katz’s wagon train
from San Bernardino, bringing market supplies
which were readily disposed of—eggs sold at
fifty cents a dozen and butter at fifty cents per
pound. San Diego had great expectations of be-
coming the shipping port of San Bernardino.
The long haul, the steep grades and the winter
floods that swept through the Temécula cañon
were obstacles that prevented the development
of an inland commerce between the city by the
bay and the stake of Zion in San Bernardino.
The famine years of 1863-64 that brought
about the downfall and financial ruin to so many
of the cattle barons of Southern California were
not so disastrous in San Diego as in the other
cow counties. The ranges were not So heavily
overstocked and there was more back country
not covered by Spanish grants where the cattle
could be driven and kept alive until the feed
Started on the deserted ranges near the coast.
While this was fortunate for the cattle kings,
it was unfortunate for the county. It retarded
its agricultural development. The colonization
era of the early '70s that brought about the sub-
division of So many ranchos and resulted in the
founding of such prosperous settlements as Riv-
erside, Pasadena, Lompoc and others founded
no colonies in San Diego. Santa Margarita and
Las Flores ranchos, famous in California his-
tory, still remain intact and that “ancient baron”
Richard O'Neal, their present owner, rules over
a domain vaster than a dukedom in his native
Ireland. His holdings in the northwestern part
of San Diego county amount to 133,OOO acres.
The development of the water supply now in
progress and the increased value of land conse-
quent upon the influx of home-seekers will ere
long invade the stronghold of the last feudal
baron of the old regime.
WATER SUPPLY.
San Diego in the past has been sneeringly
nick-named by some of its enemies the city of
“bay-and-climate.” The inference intended to
be drawn from this was that it had no back
country—at least, none that was productive—
and its only resources were bay and climate.
The time was when this charge had some foun-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
269
dation, but this has all been changed by the
water developments of the past twenty years.
No other county on the coast has invested ‘so
much capital and expended so much labor in
conserving the waters of its rivers for irriga-
tion as San Diego has done.
There are in this year of Our Lord 1906
either constructed or in the course of construc-
tion thirteen reservoirs with a holding capacity
of one hundred and forty-five billions gallons.
The elevation of these reservoirs above the sea
level ranges from 145 feet to 4,650 feet. When
these are all completed and filled there will be
sufficient water to irrigate all of the irrigable
land on the western slope of the county.
THE IMPERIAL VALLEY. AND SALTON SEA.
The early history of that part of San Diego
county lying between the mountains and the
Colorado river was a succession of tragedies.
Hostile Indians and desert thirst dotted the way-
sides of the old immigrant trails that crossed it
with many a grave. Two great overland routes
converged on the Colorado river at the mouth
of the Gila. One came up from the northern
states of Mexico and the other, an extension of
the Santa Fé trail, crossed New Mexico and
Arizona. Over the first came and went many
of the early Spanish pioneers, and later by it
the Sonorian migration found its way to the
land of gold. Over the second came the immi-
grants to California from Texas, Arkansas and
other southern states.
Between the Colorado and the Coast Range
Mountains lay an inhospitable desert. Over this
arid waste the immigrant looked forward with
dread and foreboding. The trail, faint at best,
was often obliterated by sand storms or cloud-
bursts and the land marine was left to drift
helpless on a chartless sea. If he missed a
watering place his chances were desperate for
reaching the next one. Unused to desert phe-
nomena, the deceitful mirage might lure him
from the trail, and in pursuing phantom rivers
and lakes “Till they faded from his sight,”
leave hind helpless to perish of desert thirst.
There is a legend that when the Southern Pa-
cific Railroad was in course of construction
across the desert in 1879, the builders came upon
a group of human skeletons. These were sup-
posed to be the remains of members of a lost
immigrant train of the early '50s. The sands of
the Colorado desert were as pitiless to the weary
immigrant as the drifting snows of the Sierras.
These tragedies on the Colorado river route vir-
tually ended with the building of the Southern
Pacific Railroad across the desert. The road-
bed marked the trail and the watering stations
along the road relieved the thirsty traveler.
No thirst-tortured immigrant who crossed the
desert waste between Yuma and the Pass of San
Gorgonio could have been convinced by any
form of argument that that “desert could be
made to bud and blossom as the rose.”
The first scheme for reclaiming the Colorado
desert by irrigation was promulgated by Dr. O.
M. Wozencraft half a century ago. His project
was ridiculed as visionary and impossible. He
tried to secure a large concession of land from
Mexico lying just below the line. This was at
the time when filibustering was active, and the
Mexican government regarded the doctor's
scheme with suspicion. The first successful at-
tempt at reclamation of desert land was made at
Coachella near Indio, Riverside county, in 1898.
This was accomplished by means of artesian
wells. The remarkable growth and the early
date at which the vegetables grown could be put
on the market convinced the unbelieving that
with water not only could the desert be made to
bud and blossom as the rose, but that farming
it could be made to pay. The reclamation of
what is now known as Imperial valley began in
IOOO.
The California Development Company had ob-
tained concessions of land stretching along the
southeastern borders of San Diego county and
extending below the line into Lower California.
The company constructed an irrigating canal
which tapped the Colorado river on the Califor-
nia side at several points below Yuma. This
canal, seventy feet wide and six to eight feet
deep, extended sixty miles. The first settler
took up land in June, 1900, and the first plow-
share was struck into the ground in the latter
part of June, 1901. The rush to secure land,
considering the location, was phenomenal. The
wonderful fertility of the soil and the moderate
270
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
price at which land with irrigating facilities
could be purchased (all of which was heralded
abroad by judicious advertising) brought in a
rush of settlers unprecedented in colonization.
At the close of 1901 less than 2,000 acres were
under cultivation. In 1902, 20,000 acres were
plowed and the work of extending the canal had
been pushed until at the close of 1903, IOO,000
acres could be irrigated. Early in 1904 it was
estimated that the water system of the valley
covered 125,000 acres. The influx of settlers
had kept pace with the extension of the water
system. Imperial, the largest town of the val-
ley, had a population of 1,2OO. It had its hotels,
stores, Schools, banks and newspapers. Five
other towns, Brawley, Holtville, Silsbee, Heber
and Calexico in California and Mexicala below
the boundary line, competed with Imperial, the
metropolis, for the trade of the valley. In 1905
the population of the valley was estimated at
IO,OOO. There were twelve school districts with
School houses in each filled with pupils. The
Southern Pacific in 1903 extended a branch line
from Old Beach on its transcontinental road
through Brawley and Imperial to Calexico.
This proved to be one of the best paying branch
lines owned by the company. The Imperial val-
ley was proving to be a land of promise not only
flowing with milk and honey, but with more
substantial viands. In 1904 the first cloud
dimmed its horizon. Trouble began between
the United States and the California Develop-
ment Company. The company by its filings
claimed 10,000 cubic feet per second of the
waters of the Colorado river. As the Colorado
is a navigable stream and this amount being
more than its normal flow, the government ob-
jected. A bill was introduced in the house of
representatives to have the waters of the river
appropriated for irrigation. This bill was de-
feated.
Two of the intakes of the canal were below
the boundary line and consequently not under
the jurisdiction of the United States. In Octo-
ber, 1904, the water in the canal was low and
intakes No. I and No. 2 filled with silt. There
was a shortage of water and crops were suf-
fering. The speediest way and the least ex-
pensive to relieve the threatened water famine
of the valley was found to be the dredging of
intake No. 3, the lowest one. Soon after the
dredging, water began to rise in the Salton sink.
It was discovered that water had made its way
from the lower intake and canal into New river
and from that into Salton sink. Nothing was
done to stop the inflow. The rainfall of the
winter of 1904-05 was the heaviest for many
years. The waters rose rapidly in the Salton
sea. The salt works at Salton were overflowed
and destroyed. The Southern Pacific Railroad
track was menaced. A dam of Sand bags was
built, but the rising waters compelled the com-
pany to build what is called a “shoo-fly track.”
During the low waters of the first three years
the company, at comparatively small expense,
could have built head-gates that would have
controlled the waters at the intakes. It was now
getting beyond their control. The river had
made broad channels of the intakes and the com-
pany was aroused to the necessity of doing Some-
thing to prevent the flooding of the country. A
dam 600 feet long and IOO feet wide, made of
piles driven into the river bed and the inter-
stices filled with brush and wire matresses, was
constructed across the principal break. It was
almost completed when, on November 29, 1905,
the second greatest flood ever known swept
down the Gila into the Colorado. The dam was
carried away and the waters unrestrained
flowed through the intakes.
The rainfall of the winter of 1905-06 was
heavier than that of the previous year. The
Colorado left its old channel and its waters
poured into the Salton sink through the New
and the Alamo rivers. In June, 1906, the New
river at Calexico was ten miles wide and the
waters of the Salton sea rose eight feet in fifteen
days. The Alamo, the other branch of the Col-
orado, was 1,160 feet wide and 80 feet deep.
The soft lose silt melted like Snow and was
carried away by the turbulent waters. The irri-
gating canals were swept away and the deep
gulches cut by the rivers rendered it impossible
to conduct the water from them to the crops.
The condition of the crops in the valley at this
time was very much like that of Coleridge's
Ancient Mariner—“Water | Water! everywhere
and not a drop to drink.” On the very brink
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
271
of immense rivers of water the crops were per-
ishing from drought.
Part of the town of Mexicala was swept away
by the flood and Calexico was endangered. The
old channel of the Colorado from Yuma to the
Gulf of California was left high and dry. The
Salton sea was receiving all of the Colorado's
immense volume of water, amounting to a flow
of 20,000 cubic feet per second, and it had
spread out over four hundred square miles. The
responsibility for the disaster that had fallen
upon Imperial valley rests largely with the di-
rectors of the Canal Company. Their failure to
provide controlling works of any kind at the in-
takes was a mistake or an omission their en-
gineer should not have made. The Colorado is
a treacherous river, subject to sudden rises. The
fact that three seasons had passed without head-
gates to gauge the inflow to the canal had made
the company careless, and when the necessity
for such was forced upon it, the river was be-
yond control.
The Southern Pacific Railroad Company has
taken charge of the situation. Three times that
company at great expense has been compelled
to build new tracks to escape the encroachments
of the Salton sea. The sites of Indio, Thermal,
Mecca and Salton, stations on the line of the
road, are inundated. The small farms of the
settlers at these, places have been ruined. An
army of a thousand men are dumping rock into
the breaks in the banks of the Colorado.
The expense involved in controlling the run-
away river was immense during the month of Oc-
tober, 1906. The Southern Pacific Railroad Com-
pany was spending $10,000 a day in dumping
rock into the breaks of the river bank. All the
available rolling stock on the Tucson, Los An-
geles and San Joaquin Valley divisions were
called into requisition. Work on the different
railroad lines was suspended and the entire energy
concentrated upon the closure of the break. Rock
was brought from the Southern Pacific quarries
located at Casa Blanca, Bly, Declez, Ogilby, Pilot
Knob and Calabasas. Some of these places were
two hundred miles from where the dam was
being constructed. Each Source of supply was
assigned a definite quantity of material for its
daily output. Two hundred and eighty cars a
day, or enough rock and gravel to dump a car
every five minutes day and night, was poured into
the gap. At the same time a dike of nine miles
along the Colorado river to prevent overflow
was in course of construction. On the 24th of
October water for the first time in months flowed
down the old channel of the Colorado.
CITIES AND TOWNS.
OLD TOWN.
Old Town, now the first ward of the city, is
the San Diego of history and romance. It is
three miles northwest of the city proper. The
surf line of the Santa Fe Railroad system passes
through the lower portion of it. From 1850 to
1868 it was the county seat. Prior to 1850 it
was all that there was of the city or town of San
Diego. Here the first germ of civilization in
California was planted. The first mission was
established here, and here the first Indian convert
was baptized.
Dana and Robinson made it famous in their
books on life in the California of olden times;
and Helen Hunt Jackson has invested it with an
air of romance by making it the scenes of the
marriage of her hero and heroine in her story
of Ramona. The house in which Ramona was
married to Alessandro is still pointed out to the
tourist.
The San Diego Sun of January I2, 1892, thus
rudely tears away the veil of sentiment that Mrs.
Jackson threw around her famous characters and
shows them up as they were in real life: “The
real Alessandro was a horse thief who was shot
for his crimes by a San Jacinto man, who is
still living. Ramona is a squaw of well-under-
stood character, who lives upon her notoriety and
her offenses.”
ROSEVILLE AND LA PLAYA.
After Father Horton had called the attention
of the coast to San Diego as a possible rival to
San Francisco, additions, subdivisions and new
cities around the bay became as thick as “leaves
in Valambrosa.” Besides San Diego, Old and
New, Middle Town, and Horton's Addition,
there were Caruther's Addition, Sherman's Ad-
dition, Taggert's Addition, Roseville, La Playa,
272
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Manassee's Addition, Monumental City and
Kimball City.
Major Ben. C. Truman, writing from San
Diego in 1869, gives La Playa and Roseville this
notice: * *
"La Playa, as a site for a city, is a good one,
but unfortunately most of the owners of 50-
vara lots of this metropolis (on paper) are the
singular possessors of more money than brains.
They have got some nice deep water in front
of their burg, and ‘the railroad must come
here, they say. Now they may slip up on this
point, for if ground is not broke further up the
bay, the railroad naturally would hunt a ter-
minus opposite La Playa on Peachy and Aspin-
wall Peninsula (Coronado) rather than span
the river with an $80,000 bridge.
"Roseville is also a pretty place (on paper),
but has no more chance of being a city than
Marriott's Avitor has of being the means of
transportation for the conveyance of Ben. Butler
to ethereal realms. Roseville is a couple of miles
further up the bay than La Playa, and is, for the
most part, Owned by a gentleman named Rose,
one of the most sterling and public-spirited men
in Southern California. Should La Playa ever
be a great city, Roseville would have the honor
to be its very respectable suburb.”
The trustees of the San Diego Mutual Land
Association, which association controlled the
lands at La Playa and Roseville, in a column
advertisement in the Bulletin of 1871 (a great
spread in advertising for a real estate agency to
make in those days) sets forth the great natural
advantages of their location on the bay, to be-
come “the most prominent business points of
this harbor and which will eventually be made
the terminus of the Southern Transcontinental
Railroad.” “One lot (says the advertisement),
50 feet front by IOO feet in depth, will be given
to persons contracting to erect buildings cost-
ing from $250 to $500 within three months;
one block, 200 feet by 300 feet, will be given to
any party contracting to erect a first-class hotel.”
“At La Playa the old landing of the hide drogh-
ers (spoken of by Dana in his Two Years Be-
fore the Mast), a substantial wharf 472 feet
long by 30 feet in width, has been constructed
having a depth of 16 feet at low tide.”
”Whenever one hundred buildings have been
crected upon land belonging to the Association
the balance of the property may be sold as well
as donated and the proceeds thereof expended
in improvements, such as the erection of a town
hall, markets, school houses, sinking artesian
Wells, construction of wharves and other pub-
lic improvements.”
Such liberal offers should have built up a
great city on Point Loma, but the superior in-
ducements of Horton's Addition drew the tide
of immigration further up the bay. Roseville
has a hotel and several business houses. Its
wharf is the landing place for the launches that
carry visitors and the residents to and from the
Universal Brotherhood Headquarters on Point
Loma. La Playa is the home of the Portuguese
fisherman who supply the fish markets of San
Diego. Truman's prophecy of thirty-five years
ago has come true, neither place has become a
city.
NATION AL CITY.
The Kimball brothers in 1869 bought the
Rancho de la Nacion, containing 27,000 acres.
They subdivided a portion of it into farm lots,
built a wharf and laid off a town on the bay four
miles south of San Diego, which they named
National City. They were quite successful in
selling lots, and for a time there was a spirited
and somewhat acrimonious rivalry between New
Town and National City. The failure of the
Texas Pacific Railroad disastrously affected it,
as well as its rival. The California Southern
Railroad, in consideration of a gift of 17,OOO
acres of land made by the Kimballs located its
Pacific terminus at National City. Again the
town was on the high tide of prosperity. The
removal of the railroad shops began in 1892.
National City is the southwestern terminus of
the Santa Fe Railroad system. The National
City & Otay Railroad has its offices and shops
lmere, where all the rebuilding and repairing of
the rolling stock of the La Jolla, Cuyamaca and
National City and Otay Railroads is done.
The city is lighted by electricity and an elec-
tric car line connects it with San Diego. Bonds
to the amount of $23,000 have recently been
voted to erect a high school building. National
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
273
City has an excellent public library established in
I895. It is supported by taxation and contains
3,350 volumes.
CORON ADO.
Coronado Beach, or Coronado as it is usually
called, is a peninsula that divides San Diego
Harbor from the Ocean. Up to 1886 it was cov-
ered with a dense growth of chaparral. E. S.
Babcock originated the scheme of building a
town and an immense tourist hotel on it. The
Coronado Beach Company was Organized and
work begun. The brush was cleared off, streets
graded, sewers laid and town lots thrown on the
market in time to be caught by the boom. The
lots advanced rapidly in value and Babcock's
Scheme proved to have “millions in it.” The
erection of the Hotel del Coronado was begun
early in 1887, and completed in December of
that year. The building covers seven acres of
ground and can accommodate seven hundred
guests. It is one of the largest caravansaries in
the world. The dreary and desolate looking
peninsula of twenty years ago is now covered
with elegant residences, green lawns and flower
gardens. It is reached from San Diego by a
steam ferry that connects with an electric rail-
road that runs to the Ocean front of the hotel,
a mile distant from the ferry.
The city of tents is one of the unique features
of Coronado that has been in existence about
ten years. The Tent City is located on the
Coronado peninsula, which is six miles long but
about six hundred feet wide where the Tent
City is located. The city is nearly a mile in
length; on one side of it is the Pacific ocean,
on the other the bay of San Diego. Every mod-
ern convenience of city life can be found there
and the cost of living can be gauged by the size
of the visitor's purse. There are tents of all
sizes, wee little tents, middle-sized tents and
great huge tents. At the height of the season
there are about five hundred tents occupied, and
a population of 1,500 to 2,OOO, when the season
closes the tents are folded and laid away till the
next SeaSOn.
OCEANSIDE.
Oceanside on the surf line of the Santa Fe
Railroad system is forty-one miles by rail north
of San Diego. It was founded in 1884 and dur-
ing the boom grew rapidly. The Fallbrook
branch railroad, once the main line of the Cali-
fornia Southern, leaves the Surf Line at Ocean-
side. The railroad to Escondido forms a junc-
tion here with the Surf Line between San Diego
and Los Angeles. The town is four miles from
the Old Mission of San Luis Rey and has the
rich San Luis Rey valley for its back country.
For a decade after the great boom of 1887
Oceanside stood still, then there came an awak-
ening. Capitalists sized up the location and
figured out a brilliant future for the town and
surrounding country. In 1903 a new hotel, the
Anchorage, costing $2O,OOO was built and a new
Steel wharf I347 feet in length was constructed.
During the year 1905 a syndicate of which H.
JE. Huntington, the great electric railway mag-
nate, is supposed to be the principal, purchased a
large portion of the real estate included within
the boundaries of the city of Oceanside. In the
valley within a few miles of Oceanside the same
parties have purchased over 125,000 of acreage.
The Pacific Light & Power Company has filed
on 50,000 inches of water in the San Luis Rey
river and the construction of a storage reservoir
has been begun. When the irrigation system
is completed both the town and the country will
enter upon a career of unparalleled prosperity.
The Oceanside free public library was estab-
lished in December, 1904. The annual income
of $640 is derived from taxation. The total
number of volumes in the library is 850. H. D.
Brodie is the librarian.
ESCONDIDO.
Escondido, Hidden Valley or Rincon del
Diablo, The Devil's Corner, was formerly known
as Wolfskill's rancho and comprises about 13,-
OOO acres of the San Marcos grant. In 1885 it
was purchased by a syndicate of San Diego and
Los Angeles capitalists, who subdivided it into
small farms and laid off a town. The lands had
a rapid sale. A large hotel, a bank building and
a number of business blocks were built between
1886 and 1800. The farm lands have been
planted to citrus fruits and raisin grapes.
When the settlement was begun in 1886 an
irrigation district was formed and bonds issued.
While the colony was prosperous the indebted-
18
274
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
ness was easily borne by the people, but hard
times came after the boom. Property values
shrunk and shrivelled. The people were de-
pressed. The outlook for redeeming the bonds
and relieving themselves of the incubus of debt
that bore so heavily upon them seemed to be
hopeless. But with the return of better times in
1904 hope revived and negotiations were begun
with the bond-holders looking toward a cancella-
tion of the bonded indebtedness. The holders of
the bonds met them half way and a compromise
was made and $500,000 worth of bonds were
Surrendered at 50 per cent of their face value.
September 9, 1905, was a grand gala day in the
valley. The last vestige of the old debt that
had weighted down the people of Escondido had
been lifted. Before a crowd of two thousand
persons the redeemed bonds were burned and
their ashes scattered to the winds.
The city of Escondido ranks second in size
of the cities in the county. It has an active
board of trade, a public library containing 1,200
volumes and an excellent high school.
LA JOLLA (THE JEWEL).
This famous watering place has grown in
popularity with each succeeding year. During
the year 1905 sixty dwellings were erected. The
University of California established a biological
station there, and both professors and students
have carried on laboratory work, and some val-
uable research work has been done. In the
spring of 1905 a new building was erected for
the station from funds donated by the citizens of
La Jolla and San Diego. There are in it research
rooms, a public museum, aquarium and a room
for a library. Special gifts consisting of muse-
um cases, a boat, “The Loma,” library books and
funds for running expenses and other outlays,
aggregating $7,500, were donated last year.
TALI. BROOR.
Fallbrook, on the western slope of the Coast
Range mountains, is twelve miles in a direct line
from the coast and sixty-one from San Diego
by the railroad. Since the great flood of 1892,
which destroyed the railroad in the Temécula
cañon, Fallbrook has been the terminus of the
eastern end of the road, which is now known as
the Fallbrook branch. The older settlement is
back a mile or two from the railroad. The town
has grown up since the building of the railroad.
It has two large hotels and several business
houses.
PALA (SHOVEL).
Pala, once an asistencia or auxiliary of San
Luis Rey Mission, is located in the upper San
Luis Rey valley about seventeen miles from the
coast and fifty miles north of San Diego. It is
largely an Indian settlement. These descendants
of the Mission Indians keep up many of the old
customs and observances. The Mission capilla
or chapel still stands in a fair state of preserva-
tion. Services are held in it once a month.
There is here some of the finest vine and fruit
land in the county.
JULIAN.
Julian, fifty-five miles northeast from San
Diego bay, in the mountain regions, is 4,500 feet
above the sea level. It owes its origin to a
mining rush. In February, 1870, gold was dis-
covered near the ranch of M. S. Julian. The
news of the discovery caused a rush and a town
was built and named after the proprietor. A
number of rich claims were located and for sev- .
eral years a considerable quantity of gold was
taken out. The Cuyamaca grant owners laid
claim to the mines. After a legal contest, last-
ing five years, the miners won. Much of the
country around Julian is adapted to stock rais-
ing. There are some fine orchards of apples,
pears, plums and peaches in the Julian district.
EAN NER.
Banner is a mining settlement four miles east
of Julian, but 1,500 feet lower. It is on the
desert side of the divide in the San Felipe
cañon, the waters of which sink into the desert.
The town has several quartz mills, a store, post-
Office and school house.
RAM ON A.
Ramona is located in the Santa Maria valley
thirty-five miles northeast of San Diego city.
It is the commercial center of the valley, which
contains about 18,000 acres of tillable land.
The town has a population of about 200 and
outside of the town there are 300 inhabitants.
There are three country school districts in the
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
275
valley and a grammar and union high School in
the town. The Ramona Sentinel keeps watch
and ward over the valley and records the deeds
done in it. -
Ramona Tent village is a popular mountain
resort. Its altitude is I,500 feet. All the con-
veniences of the city are combined with the de-
lights of life in the country. Ramona has four
general merchandise stores, one drug store and
two hotels and a free public library, established
in 1893. The total number of volumes is 653.
Mrs. H. A. Miles is the librarian.
CHAPTER XL.
SAN DIEGO CITY.
San Diego as a city was passed March 27,
1850. It is a voluminous document, al-
together too long for insertion here.
first section:
Sec. I. All that tract of land known as the
Presidio of San Diego, included in the survey
made by Lieut. Cave J. Couts, first Dragoons,
U. S. A., for the Ayuntamiento of San Diego,
shall henceforth be known as the City of San
Diego, said limits not to exceed an area of more
than ten square miles; Provided, nothing in this
chapter shall be construed to divest, or in any
manner to prejudice any rights or privileges
which the Presidio may hold to any land beyond
the limits of the charter, and its municipal jur-
isdiction shall extend to said limits and over the
waters of the Bay of San Diego to the extent of
one marine league from the shore.
Tº act of the legislature incorporating
I give the
From this section it appears that San Diego
was two and a half times larger than Los Ange-
les at the time of its incorporation. The legis-
lative act incorporating the latter city cut down
its area to four square miles. The charter of
San Diego provided for the government of the
city, a mayor and common council to consist of
five members, a city marshal, a city attorney, as-
sessor and treasurer. The election was held on
the first Monday of May, 1850. Joshua H. Bean
was elected mayor, Charles P. Noel, A. S.
Wright, Charles Haraszthy, William Leamy and
C. R. Johnson were chosen members of the
council. Jose Antonio Estudillo was elected
treasurer. Juan Bandini was assessor, T. W.
Sutherland, city attorney and Agostin Harasz-
thy, city marshal—he was also sheriff of the
county. -
The majority of the members of the first coun-
cil belonged to that class designated by the na-
tive Californians as “patriotas del bolsa” (patri-
ots of the pocket), men who were willing to sacri-
fice themselves for their country provided the
country put up the coin to pay for the sacrific-
ing. Their first act was to vote liberal salaries
to themselves and their compeers. The first jail
built by the first city marshal cost the city $7,-
OOO. It was built out of cobble stones and the
very first prisoner incarcerated dug his way out
of it with his pocket knife.
After two years trial the municipal machinery
was found too ponderous for the size of the city.
The tax-burdened people petitioned the legisla-
ture to repeal the city charter. February 12,
1852, an act was passed revoking the charter
and creating a board of three trustees to whom
was entrusted the government of the town.
POSTOFFICE ESTABLISHED.
August 14, 1848, Congress enacted a law att-
thorizing the postmaster-general to establish
postoffices and appoint deputy postmasters at
San Diego, Monterey and San Francisco and to
make “such temporary arrangements for the
transportations of the mail in said territory as the
public interest may require; that all letters con-
veyed to or from any of the above-mentioned
places on the Pacific, from or to any place on the
Atlantic coast, shall be charged with forty cents
postage; and that all letters, conveyed from one
to any other of the said places on the Pacific
coast shall pay twelve and a half cents postage.”
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
SAN DIEGO A PORT OF DELIVERY.
The revenue laws of the United States were
extended over the territory and waters of Upper
California and collection districts established
therein by Congress March 3, 1849. San Fran-
cisco was made a port of entry and a collector
of customs appointed,
San Diego and Monterey were made ports of
delivery and another port was to be established
at or near the junction of the Gila and Colorado
rivers and deputy collectors were to be appoint-
ed at the ports of delivery. The collector at the
port of entry (San Francisco) was allowed the
munificent compensation of $1,500 per amnum,
and the fees and commissions allowed by law.
The yearly salary of the collector would scarce
pay his office rent for a month in the flush days
of '49, when the rent of a very ordinary adobe
casa (the Parker house) was $125,000 a year.
The deputy collectors were allowed a salary of
$1,000 a year and fees and commissions. The
position of deputy revenue collector on the Gila
was not a fat office either in salary or fees. The
risk of having their hair raised by the hostile
Yumas prevented a scramble for the office of
deputy collector at the port of delivery “at or
near the junction of the Gila and Colorado.”
I fail to find any record of the appointment of a
collector for that port. A body of troops had
to be stationed at the port to prevent the In-
dians from collecting scalps. All violations of
the revenue laws of the United States committed
in Upper California were to be prosecuted in the
District Court of Louisiana or in the Supreme
Court of Oregon. The litigant in a suit brought
at the Port of San Diego had the alternative of
a two thousand mile trip the “plains across” to
Louisiana or a two thousand mile voyage up the
coast to the capital of Oregon for trial. San
Diego continued to be the port of delivery for
all Southern California until 1853, when San
Pedro and Santa Barbara were raised to that
dignity.
THE DIONEER RAILROAD.
San Diego, very early in the American period
of its history, was inspired with the ambition to
become the terminus of a transcontinental rail-
road. Mav 14, 1853, a great railroad meeting was
held in the pueblo. Capt. J. Bankhead Magruder
of the United States Army was president, and J.
Judson Ames of the Herald acted as secretary.
Hope animated the lonely pueblo by the bay and
enthusiasm ran riot in its glorious climate. A
railroad was building westward through Texas.
It was proposed to connect with this road at El
Paso. The distance was nearly a thousand miles
and the estimated cost of the road from El
PaSo to San Diego was placed at $24,OOO,OOO.
True that was an immense sum of money in
those days when the total amount of all the ap-
propriation made by congress that year footed
up only $41,OOO,OOO, nevertheless the people of
San Diego were sanguine that Providence and
Uncle Sam would aid them in building the road.
In 1854 the railroad scineme assumed a tangi-
ble form. November 7 of that year articles of
incorporation of the San Diego & Gila Southern
Pacific & Atlantic Railroad were filed with the
secretary of state at Sacramento and a charter
granted to run fifty years. The capital stock
was placed at four million dollars. The road
was to commence at some point on the bay of
San Diego and run easterly through the county
of San Diego to the Colorado river at or near
the mouth of the Gila a distance of about 150
miles. It was “to be of the same gauge and Scale
as the Mississippi and Pacific Railroad now being
constructed through Texas and El Paso.” A
board of thirteen directors was elected. E. W.
Morse, i. Straus and J. R. Getchell of the in-
corporators made affidavit that an amount equal
to $1,000 for each mile to be built had been sub-
scribed.
The California Legislature of 1855 passed an
act authorizing the president and board of
trustees of the city of San Diego to convey to
the president and board of directors of the San
Diego and Gila Southern Pacific and Atlantic
Railroad Company two leagues of pueblo lands
to aid in the construction of said road. The act
was approved April 30, 1855, to take effect May
15, 1855. An election was to be held six months
after the passage of the act at which the electors
were to vote “grant” or “no grant.” If “grant”
carried, the pueblo lands from the water front
back were to be surveyed and the two presidents
were to select alternate lots until the railroad
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 277
company had secured enough to make its quota
of two leagues.
October 19, 1855, an election was held under
the provision of the act and the vote was unani-
mous to donate the two leagues of land to the
San Diego & Gila Southern Pacific & Atlantic
Railroad. The railroad seemed to be assurred.
It was building westward. Texas would donate
it 256,000 acres of land when it reached the
western boundary of that state and twenty-five
miles would be completed by August, 1856.
But the work did not begin on the western
end. There was rivalry in California over routes.
There were advocates for a southern route, a
central and a northern ; and railroad building in
California was neutralized by antagonistic rail-
road schemes. Then came the great financial
panic of 1857 and railroad projecting and rail-
road construction both east and west came to a
standstill. An act of the legislature approved
May 2, 1861, extended the time of beginning
work on the road fifteen years from November
7, 1855. The Civil war was in progress. Texas
was doing her best to dissolve the Union. She
had no money to build railroads and San Diego
could not go it alone. In 1868 the charter pro-
visions were extended six years. In 1869 James
Pascoe, engineer, was appointed to proceed im-
mediately to survey a route from San Diego to
the Colorado river. This seems to have been
the last act in the drama of the many syllabled
railroad. Its beginning and its ending were
within the pueblo of San Diego, but the two
leagues of pueblo lands were not part of its as-
sets when it died.
TH E \\\ \IKEN ING.
After its failure to become the terminus of a
great transcontinental railroad, San Diego sank
into a comotose state. The steamers came twice
a month, unloaded a few packages of freight and
landed a few passengers and took their depart-
ure. Then the town drowsed for another fort-
night until the steamer's gun again broke the
stillness. As Phoenix once said of San Diego :
“Its residents care very little about what is go-
ing on in other places and the residents of other
places care very little about what is going on in
San Diego.”
The Herald was dead and “big Ames,” the
rustler, had departed for new fields. For eight
years there was no newspaper to chronicle the
few happenings, and the town seemed to be
lapsing into the old poco tiempo ways of Mexi-
can days. Indeed, up to 1867 San Diego, town
and county, had retained the Mexican customs
and conditions of early times more nearly un-
changed than any other town or county in the
state. Their awakening from a Rip Van Winkle
sleep, not of twenty years, but of twenty lus-
trums, was the work of one man. April 6, 1867,
Alonzo E. Horton landed in San Diego. He
had come down from San Francisco to build a
city. The outlook was not encouraging. Old
Town was appropriately named ; anything new in
it would be out of place. It had the appearance
of having been finished years before and then
forgotten. New Town consisted of the govern-
ment barracks, officers’ quarters, the piles of the
IDavis wharf and a few houses that had escaped
the “wreck of matter,” the soldiers had made.
Horton was not discouraged. The bay was
there. The climate was there and there he de-
termined to build a city.
Horton induced the town trustees to offer a
tract of land lying east of New Town on the
shore of the bay for sale. At the public sale in
May, 1867, he bid off a tract of nearly 900 acres
of the pueblo lands at twenty-six cents an acre,
and had it surveyed and platted as Horton's Ad-
dition to San Diego. The tract is now the cen-
ter of the city of San Diego. He put his tract
on sale. It went slowly, very slowly at first.
His returns for the year 1867 were but $3,000.
He gave away land to anyone who would agree
to make substantial improvements. He deeded
lots to churches, for hotels and other improve-
ments. He built a wharf. and in 1869 began the
erection of the Horton house, the largest hotel
at that time in Southern California.
That genial writer, Ben C. Truman, who
wrote up Southern California before Nordhoff
or Charles Dudley Warner ever saw it, draws
these two pictures of Father Horton when he
was doing missionary work for San Diego.
HORTON AND HIS TOWN.
“Two years ago (1867), New Town seemed to
278
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
be among the things that were. Only two fam-
ilies were living here, and but three houses were
left standing. About this time a Mr. A. E. Hor-
ton came this way and purchased from the city
six quarter-sections of land, adjoining the plot
known as New Town; and, having it surveyed,
called it Horton's Addition. A few months af-
terward, a little, wiry, rusty-looking man might
have been seen upon the streets of San Fran-
cisco, with a long tin horn in his hand, said long
tin horn containing New San Diego and Hor-
ton's Addition (on paper) purchased by the lit-
tle gentleman with the long tin horn for the sum
of $220. Lots of people laughed at the rusty-
looking proprietor of the long tin horn, and said
he was a fool, who had thrown away his money;
and many a quarter-section had the trustees to
Sell to all such teal-estate spooneys. When Hor-
ton would shell out the contents of that long tin
horn and show you where the main street would
run, and where his wharf would be located, and
offer to give you a block of twelve lots just to
help the town along, you shook him indignantly
because he did not present you the deed, fully
recorded, and all at his own expense; and then
ten to one, you would have voted him a bore had
he tendered you the deed in person instead of
not transmitting it by mail.
“Two years have passed away, and as the con-
tents of that long tin horn described, in point
of site, facilities for living, climate, etc., it is the
nost comfortable, and one of the most flourish-
ing towns in Southern California, if not in the
state.”
“I met Mr. Horton yesterday. He looks just
as he did two years ago. I should judge that
he had on the same suit of clothes now as then.
But he no longer packs around that long tin
liorn. He rides behind a good horse, and re-
sides in an elegant mansion, with a garden ad-
joining, containing all kinds of vegetables and
flowers, and all kinds of young fruit and orna-
mental trees and shrubs. There are two hun-
dred and twenty-six blocks in Horton's Addi-
tion, each containing twelve lots 50x IOO feet.
Early in the history of the town Mr. Horton gave
away some twenty odd blocks, and sold twice
that number for a few hundred dollars a block.
During the past year he has sold over a hundred
thousand dollars’ worth of lots, and is selling
blocks and lots at large figures daily. Many
blocks are worth and held by him and others at
from $4,000 to $6,000 each, while none can be
purchased for less than $2,000 each. Mr. Hor-
ton has been very generous, and has helped many
a poor man to get along, provided he seemed
inclined to help himself. He has given each of
the denominations a piece of ground whereupon
to erect a church, and has liberally subscribed
towards the putting up of a pretentious edifice.
He is also about to give to the town a library,
having already purchased $1,000 worth of books
of Messrs. Bancroft & Co., and sent an order to
the Messrs. Harper's for a $1,000 worth more.
He has also tendered the use of his wharf to the
Pacific Mail Steamship Company, and it is be-
lieved that the steamers of this line will touch
at San Diego in a short time.”
The seed that Horton had sown now began
to bear fruit. The rumor that there was a city
building on the bay of San Diego had gone
abroad, and people came to buy lots. Another
rumor, too, had spread and that was that the
long talked of thirty-second parallel railroad was
a certainty. The San Diego & Gila Southern
Pacific & Atlantic Railroad had become a mem-
Ory—not a pleasant one to many an old-timer
who had helped to exploit it in the long ago.
Another transcontinental road was forging to the
front. Now, it was the Memphis, El Paso &
Pacific that was to span the continent. Its ob-
jective points were Norfolk, Va., on the At-
lantic, and San Diego on the Pacific. Gen.
John C. Fremont, the Pathfinder, was its presi-
dent. He would find a path for the railroad.
He had gone to Europe to float its bonds. Al-
ready it was reported that he had sold ten mil-
lion dollars’ worth of twenty year, six per cent
bonds. The road would certainly be built. The
man who dared to doubt was damned by every
loyal San Diegoan. True, it was a relict of “be-
fore the war,” but it was claimed that it still had
a legal existence. The year 1869 closed with a
monster railroad meeting in Horton's hall. Gen.
Thomas S. Sedgwick, chief engineer of the
Memphis, El Paso & Pacific, and Gen. Volney
E. Howard were the chief speakers. They
HISTORICAI, AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
279
aroused the enthusiasm of the audience to the
highest pitch. The dream of decades was about
to become a reality. tº
In the fall of 1869 the drift to San Diego re-
sembled an old-time “gold rush.” The author
has a vivid recollection of a voyage down the
coast on the old Senator in October of 1869.
Every berth had been sold a week before the
vessel sailed, and then the agents of the com-
pany sold standing room. The steamer's cooks
and waiters commenced feeding the passengers
about six o'clock in the morning and kept it up
with slight interruptions till nine at night. The
dining saloon was small and the crowd on board
necessitated the setting of the tables many times.
When all had been fed the tables were cleared,
the passengers without berths bunked on the
tables, under the tables, or wherever they could
spread their blankets. All or nearly all were
bound for San Diego to buy lots. The railroad
was coming; San Diego was destined to rival
San Francisco, and the lot buyers wanted to
grow up with the city. Many of the speculators
were old Californians who had not struck it rich,
but were sure they were on the right road now.
One old '49er, in the spring of 1850, had owned
a lot on Montgomery street, San Francisco, and
had sold it for $400; now it was worth $100,000;
he would secure a lot in San Diego and hold
on to it and grow in wealth as the town grew in
size. And so the talk ran all day and far into
the night, of bay and climate, of house lots and
business blocks, of transcontinental railroads and
Oriental steamships, which were sure to build
up a mighty metroplis in the Southland.
August 4, 1868, Joseph Nash erected the first
store in New Town. Its entire population then
numbered twenty-three souls. In the spring of
1870 the city had upwards of 800 buildings,
with a population of 3,000. Among its sub-
stantial improvements were two magnificent
wharves, costing in the aggregate $80,000; a
flouring mill with a capacity of 300 barrels a
day; several warehouses, half a dozen hotels,
two breweries, a boot and shoe factory, a bank
and two newspapers.
The Horton house was completed and opened
October 20, 1870. It cost nearly $150,000 and
was then “the most elaborate, attractive and
spacious hotel outside of San Francisco.” The
editor of the Bulletin, in a two-column write-up
of its attractions, classifies it with the great ho-
tels of the world; his enumeration of the great
hostelries of thirty-six years ago is interesting.
He says: “What the Grand hotel is to Paris;
Langham's to London; the Astor, Fifth Avenue
and St. Nicholas to New York; the Continental
to Philadelphia; the Tremont and Parker's to
Boston; Barnum's to Baltimore; St. Charles to
New Orleans; the Galt to Louisville; the South-
ern to St. Louis; the Sherman and Tremont to
Chicago; the Grand, Lick, Occidental and Cos-
mopolitan to San Francisco, and the Pico house
to Los Angeles, the Horton House is to San
Diego.” S. W. Churchill was its first manager.
Fate, fire and the march of improvement have
doomed all these great caravansaries on the Pa-
cific coast named in the above extract. The
Grand, Lick, Occidental and Cosmopolitan of
San Francisco were wiped out of existence in
the great fire that followed the earthquake of
April 18, 1906. The Pico house changed to the
National hotel has degenerated into a two-bit
lodging house and the Horton house was demol-
ished in 1905 to give place to the great U. S.
Grant hotel which will be to the San Diego of
the 20th century what the Horton house was in
the 19th. Father Horton removed the first
brick when the work of demolition began. -
The act authorizing the construction of the
Thirty-Second Parallel, the Southern Trans-
Continental, the Southern Pacific, the Texas Pa-
cific Railroad (for it was called by all these
names) failed to pass at the session of congress
in 1869-70; but at the next session the act char-
tering the Texas Pacific with its branch the
Southern Pacific passed by a two-thirds vote on
the 3rd of March, 1871. Then there was great
rejoicing in the city by the bay. The Bulletin
says: “As we go to press our city is in a blaze
of glory. Fifth street looms up like an immense
conflagration. Bon-fires, fireworks, anvil firing
and rejoicing are the order of the night.” And
they had cause to rejoice. For years they had
been yearning for a railroad with that “hope
deferred that maketh the heart sick;” and now
their longings were soon to be satisfied by the
“Greatest Railroad of the Age,” as the Wash-
280
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
ington Chronicle pronounced it. That paper
said: “No act of the Forty-first Congress will
be longer remembered to its credit than that
authorizing the construction of a great trans-
continental iron highway from the eastern
boundary of Texas, near Marshall, via El Paso,
to the town of San Diego, on the bay of that
name in the state of California.” How transi–
tory is fame ! Both the railroad and the Forty-
first Congress have long since been forgotten.
The act of congress authorizing the building
of the railroad settled the question in the minds
of the San Diegoans. To doubt its building was
treason to San Diego. The future of the city
was assured ; and a brilliant future it was—
San Diego, the seaport of the Occident and the
entrepot of the Orient. Branch roads were pro-
jected into the back country. San Bernardino
was clamoring for railroad connection with the
metropolis of the south, and Tom Scott was mak-
ing overtures to Los Angeles for a coast rail-
road from that city to San Diego. The trade of
the Orient would eventually pass through San
Diego to the east. There were rumors of an
Oriental steamship company in the formative
stage. The Panama steamers began stopping at
the port, and the Bulletin said: “We hail this
event as only second to that in which is record-
ed the passage of the Southern Pacific Railroad
bill.” The prices of real estate went up ; indeed,
under the circumstances it would have been im-
possible to keep them down. The Bulletin of
March 25 says: “The real estate transactions
of the past week are larger than ever before in
the history of San Diego and must appear rather
nauseating to those newspapers which have been
sneering at San Diego for the past year. By
the way, we know a gentleman of San Jose
who purchased a block on Fifth street two
years ago for $600 and was damned by a paper
of his town for so doing. He has been offered
$8,000 for the same since the bill passed.”
Horton sold $83.OOO worth of lots in two
months after the passage of the bill and a num-
ber of real estate agents were doing their best
to supply the demand. The boomers like Silas
Wegg dropped into poetry and a song first sung
at a concert in Horton's hall became the popu-
lar ditty of San Diego. It contains a consider-
able amount of truth and some poetry.
few sample stanzas :
I give a
“Away to the west, where the sun goes down,
Where the Oranges grow by the cargo,
They've started a town, and are doing it up
brown,
On the bay of San Diego.
“The railroad, they say, is coming that way,
And then they’ll be neighbors to Chicago;
So they built a big hotel, and built it mighty well,
In the town of San Diego.
“There the grass is ever green, and no fleas are
ever seen,
And pleasure-seekers often on the bay go,
Spread their canvas to the gale, as merrily they
Sail,
On the bay of San Diego.
“The lawyers there are plenty; I can mention
more than twenty,
And some are bigger scoundrels than Iago,
But they all get a share of the plunder floating
there,
The lawyers of San Diego.”
# $ * $ $
>}< >{< >k >{< >{< >k
April 14, 1871, the postmaster-general ordered
a change of the name of the postoffice at South
San Diego to San Diego. So New Town, South
San Diego and Horton's Addition became simply
San Diego.
December 27, 1871, an election was held to
vote upon the issue of bonds to the amount of
$100,000 to be proffered to any railroad company
that would build a railroad connecting San Ber-
nardino with San Diego. The bond issue was
carried with an overwhelming majority. San
Bernardino also held an election and voted a
bond issue equal to five per cent of its taxable
property for the same purpose.
The Bay Shore & Coast Road to Los Angeles
met with disaster. At the election held in Los
Angeles county to vote on the issue of railroad
bonds, the Texas Pacific Coast Line and the
Southern Pacific to Yuma were competitors.
The Southern Pacific won, securing bonds and
other subsidy to the amount of $61O,OOO.
In 1872, “Father” Horton, as he was familiar-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 281
*
ly called, erected a large building for the Texas
Pacific Railroad offices, but the employes of that
corporation never Occupied it. It was after-
wards used as a city hall. Grading was begun
On the roadbed of the Texas Pacific in the lat-
ter part of 1872, but was not pushed with a great
deal of vigor. About twelve miles of roadbed
in all were graded.
In 1873 came a financial crash. “Black Fri-
day in Wall street” was followed by one of the
worst panics that ever struck the country. For-
tunes crumbled, banks failed, capital hid, rail-
road building stopped. Enterprises that had
promised large returns were dropped immediate-
ly. Work on the Texas Pacific ceased and was
never resumed.
San Diego during its boom had grown to be
a city of 5,000 inhabitants. When work ceased
On the railroad the population began to dwindle
away. Building in the city ceased. There was
nothing to do to earn a living. People could not
live on climate, however invigorating, so they
left. Father Horton, during the flush times,
had sold a number of lots to working men on
the installment plan. They came to him and of-
fered to give up the lots and let him retain the
money paid if he would cancel their contracts.
With a generosity unknown in real-estate deals
he refunded all the money they had paid and re-
leased them of their obligations. In 1875 the
population had dwindled down to about 1,500,
and these were living largely on faith, hope and
climate.
The Kimball brothers, owners of the Rancho
de la Nacion, had, during the flush times of the
early '70s, laid off a town on the bay about four
miles distant from San Diego, and named it
National City. It had shared in the ups and
downs of the large city.
A NEW RAILROAD SCHEMI E.
In 1880 the Kimballs began agitating the
project of inducing the Atchison, Topeka & San-
ta Fe Railroad, that had built out into New
Mexico, to continue its road to San Diego and
National City. They met with but little en-
couragement at home. For thirty years the peo-
ple of San Diego had been talking Pacific rail-
road and their town was no nearer being the
terminus of a transcontinental road in '80 than
it was in 50. But the Kimballs persisted. One
of the Kimball brothers went east at his own
expense and presented his scheme to capitalists
and railroad men. He met with little success
at first, but the offer of 17,000 acres of land on
the bay for workshops and terminal grounds in-
duced the directors of the road to investigate
the proposition. Other parties owning land con-
tiguous offered additional grants. The railroad
company accepted the subsidy and work was
begun on the road; and in August, 1882, the
California Southern, as the road was then called,
was completed to Colton, on the Southern Pa-
cific; and in 1884 to San Bernardino. There it
stopped. The great flood of 1884 destroyed the
track in the Temécula cañon and once more San
Diego was without railroad connection. In 1885
the road through the cañon had been rebuilt and
trains were running over it. During the same
year the work of extending the California
Southern to Barstow, a station on the Atlantic
& Pacific, was begun, and early in 1887 was
completed. This road and the connecting roads
—the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe and the At-
lantic & Pacific—formed a transcontinental sys-
tem of which San Diego and National City were
the western termini.
With the rebuilding of the California South-
ern through the cañon in 1885, and the begin-
ning of work on its extension, the cloud of
despondency that had darkened the hopes of the
San Diegoans began to lift a little; as work
progressed and a transcontinental line became
more of a certainty, capitalists and speculators
came to the town to look around. The old-
timers who had loaded up with lots in the boom
of 1871-72 and had held on through all the in-
tervening years, simply because they could not
let go without losing all, began quietly to un-
load on the newcomers. The old resident had
faith—faith unbounded—in the future of the
city, but out of charity to the lotless he was will-
ing to divide a good thing; and when the trans-
fer was made he chuckled over his Smartness.
But when the buyer turned over his purchase at
an advance of twenty-five to fifty per cent the
chuckle died away into a sigh and at the next
}
282
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
transfer, when the price advanced a hundred
per cent, the sigh increased to a groan.
As the reverberations of the boom grew loud-
er the faithful old inhabitant turned speculator
himself and loaded up perhaps with a single lot
of the block he had formerly sold, at a price a
hundred per cent higher than he had received for
the entire tract. In the spring and summer of
I887, speculation ran riot in the streets of San
Diego. Prices of real estate went up until it
seemed as if they could go no higher; then some
adventurous investor would break the record and
the holders along the line would mark up the
price of their holdings. Business lots, that a
few years before were a drug on the market at
$25 a front foot, found buyers at $2,500 a foot.
A Small-sized store room rented all the way
from $300 to $500 a month for business, and if
cut up into stalls for real estate brokers, brought
in a thousand a month. Small and poorly fur-
nished sleeping rooms rented all the way from
$25 to $50 a month, prices varying with the
landlord’s cupidity and the tenant's necessity.
The prices of labor kept pace with speculation.
Carpenters received $5 to $6 a day, bricklayers
$6 to $8. Barbers asked twenty-five cents for
a shave and printers earned $50 to $60 a week.
The fame of San Diego's boom spread abroad.
The trains came in 10aded with speculators,
boomers, gamblers and bona fide home-seekers.
In the wild gold rush of the early '50s it was a
common saying among old Califorians “that
renegade ministers made the most adroit gam-
blers.” So in the boom of ’87 the confiding
home-seeker often proved to be the most un-
scrupulous operator. At one time during the
height of the boom it was estimated that the
city had a population of 50,000 people. It was a
cosmopolitan conglomeration. Almost every
civilized nation on earth was represented; and
every social condition, high and low, good and
bad, was there, too.
The excitement was not confined to San Diego
city. It spread over the county. New towns
were founded. The founder in selecting a lo-
cation was governed more by the revenue that
might accrue from his speculation than by the
resources that would build up his inchoate me-
tropolis. It might be platted on an inaccessible
mesa, where view was the principal resource, Or
it might be a hyphenated city-by-the-sea, where
the investor might while away his time listening
to what the wild waves were saying and subsist
on climate.
t is said that two town sites extended out
over the bay like Mark Twain's tunnel that was
bored through the hill and a hundred and fifty
feet in the air. When the fever of speculation
was at its height it mattered little where the
town was located. A tastefully lithographed
map with a health-giving sanatorium in one cor-
ner, tourist hotel in the other, palms lining the
streets, and orange trees in the distance (add to
these picturesque attractions a glib-tongued agent,
untrammeled by conscience and unacquainted
with truth) and the town was successfully
founded. Purchasers did not buy to hold, but
with hope of making a quick turn at an advance,
while the excitement was on. Very few had
confidence in the permanency of high prices, but
every One expected to unload before the crash
Ca1116°.
The tourist crop of the winter of 1887–88 was
expected to be very large, but it did not mature.
As the eventful year of 1887 drew to a close and
new victims ceased to appear, he who had loaded
up for the tourist began to look around quietly
for a chance to unload on his fellows. Then he
discovered to his dismay that all the others were
at the same game. Then the crash came. The
speculator who held the last contract could not
pay; the one before him could not meet his ob-
ligations unless the man to whom he had sold
paid up; and so it went all along the line like a
row of bricks set on end. The end one toppling
Over the One next to its starts the movement
down the line and all go down. Before the ides
of March had passed every speculator was vain-
ly trying to save something from the wreck.
Those who had invested recklessly in boom towns
and dry lands lost all; those who had some good
unincumbered property in a town or city with
a future managed to save a little out of the
crash, but “capitalist” no longer followed their
names in the directory.
No better criterion probably can be given for
measuring the great inflation of property values
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
283
during the boom than the county assessment
rolls for 1887-88. The valuation of all property
made by the county assessor at the beginning of
the boom early in 1887 was $22,826,250. The
assessed value fixed early in 1888 before the
collapse had begun was $41,522,608, an increase
of almost one hundred per cent in twelve
months. In 1890 the assessment had contracted
to $26,871,551.
But with all its wild extravagance, its reck-
lessness, its gambling; its waste and its ruined
“millionaires of a day,” the boom to San Diego
was a blessing in disguise. It projected enter-
prises of merit as well as those of demerit. It
helped to make a reality of that “back country”
that for years had been a myth, and it brought
about the building of a substantial city of what
had before been a crude and inchoate burg.
Strange to say, too, the great enterprises project-
ed during the boom were all carried on to com-
pletion, notwithstanding the hard times that fol-
lowed. Depression did not stop progression.
The San Diego Sun, two years after the boom,
Summing up what had been done since, says:
“Since 1887, the Cuyamaca Railway has been
built and motor lines extended at a cash outlay
of $350,000; the Spreckel's Company has put
$250,000 into a wharf and coal bunkers; all our
business streets have been paved; a $100,000
court-house built and paid for; three fine School
houses, and all our big hotels except two con-
structed. Five miles of cable road have been
built and put in operation; a fine public library
has been established; a new opera-house will
soon be completed. The adjacent mining regions
have yielded at least $1,000,000 in gold. The
great irrigating works of the Sweetwater dam
and San Diego flume, involving an expense of
$2,500,000, have been constructed, and water
supplied at the lowest western prices. Not less
than fifteen elegant business blocks have been
built, and several fine churches. Over a hundred
new residences have been built on Florence
Heights alone. To sum it all up, $10,000,000
have been invested in San Diego and its en-
virons since 1887, and the back country has ob-
tained and planted 600,000 fruit trees; which,
with those already out, promise to fill seven
years hence, IO,OOO freight cars with merchanta-
ble products.” *
The Federal census of 1890 gave the popula-
tion of county as 34,987; and that of the city
I6,159. It was charged that the census of the
city was very incorrectly taken and that the real
population was over 20,000.
During the years 1889 and 1890 the city and
county were recovering from the depression
caused by the collapse of the boom, but 1891 was
a year of disasters. February 22 a great flood
entirely destroyed the railroad tracks through
the Temécula cañon. The road through the
cañon has never been rebuilt. During the same
storm the Tia Juana river, that is usually a dry
sand wash, became a tremendous torrent, spread-
ing out until it was as wide as the Colorado in
a spring rise. The town on the American side
was entirely washed away, and of that on the
Mexican only the houses on upper Mesa were
left. The Otay watch works, started in 1887,
and at one time employing over one hundred
operatives, suspended and the employes were
compelled to leave. -
In October the California National Bank, with
more than a million dollars in deposits, failed.
The Savings Bank connected with it went down,
too, in the crash. Neither ever resumed busi-
ness. Their affairs were placed in the hands of
a receiver. A few small dividends were paid the
depositors, but the bulk of the deposits were
lost by bad management, wild speculation and
the doubtful business methods of J. W. Collins
and his partner, D. D. Dare. Collins was ar-
rested, and shortly afterwards committed suicide.
Dare, who was in Europe at the time of the fail-
ure, never returned to San Diego.
February 7, 1892, the Pacific Mail steamers
began stopping again at San Diego for passen-
gers and freight. The wharf of the United
States government station at La Playa was com-
pleted April 25, 1892. The cable road was ex-
tended to the Mission Cliff in July, 1892.
By an act of the legislature, approved March
11, 1893, 6,418 square miles were taken from
the northern part of San Diego to form the new
county of Riverside. The new county appropri-
ated $3,849.114 of the old county’s assessed val-
uation. The area of San Diego is now 8.55 I
284
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
square miles. She parted with the towns of
Temécula, Elsinore, Murietta, San Jacinto and
Winchester. The county division Scheme was
opposed by San Diego and San Bernardino, but
was carried in spite of their protests.
In 1896 the San Diego Brewery, costing $150,-
OOO, was erected entirely by San Diego capital.
In 1898, a decade after the collapse of the
boom, the city had five miles of paved streets,
forty-three miles of graded streets and forty-
five miles of sewers. It had twenty-four
churches and fourteen Schools.
January 21, 1899, the steamship Belgian King,
the first of the California and Oriental Steam-
ship company’s vessels, arrived in port.
August 22, 1899, the steamer Thyra, the larg—
est vessel that ever entered the port, drawing
twenty-seven feet of water, passed safely over
the bar and entered the harbor.
May 1, 1899, the State Normal School on the
North Mesa was dedicated. During the year
1905 an addition to the building was made at a
cost of $45,000.
SCH ()OLS.
The first public school opened in San Diego
was taught by Manuel de Vargas, a retired ser-
geant of infantry. He was the pioneer school-
Inaster of California, having taught a school
at San José in 1794, the first school opened in
the territory. He taught in San Diego from
July, 1795, to December, 1798, at a yearly sal-
ary of $250. Don Jose Antonio Carrillo is said
to have taught a school at the presidio in 1812-
13. Antonio Menendez was teaching in the Old
Town in 1828–29. Eighteen children were re-
ported in attendance. In 1844 Governor Michel-
torena issued a decree, establishing primary
schools at San Diego, Los Angeles, Santa Bar-
bara and several other towns. This seems to
have been the last school taught at San Diego
under Mexican rule.
After the American form of government was
established, a school was opened in Old Town
about 1853. The early school records have dis-
appeared, if, indeed, any were kept.
In 1867, fifteen years after a public-school
system had been established in California by law,
San Diego county was all included in one school
district and had but one teacher and one school
house within its limits. It was then probably
the largest school district in the United States.
In 1866 the number of white children between
five and fifteen years of age, according to the
school census of that year, was 335. The census
of 1867 gave an increase of only three, which
would seem to indicate a short crop that year.
The number who attended public school in
1867 was thirty-two; those attending private
Schools, twenty-two—a total attendance of fifty-
four, or about sixteen per cent of the children
of school age. This was but little, if any, im-
provement on the school attendance of Mexican
days. In 1877 the census children had increased
to I,693; the number attending public school 919,
and private schools II2. The number of dis-
tricts had increased to thirty-four and the num-
ber of teachers to thirty-five. In 1887 the total
number of census children was 5,299; enrolled
in the public schools, 3,952. The number of dis-
tricts was eighty-two and the number of teach-
ers, I I5. In 1905 bonds to the amount of $135,-
OOO were voted for a new and spacious high
School building in San Diego City. The bonds
brought a premium of $12,OOO, making available
the sum of $147,000 for the building. The en-
rollment in the high school at the close of the
school year of 1906 was 400. The new building
will be planned to accommodate double that num-
ber. During the year 1906 an entire city block
costing $35,000 was purchased for the erection
of a new grammer school. The total number of
teachers employed in the schools of San Diego
city at the beginning of the school year of IOO6
was IOI. The number of school districts in the
county is 122.
THE SAN DIEGO FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY.
The public library was founded in 1882. The
first president of the library board was Bryant
Howard ; secretary. E. W. Hendricks; treas-
urer, G. H. Hitchcock : trustees, G. W. Marston
and R. M. Powers. The Commercial Bank do-
nated the free use of a room for six months.
Donations of books were made by a number of
persons and a city tax levied for the support of
the library.
In the early part of 1899 Mrs. Lydia M.
Horton, who was at that time a member of the
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
285
free library board, wrote to the millionaire phil-
anthropist, Andrew Carnegie, asking a donation
to erect a library building. On the 28th of July,
1899, she received a letter from Mr. Carnegie,
stating that “If the city were to pledge itself
to maintain a free public library from the taxes,
say to the extent of the amount you name of be-
tween $5,000 to $6,000 a year and provide a site,
I shall be glad to give you $50,000 to erect a suit-
able library building.” The proposition was accept-
ed at once. A site was secured on E street, be-
tween Eighth and Ninth streets, at a cost of $17,-
OOO of which $8,000 was raised by subscription
and the balance paid by the city. The site cov-
ers half a block.
The building was completed and occupied
early in 1902. It cost about $60,000. The
librarian reported in September, 1906, 25,446
volumes. The total receipts from all sources
amount to $9,244, and the salaries paid to $3,948.
There is in connection with the library a bind-
ing department, where the bindings of books
are repaired and books and newspaper files are
bound. One room is set apart for a children's
study and reference room. It is well patronized.
Mrs. H. P. Davison is the librarian. She has a
Corps of eight assistants.
CHAMBER OF COM MERCE.
The San Diego Chamber of Commerce was
Organized January 20, 1870, and is the oldest
institution of that kind in Southern California.
The organizers were A. E. Horton, E. W.
Morse, David Felsenheld, Aaron Pauly, G. W.
B. McDonald, J. W. Gale, D. Choate and Joseph
Nash. Its first president was Aaron Pauly; and
first secretary, David Felsenheld. It has been
for more than thirty-five years active in foster-
ing and promoting every public enterprise look-
ing to the welfare of San Diego city and county.
THIE FARTKS OF SAN DIEGO.
In 1868, the first official steps were taken to
form a park. Two city lots of 160 acres each
were set apart for that purpose. At a meeting
of the town trustees held May 26, 1868, an ordi-
nance was passed reserving in all nine city lots,
of I60 acres each, for park purposes. To make
the reservation permanent, legislative enactment
was secured. In the legislature of 1870-71 an
effort was made to divert 480 acres of the park
iands for other purposes. An attempt was also
made to repeal the reservation act. These bills
were defeated and San Diego secured her mag-
nificent park site. For a number of years little
was done towards beautifying it, but in 1902
the citizens subscribed $12,000 to make improve-
ments. In January, 1903, a survey was made
and a contour map drawn. A landscape archi-
tect was employed to design improvement. Tree
planting has been continued each winter. In
May, IQ05, a board of park commissioners was
organized. To this commission is entrusted not
only the care of the 1,400 acre City Park, but
also the D street plaza and the La Jolla park
grounds.
CHAPTER XLI.
LOS ANGELES COUNTY.
the act of February 18, 1850, did not
extend to the Colorado river. For some
reason not known the legislature gave San Diego
all the desert, making that county “L” shaped.
The county of Los Angeles, as created by the
act of February 18, 1850, did not contain all of
what is now San Bernardino county. The
original boundaries of Los Angeles county were
defined as follows:
Tº county of Los Angeles, as created by
“County OF Los ANGELES.–Beginning on
the coast of the Pacific at the southern boundary
of the farm called Trumfo, and running thence
along the summit of the ridge of hills called
Santa Susana to the northwestern boundary of
the farm called San Francisco; thence along the
northern and northeastern boundary of said
farm of San Francisco to the farm called Piro;
thence in a line running due northeast to the
summit of the Coast Range; thence along the
286
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
summit of said range to the western boundary
of San Diego county; thence in a due southerly
direction along said boundary to the Source of
the creek San Mateo; thence down said creek
San Mateo to the coast and three English miles
into the sea; thence in a northwesterly direction
parallel with the coast to a point three miles
from land and opposite to the southern boundary
of the farm called Trumfo ; and thence to the
shore at said boundary, which was the point of
beginning, including the islands of Santa Cata-
lina and San Clemente. The seat of justice
shall be Los Angeles.”
These boundaries were very indefinite, some
portions of the area being included in both coun-
ties instead of one, and some of the territory
was in no county. No conflict of authority arose.
A large portion of both counties was a “terra
incognita”—a land where the foot of white man
had never trod. The Indians, who inhabited
these regions, were of the class that are “not
taxed,” and any conflict of authority with them
was settled by bullets and not by boundary lines.
This act was repealed by an act of the second
legislature, passed April 25, 1851, which defined
the boundaries of Los Angeles county as fol-
lows:
“SECTION 3, County of Los ANGELES.—Be-
ginning on the coast of the Pacific, at a point
parallel with the northern boundary of the ran-
cho called Malaga; thence in a direction so as
to include said rancho, to the northwest corner
of the rancho, known as Trumfo, running on the
northerly line of the same to the northeast cor-
ner; thence to the summit of the ridge of hills
called Santa Susana; thence in a direct line to
the rancho Casteyne (Castaic) and Jejon (El
Tejon), and along their northern line to the
northeastern corners; and thence in a northeast
line to the eastern boundary of the state, and
along said boundary line to the junction of the
northern boundary of San Diego county with the
Colorado; thence following said line to the Pa-
cific ocean and three miles therein; thence in
a northwesterly direction parallel with the coast
to a point three miles from land, and opposite
to the southern boundary of the rancho called
Malaga, and thence east to the place of begin-
ning; including the islands of Santa Catalina
and San Clemente.
at Los Angeles.”
These boundaries included all the territory
that was afterwards included in the county of
San Bernardino. In 1851 a colony of Mormons
from Salt Lake located where now the city of
San Bernardino stands, on a tract of land bought
from the Lugos. They were reinforced by other
immigrants from Salt Lake and by some non-
Mormon families. The settlement grew quite
rapidly. These settlers petitioned the legisla-
ture of 1853 to create a new county out of the
eastern portion of Los Angeles county. By an
act entitled, “An Act for dividing the county of
Los Angeles and making a new county there-
from to be called San Bernardino county,” ap-
proved April 26, 1853; it was provided :
“SECTION 3. The county of Los Angeles is
hereby divided as follows: Beginning at a point
where a due south line drawn from the highest
peak of the Sierra de Santiago intercepts the
northern boundary of San Diego county; thence
running along the summit of said Sierra to the
Santa Ana river, between the rancho of Sierra
and the residence of Bernardino Yorba ; thence
across the Santa Ana river along the summit of
the range of hills that lie between the Coyotes
and Chino (leaving the ranchos of Ontiveras and
Ybarra to the west of this line), to the southeast
corner of the rancho of San Jose; thence along
the eastern boundaries of said rancho and of
San Antonio, and the western and thorthern
boundaries of Cucamonga ranch to the ravine of
Cucamonga; thence up said ravine to its source
in the Coast Range; thence due north to the
northern boundary of Los Angeles county ;
thence northeast to the state line ; thence along
the state line to the northern boundary line of
San Diego county, thence westerly along the
northern boundary of San Diego to the place of
beginning.
“SECTION 4. The eastern portion of Los An-
geles county, so cut off, shall be called San Ber-
nardino county and the seat of justice thereof
shall be at such a place as a majority of voters
shall determine at the first county election, here-
inafter provided to be held in said county and
shall remain at the place designated until
changed by the people, as provided by law.”
The seat of justice shall be
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
287
The county of Los Angeles, before the crea-
tion of San Bernardino county, was an empire
in itself. It extended from the Pacific Ocean on
the west to the Colorado river on the east, an
extreme length of 270 miles, and from San Diego
county on the South to Santa Barbara and Mari-
posa counties on the north. Its average breadth
was 150 miles. Its area was about 34,000 square
miles, over one-fifth of the area of the entire
state. Excepting Maine it was equal in area to
all the New England States. In its vast area it
embraced the most diversified Scenery, Soil and
climate of any other county in the United States.
Within its limits were the barren sands and tor-
rid heat of the desert; the perpetual ice and
snow of the lofty mountain tops; the genial Sun-
shine and fragrant perfume of the Orange groves
of the valleys, and the unvarying temperature of
the Sea coast.
The formation of San Bernardino county cut
off from Los Angeles 24,OOO Square miles, leav-
ing her Io,000. For the second time she was
cut off from all claim to a portion of the Colo-
rado desert, but still retained her interest in the
Mojave.
In 1866, the county of Kern was formed from
portions of Tulare and Los Angeles counties.
From 1855 to 1860 there had appeared in the
legislature proceedings a spectral county called
Buena Vista. In 1855 and again in 1859 it
had been made a part of the proposed new state
of Colorado, which was to include all the Coun-
try south of San Luis Obispo. The county was
never officially created and the territory included
in the proposed county remained part of Los
Angeles and Tulare counties until the creation
of Kern county in 1866. This county took from
Los Angeles about 5,000 square miles, but as
this territory was mostly mountains and desert
there was no opposition to the segregation.
In 1869 began the struggle to cut off a portion
from the southeastern part to form a new County.
This movement the people of Los Angeles re-
sisted. The contest over county division lasted
for twenty years. It ended in 1889 with the
formation of Orange county. The story of this
long-drawn-out contest is told in full in the his-
tory of Orange county.
After the formation of Orange county Los
I
-
Angeles had an area of 3,980 square miles. In
1891 an effort was made to cut a slice off the
eastern side to form with territory taken from
San Bernardino the county of Pomona. Fortu-
nately the scheme failed.
ORGANIZATION OF THE COUNTY GOVERNMENT.
The transition from the Mexican form of gov-
ernment in California to that of the United
States was very gradual. Los Angeles, the last
Mexican stronghold, Surrendered January IO,
1847. It was not until June 24, 1850, that the
American municipal form of government by
county officers superseded the ayuntamientos, al-
caldes, prefects and sindicos of Spain and Mex-
ico. The legislature had passed a county gov-
ernment act, February 18, 1850, and had pro-
vided for an election of county officers to be
held the first Monday of April. The election
was held April 1, 377 votes were cast in the
county and the following named officers elected :
County judge, Agustin Olvera.
County attorney, Benjamin Hays.
County clerk, B. D. Wilson.
Sheriff, G. Thompson Burrill.
Treasurer, Manuel Garfias.
Assessor, Antonio F. Coronel.
Recorder, Ignacio del Valle.
Surveyor, J. R. Conway. .
Coroner, Charles B. Cullen.
COURT OF SESSIONS.
The court of sessions, which consisted of the
county judge and two justices of the peace, Con-
stituted the legislative body of the county gov-
ernments of the state up to 1853, when the civil
business of the counties was turned Over to a
board of supervisors, created by an act of the
legislature. The court of sessions had jurisdic-
tion over the criminal business, the impaneling
of juries and filling vacancies in Office up to
1865, when it was legislated out of office.
The court of sessions was the motive power
that set the county machinery in Operation. The
first meeting of the court in Los Angeles was .
held June 24, 1850. Hon. Agustin Olvera was
the presiding judge; the associate justices were
Jonathan R. Scott and Luis Robideau. Anto-
nio F. Coronel, assessor-elect, and Charles B.
Cullen, coroner-elect, were cited before the court
288
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
to qualify and file their official bonds. Coronel
appeared next day and qualified, but Cullen de-
clined to serve.
At the meeting of the court, June 26, Jailer
Samuel Whiting was allowed $7 per day salary,
out of which he was to employ a competent as-
sistant. He was allowed “for feeding the pris-
oners, fifty cents each; that each prisoner shall
have per day an amount of bread to the value
of twelve and one-half cents or an equivalent in
rice or beans; balance of the allowance in good
meat.” *
A. P. Hodges, M. D., was appointed coroner
(during his term as coroner he also served as
the first mayor of the city). The county judge
could not speak English and at least one asso-
ciate judge spoke no Spanish, so G. Thompson
Burrill was appointed county interpreter for the
court at a salary of $50 per month. He was also
Sheriff.
At the session of July II, 1850, it was ordered
that the town council be permitted to work the
county prisoners by paying the daily expense of
each one’s keeping—fifty cents—a master stroke
of economy. Some one has sneeringly said that
the first public buildings the Americans built in
California after it came into their possession,
were jails. This was true of Los Angeles, and
in fact of all the counties of Southern California.
July 1 1, 1850, commissioners were appointed
by the city and county to select a site for a jail.
Lots Nos. 1, 2, 3, 7, 8 and 9 in Square No. 34
(north of the Plaza church) were selected for
a jail site. The city council was asked to donate
said lots to the county and the city was requested
to loan the county $2,OOO, to be used in building
said jail, the city council to have permission to
use said jail until the loan is refunded. The
city fathers did not take kindly to these requests
of the judges; so the county had to worry along
two years longer before a jail was built and then
it was not built on the site selected by the joint
commission.
JUDGES OF THE PLAINS.
There was one Hispano-American institution
that long survived the fall of Mexican domina-
tion in California; and that was the office of
jueces del campo, judge of the plains. A judge
of the plains was a very important functionary.
It was his duty to be present at the annual ro-
deos (round-ups of cattle) and recojedas (gath-
ering up of horses). His seat of justice was in
the saddle, his court room the mesa, and from
his decision there was no appeal. All disputes
about ownership of stock came before him. The
code of his court was unwritten, or mostly so,
which was fortunate, for many of the judges
could not read. This hap-hazard way of admin-
istering justice did not suit American ideas, so,
at a meeting of the court of Sessions, July 23,
1850, the county attorney was ordered “to col-
lect the various bandos and reglamentos hereto-
fore made up in this district respecting the
jueces del campo and give his opinion upon the
same at the next term of this court.” At the
next session of the court, August 22, the county
attorney reported a number of regulations, some
written, others established by custom. The court
added several new regulations to those already
existing, the most important of which (to the
jueces) was a salary of $1 OO a year to each
judge, payable out of the county treasury. Un-
der Mexican rule the plains judge took his pay
in honor. As there were a round dozen of these
officials in the county in 1850, their aggregate
pay exceeded the entire expense of the municipal
government of the district during the last year
of the Mexican rule. After jails the next inno-
vation the Americans introduced was taxes.
FEES AND SALARIES.
The first fee and salary bill of California was
based upon prices ruling in the mining coun-
ties, where a sheriff's fees amounted to more
than the salary of the president of the United
States. The liberal fees allowed for Official Serv-
ices soon bankrupted the treasuries of the Cow
counties, and in 1851 they were petitioning the
legislature for a reduction of fees. It cost $100
to hold an inquest on a dead Indian and as vio-
lent deaths were of almost daily or nightly occur-
rence, the coroner's office was quite lucrative.
Some of the verdicts of the coroner's juries
showed remarkable familiarity with the decrees
of the Almighty. On a native Californian named
Gamico, found dead in the street, the verdict
was “Death by the visitation of God.” Of a
dead Indian, found near the zanja, the Los An-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
289
geles Star says: “Justice Dryden and a jury
sat on the body. The verdict was ‘Death from
intoxication or by the visitation of God.' Bacilio
was a Christian Indian and was confessed by the
reverend padre yesterday afternoon.” The ju-
rors were paid $10 each for sitting on a body.
Coroner Hodges made the champion record on
inquests. October 20, 1851, he held eleven in-
quests in one day. These were held on Irving's
band of horse thieves and robbers, who were
killed by the Coahuilla Indians in the San Ber-
nardino mountains.
The criminal element had been steadily in-
creasing in Los Angeles. In 1851 a military
company was organized to aid the sheriff in
keeping order. November 24, 1851, the court of
sessions ordered that the sheriff cause fifty good
lances to be made for the use of the volunteer
company. The pioneer blacksmith, John Goller,
made the lances and was paid $87.50 for the job.
Goller also made a branding iron for the county.
The county brand consisted of the letters “L.
A.,” three inches long. In January, 1852, the
house occupied by Benjamin Hays, under lease
from Felipe Garcia, was sub-let by him to the
county for a court house for the balance of his
term, expiring November 16, 1853. The sum
of $650 was appropriated by order of the court
of sessions to pay the rent for the agreed term.
The first building used for a court house was the
old government house that Pio Pico bought from
Isaac Williams for the capitol. Pico had re-
sided in it during his term as governor. After
the conquest two companies of United States
Dragoons were quartered in it. A contract was
let, July 8, 1851, to build a jail and John G.
Nichols appointed at $6 a day to superintend the
job, but some misunderstanding with the city
arising, the building was not erected, and Sep-
tember 13, 1851, the court ordered the sheriff
to sell the adobes now on hand for use of jail
at the highest market price and turn the money
over to the clerk of the court.
The first county jail was the adobe building
on the hill back of the present postoffice site used
by the troops for a guard house. There were no
cells in it. Staples were driven into a heavy
pine log that reached across the building, and
short chains attached to the staples were fastened
to the handcuffs of the prisoners. Solitary con-
finement was out of the question then. Indian
culprits were chained to logs outside of the jail
So that they could more fully enjoy the glorious
climate of California. In 1853 the city and
county built a jail on the present site of the
Phillips block, northwest corner of Spring and
Franklin streets. It was the first public building
erected in the county.
The legislature of 1852 created the office of
county supervisor. The first election for super-
visors of the county was held June 14, 1852, and
the following named persons elected: Jefferson
Hunt, Julian Chavis, Francisco P. Temple, Man-
11el Requena and Samuel Arbuckle. The board
held its first meeting on the first Monday of
July, 1852. Arbuckle was elected chairman.
The supervisors transacted the civil business of
the county.
The machinery of the county’s government
was now in full working order. We will turn
our attention to other pliases of its development.
SPANISH AND MEXICAN LAND GRANTS.
In what comprised the original county of Los
Angeles there were during the Spanish and Mex-
ican regimes sixty grants of land made. These
varied in size from a grant of 44.36 acres to the
Mission of San Juan Capistrano to the Rancho
ex-Mission of San Fernando, granted to Eulo-
gio de Celis, containing I21,619.24 acres.
At the time of the conquest about all the land
fit for pasturage had been sequestered from the
public domain in the form of grants. The old-
est grants made within what is now the county
of Los Angeles are the Nietos and the San Ra-
fael. According to Col. J. J. Warner's his-
torical sketch, “The Nietos tract, embracing all
the land between the Santa Ana and San Ga-
briel and from the sea to and including some
of the hill land on its northeastern frontier, was
granted by Governor Pedro Fages to Manuel
Nietos in 1784. --
“The San Rafael tract, lying on the left bank
of the Los Angeles river and extending to the
Arroyo Seco, was granted by Governor Pedro
Fages, October 20, 1784, and the grant was re-
affirmed by Governor Borica, January 12, 1798,
to Jose Maria Verdugo.” If as Colonel Warner
19
290
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
claims, the “Nietos tract” embraced all the land
between the Santa Ana and the San Gabriel
rivers, from the sea to the hills, Nietos’ heirs did
not hold it. Subsequently, there was a number
of grants made in that territory. The Mission
San Gabriel, previous to 1830, had possession of
several subdivisions of this tract such as Las
Bolsas, Alamitos, Los Coyotes, Puente and oth-
ers. After the secularization of the missions all
the lands held by the padres, except Small tracts
in the immediate neighborhood of the mission
buildings, were granted to private owners.
Shortly after the admission of California to
the Union the long-drawn-out legal contests over
the confirmation of the Spanish and Mexican
grants began. These contests, in some cases,
were waged for years before the United States
claims commission, the various courts and the
land commissioner at Washington, before they
were settled. Litigation often ruined both the
contesting parties, and when the case was finally
decided the litigants, like in “Jarndyce vs. Jarn-
dyce,” had nothing left but their bundles of
legal documents. Even when a claimant did
win and the decisions of courts and commissions
gave him undisputed possession of his broad
acres, it often happened that a cancerous mort-
gage, the result of litigation, was eating away
his patrimony. The land grants in Los Angeles
have all been confirmed and it is to be hoped
that they will remain so. No greater blight can
fall on a community than an attack upon the
validity of its title to its lands.
In early times the county officials followed
the Mexican plan of designating districts and
legal subdivision by ranchos. August 7, 1851,
the court of sessions “ordered that the county
of Los Angeles be divided into six townships
named as follows, and to comprehend the ran-
chos and places as follows to each appropri-
ated”: The first of these was the township of
Los Angeles. There are few now living who
could trace from the description given in the
records the boundaries of Los Angeles township
fifty-five years ago. Here is the description:
Township of Los Angeles. “The city of Los
Angeles and the following ranchos, to-wit: Los
Corralitos, Feliz, Verdugos, Cahuenga, Tujunga,
San Fernando, ex-Mission, San Francisco, Piro,
Camulos, Cañada de los Alamos, La Liebre, El
Tejon, Trumfo, Las Vergenes, Escorpion, Los
Cuervos, San Antonio de la Mesa, Los Alamitos,
Vicente Lugo, Arroyo Seco, Encino, Maligo,
Santa Monico, San Vicente, Buenos Ayres, La
Bayona, Rincon de los Buey, Rodeo de Las
Aguas, La Cienega, La Centinela, Sausal Re-
dondo, Palos Verdes, San Pedro, Los Domin-
guez, Rancho Nuevo, Paredon Blanco, Los Cer-
ritos, La Jaboneria, Rosa de Castilla.”
“The residence of the authorities shall be in
Los Angeles city.”
IM MIGRANTS AND IM MIGRA NT ROUTES.
The Sonorese or Sonoran migration began in
1848, as soon as the news of the discovery of
gold in California reached Mexico. While these
gold-seekers were called Sonorese or Sonorans,
they came from the different states of northern
Mexico, but in greater numbers from Sonora.
The trail from Mexico by way of Aristo, Tuc-
son, the Pima villages, across the desert and
through the San Gorgonio Pass had been trav-
eled for three-quarters of a century. Another
branch of this trail crossed the desert from Yuma
to Warner's ranch; and then by way of Temé-
cula, Jurupa and the Chino, reached Los An-
geles. Along these trails from 1848 to 1852
came the Sonorese migration. The extent of
this migration was much greater than historians
usually consider it. When Dr. Lincoln and ten
of his ferrymen were massacred at the Yuma
crossing of the Colorado river, one of the ferry-
men who escaped stated in his deposition taken
bv Alcalde Stearns that Lincoln had $50,000 in
silver and between $20,000 and $30,000 in gold.
This was the proceeds of the ferry secured in
less than four months almost entirely from the
Sonoran immigrants. The charge for ferrying
was $1 for a man, $1 for an animal and the
same for a pack or mule cargo. The influx of
these people in 1848, 1849 and 1850 must have
reached 25,000 a year. These pilgrims to the
shrine of Mammon were for the most part a
hard lot. They were poor and ignorant and not
noted for good morals. From Los Angeles
northward, they invariably traveled by the coast
route, and in squads of from 50 to IOO. Some
of them brought their women and children with
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORſ).
291
them. With their few possessions packed on
donkeys and mules they tramped their weary
way from Mexico to the mines. They were not
welcomed to the land of gold. The Americans
disliked them and the native Californians treated
them with contempt. The men wore cotton
shirts, white pantaloons, Sandals and sombreros.
Their apparel, like the laws of the Medes and
Persians, “changed not,” nor did they change
it as long as a shred of it held together. The
native Californians nick-named them “calzonares
blancos” (white breeches), and imposed upon
them when an opportunity offered. The story
is told of a native Californian alcalde or justice
of the peace who had his office near the old mis-
sion church of San Luis Obispo. When a band
of these Sonoran pilgrims came along the high-
way which led past the old mission, they inva-
riably stopped at the church to make the sign
of the cross and to implore the protection of
the saints. This gave the alcalde his oppor-
tunity. Stationing his alguaciles or constables
on the road to bar their progress, he proceeded
to collect fifty cents toll off each pilgrim. If
word was passed back to the squads behind and
they attempted to avoid the toll-gatherer by a
detour to the right or left, the alcalde sent out
his mounted constables and rounded up the poor
Sonorans like so many cattle at a rodeo, then
he and his alguaciles committed highway rob-
bery on a small scale. Retributive justice over-
took this unjust judge. The vigilantes hanged
him, not, however, for tithing the Sonorese, but
for horse stealing.
The Sonoran migration began to decline after
1850, and entirely ceased a year or two later.
The foreign miner's tax and their persecution
by the Americans convinced the Sonorans that
there was no place like home. So they went
home and stayed there.
A route by which a number of immigrants
from Texas and some of the other gulf states
came in 1849 led through the northern states of
Mexico until it intercepted the Sonora trail and
then by that to Los Angeles.
The old Santa Fé trail to New Mexico, then
across Arizona, following the Gila to the Colo-
rado river, was another southern route by which
a great deal of overland travel reached South-
ern California. In 1854, from actual count, it
was ascertained that 9,075 persons came by that
route. About one-fourth of the 61,000 overland
immigrants who came to the state that year
reached it by the southern routes. But the route
by which the majority of the Argonauts of '49
and the early '50s reached Southern California
led south from Salt Lake City until it inter-
cepted the great Spanish trail from Los Angeles
to Santa Fé at the southern end of Utah Lake.
Immigrants by this route, crossing the Colorado
desert, , reached the San Bernardino valley
through the Cajon pass. Capt. Jedediah S.
Smith, in 1826, was the first white man to reach
Los Angeles by this trail. There was consid-
erable trade and travel between Santa Fé and
Los Angeles over the old Spanish trail before
the conquest of California. The early immigra-
tion from New Mexico came by this route. By
it came J. J. Warner, William Wolfskill, the
Rowland-Workman party, numbering forty-four
persons; B. D. Wilson, D. W. Alexander, John
Reed, Dr. John Marsh and many other pioneers.
For several years before the conquest, on ac-
count of the hostility of the Indians, this trail
had been little used, and to the great many of
the Argonauts who crossed the plains in 1849
it was unlanown. The belated immigrants of
that year who reached Salt Lake too late to cross
the Sierra Nevadas had the alternative present-
ed them of wintering with the Saints or of find-
ing a southern route into California and thus
evading the fate that befell the Donner party in
the snows of the Sierras. These delayed Argo-
nauts found a Mormon captain, Jefferson Hunt,
late captain of Company A of the Mormon Bat-
talion, who had recently arrived in Salt Lake by
this southern route. He was engaged as a
guide. A train of about 500 wagons started in
November, 1849, for Southern California. After
several weeks’ travel, a number of the immi-
grants having become dissatisfied with Hunt's
leadership, and hearing that there was a shorter
route to the settlements than the train was pur-
suing, seceded from the main body and struck
out westward across the desert. After traveling
for several days together, they disagreed. Some
returned to the main body; the others broke up
into small parties and took different directions.
292
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
One of these parties, numbering eleven persons,
penetrated Death valley and all perished. An-
other, after incredible hardships and after losing
several of their number on the desert, reached
Los Angeles by the Soledad pass. Another com-
pany, after weeks of wandering and suffering,
reached the Tulare valley, where they were re-
lieved by the Indians. The main body, with
but little inconvenience, arrived in San Ber-
nardino valley the last of January, 1850.
After the establishment of the Mormon colony
at San Bernardino, in June, 1851, the Salt Lake
route became a well-traveled road, over which,
up to the completion of the Union Pacific Rail-
road in 1869, a large amount of freight and
travel passed between the City of the Saints
and the City of the Angels. By this route came
a number of the pioneer American families of
Los Angeles. Among others may be named the
Macys, Andersons, Workmans, Ulyards, Haz-
ards, Montagues.
| OX CARTS, STAGES AND STEAMERS.
San Pedro was, in 1850, as it had been for
more than half a century before, the entrepot
through which the commerce of the Los Angeles
district passed. It was, next to San Francisco,
the principal seaport of the coast. In the early
'50s all the trade and travel up and down the
coast came and went by sea. No stage lines
had been established in the lower coast counties.
In 1848, and for several years after, the only
means of getting to the city from the port and
vice versa was on horseback. A caballada
(band) of horses was kept in pasture on the
Palos Verdes for this purpose. &
In 1849 Temple & Alexander had a general
merchandise store at San Pedro, and did about
all the forwarding business of the port. Goods
were freighted to Los Angeles in carts drawn
by two yoke of oxen yoked by the horns. The
carts were similar to the Mexican carretas, ex-
cept that they had spoked and tired wheels in-
stead of solid ones. A regular freight train was
composed of ten carts and forty oxen. Freight
charges were $20 a ton. In 1852 stages were
put on the route by Banning & Alexander. Tom-
linson put on an opposition line, and in 1853
B. A. Townsend was running an accommoda-
tion line between the city and the port and ad-
vertising in the Star, “Good coaches and teams
as the county will afford.” The stage fare was
at first $10, then $7.50, dropped to $5, and as
opposition increased went down to $1, and as
the rivalry grew keener passengers Were Car-
ried free.
The first steamer that ever entered the bay of
San Pedro was the Gold Hunter, which an-
chored in the port in 1849. She was a side-
wheel vessel which had made the voyage from
San Francisco to Mazatlan, stopping at way
ports.
The Gold Hunter was followed by the steam-
ers Ohio, Southerner, Sea Bird and Goliah in
1850 and 1851. In 1853 the Sea Bird was mak-
ing three trips a month between San Francisco
and San Diego, touching at Monterey, Santa
Barbara and San Pedro. The price of a first-
class passage from San Pedro to San Francisco
1n the early '50s was $55. The bill of fare con-
sisted of salt beef, hard bread, potatoes and cof-
fee without milk or sugar. Freight charges
were $25 a ton. It cost $10 to transport a barrel
of flour from San Francisco to Los Angeles.
The trip occupied four days. The way ports
were Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Mon-
terey. There were no wharves or lighters on
the route; passengers and freight were landed
in the steamer's boats. If the sea was very
rough the passengers were carried to San Fran-
cisco and brought back on the return trip.
Sometimes, when the tide was low, they had to
be carried from the boat to the shore on the
sailors' backs. The sailor, like the bronco, some-
times bucked, and the passenger waded ashore.
Both man and beast were somewhat uncertain
“in the days of gold—the days of '49.”
The imports by sea greatly exceeded the ex-
ports. Cattle and horses, the principal products
of the county, transported themselves to market.
The vineyards along the river, principally within .
the city limits, were immensely profitable in the
early '50s. There was but little fresh fruit in
the country. Grapes, in San Francisco, retailed
all the way from twenty-five to fifty cents a
pound. The vineyards were cultivated by In-
dian labor. About all that it cost the vineyardist
for labor was the amount of aguardiente that it
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
293
took to give the Indian his regular Saturday
night drunk. So the grape crop was about all
profit.
IPIRST STATE CENSUS.
The first state census of California was taken
in 1852. According to this census the county
had a total population of 7,831, divided as fol-
lows: -
Whites.
Males . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,496
Females . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I,597
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4,093
Domesticated Indians.
Males . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,278
Females . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I,4I5
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,693
The cattle numbered II 3,475; horses, 12,173;
wheat produced, 34,230 bushels; barley, I2, I2O
bushels; corn, 6,934 bushels. Number of acres
under cultivation, 5,587; grape vines, 450,000,
of which 400,000 were within the city. This
was before any portion of the county had been
segregated. Its limits extended from San Juan
Capistrano on the south to the Tulares on the
north, and from the sea to the Colorado river; of
its 34,000 square miles, less than nine square
miles were cultivated, and yet it had been settled
for three-quarters of a century. -
During the '50s the county grew slowly. Land
was held in large tracts and cattle-raising con-
tinued to be the principal industry. At the El
Monte Several families from the southwestern
states had formed a small settlement and were
raising grain, principally corn. The Mormons,
at San Bernardino, were raising corn, wheat,
barley and vegetables, and selling them at a
good price. One season they received as high
as $5 a bushel for their wheat. -
CHAPTER XLII.
GROwTH OF Los ANGELEs county AND CITY IN weALTH
AND POPULATION.
was no assessment of real estate and
personal property for the purpose of taxa-
tion. Tariff on goods imported, fines for drunken-
ness and other vices, licenses for dances, for
saloons, for stores, for cock pits, bull rings and
such afforded the revenues for municipal ex-
penses. Men's pleasures and vices paid for the
cost of governing. The pueblo's expenses were
light. The only salaried officials in the old pueblo
days were the secretary of the ayuntamiento, or
town council, and the schoolmaster. The highest
| | NDER the rule of Spain and Mexico there
salary paid the secretary was $40 per month. The
schoolmaster’s pay was fixed at $15 per month. If
he asked for more he lost his job. The largest
municipal revenue collected in one year by the
syndico of the pueblo was $1,000. The syndico
and the alcalde received fees for their services.
All this was changed when the Americans took
possession of the offices; and they were not
of it.
backward in coming forward when there were
offices to fill. In the first list of county officers
the names of only two native Californians ap-
pear—Don Agustin Olvera, county judge, and
Don Antonio F. Coronel, county assessor. Coro-
nel was elected assessor at the first county elec-
tion, held April 1, 1850. As nine-tenths of the
residents of the newly created county of Los
Angeles understood the Spanish language only,
it was highly necessary to have some one who
spoke their language to explain to them the
new system of taxation introduced by the con-
querors.
If Don Antonio made an assessment for the
year 1850 I have been unable to find any record
The first report of the amount of the
county assessment that I have found is that for
1851, in which the wealth of the county is esti-
mated at $2,882,949. The first county assess-
ment roll in existence is one made by Don An-
294
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
tonio F. Coronel in 1852. It is written on un-
ruled sheets of Spanish foolscap pasted together
into leaves two feet long and stitched into a book
of 34 pages, covered with blue calico. This one
book constituted the entire assessment roll for
that year. . The following are the principal items
of that assessment:
Number of acres assessed. . . . . . . . . . . I,505,180
Value of real estate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ 748,606
Value of improvements. . . . . . . . . . . . . 3OI,947
Value of personal property. . . . . . . . . . . I,183,898
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $2,234,451
The county at that time contained over thirty
million acres and only one in twenty was as-
sessed. The average value was less than fifty
cents per acre. The county then extended from
San Juan Capistrano on the south to Tehachapi
on the north, and from the Pacific ocean to the
Colorado river. Don Antonio's district exceeded
in extent the aggregate area of five New Eng-
land states. By far the larger part of its in-
habitants were “Indians not taxed.” It is not
probable that Don Antonio traveled over the
vast territory of the thinly populated county.
Los Angeles was the only city in the county and
doubtless the inhabitants, like those in the days
of old, when Herod was reducing the infant
population of Judea, “went up to the city to be
taxed.” The assessment roll for 1853 footed up
$3,030, 13 I, which showed a rapid rise in values
or that Don Antonio was becoming more expert
in finding property. The assessor's report for
the fiscal year ending November 29, 1856, is the
first one in which the city valuation is segre-
gated from the county:
Total number of acres in the county
assessed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I,OO3,930
Value of county real estate. . . . . . . . . . $ 402,219
Value of county improvements... . . . . . 230,336
Value of city real estate . . . . . . . . . . . 187,582
Value of city improvements. . . . . . . . . 457,535
Value of personal property. . . . . . . . . . I,213,079
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $2,490,751
San Bernardino county had been cut off from
Los Angeles at this time and had evidently taken
away half a million acres of assessable land from
the parent county. The value of county real
estate had dropped to forty cents per acre.
The assessment for 1866 was as follows:
Total value of real estate and im-
provements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $I, I49,267
Total value of personal property..... 1,204,125
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $2,353,392
Comparing the assessment of 1866 with that
of 1856 it will be seen that not only was there
no increase in the property values of the county
in ten years, but actually a falling off of over
$140,000. This is accounted for by the great
loss of stock during the famine years of 1863-64.
The county assessment for 1864 was $1,622,-
370, about two millions less than the assessment
of 1862. This represents the loss in cattle,
horses and sheep during the great drought of
two years when the rainfall was not sufficient to
Sprout the grass seeds. The greatest financial
depression the county has ever known occurred
during these years. The people after the loss
of their stock had nothing that they could sell.
Land had no value. A judgment for $4,070 on
account of delinquent taxes of 1863 was entered
up against the richest man in the county and all
his real estate and personal property advertised
for sale at public auction December 12, 1864.
The magnificent Rancho de Los Alamitos, con-
taining over 26,000 acres, was advertised for
Sale on account of unpaid taxes, amounting in
all to $152. The Bolsas Chico, containing nearly
9,000 acres “on which there is due and unpaid
the sum of $27.34, I have this day levied on and
shall sell all the right, title and interest of the
defendant for cash, to the highest bidder in gold
and silver coin of the United States,” so said the
sheriff’s advertisement. But, of all the vast
possessions of the great cattle barons advertised
for sale on account of unpaid taxes forty-two
years ago, the least valued parcel them is the
most valuable now. This consisted of four Ord
survey lots, 120x165 feet each, located respect-
ively on the northwest and southwest corners of
Main and Fifth, the southwest corner of Spring
and the southeast corner of Fort street, now
Broadway, and Fourth street. These magnifi-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
295
cent business corners, worth to-day two million
dollars, were offered at sheriff's sale December
I2, 1864, for the beggardly sum of $2.52 un-
paid taxes and there were no takers. The tax
on each lot was sixty-three cents and the as-
sessed value about twenty-five cents a front foot
or $30 a lot.
The county recovered slowly from the great
disaster of the famine years. It was six years
before the county assessments equaled the
amount of that of the years preceding the great
drought. The subdivision of the great ranchos
which induced immigration was largely instru-
mental in causing the return of prosperity to the
financially depressed county. Sheep husbandry
succeeded the cattle industry and in the closing
years of the '60s was very profitable.
The second great drought which occurred in
1877 put a check upon this industry from which
it never recovered. The loss to the shepherd
kings of the county was over a million dollars.
Some of the great land holders who had held
their ranchos intact subdivided them after the
last great drought. For thirty years the growth
of the county in population and wealth has been
uninterrupted by any great disaster.
During the great real estate boom of 1887-88
property values increased $62,OOO,OOO in two
years.
1886, before inflation began, gave the wealth
of the county at $40,091,820; that of March,
1888, made before reaction commenced, was
$102,701,629. Never in the world's history did
people grow rich so rapidly. In 1890, when
financial depression had reached its deepest
depth, adding the value of the property taken
from the roll by the segregation of Orange
county the assessment showed that the county
was still worth $82,000,000, a contraction of
$2O,OOO,OOO in values in two years.
From 1890 to the close of the century there
was a slow but steady increase in wealth averag-
ing about two millions a year. The assessment
is not an infallible index of true values. Asses-
sors are sometimes incompetent and state boards
of equalization are not always impartial in equal-
izing the burthens of taxation.
The most rapid permanent increase in values
has been during the beginning years of the pres-
The county assessment made in March,
ent century. The county assessment, as will be
seen by the accompanying table, has increased
from $100,000,000 in 1900 to $305,000,000 in
1906. An increase of over three hundred per-
cent. This is largely due to the rapid growth
of the cities and towns in the county. Thou-
sands of acres of farming land have been cut up
into city lots and selling value advanced in some
cases a thousand per cent.
During the years of the present century, judg-
ing from the county assessment returns, the
people have grown rich almost as rapidly as they
did in the booming days of the later '80s. In
the March, Igoo, assessment the county's wealth
was estimated at $100,136,070. Five years
later, March, 1905, it footed up $232,610,753,
an increase of I32 per cent in half a decade.
The assessment for March, 1906, is $305,302,995,
an increase of over 30 per cent in one year.
A study of the annexed table will show fairly
well the periods of prosperity and adversity
through which Los Angeles has passed in the
fifty-five years since the county was created. In
some instances, however, the sudden rise in the
assessed valuation is not due to a rapid increase
in the county’s wealth, but to the incompetency
of the individual or individuals making the as-
sessment. For instance, the assessment of 1896
showed an increase of $15,000,000 over that of
1905, while the assessment of 1897 showed a
loss of $7,000,000 as compared with 1896. No
such fluctuation really occurred. The following
table gives the county assessment at different
periods from 1851 to 1906, both inclusive:
Total County Assess-
ment, Including Rail-
Year. road Assessment.
1851 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ 2,282,949
1852 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,234,451
1853 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,O3O, I31
1856 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,490,750
1858 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,370,523
I860 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,650,330
1864 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I,622,370
I867 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,556,083
1868 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,764,O45
I869 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,797, I 7I
1870 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6,918,074
1871 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6,358,022
1872 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9, I47,O73
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Total County Assess-
ment, Including Rail-
Year. road Assessment,
1873 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $9,845,593
1874 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I2,085, IIO
1875 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I4,890,765
1876 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I4,844,322
1878 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I5,700,000
1880 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I8,503,773
>{< >{< >{< >{< >{< >k >k
1882 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2O,916,835
1883 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26,138, II7
1884 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3O,922,29O
1885 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35,344,483
1886 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40,091,82O
1887 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89,833,506
1888 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IO2,701,629
1889 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93,647,086
1890 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69,475,025
1891 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82,616,577
1892 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82,839,924
1893 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77,244,050
1894 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79,495,921
1895 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84,797, IQ6
1896 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99,52O,6II
1897 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92,580,978
1898 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93,256,089
1899 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98,391,783
I9CO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IOO,136,070
I90I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IO3,328,904
I902 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . II.3,976,897
I903 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I69,226,936
I904 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2OI,509,786
I905 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232,61O,753
1906 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305,302,995
CITY ASSESSMENTS.
Up to 1860 the city assessments seem to have
been included in the county. The assessed value
of the city's real estate and improvements were
segregated, but the values of the personal prop-
erty were “lumped” on the roll. :
During the fiscal year of 1863-64, when calam-
ities were affecting the city in the shape of a dry
year and a fearful epidemic of small-pox, there
seems to have been no city assessment made, as
there was almost no value in real estate and it
was impossible to collect delinquent taxes by
selling land, for the reason that nobody wanted
any. The city fathers, no doubt, considered it a
stroke of economy to get along without an assess-
IT1ent. -
The following gives the city assessments from
1860 to 1906, both inclusive:
* >
Total Assessment for
Year. Each Fiscal Year,
1860-61 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ I,425,648
1861-62 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I,299,719
1862-63 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I,098,469
1863-64 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . * * * * *
I864-65 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 878,718
I865-66 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 989,413
1866-67 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I867-68 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I,271,290
1868-69 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1869-70 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2, IoS,061
1870-71 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1871-72 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2, I 34,093
1872-73 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4,191,996
1873-74 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,816,679
1874-75 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4,589,746
1875-76 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,935,219
1876-77 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,291, I48
I877-78 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,871,881
1878-79 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,947,580
1879-80 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6,871,913
1880-8I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7,259,598
I881-82 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7,574,926
I882-83 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9,294,074
1883-84 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I2,232,353
I884-85 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I4,781,865
1885–86 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I6,273,535
I886-87 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I8,448,535
1887–88 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27,803,924
I888–89 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39,476,712
1889-90 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46,997, IOI
1890-91 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49,320,670
1891-92 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45,953,7O4
1892-93 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45,310,807
1893-94 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47,281,778
1894-95 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47,396, I65
1895-96 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48.814,145
1896-97 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52,242,3O2
1897-98 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52, I4O,293
1898-99 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60,930,266
1899-1900 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64,915,326
I90C-OI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67,576,047
I90I-O2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70,562,307
I902-O3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86,416,735
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
297
Total Assessment for
Year. Each Fiscal Year.
1903-04 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $IO9,983,823
1904-05 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I26,126,563
1905-06 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I56,661,566
1906-07 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205,767,729
BAN KS OF LOS ANGELES CITY.
The first bank in Los Angeles city and county
was organized early in 1868 by Alvinza Hayward
of San Francisco and John G. Downey of Los
Angeles under the firm name of Hayward &
Company, capital, $100,000. The banking rooms
were in the old Downey block recently demol-
ished to give place to the new postoffice. Later
in the same year the banking house of Hellman,
Temple & Co. was established. Hellman after-
wards became associated with Downey in the
former bank, which took the name of The Farm-
ers & Merchants’ Bank. The latter bank was
reorganized as the Temple & Workman Bank.
Its banking house was in the then newly erected
three-story building at the junction of North
Spring and Main streets. It was a very popular
bank and carried large deposits. In the crisis of
I875, when nearly every bank in the state closed
its doors for a time, the Temple & Workman
Bank temporarily suspended. It made an at-
tempt to resume business, but a short run upon
it closed it forever. Its failure was a terrible dis-
aster to the southern country. Its creditors lost
all their deposits. So complete was its collapse
that $300,000 of its assets were sold by the re-
ceiver under an order of Judge Hoffman of the
United States Court for $30. The bank had been
woefully mismanaged.
The second bank in point of age is the First
National, organized as the Commercial Bank in
1875. It recently absorbed the Los Angeles Na-
tional and the Southwestern National. To give
a history of all the banking institutions of Los
Angeles would occupy more space than I have at
my command. At the close of the year 1906
Los Angeles had an even half hundred banking
institutions. Of these nine operate under national
charter, fourteen under state charter, five are
trust companies and thirteen savings banks.
There are several commercial corporations doing
a banking business. The paid-in capital stock of
all the banks of Los Angeles city at the close of
the year 1906 was estimated at $11,183,133, the
deposits exceeded $100,000,000. The remarkable
growth of Los Angeles in recent years in popula-
tion, business and commercial importance is well
illustrated by a comparison of the yearly totals
of exchanges.
The following are the clearing house totals for
the past ten years:
1897 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $63,663,969
1898 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74,413,508
1899 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90,261,931
1900 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I22,692,555
1991 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I61,466,671
1902 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245,516,094
1993 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3O7,316,530
1904 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345,343,956
I905 . . . . . . • - - - - - - - - - - . . . . . . . . . 479,985,298
1906 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 578,635,517
POPULATION OF LOS ANGELES CITY.
Year. No. Inhabitants.
I78I (founded) . . . . . . . • - - - - - Official. 44
1790 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 & I4I
1800 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . - © gº tº e º 'º & & 3I5
1810 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 & 4I 5
1820 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “ 650
1830 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . estimated. 770
1840 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . & & I,250
1850 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . official. 1,610
1860 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . & 4 4,399
1870 . . . . . . . . * = • * * * . . . . . . . . . “ 5,614
1880 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . & & II, 183
1890 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . & & 5O,395
I90O . . . . . . . * s & e º 'º e º e s e e s is e º e & 4 IO2,479
POPULATION OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY.
1850 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . official. 3,530
1860 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . & 4 II,333
1870 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . & K I5,309
1880 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . & & 33,881
1890 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . & & IOI,454
I90O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . & © I70,298
Vote of Los Angeles county at each presiden-
tial election from 1856 to 1904, both inclusive,
figured on the basis of highest vote cast for any
elector:
298
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
1856—Republican . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 522
Democratic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 722
Native American . . . . . I35
I860—Republican . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
Breckenridge, Democratic . . . . . . . . 703
Douglas, Democratic . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494
Bell and Everett . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2OI
1864–Republican . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555
Democratic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 744
I868–Republican . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 748
Democratic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I,236
I872—Republican . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I,312
Greeley, Democratic . . . . . . . . . . . . . I,228
O’Connor, Democratic . . . . . . . . . . . 650
1876—Republican . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,O4O
Democratic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,616
I880—Republican . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,915
Democratic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,855
Greenback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
Prohibition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IO
1884—Republican . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,596
Democratic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4,684
Greenback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2O8
Prohibition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
I888—Republican . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I3,803
Democratic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IO, I IO
Prohibition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I,266
Native American . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8T
I892–Republican . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IO,226
Democratic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8, II9
Prohibition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I,348
Populist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,086
I896—Republican . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I6,891
Democratic and Populist . . . . . . . . . I6,043
Prohibition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 787
National Democratic . . . . . . . . . . . . I31
National Party . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8I
Socialist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IO8
I900–Republican . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I9,293
Democratic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I 3,253
Prohibition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 996
Socialist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I,448
I904—Republican . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27,538
Democratic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18,694
CHAPTER XLIII.
MINING RUSHES AND REAL ESTATE BOOMS.
Los Angeles was known as a cow county.
Few, if any, of these seekers after the
golden fleece who entered the land of gold by
the southern routes knew that the first gold dis-
covered in California was found within the limits
of the despised cow county, that the first gold
rush took place there and that many of its mount-
ain cañons were rich in the precious metal. The
pilgrims to the shrine of Mammon saw the hills
and plains covered with thousands of cattle. They
found the inhabitants calmly indifferent to the
wild rush to the mines. To the gold seekers such
a country had no attractions. Its climate might be
salubrious, but they were not seeking climate;
its soil might be rich and productive, but they had
no use for a soil unmixed with gold dust. They
hurried on over the Tehachapi range or up the
Coast route to the northern mines.
The first discovery of gold in California was
T the Argonauts of '49 and the early '50s
made by Francisco Lopes in the San Feliciano
cañon of the San Fernando mountains, March
9, 1841 : A full account of this discovery is giv-
en in Chapter XXIII of this volume.
The famous Kern river gold rush of 1855
brought an influx of population. Some of that
population was very undesirable. The gold rush
made business lively for a time, but when the
reaction came it left a number of wrecks finan-
cially stranded. This mining excitement had one
good effect: it called the attention of the Ange-
lenos to the mineral resources of their own coun-
ty and indirectly brought about their develop-
ment.
The Kern river gold rush brought a number
of experienced miners to the county. Some of
these disappointed in the Kern river mines
turned their attention to prospecting in the
mountains of Los Angeles county. A party of
prospectors in April, 1855, entering the mount-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
299
ains by way of the Cajon pass, penetrated to
the headwaters of the San Gabriel river and
found good prospects. Captain Hammager with
a company of prospectors the same year went up
the cañon and discovered diggings that panned
out $5 to $6 a day.
The Santa Anita placers, about fifteen miles
from the city, were discovered in 1856. The dis-
coverers attempted to conceal their find and
these mines were known as the “Secret Dig-
gings,” but the secret was found out. These
mines paid from $6 to $10 a day.
Work was actively resumed in the San Fer-
nando diggings. Francisco Garcia, working a
gang of Indians, in 1855 took out $65,000. It
is said that one nugget worth $1,900 was found
in these mines. In 1858 the Santa Anita Min-
ing Company was organized, D. Marchessault,
president; V. Beaudry, treasurer; capital, $50-
OOO. A ditch four miles long was cut around
the foot of the mountain and hydraulic works -
constructed. Upon the completion of these
works, February 15, 1859, the company gave
a dinner to invited guests from the city. The
success of the enterprise was toasted and wine
and wit flowed as freely as the water in the
hydraulic pipes. The mines returned a hand-
some compensation on the outlay.
During the year 1859 the cañon of the San
Gabriel was prospected for forty miles and
some rich placer claims located. On some of
the bars as high as $8 to the pan were obtained.
The correspondent of the Los Angeles Star re-
ports these strikes: “From a hill claim four
men took out $80 in one day.” “Two Mexi-
cans, with a common wooden bowl or batea,
panned out $90 in two days.” “Two hydraulic
companies are taking out $1,000 a week.” In
July, 1859, 300 men were at work in the
cañon and all reported doing well. A stage line
ran from the city to the mines. Three stores at
Eldoradoville, the chief mining camp of the
cañon, supplied the miners with the necessaries
of life, and several saloons, furnished liquid re-
freshment and excitement.
The editor of the Star, in the issue of De-
cember 3, 1859, grows enthusiastic over the
mining prospects of Los Angeles. He says:
“Gold placers are now being worked from Fort
Tejon to San Bernardino. Rich deposits have
been discovered in the northern part of the
county. The San Gabriel mines have been
worked very successfully this season. The San-
ta Anita placers are giving forth their golden
harvest. Miners are at work in the San Fer-
mando hills rolling out the gold and in the hills
beyond discoveries have been made which prove
the whole district to be one grand placer.”
Next day it rained and it kept at it continuously
for three days and nights. It was reported that
twelve inches of water fell in the mountains
during the storm. In the narrow cañon of the
San Gabriel river the water rose to an unpre-
cedented height and swept everything before it.
The miners’ wheels, sluices, long toms, wing
dams, coffer dams, and all other dams, went
floating off toward the sea.
The year 1860 was a prosperous one for the
San Gabriel miners, notwithstanding the dis-
astrous flood of December, 1859. The increased
water supply afforded facilities for working dry
claims. Some of the strikes of that season in
the cañon have the sound of the flush days of
'49: “Baker & Smith realized from their claim
$800 in eight days;” “Driver & Co. washed out
$350 of dust in two hours.”
In the spring of 1862, Wells, Fargo & Co.
were shipping to San Francisco from their Los
Angeles office, $12,000 of gold dust a month by
steamer and probably as much more was sent
by other shippers or taken by private parties;
all this was produced from the San Fernando,
San Gabriel and Santa Anita placers. In the
past forty years a large amount of gold has
been taken out of the San Gabriel placers—
how much it is impossible to say. As late as
1876 there were two hydraulic companies work-
ing in the cañon. One company reported a
yield of $1,365 for a run of twenty-six days,
working five men—an average of $10.50 a day
to the man. Placer mining is still carried on in
a desultory way every winter in the San Fer-
nando and San Gabriel mines. But a limited
amount of capital has at any time been employed
in these mines, and the methods of working
them have been unsystematic and wasteful.
With more abundant capital, with improved ap-
300
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
pliances and cheaper methods of working, these
mines could be made to yield rich returns.
In the winter of 1862-63 placer mines were
discovered on the Colorado river and a rush
followed. Los Angeles profited by it while
it lasted, but it was soon over.
In 1863 there was a mining boom on the
island of Santa Catalina. Some rich specimens
of gold and silver quartz rock were found and
the boom began. The first location was made
in April, 1863, by Martin M. Kimberly and Dan-
iel E. Way. At a miners’ meeting held on the
island April 20, 1863, the San Pedro Mining
District was formed and a code of mining laws
formulated “for the government of locators of
veins or lodes of quartz, or other rock contain-
ing precious metals and ores (gold, silver, cop-
per, galena or other minerals or mines) that
may be discovered, taken up or located in Los
Angeles county, San Pedro district, state of
California.” The boundaries of San Pedro dis-
trict were somewhat indefinite; it included “all
the islands of Los Angeles county and the Coast
Range of mountains between the northern and
southern boundaries of said county.”
The first discoveries were made near the
isthmus on the 1;orthwestern part of the island.
The principal claims were located in Fourth of
July valley, Cherry valley and Mineral hill.
A site for a city was located on Wilson Har-
bor. Lots were staked off and Queen City
promised to become the metropolis of the min-
ing district of Catalina.
Numerous discoveries were made. Within
nine months from the first location notices of
claims to over a hundred thousand feet of
leads, lodes or veins, with their dips, spurs and
angles, were recorded in the recorder's office
of Los Angeles county and probably three times
that number of claims were located that were
either recorded in the district records on the
island or were not recorded at all. Assays were
made of gold and silver bearing rock, that
ranged from $150 to $800 a ton. Stock com-
panies were formed with capital bordering on
millions—indecd, a company that had not “mil-
lions in it” was not worth organizing in those
days. It is needless to say that the capital stock
was not paid up in full nor in part either. The
miners believed implicitly in the wealth of their
mines, but they had no money to develop their
claims nor could they induce capitalists to aid
them. The times were out of joint for great en-
terprises. Washoe stocks had flooded the lo-
cal mining market and the doubtful practices of
mining sharps had brought discredit on feet
and stocks. Capital from abroad could not be
induced to seek investment in mines on an
island in the far Pacific. The nation was en-
gaged in a death struggle with the Southern
Confederacy and there was more money in fat
government contracts than in prospect holes.
The boom collapsed unexpectedly — burst
by “military despotism.” There were rumors
that this mining rush was a blind to conceal a
plot to seize the island and make it a rendezvous
for Confederate privateers, from which they
could fit out and prey upon the commerce of the
coast. Many of the miners were southern sym-
pathizers, but whether such a plot was serious-
ly contemplated is doubtful. If such was incu-
bating, the government crushed it before it was
hatched. A military force was placed on the
island and the following order issued:
Headquarters, Santa Catalina Island,
February 5th, 1864.
Special Order No. 7.
No person or persons other than owners of
stock or incorporated companies' employes, will
be allowed to remain on the island on Or after
this date; nor will any person be allowed to land
until further instructions are received from
Washington. I hereby notify miners prospect-
ing or other persons to leave immediately. By
Order.
B. R. WEST,
Captain Fourth California Infantry Command-
ing Post.
After such an invitation to leave the miners
stood not on the order of their going—they
went—those whose sympathies were with the
Confederacy breathing curses against the tyrant
Lincoln and his blue-coated minions. After the
withdrawal of the troops, September 15, 1864,
a few of the miners returned, but work was not
resumed, the excitement was over—the boom
had burst, -
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORI). 301
THE GREAT REAL ESTATE BOOM OF 1887.
The following account of the real-estate boom
of 1887 is compiled from a paper written by
the author of this history and published in the
Annual of the Southern California Historical
Society for 1890. The writer describes what
he saw and heard :
“In the history of nearly every great Ameri-
can city there is an epoch which marks a turn-
ing point in its civic life. The great epoch in
the civic life of Los Angeles is that which is
always spoken of as ‘The Boom.’ An event is
referred to as occurring ‘before the boom,’ ‘dur-
ing the boom,” or ‘after the boom.’ -
“By the “boom’ is meant the great real-estate
bubble of 1887. Boom, in the sense we use it,
is intended to express a sudden inflation of val-
ues; and on the western side of our continent
it has superseded the older used and more ex-
pressive word, bubble. Boom, ‘to rush with
violence,” is better suited to the dash, the im-
petuosity and the recklessness of western spec-
ulators than the more effeminate term, bubble.
Boom has come into our literature to stay, how-
ever unstable it may be in other places.
“Communities and nations as well are sub-
ject, at times, to financial booms—periods when
the mania for money-making seems to become
epidemic. The South Sea Bubble; the Darien
Colonization Scheme; the Mississippi Scheme
of John Law; the Northern Pacific Railroad
Bubble of Jay Cooke—have each been followed
by financial panics and Black Fridays, but the
experience of one generation is lost on the suc-
ceeding. Experience as schoolmaster is too
often a failure.
“There were no booms in Los Angeles under
Spanish or under Mexican rule. Then all vacant
lands belonged to the pueblo. If a man needed
a building lot he petitioned the comisionado, or,
later on, the ayuntamiento, for a grant of a lot.
If he failed to use the lot it was taken from him.
Under such conditions neither real-estate booms
nor real-estate agents could flourish.
“After the discovery of gold in California,
Los Angeles experienced its first real-estate
boom. In 1849 the Ord survey lots were put
on the market and a number of them sold.
There was a great demand for houses. Build-
ings framed and ready for putting together were
shipped around Cape Horn from Boston, New
York, London and Liverpool.
“As the gold excitement decreased the city
gradually sank into a comatose State—took a
Rip Van Winkle sleep for twenty years or
thereabouts. Times were hard, money scarce
and real-estate low. Markets were distant,
transportation was high and most of the agri-
cultural lands were held in large tract. These
conditions began to change about 1868. The
Stearns ranchos, containing about 200,000
acres, were subdivided. Settlers from the New
England and northwestern states began to come
in and the push and energy of these began to
work a transformation in the sleepy old ciudad
and the country around. Between 1868 and
I875 a number of the large ranchos were sub-
divided, several colonies were promoted and
new towns founded.
“From 1875 to 1881 was a period of financial
depression. The Temple Workman Bank fail-
ure, a succession of dry years that ruined the
sheep industry, overproduction, high freight
rates and a poor market for our products
brought the country to the verge of bankruptcy.
The building of the Southern Pacific Railroad
eastward gave us a new and better market for our
products in the mining regions of Arizona and
New Mexico. The completion of this road in 1881
gave us a new transcontinental route and immi-
grants began to arrive from the eastern states.
The price of land steadily advanced and grad-
ually we recovered from our financial depres–
sion.
“Up till 1886 the growth of our cities and
towns had kept pace with the growth and de-
velopment of the surrounding country, the cry-
ing need for new cities and towns had not been
heard. The merits of the country had been well
advertised in the eastern states. Excursion
agents, real-estate dealers, and the newspapers
of Southern California had depicted in glow-
ing colors the salubrity of our climate, the va-
riety of our production, the fertility of our
soil and the immense profits to be made from
the cultivation of semi-tropical fruits. The last
link of the Santa Fe Railroad system was ap-
302
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
proaching completion. In the spring of 1886 a
rate war was precipitated between the two trans-
continental lines. Tickets from the Missouri
river points to Los Angeles were sold all the
way from $1 to $15.
“Visitors and immigrants poured in by the
thousands. The country was looking its love-
liest. Leaving the ice and Snows of Minnesota,
Iowa and Kansas, in three or four days they
found themselves in a land of Orange groves,
green fields and flower-covered hills. In the
new land they found everybody prosperous, and
these visitors returned to their homes to sell
their possessions and come to the promised land.
“The immediate causes that precipitated our
great real-estate boom of 1887 may be briefly
enumerated as follows:
“First. The completion of a competing con-
tinental railroad, with its western terminus at
Los Angeles, and an era of active local railroad
building and railroad projecting in Southern
California.
“Second. High prices for all our products,
an easy money market and employment, at high
wages, for all who wished it.
“Third. An immense immigration, part of it
induced to come on account of a better climate
and greater rewards for labor, and part of it
attracted by reports of the large profits to be
made by speculating in real estate.
“Lastly. The arrival among us of a horde of
boomers from western cities and towns—patri-
ots, many of them, who had exiled themselves
from their former places of abode between two
days—fellows who had left their consciences
(that is, if they had any to leave) on the other
side of the Rockies. These professionals had
learned the tricks of their trade in the boom .
cities of the west when that great wave of im-
migration which began moving after the close
of the war was sweeping westward from the
Mississippi river to the shores of the Pacific.
These boomers came here not to build up the
country, but to make money, honestly if they
could not make it any other way. It is needless
to say they made it the other way.
“During 1884-5-6 a number of lots were put
on the market, but these were made mostly by
subdivisions of acreage within or of additions
immediately joining the older established cities
and towns. Very few new town sites had been
laid off previous to 1887. As the last section
of the Santa Fe Railway system approached
completion the creation of new towns began,
and the rapidity with which they were created
was truly astonishing. During the months of
March, April and May, 1887, no less than thir-
teen town sites were platted on the line of this
road between Los Angeles and San Bernardino
and the lots thrown upon the market. Before
the close of 1887, between the eastern limits of
Los Angeles and San Bernardino county line, a
distance by way of the Santa Fe Railroad of
thirty-six miles, there were twenty-five cities
and towns located, an average of one to each
mile and a half of the road. Paralleling the
Santa Fe on the line of the Southern Pacific
Railroad, eight more towns claimed the atten-
tion of lot buyers, with three more thrown in
between the roads, making a grand total of
thirty-six cities and towns in the San Gabriel
valley. The area of some of these was quite
extensive. “No pent-up Utica contracted the
powers’ of their founders. The only limit to
the greatness of a city was the boundary lines
of the adjoining cities. The corporate limits of
the city of Monrovia were eight square miles;
Pasadena, with its additions, the same ; Lords-
burg spread over eight hundred acres; Chicago
Park numbered nearly three thousand lots, lo-
cated in the wash of the San Gabriel river. The
city of Azusa, with its house lots and suburban
farm lots, covered an area of four thousand
3C1' eS.
“The craze to secure lots in some of these
towns is well exemplified in the first sale of lots
in Azusa. The founding of the city of Azusa
was intended to satisfy a long-felt want. The
rich valley of the Azusa de Duarte had no com-
mercial metropolis. Azusa city was recognized
by real-estate speculators as the coming com-
mercial center of trade for the valley, and they
thought there was money in the first pick of lots.
The lots were to be put on sale on a certain day.
Through the long hours of the night previous
and until nine o'clock of the day of sale a line
of hungry and weary lot buyers stood in front
of the office where the lots were to be sold.
HISTORIC.AL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
303
Number two claimed to have been offered
$1,000 for his place in the line; number three
sold out for $500; number fifty-four loudly pro-
claimed that he would not take a cent less than
a cool hundred for his chance. Number one
was deaf to all offers; and through the weary
hours of the night he clung to the ‘handle of
the big front door,’ securing at last the coveted
prize—the first choice. Two hundred , and
eighty thousand dollars worth of lots were sold
the first day. The sale continued three days.
Not one in ten of the purchasers had seen the
town site, not one in a hundred expected to Oc-
cupy the land purchased.
“Even this performance was surpassed later
on in the boom. The sale of lots in a certain
town was to begin Wednesday morning at the
agent's office in the city. On Sunday evening
a line of prospective purchasers began to form.
The agent, as an advertising dodge, hired a
large hall for the display of his would-be in-
vestors. At stated intervals the line formed,
the roll was called and woe to the unfortunate
who failed to answer to his number; his place
in the line was forfeited and he was compelled
to go down to the foot. Financially, the agent's
scheme was a failure. The crowd was made
up principally of impecunious speculators and
tramps who had lioped to sell out their places in
the line.
“An aristocratic and euphonious name was
desideratum to a new-born town, although, as
in the following case, it sometimes failed to boom
the prospective city. An enterprising news-
paper man found a piece of unoccupied land
on the line of the Santa Fe Railroad—that is,
a piece not occupied by a town site—and found-
ed the city of Gladstone. An advertisement pro-
lific in promises of the future greatness of the
city, and tropical in its luxuriance of descrip-
tive adjectives, proclaimed among other induce-
ments to buy that a lot had been deeded to the
premier of all England, and it was left to be in-
ferred that the ‘grand old man’ might build a
princely residence on his lot and become one
of the attractions to draw dwellers to the new
city. In olden times, when a conqueror wished
to destroy a rival city, he razed it to the ground,
caused the plowshare to pass over its ruins and
Sowed the site with salt. The city of Gladstone
was prevented from rising above the ground
by the caustic criticisms of a rival newspaper
man, the plowshare has passed many times over
its ruins and its site has been sown in barley.
The enterprising newspaper man lost his land
(he held it by contract to purchase only), the
Surveyor who platted the town lost his pay and
Gladstone lost his lot.
“Of the phantom cities of the boom, cities
that have faded from mortal view, cities that
have become spectres that rise out of the mists
of the past to haunt the dupes who invested
their money in them, of these Carlton is a good
illustration. It was located on the slope of the
Santa Ana mountains, east of Anaheim. It is
described as commanding a beautiful view of
the valley of the Santa Ana, with a glimpse of
the Pacific Ocean in the distance. View was its
chief resource the only commodity other than
town lots it had to offer. The promises of its
projectors were unbounded, and the credulity
of its investors seemed to be unlimited. Rail-
roads were to center there. There manufac-
tories were to rear their lofty chimneys, and the
ever-present hotel in the course of erection was
to be a palace of luxury for the tourist and a
health-restoring sanitarium to the one-lunged
consumptive.
“Promises were cheap and plentiful, and so
were the lots. They started at $25 each for
a lot twenty-five feet front; rose to $35; jumped
to $50, and choice corners changed hands all
the way from $100 to $500.
“One enterprising agent sold three thousand,
and many others did their best to supply a long-
felt want—cheap lots. Capitalists, speculators,
mechanics, merchants, day laborers, clerks and
servant girls crowded and jostled one another
in their eagerness to secure choice lots in the
coming metropolis. Business blocks, hotels,
restaurants and dwelling houses lined the streets
on paper. A bank building, with a costly vault,
was in course of construction, and it continued
in that course to the end. A railroad was sur-
veyed to the city and a few ties and rails scat-
tered at intervals along the line. A number of
cheap houses were built, and a population of
three or four hundred congregated there at the
304
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
height of the boom, and for a time managed to
subsist in a semi-cannibalistic way on the dupes
who came there to buy lots. The site of the city
was on the mountain side above the zanja
(ditch), and the water supply of the inhabitants
had to be hauled up hill in water carts. The
productive land lay far below in the valley, and
the cities of the plain absorbed all the trade.
When the excursionist and lot-buyer ceased to
come, “Picturesque Carlton,’ ‘Nature's Rendez-
vous,’ as its poetic founder styled it, was aban-
doned, and now the jack-rabbit nibbles the grass
in its deserted streets and the howl of the coyote
and the hoot of the boding owl echo amid its
ruins—that is, if there are enough ruins to make
an echo. -
“Of the purely paper cities of the boom, Bor-
der City and Manchester are the best illustra-
tions. An unprincipled speculator by the name
of Simon Homberg secured two quarter-Sec-
tions of government land situated respectively
forty and forty-three miles northeast of Los
Angeles. These were the sites of Homberg's
famous or rather infamous twin cities. Border
City was appropriately named. It was located
on the border of the Mojave desert, on the
northeastern slope of the Sierra Madre mount-
ains. (It was named Border City because it
was located on the eastern border of Los Ange-
les county.) It was most easily accessible by
means of a balloon, and was as Secure from hos-
tile invasion as the homes of the cliff dwellers.
Its principal resource, like Carlton, was view—
a view of the Mojave desert. The founder did
not go to the expense of having the site sur-
veyed and the lots staked off. Indeed, about
the only way it could be surveyed was through
a field glass. He platted it by blocks and re-
corded his map. The streets were forty feet
wide and the lots twenty-five feet front by One
hundred deep. The quarter-section made nine-
teen hundred and twenty lots, an average of
twelve to the acre. Such width of street Hom-
berg found to be a waste of land, and in laying
out the city of Manchester he was more eco-
nomical. Out of the quarter section on which
that city was located he carved two thousand
three hundred and four lots, or about fourteen
to the acre. All streets running east and west
were 27 2-13 feet wide, and all running north
and South were 34 2-7 feet wide. The lots
were twenty-five feet front by ninety-five deep.
Manchester was a city of greater resources than
Border City. Being located higher up the
mountain, it had a more extended view of the
desert.
“These lots were not offered for sale in
Southern California, nor to those who might in-
vestigate and expose the fraud, but were ex-
tensively advertised in Northern California, in
Oregon, in the eastern states, and even in Eu-
rope. It would seem almost incredible that
Homberg could have found dupes enough to
buy such property unsight, unseen; yet, judg-
ing from the records, he sold about all of his
four thousand lots, and his profits must have
footed, up in the neighborhood of $50,000. So
many of his deeds were filed for record that
the county recorder had a book of records con-
taining three hundred and sixty pages, especial-
ly prepared with printed forms, of Homberg’s
deeds, so that when one was filed for record, all
that was necessary to engross it was to fill in
the name of the purchaser and the number of
the lot and block.
“The lots cost Homberg about an average
of ten cents each, and were sold at all prices,
from $1 up to $250 each, the prices varying ac-
cording to the means or the gullibility of the
purchaser. One buyer would pay $250 for
a single lot; the next investor might get ten
or a dozen for that sum. One enthusiast in
San José invested $1,000 in a bunch of forty-
eight lots, securing at one fell swoop four busi-
ness blocks in the center of Border City. Near-
ly every state in the Union had its victims of
misplaced confidence in the future of Homberg’s
twin cities. Nor were his operations confined
to the United States alone. England, Germany,
Holland, Denmark and Sweden furnished him
dupes as well.
“The magnitude of our great boom can be
measured more accurately by a money standard
than any other. The total of the considerations
named in the instruments filed for record dur-
ing the year 1887 reached the enormous sum
of $98,084,162. But even this does not tell half
the story. By far the larger number of lots
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
305
and blocks in the various tracts and town sites
that were thrown on the market were sold on
contract, the terms of payment being one-third
or one-fourth cash, balance in installments pay-
able in six, twelve or eighteen months, a deed
to be given when the final payment was made.
But few of the agreements were recorded. Fre-
quently property bought on agreement to con-
vey was resold from one to half a dozen times,
and each time at an advance; yet the consider-
ation named in the deed, when given, would be
the sum named in the original agreement.
Deeds to the great bulk of property sold on con-
tract in 1887 did not go on record until the fol-
lowing year, and many of them not then. Thou-
sands of contracts were forfeited and never ap-
peared of record. It is safe to estimate that
the considerations in the real-estate transactions
during 1887 in Los Angeles county alone
reached $2OO,OOO,OOO.
“So sudden and so great an inflation of land
values was perhaps never equaled in the world's
history. When unimproved land in John Law's
Mississippi Colony sold for 30,000 livres ($5,-
550) a square league, all Europe was amazed
and historians still quote the Mississippi bubble
as a marvel of inflation. To have bought a
square league of land in the neighborhood of
some of our cities in the booming days of 1887
would have taken an amount of money equal to
the capital of the national bank of France, in
the days of John Law. Unimproved lands ad-
joining the city of Los Angeles sold as high as
$2,500 per acre or at the rate of $14,400,000 a
square league. Land that sold at $100 an acre
in 1886, changed hands in 1887 at $1,500 per
acre; and city lots bought in 1886 at $500 each,
a year later were rated at $5,000.
“The great booms of former times measured
by the money standard, dwarf into insignifi-
cance when compared with ours. The capital
stock of John Law’s National Bank of France,
with his Mississippi grants thrown in, figured
up less than $15,000,000, an amount about equal
to our real-estate transactions for one month;
yet, the bursting of John Law’s Mississippi bub-
ble very nearly bankrupted the French Empire.
The relative proportions of the South Sea bub-
ble of 1700, to our real estate boom are as a
Soap bubble is to a mammoth balloon. The
amount of capital invested in the Darien Colo-
nization Scheme, a Scheme which bankrupted
Scotland and came near plunging all Europe in-
to war, was only 220,000 pounds Sterling, a sum
about equal to our real-estate transfers for one
day.
“From a report compiled for the Los Angeles
County Board of Equalization in July, 1889, I
find the area included in sixty towns, all of which
were laid out since January I, I887, estimated
at 79,350 acres. The total population of these
sixty towns at that time was placed at 3,350.
Some of the largest of these on paper were
without inhabitants. Carlton, containing 4,060
lots, was an unpeopled waste; Nadeau, 4,470
lots, had no inhabitants; Manchester, 2,304 lots,
no inhabitants; Santiago 2, IIO lots, was a de-
serted village. Others still contained a small
remnant of their former population. Chicago
Park, containing 2,289 lots, had one inhabitant,
the watchman who took care of its leading ho-
tel; Sunset, 2,014 lots, one inhabitant, watch-
man of an expensive hotel which was in the
course of construction when the boom burst.
(The building was burned a few years since.)
“The sites of a majority of the boom cities of
twenty years ago have been returned to acreage,
the plowshare has passed over their ruins and
barley grows in the deserted streets.
“The methods of advertising the attractions
of the various tracts, subdivisions and town sites
thrown on the market, and the devices resorted
to to inveigle purchasers into investing were va-
rious, often ingenious and sometimes infamous.
Brass bands, street processions, free excursions
and free lunches, columns of advertisements
rich in description and profuse in promises that
were never intended to be fulfilled, pictures of
massive hotels in the course of erection, litho-
graphs of colleges about to materialize, lotteries,
the prizes in which were handsome residences
or family hotels, railroads that began and end-
ed in the imaginations of the projectors—such
were a few of the many devices resorted to to
attract purchasers and induce them to invest
their coin.
“Few, if any, of the inhabitants to the manor
born, or those of permanent residence and re-
20
306
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
putable character engaged in these doubtful
practices and disreputable methods of booming.
The men who blew the bubble to greatest in-
flation were new importations—fellows of the
baser sort who knew little or nothing about the
resources or characteristics of the country and
cared less: They were here to make money.
When the bubble burst they disappeared—those
who got away with their gains, chuckling over
ill-gotten wealth; those who lost, abusing the
country and vilifying the people they had duped.
Retributive justice overtook a few of the more
unprincipled boomers and they have since done
Some service to the country in striped uniforms.
“The collapse of Our real-estate boom was not
the Sudden bursting of a financial bubble, like
the South Sea bubble or John Law's Mississippi
bubble, nor did it end in a financial crash like
the monetary panics of 1837 and 1857, or like
Black Friday in Wall street. Its collapse was
more like the steady contraction of a balloon
from the pressure of the heavier atmosphere on
the outside. It gradually shriveled up. The
considerations named in the recorded trans-
fers of the first three months of 1888 ex-
ceeded $2O,OOO,OOO. After that they decreased
rapidly.”
CHAPTER XLIV.
LOS ANGELES CITY.
FROM PUEBLO TO CIUDAD.
(From Town to City.)
OR fifty-five years after its founding Los
F Angeles was officially a pueblo. In 1835,
as narrated in a previous chapter, the
Mexican congress raised it to the rank of a city.
It was only in official records and communica-
tions that it was accorded the dignity of a “ciu-
dad” (city). The people spoke of it as el pueblo
—the town. American writers of the decade
previous to the American conquest all speak
of it as the pueblo, and one of them, Hast-
ings, who came to California. Overland in
1843 and wrote a book describing the country
and telling how to get there, seems not to
have heard its real name, but designated
it “Poablo below,” and San José “POablo
above.” Los Angeles was often spoken of as
El Pueblo abajo, the town below ; and San José,
El Pueblo, the town above. Hastings, with his
imperfect knowledge of Spanish, seems to have
taken these as the real names of the towns.
Its elevation to a ciudad by the Mexican Con-
gress made no change in its form of government.
The ayuntamiento was still the ruling power,
and the number of its members was not in-
creased. The ayuntamiento was abolished at the
beginning of the year 1840. The Mexican con-
gress had enacted a law allowing ayuntamientos
Only to cities with a population of four thousand
and upwards. The ayuntamiento of Los Angeles
was re-established in 1844, and continued the
governing body of the city until superseded by
the common council July 3, 1850.
In the beginning Los Angeles was symmet-
rical. The pueblo contained four square leagues
(Spanish). In the center was the plaza, 75x1OO
varas. It was the geographical center of the
settlement. One league toward each wind you
reached the pueblo's boundary lines. The nar-
row streets went out from the plaza at right
angles to its sides. The houses faced inward
upon it. As the town grew it wandered off from
its old center, and became demoralized. The
streets crooked to suit the convenience of house
builders. The houses stood at different angles
to the streets and the house lots were of all
geometrical shapes. No man had a written title
to his land. Possession was ten points of the
law. Indeed, it was all the law he had to pro-
tect his title. If he ceased to use his land he
might lose it. Anyone was at liberty to denounce
unused land, and the ayuntamiento, on proof
being made that it was unused, declared the
possession forfeited.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD,
307
With the fall of the missions a spasm of terri-
torial expansion seized the colonists. In 1834 the
territorial legislature, by an enactment, fixed the
boundaries of the pueblo of Los Angeles at “two
leagues to each of the four winds, measuring
from the center of the plaza.” This gave the
pueblo an area of sixteen square leagues, or over
one hundred square miles. Next year (1835)
Los Angeles was made the capital of Alta Cali-
fornia by the Mexican congress and raised to
the dignity of a city; and then its first real
estate boom was on. There was an increased
demand for lots and ſands, but there were no
maps or plats to grant by and no additions or
Subdivisions of the pueblo lands on the market.
All the unoccupied lands belonged to the munici-
pality, and when a citizen wanted a house lot
to build on he petitioned the ayuntamiento for
a lot, and if the piece asked for was vacant he
was granted a lot—large or small, deep or shal-
low, on the street or off it, just as it happened.
With the growth of the town the confusion
and irregularity increased. The disputes arising
from Overlapping grants, conflicting property
lines and indefinite descriptions induced the
ayuntamiento of 1836 to appoint a commission
to investigate and report upon the manner of
granting house lots and agricultural lands. The
commissioners reported “that they had con-
sulted with several of the founders and with old
settlers, who declared that from the founding
of the town the concession of lots and lands had
been made verbally without any other formality
than locating and measuring the extent of the
land the fortunate one should occupy.”
“In order to present a fuller report your com-
mission obtained an ‘Instruction' signed by Don
José Francisco de Ortega, dated at San Gabriel,
February 2, 1782, and we noted that articles 3, 4
and 17 of said “Instruction’ provides that con-
cession of said agricultural lands and house lots
must be made by the government, which shall
issue the respective titles to the grantees. Ac-
cording to the opinion of the city’s advisers, said
“Instruction,’ or at least the three articles re-
ferred to, have not been observed, as there is no
property owner who can show a legal title to
his property.
“The commissioners cannot do otherwise but
call attention of the Most Illustrious Ayunta-
miento to the evil consequences which may re-
sult by reason of said abuses, and recommend
that some means may be devised that they may
be avoided. God and Liberty.”
“Angeles, March 8, 1836.
- “ABEL STEARNs,
“BACILIO VALDEz,
“JOSE M. HERRERRAs,
w “Commissioners.”
Acting on the report of the commissioners, the
ayuntamiento required all holders of property to
apply for written titles. But the poco tiempo
ways of the pobladores could not be altogether
Overcome. We find from the records that in
I847 the land of Mrs. Carmen Navarro, one
of the founders of the town, was denounced
(filed On) because she could not show a written
title to it. The ayuntamiento decided “that as
she had always been allowed to hold it, her
claim should be respected because she was one
of the founders,” “which makes her entitled to
a lot on which to live.”
March 17, 1836, “a commission on streets,
plazas and alleys was appointed to report a plan
for repairing the monstrous irregularity of the
streets brought about by ceding house lots and
erecting houses in this pueblo.”
The commission reported in favor of “formu-
lating a plat of the city as it actually exists, on
which shall be marked the names of the streets,
alleys and plazas, also the house lots and com-
mon lands of the pueblo.” But nothing came of
the report, no plat was made, and the ayunta-
miento went on in the same old way, granting
lots of all shapes and forms.
In March, 1846, another commission was ap-
pointed to locate the bounds of the pueblo lands.
All that was done was to measure two leagues
“in the direction of the four winds from the
plaza church,” and set stakes to mark the
boundary lines. Then came the American con-
quest of California, and the days of poco tiempo
were numbered. In 1847, after the conquest,
another attempt was made to Straighten and
widen the streets. Some of the Yankee spirit
of fixing up things seems to have pervaded the
ayuntamiento. A street commission was ap-
308
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
pointed to try to bring order out of the chaos
into which the streets had fallen. The commis-
Sioners reported July 22, 1847, as follows:
“Your commissioners could not but be amazed
Seeing the disorder and the manner how the
streets run. More particularly the street which
leads to the cemetery, whose width is out of
proportion to its length, and whose aspect of-
fends the sense of the beautiful which should
prevail in the city.” When discussing this state
of affairs with the sindico (city attorney) he in-
formed us that on receiving his instructions
from the ayuntamiento he was ordered to give
the streets a width of fifteen varas (about forty-
one feet). This he found to be in conflict with
the statutes. The law referred to is in Book IV,
Chapter 7, Statute IO (probably a compilation
of the “laws of the Indies,” two or three cen-
turies old, and brought from Spain). The law
reads: “In cold countries the streets shall be
wide, and in warm countries narrow; and when
there are horses it would be convenient to have
wide streets for purpose of an occasional de;
fense or to widen them in the form above men-
tioned, care being taken that nothing is done to
spoil the looks of the buildings, weaken the
points of defense or encroach upon the comfort
of the people.”
“The instructions given the sindico by the
ayuntamiento are absolutely opposed to this law,
and therefore illegal.” It probably never oc-
curred to the commission to question the wisdom
of so senseless a law; it had been a law in
Spanish America for centuries and therefore
must be venerated for its antiquity. A blind, un-
reasoning faith in the wisdom of church and
state has been the undoing of the Spanish people.
Apparently the commission did nothing more
than report. California being a warm country,
the streets perforce must be narrow.
The same year a commission was appointed to
“square the plaza.” Through carelessness some
of the houses fronting on the Square had been
allowed to encroach upon it; others were set
back so that the boundary lines of the plaza
zigzagged back and forth like a Virginia rail
fence. The neighborhood of the plaza was the
aristocratic residence quarter of the city then,
and a plaza front was considered high-toned. The
commission found the Squaring of the plaza as
difficult a problem as the squaring of a circle.
After many trials and tribulations the commis-
sioners succeeded in overcoming most of the
irregularities by reducing the area of the plaza.
The houses that intruded were not torn down,
but the property line was moved forward. The
north, south and west lines were each fixed at
I34 varas and the east line II 2 varas. The
ayuntamiento attempted to open a street from
the plaza north of the church, but Pedro Cabrera,
who had been granted a lot which fell in the
line of the street, refused to give up his plaza
front for a better lot without that aristocratic
appendage which the council offered him. Then,
the city authorities offered him as compensation
for the difference a certain number of days’ labor
of the chain gang (the treasury was in the usual
state of collapse), but Pedro could not be traded
out of his plaza front, so the street took a twist
around Pedro's lot—a twist that sixty years has
not straightened out. The irregularities in grant-
ing portions of the unapportioned city lands still
continued and the confusion of titles increased.
In May, 1849, the territorial governor, Gen-
eral Bennett Riley, sent a request to the ayunta-
miento for a city map and information in regard
to the manner of granting lots. The ayunta-
miento replied that there was no map of the city
in existence and no surveyor here who could
make one. The governor was asked to send a
surveyor to make a plan or plat of the city. He
was also informed that in making land grants
within “the perimeter of two leagues square the
city acted in the belief that it is entitled to that
much land as a pueblo.”
Lieut. E. O. C. Ord, of the United States
army, was sent down by the governor to plat
the city. On the 18th of July, 1849, he sub-
mitted this proposition to the ayuntamiento:
“He would make a map of the city, marking
boundary lines and points of the municipal lands
for $1,500, coin, ten lots selected from among
the defined lots on the map and vacant lands to
the extent of 1,000 varas to be selected in Sec-
tions of 200 varas wherever he may choose it, or
lie would make a map for $3,000 in coin.”
The ayuntamiento chose the last proposition—
the president prophetically remarking that the
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
309
time might come in the future when the lots
alone would be worth $3,000. The money to pay
for the survey was borrowed from Juan Temple,
at the rate of one per cent a month, and lots
pledged as security for payment. The time has
come and passed when a single front foot of an
Ord survey has sold for $3,000.
The ayuntamiento also decided that there
should be embodied in the map a plan of all
the lands actually under cultivation, from the
principal dam down to the last cultivated field
below. “As to the lots that should be shown on
the map, they should begin at the cemetery and
end with the house of Botiller (near Ninth
street). As to the commonalty lands of this
city, the surveyor should determine the four
points of the compass, and, taking the parish
church for a center, measure two leagues in each
cardinal direction. These lines will bisect the
four sides of a square within which the lands of
the municipality will be contained, the area of
the same being sixteen square leagues, and each
side of the square measuring four leagues.”
(The claims commission reduced the city’s area
in 1856 to just one-fourth these dimensions.)
Lieutenant Ord, assisted by William R. Hut-
ton, completed his Plan de la Ciudad de Los An-
geles, August 29, 1849. He divided into blocks
all that portion of the city bounded north by
First street, and the base of the first line of hills,
east by Main street, south by Twelfth street,
and west by Pearl street (now Figueroa), and
into lots all of the above to Eighth street; also
into lots and blocks that portion of the city
north of Short street and west of Upper Main
(San Fernando) to the base of the hills. On the
“plan” the lands between Main street and the
river are designated as “plough grounds, gar-
dens, corn and vine lands.” The streets in the
older portion of the city are marked on the map,
but not named. The blocks, except the tier be-
tween First and Second streets, are each 6OO
feet in length, and are divided into ten lots, each
120 feet by 165 feet deep. Ord took his com-
pass course for the line of Main street, south
24° 45′ west, from the corner opposite José An-
tonio Carrillo's house, which stood where the
Pico house or National hotel now stands. On
*City Archives.
his map Main, Spring and Fort (now Broadway)
streets ran in parallel straight lines Southerly to
Twelfth street.
The names of the streets on Ord’s plan are
given in both Spanish and English. Beginning
with Main street, they are as follows: Calle
Principal, Main street; Calle Primavera, Spring
street (named for the season spring); Calle
Fortin, Fort street (so named because the street
extended would pass through the old fort on the
hill); Calle Loma, Hill street; Calle Accytuna,
Olive street; Calle de Caridad, the street of char-
ity (now Grand avenue); Calle de Las Esperan-
zas, the street of hopes; Calle de Las Flores, the
street of flowers; Calle de Los Chapules, the
street of grasshoppers (now South Figueroa
street).
Above the plaza church the north and south
streets were the Calle de Eternidad (Eternity
street, so named because it had neither beginning
nor end, or, rather, because each end terminated
in the hills); Calle del Toro (street of the bull,
so named because the upper end of the street
terminated at the Carrida de Toro—the bull
ring, where bull-fights were held); Calle de Las
Avispas (street of the hornets or wasps, a very
lively street at times); Calle de Los Adobes,
Adobe street. The east and west streets were:
Calle Corta, Short street; Calle Alta, High street;
Calle de Las Virgines (street of virgins); Calle
del Colegio (street of the college, the only street
Inorth of the church that retains its primitive
name). Spring street was known as Calle de
Caridad (the street of charity) at the time of
the American conquest. The town then was
centered around the plaza, and Spring street was
well out in the suburbs. Its inhabitants in early
times were of the poorer classes, who were largely
dependent on the charity of their wealthier neigh-
bors around the plaza. It is part of an old road
made more than a century ago. On Ord’s “plan”
this road is traced northwestward from the junc-
tion of Spring and Main. It follows the present
line of North Spring street to First street, then
crosses the blocks bounded by Spring, Broad-
way, First and Third street diagonally to the
corner of Third street and Broadway. It inter-
sects Hill at Fourth street and Olive at Fifth
street; skirting the hills, it passes out of the city
310
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
near Ninth Street to the Brea Springs, from
which the colonists obtained the roofing material
for their adobe houses. This road was used for
many years after the American occupation, and
was recognized as a street in conveyances. Ord
evidently transferred Spring street's original
name, “La Caridad,” to one of his western
Streets which was a portion of the old road.
Main street, from the junction south, in 1846
was known as Calle de la Allegria—Junction
street; Los Angeles street was the Calle Prin-
cipal, or Main street. Whether the name had
been transferred to the present Main street be-
fore Ord’s survey I have not been able to ascer-
tain. In the early years of the century Los
Angeles street was known as the Calle de la
Zanja (Ditch street). Later on it was some-
times called Calle de Los Viñas (Vineyard
street), and with its continuation the Calle de
Los Huertos (Orchard street)—now San
Pedro—formed the principal highway running
Southward to the embarcadero of San Pedro.
Of the historic streets of Los Angeles that
have disappeared before the march of improve-
ments none perhaps was So widely known in
early days as the one called Calle de Los Negros
in Castilian Spanish, but Nigger alley in vulgar
|United States. Whether its ill-omened name
was given from the dark hue of the dwellers on
it or from the blackness of the deeds done in
it the records do not tell. Before the American
conquest it was a respectable street, and some of
the wealthy rancheros dwelt on it, but it was
not then known as Nigger alley. It gained its
unsavory reputation and name in the flush days
of gold mining, between 1849 and 1856. It was
a short, narrow street or alley, extending from
the upper end of Los Angeles street at Arcadia
to the plaza. It was at that time the only street
except Main entering the plaza from the south.
In length it did not exceed 500 feet, but in wick-
edness it was unlimited. On either side it was
lined with saloons, gambling hells, dance houses
and disreputable dives. It was a cosmopolitan
street. Representatives of different races and
many nations frequented it. Here the ignoble
red man, crazed with aguardiente, fought his
battles, the swarthy Sonoran plied his stealthy
dagger and the click of the revolver mingled
with the clink of gold at the gaming table when
Some chivalric American felt that his word of
“honah” has been impugned.
The Calle de Los Negros in the early '50s,
when the deaths from violence in Los Angeles
were of almost daily occurrence, was the central
point from which the wickedness of the city
radiated.
With the decadence of gold mining the char-
acter of the street changed, but its morals were
not improved by the change. It ceased to be
the rendezvous of the gambler and the des-
perado and became the center of the Chinese
quarter of the city. Carlyle says the eighteenth
century blew its brains out in the French Revo-
lution. Nigger alley might be said to have blown
its brains out, if it had any, in the Chinese
massacre of 1871. That dark tragedy of our
city's history, in which eighteen Chinamen were
hanged by a mob, occurred on this street. It
was the last of the many tragedies of the Calle
de Los Negros; the extension of Los Angeles
street, in 1886, wiped it out of existence, or so
nearly that there is not enough of it left to be
wicked.
The Calle del Toro was another historic street
with a mixed reputation. Adjoining this street,
near where the French hospital now stands, was
located the Plaza de Los Toros. Here on fete
days the sport-loving inhabitants of Los An-
geles and the neighborhood round about gath-
ered to witness that national amusement of
Mexico and old Spain—the corida de toros (bull
fights). And here, too, when a grizzly bear
could be obtained from the neighboring moun-
tains, were witnessed those combats so greatly
enjoyed by the native Californians—bull and
bear baiting. There were no humanitarian soci-
eties in those days to prohibit this cruel pastime.
Macauley says the Puritans hated bear-baiting,
not because it gave pain to the bear, but because
of the pleasure it gave the spectators—all pleas-
ure, from their ascetic standpoint, being con-
sidered sinful. The bear had no friends among
the Californians to take his part from any mo-
tive. It was death to poor bruin, whether he
was victor or vanquished: but the bull sometimes
made it uncomfortable for his tormentors. The
Los Angeles Star of December 18, 1858, de-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
311
scribes this occurrence at one of these bull fights
On the Calle del Toro: “An infuriated bull broke
through the inclosure and rushed at the af-
frighted spectators. A wild panic ensued. Don
Felipe Lugo Spurred his horse in front of the
furious bull. The long horns of the maddened
animal were plunged into the horse. The gallant
steed and his daring rider went down in the
dust. The horse was instantly killed, but the
rider escaped unhurt. Before the bull could
rally for another charge half a dozen bullets from
the ready revolvers of the spectators put an end
to his existence.”
The Plaza de Los Toros has long since been
obliterated, and Bull street became Castelar more
than a third of a century ago.
Previous to 1847 there was but one street
opening out from the plaza to the northward,
and that was the narrow street known to old
residents as Bath street, since widened and ex-
tended, and now called North Main street. The
committee that had charge of the “squaring of
the plaza” projected the opening of another
Street to the north. It was the street known as
Upper Main, now called San Fernando. This
street was cut through the old cuartól or guard-
house, built in 1785, which stood on the south-
eastern side of the Plaza vieja, or old Plaza, laid
out by Governor Felipe de Neve when he
founded the pueblo. Upper Main street opened
into the Calle Real, or Main street, which was
One of de Neve's original streets opening out
from the old plaza to the northeast.
Ord’s survey or plan left some of the houses
in the old parts of the city in the middle of the
streets and others were cut off from frontage.
The city council labored long to adjust property
lines to the new order of things. Finally, in
1854, an ordinance was passed allowing prop-
erty owners to claim frontages to the streets
nearest their houses.
Under Mexican domination the transition of
Los Angeles from a pueblo to a ciudad had
made no change in the laws and customs of its
people. For three years and a half following
the American conquest the new rulers of Cali-
fornia continued the old forms of government,
but a change was coming to the old pueblo.
The legislature of California had made it a city
and had provided for it a new form of govern-
ment. The common council was to supplant the
ayuntamiento. For nearly three score years and
ten under the rule of Spain and her daughter
Mexico the ayuntamiento had been the law-
maker of the pueblo. Generations had grown to
manhood and had passed out of existence under
its denomination. Monarchy, empire and repub-
lic had ruled the territory, had loosened their
hold and lost their power, but through all the
ayuntamiento had held its sway. Now, too, it
must go. Well might the old-time Angeleńo
heave a sigh of regret at the downfall of that
bulwark of his liberty, “muy illustre ayunta-
miento.”
The following is a copy of the act of incor-
poration passed by the state legislature April 4,
1850:
AN ACT to incorporate the City of Los Angeles.
The People of the State of California, repre-
sented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as fol-
lows:
Section I. All that tract of land included
within the limits of the Pueblo de Los Angeles,
as heretofore known and acknowledged, shall
henceforth be known as the City of Los Angeles,
and the said City is hereby declared to be incor-
porated according to the provisions of the Act
entitled “An Act to provide for the Incorpora-
tion of Cities,” approved March 18, 1850. Pro-
vided, however, that if such limits include more
than four square miles, the Council shall, within
three months after they are elected and qualified,
fix by ordinance the limits of the City, not to in-
clude more than said quantity of land, and the
boundaries so determined shall thenceforth be
the boundaries of the City.
Section 2. The number of Councilmen shall
be seven; the first election of City officers shall
be held on the second Monday of May next.
Section 3. The Corporation created by this
Act shall succeed to all the rights, claims, and
powers of the Pueblo de Los Angeles in regard
to property, and shall be subject to all the liabili-
ties incurred, and obligations created by the Ayun-
tamiento of said Pueblo.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
CHAPTER XLV.
LOS ANGELES CITY-Continued.
THE EVOLUTION OF A METROPOLIS.
N the previous chapter I have quoted in full
| the act to incorporate Los Angeles as a city.
It will be noticed that the act provides that
“all that tract of land included within the Pueblo
de Los Angeles as heretofore known and ac-
knowledged shall henceforth be known as the
City of Los Angeles.” Section 3 of an “Act to
provide for the incorporation of cities,” passed
March II, 1850, limited the area of a city to four
square miles. Evidently the legislators of the fall
Of '49 and Spring of ’50 did not take into con-
sideration the possibilities of the growth of Cali-
fornia cities.
The Pueblo of Los Angeles had begun busi-
ness in 1781 with four square leagues, or about
twenty-seven Square miles, and, as previously
stated, the year (1834) before it was raised to
the dignity of a ciudad by the Mexican Congress,
the Departmental Assembly had expanded its
boundaries to include sixteen square leagues, or
over one hundred square miles. A provision in
the act of incorporation of 1850 gave the council
three months in which to pare down the limits of
the city to the standard fixed by the legislature—
four square miles.
Two nations by legislative decrees had made a
city of Los Angeles. Yet it was not much of a
city after all. Within its bounds there was not
a graded street, a sidewalk, a water pipe or a
public building of any kind belonging to the
municipality.
The first city election under its American in-
corporation was held July 1, 1850. The officers
elected were: A. P. Hodges, mayor (who also
held the office of county coroner); Francisco
Figueroa, treasurer; A. F. Coronel, city asses-
sor (also county assessor); Samuel Whiting, city
marshal (also county jailer).
The first common council met July 3, 1850,
and the first record of its doings reads thus:
“Messrs. David W. Alexander, Alexander Bell,
Manuel Requena, Juan Temple, Morris L. Good-
man, Cristobal Aguilar and Julian Chavez took
the oath of office in conformity with Section 3,
Article XI, of the state constitution, before Jona-
than R. Scott (justice of the peace), and en-
tered upon the discharge of their duties as mem-
bers of the common council of this city, to which
office they had been elected by the people on the
first day of this month.” David W. Alexander
was elected president and Vicente del Campo
Secretary. The members had been sworn to
support the constitution of the State of Califor-
nia, and yet there was no state. California had
not been admitted as a state of the Union. It
had, taken upon itself the function of a state.
The legislature had made counties and cities and
provided for their organization and government,
and a governor elected by the people had ap-
proved the acts of the legislature. The state
government was a political nondescript. It had
sloughed off its territorial condition, but it could
not become a state until congress admitted it
into the Union and the slave-holding faction of
that body would not let it in.
The first common council of the city was
a patriotic and self-denying body. The first reso-
lution passed was as follows: “It having been
observed that in other places the council mem-
bers were drawing a salary, it was unanimously
resolved that the members of this council shall
receive neither salary nor fees of whatsoever na-
ture for discharging their duties as such.” But
some of them wearied of serving an ungrateful
public and taking their pay in honor. Before six-
ty days had passed two had resigned, and at the
end of the year only two of the original members,
David W. Alexander and Manuel Requena, were
left. There had been six resignations in eight
months; and the first council had thirteen dif-
ferent members during its short existence.
The seven members elected to the first council,
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
313
with the exception of Alexander Bell, had been
either native born or naturalized citizens of Mex-
ico, but the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo made
them citizens of the United States. The coun-
cil re-enacted many of the ordinances of the old
ayuntamiento and enacted some new ones to
suit the conditions then existing in the city. I
append a few to illustrate the issues with which
our first legislators had to contend when Los
Angeles became an American city:
Art. Ist. The city's prisoners shall be formed
in a chain-gang and occupied in public works.
Art. 2nd. All city prisoners must be sentenced
within two days.
Art. 3rd. When the city has no work in which
to employ the chain-gang the recorder shall, by
means of notices conspicuously posted, notify the
public that such and such a number of prisoners
will be turned over to the highest bidder for priv-
ate Service, and in that manner they shall be dis-
posed of for a sum which shall not be less than
the amount of their fine and for double the time
which they were to serve out at hard labor.
Art. 6th. Every citizen of the corporation
shall as a duty, Sweep in front of his habitation
On Saturdays, as far as the middle of the street,
or at least eight varas.
Art. 7th. No filth shall be thrown into zanjas
(canals) carrying water for common use, nor
into the streets of the city, nor shall any cattle
be slaughtered in the same.
Art. 9th. Every owner of a store or tavern,
and every person that lives in a house of more
than two rooms facing to the street shall put a
light at the door of said house during the first
two hours of every dark night.
Art. Ioth. Every shop or tavern shall close
in winter at eight o'clock and in summer at nine
o'clock at night.
Art. I2th. The washing of clothes in the zan-
jas which furnish water for common use is pro-
hibited. t
Art. 13th. Whosoever shall walk the streets
in a scandalous attire or molest the neighbors
with yells or in any other manner, shall be taken
to jail, if the hour be late for business or the of
fender be intoxicated, and afterwards at the
proper hour, or when again sober, the recorder
shall impose a fine of not less than ten dollars,
nor more than twenty-five, which must be paid
on the spot, otherwise the offender shall be sent
to the chain-gang, for the space of from ten to
twenty-five days.
Art. I4th. The same penalty shall be imposed
for playing cards in the street, regardless of the
kind of game, likewise for playing any other
game of the kind played in houses that are pay-
ing a tax for the privilege. If he be an Indian
he shall pay a fine of three to five dollars or be
imprisoned eight days in the chain-gang.
In the original draft of the ordinance, Article
2 prohibited “the carrying of firearms or blank
arms” within the city limits, and Article 3 pro-
hibited the discharge of the same, “except in de-
fense of home and property.” At a subsequent
meeting the committee on police reported that it
found “that the second and third articles, al-
though they were useful, were difficult to enforce;
it has withdrawn the same and today submits in
lieu thereof others which it deems more expe-
dient.” These are Articles I and 2, quoted above,
and relate to the sentencing of prisoners and their
sale to the highest bidder. The police evidently
found it healthier and more lucrative to capture
and sell drunken Indians for revenue than to cap-
ture white desperadoes for carrying guns or col-
lect fines from them for shooting up the town.
The following “Ordinance Relative to Public
Washing,” adopted March 27, 1852, illustrates
a phase of domestic economy in early days that
has long since disappeared. In the early '50s
there was no system of water distribution ex-
cept the Indian and his water buckets. To have
carried enough water from the river to do the
family washing would have been a stupendous
undertaking for the lazy Indian. So the “wash”
instead was carried to the canal that runs from
the “little river.” - -
“All persons,” so reads the ordinance, “who
may find it necessary to wash articles of any kind
near the habitable portions of the city will do
it in the water canal that runs from the little river,
but will be bound to place their board or washer
on the outer edge of the border of the canal, by
which means, although they use the water, yet
the washings from the dirty articles are not per-
mitted, under any pretence, to again mix with
the water intended for drinking purposes.
“The infraction of this ordinance will subject
the delinquent to a fine which shall not pass three
dollars, at the discretion of the mayor.
“B. D. WILSON,
“MANUEL REQUENA, Mayor.
“(Pres. of the Common Council.)”
314
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
At the time this ordinance was adopted there
was an island of considerable size in the river
between the old Aliso road and First street. The
portion of the river channel running on the west-
ern side of the island was known as the “little
river.” -
The most difficult task the members of that
first common council had before them was the
Americanizing of the people of the old ciudad.
The population of the town and the laws were in
a chaotic state. It was an arduous and thankless
task that these old-time municipal legislators had
to perform—that of evolving order out of the
chaos that had been brought about by the change
of nations as rulers. The native population nei-
ther understood the language, the laws nor the
customs of their rulers, and the newcomers
among the Americans had very little toleration for
the slow-going Mexican ways and methods they
found prevailing in the city. To keep peace be-
tween the various factions required more tact
than knowledge of law or lawmaking in the
legislator. Fortunately, the first council was
made up of level-headed men.
The Indian was one of the disturbing elements
that worried the city fathers; not the wild ones
of the mountains who raided the ranchos and
stole the rancheros’ horses and cattle and were
shot on sight, but the ex-neophytes of the mis-
sions. The mission Indians constituted the labor
element of the city and country. When sober
they were harmless and were fairly good labor-
ers, but in their drunken orgies they became
veritable fiends, and the usual result of their Sat-
urday night revels was a dead Indian or two on
Sunday morning; and all the others, old and
young, male and female, were dead drunk. They
were gathered up on Sunday after their carousal
and carted off to a corral. On Monday they
were sentenced to hard labor for varying terms.
At first they worked in the city chain gang on
the streets, but the supply became too great and
the council passed an ordinance (given else-
where in this chapter), authorizing the auction-
ing of them off to private parties for double the
amount of their fine. Evidently auctioning In-
dians to the highest bidders paid the city quite
a revenue, for at a subsequent meeting, after
Adams,
the passing of the above-named ordinance, the
recorder or police judge was authorized to pay
the Indian alcaldes or chiefs the sum of one
real (twelve and a half cents) out of every fine
collected from Indians the said alcaldes may
bring to the recorder for trial. A month or so
later the recorder presented a bill of $15, the
amount of money he had paid the alcaldes out of
fines. At the rate of eight Indians to the dol-
lar the alcaldes had evidently gathered up a hun-
dred and twenty poor Los.
The whipping post was used to instill lessons
of honesty and morality into the Indian. One
court record reads: “Chino Valencia (Indian)
was fined $50 and twenty-five lashes for stealing
a pair of shears; the latter fine (the lashes) was
paid in full; for the former he stands committed
to the chain-gang for two months.” At the same
session of the court Vicente Guero, a white man,
was fined $30 for selling liquor to the Indians—
“fine paid and defendant discharged.” Drunken-
ness, immorality and epidemics, civilization’s gift
to the aborigines, settled the Indian question in the
old pueblo–settled it by exterminating the In-
dian. *
When the United States land commission in
1852 began its herculean task of adjudicating the
Mexican land grants in California, the city of
Los Angeles laid claim to sixteen square leagues
of land. In 1853 Henry Hancock surveyed the
pueblo land lying beyond Ord’s survey into thir-
ty-five acre lots. The blocks of this survey con-
tained eight lots of thirty-five acres each. Han-
cock's survey extended south of the city limits
to LOS Cuervos rancho, a distance of about
three miles below the old pueblo boundary. It
extended west to La Cienega, a distance of about
two miles from the old pueblo line. All the terri-
tory taken into the city by annexation on the
South and west in 1896 and subsequently was once
claimed as city land. In the Hancock survey the
streets south of Pico were named after the presi-
dents of the United States. Beginning with
Washington, in regular succession followed
Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, John
Quincy Adams and Jackson streets; all of these,
except pieces of Washington, Adams and Jeffer-
son, that fell within the old pueblo limits, have
long since disappeared from the map.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
315
South of Boyle Heights and east of the river
the rancho of San Antonio curbed the city's
ambition to expand in that direction. On the
north and northwest the ranchos Los Feliz and
the Verdugos encroached on the city’s area, and
the hostile owners refused to be surveyed into
the municipality. On the east, from the center
of the plaza, it was two leagues to the city line.
The area of the city, according to the Hancock
or Hansen survey of 1855 (the survey of 1855
was really made by Henry Hansen), was a frac-
tion less than fifty square miles—a magnificent
city on paper.
The United States commission in 1856 con-
firmed to the city a grant of four square leagues
(about twenty-seven square miles) and rejected
its claim to all outside of that. After many de-
lays, in 1875, nearly twenty years later, a United
States patent was issued to the mayor and coun-
cil, and then the greater Los Angeles of the
early '50s shrunk to the dimensions of Gov.
Felipe de Neve's pueblo of 1781—“one league to
each wind measured from the center of the
plaza.”
Some of the Hancock survey lots in the south-
west were called city donation lots. The term
originated in this way: -
The city in the early years of its American
period was hard pressed for funds. It was land
poor. Its pueblo lands brought it no revenue.
Some Napoleon of finance originated a scheme to
increase the municipal income. An ordinance
was passed donating a Hancock survey lot (35
acres) to any person who would put it under cul-
tivation and make improvements to the value
of $100. When the title passed to a private
Owner the land became subject to taxation and
the city thereby received a revenue. It was a
brilliant stroke of finance for the time being, but
it resulted in depriving the city of some of its
finest holdings. At the time the offer was made
there was no wild rush of “sooners” to secure
a reservation. There was no land hunger then.
Every one's appetite for land was satiated or
could be easily satisfied, as land was about the
cheapest commodity in the country.
Later on in the '50s and early '60s the pueblo
lands were disposed of at various prices, rang-
ing from $2.50 to $7.50 per acre. At these
prices most Of the magnificent patrimony that
the city of Los Angeles inherited from the old
Spanish pueblo was frittered away. All that
was left was a few tracts that were considered
worthless. One of these is the tract included in
Westlake Park, now the beauty spot of the city.
The city council had offered the tract in vain at
twenty-five cents an acre. The old-timers who
had been accustomed to get a thirty-five acre lot
of fertile land as a donation scorned to buy an al-
kaline gulch at any price and the city was com-
pelled perforce to keep it. Another of these
patches of refuse real estate that the city fathers
of old left to us is the site of Elysian Park. The
heights and hollows of that now attractive park
could not be cultivated then for lack of a water
System and nobody would take them as a gift.
The most woeful waste of the city lands con-
sidered from the viewpoint of today was in the
disposal of a tract of land lying between Sev-
enth and Ninth streets and extending from Main
to Figueroa streets, known on the city map as
the Huber tract. This magnificent body of land,
containing about one hundred acres, was given
to private parties for what seems to us the mak-
ing of a very insignificant improvement—the dig-
ging of an open ditch or irrigating canal. This
ditch branched off from the Zanja Madre or
mother ditch near Requena or East Market
street, as it is now named, then flowed down be-
tween Los Angeles and South Main streets,
watering the vineyards and vegetable gardens
that covered the present sites of business blocks
and hotels; crossed Main street below Fourth
street and flowed just south of the Union Trust
sky-scraper, then zigzagged across the blocks be-
tween Spring and Olive streets to Central Park;
the arid waste of which it watered and made
tree-growing in it possible. Then it meandered
out to the rural regions of Figueroa and Adams
streets, where it irrigated the orchards and bar-
ley fields of that sparsely settled suburb. Up to
1885 the ditch was open, then it was piped and
carried underground. That irrigating canal,
which has long since disappeared, cost the city,
figuring the land given at its present value, near-
ly as much as the Panama canal will cost the na-
tion when it is completed.
It is quite the custom of some modern writers
316
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
to abuse the olden-time councilmen for their lav-
ish disposal of our city lands. It is not just to
bring railing accusations against them for condi-
tions that they could not foresee. Without water
to irrigate them the pueblo lands were worthless.
With irrigating facilities they could be made
productive. Homes would be built on the arid
wastes, population would increase and the city's
exchequer, which was chronically in a state
of collapse, would expand and become plethoric.
To make two blades of grass grow where but
one grew before is the secret of agricultural
wealth. The olden-time city fathers well knew
that neither the one blade nor the two blades
would grow without water. Could they have
foreseen that prosperity would plant houses
where they planted trees and would grow sky-
scrapers where they grew grain, they might have
done differently and escaped the wailings and
the railings of posterity. In giving away city
lands for public improvements the city fathers
followed the policy of our national government in
the disposal of the public domain.
After the completion and acceptance of Ord’s
survey of the city lands in 1849, lots were of-
fered for sale. For a lot I2O feet front by I65
feet deep, located on Main, Spring, Fort or Hill
streets, between First and Fifth streets, the aver-
age price was $50, or about forty cents a front
foot. In the early '50s the city experienced its
first boom under American domination. Ready-
made houses were imported from New York and
Boston. Brick and corrugated iron came into
use for building. The passing of the adobe age
began. The city was thriving. The cattle ranches
were as productive as the gold mines. A full-
grown steer that a few years before was worth
$2 for his hide and tallow was now worth from
$30 to $40 for beef. The cow counties of the
south supplied the mines with beef. The sud-
den acquisition of wealth from the increase in the
value of their cattle engendered extravagant
habits in the rancheros and their families, which
later on brought financial distress to many of
them. *
Up to 1856 the city had been making a steady
growth and was beginning to put on metropoli-
tan airs. Then a reaction came. The rich sur-
face placers had been worked out, and the mines
were no longer yielding large returns for small
expenditures of labor and capital. But the
severest blow to the cow counties came from the
development of the agricultural resources of the
central and northern counties of the state. Hun-
dreds of miles nearer the mines, they could sup-
ply the mining camps with products at prices with
which the cow counties could not compete. The
result was hard times in the south. Money in
1856-57 in Los Angeles commanded five, ten
and even as high as fifteen per cent interest, com-
pounded monthly. The unfortunates who had
mortgages on their possessions at such usurious
rates were on the down grade to financial ruin.
To add to their misfortunes, 1856 was a dry or
drought year. Thousands of cattle died of starva-
tion, and those that survived were unmarketable.
The year 1857 was but little improvement on
its predecessor. Hard times continued, if, in-
deed, they were not intensified. This was the
beginning of the end of the cattle kings. They
were compelled to mortgage their lands to tide
them over the hard times. The high rates of in-
terest absorbed their income and they could not
reduce the principal of their loans. From 1858
to 1861 there was a spurt of prosperity. Don
Abel Stearns built the Arcadia block, on the
corner of Los Angeles and Arcadia streets. This
was the finest business block south of San Fran-
cisco and was said to have cost $80,000. In 1859
Juan Temple built what afterward became the
court house on the plat bounded by Spring,
Main, Market and Court streets. The old-timers
pointed with pride to these as evidence that the
city was destined to be the metropolis of the
south.
During the year 1859 thirty-one brick build-
ings and a considerable number of wooden ones
were erected in the city. This was the biggest
building boom in the history of the city up to
this time.
In 1860 the telegraph line between San Fran-
cisco and Los Angeles was completed, and the
first message over the wires was sent by Henry
Mellus, the mayor of Los Angeles, at Io o'clock
p.m., October 8th, to H. F. Teschemacher, presi-
dent of the board of supervisors of San Fran-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
317
cisco. The Salt Lake trade, which began in
1855 over the old Mexican trail, now paralleled
by the Salt Lake Railroad, had grown to be a
very important factor in the business of Los
Angeles. In one month as high as sixty wagons
had been dispatched with freight for. Salt Lake
City. Seemingly the metropolis of the cow
counties was floating on the high tide of pros-
perity.
In 1861 reaction set in. The Civil war divided
the people. Many of the leading citizens were
sympathizers with the South and some of them
joined the armies of the Confederacy. The value
of real estate shriveled until it was hard to tell
whether there was any value in it. One old-
timer, who had loaded up with Ord survey lots,
located between First and Fourth on Spring and
Main streets, in the early '50s, at the prevailing
price then of $50 a lot, desiring to go east in 1861,
tried in vain to dispose of his lots at the price he
paid for then ten years before. Finally some
of his friends clubbed together and took them
off his hands. It is said that misfortunes never
come singly. It did seem during the first lustrum
of the '60s as if they came in droves to the
city and the country around. From 1861 to
I866 the metropolis of the south was a case of
arrested development. Evolution had ceased and
it actually retrograded.
In the winter of 1861-62 occurred one of the
greatest floods in the history of California. The
rivers covered the valleys and the cattle and
horses were driven to the hills, where many
starved to death before the waters subsided. The
city water works, which the city had been bond-
ing itself to build, were swept away, and the
inhabitants had to fall back on the Indian and
the olla for their water supply. It rained almost
incessantly for thirty days and the city was cut
off from all communication with the outside
world, except by steamer. After the deluge came
the drought. During the years 1863-64 there
was the smallest rainfall ever known in Cali-
fornia. As a consequence cattle in Southern Cali-
fornia were very nearly exterminated and the
doom of the cattle kings sealed.
Smallpox was raging among the Mexicans and
Indians, and they were dying So fast that it was
difficult to find persons to bury them. There was
a feud between the adherents of the Union and
the secessionists, so bitter that a body of United
States troops had to be stationed in the city to
keep order. There was nothing to sell and money
had become an unknown quantity to many. So
impoverished were the people that no assess-
ment for city taxes was made in 1863-64. The
landed possessions of two of the richest men of
the city amounting to a quarter of a million acres,
were advertised for sale as the owners were
unable to pay their state and county taxes, al-
though the total of their taxes did not exceed
$5,000. In 1863 an Ord survey lot on the south-
east corner of Spring and Second streets, I2O
feet front, sold for $37, or about thirty cents a
front foot. Two thousand acres in East Los
Angeles were sold in 1864 at fifty cents an acre.
The purchaser, Dr. Griffen, took it under pro-
test. He wanted to purchase eight hundred acres
lying along the river for sheep pasture. As
this would cut off access to the water for sheep
or cattle, the city council refused to sell it un-
less Griffen would take also the mesa land lying
back from the river.
In 1865 light began to penetrate the financial
gloom that hung over the old city. The Civil war
came to an end. The defenders of the Union of
States and its would-be destroyers sheathed their
weapons and ceased hostilities. There had been
no active hostilties between them. It had been
principally a war of words. The Confederate
sympathizers, who were largely in the majority,
were loud in their denunciations of the govern-
ment and flag under which they were living and
had lived all their lives. However, beyond a
few arrests for outspoken disloyalty they were
not harmed—a marked contrast to the way the
Union men were treated in the South, where a
man endangered his life whenever he uttered a
word in favor of the United States government.
Los Angeles furnished but one representative to
the Union army—that is, one who was an actual
resident of the city at the beginning of the war
—Charles M. Jenkins, a member of the Califor-
nia battalion, which was incorporated into the
Second Massachusetts Cavalry. There was a
company of native Californians recruited in
3.18
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Los Angeles in 1864 which did Service against
the Indians in Arizona.
Plentiful rainfalls in 1865-66 restored confi-
dence in Southern California, but the passing of
the cattle barons had begun. There was abund-
ant feed on the ranchos, but the owners were in
no condition financially to replenish their depleted
herds. The growth of the city was dependent
upon the prosperity of the country adjacent. Its
growth was slow. Rates of interest had been
reduced, but it was hard to secure a loan at less
than two per cent a month. The first of the
modern improvements that we now deem SO
necessary to our existence introduced into the
city was the granting to James Walsh, May 5,
1866, the exclusive right to lay gas mains in the
city. He was to expend at least $5,000 in a
plant and pipes and to furnish free gas for a
lamp at a few of the principal street crossings
on Main street, and also for the mayor’s Office.
The price of gas at first was $10 a thou-
sand cubic feet. When it was reduced to
$7.50 a thousand it was considered quite
a reasonable price, and people clamored for
more street lamps. In September, 1868,
the construction of the Los Angeles & San
Pedro Railroad was begun. It was completed to
Wilmington, October 26, 1869. The city had
bonded itself to the amount of $75,000 and the
county had invested $150,000 in it. There was
bitter opposition to the bonding in certain quar-
ters, but the bonds carried by a majority of
thirty-nine votes. It was contended that the
railroad would destroy freighting by teams, con-
sequently there would be no use for horses and
mules and no sale for barley. The pessimists
wailed in vain; the progressive citizens pre-
vailed. The road reduced the fare from the
city to steamer anchorage from $5 to $2.50, cut
the price of lumber $7.50 on the thousand feet,
and reduced the freight on grain $5 a ton.
The first ice factory was started in 1868. It
was conducted by Martin & Beath, where the
city water works building now stands, on the
corner of Alameda and Marchessault Streets. The
capacity of the plant was a ton and a half a day.
The retail price of ice was five cents a pound ;
wholesale rates, $4 a hundred pounds. About
the same time the first soda fountain was set up
by Stevens & Wood near the postoffice on North
Spring street. The novelty of phiz for a time
attracted customers, but soda water was not
strenuous enough for throats accustomed to
aguardiente; after the novelty wore off the siz-
zling liquid ceased to attract.
The first bank in Los Angeles was organized
in 1868 by Alvinza Hayward and John G.
Downey under the firm name of Hayward &
Co., capital $100,000. It was located in the
Downey block.
The first street railroad franchise was granted
June 1, 1869, to R. M. Widney for a period of
twenty years. The privilege was granted over
the following named streets: Beginning at the
junction of Main and Spring streets, thence along
Spring to First, First to Fort, Fort to Fourth,
Fourth to Hill, Hill to Fifth, Fifth to Olive,
Olive to Sixth, Sixth to Pearl (now Figueroa).
The road was completed in 1872. The next car
line was built on Main street from its junction
with Spring to Washington street. The motive
power of the cars was the mule. Single fare, ten
cents—the smallest coin in circulation in Cali-
fornia. The car made a trip every half hour with
the consent of the mule; otherwise the service
might be irregular. Sometimes when the mules
bucked it became necessary for the passengers to
assist as motors.
The subdivision of the great ranchos into Small
tracts, which began in 1868, brought a migration
of home-seekers to Los Angeles. They came by
steamer or trecked overland. The city began to
show the effect of the influx of more capital and
new men. In February, 1870, the houses in the
business portion of the city were numbered sys-
tematically for the first time. It was not deemed
necessary to number the dwelling houses. The
first city directory was compiled the same year,
but was not published until 1871. The directory
contained seventy pages of names. The federal
census of 1870 gave the population of the city
5,614, which was an increase of 1,215 in ten
years. There were I IO places where intoxicating
liquors were sold, an average of one saloon to
every fifty-five inhabitants. The assessed value
of all property in the city was $2,108,061.
The railroad bond issue was a live question in
1872. The Southern Pacific Company had made
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
319
an offer to build twenty-five miles north and
twenty-five east from Los Angeles city of the
transcontinental line that it was building up the
San Joaquin valley. The Texas Pacific met this .
with an offer to build from San Diego (the pros-
pective terminus of its transcontinental line) a
railroad up the coast to Los Angeles, giving the
county sixty miles of railroad. The Southern
Pacific countered this offer by agreeing to build,
in addition to the fifty miles of its previous offer,
a branch to Anaheim making in all seventy-seven
miles. The recompense for this liberality on the
part of the railroads was that the people should
vote bonds equal to five per cent of the total
taxable property of the county. The bond ques-
tion stirred up the people as no previous issue had
done since the Civil war. The contest was a
triangular one, Southern Pacific, Texas Pacific,
or no railroad. Each company had its agents and
advocates abroad enlightening the people on the
Superior merits of its individual offer, while
“Taxpayer” and “Pro Bono Publico,” through
the newspapers, bewailed the waste of the peo-
ple's money and bemoaned the increase of taxes.
At the election, November 5, the Southern Pa-
cific won.
The city reached the high tide of its pros-
perity during the '70s in 1874. Building was
active. It was estimated that over $300,000 was
expended in the erection of business houses, and
fully that amount in residences.
The year 1875 was one of disasters. The great
financial panic of 1873, presaged by that mone-
tary cyclone, “Black Friday in Wall Street,” had
no immediate effect upon business in California.
The years 1873 and 1874 were among the most
prosperous in our history. The panic reached
California in September, 1875, beginning with
the suspension of the Bank of California in San
Francisco and the tragic death of its president,
William C. Ralston. In a few days nearly every
bank in California closed its doors. The two in
Los Angeles, the Temple & Workman and Hell-
man's, closed. The latter resumed business in a
few days. The former made an attempt to stem
the current of its financial difficulties, failed, and
went down forever, carrying with it the fortune
of many an unfortunate depositor. One of the
bankers, William Workman, an old and highly
respected pioneer, from brooding over the failure
went insane and committed suicide. Temple died
a few years later, a poor man.
The hard times following the bank failures
were intensified by the drought of 1877, which
brought disaster to the sheep industry of South-
ern California. There was no business reaction
during the remainder of the decade. The federal
census of 188o gave the city's population at II,_
183, an increase of almost one hundred per cent
in ten years. The greater part of the gain was
made in the first half of the decade. Railroad con-
nection with San Francisco and Sacramento was
made in September, 1876, but it opened up no
new market for Los Angeles. Times continued
hard and money close. The ruling rate of in-
terest on mortgages was one and one-half per
cent per month. The adoption of the new con-
stitution of the state in 1879 did not improve mat-
ters. The capitalists were afraid of some of its
radical innovations.
CHAPTER XLVI.
LOS ANGELES IN ITS SECOND CENTURY.
century of its existence September 4, 1881.
Its population then was estimated at
I2,OOO. It began with 44. Its average yearly
increase was I2O, a slow growth as western towns
grow. Its centennial celebration—a grand affair
| OS ANGELES city rounded out the first
for that time—was a quaint mixture of the past
and the present, a curious blending of the new
with the old. In that procession, largely made
up of horsemen, rode the graceful cabellero
on his silver-mounted silla de montar (saddle)
with jingling spurs and swinging riata. In
320
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
it, too, was the American newcomer astride
of a turtle-shell saddle, knees pointing to
the zenith and hand gripping the saddle-bow.
In a creaking old wooden-wheeled carreta
rode Benjamina, an ancient Indian lady, who
was the belle of Yangna when Los Angeles
was born. Fashionable coupes, newly arrived,
and rumbling road wagons that had crossed the
plains in '49, pieced out the long line of varied
vehicles that wound through the unpaved and
unsprinkled streets on that centennial day. There
were Orations in English, in Spanish and in
French. There was feasting and rejoicing in
the ancient style and in the modern. The festivi-
ties ended with a baili (ball) that was muy
grande.
Through somebody's blundering, or possibly to
give its first century the full measure of days,
the 5th of September was celebrated instead of
the 4th, the city’s real birthday. Although for
nearly half of its first century Los Angeles had
been officially entitled to write itself a ciudad
(city), yet it had not outgrown many of the
characteristics of its pueblo days. When it
passed its hundredth year there was not a paved
street within its limits. The sidewalks were
mostly graveled paths with cobble stones pro-
truding. Everybody went to the postoffice for
his mail. The telephone and the hello girl were
unknown. Beyond the business center darkness
brooded over lampless streets.
From Main street to the river, and below East
Third street to the city limits was a succession
of orange groves and vineyards with an occa-
sional walnut orchard interspersed. Looking
down from the western hills, which then had a
few scattering houses upon them, the observer
beheld stretching away to the south for miles a
sea of green. Never before or since has the
Angel City been so beautiful as she was in the
closing years of her first century. The tourist
was not much in evidence then. California on
wheels had not yet made its pilgrimage of en-
lightenment through the eastern states; nor was
there a chamber of commerce to tell the story of
our wonderful products and salubrious climate.
Occasionally a newspaper correspondent or a
bookmaker discovered the city and wrote it up
or wrote it down as the fancy seized him—
patted himself appreciatively over his discovery
if it pleased him, or slandered it maliciously if it
did not. One of the very best descriptions ever
written of Los Angeles when it was nearing
the end of its first century can be found (if you
can find a copy of the book) in B. F. Taylor's
“Between the Gates.” He visited Los Angeles
in 1878. I copy a portion of his description:
“Whoever asks where Los Angeles is, to him
I shall say: across a desert without wearying, be-
yond a mountain without climbing; where
heights stand away from it, where ocean winds
breathe upon it, where the gold-mounted lime-
hedges border it; where the flowers catch fire
with beauty; among the orange groves; beside
the Olive trees; where the pomegranates wear
calyx crowns; where the figs of Smyrna are
turning; where the bananas of Honolulu are
blossoming; where the chestnuts of Italy are
dropping; where Sicilian lemons are ripening;
where the almond trees are shining; through
that Alameda of walnuts and apricots; through
this avenue of willows and poplars; in vine-
yards six Sabbath-days’ journey across them; in
the midst of a garden of thirty-six square
miles—there is Los Angeles.
“The city is the product of one era of bar-
barism, two or three kinds of civilizations, and
an interregnum, and is about as old as Washing-
ton's body-servant when he died the last time,
for it is in its ninety-seventh year. You meet
native Californians, wide-hatted Mexicans, now
and then a Spaniard of the old blue stock, a
sprinkle of Indians and the trousered man in
lmis shirt and cue. You see the old broad-
brimmed, thick-walled adobes that betray the
early day. You hear somebody swearing Span-
ish, grumbling German, vociferating Italian,
parleying in French, rattling Chinese and talk-
ing English.
“Yesterday and today are strangely blended.
You stroll among thousands of vines that are
ninety years old and yet in full bearing. You
pass a garden just redeemed from the dust and
ashes of the wilderness. You pluck an Orange
from a tree that was venerable when Charles the
Fourth was king of Spain, and you meet a man
who has sat down to wait six years for his first
fruit. A drive through the old quarter of the
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
321
city takes you to the heart of Mexico, with the
low-eaved fronts, the windows sunk like niches
in the walls, the Italic-faced old porticoes, the
lazy dogs dozing about in the sun. In ten min-
utes you are whirled between two long lines of
new-made fragrance, such luxuriance of vegeta-
tion, and nothing nearer like the ‘waving sword
at the Eastward’ of the first homestead than the
slashed saber-like leaves of the banana that holds
up its rich, strange, liver-colored blossoms as if
it were proud of them.”
“If to one city more than another, of all cities
I have seen, belongs the urbs in horto of Chi-
cago's seal, Los Angeles is the place. It is not
a city in a garden, but a garden in the city.
The two are interwoven like the blossoming
warp and woof of a Wilton crapet. We visited
the vineyard and the wine-presses of Don Mateo
Keller. It is in the heart of the city, and con-
tains one hundred and thirty-seven acres, and
has two hundred and ten varieties of grapes. In
the season ten thousand gallons of wine are pro-
duced daily, and there were two hundred thou-
sand gallons ripening in the vaults.”
At the close of its first century the business
district of the city had traveled south as far as
First street. The center of retail trade was the
Baker block, and the fashionable hotel was the
Pico house that looked down upon the old plaza.
On the southwest corner of Spring and First
streets, where the Hotel Nadeau stands, was a
horse corral, and on the southwest corner of
Spring and Second streets, where the Hollen-
beck now stands, was another. Merchandising
and manufacturing were closly associated. On
the northwest corner of Main and Second streets
and jutting half way across Second street was
an iron foundry. On the corresponding corner
of Spring and Second streets stood the old brick
schoolhouse, built in 1854. On the lot just north
of this stood the Mechanics' planing mill.
Lehman's Garden of Paradise, south of Third,
fronting on Main street, was still a pleasure re-
sort. Adam and Eve had been driven out of
Eden and so had Lehman—not by a fiery sword;
but by a mortgage. The cactus hedge that
fenced the Spring street front of the garden was
still intact, but the tree of knowledge had been
cut down, and the old serpent had been Scotched.
. It may be necessary to explain that these deni-
zens of Eden before Adam's fall were pieces of
statuary that Lehman had placed in his garden
to decorate it. George Lehman, better known
as “Round House George,” had opened his Gar-
den of Paradise as a pleasure resort in the early
'50s. It became quite popular. The adobe round
house at the Main street entrance, where the
Pinney block now stands, was a famous land-
mark of early days. It was torn down about
1887. South of Second street, Main, Spring and
Fort (now Broadway) were the principal resi-
dence streets of the city.
In 1882 the financial depression that began in
1875 with the failure of the Temple & Workman
Bank, eased up a little. The Southern Pacific
Railroad, building eastward, had penetrated the
mining regions of Arizona and New Mexico and
liad opened a market for the products of South-
ern California. Its completion the same year
gave Los Angeles direct connection with the
east. The new transcontinental road, free from
the deep snows in winter that often blockaded
the Central road, became the popular winter
route to California, and brought into Los An-
geles immigrants and capitalists that were not
slow to recognize the great possibilities of the
country.
The Atlantic & Pacific, with connecting
roads—the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé and
California Southern—effected an entrance into
Los Angeles over a leased track from San Ber-
nardino in 1885. This gave Los Angeles another
transcontinental road. In the spring of 1886
a disagreement between the roads brought on a
rate war. Round-trip tickets from Missouri
river points were sold as low as $15. Thousands
of eastern people, taking advantage of the low
rates, visited Los Angeles. They were delighted
with the country, and either remained or went
home to sell their possessions and return.
Real estate values went up rapidly in 1886,
but in 1887 came that event that marks the turn-
ing point in the city's history—the boom. The
story of the great real estate boom of 1887 is
told in another chapter of this book. That boom
21
322
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
is usually regarded by historians as an unmiti-
gated evil—a wild craze, a speculative mania,
that deprived people of their senses and wrought
their financial ruin. Such a view of it exag-
gerates the evil done. While it had its tragic
features and its comic as well, while it was the
undoing of many plungers and unwise pro-
moters, yet with all of its extravagances, its in-
flation of values, its unsettling of previous condi-
tions, its bursting of bubble fortunes, the good
it did far overbalanced the evil.
In a hundred years business had traveled from
its first center, the old Plaza, southward to First
street, a distance of about four blocks. Between
1881 and 1886 it had crossed First street on
Spring and Main and in a few instances had
gone below Second street. The Nadeau hotel,
the most imposing structure outside of the old
business section, was completed in 1883. While
designed for a hotel, it was too large a building
for the travel of that time. A large room on the
second floor, originally designed for the dining-
room, was rented to the Y. M. C. A., and was
the first hall of that organization in the city.
Another smaller hall was leased for a justice's
court, and rooms on the second and third floors
were let for lawyers’ and doctors’ offices. The
rapid development of the real estate brokerage
business in 1886-87 created a great demand for
offices in the district between Temple and Sec-
ond street on Spring and Main, and the enor-
mous rents that real estate agents were willing
to pay for office room in this locality virtually
drove merchants to seek new locations further
south. Their former storerooms were subdivided
into a number of cubby-holes, each one of which
rented for more than the entire room had
brought before. -
As an example of the rapid advance in rents
caused by the demand for real estate offices, this
will serve as an illustration : An old One-story
wooden building on Spring street south of First,
that before the boom might have brought its
owner a rental of $50 per month, was subdivided
into stalls after the usual method (a bar of iron
between each tenant's holding) and rented at
from $75 to $150 per month for a stall, prices
varying as you receded from the front entrance.
The rental of the building paid the landlord an
income of about $1,000 a month. The building
was So out of repair that the enterprising
boomers who occupied it during a rain storm
were compelled to hold umbrellas over them-
Selves and their customers while negotiating a
deal in climate and corner lots.
At the beginning of the city’s second century
the selling price of lots on Spring street be-
tween First and Second was $50 per front foot;
below Second the value decreased rapidly. In
August, 1861, the lot (60x165 feet) on the
northwest corner of Spring and Sixth streets
sold for $1,500, or $25 per front foot. This was
considered a fair price as values ranged then.
Five years later, with some cheap improvements
added, the lot sold for $22,OOO. In May, 1883,
the northwest corner of Spring and Second, I2Ox
165 feet (on which the first school house the
city Owned was built in 1854), was sold by the
board of education to the city for $31,000, and
a new site just south of Sixth, fronting 120 feet
On Spring and the same on Broadway, purchased
hy the board for $12,500.
The council in 1884 erected the first hall
owned by the city, on the rear 60 feet of its
purchase, and in 1887 sold the frontage on
Spring, with a depth of IO5 feet, for $12O,OOO,
an increase of over 400 per cent in three years.
Such unprecedented rise in values was a source
of astonishment to the old-time residents of the
city, many of whom had hastened to unload their
long-time holdings on the newcomers.
When the depression came in 1888 the pes-
simists, who had croaked dire disaster to the city,
were disappointed that their prophesies proved
false. The land boom of 1886-87 was followed
by a building boom in 1888–89. The investors
in high priced real estate were compelled to im-
prove their property to obtain an income.
In 1884 the first cable railway, starting at
Spring street, was built west over Second, Lake-
shore avenue and First street to Belmont ave-
nue. The projectors of the enterprise received
a large bonus from the property holders on the
western hills. It aided greatly in the settlement
of the hill district, but being cheaply constructed
it was frequently out of repair and was finally
abandoned. * -
The first electric street car line was built in
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
323
I885. Its route was along Los Angeles, San
Pedro and Maple avenue to Pico street, and
westward on that street to the Electric Home-
stead Tract, lying west of the old city boundary.
Primarily the road was promoted to sell this
tract. A common method of disposing of tracts
in the early days was to build half a dozen or
more cheap houses on the tract as baits or
prizes. Lots were sold at a uniform price, but
not located ; when all were sold the lots were
distributed at a drawing, and the purchaser who
drew a prize house paid no more for it than
the man who drew a hole in the ground. The
Electric Homestead and a number of other tracts
were disposed of by this method.
The electric railroad was not a success. The
power frequently gave out and the passengers
had the choice of waiting an hour or two until
enough electricity was generated to move the
car, or to walk to the city. The sheriff finally
levied on the rolling stock and the road for debt.
The first attempt to introduce the trolley car
in Los Angeles was a failure, and the promoter,
Howland, died in poverty. Howland had intro-
duced the lighting of the city by electricity in
December, 1881. Six masts, 150 feet high, were
erected at different points in the city between
the Plaza and Seventh street and Grand avenue
and Main street. The power house was located
on the corner of Banning and Alameda streets.
In 1889 work was begun on the cable railway
system. A line was extended on Broadway to
Seventh and west on Seventh to Westlake Park.
Another line extended from Seventh on Grand
avenue to Jefferson street. From First and
Spring a line ran on East First to Boyle Heights,
and from the same point another ran on North
Spring, Upper Main and Downey avenue to
East Los Angeles. A million and a half dollars
were expended in tracks, power houses and ma-
chinery. All but the tracks were discarded a
few years later, when electricity was substituted
for steam and the trolley for the cable. The
Los Angeles Electric Railway system was begun
in 1892. The first line constructed was that on
West Second, Olive, First and other streets to
Westlake Park. The people on the line of the
road gave a subsidy of $50,000 to the promoters.
company.
The traction (or Hook) system was begun in
1895.
The horse car disappeared from the city
streets in the last decade of the 19th century, and
was relegated to the category of the carreta
and the caballo de silla (saddle horse), the
motors of travel in old pueblo days. The bob
car and the mule held the right of way on Main
street the longest of any of the principal streets.
They were pushed off by the trolley in 1895.
In February, 1892, Messrs. Doheny and Con-
non, prospecting for petroleum, dug two wells
with pick and shovel on West State street, in the
resident portion of the city. At the depth of
I50 feet oil was found. From this small begin-
ning a profitable industry has grown up. The
oil belt extends diagonally across the northwest-
ern part of the city. The total number of wells
drilled within the city limits up to June, 1900,
was 1,300, and the yield of these from the be-
ginning of the oil development was estimated at
7,OOO,OOO barrels, worth in round numbers about
$6,000,000. e
The oil industry reached its maximum in 1901.
Over-production and the Standard Oil Octopus
caused a rapid decline in prices. From $1 a
barrel in 1900 the price steadily declined until
in 1904 it reached fifteen cents a barrel. Drill-
ing new wells within the city practically ceased
in 1903, and the unused derricks began to dis-
appear.
When the oil industry was at high tide in
1899-1900, it was forced by a certain class of
promoters to take on some of the wildcat char-
acteristics of the great real estate boom of 1887.
For a time it was no uncommon feat to incor-
porate a half dozen oil companies in a day. The
capital stock of these companies ran up into the
millions, sometimes the amount paid in by the
promoters reached as high as $10. The man on
the outside was the fellow who put up the money
to get inside—“to be let in on the ground
floor” was a favorite catch phrase then. It was
not necessary to own oil lands to incorporate a
A promise of a lease of a few acres
of a pasture field or a mountain cañon was suf-
ficient. The profit to the promoters came from
selling stocks, not oil. During the height of the
oil boom stocks could be bought at all prices,
324
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
from a cent a share up. Stocks in a new com-
pany would be advertised at five cents a share,
in a short time advanced to ten cents, then raised
to fifteen cents, and when buyers began to lag
the last call was sounded. “At the last stroke
of the clock at midnight next Saturday the stock
of the Grizzly Bear Oil Development Company
will be advanced to twenty-five cents a share.
Oil Sand has been struck in the company's wells
and all unsold stock will be withdrawn from the
market in a few days.” This “call of the wild”
(cat promoter) hurried the halting, and there
was a rush for the stock. Strange to say the
clock of these promoters never struck twelve on
Saturday night !
One company of enterprising promoters, to
satisfy a crying need of the times—cheap Stock—
organized a company with a capital of $5,000,000
and placed its stock on the market at a cent a
share. The stock advanced to two cents a share,
and might have gone higher had not the boom
burst and the company been forced to suspend—
the sale of stock, their only asset. The Oil Stock
mania gradually subsided. Beautifully litho-
graphed certificates of stock were the only re-
turns that many an investor could show for
“very hard cash” invested. *
Another of the forgotten enterprises of the
closing years of the nineteenth century was the
Belgian hare industry. An enterprising maga-
zine writer made the discovery that the meat
of the Belgian hare as an article of food was
superior to beef or mutton and could be produced
at a minimum of cost. This “back yard industry,”
as it was called, could be launched on a very
small capital. A coop with a Belgian hare buck
and doe and you were ready for business. The
rapidity with which the mania spread was
equaled by the rapidity with which the hares
multiplied. It was a rare thing at the height
of the epidemic to find a back yard that was not
decorated with a rabbitry. While the Ostensible
purpose of the industry was to produce a food
product, the fad soon took the form of pro-
ducing fancy stock at fabulous prices. Kings,
lords, dukes, queens and princesses with their
wonderful pedigrees pushed the plebeian Belgian
out of business, or rather the pedigree maker
converted the pleb into an aristocrat. A king
with the red foot and peculiar markings on the
back, Sure signs of an aristocratic lineage, was
rated at $1,000, and the queens and princesses
ranged in value all the way from $25 to $500
each. Exactly what these high-priced hares
were good for, except to sell to some one who
had been seized with an attack of the craze, no
One seemed able to find out, or rather cared to
find out. “When the supply exceeds the de-
mand,” queried the pessimist, “what then?”
“Oh! that never can be; all the world wants
hares and Southern California is the only place
where they can be grown to perfection.” The
craze increased with every report of big profits
from small beginnings. But there came a time
when it was all supply and no demand. It was
found that as an article of food the flesh of the
most aristocratic of the red-footed gentry was
not up to the standard of the despised California
jack-rabbit.
Then came a scramble to get out of the busi-
ness, but few of the operators did without loss.
The lords, the dukes and the duchesses died,
but not of old age, and the tenantless rabbitries
were converted into kindling wood or chicken
coops. History has kept alive for three cen-
turies the story of the tulip mania of Holland,
when a rare bulb sold for 13,000 florins and
stolid Dutch merchants traded ships' cargoes for
choice collections of tulip tubers that were of
no utility and scant beauty. The Belgian hare
boom of Southern California is forgotten, al-
though in volume it was greater than the tulip
craze of Holland. How much capital was in-
vested in it it is impossible to say. Some of the
wholesale rabbitries were incorporated with cap-
itals ranging from $50,000 to $100,000. Experts
made frequent trips to Europe for fancy stock.
A magazine was published in the interest of the
industry, and at its height from ten to twelve
columns of liners in the Sunday dailies told
those interested where they could find the highest
rank of Belgian aristocrats. There were ex-
perts in hare heraldry, who made good incomes
by writing pedigrees for would-be aristocrats.
Many of their pedigrees were works of art—
the art of lying.
During the closing decade of the nineteenth
century there was but little advance in the price
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 325
of real estate outside of the choice business
streets; prices in 1900 were lower than in 1887.
The city had doubled in population and business
had increased, but many of the property holders
were staggering along under mortgages, the
legacies of the great boom. These were the
optimists who had implicit faith in the future
of the city. The great financial depression that
had spread over the United States in the middle
years of the last decade of the century had been
intensified in Southern California by a series of
dry or drought years. It was not until the
first year of the new century that light began to
break through the financial gloom.
H. E. Huntington bought a controlling in-
terest in the Los Angeles Electric Railway and
began the building of a system of suburban or
interurban electric railways to the different cities
and towns contiguous to Los Angeles. The road
to Long Beach was completed in 1902, to Mon-
rovia in 1903, and to Whittier the same year.
The seven-story Huntington building, corner of
Sixth and Main, the entrepot of all Huntington,
interurban lines, was completed in 1903. These
improvements, together with the extension of
new street car lines in the city, stimulated the
real estate market and brought about a rapid
advance in values. Lots on South Main street
held at $100 a front foot in 1900 sold five years
later at $1,500, and frontage on South Hill
street valued at $200 a front foot in 1901 sold
in 1906 at $2,500. Real estate contiguous to the
business district, but still residence property, had
advanced in value in five years from one thou-
sand to twelve hundred per cent.
The completion of the San Pedro, Los An-
geles & Salt Lake Railroad in March, 1905, gave
Los Angeles its fourth transcontinental line. The
discovery of gold and silver mines in southern
Nevada has made Los Angeles a mining center
both for supplies and stocks. An idea of its
rapid growth in buildings, wealth and population
may be obtained from the number and amount of
the building permits, the city assessments and
the school marshal’s returns
Year No. of Permits Valuation
I90I 2,73O $ 4,099,198
I902 4,655 8,981,974
I903 6,398 I3,175,446
I904 7,064 I3,409,061
I905 9,543 I5,482,067
I906 9,408 18,273,318
City Assessments—Increase for each year.
Year Value Increase for the year
I90I $ 70,562,307 $ 4,962,387
I902 86,4IO,735 I5,854,428
I 903 IO9,223,823 23,507,088
I904 I26,126,563 I6,2O2,740
I905 I 56,661,566 3O,535,003
I906 2O5,767,729 49, IO6,163
INCREASE IN POPULATION.
The census of the school children of the city
is taken every year, between the I5th of April
and the 1st of May. The following statistics of
the total population of the city for four years
are taken from the report of Bert L. Farmer,
school census marshal :
I903, IQO4. I905. I906.
1st Ward II, I31 I3,743 I6,429 18,699
2nd “ I7,280 I8,294 20,708 23, I54
3rd “ I3,264 20,574 22,851 26,744
4th “ 24,094 28,468 33,909 37,933
5th “ I5,799 17,721 21,692 26,668
6th “ 22,829 29,401 39,118 48,446
7th “ I6,708 21,498 23,740 28,069
8th “ 6,723 9,854 IO,O3I I I,6,II
9th “ 9,117 9,976 I2,871 I8,095
Total I36,945 I69,529 201,349 239,419
326
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
CHAPTER XLVII.
THE SCHOOLS OF LOS ANGELES CITY AND COUNTY,
was under the rule of Spain, if the
records are correct, there were but two
years that she enjoyed school facilities. In 1817–
18 Maximo Piña, an invalid soldier, taught the
pueblo school. His salary was $140 a year.
The first school in Los Angeles during the
Mexican régime of which there is a record was
taught by Luciano Valdez, beginning in 1827.
His school was kept open at varying intervals to
the close of 1831. He seems not to have been a
success in his chosen profession. In the pro-
ceedings of the ayuntamiento for January 19,
1832, is this record: “The most Illustrious
Ayuntamiento dwelt on the lack of improvement
in the public school of the pueblo, and on ac-
count of the necessity of civilizing and morally
training the children, it was thought wise to place
citizen Vicente Morago in charge of said school
from this date, recognizing in him the neces-
sary qualifications for discharge of said duties,
allowing him $15 monthly, the same as was
paid the retiring citizen, Luciano Valdez.”
Schoolmaster Morago, February 12, 1833, was
appointed secretary of the ayuntamiento at a sal-
ary of $30 per month and resigned his position
as teacher. The same date Francisco Pantoja
was appointed preceptor of the public school. Pan-
toja wielded the birch or plied the ferule for a
year and then asked for his salary to be increased
to $20 per month. The ayuntamiento refused to
increase it, “and at the same time, seeing certain
negligence and indolence in his manner of ad-
vancing the children, it was determined to pro-
cure some other person to take charge of the
school.” Pantoja demanded that he be relieved
at once, and the ayuntamiento decided “that in
view of the irregularities in the discharge of
his duties, he be released and that citizen Cristo-
val Aguilar be appointed to the position at $15
per month.”
The ayuntamiento proceedings of January 8,
D URING the forty years that Los Angeles
a teacher in those days.
I835, tell the fate of Aguilar : “Schoolmaster
Cristoval Aguilar asked an increase of salary.
After discussion it was decided that as his fitness
for the position was insufficient, his petition could
not be granted.” So Aguilar quit the profes-
sion. Then Enriquí Sepulveda essayed to lead
the youth of Angeles into the paths of knowl-
edge; of his fate the records are silent. The
salary question may have severed him from his
pupils and his profession.
Vicente Morago, who had been successively
Secretary of the ayuntamiento and syndic (treas-
urer), returned to his former profession, teach-
ing, in 1835. He was satisfied with $15 a month,
and that seemed to be the chief qualification of
There is no record of a
school in 1836. During 1837 the civil war be-
tween Monterey and Los Angeles was raging,
and there was no time to devote to education.
All the big boys were needed for soldiers; be-
sides, the municipal funds were so demoralized
that fines and taxes had to be paid in hides and
horses.
Don Ygnacio Coronel took charge of the pub-
lic school July 3, 1838, “he having the necessary
qualifications.” “He shall be paid $15 per
month from the municipal funds, and every
parent having a child shall be made to pay a
certain amount according to his means. The $15
per month paid from the municipal fund is paid
so that this body (the ayuntamiento) may have
supervision over said school.” Coronel taught
at various times between 1838 and 1844, the
length of the school sessions depending on the
condition of the municipal funds and the liber-
ality of parents. Don Ygnacio's educational meth-
ods were a great improvement on those of the
old soldier schoolmasters. There was less of
“lickin’” and more of “larnin.” His daughter,
Soledad, assisted him, and when a class had com-
pleted a book or performed some other merito-
rious educational feat, as a reward of merit a
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 327
s
dance was improvised in the schºolroom and
Señorita Soledad played upon the harp. She
was the first teacher to introduce music into the
schools of Los Angeles.
The most active and earnest friend of the pub-
lic school among the Mexican governors was the
much abused Micheltorena. He made a strenu-
ous effort to establish a public school system in
the territory. Through his efforts schools were
established in all the principal towns, and a guar-
antee of $500 from the territorial funds was
promised to each school.
January 3, 1844, a primary school was opened
in Los Angeles under the tutorship of Ensign
Guadalupe Medina, an officer in Micheltorena's
army, permission having been obtained from the
governor for the lieutenant to lay down the sword
to take up the pedagogical birch. Medina
was an educated man and taught an ex-
cellent school. His school attained an en-
rollment of Io3 pupils. It was conducted
On the Lancasterian plan, which was an
educational fad recently imported from Europe,
via Mexico, to California. This fad, once very
popular, has been dead for half a century. The
gist of the system was that the nearer the teacher
was in education to the level of the pupil the
more successful would he be in imparting instruc-
tion. So the preceptor taught the more advanced
pupils; these taught the next lower grades, and
so down the scale to the lowest class. Through
this system it was possible for one teacher to
instruct or manage two or three hundred pupils.
Don Manuel Requena, in an address to the
Outgoing ayuntamiento, speaking of Medina's
school, said: “One hundred and three youths of
this vicinity made rapid progress under the care
of the honorable preceptor, and showed a sublime
spectacle, announcing a happy future.” The
“happy future” of the school was clouded by
the shadow of shortage of funds. The superior
government notified the ayuntamiento that it
of the ayuntamiento of Los Angeles was at San
had remitted the $500 promised and great was the
gratitude of the regidores thereat; but when the
remittance reached the pueblo it was found to
be merchandise instead of money. The school
board (regidores) filed an indignant protest, but
it was merchandise or nothing, so, after much
dickering, the preceptor agreed to take the goods
at a heavy discount, the ayuntamiento to make
up the deficit.
After a very successful school term of nearly
half a year the lieutenant was ordered to Monte-
rey to aid in Suppressing a revolution that Castro
and Alvarado were supposed to be incubating.
He returned to Los Angeles in November and
again took up the pedagogical birch, but laid it
down in a few months to take up the sword.
Los Angeles was in the throes of one of its
periodical revolutions. The schoolhouse was
needed by Pico and Castro for military head-
quarters. So the pupils were given a vacation—
a vacation, by the way, that lasted five years. The
next year (1846) the gringos conquered Califor-
nia, and when School took up the country was
under a new government.
All the schools I have named were boys'
schools; but very few of the girls received any
education. They were taught to embroider, to
cook, to make and mend the clothes of the family
and their own, and these accomplishments were
deemed sufficient for a woman.
Governor Micheltorena undertook to establish
Schools for girls in the towns of the department.
He requested of the ayuntamiento of Los Angeles
the names of three ladies for teachers, one of
whom was to be selected to take charge of the
girls’ school when established. The alcalde
named Mrs. Luisa Arguello, Dolores Lopez and
Maria Ygnacio Alvarado. The , governor ap-
pointed Mrs. Luisa Arguello teacher of the school
which was to open July 1, 1844. Evidently the
school did not open on time, for at the meeting
of the ayuntamiento, January 7, 1845, the al-
calde requested that Mrs. Luisa Arguello be
asked whether she would fill the position of
teacher to which she had been appointed by the
governor. There is no record that she ever taught
school or that there ever was a girls’ school in
Los Angeles before the American conquest.
The last school taught under the supervision
Gabriel, in 1846, and that faithful old pedagogue,
Vicente Morago, was the teacher, his salary the
same old figure, $15 per month. From an in-
ventory made by Lieutenant Medina we ascer-
tain the amount of school books and furniture it
took to supply a school of one hundred pupils
328
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
sixty years ago. Primers, thirty-six; second
readers, eleven; Fray Ripalde's Catechisms, four-
teen; table (without carpet or joint) to write
upon, one; benches, six; blackboard, one; large
table for children, one. School supplies were few
and inexpensive in early days. Here is an ac-
count of the expenses, made from the public
School from February to December, 1834: Prim-
ers, $1; blackboard, $2; earthen jar for water,
$2.50; ink, $1; String for ruling the blackboard,
fifty cents; ink well, thirty-seven cents; total,
$7.37. Church incidentals for same length of
time were $96. The city owned no schoolhouse.
The priests' house was used for a schoolroom
when it was vacant, otherwise the teacher or the
ayuntamiento rented a room. At one time a fine
of $1 was imposed on parents who failed to send
their children to school, but the fines were never
collected.
There is no record of any school in Los An-
geles during the years 1846 and 1847. The war
of the Conquest was in progress part of the time,
and the big boys and the schoolmaster as well
were needed for soldiers. In 1848 and 1849 the
gold rush to the northern mines carried away
most of the male population. In the flush days
of '49 the paltry pay of $15 per month was not
sufficient to induce even faithful old Vicente
Morago to wield the pedagogical birch.
At the first session of the ayuntamiento, in
January, 1850, Syndic Figueroa and Regidor
Garfias were appointed school committeemen to
establish a public school. At the end of three
months the syndic reported that he had been
unable to find a house wherein to locate the
school. Nor had he succeeded in securing a
teacher. An individual, however, had just pre-
sented himself, who, although he did not speak
English, yet he could teach the children many
useful things; and, besides, the same person had
managed to get the refusal of Mrs. Pollerena's
house for school purposes. At the next meeting
of the council the syndic reported that he had
been unable to start the school—the individual
who had offered to teach had left for the mines
and the school committee could neither find a
schoolmaster nor a schoolhouse.
In June of the same year (1850) a contract
was made with Francisco Bustamente, an ex-
soldier, who had come to the territory with Gov-
ernor Micheltorena, “to teach to the children first,
Second and third lessons and likewise to read
Script, to write and count and so much as I may
be competent, to teach them orthography and
good morals.” Bustamente taught to the close
of the year, receiving $60 per month and $2O a
month rent for a house in which the school was
kept.
In July, 1850, the ayuntamiento was merged
into the common council. Part of the council's
duties was to act as a school board. Two appli-
cations were received during the first month
from would-be teachers. Hugo Overns offered
to give primary instruction in English, Spanish
and French ; George Wormald asked permission
to establish “a Los Angeles lyceum, in which the
following classes shall be taught: Reading, pen-
manship, arithmetic, geography, Spanish gram-
mar, double-entry bookkeeping, religion, history
and the English and French languages.” The
applications were referred to Councilman Mor-
ris L. Goodman. He reported in favor of grant-
ing “Hugh Overns $50 per month to establish a
school in which shall be taught the rudiments of
English, French and Spanish. In consideration
of the subsidy paid from the public funds, the
council to have the privilege of sending to the
school, free of charge, six orphan boys or others
whose parents are poor.” The proposition was
approved.
In November, 1850, the Rev. Henry Weeks
proposed to organize a school (he to have charge
of the boys and his wife of the girls) for the
compensation of $150 per month. Two months
later the school committee reported that no bet-
ter proposition had been received. Weeks and
his wife opened school January 4, 1851. Weeks
paid the rent of the schoolroom.
In June, 1853, the council passed a resolu-
tion to divide $100 between the two preceptors
of the boys’ school and the preceptress of the
girls’ school on condition that each teach ten poor
children free. -
The city council, March 8, 1851, granted
Bishop Alameny blocks 41 and 42, Ord’s survey,
for a college site, together with the flow of
water from what was formerly known as the
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
329
College Spring. A conditional grant of the
same land had been made in 1849 to Padres
Branche and Sanchez for a college site. (These
blocks lie west of Buena Vista street and north
of College street.)
The early schools seem to have been run on
the go-as-you-please principle. The school com-
mittee reported “having visited the school twice
without finding the children assembled. The
committee, however, had arranged with the
preceptor for a full attendance next Friday, of
which the council took due notice.” Which of
the three schools was so lax in attendance the
committee does not state.
The first school ordinance was adopted by the
council July 9, 1851. Article I provided that
a sum not exceeding $50 per month shall be ap-
plied towards the support of any educational in-
stitution in the city, provided that all the rudi-
ments of the English and Spanish languages be
taught therein.
Article 2 provided that should pupils receive
instruction in any higher branches the parents
must make an agreement with the “owner or
owners of the school.” August 13, 1852, an
ordinance was passed by the council setting
apart a levy of ten cents on the $100 of the
municipal taxes for the support of the schools.
This was the first tax levy ever made in the
city for the support of schools.
the school fund was derived from licenses, fines,
etc. At the same meeting of the council Padre
Anacleto Lestraode was granted two lots for a
seminary. The location of the lots is not given.
A. S. Breed opened a school for instruction in
the English language in December, 1852. He
was allowed $33 public funds on the usual terms.
Breed was elected city marshal at the election the
following May. He embezzled public funds and
was turned out of office. -
The school committee of the council, Downey
and Del Valle, reported, January 17, 1853, hav-
ing visited the “two schools in charge of pre-
ceptors Lestraode and Coronel (Ygnacio),
found them well attended; twenty children in the
former and ten in the latter, besides five taught
gratis.” The council expressed great satisfac-
tion, and requested the committee at its next
visit to express to the preceptors its (the coun-
Previous to this
cil's) appreciation of their good work. The re-
port is not very definte in regard to the attend-
ance. If the total number in the two schools was
only thirty-five, it would seem as if the council
was thankful for small favors. June II, 1853,
Mrs. A. Bland, wife of the Rev. Adam Bland, a
Methodist minister, having established a school
for girls, was allowed $33.33 I-3 from the pub-
lic funds for teaching ten poor girls. The mayor
was instructed by the council to find out whether
the seats the city pays for in the various schools
are filled, and if those Occupying them are de-
Serving.
At the Session of the council, July 25, 1853,
John T. Jones submitted an ordinance for the
establishment and government of the city’s pub-
lic schools. It provided for the appointment by
the council, with the approval of the mayor, of
three commissioners of public schools, “who
shall serve as a board of education for one year,
the chairman to be superintendent of schools, and
commissioners to have all the powers vested in a
board of education by the act of the state legis-
lature, ‘entitled, an act to establish a common
school system, approved May 3, 1852,’” The
board had power to examine, employ and dis-
miss teachers and appoint a marshal to take a
census of all children between the ages of five
and eighteen years. The ordinance was ap-
proved, and J. Lancaster Brent, Lewis Granger
and Stephen C. Foster appointed a board of edu-
cation, J. Lancaster Brent becoming ex-officio
the city school superintendent. The council hav-
ing established a public school system, by a reso-
lution suspended the payment of subsidies to
private schools; the resolution took effect Au-
gust 14, 1853.
In May, 1854, Hon. Stephen C. Foster, on as-
suming the office of mayor, in his inaugural mes-
sage urged the necessity of increased school
facilities. He said: “Our last census shows
more than 500 children within the corporate
limits, of the age to attend school, three-fourths
of whom have no means of education save that
afforded by the public schools. Our city has now
a school fund of $3,000.” He urged the build-
ing of two school houses, the appointment of a
school superintendent and a board of education.
At the next meeting of the council an ordinance
330
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
was passed providing for the appointment by the
council, on the first Monday of June each year,
of three school commissioners or trustees, a
Superintendent and a school marshal.
At a meeting of the council held May 20, 1854,
Lewis Granger moved that Stephen C. Foster be
appointed city superintendent of common schools;
Manuel Requena, Francis Mellus and W. T. B.
Sanford, trustees; and G. W. Cole, school mar-
shal. The nominations were confirmed. Thus
the mayor of the city became its first school
superintendent, and three of the seven members
of the council constituted the board of education.
The duties of the superintendent were to ex-
amine teachers, grant certificates and hold annual
examinations of the schools.
The board of education and the superintendent
set vigorously to work, and before the close of
the school year school house No. 1, located on
the northwest corner of Spring and Second
streets, on the lot now occupied by the Bryson
block and the old City Hall building, was com-
pleted. It was a two-story brick building, cost-
ing about $6,000. It was well out in the suburbs
then, the center of population at that time being
in the neighborhood of the Plaza. School was
opened in it March 19, 1855, William A. Wallace
in charge of the boys' department, and Miss
Louisa Hayes principal of the girls' department.
Co-education then, and for many years after, was
not tolerated in the public schools of Los An-
geles. Previous to the completion of the build-
ing, in the fall of 1854, T. J. Scully taught a
public school in a rented building, and Ygnacio
Coronel taught a school in his own building on
the corner of Los Angeles and Arcadia streets,
Mrs. M. A. Hoyt and son taught a public school
in a rented building north of the Plaza in 1854-
55-56.
School house No. 2, located on Bath street,
now North Main street, was built in 1856. It
was a two-story, two-room brick building. It
was demolished when the street was widened
and extended.
Wallace, after a few months' teaching, laid
down the birch and mounted the editorial tripod.
He became editor and publisher of the Los An-
geles Star, but the tripod proved an uncom-
fortable seat, and he soon descended from it.
William McKee, an educated young Irishman,
succeeded him in the School. McKee was a suc-
cessful teacher. The Los Angeles Star of
March 17, 1855, in an able editorial urged the
planting of shade trees upon the school lot.
“When the feasibility of growing trees upon the
naked plain is fairly tested the owners of lots
in the neighborhood will imitate the good ex-
ample,” said the Star. To test the feasibility the
trustees bought twelve black locusts at $1 apiece
and planted them on the school lot. The shade
trees grew, but when the green feed on the
“naked plains” around the school house dried
up the innumerable ground squirrels that in-
fested the mesa made a raid on the trees, ate
the leaves and girdled the branches. McKee, to
protect the trees, procured a shotgun, and when
he was not teaching the young ideas how to
shoot he was shooting squirrels. There was no
water system then in the city, and water for
domestic purposes was supplied by carriers from
carts. McKee used water from the school barrel
to water the trees. The “hombre” who supplied
the water reported to the trustees that that
gringo “maestro de escula” (schoolmaster) was
wasting the public water trying to grow trees on
the mesa where “any fool might know they
The trees did survive the
squirrels' attacks and waterman's wrath. They
were cut down in 1884, when the lot was sold to
the city for a city hall site. From 1853 to 1866
the common council appointed the members of
the board of education and the school superin-
tendents. From 1866 to 1870 the school boards
and the superintendents were elected by popular
vote at the city elections. In 1870 it was discov-
ered that there was no law authorizing the elec-
tion of a superintendent ; the city in school af-
fairs being governed by three trustees the same
as country districts. The office was discontinued
for two years. In 1872 a special act of the legis-
lature created a city board of education consist-
ing of five members and gave it power to appoint
a superintendent. The following is a list of the
persons who have filled the office, with the years
Of their service :
J. Lancaster Brent, ex-officio. . . . . 1853 to 1854
Stephen C. Foster. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1854 to 1855
T}r. Wm. B. Osburn . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1855 to 1856
wouldn't grow.”
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
331
Dr. John S. Griffin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1856 to 1857
J. Lancaster Brent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1857 to 1858
E. J. C. Kewen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I858 to 1859
Rev. W. E. Boardman . . . . . . . . . . . . I859 to 1862
A. F. Heinchman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1862 to 1863
Gustavus L. Mix. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I863 to 1864
Dr. R. F. Hayes. . . . . . . . ... • - - - - - - - 1864 to 1865
Rev. Elias Birdsell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1865 to 1866
Joseph Huber, Sr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1866 to 1867
H. D. Barrows. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1867 to 1868
Andrew Glassell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1868 to 1869
Dr. T. H. Rose. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1869 to 1870
No Superintendent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1870 to 1872
A. G. Brown. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I872 to 1873
Dr. W. T. Lucky. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1873 to 1876
C. H. Kimball . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1876 to 1880
Mrs. C. B. Jones. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I88O to I88I
J. M. Guinn. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1881 to 1883
L. D. Smith. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1883 to 1885
W. M. Freisner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1885 to 1893
Leroy D. Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1893 to 1894
P. W. Search. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1894 to 1895
J. A. Foshay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I895 to 1906
E. C. Moore (present incumbent) . . 1906 to . . . .
The Office in earlier years was filled by law-
yers, doctors, ministers and business men. It
was not until 1869 that a professional teacher
was chosen superintendent; since then profes-
sional teachers have filled the office. The high
school was established in 1873, during the first
year of Dr. Lucky's term. It was the first, and
for several years after its organization the only
high school in Southern California. At the time
it was established there were but six high schools
in all California. Now there are twenty-five in
Los Angeles county alone. The first teachers'
institute of Los Angeles county was organized
in the old Bath street school house, October 31,
I870. It was held there because the school
building on the corner of Spring and Second
streets was considered too far out of town; the
business center of the city being then on Los
Angeles street between Arcadia and Commercial.
There were no hotels south of First street. The
officers of the institute were W. M. McFadden,
county superintendent and president; J. M.
Guinn and T. H. Rose, vice-presidents, and P. C.
Tonner, secretary. The entire teaching force of
the city schools consisted of eight teachers, and
from the county there were thirty, a total of
thirty-eight for city and county, and the county
then included all the area now in Orange county.
During the '60s, on account of the sectional
hatreds growing out of the Civil war, the public
Schools in Los Angeles were unpopular. They
were regarded as a Yankee institution and were
hated accordingly by the Confederate sympa-
thizers. The public school teachers during the
Civil war and for some years afterwards were
required by law to take an oath to support the
constitution of the United States before they
could obtain a certificate. This jarred on the
sensitive feelings of some of the pro-slavery
pedagogues, and refusing to take the oath, they
were compelled to quit the profession. The Los
Angeles News of July 17, 1866, commenting on
the public school system of California, says:
“In New England the public schools educated
the people up to the negro equality and the same
object is sought to be accomplished in this state;
and unless parents and guardians take matters
promptly in hand their children will be educated
up to the New England standard of social ideas
and infidelity.” + 4 + -
The editor of the News charges the State
Board of Education with “making regulations
for the government of the public schools and
introducing therein a series of books that make
these institutions but little more than Schools for
disseminations of the doctrines of abolitionism.”
(Whittier's Poems were among the books of
this series.)
“Under one of these regulations teachers are
required to have certificates of competency from a
state board of examiners, accessible only to the
purely loyal. Thus the representatives of New
England negro equality have been forced into the
public schools throughout the state to corrupt
the minds of the youth with their damnable doc-
trines of social equality.”
With such teachings from the public press it
is not strange that the public schools of the city
were poorly patronized. In the school year of
1865-66 the total number of school census chil-
dren between five and fifteen years of age was
1,009. Of these 331 were enrolled in the public
schools during the year, and 309 in the private
schools; 369 were not enrolled in any school.
According to the News, the total average daily
attendance in the six public schools was 61 ; in
the three private schools IO3—nearly fifty per
332
HISTORICAL, AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
cent greater than that of the public Schools.
Twenty-one negro children were enrolled in a
separate School. The education of these twenty-
One little negroes was regarded as a menace to
the future ascendency of the white race. Out of
such mole-hills does political bigotry construct
impassable mountains ! In 1870 County Super-
intendent McFadden in his report said of the
public schools of the city : “Los Angeles is far
behind her sister cities of the same population
and wealth in educational interest. Her School
buildings are illy constructed, incommodious, in-
conveniently located and conducted on a sort of
guerrilla system” (no commanding officer or
head to them). “Out of seventeen hundred and
eighty children between five and fifteen years
of age, but 1,200 have been enrolled in either
public or private schools, and the average daily
attendance in the public schools is only 36O.”
Probably no other city of the United States out-
side of the former slave states can show in the
past forty years so remarkable a change of
opinion in regard to the public Schools as can
Los Angeles. That the extracts from the Los
Angeles Daily News previously given reflected
the sentiment of a considerable proportion of the
city's population in regard to the public schools
is evidenced by the statistics of school attend-
ance. The enrollment in the public schools in
1865 was only thirty-three per cent of the census
children, while the enrollment in the private
schools was thirty per cent. The average daily
attendance of the private Schools was nearly
fifty per cent greater than that of the public
schools. In 1905, forty years later, the enroll-
ment in the public schools exceeded eighty-five
per cent of the number of census children, while
the enrollment in private Schools had fallen be-
low seven per cent. Inmigration, a more en-
lightened public sentiment and the mollifying of
sectional hatreds are largely responsible for the
change. About 1880 the separate schools for
negro children were abolished and colored chil-
dren were allowed to attend school with the
whites. The following table gives the number
of census children, enrollment, average daily at-
tendance and number of teachers in the schools
at different periods from 1855, when the first
report was made, to 1906:
N. O. census Av. Daily No.
JWear children Enrollment At. teachers
I855 753 I5O 52 3
1865 I,OOO 33 I 6I 6
1870 I,780 750 360' 8
I 88O 3,579 2,098 I,343 32
1890 IO,843 8, II 5 6,84I I8I
1895 20,679 I6,719 II,798 377
I899 26,962 2O,3I4. I4,189 484
I90O 3O,354 21,640 I5, I56 500
I905 39,664 34,326 24,595 728
I906 44; I43 36,264 . . . . . . . I,050
The school census age on which apportion-
ments of school moneys were made was between
four and eighteen years from 1855 to 1865; from
1865 to 1870, five to fifteen years, and from 1870
to the present time, five to seventeen years. The
last school census taken before the enlargement
of the city by annexation was in 1895. A por-
tion of the increase since then must be credited
to the annexation of Vernon, Harmony, Uni-
versity, Rosedale, Highland Park and Garvanza
districts. In 1904 the city council let a contract
to build a polytechnic high school building. A
site had been secured on the south side of West
Washington street between Grand avenue and
Flower street. The contract price of the build-
ing was $170,000. In addition to this the heating
and lighting cost about $2O,OOO more. The
Duilding was ready for Occupancy in September,
1905. The machinery plants were gradually in-
stalled. The enrollment at the end of the first
year numbered 1,061, the number of teachers
employed twenty-three.
In 1903 a change was made in the city charter
in regard to the board of education. The board
since the adoption of the charter of 1889 con-
sisted of nine members, one from each ward.
This proved to be unsatisfactory. It usually re-
sulted in the election of a partisan board, and
politics to some extent figured in school affairs.
The change made the board to consist of seven
members elected from the city at large. The
first election after the change in the charter re-
sulted in the selection of a non-partisan board
named by a committee of one hundred citizens.
The members of this board were John D. Bick-
nell, Charles Cassett Davis, J. M. Guinn, Joseph
Scott, J. S. Slauson, W. J. Washburn and Em-
met H. Wilson.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
333
The board made a new departure in the
method of calling an election for school bonds.
For more than thirty years the city council called
bond elections for the building of school houses,
let the contracts and had the buildings erected.
This divided responsibility was not satisfactory
to school boards.
board called an election for the issuing of bonds
to the amount of $780,000 under the provisions
of the law for issuing school district bonds.
There was scarcely any opposition to the bonds
at the election, but to sell them it became neces-
sary to obtain the opinion of Dillon & Hubbard,
attorneys of New York, and experts on all ques-
tions in regard to the validity of bonds. Several
technical points had to be determined by the
supreme court of the state. The validity of the
bonds was established by the court, and here-
after boards of education will call elections for
school bond issues.
In 1906 twenty-one grammar and primary
grade school buildings were erected, at a cost
of $450,000 for sites and buildings. These have
a seating capacity for 6,OOO pupils. So rapid
was the increase in the school population of the
city in the years 1905-1906 that this great in-
crease in school facilities proved inadequate, and
temporary buildings had to be resorted to before
the close of the year.
A high school annex to the classical high
school is in course of construction and will be
completed early in 1907. This building complete
will cost $120,000. Bonds to the amount of
$40,000 were voted in 1905 for the purchase of a
site and the building and equipping of a parental
home for the education and industrial training
of truant school children. A site containing ten
acres has been purchased and the erection of a
building begun.
COUNTY SCHOOL REPORTS.
The first Los Angeles county school report
that I have been able to find, and probably the
first ever made, is that of County Superintendent
J. F. Burns for the school year ending October
31, 1855.
It is as follows:
In March, I905, the school
Total number of Schools in the county. . 6
Total number of teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Total number of children attending
School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399
Whole number of days taught . . . . . . . . 830
Average daily attendance . . . . . . . . . . . . . I34
Total number of census children between
4 and 18 years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I,522
Amount paid teachers by trustees . . . . . $1,276
Amount paid teachers by patrons . . . . . . 766
Total teachers' wages . . . . . . . * * * * * $2,042
Amount spent for building and pur-
chasing School houses . . . . . . . . . $ 8,230.75
Total amount expended on schools of
the county . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $IO,272.75
Report for the school year ending October 31,
I86O :
Number of schools in the county (3 gram-
mar, 4 primary) . . . . . . . . . . . e s e o e e 7
Number of teachers (6 male, 5 female). II
Total number of pupils enrolled . . . . . . . 460
Average daily attendance . . . . . . . . . . . . . I4O
Total number of census children between
4 and 18 years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,343
Paid for teachers salaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . $4,827
Value of school houses built . . . . . . . . . . 7,OOO
Total amount expended on schools
during year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $11,827
The following table gives the number of cen-
sus children enrollment and the number of
teachers employed at different periods between
1866 and 1906 in the schools of the county:
Q
§ č # # *;
: Żó Čič ââ Žá
I866 2,445 581 424 I4
1869 4,424 I,344 534 28
1876 9,319 5,469 829 86
I88O IO,6O2 6,055 572 I3O
1885 I5, I.3O II,368 I,031 2II
1890 3,390 19,068 1,829 39 I
1895 33,729 25,450 tº º gº º 6OO
I90O 47,227 32,396 e e º g 839
I905 67,875 55, II6 4,223 I,431
1906 75,924 61,827 4,399 I,614
The census age from 1866 to 1876 was be-
tween five and fifteen years. From 1876 to date,
between five and seventeen years.
In 1889 the formation of Orange county from
334
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
the Southeastern part of Los Angeles took away
from the latter county 4,095 census children, 31
districts and 72 teachers.
NAME AND LOCATION OF THE HIGH SCHOOLS OF
LOS ANGELES COUNTY.
Bonita (Lordsburg),
Compton, Covina, El Monte,
Alhambra,
(Azusa),
Citrus
Ex-
celsior (Norwalk), Glendale, Hollywood, Ingle-
wood, Jewel (Gardena), Long Beach, Los An-
geles, Los Angeles Polytechnic, Los Nietos Val-
ley (Downey), Monrovia, Pasadena, Pomona,
Redondo, San Fernando (Fernando), San Pedro,
Santa Monica, South Pasadena, Pasadena, Whit-
tier, Wilmington.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
POSTAL SERVICE OF LOS ANGELES.
was a Spanish province was entirely un-
der military rule. The carrying of official
orders and proclamations necessitated the es-
tablishment of a mail system. Soldier couriers
made semi-monthly trips between Monterey, the
capital, and Loreto, near Cape St. Lucus. From
there the mail was taken across the Gulf of Cali-
fornia by sailing vessels to La Paz and forward-
ed to the City of Mexico. There was a regular
schedule of the day and the hour of the courier's
arrival and departure at each mission and
presidio. An hour's stop was allowed the courier
at each station. The habilitados (paymasters)
acted as postmasters at the presidios, and received
eight per cent of the gross receipts for their com-
pensation. At the pueblos the alcalde, or some
Officer detailed to act as administrador de cor-
reos (postmaster) received and distributed the
small packages of mail. The compensation for
his services was small. It did not require much
of a political pull to get a postOffice in those days.
It would be interesting to know the amount of
revenue derived from the Los Angeles postoffice
a hundred years ago. As there were not more
than half a dozen of the two hundred inhabitants
of the pueblo that could read and write at that
time, the revenue of “La casa Ó administracion
de correos 1a estafeta” (postoffice) was not large,
and it is probable that there were not many as-
pirants for the position of postmaster of Los
Angeles a century ago.
|Under Mexican rule the increased number of
vessels plying between Mexican and Californian
ports did away to a certain extent with the carry-
T. postal service of California when it
ing of mail by land, still the old route overland
to Loreto and across the gulf by vessel to San
Blas was kept open. A shorter route by way of
Sonora and the Colorado river was used when
the Indians would allow it. I find in the old
pueblo archives an order from Acting Governor
Jimeno, dated August 24, 1839, authorizing the
prefect of Los Angeles to appoint three col-
lectors of duties, the revenues derived from
such collection to be applied to the establishing
of a monthly postal service to Lower California
and thence to Mexico.
News from the outside world traveled slowly
in those days. An American pioneer at Los An-
geles notes in his diary the receipt of the news
of the death of President W. H. Harrison in
I84I. It took the news three months and twen-
ty days to reach California. A newspaper from
the States a year old was fresh and entertaining
when Dana was hide droghing at San Pedro in
I835.
After the American conquest of California the
military authorities established a regular serv-
ice between San Francisco and San Diego. Sol-
dier carriers, starting from each end of the
route, met at Dana’s rancho near San Luis Obis-
po, and, exchanging mail pouches there, each
then returned to his starting point. It took a
fortnight for them to go and return. The fol-
lowing extract from an “Act to establish certain
post routes” is the first legislation by Congress
to give California a mail service:
SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That the
Postmaster-General be and is hereby authorized,
to establish Postoffices, and appoint deputy post-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
335
masters at San Diego, Monterey and San Fran-
cisco, and such other places on the coast of the
Pacific, in California, within the territory of the
United States, and to make such temporary ar-
rangements for the transportation of the mail
in said territory as the public interest may re-
quire; that all letters conveyed to or from any
of the above-mentioned places on the Pacific,
from or to any place on the Atlantic coast shall
be charged with forty cents postage; that all let-
ters conveyed from one to any other of
the said places on the Pacific shall pay
twelve and a half cents postage; and the
Postmaster-General is authorized to apply any
moneys received on account of postage aforesaid
to the payments to be made on the contracts for
the transportation of the mails in the Pacific
ocean ; and the Postmaster-General is further au-
thorized to employ not exceeding two agents in
making arrangements for the establishment of
postoffices, and for the transmission, receipt and
conveyance of letters in Oregon and California,
at an annual compensation not exceeding that of
the principal clerks in the Postoffice Department.
Approved, August 14, 1848.
After the soldiers were discharged in the lat-
ter part of 1848, a semi-monthly, or perhaps it
might be more in accordance with the facts to
say a semi-Occasional, mail service was estab-
lished between San Francisco, Los Angeles and
San Diego. The mail was carried by sailing ves-
sels (there were no steamers on the coast then).
Wind and weather permitting, a letter might
reach its destination in three or four days, but
with the elements against it, it might be delayed
a fortnight. Masters and supercargoes of ves-
sels took charge of letters and delivered them
to the owners or agents of some shipping house
at the port, and in some way the letters reached
their destination. This mail service was not es-
tablished by the government.
There was no stage line for conveying pas-
sengers or mails from the embarcadero of San
Pedro to Los Angeles previous to 1851. Before
that time a caballada (band of horses) was kept
in pasture at the landing. When a vessel was
sighted in the offing the mustangs were round-
ed up, driven into a corral, lassoed, saddled and
bridled, and were ready for the conveyance of
passengers to the city as SOon as they came
ashore. As the horses were half-broken broncos
and the passengers were mostly newcomers from
the States, unused to the tricks of bucking mus-
tangs, the trip generally ended in the passenger
arriving in the city on foot, the bronco having
landed him at Some point most convenient to
him—the bronco—not the passenger. e
In 1849 Wilson & Packard, whose store was
on Main street where the United States Bank
now stands, were the custodians of the letters
for Los Angeles. A tub stood on the end of a
counter. Into this the letters were dumped.
Any One expecting a letter was at liberty to sort
over the contents of the tub and take away his
mail. The office, or rather the postoffice tub,
was conducted on an automatic free delivery sys-
tem. Col. John O. Wheeler, who had clerked for
the firm in 1849, bought out the business in
1850 and continued the “Tale of a Tub,” that is,
continued to receive the letters and other literary
contents of the mail bags and dump them into
the tub. There was no regularly established
postOffice, and, of course, no postmaster. An
Officious postal agent of San Francisco found,
fault with the tub postoffice and the free and
easy delivery system. The colonel, who had
been accommodating the public free of charge,
told the agent to take his postal matter else-
where.
The first postoffice in California established
under American rule was that of San Francisco,
established November 9, 1848. The postoffice
at Los Angeles was established April 9, 1850; J.
Pugh was the first postmaster. The second was
W. T. B. Sanford, appointed November 6, 1851.
The third was Dr. William B. Osburn, appoint-
ed October 12, 1853. James S. Waite was ap-
pointed November 1, 1855; J. D. Woodworth,
May 19, 1858; Thomas J. White, May 9, 1860;
William G. Still, June 8, 1861; Francisco P.
Ramirez, October 22, 1864; Russell Sackett, May
5, 1865; George J. Clarke, June 25, 1866; H. K.
W. Bent, February 14, 1873; Col. Isaac R.
Dunkelberger, February 14, 1877; John W.
Green, February 14, 1885. Green was succeeded
by E. A. Preuss, who was succeeded in turn by
Green. Green died in office and H. V. Van
Dusen completed the term. Gen. John R.
Mathews was appointed December 20, 1895, who
was succeeded by Lewis A. Groff, March 1,
I900. The present postmaster, M. H. Flint, took
charge of the office March 1, 1904.
336
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Just where the postOffice was first located I
have not been able to ascertain. In 1852 it was
kept in an adobe building on Los Angeles Street,
west side, between Commercial and Arcadia. In
1854 it was located in the Salazar row on North
Main street, just south of where the St. Elmo
hotel now stands. In January, 1855, it was
moved to Los Angeles street, one door above
Commercial street. From there, when James S.
Waite, publisher of the Weekly Star, was post-
master, it was moved to the old Temple block,
which stood on the site recently donated to the
government for a postoffice building. Its next
move was into an adobe building that stood On
the present site of the Bullard block, and from
there it was taken to the old Lanfranco block on
Main street. In 1858 it moved up Main street to
a building just south of the Pico house; then,
after a time, it drifted down town to North
Spring street, a few doors below Temple street.
In 1861 it was kept in a frame building on Main
street opposite Commercial street. In 1866 it
again moved up Main street to a building opposite
the Bella Union hotel, now the St. Charles. In
1867 or 1868 it was moved to the northwest cor-
ner of North Main and Market streets, and from
there, about 1870, it was moved to the middle
of Temple block on North Spring street. H. K.
W. Bent moved the office to the Union block,
now the Jones block, on the east side of North
Spring street. From there, in 1879, when Colo-
nel Dunkelberger was postmaster, it was moved
to the Oxarat block on North Spring street near
First; here it remained eight years. Its loca-
tion on Spring street gave an impetus to that
street that carried it ahead of Main. In Febru-
ary, 1887, the postoffice was moved to the Hell-
man building, southwest corner of North Main
and Republic streets; from there it was moved
down Broadway below Sixth street. In June,
1893, it was moved into the government building
on the southwest corner of Main and Winston
streets, where, after forty years of wandering
through a wilderness of streets, for the first
time it set up business in a home of its own. That
building was completed at a cost, including the
site, of $150,000.
In early times the duties of the postmasters
were light and their compensation small. In
the winter of 1852-53 no mail was received at
the Los Angeles office for six weeks. In 1861,
on account of the floods, there was no mail for
three weeks, and some wag labeled the office, “To
Let.” The fixtures of the office in those days
were inexpensive and easily moved. From Colo-
nel Wheeler's washtub the Los Angeles post-
office gravitated to a soap box. It seemed in
early days to keep in the laundry line. In 1854-
55 and thereabouts the office was kept in a little
7x9 room on Los Angeles street. The letters
were kept in a soap box partitioned off into
pigeonholes. The postmaster at that time had a
number of other occupations beside that of
handling the mail, so when he was not attend-
ing to his auction room, or looking after his
nursery, or superintending the Schools, or act-
ing as news agent, or organizing his forces for
a political campaign, he attended to the post-
office, but at such times as his other duties called
him away the office ran itself. If a citizen
thought there ought to be a letter for him he
did not hunt up the postmaster, but went to the
office and looked over the mail for himself. Upon
the arrival of a mail from the States in early
times there were no such scenes enacted at the
Los Angeles postoffice as took place at the San
Francisco office, where men stood in line for
hours and $50 slugs were exchanged for places
in the line near the window. There were but
few Americans in Los Angeles in the fall of '49
and spring of '50, and most of these were Old-
timers, long since over their homesickness.
The stage coach era of mail carrying con-
tinued later in California than in any state east
of the Mississippi; and it may be said that it
reached its greatest perfection in this state. The
Butterfield stage route was the longest continu-
ous line ever organized and the best managed.
Its eastern termini were St. Louis and Memphis;
its western terminus San Francisco. Its length
was 2,881 miles. It began operation in Sep-
tember, 1858, and the first stage from the east
carrying mail reached Los Angeles October 7,
1858. The schedule time at first between St.
Louis and San Francisco was twenty-four days;
afterwards it was reduced to twenty-one days.
The first service was two mail coaches each
way a week, for which the government paid the
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
«» « » -
337
stage company a subsidy of $600,000 a year.
Later on the service was increased to six stages a
week each way and the subsidy to $1,000,000 a
year. This was in 1861, when the first line was
transferred to the central route. In 1859, when
the government was paying a subsidy of $600,000
for a semi-weekly service, the receipts for the
postal revenue of this route were only $27,000,
leaving Uncle Sam over half a million out of
pocket.
The Butterfield route from San Francisco
Southward was by the way of San Jose, Gilroy,
Pacheco's Pass, Visalia and Fort Tejon to Los
Angeles, 462 miles. Eastward from Los Angeles
it ran by way of El Monte, Temécula and
Warner’s Rancho to Fort Yuma. From there
by Tucson to El Paso it followed very nearly
what is now the route of the Southern Pacific
Railroad. From El Paso it ran northward to
St. Louis, branching at Fort Smith for Memphis.
Los Angeles was proud of its overland stage. It
got the eastern news ahead of San Francisco, and
its press put on metropolitan airs. When the
trip was first made in twenty days the Weekly
Star rushed out an extra with flaunting head-
lines—“Ahead of Time.” “A Hundred Guns for
the Overland Mail,” “Twenty Days from St.
Louis.” After this fitful flash of enterprise the
sleepy Old ciudad lapsed into poco tiempo ways.
The next issue of the Star sorrowfully says:
“The overland mail arrived at midnight. There
was no one in the postoffice to receive it and it
was carried on to San Francisco;” to be returned
six days later with all the freshness gone and
all the eastern news in the San Francisco papers.
There were no overland telegraph lines then.
Los Angeles never had a mail service so prompt
and reliable as the Butterfield was. The Star in
lauding it says: “The arrival of the overland
mail is as regular as the index on the clock points
to the hour, as true to time as the dial is to the
sun.” -
After the Civil war began in 1861 the southern
route was abandoned. The Confederates got
away with the stock on the eastern end and the
Apaches destroyed the stations on the western
end. After the Butterfield stages were trans-
ferred to the Central Overland route via Salt
Lake City and Omaha, the Los Angeles mails
were carried from San Francisco by local stage
lines via the Coast route, but the service was
often very unsatisfactory. The completion of
the Southern Pacific Railroad from San Fran–
cisco to Los Angeles in 1877 gave us quick and
reliable service. *
It is impossible to obtain any reliable data of
the revenues of the Los Angeles postoffice in the
early years of its existence. In 1869 the post-
master and one boy clerk did the business of the
office in a small room in the Temple block, North
Spring street. The salary of the postmaster was
$1,400 in greenbacks, worth at that time about
seventy cents on the dollar, making his pay less
than $1,000 a year in gold. The relative rank of
Los Angeles in 1869 compared with some other
cities of California, which it has since passed in
population, is shown by the rate of the salary
of the postmasters of these cities at that time.
Los Angeles, salary $1,400; Marysville, $3,100;
Stockton, $3,200; Sacramento, $4,000. In 1887
the gross receipts of the Los Angeles office were
in round numbers $74,OOO ; those of the Sacra-
mento office $47,000 and the salaries of the post-
masters the same. - -
From a pamphlet giving a review of the Los
Angeles postoffice in 1887, published by E. A.
Preuss, then postmaster, I extract the following
data: Number of clerks 27, carriers 21. There
were no branch offices or stations. The post-
master had petitioned the department to estab-
lish a branch office in East Los Angeles and had
hopes that his petition might be granted. The
allowance for the salaries of twenty-seven clerks
January I, 1888, was $17,315; “making an aver-
age salary for each clerk of $645 or less than $54
per month.” The total gross receipts of the
office for 1887 were $74,540.98. The total cash
received for money orders and postal notes,
$466,053.98; total cash handled $1,838,O48.35;
being an increase of $702,280.97 over the year
1886. Stamp sales exceeded $120,000 for the year
1887. This was the year of the “boom” when
the Office handled the mail of over 200,000 tran-
sients. The Office was then located on North
Main street, near Republic. Two long lines of
men and women every day extended from the
delivery windows up and down Main street wait-
ing their turn to get their mail.
22
338
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
From a report of Postmaster John R. Mathews
made when he retired from office, March 1, 1900,
I take the following statistics: Total receipts
of the Office for 1899, $228,417.61 ; total salaries
paid $132,513.69; number of clerks, 41; carriers,
62; clerks at stations, 12; railway postal clerks,
46; total, 161. An appropriation of $250,000
for enlarging the Federal building was obtained
by Hon. Stephen M. White before the close of
his term as United States senator. A long delay
ensued. The question of securing more ground
was discussed. In 1901 work was begun prepar-
atory to the erection of a larger building. The
Office was removed to the northwest corner of
Spring and Eighth streets. The demolition of
the old building was begun. An appropriation of
$150,000 had been secured for the enlargement of
the ground to Fifth street, but in the tedious
waiting for congress to act, real estate had ad-
vanced and it was discovered that the funds were
not nearly sufficient to purchase the needed
grounds. The demolition of the old building had
progressed so far as to render it unfit for use
and the unsightly ruins long remained to arouse
the curiosity of the tourist.
In 1905 a number of the public spirited citizens
of North Spring, North Main and contiguous
Streets raised, by subscription, sufficient funds to
purchase the Old Downey block, fronting on
North Main and Temple streets, and extending
through to New High street. This was sold to
the government for $1. The old historic building
was demolished. An appropriation of $800,000
had been secured. Plans were drawn and in May,
I906, bids were opened for the erection of a
five-story building. The lowest bid fell a little
below one million dollars.
The site at the corner of Main and Winston
Streets was sold in October, 1906, for $314,000.
The demolition of what remained of the first
postOffice building the government owned in Los
Angeles has been completed, and now, fifty-six
years after it was established, the Los Angeles
postoffice is still a homeless waif and liable to
again become a tramp. Nearly two years have
passed since the new site, corner of North Main
and Temple streets, was donated to the govern-
ment, but yet not a brick has been laid in the
building.
CHAPTER XLIX,
WATER SYSTEM
Fº: a hundred and twenty-five years, the
pueblo and its successor el ciudad (the
city) of Los Angeles has received its
water supply from the Los Angeles river, and its
chief tributary the Arroyo Seco. The source of
the river is on the Encino rancho, only twelve
miles above the city. For so short a river it is
truly remarkable the amount of water it supplies.
When the city's population numbered Io,000 there
were fears that the limit of the water supply had
been reached and that new Sources of supply
must be found or the city must cease to expand.
Now that the population approximates a quarter
of a million inhabitants there is still water enough
for all. There is a theory extant that the LCs
Angeles river is the outlet of a subterranean lake
or basin located in the San Fernando mountains.
OF LOS ANGELES.
The immense supply that so short a river affords
lends credence to this theory. In the present
year (1906) the first movement toward enlarg—
ing the water supply from distant sources was
inaugurated. This project is the bringing of
the waters of Owens river to Los Angeles, a dis-
tance of 200 miles.
Before entering upon the history of this proj;
ect a brief history of the water system of Los
Angeles since its founding down to the present
time will be of interest now, and more so in
years to come.
When the pueblo of Los Angeles was founded,
September 4, 1781, there were no settlements
above it on the river. Governor Felipe de Neve's
famous reglamento of 1779, approved by King
Carlos III of Spain in 1781, gave to the pueblos
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
339
of California the right to the waters of the rivers
on which they were located.
The first community work done by the pobla-
dores or founders of Los Angeles was the con-
struction of a water distributing system. Their
water system was a very primitive affair. It
consisted of a toma or dam made of brush and
poles placed in the river just above where the
Buena Vista street bridge now crosses it, and a
zanja or irrigating ditch to convey the water
from the river to their planting fields and to sup-
ply them with water for domestic purposes.
This ditch was known then and for a century
after as the “Zanja Madre,” or mother ditch. It
was constructed along the mesa at the foot hills on
the western side of the river above the cultivated
lands. It passed near the northeastern corner of
the old plaza, and from this point the colonists
took from it their household water supply.
As the population of the pueblo increased and
more land was brought under cultivation the
water system was enlarged by the construction
of new zanjas, but there was no attempt to con-
vey the water into the houses by pipes. In early
times the dam and the main zanja were kept in
repair by community labor, or rather by the labor
of the Indians owned or employed by the col-
onists; each land owner being required to fur-
nish his quota of Indian laborers. The work of
cleaning the main zanjas and keeping the tomas
in repair was usually done under the superin-
tendence of one of the regidores (councilmen),
each regidor taking his weekly turn as overseer
of the community work. Sometimes, when the
work was urgent and the laborers few, a raid was
made on the unemployed Indians around town,
who were forced for a time to carry the white
man's burden without recompense. It kept them
out of mischief. -
For several years after the American conquest
the old water distributing system was continued,
but it was not satisfactory to the new rulers.
Water for domestic use was taken from the zan-
jas in buckets and carried to the consumers by
Indians. Then some genius devised a system of
distributing from barrels rolled through the street
by horse power. Then water carts came into
use, and for ten years the waterman made his
daily rounds as the ice-man does now.
The first proposition to distribute water for
domestic purposes by means of pipes was made
by William G. Dryden to the council June 21,
I853. He asked for a twenty-years’ franchise
and a bonus of two leagues of land. His offer
was rejected. *
In 1854 the water system, both for domestic
use and irrigating, was made a special depart-
ment of the city and placed under the charge of
a Water OverSeer.
February 24, 1857, William G. Dryden was
granted a franchise by the city council to convey
“all and any water that may rise or can be col-
lected upon his lands in the northern part of the
city of Los Angeles,” over, under and through
the streets, lanes, alleys, and roads of LOS
Angeles City.” He was also granted the right
“to place on the main zanja a water wheel to
raise water by machinery to supply the city with
water.”
Under this system, a brick reservoir was built
in the center of the plaza. It was supplied by
pumps operated by a wheel in the zanja, near the
present junction of San Fernando and Alameda
streets. Later on the wheel and pump were
moved to the northeastern corner of Alameda
and Marchessault streets, where the water com-
pany’s office building now stands, and as before,
was propelled by the waters of the zanja. Iron
pipes were laid from this reservoir on the plaza
and water was distributed to a number of houses
along the principal streets. -
The city had extended its water system as its
means would allow; its revenue was small and
its needs great. So but very little had been ac-
complished in the fifteen years immediately fol-
lowing the American conquest toward building
up a system for distributing water for domestic
11Sé.
December 23, 1861, the city council ordered
the issuing of $15,000 of water scrip for the
completion of the “pipes, flumes and reservoir of
the new waterworks and the building of a brick
house near the dam for the zanjero.” Next day
it rained and it continued to do so for a month
*The Dryden Springs, so called, were located on what in
former times was a marshy tract of land, lying just southeast
of the San Fernando depot grounds, where, later on, the
Beaudry waterworks were located. In earlier times they were
known as the Abila Springs.
340
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
almost continuously. The dam in the river was
swept away, leaving the wheel which raised the
water into the flumes and zanjas high and dry;
With “water, water everywhere,” the inhabitants
had not a drop to drink except what they obtained
from the water carts.
The council petitioned the legislature to pass
an act authorizing the city to borrow $25,000 to
complete the waterworks. The work then in
course of construction consisted of a current
wheel placed in a zanja at the city dam, which by
means of buckets attached to the paddles, raised
the water into a flume which conveyed it to a
reservoir near the Catholic cemetery, from
whence it was conducted in wooden pipes to con-
Sumers. In August, 1862, the mayor and com-
mon council let a contract to Jean L. Sansevain
to build a dam, flume and other works for the
sum of $18,000. This dam was quite an elaborate
affair. Two rows of piles fifteen and eighteen
feet long and six feet apart were driven across
the river. These were planked with two-inch
plank seven feet below the river bed and the
interstices between the rows excavated and filled
with rock. The dam was designed to raise the
water seven feet above the river bed.
Municipal ownership of its water works proved
too great a burden for the city to bear, so it cast
about for some one on whom to unload it. Feb-
ruary 8, 1865, a lease of the public water works
of Los Angeles City, with all its flumes, pipes,
canals, reservoirs and appurtenances, with the
right to build reservoirs on vacant city lands,
distribute and sell water and collect water rates
from consumers, was made to David W. Alex-
ander for a term of four years, with the privi-
lege of continuing the lease six years after the
expiration of four years. Alexander was to pay
the city a rental of $1,000 a year, and at the ex-
piration of his lease to deliver up the works and
additions to the city free of all incumbrances or
debts. Alexander soon tired of carrying the city's
burden. August 7, 1865, he assigned his lease to
Jean L. Sansevain. October 16, 1865, the city
Imade a lease direct with Sansevain. Sansevain
extended the wooden pipes down as far as Third
street. The pipes were bored out of pine tree
trunks in the mountains back of San Bernardino
and were similar to the wooden pump Stocks once
in common use in the eastern states. Sansevain's
System was not a success. The pipes leaked and
burst with pressure and the streets were fre-
quently impassable by flooding from broken
pipes.
November 18, 1867, Sansevain entered into a
contract with the city to lay 5,000 feet of two and
three-inch iron pipe at a cost of about $6,000 in
Scrip, he to pay ten per cent per annum on the
cost of the pipe for its use; the city to accept its
own Scrip in payment.
The great flood of 1867-68 swept away the
dam, and again the city was without water.
Sansevain, discouraged by his repeated fail-
ures and losses, in February, 1868, transferred
his lease to J. S. Griffin, Prudent Beaudry and
Solomon Lazard. They completed his contract
with the city to lay iron pipe, and received their
pay in city water scrip. P. McFadden, who had
obtained the old Dryden water system, was a
competitor for the Sansevain lease, but failed
to secure it.
Griffin and his associates made a proposition
to the council to lease from the city the water
works for a period of fifty years on certain con-
ditions. These conditions and stipulations were
incorporated into an ordinance, but instead of
leasing, it was now proposed to sell the works
outright on the same conditions offered in the
proposed lease. These were as follows: Griffin
and his associates to pay to the city in gold coin
$1O,OOO in five yearly payments of $2,000 each ;
to surrender to the city $6,000 worth of war-
rants on the city water fund held by them; to
cancel $6,000 of claims against the city for re-
pairs; also to cancel a claim of $2,OOO for loss of
four months’ rental lost to them ; to build a reser–
voir at a cost of $15,000; to lay twelve miles of
iron pipe in the streets; to place a hydrant at one
corner of street crossings; to supply the public
buildings of the city with water free of cost; and
to construct an ornamental fountain on the Plaza
costing not less than $1,000. The whole ex-
penditure was estimated to aggregate $2O8,OOO.
Upon Griffin, Beaudry and Lazard, or their as-
signs, giving a bond of $50,000 for the per-
formance of these stipulations, the mayor was to
execute a quit-claim deed to them of the city
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
341
water works, pipes, flumes, etc., and a franchise
to take ten inches of water from the river.
The Griffin proposition was referred by the
council to a committee of three for examination.
The committee brought in a majority and minority
report. The minority report pronounced strongly
against the scheme. The majority advised its ac-
ceptance, and in its lengthy report dealt a back-
handed blow at municipal ownership. “Thirdly,
we do not believe it advisable or prudent for the
city to own property of this nature, as it is well
known by past experience that cities and towns
can never manage enterprises of that nature as
economically as individuals can ; and besides it is
a continual Source of annoyance and is made a
political hobby.”
When the ordinance came before the council
for adoption (June 1, 1868), the vote was a tie.
After some hesitation Murray Morrison, the
president, cast his vote in the affirmative, signed
the ordinance immediately and then resigned
from the council to take the position of judge of
the Seventeenth judicial district, to which he
had recently been appointed by the governor.
Mayor Aguilar vetoed the ordinance and saved
the city its water privileges. Aguilar has never
received the credit that he deserved for his ac-
tion.
Griffin and his associates then made a proposi-
tion to lease the works and franchise for a period
of thirty years, paying $1,500 a year and per-
forming the other conditions stipulated in the
former offer. John Jones offered $50,000 in
yearly installments of $1,000, or the whole in
twenty-five years for a lease. Juan Bernard and
P. McFadden, owners of the Dryden system, of—
fered $30,000 for a twenty years' lease, to begin
at the expiration of the Sansevain lease.
The water question became the all-absorbing
topic of discussion. Petitions and protests were
showered upon the council. A special election
was held on the 15th of June to choose two coun-
cilmen to fill vacancies in the city council. The
opponents of the Griffin scheme carried the
day.
At the meeting of the council July 20, Juan
Bernard and others presented a petition, pro-
posing to lease the city water works for twenty
years, paying therefor the sum of $2,000 a year,
and offering to perform the same specifications
as were contained in the Griffin proposition. J.
G. Howard, Esq., in behalf of himself and a
number of citizens and taxpayers, asked to be
heard on the Bernard proposition. He was curtly
informed by the president of the council, John
King, that he (King) did not wish to hear a
speech. Then C. E. Thom, Esq., on his own
behalf as a citizen, asked permission to be heard.
The chair ruled that they did not wish to hear
discussion from outsiders, whereupon Captain
Thom desired a solemn protest to be entered
against the ruling of the chair. The question
then arose upon a postponement of final action
upon the Griffin proposition. The vote was a
tie; the president cast the deciding vote in the
negative.
The question of the acceptance of the proposi-
tion of J. S. Griffin and his associates was put to
vote and carried—ayes, four; noes, two. The
ordinance was signed by the president of the
council and referred to the mayor, who approved
it on the 22nd of July, 1868. And thus the
specter of “municipal ownership of a public util-
ity,” that for two decades had haunted the coun-
cil chamber and affrighted the taxpayer, was
exorcised—adjured from evil for a generation
to come. The thirty years passed, and again the
specter arose from the mists of the past to worry
the people.
The city gained nothing financially by leasing
for thirty years. It was receiving from the as-
signs of Sansevain $1,500 a year rental on a lease
that had but little over six years to run. The
longtime lease did not increase this amount. With
the increase of population the water franchise
was growing more valuable every year. It is
difficult at this late day to discover the
motive that actuated a majority of the
council to force through a proposition that
was certainly not the best one offered. The most
charitable conclusion is that the water question
had become to the councilmen a “béte noir,” a
bugbear, and they were anxious to dispose of it
to the parties who would take it off their hands
for the longest time. One of the most active and
consistent opponents of the Griffin proposition
was Councilman A. A. Boyle, after whom Boyle
Heights is named. In the light of our present ex-
*
342
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
perience with the water company his protests
seem almost prophetic.
Shortly after obtaining the thirty years' lease,
Messrs. Griffin, Beaudry and Lazard transferred
it to an incorporation named The Los Angeles
City Water Company; the first trustees of which
were J. S. Griffin, P. Beaudry, S. Lazard, J. G.
Downey, A. J. King, Eugene Meyer and Charles
Lafoon.
Juan Bernard and P. McFadden, the owners
Of the Dryden franchise, made an attempt to con-
tinue the distribution of water. As they could
no longer use their reservoir on the plaza they
petitioned the city council for a reservoir site
on Fort Hill. The City Water Company pe-
titioned for a reservoir site in the same place. In
a protest to the city council, September 14, 1868,
against granting Juan Bernard and others a site
for a reservoir on Fort Hill, P. Beaudry, presi-
dent of the Los Angeles City Water Company,
uses this language: “That the water works of
which the undersigned are lessees is the prop-
erty of the city and will at the expiration of the
term of the present contract revert to the city
with the improvements made thereon by the un-
dersigned; that any aid extended by the city to
private companies tends to reduce the value of
property belonging to the city and is a direct
blow at her interests.”
In the same protest the president of the Los
Angeles City Water Company declares that
Juan Bernard's company “has no legal or equita-
ble rights to or upon said Plaza, but are now
trespassers thereon.” The City Water Company
finally secured the Bernard and McFadden water
works, including the brick reservoir on the
Plaza. With its rival out of business, the com-
pany was not nearly so anxious to build an orna-
mental fountain for the city. Two years passed
and no fountain played on the Plaza. The third
year was passing when, on December 2, 1870,
the late Judge Brunson, then attorney for the
water company, appeared before the council with
certain propositions looking to a settlement, as
he styled it, of “the much vexed question of the
reservoir and Plaza improvements,” to-wit:
“The water company will remove the reservoir
from the Plaza and convey all its rights in and
to the Plaza to the city of Los Angeles; will lay
it off in walks and ornamental grounds; will
erect on it an ornamental fountain at a cost not
to exceed $1,000, and will surrender to the city
all water scrip (about $3,000) now held by the
company; provided said city will reduce the rent
paid by the company to the city to $300 per an-
num.” As the contract required the company
to build a fountain, Some of the councilmen de-
murred to giving up $1,2OO for very little return.
Then Brunson threatened to bring suit against
the city to defend the company’s rights. The
council alarmed, hastened to compromise on the
basis of $400 a year, thus surrendering $1,100 a
year.
In 1872 P. Beaudry established a water system
for supplying the hills with water. Near the
crossing of College and Alameda streets, where
the Dryden springs were located, he excavated
a large basin and with a sixty horse power en-
gine running a pump with the capacity of 40,-
OOO gallons per hour, forced the water to an ele-
vation of 240 feet into two reservoirs located on
the hills northeast of the present site of the Sis-
ters’ hospital. From these it was distributed
Over the hill section of the city in iron pipes.
The Citizens' Water Company was organized
in 1886. It bought out the Beaudry and Rogers
systems. The latter was a system which ob-
tained water from the seepings of reservoir No.
4. The lease of the water from the Beaudry
springs expiring February 1, 1887, the works
were taken down and the Citizens’ Company ob-
tained its water after that date from the river
about four miles above the city. This system
was purchased by the Los Angeles City Water
Company in 1892.
The Canal and Reservoir Company was or—
ganized in 1868 with a capital stock of $2OO,OOO.
Its first officers were George Hansen, president;
J. W. Greensmith, treasurer, and J. J. Warner,
secretary. P. Beaudry was one of the largest
stockholders. This company contracted with the
city to build within three years a dam twenty
feet high across the cañon just below where
Echo Park is now located and to construct a ditch
down the cañon of the Arroyo de Los Reyes to
Pearl street, the object of which was to furnish
water to the hill portions of the city and supply
power for manufacturing. In 1873 a woolen
. HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
343
mill was built on this ditch and was operated for
twelve or fifteen years and was then converted
into an ice factory. The company received in
compensation for the construction of this sys-
tem a large body of city land, since known as the
canal and reservoir lands.
A CENTURY OF LITIGATION.
Almost from the beginning of the nineteenth
century the city at various times has been com-
pelled to engage in litigation to preserve her
water rights.
The first legal contest over water rights on
the Los Angeles river was begun in 1810. The
padres of San Fernando had caused a dam to be
constructed at Cahuenga, by which the waters of
the river were diverted from its channel. The
authorities of the pueblo protested, and appoint-
ed a committee to investigate. The committee
reported that the dam cut off the source of the
pueblo's water supply, thereby causing great
damage and suffering to the people of the town.
The padres denied the allegation, and set up a
claim to the water on the plea that the dam had
been used by a previous occupant of the land for
fourteen years. There were no lawyers in Cali-
fornia then, and the contestants fought their
legal battle to a finish among themselves. The
padres were finally compelled to concede the
justice of the pueblo's claim to the waters of the
river. They asked and were granted permission
to use enough water to irrigate a small tract of
land to supply the mission with corn. This was
granted with a definite understanding that,
should the settlers' water supply at any time run
short, the mission should cease to use the river
water. The agreement between the contestants
was signed March 26, 1810, and was approved
by Governor Arrellaga.
Time passes. Spain no longer controls the
destinies of California, but the missions, in the
language of a protest in the old archives, “still
maintain their proud old notions of being the
owners of all the natural products of forest and
field.”
The pueblo had won its suit for possession of
the waters of the river under the rule of
monarchical Spain, but it must again contend for’
g e wº te Q.
its right under republican Mexico.
In the proceedings of the most illustrious
ayuntamiento of Los Angeles, October 8, 1833,
is this entry: “The ayuntamiento of this town
finding it absolutely necessary to obtain by all
means possible the prosperity of our fellow citi-
zens residing in this community, so as to facili-
tate the greatest advantages to their interest; we
have been compelled to name an individual with
sufficient power from this body to defend with
all the power of the law the question arising be-
tween this corporation and the reverend father,
the teacher of the San Fernando Mission, with
reference to his claim on the lands called Cahu-
enga, where said father has built a house and
made other improvements (constructed a dam
in the river). Notwithstanding, the lands are
known as public lands. To that effect we name
citizen José Antonio Carrillo, on whom suffi-
cient power is conferred to prosecute, defend and
allege according to law before the proper trib-
unals the questions between the corporation of
this town and the reverend father of the mission
of San Fernando. Said Carrillo may refer to
this ayuntamiento at any time for all information
and documents. Unanimously ordered by this
corporation.”
Carrillo, who was at that time alcalde of Los
Angeles, and also a member of the territorial
legislature, although not a practicing lawyer, was
well versed in the law and one of the ablest men
of California. -
He won his case. The reverend father aband-
oned his claim to the Cahuenga, conceded the
claims of the ayuntamiento and allowed the wat-
ers of the river to flow to the pueblo. Two years
later the mission of San Fernando was secu-
larized. Then contention between the pueblo and
the mission fathers over the waters of the river
that had existed for more than a generation was
ended forever. In every contest the pobladores
of the pueblo had won.
The mission property passed into the hands of
an agent or commissioner of the government, and
he, too, like his predecessors of San Fernando,
had to learn that the river waters belonged to the
pueblo, or city, as it had now become. In the
session of the ayuntamiento of April 7, 1836, the
president said “that the party in charge of San
Fernando Mission was damming the water of the
344
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD,
river at Cahuenga,” as he had been informed by
a commission he had appointed to investigate.
“The damming of the city's river water was re-
ducing the supply in the public reservoir and
causing, injury to this vicinity.” He said that
he acquainted the ayuntamiento of these facts,
“So that it might take measures to protect the
interests of the community.” The city attorney
and Regioor Lugo were appointed a committee
to defend the city's rights.
At the next session “the city attorney, as one
of the committee appointed to investigate the
damming of one of the branches of the river by
the man in charge of the ex-mission of San
I'ernando, gave as his opinion that there was
sufficient water in the ‘city's river’ to supply the
main zanja and the private zanjas;” but, he said,
furthermore, “that the man in charge of San
Fernando had promised him in case said dam
should break and damage the city reservoir that
he (the man) would repair the same at his own
expense, and if the supply of water should at
any time fall short in the river he would break
said dam that he had constructed and allow all
the water to flow into the river.” Thus we see
in the early days of the pueblo the authorities
guarded with jealous care the pueblo's water
rights. There was no dallying with adverse
claimants; no allowing of cases to go by default;
no jeopardizing the city's rights by criminal de-
lay. The old regidores might be “poco tiempo”
in some things, but when the city's water rights
were in danger they were prompt to act.
Nor did they guard their claim to the waters
of the river alone. The royal reglamento gave
the pueblo the right to the waters of the springs
as well as to the river.
In the city archives is a parallel case to the
Crystal Springs controversy. It is the “Aguage
de los Abilas,” the spring of the Abilas. During
the great flood of 1815 the river cut a new chan-
nel for itself along the edge of the mesa on the
western side of the valley. It left its old channel
at the point of the hills and flowed down the
valley very nearly on what is now the line of San
Fernando and Alameda streets. It subsequently
returned to its old channel on the eastern side of
its valley. For many years after, along the base
of the hills where the San Fernando depot
f
grounds now are, and below that where the
Beaudry waterworks were formerly located, there
were springs formed by the percolation of the
water through the old river channel. Along about
1826 or ’27, Francisco Abila was allowed to use
the waters of the largest of these springs for irri-
gation.
In 1833 his widow, Señora Encarnacion Sepul-
veda, applied for a land grant and the exclusive
possession of this spring on the plea of having
had the exclusive use of the spring for a long
time. The case was argued in the ayuntamiento,
and that august body promptly decided it against
her. While its decision is not couched in the
legal verbiage of a supreme court decision, it
nevertheless abounds in good sense and good law
points.
This is the decision: “The illustrious ayun-
tamiento decided that the spring in question
should be held for the benefit of the public, who
would be injured if this spring belonged to a pri-
vate individual. Furthermore, this illustrious
ayuntamiento is informed that the immediate
neighborhood is in need of the water from that
spring. In this particular, Capt. Don José
Noriega, who granted said Abila the use of this
spring, decreed as follows: ‘The said water
springs are hereby granted to Abila in case the
public does not desire to use its waters.'
“This ayuntamiento also takes into considera–
tion that when said spring was granted to the
late Francisco Abila, the number of residents in
this city was not as large as now. Also at that
time said Abila possessed a small orchard, which
he irrigated with the waters of this spring, but at
present he does not possess any lands; and there
is nothing to irrigate on his former place. Señora
Encarnacion Sepulveda has no more right to the
waters of this spring than any other resident, it
being community property. She as well as the
rest of the community shall apply to the alcalde
for a permit at any time they may need to use
the water of said spring.”
It was ordered that this decision be published
as an ordinance of the city. -
During the sixty-six years that Los Angeles
was under Spanish and Mexican domination, no
cloud was allowed to rest on the water rights of
the pueblo &r of its successor, the ciudad, but
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
345
during the years of American rule clouds have
shadowed it, nor have they rolled by. I have
space in this only to briefly glance at a few of the
legal contests which the city has fought over its
water rights of late years.
In 1873 the city of Los Angeles brought suit
against Leon Mc L. Baldwin to quiet its title
to two irrigation heads of water that said Bald-
win and others were appropriating and claiming
to own. These heads were taken from the river
and used on Los Feliz rancho. The court held
that, so far as appears from the evidence, the
city is not the owner of the “corpus” of the
water of the river. By reason of this decision
and failure to prosecute a former action brought
against the same parties, the city in 1884 paid
$50,000 to buy back these two irrigation heads of
water and some other privileges lost by default.
A suit was brought by Anastacio Feliz against
the city of Los Angeles for cutting off the water
of the river from the plaintiff’s ditch. In this
case the court found that ever since the founda-
tion of the pueblo in 1781, the pueblo or its suc-
cessor, the city, had claimed the exclusive right
to use all the waters of the Los Angeles river,
and said right had been recognized and allowed
by owners of the land at the source and border-
ing on said river.
The judge of the lower court (McNealy)
granted a perpetual injunction, enjoining the city
from depriving the plaintiff Feliz of sufficient
river water for irrigation and domestic use. The
supreme court set aside the injunction and re-
versed the judgment of the lower court. The
supreme court, however, held in its decision, that
if there was a surplus in the river over and above
the needs of the lands situated within the city
limits, that surplus might be appropriated by
riparian owners above the city, but that the city
could not sell water to parties outside of its
limits to the detriment of riparian owners above
it. This decision was rendered before our mu-
nicipal expansion began.
The last important legal battle which the city
has fought to a finish is the Pomeroy-Hooker
case, entitled “The City of Los Angeles, respond-
ent, vs. A. E. Pomeroy and J. D. Hooker, ap-
pellants,” decided by the supreme court June,
1899. It was begun in one of the superior courts
of Los Angeles in 1893 and carried to the su-
preme court of the state.
It was a suit to condemn a tract of about 315
acres of land lying near the base of the Cahuenga
range, and extending along the river nearly two
miles in length by half a mile in width.
Being at a point where the Verdugo hills come
nearest the Cahuenga range and thus narrow the
river valley, the land was needed by the city for
beadworks. The city and the owners could not
agree on the price, the Owners asking a high
price on account of the percolating waters from
the river, which waters they claimed the right
to sell. The city began a suit of condemnation
and gained it. The defendants appealed from
the decree of condemnation and from the order
overruling their motion for a new trial. The
supreme court, in a lengthy decision, sustained
the rulings of the lower court.
When the thirty years' contract with the as-
signs of Messrs. Griffin, Beaudry and Lazard ex-
pired July 22, 1898, a number of schemes were
broached by which the city could get possession
of the water works. None of these resulted in
anything more than talk and some long-winded
resolutions for political effect.
The question of the value of the water com-
pany’s plant was submitted to arbitration, as
provided for in the original contract. The city
council chose James C. Kays and the water com-
pany Charles T. Healy. After considerable
time spent in collecting data and discussing val-
ues, these two arbitrators, being unable to agree,
chose for the third Col. George H. Mendell. On
the 12th of May, 1899, James C. Kays and
George H. Mendell made an award fixing the
value of the Los Angeles City Water Company’s
property at $1,183,591.42. From this award
Charles T. Healy dissented.
August 23, 1899, an election was held to au-
thorize the issuing of city bonds to the amount
of $2,090,000; $2,000,000 of this amount was to
pay the City Water Company for its pipes, reser-
voirs and water works and the remainder to be
used in the construction of head works, the build-
ing of reservoirs, pipe lines, etc. The bond is-
sue carried seven to one.
The water system, or rather the pipes, reser-
voirs and water works, of the Los Angeles City
346
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Water Company were transferred to the munici-
pality on payment of the agreed price. A board
of five water commissioners was appointed from
among leading business men to manage the
water system of the city. A reduction of ten per
cent was made in the water rates. The rapid
growth of the city for the past five years has
made its water system a valuable source of rev-
enue. In 1904, three years after the city ac-
quired the system, it paid all operating and main-
tenance expenses, provided interest and sinking
funds for the bonds and for extending the plant.
In addition to all these it netted to the city a
profit of $640,000.
The securing of the control of its water sys-
tem did not put an end to litigation. A number
of suits were begun by different land holders
living contiguous to the river above the city.
These were fought out in the state courts and
the city in almost every instance won. One of
these cases, brought in the Superior court of
Los Angeles, Judge Gibbs decided against the
ranchers and enjoined one hundred and sixty of
them from pumping water from the underflow
of the Los Angeles river when the city needed
the water. Robert Devine and 240 other prop-
erty owners residents along the Los Angeles riv-
er for a distance of six to eight miles north of
the city, and a mile and a half back from the
stream, banded together and brought Suit in the
federal courts at Los Angeles to test the city's
claims. Judge Wellborn decided against them.
The case was carried to the supreme court of
the United States. On the 14th of May, IQ06,
that court handed down a decision that the city
of Los Angeles controls the waters of the Los
Angeles river. By this decision the ranchers
are deprived of the right to use the waters of the
river except as the city sees fit to grant them
that privilege.
THF OWENS RIVER PROJECT.
For a number of years before the lease of the
city water system had expired the necessity
for a more abundant supply than could possibly
be obtained from the Los Angeles river had
been discussed. The waters of the other Southern
California rivers had all been appropriated for
irrigation and it was impossible to obtain water
rights in any of them without purchasing all the
irrigable land contiguous to these rivers.
Such a course would not only have destroyed
highly cultivated districts where land was worth
from $500 to $1,000 per acre, but would have
deprived many of the minor towns of their
water supply. It became necessary to go beyond
Southern California for water. For several
years past the board of water commissioners had
been quietly investigating other sources of water
supply than those now accessible to the city.
To Fred Eaton, an ex-city engineer and ex-
mayor of Los Angeles, belongs the credit of
originating the scheme of bringing water from
Owens river to Los Angeles city. This river
drains the east side of the Sierra Nevada mount-
ains for a distance of IOO miles. While the
region through which it passes is a “land of lit-
tle rain” the melting snows from Mt. Whitney,
Mt. Dana and other high mountain peaks give
an abundant supply of water to that river.
The distance from Los Angeles to Owens
river is about two hundred miles. The work of
bringing a copious supply of pure mountain
water that distance through a massive cement
conduit across deserts and over mountains will
be one of the most notable projects ever under-
taken by a city for the purpose of procuring a
water system. Eaton procured an- option on a
number of farms with their irrigating canals con-
tiguous to the river. The people of Inyo county,
through which the greater portion of the river
flows, opposed the scheme, but the Owners of
the land had an undoubted right to sell it and
the water, which was an appurtenance of the
land, went with it. In August, 1905, a bond is-
sue for $1,500,000 was voted by the people of
Los Angeles to make the first payment on land
purchased. A bill was introduced into congress
and passed the senate and house to give Los An-
geles the right of way over government land for
conduits and tunnels.
It is estimated that it will involve an expendi-
ture of twenty-three million dollars to construct
a concrete conduit 210 miles in length with an
internal diameter of not less than fifteen feet.
The whole scheme is in the incipient stages and
it is impossible to predict the outcome.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
347
CHAPTER L.
Pioneer CHURCHES OF LOS ANGELES CITY,
(NOTE. The churches of Los Angeles have become
So numerous that it is impossible in the limits allowed
me to give a history of each. Only the history of the
pioneer church organization of each denomination repre-
sented in the city is given. It is to be regretted that so
many of the churches have failed to preserve their early
records. I have failed to find from their archives any
clear and connected account of the early history of some
of the Protestant churches. The history of the first
churches given in this chapter has been compiled mainly
from items and notices found in files of the old Los
Angeles Star.)
THE FIRST CHURCH.
HE first church or chapel built in Los
T Angeles stood at the foot of the hill near
what is now the southeast corner of Buena
Vista street and Bellevue avenue. It was an
adobe structure about 18x24 feet in size, and
was completed in 1784. In 181 I the citizens
obtained permission to built a new church—the
primitive chapel had become too small to ac-
commodate the increasing population of the
pueblo and its vicinity. -
The corner stone of the new church was laid
and blessed August 15, 1814, by Father Gil, of
the Mission San Gabriel. Just where it was
placed is uncertain. It is probable that it was
on the eastern side of the old Plaza. In 1818
it was moved to higher ground—its present site.
The great flood of 1815, when the waters of the
river came up to the lower side of the old Plaza,
probably necessitated the change. When the
foundation was laid a second time the citizens
subscribed 500 cattle. In 1819 the friars of the
San Gabriel Mission contributed seven barrels
of brandy to the building fund worth $575. This
donation, with the previous contribution of cat-
tle, was sufficient to raise the walls to the window.
arches by 1821.* There it came to a full stop.
The Pueblo colonists were poor in purse and
chary of exertion. They were more willing to
wait than to labor. Indeed, they seem to have
performed but little of the labor. The neophytes
of San Gabriel and San Luis Rey did the most
*Bancroft’s History of California, Vol. I.
of the work and were paid a real (twelve and
a half cents) a day each, the missions getting
the money. José Antonio Ramerez was the
architect. When the colonists’ means were ex-
hausted the missions were appealed to for aid.
They responded to the appeal. The contribu-
tions to the building fund were various in kind
and Somewhat incongruous in character. The
Missions San Miguel contributed 500 cattle, San
Luis Obispo 200, Santa Barbara one barrel of
brandy, San Diego two barrels of white wine,
Purisima six mules and 200 cattle, San Gabriel
two barrels of brandy and San Fernando one.
Work was begun again on the church and pushed
to completion. A house for the curate was also
built. It was an adobe structure and stood near
the northwest corner of the church. The church
was completed and formally dedicated December
8, 1822—eight years after the laying of the
first corher stone.
Captain de La Guerra was chosen by the ayun-
tamiento, padrino or godfather. San Gabriel
Mission loaned a bell for the occasion. The fiesta
of Our Lady of the Angels had been postponed
So that the dedication and the celebration could
be held at the same time. Cannon boomed on
the Plaza and salvos of musketry intoned the
services.
The present building and its surroundings bear
but little resemblance to the Nueva Iglesia (new
church) that Padre Payeras labored so earnest-
ly to complete eighty-five years ago. It then had
no floor but the beaten earth and no seats. The
worshipers sat or knelt on the bare ground or on
cushions they brought with them. There was no
distinction between the poor and the rich at.first,
but as time passed and the Indians degenerated
_or the citizens became more aristocratic, a petition
was presented to the ayuntamiento to provide a
separate place of worship for the Indians. If
the Indian's presence in church was undesirable
on account of his filthy habits, still he was useful
348
HISTORICAI, AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
as a church builder. At the session of the ayun-
tamiento June 19, 1839, the president stated,
“that he had been informed by José M. Navarro,
who serves as sexton, that the baptistery of the
church is almost in ruins on account of a leaking
roof. It was ordered that Sunday next the al-
caldes of the Indians shall meet and bring to-
gether the Indians without a boss, so that no one
will be inconvenienced by the loss of labor of his
Indians and place them to work thereon, using
Some posts and brea now at the guardhouse, the
regidor (or councilman) on weekly duty to have
charge of the work.” Extensive repairs were
made on the church in 1841-42. In the sindico's
account book is this entry: “Guillermo (Will-
iam) Money owes the city funds out of the labor
of the prisoners, loaned him for the church, $126.”
As the prisoners’ labor was valued at a real
(twelve and a half cents) a day it must have re-
Quired considerable repairing to amount to $126.
In 1861 the church building was remodeled,
the “faithful of the parish” bearing the expense.
The front wall, which had been damaged by the
rains, was taken down and rebuilt of brick in-
stead of adobe. The flat brea-covered roof was
changed to a shingled one and the tower altered.
The grounds were inclosed and planted with
trees and flowers. The old adobe parish house
built in 1822, with the additions made to it, later
was torn down and the present brick structure
erected. The church has a seating capacity of
500. It is the oldest parish church on the Pacific
coast of the United States; and is the only build-
ing now in use that was built in the Spanish era
of our city’s history.
THE CATHEDRAIL OF ST. VIBIANA.
The cornerstone of the Cathedral of St. Vibiana
was laid by the Right Rev. Bishop Amat, Oc-
tober 3, 1869. “There was,” says the Star, “an
immense concourse of citizens present, both ladies
and gentlemen, all desirous to witness the inter-
esting ceremonies. It was the largest assemblage
drawn together here and must have amounted
to nearly 3,000 persons.” The cathedral is to be
cruciform, I 16 feet wide, 266 feet long, the tran-
sept or cross 168 feet. The estimated cost $100,-
OOO.”
The first site chosen for the cathedral and the
place where the cornerstone was laid October 3,
1869, was on the west side of Main street be-
tween Fifth and Sixth, extending through to
Spring street. This location was well out of town
then. In 1871 the site was changed to the pres-
ent location of the cathedral, east side of Main,
just South of Second street. The edifice was
opened for service Palm Sunday, April 9, 1876,
but the formal dedication took place April 30,
and was conducted by Bishop Alemany.
METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCHES.
The first Protestant sermon ever preached in
Los Angeles was delivered by a Methodist min-
ister, Rev. J. W. Brier. The place of service was
the adobe residence of J. G. Nichols, which stood
on the present site of the Bullard block, and the
time a Sunday in June, 1850. Mr. Brier was one
of the belated immigrants of 1849, who reached
Salt Lake City too late in the season to cross the
Sierra Nevadas before the snowfall. A party of
these numbering 500 under the leadership of Jef-
ferson Hunt, a Mormon, started by the then al-
most unknown southern route to Los Angeles.
After traveling together for several weeks, a
number of the immigrants became dissatisfied,
and leaving the main body undertook to reach
the settlements on the sea coast by crossing the
desert in the neighborhood of Death Valley. Mr.
Brier was of this party. Many of these unfor-
tunates perished on the desert. After almost in-
credible hardships and suffering Mr. Brier, with
lmis wife and three children, reached Los Angeles
in February, 1850, by way of the Soledad canon.
He remained here for several months and then
went north.
Early in 1853 Rev. Adam Bland was sent by
the California Conference to Los Angeles as a
missionary. His field was Southern California.
He rented or leased for a church a frame build-
ing which had formerly been used for a saloon.
This building stood on the present site of the
Merced theatre or Abbot block. Here he held
regular services twice every Sunday from 1853
to 1855, when he was made presiding elder. Mrs.
Bland taught a girls’ school in the building in
1853, which was known as the Methodist Chapel.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
349
The other pastors who either assisted him while,
in charge of the church or succeeded him were
Revs. J. Dunlap, J. McHenry Colwell and W. R.
Peck. In October, 1857, Elijah Mearchant took
charge, succeeding Rev. A. L. S. Bateman.
In the Weekly Star of March 1, 1855, I find
this item : “Rev. Mr. Colwell informs us that a
contract has been made with Messrs. Loyd &
Sons to build a brick church in this city next
summer. The size is to be 40x24 feet. The ma-
terials are to be of the best and the style the most
modern. The property is to belong to the Meth-
Odist Episcopal Church. The entire cost is pro-
vided for except $500.” The church was not
built. After 1858 the field seems to have been
abandoned. There is no record of any other
Methodist minister being stationed here until
1866, when Rev. C. Gillet came as a missionary.
He was succeeded by A. P. Hernden in 1867.
Rev. A. P. Coplin had charge in 1868 and Rev.
A. M. Hough in 1869-70.
The first church built by the Methodist denom-
ination in Los Angeles was on the west side of
Broadway, between Third and Fourth streets. It
was dedicated November 15, 1868. The follow-
ing extract from the Weekly Star gives an ac-
count of the dedication and cost of the building.
“The services of dedication of the new Methodist
Church in this city took place on Sunday morn-
ing last, November 15. Rev. Dr. Thomas of San
Francisco preached the dedicating sermon. Rev.
A. Bland assisted on the occasion. There was
a large attendance and a subscription of $750 was
taken up, leaving as a debt on the congregation
$1,000. The lot and building cost $3,150, of
which $1,400 have been paid.” In 1875 a second
church edifice was erected on the south 70 feet of
the lot on which the first building was built. The
second building cost $18,OOO. In 1887 it was
enlarged and improved at an expense of $14,000.
The conversion of Fort street, now changed to
Broadway, to a business street necessitated the
change of the church's location. The lot was
sold in July, 1899, for $68,OOO. The last sermon
was preached in it August 20, 1800. The con-
gregation of the First Methodist Church, for-
merly the Fort street, completed in 1900 a hand-
some building on the northeast corner of Hill
and Sixth streets.
METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCHES (SOUTH).
The first permanent organization of this de-
nomination was effected in 1873. A lot was pur-
chased on the east side of Spring street, between
First and Second streets, where the Corfu block
now stands. On this was erected the original
Trinity Church, under the pastorate of the Rev.
A. M. Campbell. This church was sold in 1884
and a larger lot purchased on Broadway, between
Fifth and Sixth streets. On this, in 1885, a
building costing about $40,000 was erected. This
lot was sold in 1894 at a handsome profit and the
present building on Grand avenue near Eighth
street built.
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES.
As pioneers in the missionary field of Los
Angeles, the Methodists came first and the
Presbyterians second. The Rev. James Woods
held the first Presbyterian service in November,
1854, in a little carpenter shop that stood on part
of the site now occupied by the Pico house. The
first organization of a Presbyterian church was
effected in March, 1855, with twelve members.
The Rev. Woods held regular Sunday services in
the old Court House, northwest corner of North
Spring and Franklin streets, during the fall of
1854 and part of the year 1855. He organized a
church and also a Sunday school. He was suc-
ceeded by the Rev. T. N. Davis, who continued
regular services until August, 1856, when he
abandoned the field in disgust and returned to
his home in the east.
The editor of the Los Angeles Star, comment-
ing on his departure and on the moral destitution
of the city says: “The Protestant portion of the
American population are now without the privi-
lege of assembling together to worship God under
direction of one of his ministers.”
“The state of society here is truly deplorable.”
* * * * “To preach week after week to
empty benches is certainly not encouraging, but
if in addition to that a minister has to contend
against a torrent of vice and immorality which
obliterates all traces of the Christian Sabbath—
to be compelled to endure blasphemous denuncia-
tions of his Divine Master; to live where SOciety
is disorganized, religion scoffed at, where violence
runs riot, and even life itself is unsafe—such a
350
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
condition of affairs may suit some men, but it is
not calculated for the peaceful labors of one who
follows unobtrusively the footsteps of the meek
and lowly Savior.”
After the departure of the Rev. Davis in 1856,
and the discontinuance of Methodist and Epis-
copal services in the latter part of 1857 a season
of spiritual darkness seems to have enshrouded
Los Angeles. There was, as far as I can learn,
no Protestant service in Los Angeles during the
year 1858.
The next Presbyterian minister to locate in
Los Angeles was the Rev. William E. Board-
man. He and his wife arrived February 6, 1859.
He preached his first sermon February 26, in
School House No. 2, located on Bath street north
of the Plaza. He reorganized the Sunday school.
It had become clearly evident to the few
church-going people resident in the city that dif-
ferent denominational church services could not
be maintained in it. The question of uniting the
representatives of the different Protestant
churches into one organization was agitated. A
call for all such was made. The Los Angeles
Star of May 7, 1859, contains the following re-
port of that meeting.
FIRST PROTESTANT SOCIETY.
At a meeting held for the purpose of organiz-
ing an Association for maintaining Protestant
worship in the City of Los Angeles, the Rev. W.
E. Boardman was called to the chair, and Will-
iam H. Shore appointed Secretary—and the fol-
lowing preamble and Constitution were unani-
mously adopted :
First Protestant Society of the City of Los An-
geles, California.
Desirous of securing for ourselves and others
in our city, the privileges of Divine Worship ac-
cording to the Protestant order; and in the ab-
sence of a regularly organized Protestant
Church, seeing the necessity for some other as-
sociation which can authorize the collection and
disbursement of money and the transaction of
such other business as will necessarily arise, we,
who hereunto affix our names, have agreed to
unite in a society for the purpose of Supporting
Protestant Worship here, and do adopt for our
organization and government the following:
CONSTITUTION.
Article I. Our style and title shall be “The
First Protestant Society of the City of Los An-
geles.”
2nd. Our officers shall be, a Board of Trus-
tees, five in number, three of whom shall con-
stitute a quorum, to be elected annually, and re-
port at the end of each year. One of their own
number shall be selected by themselves to be the
President of the Society, and another as Secre-
tary and Treasurer.
3rd. An annual meeting duly called and pub-
licly notified by the Board, shall be held on the
first Wednesday of May in each year, or if that
day shall be allowed to pass without a meeting,
then, as SOon after as notice can be duly given,
for the purpose of hearing the annual report of
the Board and holding the annual election. Any
vacancy occurring in the Board during the year
may be filled ad interim by the selection of some
one by the Board itself.
4th. Money may be collected for the society
by such persons only as the Board shall appoint.
And the Treasurer may pay out money for the
society only upon the written order of the Board,
signed by the President. w
5th. The condition of membership in the so-
ciety is simply the signing of this constitution.
And the duty of each member shall be, to aid
in all suitable ways in securing the present
maintenance and permanent establishment and
successful progress of Protestant Worship in this
city,
Adopted this fourth day of May, A. D. 1859.
ISAAC S. K. OGIER, D. McLAREN,
WM. McKEE, THOS. FoSTER,
A. J. KING, WM. H. SHORE,
C. SIMs, N. A. POTTER,
CHARLEs S. ADAMS,
WM. S. MORROW,
The constitution having been signed by those
present, the Society proceeded to nominate and
elect their officers for the ensuing year, where-
upon the Hon. I. S. K. Ogier, Hon. B. D. Wil-
son, J. R. Gitchell, N. A. Potter and Wm. Mc-
Kee, were unanimously chosen trustees. On
motion it was
Resolved, That the proceedings of this meeting
be published in the newspapers of this city.
On motion, the Society adjourned.
W. E. BOARDMAN, Chairman.
WM. H. SHORE, Secretary.
J. R. GITCHELL.
J. R. Gitchell, William McKee and H. D. Bar-
rows were appointed collectors to obtain funds
for the benefit of the society. The organization
was composed of members of different Protestant
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
351
denominations and of those who did not belong
to any. The Rev. Boardman continued to preach
for the society up to the time of his departure,
April, 1862. The services were held at first in
the school house and later in the court house.
A lot was secured at the southwest corner of
Temple and New High streets, where the stone
steps lead up to the court house, and the erection
of a brick church begun. The work progressed
slowly. When Mr. Boardman left, early in 1862,
the walls were up and the roof on, but the build-
ing was not fit for occupancy. After the de-
parture of Mr. Boardman another season of
“spiritual darkness” settled down on the city.
The Civil war was in progress and Sectional
hatreds were bitter. During 1863 and 1864
there was no regular Protestant service.
In 1864 the unfinished church was advertised
for sale on account of delinquent taxes.
wanted a half built church when the sheriff was
offering a rancho of 1,200 acres for $4 unpaid
taxes. º
The next Presbyterian minister to locate in
Los Angeles was the Rev. W. C. Harding, who
came in 1869. He abandoned the field in 1871.
The Rev. F. A. White, LL.D., came in 1875. He
was succeeded by the Rev. F. M. Cunningham,
and he by the Rev. J. W. Ellis. Under the min-
istry of Mr. Ellis in 1882-83 a church was erected
on the southeast corner of Broadway and Second
streets. The building and lot cost about $2O,OOO.
Services were held in it until March, 1895, when
it was sold for $55,000. The congregation di-
vided into two organizations. The First Presby-
terian and the Central Presbyterian. The First
Presbyterian built a church on Figueroa and
Twentieth streets. The Central Presbyterian Se-
cured a site on the east side of Hill street be-
tween Second and Third street with a dwelling
house upon it which they have enlarged and re-
modeled and use for a church.
PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCHES.
The first Protestant Episcopal Church service
held in Los Angeles was conducted by Dr.
Mathew Carter. An item in the Weekly Star of
May 9, 1857, states that “Dr. Carter announces
that he has been licensed and authorized by the
Right Rev. W. Ingraham Kip, Bishop of Cali-
Nobody
fornia, to act as lay reader for the Southern Dis-
trict.” He held regular service for a time in
Mechanics’ Institute hall, which was in a sheet-
iron building near the corner of Court and North
Spring streets. In October, 1857, St. Luke's
parish was organized, and the following named
gentlemen elected a board of trustees: Dr. T. J.
White, Dr. Mathew Carter and William Shore.
A building was rented on Main street, near Sec-
ond, where services were held every Sunday, Dr.
Carter officiating. Services seem to have been
discontinued about the close of the year 1857,
and the church was dissolved. Qn January I,
1865, the Rev. Elias Birdsall, a missionary of the
Protestant Episcopal Church, preached his first
sermon in Odd Fellows’ hall, Downey block. The
Protestant society which had begun the erection
of a church building in 1859 under the ministra-
tion of Rev. William E. Boardman, a Presby-
terian minister, as has been previously stated,
offered the unfinished building to the Rev. Bird-
sall for services. He assented to this on con-
dition that it be transferred to the Episcopalians.
Those who had contributed toward its erection
consented, and the transfer was made. The
edifice was completed and named St. Athanasius
Church, and the Episcopalians continued to wor-
ship in this building until Christmas, 1883; in
the meantime the property was sold to the county
for a court house site. A site for a new church
was purchased on Olive street, between Fifth
and Sixth streets, where a handsome building
was erected. In 1884 the name of the organiza-
tion was changed to St. Paul's Church, the name
it still bears.
CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES.
The first Congregational minister to locate in
Los Angeles was the Rev. Alexander Parker, a
Scotchman by birth and a graduate of Oberlin
College and Theological Seminary. He had
served in the Union army as a member of the
famous student company of Oberlin College—a
company whose membership was largely made
up of theological students.
He preached his first sermon here July 7, 1866,
in the court house. A church was organized
July 21, 1867, with six members. A lot was
purchased on New High street, north of Tem-
352
HISTORICAL AND BTOGRAPHICAT, RECORD.
ple, where the Beaudry stone wall now stands
and a movement begun to raise funds to build
a church. The effort was successful. The fol-
lowing extract from the Los Angeles Star gives
an account of the dedication of the church :
“On Sunday morning last (June 28, 1868), the
new Congregational Church was opened for di-
vine service at 11 A. M. *
“The Rev. E. C. Bissell, pastor of Green
Street Church, San Francisco, delivered the
dedicatory sermon. At the close of the sermon
the Rev. Alexander Parker came forward and
gave an account of his stewardship in his exer-
tions to raise this house for the worship of God.
The total cost was about $3,000, of which $1,000
was obtained from San Francisco; $1,000 partly
as a loan and partly as a gift from churches in
the Atlantic states, and collections of small
..amounts at home, leaving at present a debt of
about $400 on the building, which, though com-
plete, is not yet quite furnished. The house is
Small, but very neatly arranged; the pews are
ample and confortable, and the building is lofty
and well ventilated. Its dimensions are 30x50
feet; it will seat I75 to 200 persons.”
Rev. Parker resigned in August, 1868. He
was succeeded by the Rev. Isaac W. Atherton,
who reorganized the church November 29, 1868.
Services were held in the little church on New
High street until 1883, when, on May 3d of
that year, the church on the corner of Hill and
Third streets was completed and dedicated. The
building lot and organ cost about $25,000. In
May, 1888, this building was sold to the Cen-
tral Baptist Church, and a lot purchased on the
Southwest corner of Hill and Sixth street. On
this a building was erected in 1889. The cost
of the lot, church building and furnishing
amounted to about $72,OOO, to which was added
a fine organ, at a cost of about $5,000. This
church property was sold in 1902 for $77,000,
and a new site purchased on Hope Street near
the corner of Ninth, where a beautiful brick and
stone church costing $100,000 was completed
in July, IQO3.
BAPTIST CII URCHES.
The first sermon preached by a Baptist min-
ister in Los Angeles was delivered by Rev. Free-
1man in 1853.
The first regular church services held in this
city by a Baptist minister were conducted by
the Rev. Fryer in school house No. 1, which
stood on the northwest corner of Spring and
Second street. The Rev. Fryer held services ev-
ery Sunday during the year 1860. He seems to
have abandoned the field in the early part of
1861. I find no record of any services by a min-
ister of that church between 1861 and 1874.
The First Baptist Church of Los Angeles was
organized September 6, 1874, by Rev. William
Hobbs. There were but eight members in the
organization. The services were held in the old
court house. Dr. Hobbs severed his connection
with the church in June, 1857. For fifteen
months the church was without a pastor. In
September, 1876, Rev. Winfield Scott took charge
of it. He was succeeded in 1878 by the Rev. I.
N. Parker, and he by Rev. Henry Angel, who
died in 1879. #
The church meetings were transferred from
the court house to a hall owned by Dr. Zahn, on
Spring street between Fourth and Fifth streets.
From there it moved to Good Templars’ hall on
North Main street. The ordinance of baptism
was administered either in the river or in the
baptistery of the Christian Church on Temple
Street.
For two years after the death of Dr. Angel
the church remained without a regular minister.
In 1881 Rev. P. W. Dorsey took charge of it.
A lot was secured on the northeast corner of
Broadway and Sixth streets, and in March, 1884,
a church building was completed and dedicated.
The building and lots cost about $25,000. In
the summer of 1897 the lot and building were
sold for $45,000, and with the addition of $5,000
raised by subscription a larger and more com-
modious building was erected on Flower street,
between Seventh and Eighth streets.
CHRISTIAN CHURCHES.
The first sermon preached by a member of the
Christian denomination was delivered by Rev.
G. W. Linton in August, 1874, in the court room
of the old court house. In October and Novem-
ber of that year inquiries were made in the city
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
353
for persons who had been connected with the
church in other places. Twenty-three were
found. Of these fifteen signified their willing-
ness to unite in forming a church. On the 26th
of February, 1875, the first church was organ-
ized. Rev. W. J. A. Smith was the first preach-
er. He conducted church services from 1875 to
1877. He was succeeded by Rev. John C. Hay,
who served as pastor from 1877 to 1881. The
Rev. B. F. Coulter filled the pulpit from 1881 to
1884. During his ministry, and largely through
his contributions, the First Church was built on
Temple street near Broadway, where the Aber-
deen lodging house now stands. Services were
held in this building until 1894, when it was sold
and a church edifice erected on the corner of
Hope and Eleventh streets at a cost of $25,000,
with Rev. A. C. Smithers, as pastor. In 1895
the Rev. B. F. Coulter erected the Broadway
Church of Christ on Broadway near Temple, at
a cost of about $2O,OOO. He conducts the Serv-
ice in this church, which is free from debt.
UNITARIAN CHURCHES.
The first religious services held by the Uni-
tarians were at the residence of T. E. Severance
in March, 1877. In May of that year an or-
ganization was perfected and regular services
were conducted by the Rev. John D. Wells.
In 1885 the Rev. Eli Fay located in Los An-
geles and conducted services for a time in the
Masonic hall, No. 135 South Spring street. The
church was reorganized and the services were
held in Child’s opera house on Main street. A
lot secured on Seventh street near Broadway,
and largely through the liberality of Dr. Fay
a church building, 45x IOO feet in area, was
erected at a cost of $25,000. The church was
dedicated June 16, 1889. It was destroyed by
fire in 1892. The congregation then purchased
from the Baptists the church building on the
northeast corner of Hill and Third street, orig-
inally built by the Congregationalists. This site
was sold for business purposes in 1899. The last
sermon was preached in it by the Rev. C. K.
Jones March 18, 1900. The congregation built
a new church on Flower street between Ninth
and Tenth Streets.
SYNAGOGUES.
Congregation of B'nai B'rith. The first Jew-
ish services in Los Angeles were held in 1854.
No place of worship was erected for several
years later. In 1862 Rabbi A. W. Edleman or—
ganized the congregation of B'nai B'rith and
conducted the services until 1886.
The first synagogue was built in 1873 on what
is now the site of the Copp building, just north
of the city hall grounds on the east side of
Broadway. The lot and buildings were sold in
1894 and a new synagogue erected on the corner
of Ninth and Hope streets.
OTHER DENOMINATIONS.
The Reorganized Church of Latter Day Saints
(Mormon) was first organized in the autmun of
1882. Services are now held at No. 516 Temple
Street.
The New Church (Swedenborgian) was or—
ganized in 1894, and held services for some time
in Temperance Temple. It has since erected a
church building at No. 515 East Ninth street at
a cost of $3,000.
Seventh Day Adventist, organized in 1880
and built a church on Sixth street. They have
now a church at No. 12I Carr street which cost
$6,000.
Friends Church was organized in 1897. The
congregation have erected a church building on
the corner of Third and Fremont avenue at a
cost of $4,OOO.
354
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
CHAPTER LI.
THE PIONEER NEWSPAPERS OF LOS ANGELES.
living and dead, that have existed in Los
Angeles within the past fifty-five years
would fill a large-sized volume. I have limited
my sketches to newspapers whose founding dates
back twenty-five years or to those established
before January I, 1882. Of these there are four
still living. -
The following sketch of the first newspaper
published in Los Angeles is compiled from a
paper prepared by the author of this history sev-
eral years since and published in the Annual of
the Southern California Historical Society for
1900. Since the preparation of this article the
files of the Star, from which the earlier histori-
cal facts were drawn, have been lost or de-
stroyed, and as no duplicates to my knowledge
exist I have for that reason given more space to
the history of the Star than otherwise would be-
long to it.
In our American colonization of the “Great
West,” the newspaper has kept pace with immi-
gration. In the building up of a new town, the
want of a newspaper seldom becomes long felt
before it is supplied.
It was not so in Spanish colonization; in it
the newspaper came late, if it came at all. There
were none published in California during the
Spanish and Mexican eras. The first newspaper
published in California was issued at Monterey,
August 15, 1846,-just thirty-eight days after
Commodore Sloat took possession of the terri-
tory in the name of the United States. This
paper was called “The Californian” and was pub-
lished by Semple & Colton. The type and press
used had been brought from Mexico by Agustin
V. Zamorano in 1834, and by him sold to the
territorial government; and it had been used for
printing bandos and pronunciamientos. The On-
ly paper the publishers of The Californian could
procure was that used in making cigarettes which
Tº give a history of all the newspapers,
came in sheets a little larger than ordinary fools-
Cap.
After the discovery of gold in 1848, news-
papers in California multiplied rapidly. By 1850,
all the leading mining towns had their news-
papers, but Southern California, being a cow
country and the population mostly native Cali-
fornians Speaking the Spanish language, no news-
paper had been founded.
The first proposition to establish a newspaper .
in Los Angeles was made to the city council
October 16, 1850. The minutes of the meeting
on that date contain this entry: “Theodore Fos-
ter petitions for a lot situated at the northerly
corner of the jail for the purpose of erecting
thereon a house to be used as a printing estab-
lishment. The council—taking in consideration
the advantages which a printing house offers to
the advancement of public enlightenment, and
there existing as yet no such establishment in
the city: Resolved, That for this once only a
lot from amongst those that are marked on the
city map be given to Mr. Theodore Foster for
the purpose of establishing thereon a printing
house; and the donation be made in his favor
because he is the first to inaugurate this public
benefit; subject, however, to the following con-
ditions:
“First. That the house and printing office be
completed within one year from to-day.
“Second. That the lot be selected from amongst
those numbered on the city map and not other-
wise disposed of.”
At the meeting of the council, October 30,
1850, the records say: “Theodore Foster gave
notice that he had selected a lot back of John-
son's and fronting the canal as the one where
he intended establishing his printing house; and
the council resolved that he be granted forty
varas each way.”
The location of the printing house was on
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
355
what is now Los Angeles street, then called
Calle Zanja Madre (Mother Ditch street), and
sometimes Canal street.
This site of Foster's printing office was op-
posite the Bell block, which stood on the south-
east corner of Aliso and Los Angeles streets.
On the lot granted by the council, Foster built
a small two-story frame building; the lower
story was occupied by the printing outfit, and
the upper story was used as a living room by
the printers and proprietors of the paper. Over
the door was the sign “Imprenta” (printing of-
fice). The first number of the pioneer paper
was issued May 17, 1851. It was named La
Estrella de Los Angeles (The Star of Los An-
geles). It was a four-page, five column paper;
size of page, 12x18 inches. Two pages were
printed in English and two in Spanish. The
subscription price was $10 a year, payable in ad-
vance. Advertisements were inserted at the rate
of $2 per square for the first insertion and $1
for each subsequent insertion. The publishers
were John A. Lewis and John McElroy. Foster
had dropped out of the scheme before the pub-
lication of the first issue. Two years later he
committed suicide by drowning himself in the
Fresno river.
In July, William H. Rand bought an interest
in the paper and the firm became Lewis, Mc-
Elroy & Rand. In November, McElroy sold his
interest to Lewis & Rand. John A. Lewis edited
the English pages and Manuel Clemente Rojo
was editor of the Spanish columns of the Star
for some time after its founding. The press
was a Washington Hoe of an ancient pattern.
It came around the Horn and was probably six
or seven months on its journey. Even with this
antiquated specimen of the lever that moves the
world, it was no great task to work off the
weekly edition of the Star. Its circulation did
not exceed 250 copies.
The first job of city work done by La Estrella
(as it is always called in the early records) was
the printing of one hundred white ribbon badges
for the city police. The inscription on the badge,
which was printed both in English and Spanish,
read “City Police, organized by the Common
Council of Los Angeles, July 12, 1851.” La
Estralia's bill for the job was $25. In July,
1853, William H. Rand transferred his interest
in the Star to his partner, John A. Lewis. Au-
gust 1, 1853, Lewis Sold the paper to James M.
McMeans. The obstacles to be overcome in the
publication of a pioneer newspaper in Southern
California are graphically set forth in Lewis's
valedictory in the Star of July 30, 1853:
“It is,” writes Lewis, “now two years and
three months since the Star was established in
this city—and in taking leave of my readers, in
saying my last say, I may very properly be per-
mitted to look back through this period to see
how accounts stand.
“The establishment of a newspaper in Los
Angeles was considered something of an experi-
ment, more particularly on account of the isola-
tion of the city. The sources of public news are
sometimes cut off for three or four weeks, and
very frequently two weeks. San Francisco, the
nearest place where a newspaper is printed, is
more than five hundred miles distant, and the
mail between that city and Los Angeles takes an
uncertain course, sometimes by sea and some-
times by land, occupying in its transmission from
two to six weeks, and in one instance, fifty-two
days. Therefore, I have had to depend mainly
upon local news to make the Star interesting.
And yet the more important events of the coun-
try have been recorded as fully as the limits of
the Star would permit. The printing of a paper
one-half in the Spanish language was certainly
an experiment hitherto unattempted in the state.
Having no exchanges with papers in that lan-
guage the main reliance has been upon transla-
tions and such contributions as several good
friends have favored me with. I leave others to
judge whether the ‘Estrella' has been well or ill
conducted.”
Under Lewis' management the Star was non-
partisan in politics. He says, “I professed all
along to print an independent newspaper, and
although my own preferences were with the Whig
party, I never could see enough either in the
Whig or Democratic party to make a newspaper
of. I never could muster up fanaticism enough
to print a party paper.” -
McMeans went to the States shortly after
assuming the management of the paper. Will-
iam A. Wallace conducted it during his absence.
356
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Early in 1854, it was sold to M. D. Brundige.
Under Brundige's proprietorship, Wallace edited
the paper. It was still published in the house
built by Foster.
In the latter part of 1854, the Star was sold to
J. S. Waite & Co. The site donated to Foster by
the council in 1850, on which to establish a print-
ing house for the advancement of public enlight-
ment, seems not to have been a part of the Star
outfit. A prospectus on the Spanish page informs
us that “Imprenta de la Estrella, Calle Principal,
Casa de Temple”—that is, the printing office of
the Star is on Main street, in the House of Tem-
ple, where was added, the finest typographical
work will be done in Spanish, French and Eng-
lish. Waite reduced the subscription price of
the Star to $6 a year, payable in advance, or $9
at the end of the year. Fifty per cent advance
on a deferred payment looks like a high rate of
interest, but it was very reasonable in those days.
Money, then, commanded five, ten and even as
high as fifteen per cent a month, compounded
monthly; and yet the mines of California were
turning out $50,000,000 in gold every year. Here
is a problem in the supply and demand of a cir-
culating medium for some of our astute financial
theorists to solve.
Perusal of the pages of the Star of fifty years
ago gives us occasional glimpses of the passing
of the old life and the ringing in of the new. An
editorial on “The Holidays” in the issue of Jan-
uary 4, 1855, says: “The Christmas and New
Year's festivities are passing away with the uS-
ual accompaniments, namely, bullfights, bell
ringing, firing of crackers, fiestas and fandangos.
In the city, cascarones commanded a premium
and many were complimented with them as a
finishing touch to their head dress.”
In the early '50s a Pacific railroad was a stand-
ing topic for editorial comment by the press of
California. The editor of the Star, “while we
are waiting and wishing for a railroad,” advo-
cates as an experiment the introduction of cam-
els and dromedaries for freighting across the
arid plains of the southwest. After descanting
on the merits of the “ship of the desert,” he says:
“We predict that in a few years these extraor-
dinary and useful animals will be browsing up-
on our hills and valleys, and numerous caravans
will be arriving and departing daily. Let us
have the incomparable dromedary, with Adams
Company’s expressmen, arriving here tri-weekly
with letters and packages in five or six days from
Salt Lake and fifteen or eighteen from the Mis-
souri. Then the present grinding steamship
monopoly might be made to realize the fact that
the hard-working miner, the farmer and the me-
chanic were no longer completely in their grasp-
ing power as at present. We might have an
overland dromedary express that would bring
us the New York news in fifteen to eighteen
days. We hope some of our energetic capital-
ists or stock breeders will take this speculation in
hand, for we have not much faith that Congress
will do anything in the matter.” -
Notwithstanding our editor's poor opinion of
congress, that recalcitrant body, a year or two
later, possibly moved by the power of the press,
did introduce camels into the United States, and
caravans did arrive in Los Angeles. To the
small boy of that day the arrival of a caravan was
a free circus. The grotesque attempts of the
western mule whacker to transform himself into
an Oriental camel driver were mirth-provoking
to the spectators, but agony long drawn out to
the camel puncher. Of all the impish, perverse
and profanity-provoking beasts of burden that
ever trod the soil of America, the meek, mild-
eyed, soft-footed camel was the most exasperat-
ing. That prototype of perversity, the army mule,
was almost angelic in disposition compared to
the hump-backed burden bearer of the Orient.
In July, 1855, the subscription price of the
Star was reduced to $5 a year. The publisher in-
formed his patrons that he would receive sub-
scriptions “payable in most kinds of produce
after harvest—corn, wheat, flour, wood, butter,
eggs, etc., will be taken on old subscriptions.”
In November, 1855, James S. Waite, the sole
proprietor, publisher and business manager of
the Star, was appointed postmaster of Los An-
geles. He found it difficult to keep the Star
shining, the mails moving and his produce ex-
change running.
In the issue of February 2, 1856, he offers the
“entire establishment of the Star for sale at
$1,000 less than cost.” In setting forth its mer-
its, he says: “To a young man of energy and
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
357
&
ability a rare chance is now offered to spread him-
self and peradventure to realize a fortune.” The
young man with expansive qualities was found
two months later in the person of William A.
Wallace, who had been editor of the Star in 1854.
He was the first principal of the school-house No.
I, which stood on the northwest corner of Spring
and Second streets, where the Bryson block now
stands. He laid down the pedagogical birch to
mount the editorial tripod. In his salutatory he
says: “The Star is an old favorite of mine, and
I have always wished to be its proprietor.” The
editorial tripod proved to be as uneasy a seat for
Wallace as the back of a bucking bronco; in
two months it landed him on his back, figurative-
ly speaking.
It was hard times in the old pueblo. Money
was scarce and cattle were starvinig; for 1856
was a dry year. Thus Wallace soliloquizes:
“Dull times, says the trader, the mechanic, the
farmer—indeed, everybody echoes the dull sen-
timent. The teeth of the cattle this year have
been so dull that they have been scarcely able to
save themselves from starvation; but the buyers
are nearly as plenty as cattle and sharp in pro-
portion to the prospect of starvation. Business
is dull—duller this week than it was last; dull-
er today than it was yesterday. Expenses are
scarcely realized and every hole where a dollar
or two has heretofore leaked out must be stopped.
The flush times are past—the days of large
prices and pockets are gone; picayunes, bad
liquor, rags and universal dullness—sometimes
too dull to complain of-have usurped the minds
of men and a common obtuseness prevails,
Neither pistol shots nor dying groans have any
effect; earthquakes hardly turn men in their
beds. It is no use talking—business stepped out
and the people are asleep. What is to be done?
Why, the first thing, of course, is to stop off
such things as can be neither smoked or drank;
and then wait for the carreta, and if we don't
get a ride it will be because we have become too
fastidious, or too poor and are unable to pay
this expense.”
Henry Hamilton, the successor of Wallace,
was an experienced newspaper man. For five
years previous to purchasing the Star he had
been proprietor of the Calaveras Chronicle. He
was an editor of the old school—the school that
dealt out column editorials, and gave scant space
to locals. Hamilton's forte was political editor-
ials. He was a bitter partisan. When he ful-
minated a thunderbolt and hurled it at a polit-
ical opponent, it struck as if it came from the
hand of Jove, the god of thunder and lightning.
He was an able writer, yet with him there was
but one side to a question, and that was his side
of it. He was a Scotch-Irishman, and had all
the pugnacity and pertinacity of that strenuous
race. His vigorous partisanship got him into
trouble. During the Civil war he espoused the
cause of the Southern Confederacy. For some
severe criticisms on Lincoln and other officers
of the government, and his outspoken sympathy
for the Confederates, he was arrested. He took
the oath of allegiance, and was released, but the
Star went into an eclipse. The last number, a
single page, appeared October I, I864. The
press and type were sold to Phineas Banning,
and were used in the publication of the Wil-
mington Journal.
On Saturday, the 16th of May, 1868, the Star
emerged from obscurity. “Today,” writes Ham-
ilton, “we resume the publication of the Los An-
geles Star. Nearly four years have elapsed since
our last issue. The little ‘onpleasantness,' which
at that time existed in the family, has toned down
considerably, and if perfect harmony does not
yet pervade the circle, our hope is this brother-
ly feeling will soon be consummated.”
The paper was no longer the bitter partisan
sheet that it had been during the early '60s.
Hamilton now seldom indulged in political lead-
ers of a column length, and when he did they
were of a mild type. The new Star was a seven
column blanket sheet, and was devoted to pro-
moting the welfare of the county. It was ably
conducted, and was a model newspaper for a
town of 5,000 inhabitants. June 1, 1870, the first
number of the Daily Star was published by Ham-
ilton & Barter. Barter retired from the firm in
September and founded the Anaheim Gasette,
the pioneer newspaper of Orange county. . He
bought the old press and type of the Wilmington
Journal—the first press of the Star—and again
the old press became a pioneer. When the Ana-
heim Gagette office burned down in 1877, the
358
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
old press perished in the flames. The last time
I saw it it was lying in a junk pile, crooked and
twisted and warped out of shape or semblance
of a printing press. If the spirit of the inani-
mate ever visits its former mundane haunts,
the ghost of that old press would search in vain
for the half dozen or more office buildings where
in the body long ago it ground out weekly stents
of news.
After G. W. Barter sold out the Anaheim
Gazette in 1872, he leased the Daily Star from
Hamilton. He ran it less than a year, but that
was long enough for him to take all the twinkle
out of it. It had almost sunk below the horizon
when Mr. Hamilton resumed its publication. In
July, 1873, he sold it to Ben C. Truman. The
genial Ben put sparkle in it. He made it in-
teresting to his friends, and equally so to his
enemies. Truman continued its publication until
July, 1877, when it was sold to Paynter & Com-
pany. Then it passed to Brown & Company.
The Rev. Campbell of the Methodist Church
South conducted it for a time. In the last year
of its existence it had several different publish-
ers and editors. Its brilliancy steadily dimin-
ished until in the early part of 1879 it sunk be-
low the horizon, or, to discard metaphor and
states facts, the sheriff attached it for debt, and
its publication was discontinued. Its remains
were not buried in the graveyard of unfelt wants.
A more tragic fate awaited then—they were cre-
mated. The plant and the files were stored in an
outbuilding of Mr. Hollenbeck's, who was one
of the principal creditors. His Chinese laborers
roomed in the lower part of the building. In
some of their heathen orgies they set fire to the
house. For a few minutes La Estrella blazed up
into a star of the first magnitude, then disap-
peared forever.
Such in brief is the story of La Estrella, the
pioneer newspaper of Los Angeles. Its files con-
tain a quarter century’s history of our city and
its environs. It is to be regretted that its early
editors deemed political essays of so much more
importance than local happenings. If these ed-
itors could crawl out of their graves and read
Some of their political diatribes in the electric
light of the twentieth century they no doubt
would be moved to exclaim, “What blind lead-
ers of the blind were wel”
The Southern Californian. The second pa-
per founded in Los Angeles was the Southern
Californian. The first issue appeared July 20,
1854, C. N. Richards & Co., publishers; William
Butts editor. November 2, 1854, William Butts
and John O. Wheeler succeeded Richards & Co.
in the proprietorship. In November, 1855, A.
Pico was the proprietor and J. P. Brodie the ed-
itor. In January, 1859, it died. It is said to
have cost Pico $10,000. One page of the paper
was printed in Spanish.
El Clamor Publico was the first paper in Los
Angeles that was entirely printed in Spanish,
The first number appeared June 8, 1855, Fran-
cisco P. Ramirez, editor and proprietor. It was
the organ of the better class of the native Cali-
fornians of the south and was the first Repub-
lican newspaper published in Los Angeles. It
warmly advocated the election of John C. Fre-
mont to the presidency in 1856. It suspended
publication December 31, 1859, for ‘want of Sup-
port.
The Southern Vineyard was founded by Col.
J. J. Warner, March 20, 1858. The press and
material used in its publication had formerly be-
longed to the Southern Californian, in which pa-
per Warner had an interest at the time of its
suspension. The Vineyard was a four-page week-
ly, 22x30 inches in size. December Ioth of the
same year it became a semi-weekly, issued Tues-
day and Friday mornings. It was mildly Demo-
cratic in the beginning, but bolted the regular
Democratic ticket in 1859. At the time of its
demise, June 8, 1860, it was leaning towards
Republicanism. The plant was transferred to
the Los Angeles News.
The Los Angeles Daily and Weekly News.
The Semi-Weekly Southern News, independent,
issued every Wednesday and Friday, was estab-
lished in Los Angeles by C. R. Conway and
Alonzo Waite, January 18, 1860. The sheet was
enlarged July 18, 1860, and again August 13,
1862. The name was changed to the Los Angeles
Semi-Weekly News October 8, 1862. January
12, 1863, it appeared as the Los Angeles Tri-
Weekly News, issued Mondays, Wednesdays
and Fridays. It was Republican in politics in
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
359
1864. During the presidential campaign of that
year it advocated the election of Lincoln and
Johnson. Political animosities were very bitter.
The defenders of the Union were in the minority
and publishing a Union newspaper in Los An-
geles was not a profitable business.
Conway & Waite sold the News to A. J. King
& Co., November II, 1865, A. J. King becom-
ing editor. It was again changed to a semi-
weekly. After its transfer it became the organ
of the Democratic party.
January 1, 1869, the semi-weekly was discon-
tinued and The Los Angeles Daily News ap-
peared, King & Offutt, publishers. The daily
was enlarged in May, 1869. This was the first
daily published in Los Angeles. It was issued
every day except Sunday, subscription price $12
a year. October 16, 1869, R. H. Offutt sold his
interest to Alonzo Waite and the firm name be-
came King & Waite. January I, 1870, A. J.
King retired from the editorial management and
was succeeded by Charles E. Beane. October Io,
1872, Mr. Waite sold his entire interest to Charles
E. Beane. The paper suspended in 1873.
The Wilmington Journal. The first newspa-
per published in Los Angeles county Outside of
the city was the Wilmington Journal. The old
press of the Star, as previously stated, was sold
to Phineas Banning in 1864. The first number
of the Journal was issued in November, 1864.
The Los Angeles Tri-Weekly News thus notices
its appearance:
“The Los Angeles Star, after a few kicks and
a struggle, has gone down for ever. The Wil-
mington Journal, a neatly printed paper, has
sprung from its ashes. We have perused its col-
umns closely in search of the name of its editor;
its tone denotes, however, that the Journal rose.
into existence without ‘Viejo' (Hamilton). He
has probably left it an abandoned child—to hon-
esty. We have received the first number of the
above-named paper, and welcome it on Our ex-
change list.”
Wilmington, during war times, was the liveli-
est town on the coast. After the removal of the
troops it declined and the Journal, in 1868, sus-
pended publication.
THE LOS ANGEf.E.S EXPRESS.
The Los Angeles Erpress, the oldest daily
paper now published in Los Angeles, was found-
ed March 27, 1871, by an association of prac-
tical printers, comprising Jesse Yarnell, George
Yarnell, George A. Tiffany, J. W. Paynter and
Miguel Varela. It was Republican in politics,
with Henry C. Austin, editor. The members of
the association dropped out until, in 1873, only
George A. Tiffany and J. W. Paynter were left;
James J. Ayers having taken the place of H. C.
Austin as editor.
March 15, 1875, J. J. Ayers and Joseph D.
Lynch purchased the paper from Tiffany & Co.
The new firm enlarged the paper to eight col-
umns and later in the year it was enlarged to
nine columns to the page. On October 3, 1876,
Mr. Lynch retired from the Ea:press and took
editorial charge of the Daily Herald; Ayers con-
tinuing in charge of the Earpress, which was
virtually an evening edition of the Herald. In
1882 Governor Stoneman appointed Colonel
Ayers state printer and Mr. Lynch, who had re-
tained his interest in the Express, conducted
both papers, but with separate editorial and local
staffs. In 1884 H. Z. Osborne and E. R. Cleve-
land bought the Earpress. In 1886 these gentle-
men organized the Evening Express Company,
an incorporation. J. Mills Davies became a
stockholder and business manager of the com-
pany. C. C. Allen, after completing his term of
office as adjutant-general of the state, became a
member of the Evpress Company. J. Mills Da-
vies retired. In 1896 H. Z. Osborne was presi-
dent of the company, C. C. Allen, vice-president,
and E. R. Cleveland, secretary and treasurer. H.
Z. Osborne was appointed United States Marshal
of the Southern District in 1897 and C. D. Wil-
lard became general manager of the paper. He
was succeeded by J. B. Abell. In January, IQOO,
John M. Miller, W. A. Kelsey, Richard G.
Beebe, William F. Botsford and Edwin B. Has-
kell bought up the various interests represented
in the old Ezrening Erpress Company and took
charge of the paper. John M. Miller was elected
president of the new firm; W. A. Kelsey, vice-
president and general manager; and Richard G.
Beebe, secretary. In 1900 E. T. Earl bought the
Ea-press, and erected a three-story brick build-
ing for the publication and offices of the paper on
Fifth street, between Broadway and Hill street.
360
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
The Ea'press plant, which has had many stopping
places in the thirty-two years of its existence,
finally took possession of a home of its own.
The price of the paper has recently been re-
duced to one cent a copy.
LOS DOS REPUBLICAS.
Los Dos Republicas (The Two Republics),
successor to La Cronica, was established June 2,
1872, by M. S. Arevalo and B. F. Teodoli, B. F.
Ramirez, editor. Ramirez retired shortly after
the paper was founded, and was succeeded by
E. F. de Celis. Under his editorship the paper
became the most influential journal published in
the Spanish language in the state. In the year
1880 Mr. Arevalo organized the La Cronica
Publishing Company—a joint stock association.
Mr. Teodoli withdrew from the company, and
after a time the stockholders leased the paper to
Pastor de Celis and Miguel J. Varela. From
them its management passed to Cordona Broth-
ers, then to E. F. de Celis, next to S. A. Corona
and from him to Thomas Temple. Temple
shortly before his death, in 1892, sold it to A. J.
Flores, who changed its name to its present form.
It is devoted to general news, independent in
politics and religion.
THE DAILY AND WEEIKLY HERALD.
The Daily and Weekly Herald was founded
by C. A. Storke, now an attorney in Santa Bar-
bara. The first number appeared October 3,
1873. Mr. Storke conducted the paper until
August, 1874, when he sold it to a stock com-
pany, the membership of which was largely made
up of grangers or patrons of husbandry. The
paper was edited and managed by J. M. Bassett
in the interest and as the organ of the Grange.
With the decline of the patrons their organ was
sold, J. D. Lynch, who had retired from the
Express, becoming editor and publisher of the
Herald. He continued to edit and manage the
paper until the fall of 1886, when he sold a half
interest to Col. James J. Ayers. Ayers and
Lynch were old time newspaper men and made
the Herald the leading Democratic journal of
Southern California, if not of the state. In
October, 1894, Lynch and Ayers sold the Herald
to a syndicate of leading Democratic politicians.
editor.
Next year it was sold to John Bradbury. Brad-
bury, after sinking considerable money in the
Venture, discovered that he was not cut out for
a newspaper man and disposed of his burden.
In 1895 W. R. Creighton was editor-in-chief. In
I896 William A. Spalding became business man-
ager of the Herald Company. He retired early
in 1900 and was succeeded by Randolph H.
Miner.
On the 7th of July, IQOO, the Herald was sold
to a syndicate composed largely of men inter-
ested in the petroleum industry. Its publication
was conducted, as formerly, under the Herald
Publishing Company. The officers of the com-
pany were: Wallace L. Hardison, president and
general manager; H. G. James, manager; Guy
L. Hardison, vice-president and secretary; W.
Benjamin Scott, treasurer; R. H. Hay Chapman,
managing editor. The politics of the paper was
changed from Democratic to Republican by the
new managers. The Herald was enlarged and
greatly improved in its typographical appearance
by its new owners. Its motto was “No enemies
to punish—no special friends to serve.”
In 1904 the Herald was sold to a syndicate
which continues its publication under the title
of the Los Angeles Herald Company, of which
company Frank G. Finlayson is president; Rob-
ert M. Yost, editorial manager; S. H. Laverty,
business manager. It experienced another
change in its political affiliations. It is now the
organ of the Democratic party. -
THE RURAL CALIFORNIAN.
The predecessor of this illustrated monthly
magazine was the Southern California Horticult-
Atrist, the first number of which was issued in
September, 1877, at Los Angeles, by the South-
ern California Horticultural Society, L. M. Holt,
Its columns were devoted to the interests
of horticulture and agriculture. The size of the
magazine then was 6x9 inches. In January,
1880, Carter & Rice obtained control of it and
published it under the caption of Semi-Tropic
California and Southern California Horticultur-
ist. The size of the page was enlarged to 9x12
inches. Carter retired after the third issue and
George Rice obtained sole control of it. He
changed the name to its present form. In 1881
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
361
he sold it to Coleman & Dickey. They conducted
it about a year, when Dickey died. Rice bought
it of Coleman, and in 1883 sold it to Fred L.
Alles. Charles A. Gardner bought a half inter-
est and for a time the firm was Alles & Gardner,
while later Gardner became its sole owner until
George Rice again came into possession of it.
In 1891 it passed into the hands of C. M. Heintz,
who still conducts it.
LOS ANGELES WEETKLY MIRROR.
The first number of the Weekly Mirror ap-
peared February 1, 1873. It was a small sheet
IOxI3 inches, four pages and three columns to
the page. It was published every Saturday by
Yarnell & Caystile, and distributed free. March
1, 1873, William M. Brown became a partner
and the firm name was changed to Yarnell, Cay-
stile & Brown. In 1875 the Mirror was en-
larged to a twenty-four column sheet I7x22
inches, its subscription price being $1 per year.
Brown retired from the firm on account of ill-
health. In August, 1880, S. J. Mathes came
into the firm and the paper was enlarged to an
eight column paper, 24x38 inches; subscription
price, $2 per year; S. J. Mathes, editor. After
the Daily Times was started, in December, 1881,
the Mirror became practically the weekly edition
of the former, but retained its original name.
THE LOS ANGELES DAILY TIMES.
The first number of the Daily Times was issued
December 4, 1881, Cole & Gardiner (Nathan
Cole and James Gardiner), publishers. It was
a seven column folio. Gardiner retired with the
first issue and Cole continued the publication
until January 1, 1882, when he sold the paper to
the publishers of the Weekly Mirror, Yarnell,
Caystile & Mathes, who continued its publica-
tion as a Republican morning journal. Immi-
gration had set in from the northwestern states,
which were then as now strongly Republican.
This brought a change in the political complex-
ion of Los Angeles and made the successful pub-
lication of a Republican journal possible. In
April it was enlarged to eight columns and in
July to nine columns to the page. August I,
1882, Col. H. G. Otis became a partner in the
firm and editor of the Daily Times and of its
weekly issue, the Mirror. On the 22d of May,
1883, A. W. Francisco bought Mr. Yarnell's in-
terest and in the following October was made
business manager, a position which he filled until
his retirement in 1884. Mr. Mathes retired from
the firm to engage in other pursuits. In Septem-
ber, 1884, the paper was again enlarged and the
telegraphic service increased. In October of the
same year the Times-Mirror Company was in-
corporated with a capital stock of $40,000, which
was increased in 1886 to $60,000 for the purpose
of erecting the Times building on the northeast
corner of Broadway and First street. In April,
1886, the Times-Mirror Company was reorgan-
ized, Albert McFarland and William A. Spald-
ing acquiring stock in the company. The former
was elected vice-president and the latter secre-
tary, Col. H. G. Otis being elected president.
In September, 1886, Charles F. Lummis ac-
quired an interest, and in August, 1887, L. E.
Mosher became a member of the company. In
March, 1888, Col. C. C. Allen bought an interest
and was elected vice-president. He was appoint-
ed adjutant-general of the state by Governor
Markham, and severed his connection with the
paper. William A. Spalding also retired from
the company.
In 1897 Harry Chandler, who had been con-
nected with the paper a number of years, be-
came business manager, and during General
Otis's service in the Philippine war had full
charge of the business part of the paper. The
present officers of the Times-Mirror Company
are H. G. Otis, president and general manager;
Harry Chandler, vice-president and assistant
general manager; Albert McFarland, treasurer;
Marian Otis-Chandler, secretary.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
CHAPTER LII.
EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS,
NDER Spanish and Mexican rule there
U were no collegiate institutions of learning
nor any church schools founded by the
dominant church in Los Angeles. What little
was done in the way of education was done
through the public schools supported by muni-
cipal funds. A change of rulers seems to have
effected a change of sentiment in regard to the
necessity of educating the youth of the city, for
shortly after the acquisition of California by the
United States we find in the city archives peti-
tions to the ayuntamiento from Catholic clergy-
men for tracts of land on which to build church
schools. t
At the session of June 9, 1849, a petition was
received for a tract of unappropriated pueblo
lands for a college, from the Bishopric of Cali-
fornia, signed by Reverend Fathers Sebastian
Bongronvanni, Juan Crissostomo Olvien and An-
tonio Jimenez del Recio.
The ayuntamiento resolved “That the Holy
See of California be granted from amongst the
municipal lands of this city and adjoining the
cañada which leads to the San Francisco road,
a square lot measuring 150 varas on each of its
sides, subject to the following conditions: First,
this land cannot be sold, transferred or hypothe-
cated directly or indirectly; second, the building
erected thereon shall at all times serve the sole
and exclusive purpose of public instruction.”
This tract lies immediately north of College street
and west of Buena Vista street. College street
took its name from this tract.
At the same meeting a grant of I5O varas
square in the southeastern part of the town was
made to the Sisters of Charity to establish a con-
vent and school, on the same conditions as in the
grant named above. At the meeting of the ayun-
tamiento, in May, 1850, a petition was received
from the Rev. Father Antonio Maria Jimenez
del Recio “For the plat of ground in the angle
forming an elbow with the church and parochial
‘; .
º-
*
COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES,
residence.” “To put up a new building on this
plat (SO he says in his petition) would result in
closing up a quadrangle which would be a very
good thing for two reasons: First, as an im-
provement to the Plaza, adding to its symmetry;
second, as a convenience to the clergymen who
are to teach in it, as well as to the pupils, on
account of its proximity to the church.”
This he does “for the sake of the youth of
the city who could be made educated citizens
and good Catholics, but who receive no other
instruction now than the sad example of rus-
ticity and loose morals.” He will establish “a
primary School principally to teach the duties of
Catholicism, and shall do all that within my
power lies to impart primary instruction; and
what is more needed, to teach the duties of our
religion, towards which my compassion particu-
larly draws me.” At the meeting of June 15,
i850, the council granted the land for the pur-
pose indicated in the petition.
ST. VINCENT'S COLLEGE,
The first collegiate institution founded in Los
Angeles was St. Vincent's College. The corner
stone of the college building was laid in August,
1866, on the block bounded by Sixth, Seventh,
Fort and Hill streets. The first building was
two stories high, with an attic and basement;
the main building was 40x80 feet on the ground,
with an extensive wing at each end. This build-
ing was completed in 1867.
The college was erected under the auspices of
the Fathers of the St. Vincent de Paul Mission,
and a staff of professors was secured from the
Atlantic states and Europe with a view to mak-
ing the curriculum as thorough as possible. The
curriculum included not only scientific and clas-
sical courses of study, but also a full commercial
course. The first executive officers were Father
McGill, president; Father Flynn, vice-president;
and Father Richardson, treasurer.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
363
In 1884 the building was remodeled and en-
larged, and an additional story added. Early in
1887, during the boom, the college grounds and
buildings at Sixth street were sold for $100,000
and a new site purchased on the corner of Wash-
ington street and Grand avenue. Commodious
college buildings were erected on these grounds.
The institution is ably conducted, and many of
its graduates have obtained distinction in the
different professions.
Military instruction has recently been intro-
duced into the college. Cadet companies have
been formed and regular drill is given in mili-
tary tactics. The cadets wear a neat and tasteful
uniform. The college has a high reputation for
thoroughness in both literary and military in-
struction.
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.
This is the oldest Protestant educational insti-
tution in Southern California. The idea of
building up a university in Los Angeles origi-
nated with Judge R. M. Widney. He consulted
with the Rev. A. M. Hough, E. F. Spence, Dr.
J. P. Widney, Rev. M. M. Bovard and G. D.
Compton. It was decided to attempt the build-
ing of a Methodist college or university in or
near Los Angeles. As soon as their design was
known they received offers of land in East Los
Angeles, Boyle Heights, Temple street and West
Los Angeles. A majority of the trustees de-
cided in favor of West Los Angeles. July 29,
1879, J. G. Downey, O. W. Childs and I. W.
Hellman deeded to A. M. Hough, J. P. Widney,
E. F. Spence, M. M. Bovard, G. D. Compton
and R. M. Widney, 308 lots in the West Los An-
geles tract, in trust as an endowment fund for
the University of Southern California. In addi-
tion to the lots about forty acres of land were
donated by owners of adjacent tracts. In 1880
thirty of the lots were put on sale. Their market
value probably did not exceed $50, but the friends
of the institution took them at $200 each. The
place selected for the site of the college buildings
and the campus is on Wesley avenue near Jef-
ferson street. +
From the proceeds of the sale of the lots a
frame building, now used for a music hall, was
erected. At the time of locating the institution
at West Los Angeles the tract of land donated
was covered with tall wild mustard stalks, the
Streets were undefined except by stakes and
there were no houses near. In August, 1880,
Revs. M. M. and F. D. Bovard entered into a
contract with the trustees to carry on the educa-
tional work of the institution for five years.
The Rev. M. M. Bovard was elected president.
A small endowment was secured partly from the
sale of lots and partly from gifts. In 1886 the
present four-story college building was erected
and the school moved into it. The college soon
began to branch out. In 1882 Messrs. George
and William B. Chaffey, the founders of the
Ontario Colony, made a tender of a deed of
trust to a large body of land for a Chaffey col-
lege of agriculture of the university.
The corner stone of a brick college building
was laid at Ontario, San Bernardino county, in
March, 1883, and in 1885 the school was opened
as a branch of the University of Southern Cali-
fornia and was conducted for several years as a
preparatory School.
The College of Medicine of the University of
Southern California was founded in 1885, by Dr.
J. P. Widney. The school was opened in a
building on Aliso street, where it was conducted
until 1897, when it removed to a building of its
own located on the west side of Buena Vista.
This fine three-story building is constructed on
plain architectural lines, but presenting withal a
neat exterior. The college is well conducted
and ranks high among medical Schools.
During the year 1906 a library building, the
gift of Dr. W. Jarvis Barlow, a member of the
faculty, was built on Buena Vista street just op-
posite the central building of the medical school.
It is of a beautiful design and is absolutely fire-
proof. It is surmounted by a glass dome which
admits abundant light. The library and building
are owned by the college and under the control
of the faculty. The medical profession of South-
ern California have access to the library.
The Maclay College of Theology was estab-
lished in 1885, at San Fernando. Hon. Charles
Maclay donated about $150,000 worth of lands
as an endowment and erected a building for its
use. The school was closed at San Fernando in
364
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
1893 and opened at the university in West Los
Angeles in October, 1894.
The University includes the following colleges,
each of which has a distinct faculty of instruc-
tion: College of Liberal Arts, College of Med-
icine, College of Pharmacy, College of Dentistry,
College of Law, College of Music, College of
Oratory, College of Fine Arts at Garvanza.
The productive endowment is nearly $400,000.
The total assets of the University are about $750,-
OOO. The institution is not sectarian, but it is
under the general control of the Southern Cal-
ifornia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal
Church. During the year 1905 more than $50,-
OOO were spent on buildings and improvements
on the ten-acre campus in West Los Angeles.
POMON A COLLEGE.
Pomona College, located at Claremont, thir-
ty-six miles east of Los Angeles, was founded
by the General Association of the Congregational
Churches of Southern California. The college
was incorporated October 14, 1887. Several
propositions for a college site were presented to
the association. The most suitable location
seemed to be a tract of land about four miles
north of Pomona City. The following January,
Rev. C. B. Sumner was appointed financial sec-
retary. He secured plans for a central build-
ing and the corner stone was laid. The first term
of the school was opened in September, 1888, in
a rented house at Pomona. Messrs. G. H. Fuller-
ton, E. F. Kingman and F. A. Miller, of River-
side, and H. A. Palmer, of Pomona, before the
close of this term presented to the college a hall,
together with a number of lots at Claremont,
which thus became the permanent location of the
preparatory school, and the second term of school
work was opened in this hall. The first pres-
ident, Rev. Cyrus C. Baldwin, was elected in
July, 1890. In April, 1892, it was decided to
abandon the original college site and to bring
the college and preparatory School together per-
manently at Claremont. The same year Holmes
hall was built. It was erected as a memorial to
Cyrus W. Holmes, Jr., by his wife and daugh-
ter. It contains a reading room, faculty rooms,
art room, chapel, society hall and recitation rooms
for the classical and English departments. Pear-
Son's Hall of Science is a donation from Dr. D.
K. Pearsons, of Chicago. It is a building 60x90
feet, two stories high, with a basement. In this
building are the biological department, the de-
partment of physics, the chemical department,
the astronomical and mathematical equipments
and the library. The hall was dedicated in Jan-
uary, 1899. Sumner hall is devoted to the use
of the young lady students as a dormitory. Pres-
ident Baldwin resigned in July, 1897, and was
succeeded the following January by Rev. Frank
L. Ferguson, who was succeeded in turn by Rev.
George A. Gates, D. D., LL. D., who is the pres-
ent president. The first class was graduated in
1894. The college has three courses of study that
lead to Bachelor's degree—classical, literary and
scientific.
Among the new improvements made to the
college equipment is the Renwick gymnasium.
Mrs. Helen Goodwin Renwick, in the memory
of her husband, contributed the larger part of
its cost. The remainder was subscribed or solic-
ited by the students of the college. It is fur-
nished with all the apparatus necessary for
training in physical exercise.
Adjoining the gymnasium is a building con-
taining lockers, showers and other equipment
for the special use of athletic teams. In the year
1905, Nathan W. Blanchard of Santa Paula gave
to the college sixty-five acres adjoining the col-
lege campus proper on the east for a park and
recreation grounds. The grounds have been
thrown open to the public and drives have been
made through them. These grounds are covered
with oaks, sycamores and a variety of California
shrubs. The new park with the grounds adjacent
to the college buildings form a continuous cam-
pus of nearly one hundred acres.
Actuated by the hope of widening its influence
and building up a great educational institution
the trustees of Pomona College in 1905 voted
unanimously to invite the Baptists and the Dis-
ciples of Southern California to join them in col-
lege work. These two denominations have no
collegiate institutions of their own in the south-
ern part of the state. *
The Baptists appointed a committee which has
signified its approbation of the union. The ques-
tion awaits the decision of the general body of
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
365
the church. The Disciples at the annual meet-
ing in Long Beach in August, 1906, without a
dissenting voice, accepted the invitation to unite.
They appointed a committee of conference con-
sisting of the following-named gentlemen: C.
C. Chapman of Fullerton, John Fleming of San
Diego, W. L. Porterfield of Long Beach, Rev.
A. C. Smithers of Los Angeles and the Rev. F.
M. Dowling of Pasadena. The Baptists and the
Disciples each will appoint five of their members
on the board of trustees. Further details of the
union are to be arranged.
The college has made a rapid growth in the
past four years. In 1902 the number of students
in the college classes was IO4; in 1906 the num-
ber was 212. The income from tuition fees in
I902 was $10,500, in 1906 it was $23,500. The
annual expenditures in 1902 were about $24,OOO,
in 1906 about $50,000.
OCCIDENTAL COLLEGE.
|
Occidental College was founded in 1887 by an
association of ministers representing Presby-
terian Churches of Los Angeles and vicinity.
Its first location was just east of the city, between
First and Second streets. A number of lots and
some acreage were donated to it. In 1888 a fine
three-story brick structure was erected for the
main college building. School was opened in
1888, Rev. L. H. Weller, president. He was suc-
ceeded in the presidency by Prof. J. M. McPher-
ron. In 1896 the building and nearly all its con-
tents were destroyed by fire. After this the
school for several months was carried on in the
Boyle Heights Presbyterian Church; from there
it was removed to the old St. Vincent College
building on Hill street, between Fifth and Sixth
streets, where it was conducted for two years.
After considerable delay a new location was se-
cured at Highland Park, about midway between
Los Angeles and Pasadena. Here in 1898 a com-
modious and attractive building was built and
the classes transferred to it in September, 1898.
Rev. Guy W. Wadsworth was president of the
institution at that time.
In 1904 the principal college building, the Hall
of Letters, was built. It is a brick structure of
three stories and a basement with a frontage of
180 feet on Pasadena avenue, and a depth of IOO
feet. In this building are lecture rooms, halls
for the Christian associations and literary so-
cieties. It also contains the auditorium, fur-
nished with opera chairs and having a seating
capacity for six hundred. The cost of the build-
ing complete was $57,000.
The Stimson Library was completed and oc-.
cupied early in 1905. It is the gift of Charles
M. Stimson of Los Angeles. It was erected at
a cost of $2O,OOO and is regarded as one of the
most beautiful library buildings on the Pacific
coast. It contains reading and reference rooms,
librarian's Office, stack rooms and the usual facil-
ities for efficient work. The college library con-
tains about 5,000 volumes.
In 1905 a campaign was inaugurated to se-
cure for the college an endowment of $2OO,OOO.
O. T. Johnson of Los Angeles offered to con-
tribute one-third of the amount on condition that
the other two-thirds be secured within a speci-
fied time. By persistent and tireless effort un-
der the superintendence of the Rev. W. S. Young,
chairman of the special committee, and Rev.
Hugh K. Walker, president of the board of
trustees, and other friends of the college, the an-
nouncement was made on February 1, 1906, that
more than $2OO,OOO had been secured. The pro-
ductive funds of the college are now equivalent
to $360,000. At the close of the college year of
1904-1905, Rev. Guy W. Wadsworth resigned
the presidency and Rev. W. S. Young, D. D.,
acted as president pro tem. during the college
year of 1905-1906. John Willis Baer, LL. D.,
Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions and
also at one time national secretary of the Chris-
tion Endeavor Society, was elected president to
take Office at the beginning of the college year
1906-1907. He was installed October 26, 1906.
THE THROOP POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE.
This institution of learning, located in Pasa-
dena, was founded by Hon. Amos G. Throop
in 1891. The first name chosen was Throop Uni-
versity. Its curriculum was planned to include
a university course. . .
Father Throop, as he was reverently called,
endowed the university with $200,000 and con-
Secrated all his energy to its support. Articles
of incorporation were filed with the secretary of
366
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
state September 23, 1891. On October 2nd the
first board of trustees was organized. It con-
sisted of the following-named persons: H. H.
Markham, H. W. Magee, J. C. Michener, W. U.
Masters, J. S. Hodge, George H. Bonebrake,
Delos Arnold, T. P. Lukens, E. F. Hurlburt,
T. S. C. Lowe, P. M. Green, F. C. Howes, Milton
D. Painter, A. G. Throop and L. A. Sheldon.
Hon. A. G. Throop was elected president; L. W.
Andrews, secretary, and P. M. Green, treasur-
er. The Wooster block, a four-story building
On the corner of Fair Oaks avenue and Kansas
street, was leased for five years and preparations
were made for the opening of the school. The
university opened November 2, 1891, with a
good attendance of students.
At the close of the first college year (1892)
the name of the institution was changed from
Throop University to Throop Polytechnic In-
stitute, and it was decided to “make the manual
training and polytechnic departments” the lead-
ing features of the institution.
In 1892 a body of land was secured at the
corner of Fair Oaks avenue and Chestnut street.
On this a building known as Polytechnic hall
was erected, and to this the shops and labora-
tories of the manual training department were
transferred. -
To provide for increased attendance, another
building, known as East hall, has been erected.
It is 68x150 feet, three stories in height and is
located directly east of Polytechnic hall. It cost,
finished and furnished, nearly $40,000. On the
first floor are the class rooms for languages, lit-
erature, mathematics, history, Stenography, type-
writing, etc. On the second floor are an assem-
bly room, library and quarters for the department
of biological sciences. In 1904 further enlarge-
ment became necessary and a two-story brick ad-
dition was made to Polytechnic hall, while all
the shops were overhauled and extensive im-
provements made. These changes were made
possible by the generous action of the citizens of
Pasadena in subscribing a fund of about $1,200
for the work. An out-door gymnasium, the
gift of John S. Cravens, with a fine equipment
of apparatus, was added in the autumn of 1904.
Miss Susan H. Stickney of Pasadena, in Aug-
ust, IQO4, donated to Throop Institute a hand-
Some building at the junction of Fair Oaks and
Lincoln avenues, known as the Stickney Mem-
orial building, with the sole condition that the
property be occupied by the art department of
the institute. The building is entirely devoted
to the work of the art department.
Throop hall, at No. 289 North Los Robles av-
enue, is a boys' dormitory with accommodations
for about fifty boys and young men. It is owned
by the Institute and consists of a main building
of thirty-five rooms and two adjoining cottages,
These are located in a tract of about one and a
third acres. A tennis court and a play ground
are included in the conveniences for pupils liv-
ing at the house.
The school is endowed with the following
trust funds: The Eldridge M. Fowler of $50,-
OOO, the Olive Cleveland, consisting of the in-
come from property worth $20,000 and the John
Wadsworth professorship fund, income produc-
ing property worth about $30,000.
The Institute comprises five schools, the col-
lege, the normal school, the academy, the com-
mercial school and the elemetnary school. The
president of the Institute is Walter A. Edwards,
A. M.
WEHITTIER COLLEGE.
Whittier College and the city of Whittier,
where it is located, take their name from the
Quaker poet, John Greenleaf Whittier.
On the 27th of September, 1891, the Whittier
Educational Association, a corporate body under
the laws of the State of California, established
Whittier Academy in the town of Whittier. The
beginning was made in a store building fur-
nished by the Pickering Land and Water Com-
pany. Three years later this company donated
the beautiful site now occupied, and the sum of
$8,000 was subscribed and paid by the citizens
of Whittier and the members of the Friends
Church in California. With this money the pres-
ent building was constructed. In the Summer of
1900 the Whittier Educational Association trans-
fered its interests to the California Yearly Meet-
ing of Friends.
In 1901 Whittier College was organized and
incorporated under the present management, and
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
367
the first class, entering with advanced standing
of one year, graduated in 1904.
In 1904 the college building was completed
by the addition upon the south side of a wing
containing laboratories, association rooms, of-
fice and reception rooms, dining room, kitchen
and dormitories. The auditorium was also re-
modeled and all the older class rooms renovated.
In the Summer of 1905 a spacious gymnasium
was built and equipped, and the athletic field
was graded for track, baseball and general field
Sports.
During the college year, ending in June, 1906,
a continued effort has been made to raise an ad-
ditional $100,000 endowment. At the close of
the college year there was still lacking $32,000.
“Everything that human plan could devise had
failed to complete the amount. There was still
lacking over $17,000, and the last available source
seemed exhausted. It seemed that failure was
stamped upon the effort. It was a day of gloom.
So Saturday had passed. Worn out by a long
week of almost continuous meetings, the people
were beginning to disperse, the clerk was just
calling for adjournment when he was interrupted
by an additional gift to the endowment. The
first was followed by another and another with-
out solicitation so rapidly that the names could
scarcely be taken.” (Whittier College Bulletin
July, IOO6.)
The amount was raised and the college is pre-
pared to enter upon larger work in the future.
THE HARVARD SCHOOL (MILITARY).
The most successful effort in the history of
Los Angeles to build up an educational insti-
tution combining military training with a high
standard of scholarship is the Harvard School
(Military) founded by Grenville C. Emery, A.
M., in I900.
The ground was purchased for the school in
April, I900. The following summer two build-
ings were erected, Rugby hall and Harvard hall
(now Junior hall) in the mission style, with Ar-
thur B. Benton as architect.
The school first opened September 25, 1900,
with forty pupils. The number increased to
Seventy-two during the year. Six years later
the School opened with 240 pupils.
Buildings have been erected from time to
time as the need of the school demanded to the
cost of $95,000. These are the new Harvard hall,
Rugby hall, Arnold hall, Junior hall, and the
gymnasium.
. The older cadets are armed with Springfield
rifles, 45 calibre West Point model, smaller rifles
being provided for the younger boys. Waist
belts, cartridge boxes and bayonet scabbard com-
plete the equipment of the cadet private.
A fully equipped 80-foot indoor rifle range,
underneath Arnold hall, permits the instruction
of cadets in rifle shooting.
A cadet band has been organized, the larger
instruments, such as the tuba, bass drum, etc.,
being the property of the school.
CHAPTER LIII.
LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC ORGANIZATIONS.
THE LOS ANGELES PUBLIC LIBRARY.
T: only attempt at founding any institu-
tion of the character of our modern read-
ing room and library during the Mexican
era of our city's history was that made by the
Amigos del Pais in 1844. The Amigos del Pais
(Friends of the Country) was a society or club
made up of the leading citizens of the town, both
native and foreign. A lot IOO varas Square,
free of taxes, was granted the society by the
ayuntamiento. An adobe building was erected
and fitted up with a dancing hall. A reading room
was partitioned off from the main hall and a
small library of books was collected. There were
no daily newspapers in the reading room. A
newspaper six months old was late news, and a
368
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
book of the last century was quite fresh and
readable. The Amigos for a time enjoyed their
Social privileges and the society flourished. Then
the Society ran in debt and its membership fell
off. The building was disposed of by lottery. An-
drés Pico drew the lucky number. The McDon-
ald block, on North Main street, stands on the
site of the Amigos' hall.
After the American conquest the question of
founding a library and reading room was fre-
quently agitated. The Mechanics' Institute, in
1856, '57 and ’58, was a flourishing literary as-
Sociation. It maintained a course of lectures
which were well patronized. The society owned
a corrugated iron building on the southeast cor-
ner of North Spring street and Court street,
where the Home Savings Bank building
now stands. It was ambitious to found a pub-
lic library and reading room, but the times were
unpropitious. Money was Scarce and popula-
tion migratory. The institution died and its good
intentions perished with it or went where all
good intentions go. -
The first attempt under American rule to
establish a library and reading room in Los An-
geles that accomplished something was made in
1859. A call was issued for “all who are dis-
posed to aid in establishing a library and read-
ing room to meet in Wells, Fargo & Company’s
express office Monday evening, April 4, 1859.”
The call was signed by H. N. Alexander, G.
W. Wood, J. Fleishman, P. Sichel, H. S. Alan-
son, J. Foy, L. M. Jacobs, William H. Workman,
N. Williamson, E. H. Workman, M. J. Newmark,
F. Mellus, F. Bachman and P. H. Downey. Of
all the signers of that call only William H. Work-
man and M. J. Newmark are living.
At the meeting a constitution and by-laws
were adopted. A membership fee of $5 was re-
quired and the monthly dues were fixed at $1.
At a subsequent meeting John Temple was elect-
ed president; J. J. Warner, vice-president; Fran-
cis Mellus, treasurer; Israel Fleishman, secre-
tary, and the following-named were chosen a
board of directors: E. Drown, J. H. Lander, J.
Frohlong, H. Mellus, E. J. C. Kewen, S. F. Rey-
nolds and R. Emerson.
The people were asked to contribute books to
the library. A motley collection of volumes in
English, French, German and Spanish were do-
nated. The membership was not large and the
dues were not paid promptly; the result was
that the rent of the rooms and the salary of the
librarian bankrupted the association. The books
were sold at auction to pay its debts and then
there was another “light that failed” in the old
pueblo—more good intentions that went to form
additional pavement.
In the early '70s, when the city began to take
On a new growth, the project of founding a pub-
lic library was again revived. On the 7th of
December, 1872, a meeting was called at the old
Merced theater, located on North Main street
just south of the Pico house or National hotel;
the building is still standing but long since ceased
to be used as a theater. Over two hundred cit-
izens were present. Gen. J. R. McConnell, a
prominent lawyer, acted as president, and W. J.
Broderick, then the proprietor of a bookstore,
acted as secretary. Sixty-six vice-presidents
were selected from the prominent men of the
city. These were to head the roll of membership
and to give the enterprise a good send-off. The
Los Angeles Library Association was formed,
and a committee was appointed to canvass the
city for members, subscriptions and donations of
books. This committee included ex-Gov. John
G. Downey, H. K. W. Bent, Harris Newmark,
W. J. Broderick and S. B. Caswell. A life mem-
bership cost $50, a yearly membership $5.
Governor Downey gave the use of four rooms
on the second floor of his block, corner of North
Main and Temple streets, free for three months;
these rooms were fitted up with open shelves,
newspaper racks and reading tables. The first
board of trustees consisted of J. G. Downey, S.
B. Caswell, H. K. W. Bent, G. H. Smith, Ignacio
Supulveda, W. H. Mace, A. W. Potts, T. W.
Temple, R. H. Dalton, Gen. George Stoneman,
E. M. Stanford, W. B. Lawler and J. R. Mc-
Connell; this board to have control of the library
and the appointment of the librarian and assist-
ants. The legislature of 1873-74 passed an act
authorizing the levying of a small tax on the
property of the city for the maintenance of the
library. In 1878, by act of the legislature, the
mayor and members of the city council were
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
369
made ex officio a board of regents to manage the
affairs of the library.
During the '70s, subscriptions, donations, balls
theatrical performances and membership fees
mainly supplied the funds for the purchase of
books and periodicals. The amount raised by
taxation was barely sufficient to keep up the run-
ning expenses, salary, rent, etc. The period
between 1880 and 1889 was not covered by so
many donations, but Occasional subscriptions and
membership fees kept the library running until
the adoption of the new charter changed the
manner of conducting the institution. The new
charter dispensed with the board of regents and
provided for a board of five directors appointed
by the mayor. In July, 1889, the library was re-
moved from Downey block to the city hall. The
Dewey System of classification was then adopted
and is still used. The records show that the
library then contained just 6,600 books. An
extra large appropriation was made that year on
condition that $10,000 be applied to the purchase
of books.
The librarians, with their term of service, are
as follows:
foundation. At the city election of 1904 a ma-
jority vote of the people decided in favor of locat-
ing the library building in the park.
In August, 1906, the volumes belonging to the
public school library, numbering about 15,000,
were withdrawn and a library room for the
Schools fitted up in the Grand Avenue school.
In April and May of the year 1906 the library
was moved from the city hall, where it had been
housed for seventeen years, to the Homer
Laughlin Annex on Hill street south of Third
street. When it moved into the city hall it con-
tained 6,600 volumes; when it moved out it had
I23,OOO volumes. Its growth while there crowd-
ed out all the other occupants of the third floor
of the city building. First the school superin-
tendent and the board of education had to hunt
other quarters, then the city engineer and the
street department.
It was claimed the weight of tons of books
made the building unsafe and the council or—
dered the library board to find new quarters.
The quarters in the city hall “were wholly inade-
quate for library purposes and the library author-
ities were as willing to move as the council was
to have them go.”
J. C. Littlefield.... December, I872-January, 1879
Patrick Connolly... January, 1879-June, 1880 “The new quarters are the second and third,
Mary E. Foy . . . . . . June, 1880-January, 1884 floors of a three-story reinforced concrete build-
|º: A. É.i.sº §º 3 : ing, fire-proof and earthquake-proof, with auto-
Tessa L. Kelso. . . . . April, 1889-May, 1895 matic fire-sprinkling system, and the first plunger
Clara B. Fowler....May, I895–June, 1867 elevator west of Ohio. Floor space inside of
Harriet C. Wadleigh June, 1897-May, 190o 20,000 square feet as against 7,000 in the old
Mary L. Jones. . . . . May, I900-June, I905 quarters; besides nearly 7,000 square feet in the
Charles F. Lummis. June, I905-, . . . . . ' ' ' ' roof garden already established on the floor back
In 1891 the annual membership fee which at of, and level with, the first library floor. There
that time was $3 was abolished and the library
made free. A training class was organized the
Same year for training attendants and the follow-
ing year (1892) the board of education placed the
school library in custody of the library board.
The question of securing a library building
has been agitated for a number of years. At a
Special election held in 1893 the question of issu-
ing bonds to the amount of $50,000 for a library
building to be located in Central Park, was sub-
mitted to the people. It was voted down on the
plea that the title to the park would be invali-
dated by using it for any other purpose than a
place for recreation. This claim has no valid
is another but larger floor adaptable for roof
gardens over the second library floor, which will
probably be put in operation within a year. A
couple of Carnegie branches in Brooklyn have
roofs and some flowers in terra cotta flower-pots;
but Los Angeles has the first real roof-garden
reading room in America. It has over 300 run-
ning feet of rose hedge, bush and climbing, from
five to ten feet high; 50 feet of heliotrope hedge;
50 feet of geranium hedge; an arbor 80x16 feet
with eastern and western varities of grapes, with
wistarias, honeysuckle, etc.; a I9-foot dracena
and a 23-foot crepe myrtle; fine specimens of
orange, lemon, grape-fruit, palm (in variety),
24
370
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL, RECORD.
cherimoya, fig, alligator pear, oleander, camphor,
loquat, bamboo, catalpa, banana, rubber, etc. (all
in receptacles as capacious as the average tree
gets out of doors, even in this country), a foun-
tain IO feet interior diameter, with four kinds
of water lilies now in bloom, and with two varie-
ties of goldfish ; and a large space in which mere
men may read while they smoke. There is also,
of course, space for women in which no smoking
is allowed. This roof garden is already largely
patronized. Its seating capacity is almost equal
to the total space provided for public use in the
old quarters.” .
The total number of employes of the Los An-
geles Public Library in 1905 was 52. The ap-
propriation received from taxation was $62,500;
of this $28,945 was paid for the salaries and
$10,307 for books. When the library was moved
into the city hall in July, 1889, there were only
six employes and the amount paid for salaries
was $2,632.
HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.
Although Southern California is rich in his-
torical material, yet more than a century passed
before any society was organized for its preserv-
ation. On the evening of November 1, 1883, in
a room of the old Temple block, corner of North
Main and Market streets, used at that time for a
council chamber, the following-named gentlemen
met for the purpose of organizing an historical
society: Col. J. J. Warner, Gen John Mans-
field, H. D. Barrows, N. Levering, Prof. J. M.
Guinn, Maj. C. N. Wilson, ex-Gov. J. G. Dow-
ney, Prof. Ira More, J. B. Niles, A. Kohler, Don
Antonio F. Coronel, George Hansen, A. J. Brad-
field, Maj. E. W. Jones and Prof. Marcus Baker.
The question of organizing a society was dis-
cussed and a plan formulated. At a subsequent
meeting held December 6th, officers were elected,
a constitution and by-laws adopted and the or-
ganization completed. The first officers of the
society were: J. J. Warner, president; H. D.
Barrows, A. F. Coronel, J. G. Downey, John
Mansfield, vice-presidents; J. M. Guinn, treas-
urer; C. N. Wilson, secretary. Its meetings at
first were held in the council chamber, later on
*Charles F. Lummis” “Books in Harness.” “Out West”—
September, 1906.
in the city court room, and now at the houses of
the members. During the twenty-three years of
its existence about two hundred and fifty per-
sons have been received into membership. Of
these fifty are dead, a number have been lost
through removal, withdrawal and non-payment
of dues. The active membership is now about
fifty.
The Society has issued twenty annual publica-
tions of papers read before it or contributed to
it. These publications make two thousand octavo
pages and form six complete volumes of val-
uable history. It has expended in publication,
purchase of books and newspaper files about
$5,000 cash ; and in addition to this it has re-
ceived in donations of books, curios, files of
paper, periodicals, pamphlets, manuscripts, maps,
etc., historical material worth at least $5,000
more. Its library includes bound volumes and
pamphlets, in all about six thousand titles. Its
publications have a wide circulation. They are
sent to historical, Scientific and geographical so-
cieties, to public libraries and to the leading col-
leges and universities of the United States and
Europe.
The society was incorporated February I2,
1891. It is the oldest historical society on the
Pacific coast and the only one in California doing
state work. The legislature of IQoS passed an
act appropriating $125,000 for the erection of a
building for the society and for the newly cre-
ated court of appeals. Governor Pardee vetoed
the bill on the plea that the legislature had made
appropriations in excess of the revenue.
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE.
The Southern California Academy of Science
first bore the name of the Southern California
Science Association. It was organized in 1891.
Its first president was Dr. A. Davidson, and Mrs.
Mary E. Hart filled the position of secretary.
Its growth was slow at first. In 1896 the asso-
ciation was reorganized and took its present
name. Since then it has had a healthy growth.
Its present officers and board of directors are:
W. H. Knight, president; Abbot Kinney, first
vice-president; J. D. Hooker, second vice-presi-
dent; W. C. Patterson, treasurer; B. R. Baum-
gardt, secretary; Prof. J. A. Foshay, C. D. Cun-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
371
ningham, Prof. W. L. Watts, A. Campbell-John-
ston, Dr. S. M. Woodbridge, directors. Its pros-
pectus thus outlines the object of the society:
“It is the special province of our Academy to
engage in those investigations which will ac-
quaint us with our physical environment. No
richer field exists for the prosecution of scien-
tific inquiry than that of which Los Angeles is
the metropolis. Its peculiar topographical fea-
tures, rugged mountain chains, varied mineral
deposits, and plains and fertile valleys, and its
strange forms of animal and plant life, furnish
abundant material for the physicist and the stu-
dent of nature.” The Academy has an active
membership of about one hundred and fifty.
The members are divided into sections for spe-
cial and technical work. The following are the
principal sections: Astronomical, Botanical;
Agricultural Experiment; Biological; Geolog-
ical.
General meetings are held the second Tuesday
evening of each month from September to June
inclusive. The Academy is incorporated and
has accumulated a considerable collection of sci-
entific material. It publishes scientific papers
read before the society or contributed to it.
PIONEERS OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY.
Among the purposes for which this Society
was organized are “to collect and preserve the
early history of Los Angeles County and to per-
petuate the memory of those who, by their hon-
orable labors and heroism, helped to make that
history.” The work, therefore, of this society is
largely historical in its nature and it cannot be
classed with purely social or fraternal Societies,
extended historical notices of which it has been
found impossible to insert in this work.
The preliminary meeting for the organization
of a Pioneer Society was held in the business
office of the Daily Herald, then located on Third
street in the Bradbury block, August 2, 1897.
There were present J. M. Griffith, A. L. Bath,
H. S. Orme, M. Teed, J. M. Elliott, J. W. Gil-
lette, J. M. Guinn, H. W. O'Melveny and W. A.
Spalding. The question of forming a Pioneer
or Old Settlers’ Society was discussed and a com-
mittee to formulate a plan of organization was
appointed. The members of the committee were:
H. D. Barrows, J. W. Gillette, J. M. Guinn, Dr.
H. S. Orme, Dr. J. S. Griffin, Harris Newmark,
Henry W. O'Melveny and B. S. Eaton. The
president of the meeting, J. M. Griffith, was
made a member of the committee. At the meet-
ing of the committee, August 5th, B. S. Eaton
was made chairman and J. M. Guinn secretary.
A sub-committee, consisting of B. S. Eaton, J.
M. Guinn and H. D. Barrows, was appointed to
draft a constitution and by-laws and submit them
to the general committee at a meeting to be held
On August Ioth. At that meeting the name of
the organization was chosen and the time of rés-
idence in the county necessary to render a per-
son eligible to membership was fixed at twenty-
five years. It was argued that by adopting a
movable date for eligibility to membership the
society would continue to grow, whereas if a
fixed date was adopted the Society would begin
to decline as soon as all eligible had been en-
rolled. The growth of the society has proved
the wisdom of this argument. A call was issued
for persons eligible to membership under the
twenty-five-year-residence clause to meet at the
Chamber of Commerce, September 4, 1897, at
8 p. m., for the purpose of adopting a constitu-
tion and by-laws, electing officers and otherwise
completing the organization. At the meeting of
September 4, twenty-four persons were pres–
ent and signed the roll. The constitution and by-
laws prepared by the committee, after a few
changes, were adopted. The following-named
persons were chosen a board of directors: Louis
Roeder, W. H. Workman, H. D. Barrows, J. M.
Griffith, B. S. Eaton, J. M. Guinn and H. W.
O'Melveny. The directors then proceeded to
elect the officers of the society from their num-
ber. B. S. Eaton was chosen president; J. M.
Griffith, first vice-president; W. H. Workman,
second vice-president; Louis Roeder, treasurer,
and J. M. Guinn, secretary. The Society grew
rapidly and at the end of the first year its mem-
bership reached two hundred; it now numbers
four hundred.
The Society of Pioneers in connection with
the Historical Society of Southern California
has, beginning with 1897 and continuing up to
1906, published an annual containing historical
papers read before the society, and short bio-
372
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
graphical sketches of deceased pioneers. The
Society has preserved a considerable amount of
valuable historical matter through its publica-
tions. - -
THE SOUTHWEST SOCIETY ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTI-
TUTE OF AMERICA.
The Southwest Society of the Archaeological
Institute of America was founded November 30,
I903. At thirteen months old it was numerical-
ly third among the fifteen affiliated societies of
the Institute, which at that time was twenty-five
years old and embraced the most important uni-
versities and centers of learning in the country.
At three years old it had eighty per cent larger
membership than any other society in the coun-
try. The present membership is four hundred.
It has made the largest collection of folk-
Songs in the country, about half of which are
Spanish and half in thirty different Indian lan-
guages of the Southwest. It is recording these
by phonograph and is having them transcribed
ready for translation, annotation, and publica-
tion. The society has purchased collections cov-
ering the most important art known to Cali-
fornia before 1840, which includes at least two
masterpieces; two large collections of California
archaeology, and other collections in large vari-
ety. It has been given the personal relics of Gen.
John C. Fremont and many others relating to
the first American occupancy of California, and
it has been promised all relics of the Mission
epoch in the possession of the Roman Catholic
Church in California. It has already made a
large photographic archive of the Southwest and
a large number of miscellaneous collections of
value. It has conducted a large number of
lectures in California, besides those given by the
secretary as course-lecturer of the Archaeological
Institute in all chief university centers of the
East in 1904-05; and has conducted three scien-
tific explorations, one in California and two in
Arizona, each with large results to science. If
has secured, by personal appeal to the President,
a reversal of the ten-year policy of the Interior
Department, which forbade scientists to explore
the Indian and forest reservations of the South-
west. Plans have been laid for a great free pub-
lic museum in this city and a large sum of money
has been paid toward the purchase price of a
$50,000 site therefor. The society has established
an exhibit meantime in a fire-proof building,
where its collection are visible to the public free
every afternoon.
The first officers of the society were as fol-
lows: President, J. S. Slauson; vice-presidents:
Gen. Harrison Gray Otis, editor Los Angeles
Times; Frederick H. Rindge, president Conserv-
ative Life Insurance Company; George F. Bo-
vard, president University of Southern Califor-
nia; Dr. Norman Bridge; secretary, Charles F.
Lummis; treasurer, W. C. Patterson, president
Los Angeles National Bank; recorder and cura-
tor, Dr. F. M. Palmer; executive committee—
Prof. J. A. Foshay, superintendent city schools
Los Angeles; F. Lungren, Charles F. Lummis,
Dr. F. M. Palmer, Miss Mary E. Foy, Theo. B.
Comstock; advisory council—H. W. O'Melveny,
Los Angeles; Louis A. Dreyfus, Santa Barbara;
Dr. J. H. McBride, Pasadena; Charles Cassatt
Davis, Los Angeles; George W. Marston, San
Diego; Charles A. Moody,..Los Angeles; John G.
North, Riverside; Walter R. Bacon, Los An-
geles; E. W. Jones, San Gabriel; Rt. Rev. T. F.
Conaty, Los Angeles; Rt. Rev. J. H. Johnson,
Los Angeles, and Dr. J. T. Martindale, Los An-
geles.
|HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
CHAPTER LIV.
CLIMATIC AND SEISMIC TRAGEDIES.
E.ARTHQUAKES, FLOODS AND DROUGHTS.
F there is one characteristic of his state of
| which the true Californian is prouder than
another, it is its climate. With his table of
temperature and records of cloudless days and
gentle sunshine, he is prepared to prove that Cali-
fornia has the most glorious climate in the world.
Should the rains descend and the floods prevail,
or should the heavens become as brass and neith-
er the former nor the latter rains fall, these cli-
matic extremes he excuses on the plea of excep-
tional years; or should the earthquake's shock
pale his cheeks and send him flying in affright
from his casa, when the temblór has rolled by
and his fright is over, he laughs to scorn the idea
that an earthquake in California is anything to
be afraid of, and draws invidious comparisons be-
tween the harmless shake-ups of this favored
land and the cyclones, the blizzards and the thun-
derstorms of the east. The record of earthquakes,
floods and droughts in this chapter may seen to
the reader, as he peruses it, a formal arraignment
of our “glorious climate,” but he must recollect
that the events recorded are spread over a pe—
riod of 140 years, and he must recall to mind,
too, that the aggregate loss of human life in
all these years from all these climatic tragedies
is less than that inflicted by a single Season's cy-
clones and floods in the southern and northwest-
ern StateS.
EARTHQUAKES.
That there are periods of seismic disturbances,
when earthquakes seem to be epidemic in a coun-
try, is evident. At the time of its first settle-
ment California was passing through one of these
periods. Among the earliest recorded climatic
phenomena, noted by Portolá's expedition, is the
frequent mention of earthquake shocks. Father
Crespi, in his diary of this expedition, says of
their camping place, July 23, 1769, “We called
this place El Dulcisimo Nombre de Jesus de
Temblóres,” because four times during the day
we had been roughly shaken up by earthquakes.
The first and heaviest trembling took place at
about one o'clock and the last near four o'clock
in the afternoon. One of the gentiles who hap-
pened to be in camp was no less scared than we,
and began to shout aloud, invoking mercy and
turning towards all points of the compass.”
Again, when the expedition encamped on the
Porciuncula river, August 2, he says, “During
the evening and night we experienced three con-
secutive earthquake shocks.” When encamped
On the Santa Clara river a few days later, he notes
the occurrence of two more shocks.
Hugo Reid, in his letters descriptive of the
founding of San Gabriel Mission, says: “The
11ow San Gabriel river was named Rio de Los
Temblóres, and the building was referred to as
the Mission de Los Temblóres. These names
were given from the frequency of convulsions at
that time and for many years after. These con-
vulsions were not only monthly and weekly, but
often daily.”
The stone church of San Gabriel was, during
the course of its construction, several times in-
jured by earthquake shocks. In 1804 the arched
roof had to be taken off and one of wood and
tiles substituted. The walls were cracked by an
earthquake and had to be repaired several times;
the original tower was taken down and the pres-
ent belfry substituted. There were frequent con-
vulsions in the northern districts; at San Fran-
cisco in 1808, there were eighteen shocks be-
tween June 21 and July 17, some of them quite
severe. The seismic disturbance that had con-
tinued from 1769, culminated in a series of se-
vere shocks in 1812, which year was long known
in California as “el afio de los temblóres,” the
year of the earthquakes. On Sunday, December
8 of that year, the neophytes of San Juan Capis-
*The sweetest name of Jesus of the Earthquakes.
374
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
trano were gathered at morning mass in their
magnificent church, the finest in California. At
the second wave of the temblór the lofty tower
fell with a crash on the vaulted roof of masonry,
. and in a moment the whole mass of Stone and
mortar came down on the congregation. The
officiating minister escaped by the door of the
sacristy and six neophytes were saved, but the
rest, forty in number, according to official re-
ports, were crushed to death, though the mission
records show “that thirty-nine were buried in
the next two days and four more bodies later,”
making the total killed forty-three. At Santa
Inez Mission the church was thrown down, but
there was no loss of life. At Purisima Mission
the earth shook for four minutes. The church
and nearly all the adobe buildings were shaken
down. s
At Santa Barbara the buildings were damaged,
new springs of asphaltum opened; the so-called
volcano developed new openings and the people
fled from the town in terror. At San Gabriel
it overthrew the main altar, breaking the St.
Joseph, St. Dominic, St. Francis and the Christ.
It shook down the steeple, cracked the Sacristy
walls and injured the friars' house and other
buildings.: The temblórs continued with great
frequency from December, 1812, to the following
March. It was estimated that not less than
three hundred well-defined shocks were expe-
rienced throughout Southern California in the
three months following December 8. After that
there was a subsidence, and mother earth, or at
least that part of her where California is located,
ceased to tremble.
In 1855, 1856 and 1857 there was a recur-
rence of seismic convulsions. July II, 1855, at
8:15 p.m., was felt the most violent shock of
earthquake since 1812. Nearly every house in
Los Angeles was more or less injured; walls
were badly cracked, the openings in some cases
being a foot wide. Goods were cast down from
shelves of stores and badly damaged. The water
in the city zanjas slopped over the banks and
the ground was seen to rise and fall in waves,
On April 14 and May 2, 1856, severe shocks
were experienced, occasioning considerable
alarm. Slight shocks were of frequent occur-
reſhCe.
January 9, 1857, at 8:30 a.m., occurred one of
the most memorable earthquakes ever experienced
in the Southern country. At Los Angeles the
vibrations lasted about two minutes, the motion
being from north to south. It began with gentle
vibrations, but soon increased to such violence
that the people rushed into the street demoral-
ized by terror. Women shrieked, children cried
and men ejaculated hastily framed prayers of
most ludicrous construction. Horses and cattle
fled wildly over the plains, screaming and bel-
lowing in affright.* It was most severe in the
neighborhood of Fort Tejon. Here a chasm,
from ten to twenty feet wide and extending from
thirty to forty miles in a straight line northwest
to Southeast, opened in the ground and closed
again with a crash, leaving a ridge of pulverized
earth several feet high. Large trees were broken
off and cattle grazing upon the hillsides rolled
down the declivity in helpless fright. The bar-
racks and officers’ quarters, built of adobe, were
damaged to such an extent that the officers and
soldiers were obliged to live in tents for several
months until the buildings were repaired. The
great earthquake of 1868, which shook up the
region around the bay of San Francisco, was
very light at Los Angeles.
The Owens’ valley earthquake that occurred
March 26, 1872, was, next to the great “tem-
blór” of 1812, the most destructive of life of any
that had visited California up to that time. The
houses in the town of Lone Pine, Inyo county,
where the greatest loss of life occurred, were
built of loose stone and adobe, and it was more
owing to the faulty construction of the buildings
that so many were killed, than to the severity
of the shock, although it was quite heavy. It
happened at 25 minutes past 2 o'clock in the
morning, when all were in bed. Twenty-six per-
sons were killed in Lone Pine and two in other
places in the valley. Los Angeles was pretty
thoroughly shaken up at the time, but no dam-
age was done and no one was hurt. The last
seismic disturbance in Southern California that
caused damage was the San Jacinto earthquake,
Vol. II.
Vol. II.
*Bancroft’s History of California.
#Bancroft’s History of California.
*J. Albert Wilson's History of Los Angeles County.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
375
which occurred at 4:30 a.m., December 25, 1899.
It damaged a number of buildings in the busi-
ness part of San Jacinto, a town near the base
of the San Jacinto Mountains in Riverside
county. It shook down part of the walls of a
brick house in Hemet, three miles northwesterly
from San Jacinto. A brick chimney in the hotel
was turned entirely around. At the Saboda In-
dian reservation, a few miles from San Jacinto,
six squaws were killed by the falling of an old
adobe wall. They were sleeping in an old house.
When the shock come the walls fell inward,
crushing them to death. No other lives were
lost. Shocks continued at intervals for several
weeks. In the mountains southeasterly from
San Jacinto great crevices were discovered
where the earth had opened, and in some places
had gulped down tall trees. Mount Tauquitz
gave forth suspicious rumblings as if about to
break out into a volcanic eruption, but subsided.
For an account of the San Francisco earth-
quake of April 18, 1906, see Chapter XXXVI of
this volume.
FILOODS.
The reports of the climatic conditions prevail-
ing in the early days of California are very mea-
gre. Although the state of the weather was
undoubtedly a topic of deep interest to the pas-
toral people of California, yet neither the dons
nor the padres compiled meteorological tables or
kept records of atmospheric phenomena. With
their cattle on a thousand hills and their flocks
and herds spread over the plains, to them an
abundant rainfall meant prosperity, a dry season
starvation to their flocks and consequent poverty.
Occasionally we find in the archives that a pro-
cession was ordered or a novéna promised to
Some certain saint if he would order a rain storm,
but there is no “mention of prayers being offered
to cut short the pluvial downpour. Consequently
the old weather reports, such as they are, show
more droughts than floods, not that there were
more, but because people are more inclined to
bewail the evils that befall them than rejoice
over the good.
The only record of a flood that I have been
able to find during the last century is in Father
Serra's report of the overflow of the San Miguel
(San Gabriel) and the destruction of the first
crop Sown at the old mission of San Gabriel in
the winter of 1771-72.
In 1810-II there was a great flood and all of
the rivers of Southern California overflowed
their banks. In 1815 occurred a flood that ma-
terially changed the course of the Los Angeles
river within the pueblo limits. The river aban-
doned its former channel and flowed west of the
suertes or planting field of the settlers; its new
channel followed very nearly the present line of
Alameda street. The old fields which were situ-
ated where Chinatown and the lumber yards
now are were washed away or covered with sand,
and new fields were located in what is now the
neighborhood of San Pedro street.
In 1825 it again left its bed and drifted to the
eastward, forming its present channel. The
memorable flood of that year effected a great
change in the physical contour of the country
west of Los Angeles city. Col. J. J. Warner, in
his “Historical Sketch of Los Angeles County,”
says: “In 1825 the rivers of this county were
so swollen that their beds, their banks and ad-
joining lands were greatly changed. At the
date of the settlement of Los Angeles a large
portion of the country from the central part of
the pueblo to the tide water of the sea through
and over which the Los Angeles river now finds
its way to the ocean was largely covered with a
forest interspersed with tracks of marsh. From
that time until 1825 it was seldom, if in any year,
that the river discharged even during the rainy
season its waters into the sea. Instead of having
a riverway to the sea, the waters spread over the
country, filling the depressions in the surface and
forming lakes, ponds and marshes. The river
water, if any, that reached the ocean drained off
from the land at so many places, and in Such
small volumes, that no channel existed until the
flood of 1825, which, by cutting a riverway to
tide water, drained the marsh land and caused
the forests to disappear.” Colonel Warner also
says in his Historical Sketch: “The flood of
1832 so changed the drainage in the neighbor-
hood of Compton and the northeastern portion
of San Pedro ranch that a number of lakes and
ponds covering a large area of the latter ranch
lying north and northwesterly from Wilmington
376
HISTORICAI. AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD,
which to that date had been permanent became
dry in a few years thereafter.” The drainage of
these ponds and lakes completed the destruction
of the forests that Colonel Warner Says covered
a large portion of the country south and west
of the city. These forests were in all probability
thickets or copses of willow, larch and cotton-
wood similar to those found on the low ground
near the mouth of the Santa Ana and in the
swampy lands of the San Gabriel river forty
years ago. In 1842 occurred another flood simi-
lar to that of 1832.
In January, 1850, the Argonauts of '49 had
their first experience of a California flood. The
valley of the Sacramento was like an inland Sea
and the city of Sacramento became a second
Venice. But, instead of gondolas, the citizens
navigated the submerged streets in wagon boxes,
bakers’ troughs and crockery crates, and in rafts
buoyed up by whiskey kegs. Whiskey in hogs-
heads, whiskey in barrels and whiskey in kegs
floated on the angry waters, and the gay gon-
dolier as he paddled through the streets drew
inspiration for his song from the bung hole of
his gondola. tº
In the winter of 1852-53 followed another
flood that brought disaster to many a mining
camp and financial ruin to many an honest miner.
A warm rain melted the deep Snows On the
Sierras and every mountain creek became a river
and every river became a lake in size. The wing
dams and the coffer dams that the miners had
spent piles of money and months of time con-
structing, were swept away, and floated off to-
ward China, followed by the vigorous but inef-
fective anathemas of the disappointed and ruined
gold hunters. In Southern California the flood
was equally severe, but there was less damage to
property than in the mining districts. There
was an unprecedented rain fall in the mountains.
At old Fort Miller, near the head of the San
Joaquin river, an aggregate of forty-six inches
of water fell during the months of January and
February.
The winter of 1859-60 was another season of
heavy storms in the mountains. On December
4, 1859, a terrific southeaster set in and in forty-
eight hours twelve inches of water fell. The
waters of the San Gabriel river rose to an un-
following local:
precedented height in the cañon and swept away
the miners' sluices, long toms, wheels and other
mining machinery. The rivers of the county
overflowed the lowlands and large tracts of the
bottom lands were covered with sand and Sedi-
ment. The preceding season had been a dry
year; the starving cattle and sheep unsheltered
from the pitiless 1ain, chilled through, died by
the thousands during the storm. -
The great flood of 1861-62 was the Noachian
deluge of California floods. The season's rain
fall footed up nearly fifty inches. The valley of
the Sacramento was a vast inland Sea and the
city of Sacramento was submerged and almost
ruined. Relief boats, on their errands of mercy,
leaving the channels of the rivers, sailed over
inundated ranches, past floating houses and
wrecks of barns, through vast flotsams made up
of farm products, farming implements and the
carcasses of horses, sheep and cattle, all drifting
out to sea. In our county, on account of the
smaller area of the valleys, there was but little
loss of property. The rivers spread over the
lowlands, but stock found safety from the flood
on the hills. The Santa Ana river for a time
rivaled the “Father of Waters” in magnitude.
In the town of Anaheim, four miles from the
river, the water ran four feet deep and spread in
an unbroken sheet to the Coyote hills, three miles
beyond. The Arroyo Seco, swollen to a mighty
river, brought down from the mountains and
cañons great rafts of driftwood, which were
scattered over the plains below the city and fur-
nished fuel for the poor people of the city for
several years. It began raining on December
24, 1861, and continued for thirty days with but
two slight interruptions. The Star published the
“A phenomenon—On Tuesday
last the sun made its appearance. The phenome-
non lasted several minutes and was witnessed by
a great number of persons.”
The flood of 1867-68 left a lasting impress on
the physical contour of the county by the crea-
tion of a new river, or rather an additional chan-
nel for the San Gabriel river. Several thousand
acres of valuable land were washed away by
the San Gabriel cutting a new channel to the
sea, but the damage was more than offset by
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
377
the increased facilities for irrigation afforded by
having two rivers instead of one.
The flood of 1884 caused considerable damage
to the lower portions of the city. It swept away
about fifty houses and washed away portions of
Several orchards and vineyards. One life was
lost, that of a milkman who attempted to cross
, the Arroyo Seco. The flood of 1886 was similar
to that of 1884; the same portion of the city was
flooded, that between Alameda street and the
river, Several houses were washed away and two
lives lost. Both of these floods occurred in Feb-
ruary. During the flood of 1889-90, the Los
Angeles river cut a new channel for itself across
the Laguna rancho, emptying its waters into the
San Gabriel several miles above its former out-
let. The flood of February 22, 1891, was occa-
Sioned by a mountain storm that expended its
fury among the higher ranges at the head of the
San Gabriel. That river was the only one that
was greatly enlarged. A family of three per-
sons was drowned near Azusa by the overflow of
the San Gabriel.
DROUGHTS.
After the deluge, what? Usually a drought,
but no weather prophet has been able so far to
predict in what order floods and droughts may
come. The first record of a dry year that I find
was that of 1795. The crops were reduced more
than one-half and people of the pueblo had to
get along on short rations. In 18OO and again in
1803 there was a short rainfall. Beginning in
1807 and continuing through 1808 and 1809
there was a severe drought. The ranges were
overstocked and a slaughter of horses was or-
dered. At San Jose in 1807, 7,500 horses were
killed. In 1808, 7,200 had been slaughtered at
Santa Barbara to relieve the overstocked ranchos
and carry through the cattle. There was no sale
for horses, so they had to perish that the cattle
which were valuable for their hides and tallow
might live. In the neighborhood of Santa Bar-
bara a great number of horses were killed by
being forced over a precipice into the ocean. In
1822–23 there was a severe drought; Governor
Argüello ordered a novéna of prayers to San
Antonio de Padua for rain, but the saint seems
not to have been clerk of the weather that year.
The great flood of 1825 was followed by a
terrible drought in 1827–28-29. During the pre-
ceding years of abundant rainfall and consequent
iuxuriant pasturage, the cattle ranges had be-
come overstocked. When the drought set in the
cattle died by the thousands on the plains and
ship loads of their hides were shipped away in
the “hide droghers.” There was another great
drought in 1844-45 with the usual accompani-
ment of starving horses and cattle.
The great floods of 1859-60 and 1861-62 were
followed by the famine years of 1862-63 and
1863-64. The rainfall at Los Angeles for the
season of 1862-63 did not exceed four inches
and that for 1863-64 amounted to little more
than a trace. A few showers fell in November,
I863, but not enough to start vegetation; no
more fell until late in March, but these did no
good. The dry feed on the ranges was exhaust-
ed and cattle were slowly dying of starvation.
Herds of gaunt, skeleton-like forms moved slowly
Over the plains in search of food. Here and
there, singly or in small groups, poor brutes too
weak to move on stood motionless, with droop-
ing heads, slowly dying of starvation. It was a
pitiful sight. In the long stretch of arid plain
between the San Gabriel and Santa Ana rivers
there was one Oasis of luxuriant green. It was
the vineyards of the Anaheim Colonists, kept
green by irrigation. The colony lands were sur-
rounded by a close willow hedge and the streets
closed by gates. The starving cattle and horses,
frenzied by the sight of something green, would
gather around the inclosure and make desperate
attempts to break through. A mounted guard
patrolled the outside of the barricade day and
night to protect the vineyards from incursions by
the starving herds. The loss of cattle was fear-
ful. The plains were strewn with their car-
casses. In marshy places and around the ciene-
gas, where there was a vestige of green, the
ground was covered with their skeletons, and the
traveler for years afterward was often startled
by coming suddenly on a veritable Golgotha-a
place of skulls—the long horns standing out in
defiant attitude as if defending the fleshless
bones. It was estimated that 50,000 head of
cattle died on the Stearns rancho alone. The
great drought of 1863-64 put an end to cattle
raising as a distinctive industry in Southern Cali-
378
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
fornia. The dry year of 1876-77 almost de-
stroyed the sheep industry in Southern Califor-
nia. The old time sheep ranges had been greatly
reduced by the subdivision of the large ranchos
and the utilization of the land for cultivation.
When the fed was exhausted on the ranges many
of the owners of sheep undertook to drive them
to Utah, to Arizona or to New Mexico, but they
left most of their flocks on the desert—dead
from starvation and exhaustion. The rainfalls
for the dry season of 1897-98 and those of 1898–
99 and 1899-1900 were even less than in Some
Of the memorable famine years of the olden
time. There was but little loss of stock for want
of feed and very little suffering of any kind due
to these dry years. The change from cattle and
sheep raising to fruit growing, the sub-division
of the large ranchos into small farms, the in-
creased water supply by tunneling into the moun-
tains and by the boring of artesian wells and the
economical use of water in irrigation, have
robbed the dreaded dry year of its old-time ter-
!"O1’S.
OFFICIAL TABLE OF RAINFALL AT Los ANGELES CITY FOR THE LAST 20 YEARS BY MONTHS,
Compiled by A. B. WollaBER, Local Forecaster, U. S. Weather Bureau
#. & a # = F * * * * *
* --> º * º y-d r= E
Year § 3 ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; Season
1887-88. . . . . . 0.15 0.12 0.78 2.67 6.03 0.77 3.15 0.11 0.02 0.00 0.03 0.08 13.91
1888-89. . . . . . 0.00 0.36 4.01 6.26 0.25 0.92 6.48 0.27 0.62 0.00 0.00 0.28 19.45
1889-90. . . . . . 0.33 6.96 1.35 15.80 7.83 1.36 0.66 0.22 0.03 0.02 0.00 0.03 34.59
1890-91. . . . ... 0.06 0.03 0.13 2.32 0.25 8.56 0.41 1.26 0.31 0.00 0.00 0.00 13.33
1891-92. . . . .... 0.06 O.00 0.00 1.99 0.88 3.19 3.39 0.22 2.06 0.06 0.00 0.01 11.86
1892-93. . . . . . 0.00 0.33 4.40 4.18 6.29 2.27 8.52 0.19 0.06 0.03 0.00 0.00 26.27
1893-94. . . . . . 0.00 0.75 0.20 3.65 0.94 0.49 0.37 0.13 0.20 0.00 0.00 0.01 6.74
1894-95. . . . . . ().73 0.02 0.00 4.62 5.84 0.46 3.77 0.46 0.19 0.01 0.00 0.00 16.10
1895-96. . . . . . 0.00 0.24 0.80 0.78 3.23 0.00 2.97 0.19 0.30 0.00 0.02 0.01 8.54
1896-97. . . . . . 0.00 1.30 1.66 2.12 3.70 5.62 2.31 0.02 0.10 0.00 0.00 ().00 16.83
1897-98. . . . . . 0.00 2.47 0.01 0.05 1.26 0.51 0.98 0.03 1.75 0.00 0.07 0.00 7.13
1898-99 . . . . . . 0.02 0.09 0.00 (). 12 2.64 0.04 1.81 0.18 0.04 0.58 ().00 0.01 5.53
1899-00. . . . . . 0.00 1.59 0.90 0.90 1.17 0.00 ().99 0.54 1.81 0.00 0.00 0.00 7.90
1900-01. . . . . . 0.00 0.26 6.53 ().00 2.49 4.38 4.05 0.68 1.50 0.00 0.00 0.09 16.38
1901-02 . . . . . . 0.03 1.88 0.46 0.00 1.62 3.35 2.98 (). 16 0.03 0.00 0.00 0.00 10.51
1902-03. . . . . . 0.00 0.40 2.08 2.50 2.10 1.52 6.93 3.77 0.00 0.02 0.00 ().00 19.32
1903-04. . . . . . 0.43 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.14 2.68 4.50 0.97 ().00 0.00 0.00 O.17 8.89
1904-05. . . . . . 0.28 0.69 0.00 2.45 2.57 6.06 6.00 0.35 ().95 0.00 0.00 0.00 19.35
1905-96 . . . . . . 0.00 0.08 2.98 0.20 3.85 2.47 7.35 0.69 1.02 0.01 0.02 0.03 18.70
Average . . . . 0.07 0.78 1,40 2.89 2.67 2.94 3.13 1, 10 0.52 0.08 0.02 0.03 15.63
CHAPTER LV
COMMERCIAL CORPORATIONS.
fHE FIRST CHAMBER OF COMMERCE.
HE first commercial corporation formed in
T Los Angeles for the promotion of the
business interests of the city and county
was the Chamber of Commerce that was or-
ganized in 1873. The first preliminary meeting
of that organization was held August 1, 1873,
in the district court room of the old court-house,
which stood where the Bullard block now stands.
Ex-Governor John G. Downey, acted as chair-
man and J. M. Griffith as secretary. There was
a large attendance of the leading merchants and
business men of the city. It was decided at that
meeting to call the proposed organization a
Board of Trade, but at a subsequent meeting the
name was changed to a Chamber of Commerce.
At a meeting held in the same place, August 9,
the secretary reported one hundred names on
the roll of membership. The admission fee was
fixed at $5. A Constitution and By-Laws were
adopted and a board of eleven directors elected.
The persons chosen as directors were R. M.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
379
Widney, J. G. Downey, S. B. Caswell, S. Lazard,
J. S. Griffin, P. Beaudry, M. J. Newmark, J. M.
Griffith, H. W. Hellman, I. W. Lord, and C. C.
Lipps. On the IIth of August, articles of in-
corporation were filed. The objects of the or-
ganization as set forth in the articles of incor-
poration are: “To form and establish a Cham-
ber of Commerce in and for the City and County
of Los Angeles, and to transact any and all busi-
ness usually transacted and conducted by Cham-
bers of Commerce and Boards of Trade.” It
was incorporated for fifty years, and its charter
is still in force.
The first president was Solomon Lazard and
the first secretary I. W. Lord. Judge R. M. Wid-
ney's office in Temple block was selected as the
place of meeting for the directors. The mem-
bers went actively at work and the Chamber ac-
complished a great deal of good for the city and
surrounding country. One of the first measures
that engaged the attention of the board was an
effort to secure an appropriation of $150,000 for
the survey and improvement of San Pedro har-
bor, and it was largely through the efforts of the
Chamber that the first appropriation for that pur-
pose was finally secured.
Literature descriptive of Southern California
was circulated abroad and considerable atten-
tion was given to the extending of the trade of
the city among the mining camps of Arizona.
The Chamber continued actively at work on va-
rious schemes for promoting the advancement of
our commerce through the years of 1873 and
1874. In 1875 came the disastrous bank failures,
which were followed by the dry years of 1876-77.
These calamities demoralized business and dis-
couraged enterprise. The members of the Cham-
ber lost their interest and the organization died
a lingering death. It was buried in the grave of
the “has beens” at least a decade before the pres–
ent Chamber of Commerce was born, but the
good that it did was not all “interred with its
bones.”
IROARD OF TRADE.
The oldest commercial or business organiza-
tion now existing in Los Angeles is the Board of
Trade. It was organized March 9, 1883, in the
office of the Los Angeles Produce Exchange,
Arcadia block, Los Angeles street. C. W. Gib-
Son acted as president of the meeting and J.
Mills Davies as secretary. At that meeting six
directors were elected, viz.: C. W. Gibson, M.
Dodsworth, I. N. Van Nuys, A. Hass, H. New-
mark and John R. Mathews. The articles of
incorporation were adopted March 14, 1883. The
incorporators were C. W. Gibson, H.
Newmark, M. Dodsworth, A. Hass, Walter
S. Maxwell, I. N. Van Nuys, John Mills
Davies, Eugene Germain, J. J. Mellus and John
R. Mathews. “The purposes for which it is
formed” (as stated in its articles of incorpora-
tion) “are to develop trade and commerce, ad-
vance and protect the interests of the merchants
of the city and of the county of Los Angeles,
to prevent fraudulent settlements by dishonest
debtors, to investigate the affairs of insolvent
debtors, to unite and assist the merchants of said
city and county in the collection of debts other
than in the ordinary course of business, and to
prescribe rules and regulations of trade and
commerce for the government of the members
of this corporation.”
In the earlier years of its existence, being the
only organized commercial body in the city, it
frequently took the initiative in originating and
pushing forward to completion enterprises bene-
ficial to the community, but which were not di-
rectly in the line of work laid down as the Ob-
jects for which it was formed. Among these
may be named the securing of the location of the
Soldiers' Home at Santa Monica; the securing
of appropriations for the erection of the post-
office building at Los Angeles, and the removal
of the army headquarters of the department of
Arizona and New Mexico to the city of Los An-
geles. The organization of the Chamber of Com-
merce in 1889 relieved it of the burden of pro-
moting work outside of the objects for which it
was directly organized. Its presidents and their
years of service are as follows:
C. W. Gibson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1883-84
George H. Bonebrake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1885
E. L. Stern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I886
Eugene Germair. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1887-88
S. B. Lewis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1889
George E. Dixon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1890
W. C. Patterson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I891-92
R. H. Howell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1893
J. M. Johnston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1894
380
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
A. Jacoby . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I895-96
P. M. Daniel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1897-OO
A. Haas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I90O-OI
H. S. Woollacott . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I90I-06
The following-named have filled the position
of secretary:
J. Mills Davies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1883–85
A. M. Laurence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1885-87
T. H. Ward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1887-90
Gregory Perkins, Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1890-06
Its first home was in the second story of the
Baker block; from there it moved to the two-
story brick building on the northwest corner of
Broadway and First street, which was known
as the Board of Trade building. The building
was bought by a committee or association of
members with the intention of locating the
Board there permanently, but the scheme failed.
The building was pulled down in 1898 and the
present four-story block located on its site. In
October, Igoó, the Board of Trade and the Whole-
Salers’ Board of Trade consolidated, the new or-
ganization taking the name of the Wholesalers’
Board of Trade.
THE SECOND CHAMBER OF COMMERCE.
To W. E. Hughes belongs the credit of in-
augurating the movement that resulted in the or—
ganization of our present efficient Chamber of
Commerce.
Mr. Hughes came to Los Angeles in 1887. He
had noticed the lack of unanimity among the
people here in pushing forward any projected
enterprise, and the want of an organization
whose chief objects would be to promote the
business interests of the city and county of Los
Angeles and aid in developing the resources of
all Southern California. Having had some ex-
perience in the organization and management of
a chamber of commerce in his former place of
residence, Wheeling, W. Va., it seemed to him
that some such organization was needed in this
city.
Happening to meet S. B. Lewis and Maj. E.
W. Jones on the street he briefly broached the
subject to them. After a short discussion of the
scheme they parted, each agreeing to secure the
attendance of at least five other business men at
a proposed meeting to be held in the Board
of Trade rooms, then in a two-story brick build-
ing standing on the northwest corner of Broad-
Way and First Streets opposite the Times build-
ing. The time of the meeting was set for
Thursday, October 11, 1888, at 3:30 P. M. At
that meeting twenty-five persons were present.
The following extracts from the minutes of the
different meetings give a condensed history of
the Organization of the Chamber :
The meeting of October II was called to or-
der by S. B. Lewis. Maj. E. W. Jones was
chosen chairman and J. V. Wachtel, secretary.
The object of the meeting was stated by W. E.
Hughes. Short addresses were made by S. B.
Lewis, Col. I. R. Dunkelberger, J. F.
Humphreys, C. A. Warner, J. P. McCarthy, H.
C. Witmer, Mayor William H. Workman and
T. A. Lewis. The assemblage decided to form
a permanent Organization, and adjourned to
meet in the same place Monday, October 15, at
3 P. M. +
At this meeting, after some discussion on the
method of forming a permanent organization and
its objects, Col. H. G. Otis offered the following:
“Whereas, We business men and citizens of
the city and county of Los Angeles are in favor
of inducing immigration, stimulating legitimate
home industries and establishing feasible home
manufactories for the further upbuilding of the
city and county and for the development of the
material resources of Southern California upon
a Sound basis; therefore,
“Resolved, That we hereby associate ourselves
into a temporary organization with the above
objects, to be known as the
and that a permanent organization be effected at
the earliest practicable time.”
The preamble and resolutions were adopted.
J. F. Humphreys moved that the organization
be known as the Los Angeles Chamber of Com-
merce. The motion was seconded and carried.
The initiation fee was fixed at $5. The follow-
ing-named persons handed in their names for
membership:
W. E. Hughes, E. W. Jones, S. B. Lewis, W.
H. Workman, Thomas A. Lewis, I. R. Dunkel-
berger, John T. Humphreys, John I. Redick, J.
H. Book, Charles E. Day, H. Jevne, Clarence
A. Warner, Frank A. Gibson, Burdette Chand-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
381
ler, M. L. Wicks, H. C. Witmer, James P. Mc-
Carthy, W. F. Fitzgerald, W. H. Seamans, Her-
vey Lindley, H. G. Otis, L. N. Breed, H. A.
Rust, William Rommel, J. C. Oliver, L. H.
Whitson, C. E. Daily, L. L. Dennick, A. W.
Palmer, William H. Avery, J. S. Van Doren,
H. Z. Osborne, Los Angeles Oil Burning and
Supply Company, W. W. Montague & Co., Har-
rison & Dickson, R. H. Hewitt, Milton Thomas,
T. W. Blackburn, Horace Hiller, John C. Flour-
ney, H. H. Spencer, S. J. Mathes, G. W. Tubbs,
A. H. Denker, D. Gilbert Dexter, T. C. Nara-
more, C. F. Garbutt, W. A. Bonynge, John J.
Jones, H. P. Sweet, M. R. Vernon, T. M. Mich-
aels, Charles C. Davis, Louis R. Webb, E. C.
Neidt and M. D. Johnson. At the meeting of
the 19th, before the adoption of the constitution
and by-laws, the following additional names
were handed in : B. L. Hays, L. A. McConnell,
J. W. Green, G. W. Simonton, H. H. Bixby,
E. W. B. Johnson, Strong & Blanchard, G. R.
Shatto, Dr. M. Hagan, John Goldsworthy, Houry
& Bros., H. V. Van Dusen, R. C. Charlton, R.
W. Dromgold, C. S. McDuffee, John Lang, T.
W. T. Richards, W. B. Herriott, W. H. Toler,
M. R. Higgins and J. T. Barton.
At the meeting of the 19th of October a com-
mittee of five (appointed at a previous meeting),
consisting of H. G. Otis, W. E. Hughes, S. B.
Lewis, I. R. Dunkelberger and W. F. Fitzgerald,
submitted a plan of organization and presented a
draft of a constitution and by-laws. These were
adopted. The objects of the organization, as
stated in the constitution, are: “To foster and
encourage commerce; to stimulate home manu-
factures; to induce immigration, and the sub-
division, settlement and cultivation of our lands;
to assist in the development of the natural re-
sources of this region, and generally to promote
the business interests of Los Angeles city and
county and the country tributary thereto.”
At a meeting of the 24th the organization was
completed by the election of officers and the ap-
pointment of fifteen standing committees. The
following were the first officers: E. W. Jones,
president; W. H. Workman, 1st vice-president;
H. G. Otis, 2nd vice-president; S. B. Lewis, 3rd
vice-president; John I. Redick, treasurer; and
Thomas A. Lewis, secretary.
As with the first Chamber of Commerce so
with the second, the first subject to engage its
attention was the question of harbor improve-
ments. At the meeting of November 13, 1888,
J. R. Brierly, then collector of the port of San
Pedro, and Judge R. M. Widney, who had been
most active in the old Chamber of Commerce in
securing an appropriation for a survey of the
harbor, addressed the Chamber on the subject
of harbor improvements. It was decided at the
meeting to invite Senators Stanford and Hearst
to visit San Pedro as guests of the Chamber.
The first pamphlet issued by the Chamber was
entitled “Facts and Figures Concerning South-
ern California and Los Angeles City and Coun-
ty.” Ten thousand copies were distributed.
After the newness of the organization wore
off there came a period of depression. The
boom had burst and many who had posed as
capitalists in 1887 were bankrupts in 1889. An
attempt was made to unite the counties of the
south into a Southern California Chamber of
Commerce, but the scheme failed through local
jealousies. Then a few of the substantial citi-
zens of Los Angeles, who always succeed in what-
ever they undertake, bent their energies to its
upbuilding and success crowned their efforts.
One of the novel methods of advertising the
resources of our state that owed its success to
the Chamber of Commerce was “California on
Wheels.” This was a handsome car filled with
the products of the state. It made the tour by
rail of the agricultural sections of the South and
west, stopping at the cities and larger towns. Its
free exhibits drew crowds of visitors. And the
wonders of fruits and vegetables displayed in-
duced many to sell their possessions and follow
the “star of the empire” on its westward way.
In 1891 under the auspices of the Chamber of
Commerce the famous “Orange Carnival” was
held in the exposition building on the lake front
at Chicago. Over 100,000 people visited the
Carnival exhibit. In 1893-94 the Chamber of
Commerce was drawn into a contest Out of the
line of its usual work; and that was a struggle
for the location of a free harbor at San Pedro.
The Southern Pacific Railroad Company had
built a long wharf at Port Los Angeles above
Santa Monica. That company used all its power-
382
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
ful political influence to secure an appropriation
for a harbor there. The contest became quite
acrimonious. Delegations in the interests of
each of the contestants visited Washington to
use their influence on the members of congress
for their respective harbors. While a large ma-
jority of the members of the Chamber favored
the San Pedro harbor, there was an active minor-
ity in favor of the Southern Pacific scheme. The
San Pedro harbor won, and its opponents quietly
acquiesced in the decision of the majority.
HOTMES OF THE CHAMBER.
The first home of the Chamber of Commerce
was in a small two-story building on West First
street. From there, in 1890, it moved to the
armory, in the Mott building on South Main
street. Here the permanent exhibit feature was
inaugurated and has been maintained ever since.
From the Mott building it moved in 1896 to the
Mason building on the southeast corner of
Broadway and Fourth streets. These quarters
were secured by rental. In 1903 it moved into
a home of its own. The Chamber of Commerce
building is located on the east side of Broadway,
between First and Second streets. It is a hand-
some six-story structure, the front of granite,
with interior finish of marble. The building is
I35x179 feet in dimensions, providing 21,OOO .
square feet of exhibit space. The finishing of
the offices is rich and artistic. The second and
third floors are occupied by the office and exhibit
rooms of the Chamber, the remainder of the
building being rented for offices and store rooms.
The total cost of the land and building amounted
to $325,000. The cornerstone was laid with
Masonic ceremonies in March, 1902, and the
building completed in December, 1903. The
exhibit was installed and the doors of its new
home thrown open to the public, February Io,
I904.
WORK OF THE CHAMBER.
The following brief summaries of the “work
of the Chamber” and its “exhibitions” are taken
from its last annual (April, 1906):
“The Chamber has issued fifty-five pamphlets,
descriptive of this section and its resources, with
a total circulation of over one million and a half
copies. Matter has been prepared for hundreds
of eastern magazines and newspapers. Statistics
of crop returns have been secured in large num-
bers from farmers and publishers. Information
was prepared for the United States census. Hun-
dreds of thousands of sample copies of the daily
papers of Los Angeles city and their annuals
have been distributed.
“Thousands of letters of inquiry are answered
yearly, with literature and individual letters. Cir-
culars of advice and information are printed and
circulated among farmers, dealing with the
raising of winter vegetables, beets for sugar,
Olive-growing, fruit-packing, Orange and nut
culture.”
EXEIIBITIONS.
“Besides maintaining a permanent exhibit of
California products in its own quarters, which
has been visited by over a million people, the
Chamber has had charge of, and participated in,
four local citrus fairs, visited by IOO,OOO people.
Among other fields of activity have been the fol-
lowing:
“The Orange Carnival in Chicago visited by
IOO,000 people. Three agricultural fairs, all suc-
cessful and instructive. Regular shipments of
fruits to ‘California on Wheels,’ a traveling ex-
hibit visited by a million people. The Southern
California exhibit in the World’s Columbian Ex-
position. The Southern California display at
the Mid-Winter Fair in San Francisco. The
permanent exhibit maintained for two years in
Chicago, visited by half a million people. Dis-
play at the National Convention of Farmers Al-
liance, 1891. Display at the Dunkard Confer-
ence, 1891. Exhibits prepared for lecturers and
travelers. Exhibits sent to Eastern fairs. Ex-
hibit permanently maintained in the Board of
Trade in San Francisco. Exhibit at Atlanta
Cotton States and International Exposition. Ex-
hibit at Hamburg. Exhibit at Guatemala. Trans-
Mississippi, and International Exposition, Oma-
ha. Exhibit at World’s Fair, Paris.
“A highly successful display of products was
made by the Chamber of Commerce at the Pan-
American Exposition, in Buffalo, in 1901. St.
Louis, 1904. Portland, 1905. An annex to
Portland Exhibit was made at Shasta Springs,
where thousands of passengers en route to and
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
383
from Portland had a chance of seeing products
from Southern California.”
The following named gentlemen have filled the
office of president of the chamber:
E. W. Jones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1888–91
C. M. Wells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I891-93
D. Freeman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I893–95
W. C. Patterson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I895-97
Charles Forman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1897–99
J. S. Slauson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I899-1900
M. J. Newmark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I90O-OI
A. B. Cass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I90I-O2
F. Q. Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I902-03
F. K. Rule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I903-O4
H. S. McKee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I904-05
J. O. Koepfli . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I905-06
W. J. Washburn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I906-07
W. D. Stephens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I907
The following have filled the office of secre-
tary: -
J. V. Wachtel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I888
Thos. A. Lewis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1888–89
M. R. Higgins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1889
H. W. Patton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1889-90
H. J. Hanchette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I890-91
C. D. Willard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I891-97
Frank Wiggins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1897
THE MERCHANTS AND MANUFACTURERS’ Asso-
CIATION.
The youngest of our commercial corporations
is the Merchants and Manufacturers’ Associa-
tion. It has for its object “the promotion of the
common interests of its members by increasing
the facilities for our mercantile and commercial
enterprises; by finding a market for our local
manufactured products; by co-operating with the
National Association of Manufacturers; by such
social features as may from time to time be intro-
duced to promote better acquaintance among its
members; and by taking such an intelligent in-
terest in public affairs as will tend to advance
the business enterprises of Los Angeles and
vicinity.” *
The organization was formed by the union of
two associations—the Merchants’ Association,
which was formed in the early part of 1894, and
the Manufacturers’ Association, which was
Organized in August, I895. -
“In , June, 1896, a committee of conference
representing the two associations arrived at the
conclusion that a union of their respective mem-
bers into one organization would best promote
the interests of all, and formal action ratifying
the report of the conference led to their legal
consolidation under the name of the Merchants
and Manufacturers’ Association.”
In 1897-98 the association inaugurated an ac-
tive movement for the purpose of securing from
the citizens the patronizing of home products. It
labors to encourage the establishment and suc-
cessful prosecution of manufacturing industries
in our city and to assist merchants and the mer-
cantile community in general in devising and
recommending such trade regulations as may
seem desirable and expedient.
The presidents of the association have been as
follows:
H. W. Frank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1896-97
Fred L. Baker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1897-98
R. L. Craig . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1898–1900
C. C. Reynolds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I900-02
Niles Pease . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1902-06
J. M. Schneider . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IQ06-07
The secretaries:
William H. Knight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1896-97
F. J. Zeehandelaar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1897
CHAPTER LVI.
PASADENA.
been so fortunate as Pasadena in the
preservation of their early history. The
citizens of the Crown City owe a deep and last-
ing debt of gratitude to the late Dr. Hiram A.
Fº cities of Southern California have
Reid for his labors in collecting and preserving
in book form the early history of Pasadena. But
for him much valuable historical data would have
been lost. The only criticism that I have to make
on Dr. Reid's work is that he sometimes relied
384
HISTORICAI, AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
on people’s “say So" without investigating
whether the report given of an event was based
On fact, or rumor, or on pure romance.
Dr. Reid devotes considerable space in dis-
cussing the origin of the name of the rancho on
which Pasadena is located and its early owners.
It may be possible that the baptismal name,
“Pascual,” of Old Hahamovic, chief of the Ha-
hamog-na tribe of Indians, was applied to the
region where these aborigines dwelt, but I have
found nothing in my researches to confirm the
statement and I doubt whether the story is
founded on facts. Doña Eulalia Perez de Guil-
len's title to the rancho San Pasqual seems to
me to be rather mythical. There is more of
romance than reality in it. The story runs that
Padre José Maria Zalvidea, after his removal to
San Juan Capistrano, prepared a deed to three
and one-half square leagues of land for Eulalia
Perez de Guillen and sent it to his friend and
successor, Father Sanchez, at San Gabriel, who
approved and ratified it on Easter Day (called
“San Pascual in the Spanish language”). Un-
fortunately facts do not confirm this romantic
story of the origin of the name nor do they con-
firm Doña Eulalia’s title either. 4°
At the head of the list of twenty-four ranchos
named by Hugo Reid as belonging to the Mis-
sion San Gabriel when Padre Zalvidea was in
charge of that mission, appears the rancho San
Pasqual. It was certainly so named before
Father Zalvidea was transferred to San Juan
Capistrano. And again Padre Sanchez was not
the successor of Zalvidea, but his contemporary
at the mission from 1821 to 1828. If Zalvidea
had wished to provide for Doña Eulalia he
could have made the deed while at the mission
and secured the signature of Father Sanchez if
it had been worth while securing it; but the mis-
sionaries had no power to deed away the mission
lands. These lands belonged to the government
and in theory at least were held in trust for the
Indians. In 1826, when this deed was sup-
posed to have been made, the Mission San
Gabriel was flourishing and the fear of seculari-
zation was not imminent. *
I think it is extremely doubtful whether Doña
Eulalia Perez de Guillen ever had any claim
whatever to the rancho San Pasqual; and con-
Sequently could not have given it to Juan Marine,
her discarded husband, in exchange for his house
and land in San Gabriel.
Dr. Reid in a note written, as he tells us, after
his chapter on the Pre-Pasadenian was in type,
gets on the trail of the first private owner of the
rancho. Had he found the following entry in
the proceedings of the ayuntamiento of Los
Angeles, dated December 27, 1833, it would have
Saved him a great many “unsuccessful trips hunt-
ing for documents,” and possibly some
romancing about the origin of the name. “An
espediente was read wherein Don Juan Marine
asks possession of the place known as ‘Rincon
de San Pascual.' The gefe politico asks for a
report in conformity with the law in the matter.”
After discussion, “it was decided to report
that Don Juan Marine is possessed with the
necessary qualifications to make that petition,
and the land he solicits is not within the twenty
leagues constituting the neighboring grant; that
it has temporary irrigable lands and a watering
place for cattle and belongs to the San Gabriel
Mission.” Marine's application was made after
the decree of secularization had been promul-
gated, but before it had been enforced. Gov-
ernor Figueroa granted the rancho San Pasqual
to Don Juan Marine in February, 1835.
It may be possible that San Pasqual is abbre-
viated from “La Sabanilla de San Pasqual” (the
altar cloth of Holy Easter). It is more probable
that the poppy fields so brilliant at Easter time
suggested to the padres the name given the val-
ley—Rincon de San Pasqual—and that is all the
romance that attaches to the name. From Ma-
rine or his heirs the rancho passed to José Perez.
It would seem from subsequent proceedings that
Perez' claim was abandoned or probably “de-
nounced,” for November 28, 1843, Governor
Micheltorena granted the rancho to Don Manuel
Garfias, a young officer of the Mexican army,
who had come to California with the governor.
Garfias married Luisa Abila, a daughter of Doña
Encarnacion Abila.
In 1852-53 he built a costly residence on his
rancho. It was a casa grande in those days. He
entertained right royally and his hacienda was
one of the famous country places which the city
people loved to visit. To complete his house
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 385
Garfias borrowed $3,000, interest at the rate of
four per cent a month. The rate of interest was
reasonable for those days and no doubt he thought
it would be an easy matter to clear off a mort-
gage of that amount on a rancho that was meas-
ured by leagues.
Garfias had been the first treasurer of Los
Angeles county, but he was not a good financier
of his own business. As the years went by hard
times came, cattle, the staple product of the
county, decreased in value. San Pasqual was
not a good cattle range and when dry years oc-
curred the cattle died of starvation or were sold
at ruinous prices. Night and day that cancerous
mortgage was eating the value out of the rancho
at the rate of forty-eight per cent a year com-
pounded monthly.
The original cost of the house did not exceed
$6,000. In 1858 the interest added to the prin-
cipal had increased the original debt of $3,000
to $8,000. The title near the close of 1858 passed
from Garfias and his wife to Dr. J. S. Griffin,
Griffin paying $2,000 above the amount of the
mortgage to Garfias for the tools, work-horses,
oxen, etc., on the rancho. Garfias had applied
for a United States patent for the rancho in
1852, but from some cause, which does not ap-
pear on record, the granting of the patent was
delayed. It was issued April 3, 1863, and bears
the signature of Abraham Lincoln, but before
it was obtained, Garfias and his wife deeded away
all their “right, title and interest as well in
possession as in expectancy.”
On December II, 1862, John S. Griffin and
his wife, deeded to B. D. Wilson and Margaret
S. Wilson his wife, for a consideration of $500,
a tract of 640 acres described as being “on the
rancho San Pasqual, out of which the herein
described lot of land is carved.”
On the same day B. D. Wilson and his wife
deeded to Mrs. Eliza G. Johnston, 262 acres,
“the said tract hereby conveyed being part of the
San Pasqual rancho and the southwesterly half
of the land this day conveyed by John S. Griffin
and Louisa his wife, to the parties of the first
part herein.” The consideration named in the
deed was $1,000. Mrs. Johnston was the wife
of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, who was in
command of the United States army during the
Mormon war in 1859. In 1861 he was in com-
mand of the Department of the Pacific, with
headquarters at San Francisco. He was super-
seded by General Sumner. He and a number of
Confederate sympathizers came to Los Angeles,
and from there went east by the Colorado river
route and Arizona to join the Confederacy.
General Johnston was killed at the battle of
Shiloh, while in command of the Confederate
forces there.
Mrs. Johnston built a house on her land and
named the place “Fair Oaks,” after the planta-
tion where she was born in Virginia. Her old-
est son, Albert Sidney, was killed in the explos-
ion of the steamboat Ada Hancock in the Wil-
mington slough April 27, 1863. The death of
her husband and son, the unpromising Outlook
for making a living off the land, and the soli-
tude of the place caused her to abandon it.
In 1865 Judge B. S. Eaton entered into a con-
tract to bring water from Eaton's cañon to a
portion of the rancho. He moved his family into
the Johnston cottage. He planted 5,000 grape
vines as an experiment. As he had no water
to irrigate his vines the undertaking was re-
garded as a useless waste of time by old vine-
yardists, but his vines did so well that the next
year he planted 30,000 more. After his vines
came into bearing the bears often helped them-
selves to grapes, and the coyotes and jack-rab-
bits were frequent but unprofitable customers.
In 1865 and for several years following there
was a great oil boom in Los Angeles county.
It was similar in many respects to the boom of
1899-1900. Immense bodies of land were leased
for oil by an organization known as the Los An-
geles Pioneer Oil Company. Had this company
struck oil on all its holdings it would have out-
rivaled the Standard Oil Octopus. B. D. Wilson
and John S. Griffin, March 27, 1865, conveyed
to Phineas Banning, John G. Downey, Mathew
Keller, George Hansen and R. W. Heath, trus-
tees of the Los Angeles Pioneer Oil Company,
“all their right, title and interest to any and all
brea, petroleum, rock oil or other oleaginous sub- .
stances in the rancho San Pasqual.” The com-
pany was to commence boring or sinking wells
for the extraction of oil within six months. Wil-
son and Griffin were to receive a royalty of ten
25
386
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
per cent net of all the crude oil extracted from
these lands free of expense to them, they to fur-
nish their own casks.
This same company heid a similar grant cover-
ing over 2,000 acres of what is now East Los
Angeles. Wilson and Griffin were members of
the company. If the Pioneer Oil Company
bored any wells on the San Pasqual rancho it
did not strike “rock oil, petroleum or any other
oleaginous substances.” Its grant was limited
to twenty-five years.
1899 and 1900 wells were sunk on some of the
former holdings of the extinct Pioneer Oil Com-
pany and fair returns received—but by far the
greater part of the lands it had acquired were
devoid of any other oleaginous substance than
occasional out croppings of crude brea, which to
the experts of the company seemed a sure indi-
cation of oil below.
During the '60s and early '70s a number of
transfers were made of parts of the rancho be-
tween B. D. Wilson, J. S. Griffin, Phineas Ban-
ning, P. Beaudry and others. In April, 1870, the
first scheme for planting a fruit-growing colony
on it was promulgated. In the Los Angeles
Weekly Star, of April 30, 1870, and in subse-
quent numbers for several weeks, appears the
prospectus of the “San Pasqual Plantation.” I
quote a portion of it:
“The tract of land selected is a portion of the
San Pasqual rancho in Los Angeles County, com-
prising 1,750 acres of the finest quality. A
ditch which forms the northern boundary of
the tract at a cost of $10,000 has also been pur-
chased. The ditch furnishes in the driest sea-
sons sufficient water to irrigate the entire tract.
“It is proposed to cultivate this land with
oranges, lemons, Olives, nuts, raisins, grapes,
etc., and to commence at once. For this purpose
the above company has been formed, with a capi-
tal of $200,000, divided into 4,000 shares of $50
each. Payments to be made in regular, and easy
installments as follows: $10 per share at date
of subscription and $5 each year afterward till
the whole amount is paid. All money to be used
in paying for the land and cultivating the same.”
Officers, John Archibald, president; R. M. Wid-
ney, vice-president; W. J. Taylor, secretary;
London and San Francisco Bank, treasurer; J.
did not go off like hot cakes.
During the oil boom of
A. Eaton, general agent. Subscription books
were opened at the office of R. M. Widney in the
Hellman Bank building; but evidently the stock
The scheme fell
into a state of “innocuous desuetude” then passed
from the memory even of the oldest inhabitant
of Pasadena. The tract named in the prospec-
tus is the “Widney tract,” which Dr. Reid men-
tions but does not locate.
The colonization scheme that indirectly
brought about the peopling of the San Pasqual
had its inception in Indianapolis, Indiana, in the
winter 1872-73. It was to have been called the
California colony of Indiana; but the colony did
not materialize. The money panic that followed
the failure of Jay Cooke and Black Friday in
Wall street financially shipwrecked the projectors
of the colony and left their committee, that had
been sent to spy out land, stranded in Los An-
geles.
D. M. Berry, one of the most active promoters
of the colony scheme, on the invitation of Judge
B. S. Eaton, visited the San Pasqual rancho and
was delighted with the valley. After his return
to the city, he, J. H. Baker and Calvin Fletcher,
all that were left of the projected California
colony, went to work to organize an association
to buy the San Pasqual lands.
At a meeting held in the real-estate office of
Berry & Elliott, that stood on what is now part
of the site of the Baker block, of Los Angeles,
the following persons were present in person or
represented by proxy: B. S. Eaton, T. F. Croft,
D. M. Berry, A. O. Bristol, Jabez Banbury, H.
G. Bennett, Calvin Fletcher, E. J. Vawter, H.
J. Holmes, J. M. Mathews, Nathan Kimball,
Jesse Yarnell, Mrs. C. A. Vawter, N. R. Gibson,
T. B. Elliott (by proxy), P. M. Green, A. O.
Porter, W. T. Clapp, John H. Baker.
It was decided to incorporate under the name
of the San Gabriel Orange Grove Association.
The capital stock was fixed at $25,000, divided
into IOO shares of $250 each. In December,
1873, the association purchased the interest of
Dr. J. S. Griffin in the San Pasqual rancho, con-
sisting of about 4,000 acres. Fifteen hundred
acres of the choicest land in the tract were sub-
divided into lots, varying in size from fifteen to
sixty acres. One share of stock was considered
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
387
equivalent to fifteen acres of land; and when
the distribution was made, January 27, 1874,
each stockholder made his selection according
to his interest in the corporation. The One and
two share men were allowed first choice, and
such was the diversity of the land and the di-
versity of taste that when the land was all ap-
portioned each one had gotten the piece he
wanted.*
The settlement was called the Indiana Col-
ony, although the majority of the colonists were
not ex-Hoosiers. The colony was a success from
the beginning. The colonists were the right
men in the right place.
“It was a singular fact,” says Mrs. Jeanne C.
Carr, “that there was not a professional, and
hardly a practical, horticulturist or farmer
among them; but the spell of the neighboring
orchards and vineyards soon transformed them
into enthusiastic culturists of the Orange and the
vine.”
April 22, 1875, the settlement ceased to be the
Indiana Colony, and officially became Pasadena.
To Dr. T. B. Elliott, the originator of the Cal-
ifornia Colony scheme, belongs the credit of con-
ferring on Pasadena its euphonious name. The
word is of Indian origin (Chippewa dialect),
and means crown of the valley.
So rapidly were the Indiana Colony lands ab-
sorbed by settlers that in four years after their
purchase only a few small tracts were left un-
sold. In 1876 B. D. Wilson threw on the mar-
ket about 2,500 acres, lying eastward of Fair
Oaks avenue. This was the Lake Vineyard Land
and Water Company tract. The settlers on this
tract were known as “east siders,” while the
original colonists were the “west siders,” Fair
Oaks avenue being the division line. Chance
more often than design has fixed the location of
our American cities, and so it was with the city
of Pasadena. The Indiana colonists had planted
the nucleus of their town on Orange Grove
avenue, near California street, where the first
schoolhouse was built and the first churches lo-
cated ; but a west sider, L. D. Hollingsworth,
built a small building near the corner of Fair
Oaks avenue and Colorado Street, opened a store
and secured the postoffice, which had once been
*Dr. Reid’s History of Pasadena.
discontinued, because no one would serve as post-
master at the salary of $1 a month. Then a
blacksmith shop and a meat market were located
near the store, and B. D. Wilson donated near
these five acres for a school site, and the germ
of the future city was planted; but it was of slow
growth at first. A correspondent in the Los
Angeles Herald, writing June 5, 1880, describes
the town as consisting of “a store and postoffice
building, a blackSmith shop and a meat market
at the cross-roads near the center of the settle-
ment.”
The Los Angeles Evening Express of January
6, 1882, notes the fact that the Pasadena stage
that makes a daily trip to Los Angeles is fre-
quently compelled to leave passengers for lack of
accommodations, and that the one small hotel in
the colony can not accommodate any more guests.
No one had dreamed as yet of a city in the
valley. The people were devoted to orange
culture, and their pride and ambition was to
produce the finest citrus fruits in Southern Cal-
ifornia. At the great citrus fair in Los Angeles,
in March, 1881, Pasadena was awarded the first
premium over all competitors for the largest and
best exhibits of the kind ever made in the state.
At the annual fair of the Southern California
Horticultural Society held in November, 1881,
in the Old Horticultural Pavilion which stood on
the north side of Temple street between Olive
and Grand avenue, Los Angeles, Pasadena out-
rivaled all competitors in its display of citrus
fruits. Near the front entrance of the pavilion
a lofty wooden column had been erected. This
was flanked by oranges and lemons held in place
by wire netting. On the top of this pillar, below
the word Pasadena, was an immense wooden
key. The interpretation of this symbol was
Pasadena—key of the valley. The name Pasa-
dena had but recently superseded Indiana colony
and the inhabitants were rather undecided
whether the settlement (for as yet there was no
town) should be known as the crown or the key
of the valley. Who originated the key myth I
do not know.
“In the early ’80s Helen Hunt Jackson was
collecting material for her famous story “Ra-
mona,” and incidentally writing articles on South-
ern California for eastern magazines and news-
388
HISTORICAI, AND RIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
papers. In an article descriptive of the western
part of the San Gabriel valley where Pasadena
is located, published in the Christian Union, Mrs.
Jackson gives credence to and attempts to give
authority for the key myth. “In the days when
the Franciscan fathers and their converts and
proteges, the San Gabriel Indians, were sole
Owners and Occupants of the region they called
the uplands at the valley's western end ‘La Caye
del Valle,’ ‘Key of the Valley' and the name was
literally true, for the view eastward down the
valley from these uplands unlocked to the eye all
its treasures of beauty and color.”
Mrs. Jackson was not a Spanish scholar and
when she attempted to use it in her writings her
mistakes were rather frequent. There is no such
word in Spanish as “caye;” “llave” is the word
she should have used. There is no record that
either by Spaniard or Indian what is now Pasa-
dena was ever called “Key of the Valley.” The
Indian had no knowledge of a key. There were
no locks to the doors of his grass covered hut,
and no doors either. This myth seems to have
died out; I have not heard it repeated for a
dozen years or more. It is strange that it should
have died so young. The historic myth is long
lived. It cannot be killed by exposure. Like
hope, it springs eternal.
In the meantime, the town was growing in a
leisurely way. The eastern tourist had found that
it was a good place to stop at. The great Ray-
mond hotel had been built on the top of Raymond
hill, where it could be “seen of all men;” and
smaller hotels and boarding houses opened their
doors for the stranger and health seeker.
The San Gabriel Valley Railroad was opened
for travel September 16, 1885, between Los
Angeles and Pasadena.
Early in 1886 the first reverberations of the
boom began to be heard. The great Atchison,
Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad system was seeking
an outlet to the Pacific. Pasadena was destined
to be on the main trunk line of this transcon-
tinental road. The city was designed for SOme-
thing greater than a business center of the val-
ley. The echoes of the boom grew louder. The
five-acre school lot that B. D. Wilson had do-
nated the San Pasqual district ten years before
was cut up into town lots, and on March 12,
1886, offered at auction. When the sale was
Over it was found that the thirty-five lots carved
Out of the school site had brought an aggregate
of $44,772. Ten years before, when Wilson
donated it, $400 would have been considered a
big price for it. Such a percentage of gain stag-
gered the most enthusiastic Pasadenian ; and the
boom grew louder. It paid better to cultivate
town lots than citrus fruits. So Orange Orchards
were planted with white stakes, and the ax cut
swaths through the groves for prospective streets.
Subdivisions and additions were thick as leaves
in Valambrosia. The outlying districts—South
Pasadena, Altadena, Lamanda Park, Olivewood—
were doing their best to outrival the metropolis
of the valley. The whole valley and the foothills
of the mountains seemed destined to become a
city of vast proportions and magnificent dis-
tances. At the acme of the boom, in August,
1887, a single acre in the business center of the
city was valued at more than the entire rancho
of I3,OOO acres was worth fifteen years before.
Inflations of values had reached the bursting
point, and the bubble burst. Then financial “dis-
asters followed fast and followed faster.” The
“millionaires of a day,” the boomers, saw their
wealth shrive1 and values shrink, until there was
nothing left—nothing left on which they could
realize.
When the boom was over—when the blare
of brass bands and the voice of the auctioneer
were no longer heard in the land then the old-
timers and the new-comers, or such of them as
had not departed with the boom, proceeded to
take an account of stock. The exhibit was not
encouraging. The real-estate boomer and the
cottony scale had devastated the orange groves,
once the pride and boast of Pasadena. But the
avenging fates, 1m the shape of unfortunate
creditors and victimized purchasers, drove away
the boomers, and the cottony scale found its
Nemesis in the Australian lady-bug. The in-
domitable courage and industry that created the
groves rehabilitated them. Perseverance,
coupled with intelligence, won. The outlying
groves that were not wholly ruined were re-
deemed. Corner stakes were plowed under and
streets planted with trees. After two years'
struggle with debts and discouragements, the
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
389
city, too, freed itself from its incubus. Since
1891 its course has been upward and onward.
After all, the boom was not an evil unmixed
with good. Indeed, it is a question whether the
good in it did not preponderate. The rapidity
with which Pasadena was built in 1886 and 1887
has seldom been paralleled in the history of town
building. In 1887 nearly $2,OOO,OOO were in-
vested in buildings, and these were mostly sub-
stantial and costly structures. After the de-
pression was over these found tenants again, and
building has gone steadily onward until to-day
no other city of its size can show more palatial
private residences or finer business blocks than
Pasedena—the Crown of the Valley.
The depression from the boom did not last
long. There were some who had escaped the
financial frost that blighted the fortunes of the
sanguine promoters of outside subdivisions.
These stood ready to invest in any legitimate
enterprise that would build up the city. March
I2, 1890, the Los Angeles Terminal Railroad,
then known as the “Cross Road,” was opened
for travel. This gave Pasadena a competing
road and greatly increased travel between Los
Angeles and the Crown City.
The federal census of 1890 reported the pop-
ulation 4,882. This was a disappointment and it
was claimed fell below the real number of in-
habitants. The project of building a railroad to
the top of a mountain peak afterwards named
Mt. Lowe had been agitated during the boom
and a survey had been made of a route, but the
financial depression had delayed it. Work was
begun on the great incline in 1892. The mount-
ain which was the objective point was named
Mt. Lowe after Prof. Thaddeus Lowe, the pro-
moter of the railroad scheme. The first car as-
cended the great incline on the Mt. Lowe Rail-
road July 4, 1893, and the opening of the road
for travel was celebrated August 23, 1893. The
Mt. Lowe observatory was built in 1894, and
in April of that year the Pasadena & Los An-
geles Electric, now the Pacific Electric Railway,
was incorporated. This road was completed to
|Pasadena February 19, 1895. -
June 15 a branch of the Southern Pacific Rail-
road was extended into the city. April 14, 1895,
the original Raymond hotel was totally destroyed
by fire. This hotel, completed November 19,
1886, was the first tourist hotel built in South-
ern California. The Annex to the Hotel Green
was built in 1897, at a cost of $225,000. The
Hotel Painter changed its name to La Pintoresca.
During the year 1897 two hundred and sixty-
three new houses were built.
May 7, 1898, Company I, numbering IO2 of
ficers and men, recruited in Pasadena went to
San Francisco as part of the Seventh Regiment
of California Volunteers to take part in the
Spanish war. The regiment after being held at
San Francisco for seven months was discharged
without seeing active service. The population
of Pasadena according to the federal census
of 1900 was 9,117. In September of the same
year the addition to the public library costing
$35,000 was completed ; this doubled the capacity
of the building. The West hall of Throop
Polytechnic Institute was built at a cost of $150,-
OOO. The congregation of the First Methodist
Church erected a new building at an expenditure
of $60,000.
During the past five years Pasadena has made
a rapid growth. The amount expended in build-
ing during the year 1904 amounted to $1,582,-
2OO, in 1905 to $1,838,799. In 1904 North
Pasadena was annexed to Pasadena. In munici-
pal improvements the city has made great prog-
ress. During the year 1905 $220,000 was ex-
pended in street improvements. Colorado street
was lighted with electric pendants suspended
from boulevard posts. The city is one of the
best lighted on the coast. The assessed valua-
tion of city property in 1905-06 was $18,230,000.
The postoffice receipts for 1905 were $63,OOO.
For seventeen years Pasadena has celebrated
each incoming New Year with a unique form of
celebration—a rose tournament. It draws visi-
tors from all the cities and towns around. Its
fame has been heralded over the United States.
In 1904 the Tournament of Roses Association
donated Tournament Park to the city.
The Pasadena Board of Trade is a progres-
sive body of 600 citizens. It has done a great
work in spreading the fame of the Crown City
and attracting the immigration of a desirable
class of settlers. In 1905 the Madison School
390
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
building was erected at a cost of $33,000 and
the Franklin at an expenditure of $22,000.
The total number of teachers employed in
the schools is 144, of whom 30 are employed in
the high school.
The Pasadena Public Library was estab-
lished in 1882 and made free to the public in
I890. Its annual income from taxation is about
$II,OOO. It has nine employes and the number
of volumes on its shelves exceeds 26,OOO. It
, owns a lot of five and a half acres in the north-
west corner of Library Park, donated by
Charles F. Legge of Pasadena. The library
building, built of green stone, cost over $50,000.
The pioneer newspaper of Pasadena was the
Pasadena Chronicle. The first number was is-
sued August 8, 1883. C. M. Daley was the
Ostensible proprietor, but the real owners and
managers were Ben E. Ward and his brothers,
Frank and Walter, then owners of a considera-
ble amount of real estate in Pasadena. Daley
was not a desirable manager and Ben E. Ward
took full charge of it. In November, 1883, it
was sold to H. W. Magee and J. W. Wood. In
January, 1884, Magee sold his interest to J. E.
Clarke. In February, 1884, E. N. Sullivan, a
practical printer, became a partner; a press and
stock of type were bought and the printing,
which heretofore had been done in Los Angeles,
was now done in Pasadena. The name was
C
CHAPTER
CITIES AND TOWNS OF THE
POMON A.
T HE metropolis of the eastern portion of
Los Angeles county is Pomona city. It
is located thirty-two miles east of LOS
Angeles city and is accessible by the Southern
Pacific, the Santa Fe and the Salt Lake Rail-
roads. - -
It is a child of the colony era of the early
’70s, when the Indiana Colony (now Pasadena),
Santa Monica, San Fernando, the American Col-
ony and . Artesia were ushered into existence.
e
changed to the Pasadena and Valley Union and
the paper enlarged to eight columns. January
IO, 1885, the paper was sold to Charles A. Gard-
ner, an experienced newspaper man, who greatly
improved the paper and put life into it. Gardner
sold out to Clarke & Bennet in 1886, and after
a number of changes in ownership it was sold
to the Daily Star August 3, 1889. The Union
died of too many managers and too little patron-
age.
The next venture in the newspaper field was
made by H. J. Vail, February 9, 1887. He is-
sued the Pasadena Star, an eight-column week-
ly. The first issue of the Daily Star was made
February 9, 1887. After the purchase of the
business and good will of the Union the paper
appeared with a double title The Daily Star and
Union. The Star still continues to shine, but
the Union part of the partnership has long since
disappeared.
The following table gives the growth in pops
ulation of Pasadena for twenty-five years : .
In 1880 the population was . . . . . . . . . . 39 I
“ 1890 “ & 4 " . . . . . . . . . . 4,882
“ 1900 “ < * . . . . . . . . . . 9, II 7
“ 1901 “ & " . . . . . . . . . . II,500
“ 1902 “ & 8 " . . . . . . . . . . I2,467
“ 1903 “ tº $. " . . . . . . . . . . I5,950
“ IOO4 “ 6 & " . . . . . . . . . . 17,280
“ 1905 & " . . . . . . . . . . 2I,250
LVII.
SAN GABRIEL VALLEY.
While she bears the name of a Grecian goddess
or nymph who was the patroness of fruits, it is
not probable the founders of the town delved
into Greek mythology to find a name. The name
was no doubt a suggestion from the Grange—a
bucolic secret order very popular in the county
at that time. Pomona, Ceres and Flora were
the three goddesses (personated at Grange
meetings by three young ladies) who were Sup-
posed to look after the farmers’ interests in
fruits, grain and flowers. As the settlement was
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
391
designed for a fruit-growing colony, it was ap-
propriately given the name of Pomona (the
Goddess of Fruits).
Early in 1875 Louis Phillips contracted to
sell to P. C. Tonner, Cyrus Burdick and Fran-
cisco Palomares a tract containing about 2,700
acres of the Vejar portion of the San José
rancho. This rancho, containing about 22,OOO
acres, was originally granted by Governor Alva-
rado to Ignacio Palomares and Ricardo Vejar,
April 19, 1837. Subsequently, on petition of
these two grantees, together with Luis Arenas,
the same rancho was regranted by Governor Al-
varado March 14, 1840, with an additional league
of land known as the San Jose addition and ly-
ing to the westward of the original grant next to
the San Gabriel mountains. The rancho was
owned in common by the three grantees. Luis
Arenas sold his undivided interest to Henry Dal-
ton. Vejar and Dalton petitioned for a parti-
tion of the rancho. The partition was decreed by
Juan Gallardo, alcalde and judge of the first in-
stance of Los Angeles, and was carried into ef-
fect February 12, 1846. Palomares was dissat-
isfied with the subdivision. Gallardo's decision
was set aside by the superior court and a new
partition ordered. The interest of Ricardo Vejar,
One of the original grantees, April 30, 1874, was
sold for $29,000 to H. Tishler and J. Schlesinger,
by whom it was conveyed to Louis Phillips, who
sold a portion of his interest to Tonner, Burdick
and Palomares, as stated above.
Tonner and his associates sold their purchase
shortly after they made it to the Los Angeles
Immigration and Land Co-operative Associa-
tion. This association was incorporated, De-
cember Io, 1874, with a capital stock of $250,000,
divided into 2,500 shares, at the par value of $1OO
per share. Its board of directors consisted of
the following: Thomas A. Garey, president; C.
E. White, vice-president; L. M. Holt, secretary;
Milton Thomas, manager; R. M. Town, assistant
manager; and H. G. Crow, treasurer. The prin-
cipal object of the association was the subdivision
of large land holdings and the placing of these
on the market in small tracts for settlement. The
company surveyed and subdivided 2,500 acres of
its purchase. The town of Pomona was laid off
in the center; 640 acres adjoining the town site
were subdivided into five-acre lots and the re-
mainder of the 2,500 into forty-acre tracts. In
November, 1875, the town had a hotel, a drug
and provision store, a dry goods store, a gro-
cery and meat market and eight or ten dwelling
houses. On the 22, 23 and 24 of February, 1876,
a great auction sale of land and town lots was
held on the town site. The first day’s sale
realized $19,000, which was a big thing in those
days. The farm land brought an average of $64
per acre. A number of artesian wells had been
sunk and a reservoir holding two and a half
million gallons of water constructed. The South-
ern Pacific Railroad, which in conformity with the
requirements of the subsidy granted by the
county in 1873 had been built eastward to Spadra,
was extended to Pomona, and the town and set-
tlement seemed to be on the high road to pros-
perity. But disaster struck it; first was the dry
season of 1876-77 and next a fire on the night of
July 30, 1877, that swept away nearly all of the
town. These checked the growth of the town
and settlement. In 1880 the population was only
I30. About 1881 it began to grow again. In
1882-83 Mills and Wicks developed a new ar-
tesian belt. From that time the town has grown
steadily. December 31, 1887, it was incorporat-
ed as a city of the fifth class. During the boom
of 1887 and 1888 its growth was rapid and land
values were inflated, but the reaction did not se-
riously affect it. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa
Fe's main line, completed in 1887, runs about
two miles north of Pomona’s business center. A
motor road connects this road with the city of
Pomona. A town called North Pomona was laid
off at the Pomona station on the Santa Fe. The
pioneer newspaper of Pomona, The Pomona
Times, appeared October 7, 1882. The popula-
tion of the city in 1890 was 3,634; in 1900, 5,526.
The San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake Rail-
road was completed to Pomona early in 1902.
This gave it three competing roads to Los An-
geles and greatly stimulated its growth. -
The year 1904 was a record breaking year for
improvement in the City of Pomona. A high
school building, built in accordance with most
improved modern school architecture, was com-
pleted at a cost of $55,000. Primary and gram-
mar grade buildings costing $30,000 were
392
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
erected. West Second Street Park was laid out
and $15,000 expended on it. A large reservoir
was constructed on the summit of the highest
hill in Ganesha Park. A mission style armory
building for Company D, National Guards, cost-
ing $8,000 was built. During the year 1905 the
Pomona Valley Hospital, an up-to-date and well-
equipped institution, was opened. The Califor-
nia Produce Company built a large orange pack-
ing house. Main street was paved at a cost of
$7,000. Carnegie gave the city a donation of
$2O,OOO, with which was constructed a beautiful
library building.
The Pomona library was founded in 1887. A
membership fee was charged at first, but in 1902
it was made a free public library. It is sup-
ported by a municipal tax. The amount received
by taxation in 1905 was $7,364. There are six
salaried employes. The total number of volumes
in the library in October, 1906, was 12,068. The
library is well patronized, there being over four
thousand registered card holders. A marble
statue of Pomona graces the library.
The year 1906 has been one of general pros-
perity. The citrus fruit crop was more profitable
than any previous year. The amount realized
from its sale exceeded $2,000,000. Building has
been active. The Pomona Valley Ice Company
has expended $100,000 in an ice-making plant.
A large amount has been expended in dwellings
and business blocks.
CLAREMONT.
Claremont, the beautiful, as it was named by
its enthusiastic founder, is a child of the boom.
Its magnificent tourist hotel failed to attract the
tourist. For a time it stood idle, then it was
utilized for a college. Claremont is a thriving
college town, the seat of Pomona College, a Con-
gregational educational institution. The Pearson
Hall of Science, costing $25,000, a gift to the
college, was erected during the year 1899. The
greater part of the population is made up of col-
lege professors, students and the families of those
who have located in the town to educate their
children. The town is thirty-six miles east of
Los Angeles on the Santa Fe Railroad.
During the year extensive road improvements
were made and fire protection provided by the
town trustees. Claremont has one of the most
modern and finest equipped packing houses in
California. It is owned by the Claremont Citrus
Union. During the orange season the company
employs from fifty to seventy-five men. In 1906
buildings to the amount of $120,000 were
erected. Among these were a church costing
$25,000 and The Cleremont Inn, costing $30,000.
work is in progress on a Carnegie College library
which will cost about $50,000.
LORDSBURG.
Lordsburg was laid out during the boom by
I. W. Lord. An expensive hotel was built, which,
after it had stood idle for some time, was sold to
the Dunkers, or German Baptists, for a college.
A Dunker settlement has grown up around
Lordsburg. The country tributary is devoted to
orange growing. The town is thirty-three miles
east of Los Angeles, on the Santa Fe Railroad.
SAN DIMAS.
San Dimas is one of the many towns which
Owes its existence to the boom. It was laid off
early in 1887 by the San José Land Company. It
was designed by its founders to be the metropolis
of the acreage possessions in the San Jose ranch.
Lots sold readily for a time at fancy prices. The
reaction came and prices fell. The town, how-
ever, recovered from its depression and has gone
steadily forward. It is surrounded by good fruit
lands. It has excellent railroad facilities. It is
on the main trunk line of the Santa Fe system
and on the Covina branch of the Southern Pa-
cific Railroad, twenty-nine miles by the latter
and thirty-one by the former, east of Los An-
geles.
GLENDORA.
Glendora, twenty-seven miles east of Los
Angeles on the main transcontinental line of the
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, was
founded in 1887 by George Whitcomb. The
name Glendora is a combination of glen and the
last syllables of Mrs. Whitcomb's name, Ledora.
About 300 acres were subdivided into town lots
and put on sale the latter part of March, 1887.
Three hundred were disposed of on the first day
of the sale. The town has made a steady growth.
It has a beautiful location. Located on the upper
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
393
mesa, its altitude places it in the frostless belt
and renders it comparatively free from fog. The
country contiguous to it is devoted to orange
growing. The town is a shipping point for a
large amount of citrus fruits.
It has become an extensive shipping point for
berries and vegetables. During the year 1904,
450,000 boxes of strawberries and blackberries
were shipped, and twelve carloads of watermel-
ons were sent to various points from San Fran-
cisco to Arizona. Sixty-five acres of tomatoes
were grown for the winter market.
During the year I905 a grammar school, cost-
ing $7,000, was erected. The Athena Club, a
woman's organization, has established a public
library.
- AZUSA CITY.
Azusa City is one of the cities of the boom.
The town plat was surveyed in April, 1887, and
the lots put on sale. So great was the demand
for lots that purchasers stood in line in front of
the office all night, and it is said $500 was paid
for the second place in the line. The town built
up rapidly for a time, then came to a halt. For
the past few years its growth has been steady.
It is a shipping point for the Orange crop of a
considerable district.
In 1904 Azusa completed a city hall at a cost
of $10,000.
Gabriel cañon. This cañon is increasing each
year as a pleasure resort. There are a number of
hotels and camping places. It is estimated that
Io,000 people last summer visited the various
resorts along the river. Azusa is the stage sta-
tion for the cañon. Considerable capital has
been invested in working the mines in the cañon.
Azusa maintains a public library of about I, IOO
volumes. The yearly income from taxation is
$700.
COVIN A.
Covina is a town of recent growth, having been
built within the last eight or ten years. It is
located on the Southern Pacific Railroad, twen-
ty-four miles east of Los Angeles. It has a
commodious school building that cost $14,OOO.
The leading product of the country tributary to
Covina is the orange. The shipment of Oranges
for the season of 1899-1900 was estimated at 925
Azusa is the metropolis of San
carloads. The shipments since then have nearly
doubled. The completion of the Covina Electric
road has increased the population of the town
about one-third. Covina has a free public
library founded in 1897. It has a collection of
2,500 volumes and receives $900 income from
taxation. It owns a building which cost $8,000.
The building fund was donated by Andrew Car-
negie.
DUARTE.
Duarte is a settlement located on the southern
foot-hill slope of the Sierra Madre mountains, of
which West Duarte, twenty-one miles east of
Los Angeles, on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa
Fe, is the railroad outlet. Duarte is one of the
oldest and best known orange growing districts
in Los Angeles county. Duarte Oranges rank
among the best in quality of the citrus fruits of
Southern California. The settlement in early
times was famous for its water wars, contests
over the right to the waters of the San Gabriel
river. The open ditch for conveying water for
irrigation has given place to miles of iron and
cement pipes. The old-time water wars are
things of the past. Economic methods in the
use of water have afforded a supply to a large
area formerly outside of the irrigating district.
The town of West Duarte was founded in 1886,
when the San Gabriel Valley Railroad was ex-
tended to that point. For several months it was
the eastern terminus of that road.
IRWINDALE.
Irwindale, on the Covina branch of the South-
ern Pacific Railroad, twenty-one miles east of
Los Angeles, is one of the towns of the San
Gabriel valley that was not born during the
boom. It is a comparatively new town, having
been founded in 1895. It is in the citrus belt
and is a fruit-shipping point of considerable im-
portance.
MON ROVIA.
The first town lots in Monrovia were sold in
May, 1886. So rapid was the increase in values
that in less than one year lots on the business
street of the city were selling at $100 a front
foot. The town built up rapidly for a time, then
it came to a stand-still, as it had been Overbuilt.
394
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Of late years it has been growing steadily. It
has a fine location, and is regarded as a healthy
place. It lies close to the base of the Sierra
Madre mountains and has an elevation of 1,200
feet. It has four banks, a high school and sev-
eral hotels. It was named after its founder,
William N. Monroe. It is located on the Santa
Fe Railroad, nineteen miles east of Los Angeles.
The Southern Pacific has also built a branch
through it, thus affording it excellent shipping fa-
cilities. Monrovia owns its own water system. In
I895 some $30,000 were expended in developing
the Supply from Sawpit cañon. It voted to issue
bonds to enlarge and perfect its water supply.
Oranges and lemons are the prime sources of
wealth here as they are in the other towns of
the San Gabriel valley.
Monrovia's development as a suburban resi-
dence town began with the completion of the
electric line from Los Angeles in March, 1903.
Since then the population has increased from
about 1,000 to 3,000. In 1904 a public school
building costing $24,000 was erected and a
woman's' club house costing $5,500 was built.
The assessed valuation of property increased
fifty per cent in a year. In 1905 bonds to the
amount of $35,000 were voted for public im-
provements, of these $18,OOO were for the pur-
chasing of a public park site; $8,000 for a city
hall; $2,OOO for the site of a Carnegie library,
for which a donation of $10,000 is promised ;
$5,000 for enlarging the city water system, and
$2,000 for a fire fighting apparatus.
The municipal water plant furnishes 350
miners inches of mountain water. A gas plant
has been completed at a cost of $2O,OOO. The
streets are lighted by electricity.
The Monrovia Public Library was established
In 1893. The annual income received from taxa-
tion is $700; the number of volumes about 4,000.
The library was moved in August, 1906, from
its old q11arters in the Spence block, which had
been its quarters since its establishment, to new
temporary quarters in the city hall. The Car-
negie Library building will be completed during
the present year (1906). It is built in the public
park. The Pottenger Sanatorium, for the cure
of lung diseases, is located on the upper mesa at
the base of the mountains, about one mile north
of Monrovia. It has a wide reputation and is
considered the most successful institution of its
kind in the United States.
EL MONTE.
El Monte, twelve miles east of Los Angeles
On the San Gabriel river, is the oldest American
settlement in the county. The first immigrants
from the States located there in 1851. Among
these were Ira W. Thompson, Samuel M. Heath
and Dr. Obed Macy, with their families. In
I852 and 1853 over fifty families came, most of
whom were from the southern and southwestern
states. El Monte is in the midst of a rich agri-
cultural district. El Monte has become cele-
brated for the production of English walnuts.
lt has an excellent high school.
SA N GABRIEL.
San Gabriel is the oldest settlement in Los
Angeles county. One of its principal attractions
to the tourist is the old mission church, built a
century ago and still in a good state of preserva-
tion. The Mexican population of the town clus-
ters around the old mission, while the American
residences are located a mile and a half to the
South.
SOUTH PASADEN A.
The territory included in the limits of the city
of South Pasadena is a part of the San Pasqual
rancho. The first house built on that rancho
was erected within what is now South Pasadena;
and most of the historic events of the Spanish
and Mexican eras of which that rancho was the
Scene occurred within the district included in
the city’s area.
South Pasadena began with the boom and
its first business house was a real-estate office.
The first subdivision into town lots was made
by O. R. Dougherty in 1885. The city of
South Pasadena was incorporated in February,
I888. Its limits extended from Columbia street
South to the north line of Los Angeles City, and
from the Arroyo Seco east to the west line of
the Stoneman ranch. In 1889 the city limits
were reduced by a vote of the people—the ob-
ject being to get rid of a number of saloons that
had started up on the outskirts of the city’s ter-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
395
ritory. Several fine business blocks were erected
during the boom. The city has four churches,
Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist and Episcopal.
It has a good high School, employing four teach-
ers; also a newspaper—the South Pasadenan.
South Pasadena in IQ05 was organized as a
city of the sixth class, and bonds were voted for
a new high School. The aggregate cost of
buildings erected during the year of 1905 amount-
ed to $300,000. The estimated population at the
close of the year I905 was 2,400 and the as-
sessed valuation of property within the city
limits for the years IgoS-O6 was $2,400,000, or
$1,000 per capita.
A free public library was established in 1895.
It now contains 4,200 volumes. -
TROPICO.
Tropico is located six miles north from the
center of the city of Los Angeles, on the South-
ern Pacific Railroad. The town was laid out
in 1887. The adjoining lands are divided into
small tracts and devoted to fruit raising. The
San Pedro & Salt Lake road passes along the
borders of the town, affording easy access to the
city. Tropico has a postoffice and stores.
In 1905 the Presbyterian Church was built
costing $3,500. The Los Angeles, Tropico &
Glendale trolley line has been completed, giving
a twenty minute service to the business center of
Los Angeles. Three hundred acres of straw-
berries are cultivated in the neighborhood of
Tropico. The Western Art Tile works were es-
tablished at Tropico in 1902. They now employ
ninety men and manufacture hollow building tile,
fireproof roofing and terra vita.
GLENDALE.
Glendale was laid out as a town in 1886. Dur-
ing the boom of 1887 the village grew rapidly.
A large hotel was built, costing about $70,000. A
narrow gauge railroad was built connecting it
with Los Angeles. This has since been changed to
a standard gauge and is now a branch of the Salt
Lake road. The town for some time after the
boom remained stationary, but with the awaken-
ing that came to all Southern California in the
first years of the present century it began to
grow.
In 1903 Glendale was incorporated as a city
of the sixth class. The Pacific Electric Rail-
way completed its line to Glendale in 1904. Its
connection with Los Angeles by electric rail-
way gave the town a boom. Acreage has been
passing into town lots and the growth of the
city in the past two years has been quite rapid.
Among the new enterprises that have been
launched since the town took on a new growth
are the establishment of two banks, each with
a capital of $25,000, the lighting of the town with
electricity and the erection of a depot by the Pa-
cific Electric Company.
The Battle Creek Sanitarium Company pur-
chased the hotel built in the boom of 1887, and
has remodeled it and opened it as a health resort.
The Glendale free library and reading room
was established February 26, 1906. The library
consists of about 200 volumes.
BURBAN K.
Burbank, on the Southern Pacific Railroad,
nine miles north of Los Angeles, is one of the
many towns of Southern California that was
started in 1887. It was a town of magnificent
promise in its early days. A large furniture
factory was built in 1888, a street car line was
projected through the town and a dummy line
connected Burbank with Los Angeles. None
of these enterprises are in operation now. The
town has a good agricultural territory tributary
to it and is prospering. It has two stores, four
churches, a school with a good attendance.
SAN FERNANDO.
San Fernando is located on the Southern Pa-
cific Railroad twenty-two miles north of Los An-
geles. Hon. Charles Maclay laid out the town
in 1874. It was the terminus of the railroad
going north, from 1874 to 1877, when the long
tunnel was completed. The Maclay College of
Theology was founded here by Hon. Charles
Maclay in 1885, who gave it an endowment of
lands and erected a building for its occupancy.
The school was removed to the University at
West Los Angeles in 1894. The Methodists,
Presbyterians and Catholics have churches in the
town. The old buildings of the San Fernando
Mission, two miles distant from the town, are
396
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
an attraction to visitors. A high School costing
$2O,OOO was erected in 1905.
NEW HALL.
Newhall, thirty miles from Los Angeles, is
the most northerly town in the county. Near it
the first oil strikes in Southern California were
made in 1862 by a Pennsylvania company head-
ed by Tom Scott. Illuminating oil then was
worth from $2.50 to $3 a gallon in Los Angeles.
At 800 feet they secured a well of black oil
which they could not refine and the business
was abandoned. In 1876 operations were be-
gun again and since then the business of oil
producing and refining has been carried on to
a limited extent in the vicinity of Newhall.
IHOILLYWOOD.
Hollywood, near the entrance to the Cahuenga
pass, was laid out in 1887 by H. H. Wilcox,
but made slow growth. A dummy railroad from
the end of the Temple street cable line connected
it with the city. The road failed for want of
patronage. When the Los Angeles-Pacific elec-
tric line was built to Santa Monica the road be-
ing accessible to the town Hollywood took
on new life. It has grown rapidly in the past
few years. It is in the great lemon producing
district and is in what is called the frostless belt.
Its population in 1900 was 500, five years later
it numbered 2,000. Its assessed valuation in
I905 was $2,129,500. It supports three banks
and two weekly papers. The Hotel Holly-
wood cost $100,000. The union high school was
erected at a cost of.S65,OOO and two new gram-
mar grade schools have been erected at a cost
of $30,000 each. The Academy of the Immacu-
late Heart of Mary costing $150,000 was com-
pleted in 1906.
Hollywood has five church buildings and sev-
en church organizations. It has a free public
library, established early in 1906. It contains
about 700 volumes.
SHERMAN.
Sherman is a railroad town eight miles from
Los Angeles. It is the headquarters of the Los
Angeles-Pacific Railroad Company, which owns
the electric line between the city of Los Angeles
and Santa Monica. The power house and the
shops of the electric road are located here. The
town has a postoffice, several stores and a Con-
gregational Church. There are some handsome
residences in its immediate neighborhood.
THE SOLDIERS' HOME AND SAWTELLE.
The Soldiers’ Home cannot be ranked among
the towns of Los Angeles county, though its
population makes it a very important commercial
factor by supplying a market for a large amount
of agricultural products. In 1887 the board of
managers of the National Soldiers Homes of the
United States visited California to locate a
Soldiers’ Home for the Pacific Coast. They
were met at Los Angeles by a committee of the
Board of Trade and one from the G. A. R. (the
author representing Stanton Post). Several
sites were offered. A tract of 600 acres, four
miles easterly from Santa Monica, was finally
selected. Barracks have been built capable of
accommodating 2,OOO men, a chapel, hospital and
other buildings necessary have been erected,
waterworks and reservoirs constructed, and
about fifty acres planted to orange, lemon, wal-
nut, fig, peach, pear and apple trees. A large
part of the 738 acres that now belong to the
Home is devoted to pasturage and raising hay
for the dairy cows. The population of the home
varies from 2,OOO to 2,500.
Extensive improvements have been made at
the Soldiers' Home during the years 1904-05.
Among the most important of these are a cement
storage reservoir of a million gallons, an ice-
making machine and the construction of an ad-
ditional barrack at a cost of $28,769.
The Los Angeles-Pacific Electric Railway
Company extended its road so as to bring freight
and passengers to the buildings of the Home.
The town of Sawtelle has grown up at the main
entrance to the Soldiers’ Home. The families
of some of the inmates of the Home reside in
the town. There are several business houses in
the town.
COMPTON.
Compton is the third oldest town in the coun-
ty of Los Angeles. It was laid out in 1860 by
the Rev. G. D. Compton, after whom it was
named. The tract on which it is located is
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
397
known as the Temple and Gibson tract. Temple
and Gibson bought four thousand acres of the
San Pedro rancho from Dominguez in 1865 for
thirty-five cents per acre. In 1867 Mr. Compton
bought a portion of this tract, for which he paid
$5 per acre.
The town was organized especially un-
der the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal de-
nomination and a frame church was erected by
the society in 1871 at a cost of $3,000. It was
also designed for a temperance colony, but has
had to fight the saloon element a number of
times.
The country around is devoted to dairy farms.
It is well supplied with artesian water. One of
the first artesian wells bored in the county is
near Compton.
The population of this thriving little city now
(1906) numbers I,2OO. It has a live weekly
newspaper, a bank and a union high school.
There are four church denominations, Methodist,
Baptist, Congregational and Catholic, each own-
ing its own building. The largest cheese fac-
tory in Southern California (established in an
humble way in 1880) has grown to large propor-
tions. Its product during the twenty-five years
of its existence has exceeded in value a million
dollars. This establishment, the Anchor cheese
factory, in the year 1904 received 6,397,536
pounds of milk and manufactured 72,941 pounds
of cheese. Lynwood dairy, one of the largest
in California, keeps a herd of 210 cows. Much
of the territory formerly devoted to pasturage in
the immediate neighborhood of Compton has
been subdivided and sold for buildings lots. The
electric railway from Los Angeles to Long
Beach was completed to Compton in 1903.
WHITTIER.
Whittier is known as a Quaker town. It was
settled by a colony of Quakers from Indiana,
Illinois and Iowa in 1887. The population is not
all of the Quaker persuasion. The state reform
school is located here; for its maintenance the
state contributes about $3,600 monthly. A branch
of the Southern Pacific Railroad runs into the
town. The Quaker Colony Canning Company
of Whittier is one of the largest fruit canneries
in the state. It is capitalized for half a million
dollars. There are a number of productive oil
wells in its immediate neighborhood. The out-
put has amounted to 2,500 barrels per day or
nearly 1,000,000 a year.
After the boom Whittier increased very slow-
ly in population. In 1900 the residents numbered
I,565. In the five years following the popula-
tion increased to 5,000. Improvements have kept
pace with the increase of the inhabitants.
In 1904 there were one hundred new houses
built. A union high School costing $60,000 was
constructed and a $10,000 addition made to
Whittier College.
All the leading religious denominations are
represented. Whittier free public library was es-
tablished April 9, 1900. The annual revenue
from taxation is $1,500. The total number of
volumes in the library (September, 1906) was
2,423. Andrew Carnegie in 1905 donated $10,-
OOO to build a library building. A contract has
been let for a building to be completed in Feb-
ruary, IQO7.
NORWALIK.
Norwalk, seventeen miles from Los Angeles,
on the San Diego branch of the Southern Pacific
Railroad, is a flourishing village. It is the cen-
ter of an extensive dairy country. There are
numerous artesian wells in the district which
afford abundant water for irrigation. Alfalfa,
corn and barley are the principal agricultural
products.
DOWNEY.
Downey, the business center of the Los Nietos
valley, was founded in 1874, when the Anaheim
branch of the Southern Pacific Railroad was
built. It has had a steady growth. The terri-
tory tributary to it lies mostly between the old
and the new San Gabriel rivers, which gives it
splendid irrigating facilities. Downey has a
school of eight departments and has recently es-
tablished a high school. Bonds for the erection
of a union high school building were voted in
1905 and a school house erected. The Downey
Champion is one of the oldest newspapers in the
county and is ably conducted. The town is the
center of walnut production. The town has a
public library established in 1901. It has over
2OO volumes.
398
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
RIVERA.
Rivera, ten miles southeast of Los Angeles on
the Surf line of the Santa Fe Railroad, was
founded in 1887. Its location, in the heart of the
Upper Los Nietos valley, about midway between
the new and the old San Gabriel rivers, gives it
the command, as a shipping point, of a large
amount of the products of that fertile district.
The country around it is largely devoted to the
production of the English walnut.
ARTESIA.
Artesia is in the dairy district. The lands in
its neighborhood are adapted to alfalfa. A con-
siderable quantity of grapes are grown here. It
is connected with Los Angeles by an electric
railway. z
SANTA FE SPRINGS.
Santa Fe Springs, originally Fulton Wells,
was started as a health resort. It has a large
hotel. The iron sulphur wells here are reported
to contain water rich in medicinal virtues. The
town is twelve miles from Los Angeles, on the
San Diego branch of the Santa Fe Railroad.
DOLGEVILLE.
Dolgeville was founded in 1904. It is a su-
burban manufacturing town accessible from Los
Angeles by rail and by the interburban electric
line to Alhambra. It is named for its founder,
Alfred Dolge. For the greater part of his life-
time, he was engaged in the manufacture of felt
in New York state. After careful investigation
he decided that the manufacture of that article
could be carried on more profitably in Southern
California than in the east. Among the advan-
tages to be considered were cheap fuel. Oil
fuel for the production of live steam is used in
the processes of manufacture. This is cheaper
and better than coal.
the east was in the securing of wool at lower
cost direct from the producers.
In 1904, two large factory buildings were built
and fitted up with the most modern and labor-
saving machinery used in the business. Not only
is the wool turned into felt, but the felt is man-
ufactured into the numerous articles in which
that product enters, such as tapestries, linings,
Another advantage over
Saddlery, billiard table covers, piano hammers,
shoe soles, shoe uppers, felt boots, shoes and
slippers. This is the only felt factory in the
United States turning out the finished product
from the raw wool.
Alfred Dolge brought some of his best hands
from New York to manage his factories. About
3OO hands are steadily employed; many of these
have bought lots in the town and built homes. A
thriving manufacturing town has grown up
around the works.
ALHAMIBRA.
The town of Alhambra was founded in 1885.
It is seven miles east of Los Angeles and is con-
nected with that city by the Southern Pacific
Railroad and by the Electric road. Its growth
has been slow but steady. It has in its vicinity
Some of the finest Orange groves in the county.
Its yearly shipment of citrus fruit ranges from
I,500 to 2,OOO carloads. The town was incor-
porated as a city of the sixth class in 1903. The
high school building recently erected is a model
School house. The school has an enrollment of
eighty-two pupils and employs four teachers. A
room in the high school has been fitted up for
the recently established public library. The city
has a bank, a newspaper and a number of busi-
ness houses. *
SIERRA MADRE.
The Sierra Madre villa was one of the earliest
suburban resorts of Los Angeles county. It was
built in the early '70s and was for years a favorite
country hotel for tourists and visitors from the
city. The villa is now occupied as a hospital for
the treatment of nervous diseases.
In 1882 the late N. C. Carter purchased a part
of the Santa Anita rancho and subdivided it into
small tracts. These were sold to settlers and set
to vines and orange trees. The Sierra Madre
Water Company was organized in October, 1882,
and water brought upon the tract. It is capital-
ized for $88,000. During the boom of 1887 a
considerable amount of the acreage was sub-
divided into town lots, but being off the railroad
the growth of the town was slow. January I,
1906, the Pacific electric railway was completed
to the town and its development became rapid.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
399
To secure the extension of the road to Sierra
Madre a bonus of $2O,OOO was paid to the rail-
way company and about $5,000 was expended
in securing rights of way. The Sierra Madre
Library was established in 1887. It contains
about 2,500 volumes. A membership fee of 25
cents a month, or $2 a year, is charged. To
avoid the expense of a librarian the work of
keeping the library open five times a week is
undertaken by twelve ladies, each one of whom
is on duty one month. Their sole remuneration
is an annual membership fee to each one.
CHAPTER LVIII.
LONG BEACH.
history. It is a modern town, a city of
to-day, of rapid but substantial growth.
The territory within its limits is part of the
Cerritos (Little Hills) rancho and a portion of
the rancho Los Alamitos (The little poplars or
cottonwoods). The former rancho was owned by
Juan Temple at the time of the American Con-
quest of California. Over the Cerritos marched
Stockton's sailors and marines in August, 1846,
hauling their cannon on ox-carts to capture the
capital city, Los Angeles. The Los Alamitos con-
tained 28,000 acres. It was owned by Don Abel
Stearns. In 1864 it was advertised for sale on
account of $152 delinquent taxes. Small as this
amount now seems for even a twenty-five foot
lot on the beach, in 1864 there was not a man
bold enough to risk that amount upon a rancho
from which there was no income to be derived.
The cattle on it had starved to death in the dry
years of 1863-64 and there were none left in
the country to restock it. A year or two later
Michael Reese, a money loaner of San Fran-
cisco, became the owner by foreclosure of a
mortgage.
During the War of the Conquest General Flo-
res kept a military guard at the adobe house of
Temple on the Cerritos to watch the Americans.
The Cerritos was a famous rancho. The cattle
on it died during the famine year of 1864.
In 1865 Jotham Bixby & Co. bought the ran-
cho and stocked it with sheep. It contained in
all about 27,000 acres. The wool industry in
the later ’60s and early '70s was quite profitable.
For some time after the Bixby's purchased the
rancho over 30,000 head of sheep were pastured
| ONG Beach has no ancient or medieval
on it and the annual production of wool reached.
2OO,OOO pounds. In 188o the Bixby's sold 4,000
acres to a company for a colony site. The or-
ganization was known as the American Colony.
The land was subdivided into five, ten and
twenty acre tracts and put on the market at a
low figure.
A town was laid off fronting on the Ocean and
named Willmore City after one of the promoters
of the colony scheme, W. E. Willmore. How
transitory is fame ! Few of the present inhab-
itants of the prosperous city of Long Beach
know that in its infancy their city bore another
name. Willmore lost all his property and died
in poverty.
During the '70s a number of colonies had
been founded in Fresno county. These were
largely devoted to the culture of the raisin
grape. One of the most successful of these was
a teachers’ colony. Some of the leading educa-
tors of that day had been instrumental in found-
ing it. Willmore, who had been a teacher, was
at one time connected with the Fresno colony.
He became ambitious to found a similar colony
in Los Angeles. Teachers were not numerous
in Los Angeles county then, nor were their
purses plethoric. Few if any of them took the
opportunity offered to invest their scant savings
in land by the sunset sea. Nor did other col-
onists hasten to purchase themselves homes,
The tourists were not greatly in evidence and
the promoters of colony schemes and city found-
ing were not so proficient in the power of per-
suasion as they have become of late years.
It was a waste of words for a promoter to try
to induce an old-time resident to buy colony
400
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. .
lands. The pioneer's memory ran back to the
time when he could have bought the rancho at
“four bits” an acre, and he failed to see how
the mere act of subdividing it into Small tracts
had increased its value a thousand per cent. The
old pioneers were indeed poor material for colo-
nists and few of them ever became such. Ac-
customed to measure land by the league it was
impossible for them to entertain the idea of mak-
ing a living off ten or twenty acres located in a
rancho that for generations had been considered
only fit for a sheep pasture or a cattle range.
The promoters of the American colony, like
those of Riverside and Pasadena, had to look to
the east for their colonists.
The following item I take from the Los An-
geles E4'press of September 17, 1881: “Dr. R.
W. Wright, of the American colony, started east
day before yesterday to bring out a lot of col-
onists this fall. Mr. Willmore, manager of the
colony, thinks from letters he has been receiv-
ing during the summer that there will be several
hundred of them.”
Notwithstanding Mr. Willmore's sanguine ex-
pectations settlers did not rush to the colony
site by the hundreds. They came slowly. The
town site was two miles away from the only
railroad line that reached the ocean in that part
of the county. A visit to the colony site had to
be made by private conveyance from Los An-
geles, twenty-two miles away. In a ten-line ad-
vertisement in the Evening Evpress, setting
forth the advantages of the colony, one of the
chief attractions was its nearness to Los An-
geles. “The visitor can go from Los Angeles
to the colony and return the same day,” so said
this advertisement.
The colony did not flourish under Willmore's
management. About a dozen cheap houses were
built in Willmore City and a few tracts of land
sold. In the spring of 1884 the Long Beach
Land & Water Company bought the unsold por-
tions of the colony lands and town lots. The
name of the town was changed to Long Beach
and Willmore and his city passed to oblivion.
The new company built a commodious hotel on
the bluff between Pacific Park and the beach.
A horse car line was built to the Los Angeles
& San Pedro Railroad track, two miles away,
and a bob car met the trains and conveyed pas-
sengers (the mule consenting) to the growing
burg by the sea. Sometimes, when there was
a rush of passengers, in modern parlance, “the
juice gave out,” or in the language of that time
“the mule bucked.” On such occasions the gen-
t!emen not only gave up their seats, but the
whole car to the ladies and either united their
efforts to the driver's to turn on more power,
or quietly footed it to town. The pioneer Long
Beach car system was somewhat eccentric and
rather uncertain. The Southern Pacific Rail-
road built a Y or spur track into the city and a
dummy engine switched the rear car (which the
Long Beach people were always instructed to
take) into the town and brought it back to meet
the train returning to Los Angeles. The people
of the young city by the sea pointed with pride
to their increased facilities of travel.
The great real estate boom of 1887 sent values
Soaring in Long Beach as it did in all the other
towns of the county, but the aftermath of that
promoter's harvest was a prolific crop of disas-
ters. The hotel burned down and value of town
lots shriveled up until it seemed as if the olden
time price of “four bits” an acre for land was
coming again. The town was drinking deep of
the “gall of bitterness” and the bonds of in-
solvency seemed closing around it. The federal
census of 1890 gave a population of only 564
Souls. The town had been incorporated as a city
of the sixth class in 1888, but its municipal bur-
thens were too heavy for it so it disincorporated.
Through all there were hopeful souls who kept
up their courage and their faith in the future of
the town. The prospects of another railroad
giving direct connection with Los Angeles
caused a ray of hope to penetrate the gloom cast
by the boom. The Terminal Railroad from Los
Angeles to East San Pedro via Long Beach and
Rattlesnake Island was completed in 1891. The
completion of the road from Pasadena to the
Ocean was celebrated by a grand excursion, No-
vember 14, 1891. The people of Long Beach,
in their eagerness to secure the road, gave the
company the right of way along their ocean
front. The road was named “Terminal,” on
the supposition that at no distant day it would
became the terminus of a great transcontinental
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
401
route, a supposition that has in part become a
fact. It is now the western end of the Salt
Lake Road. Rattlesnake Island shook its om-
inous name and became Terminal Island and a
town grew up along its outer shore line, which
bore the name “Terminal.” It has become a
favorite seaside resort. Long Beach has an-
nexed it.
The increased railroad facilities gave Long
Beach a new start on the road to prosperity. A
Chautauqua Assembly had been organized there
in 1884 and each returning year brought an in-
creased attendance. Long Beach began business
as a temperance town. Saloons were kept out of
it and this kept away the promiscuous Sunday
crowds. People who loved quiet and came to
the seaside to rest, found Long Beach a good
place to stop. They bought lots and built sum-
mer cottages and came year after year to enjoy
their summer vacation. The town grew stead-
ily, property advanced in value and the future
of Long Beach was assured. The census of
I90O gave it a population of 2,262, an increase
of four hundred per cent, the largest propor-
tional gain in any city in Southern California.
The beginning of the new century (1901)
marked the beginning of a wonderful era of
prosperity for Long Beach. The Huntington
interurban electric line from Los Angeles to
Long Beach was completed in 1902 and the ef-
fect of quick transportation between the seaside
city and the metropolis was felt at once. Real
estate advanced in value, building was stimu-
lated and capital flowed into the quondam sum-
mer resort until it aroused within it a desire to
become a seaport. A syndicate of capitalists
organized and subscribed capital to dredge a
channel across the tide-swept flats and make
Long Beach in reality a harbor city. The Los
Angeles Dock & Terminal Company began work
in 1905 on the construction of an inner harbor
approximately one mile Square and the channels
entering it to be from twenty-one to thirty-two
feet deep at low tide. The estimated cost of it
is from a million and a half to two million dol-
lars. The site of the harbor comprises 800 acres
of marsh lands, partly submerged, lying three
miles east of the city of San Pedro. Long Beach
bay, a widening out of the slough waters where
the San Gabriel river channel opens into the Pa-
cific, lies at the southwest extremity of the har-
bor site. There has been a contest between the
directors of the Salt Lake Railroad and the
managers of the Los Angeles Dock & Terminal
Company over the removal of the railroad trestle
bridge across the mouth of the San Gabriel
river, the railroad company refusing to remove
it. A recent order from the Secretary of War
requires the company to remove it. This does
away with the last obstacle to the making of an
approach to the Long Beach harbor direct from
the ocean.
Long Beach has recently increased her area
by annexing the whole of the territory to the
west, including a part of the harbor of San
Pedro. Besides her western extension she has
annexed the territory to the eastward down to
Devil's Gate, giving her an ocean front of nine
miles. The territory back to Signal Hill four
miles inland has also been added to her mu-
nicipal area. A recent attempt to extend her
limits to the Orange county line was defeated by
an adverse vote in the district sought to be an-
nexed. tº.
Building has kept pace with her expansion in
area. In the past two years over three million
dollars has been expended in the construction of
new buildings. In 1905 a pier 1,800 feet long,
costing $100,000, was built out beyond the break-
ers. The Auditorium adjoining the pier, with a
Seating capacity of six thousand persons, cost
$40,000. On the western side of the pier a
bath-house has been erected at a cost of $100,000.
Long Beach's School properties represent an ex-
penditure of $380,000. There are ninety teach-
ers employed. The census children in 1906 num-
bered 4,123. A sewer system and a fire service
have been added to her municipal equipment.
The Cosmopolitan, a men's club house, was
completed in 1906. The Hotel Bixby, the most
capacious hotel on the southern coast of Califor-
nia, was begun in IQ05. It is built of reinforced
cement. As it was approaching completion a
terrible catastrophe happened. On the 8th of
November (1906), without warning, the sup-
ports of the fourth floor of the central wing of
the building gave way, crashing down on the
third floor, and so on to the ground floor. Ten
26
402
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
workmen were killed in the wreck and a number
injured. The first estimate of the cost of the
puilding was $500,000. After the disaster a
second issue of bonds was made to the amount
of $250,000. This issue will complete and fur-
nish the building. Long Beach has an excellent
free public library established in 1895 and made
free in 1901. Its annual income from taxation
amounts to about $8,000. The volumes on its
shelves number 7,500. -
No city in California has made such phenome-
nal growth pro rata in the past five years, not
only in population, but also in wealth, as has
Long Beach. The assessed value of the taxable
property of Long Beach in 1901 was $1,556,562,
in 1906 it was $11,715,530. A part of the increase
in 1906 was due to the annexation to the city
of new territory, but by far the larger portion
came through the rapid increase in real estate
values and the investment of capital in new
buildings.
Lots that cottid be bought five years ago ad-
joining what was then the business section in
the neighborhood of Pine avenue and First and
Second streets for $500 to $1,000 could not now
be purchased for those amounts per front foot.
Long Beach has eight banks, with a combined
capital of $850,000 and carrying deposits of
nearly five million dollars. The new home of
the First National Bank, now in the course of
construction, will be, when completed, one of
the largest and most commodious banking houses
on the Pacific coast.
Long Beach has three daily newspapers, the
Press, the Telegram and the Tribune. Its high
school ranks among the best in the county. It
was organized in 1896. When it was opened
there were but two teachers and twenty-eight
pupils. In 1906 there were twelve teachers em-
ployed and 340 pupils enrolled. All the leading
religious denominations are represented in Long
Beach. Fifteen of these Own their own build-
ings. The present value of church property is
estimated at $300,000.
CHAPTER LIX
CITIES AND TOWNS BY THE SEASIDE.
SAN PEDRO.
WO hundred and twenty-seven years be-
fore the bay of San Francisco was dis-
covered the ships of Cabrillo sailed into
the bay of San Pedro. Sixty years passed and
the keels of Sebastian Viscaino's ships cut its
waters. Then nearly two centuries passed before
commerce found it. There is no record (or at
least I have found none) of when the mission
supply ships landed the first cargo at San Pedro.
Before the end of the eighteenth century the
port had become known as the embarcadero of
San Gabriel. Very early in the last century the
American fur traders and Smugglers had found
that it was a good place to do business in.
Just when the first house was built at San
Pedro I have been unable to ascertain definitely.
In the proceedings of the ayuntamiento for 1835,
a house is spoken of as having been built there
“long ago” by the Mission Fathers of San Ga-
briel. Long ago for past time is as indefinite
as poco tiempo for future. I think the house
was built during the Spanish era, probably be-
tween 1815 and 1820. It was a warehouse for
the storing of hides, and was located on the bluff
about half way between Point Firmin and
Timm's Point. The ruins are still extant. Dana,
in his “Two Years before the Mast,” describes
it as a building with one room containing a fire-
place, cooking apparatus, and the rest of it un-
furnished, and used as a place to store goods.
Dana was not favorably impressed with San
Pedro. He says: “I also learned, to my sur-
prise, that the desolate looking place we were in
furnished more hides than any other place on
the coast. * * We all agreed that it was
the worst place we had seen yet, especially for
getting off of hides; and our lying off at so
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
403
great a distance looked as though it was bad for
southeasters.”
This old warehouse was the cause of a bitter
controversy that split the population of the
pueblo into factions. While the secularization
of the missions was in progress, during 1834
and 1835, Don Abel Stearns bought the old
building from the Mission Fathers of San Ga-
briel. He obtained permission from Governor
Figueroa to bring water from a spring a league
distant from the embarcadero, and also to build
additional buildings; his object being to found
a commercial settlement at the landing and to
enlarge the commerce of the port. His laudable
efforts met with opposition from the anti-expan-
sionists of that day. They feared smuggling
and cited an old Spanish law that prohibited the
building of a house on the beach of any port
where there was no custom house. The captain
of the port protested to the governor against
Stearns’ contemplated improvements, and de-
manded that the warehouse be demolished.
Ships, he said, would pass in the night from
Santa Catalina, where they lay hid in the day
time, to San Pedro and load and unload at
Stearns' warehouse, and “skip out” before he,
the captain, could come down from his home at
the pueblo, ten leagues away, to collect the reve-
nue. Then a number of calamity howlers joined
the captain of the port in bemoaning the ills that
would follow from the building of warehouses.
The governor referred the matter to the ayunta-
miento, and that municipal body appointed a
committee of three sensible and public-spirited
men to examine into the charges and report.
The committee reported that the interests of the
community needed a commercial settlement at
the embarcadero; that if the captain of the port
feared smuggling he should station a guard on
the beach. This settled the controversy and the
calamity howlers, too, but Stearns built no ware-
houses at the embarcadero.
Freight passed from ship to shore and vice
versa by means of the ship's boats. As the hide
droghers kept their department stores on board
ship, and lay at anchor until all their customers
were supplied, or until they had spent all their
money, there was ample time to bring from the
ranchos the hides and tallow which were the me-
Pedro.
dium of exchange in those days, consequently
there was but little need of warehouses at the
embarcadero in those days. -
At the time of the American conquest of Cali-
fornia, San Pedro was still a port of one house—
no wharves stretched out over the waters of the
great bay, no boats swung with the tide; na-
ture's works were unchanged by the hand of
man. Three hundred and five years before, Ca-
brillo, the discoverer of California, sailed into
the bay he named Bahia de los Humos—the Bay
of Smokes. Through all the centuries of Span-
ish domination no change had come over San
But with its new masters came new
manners, new customs, new men. Commerce
drifted in upon its waters unrestricted. The
hide drogher gave place to the steamship, the
carreta to the freight wagon, and the mustang
caballada to the Concord stage.
Banning, the man of expedients, did business
on the bluff at the old warehouse; Tomlinson,
the man of iron nerve and will, had his com-
mercial establishment at the point below on the
inner bay. Banning and Tomlinson were rivals
in staging, freighting, lightering, warehousing
and indeed in everything that pertained to ship-
ping and transportation.
In 1871 the government began improving the
inner harbor, and the work was continued for a
rumber of years. A breakwater was built be-
tween Rattlesnake Island (now Terminal Isl-
and) and Deadman's Island. By closing the
gap between the two islands the full current was
forced through the narrow channel between
Deadman's Island and the main land. When the
work was begun the depth of water in the chan-
nel was but two feet, while now it has been in-
creased to eighteen. In 1880 the railroad was
extended down to the old shipping point known
as Timm's landing. The new town of San Pedro
was located partly on the bluff and partly on the
low land bordering the bay. Wharves were
built, where all but the largest vessels unload
their cargoes. During the boom the city of San
Pedro spread over a large area. The securing
of the appropriation of $3,900,000 for the free
harbor gave the town a fresh start on the road
to prosperity. .
The larger portion of the lumber trade from
404
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
the northwest passing through Los Angeles and
into Southern California and Arizona goes by
way of San Pedro. The lumber vessels dis-
charge their cargoes at the wharves of the inner
larbor. Free Harbor Jubilee, celebrated at San
Pedro on the 27th of April, 1899, was one of
the memorable events in the history of the town.
Work on the harbor was inaugurated on that
day by the dumping of a load of rock from the
Catalina quarries on the site of the breakwater.
President McKinley, in his library at Washing-
ton, touched the electric button connected with
the wires that were to start the machinery for
tilting the barge load of rock into the bay. The
tilt was not a complete success, and part of the
barge load of rock had to be unloaded by hand,
but this did not at all dampen the enthusiasm of
the thirty thousand spectators nor spoil their ap-
petites for the viands of the barbecue. The cele-
bration was completed at Los Angeles next day
with procession, speeches and fireworks.
Misfortune overtook the contractors, Held-
maier & Neu, who undertook the building of the
breakwaters that were to form the harbor. Neu
was killed in a runaway at Los Angeles before
the work was begun. Heldmaier failing to push
the work, his contract was cancelled by the gov-
ernment. His bid was $1,303,198.54. Bids were
advertised for and the contract awarded, May
14, 1900, to the California Construction Com-
pany of San Francisco for $2,375,546.05, over a
Imillion above the bid of the former contractors.
Work has been steadily progressing. Rock to
build the sea wall is shipped from Declez, in
San Bernardino county, and the Chatsworth
Quarries.
No better index of the wonderful growth of
Los Angeles county in the past five years can
he found than the increased imports and exports
received at the port of San Pedro. For the year
ending December 31, 1899, one hundred millions
feet of lumber were received. For the year end-
ing December 31, 1905, a few hundred feet less
than five hundred millions were landed at the
port.
The value of the woodstuffs for the past year,
figured at an average wholesale price of $25 per
thousand feet, amounts to $12,475,850.
The fishing industry's output has increased in
five years from 1,500,000 to 4,250,00 lbs.
Among the recent municipal improvements
are a city hall costing $8,000, a new high school
building costing $50,000 and a modern sewer
system on which has already been expended
$60,000.
The Carnegie library building, costing $10,-
OOO, was completed early in 1906. The total
number of volumes in the library at the time of
removal into the new building was 1,822. The
annual income received from taxation is $1,500.
For the dredging of the inner harbor at San
Pedro congress in 1904 appropriated $1 OO,OOO,
with the further provision of $150,000 under
the continuing contract system. Work was be-
gun in 1905. An immense suction dredge, cost-
ing $120,000, was completed and installed and
has been operated day and night. It is intended
to provide a depth of twenty feet at low water
from the inner harbor entrance at Deadinan's
Island to the foot of the wharves and a depth of
twenty-four feet from the wharves to the turn-
ing basin at Mormon Island.
WILMINGTON.
In 1857 Phineas Banning, to put a greater
distance between himself and his rival, Tomlin-
son, and at the same time diminish the land
transportation to the city of Los Angeles, bought
several hundred acres of land at the head of
San Pedro slough. Here he laid off a town and
built a wharf and warehouses. The Los An-
geles Star of October 2, 1858, gives the following
account of the inauguration of the new shipping
port:
“On Saturday last (September 25, 1858), P.
Banning, Esq., commenced operations at San
Pedro New Town, by landing, for the first time
at that place, freight and passengers. A num-
ber of ladies and gentlemen from this city ‘as-
sisted’ on the occasion. The change of loading
from San Pedro to the New Town will be a
great advantage to those engaged in transport-
ing freight from the beach, as by this line the
distance is shortened six miles, avoiding the hills
on the present road. The land on which it is
proposed to build the New Town is a fine flat,
with water and wood in abundance, and all the
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
405
facilities for irrigation. An arm of the sea
reaches inland, with a channel deep enough to
float any barge which may be used in the busi-
ness, and the lighters can be brought up to the
bank and their cargoes discharged, as at a wharf.
By enclosing a portion of the landing the freight
can be at once warehoused ; thence transported
to Los Angeles by a route six miles shorter than
the present. To reach this new landing, how-
ever, the distance from the anchorage ground is
increased, but to obviate this Mr. Banning has,
with his usual promptness and enterprise, de-
termined to place a steam tug on the station, by
which passengers and freight will be transported
from the steamer and shipping to the New Town
wharf with safety and dispatch. This certainly
is a very great advantage, of which the traveling
public will no doubt be duly appreciative.
“The ceremony of inauguration consisted in
towing a line of barges, containing passengers
and freight, to the landing place. In ascending
the channel, all hands, the ladies included, as-
sisted in hauling the hawser; and when the pas-
sengers were landed and the first bale of goods,
the company united in wishing prosperity to
Captain Banning and the New Town, pledging
the same in bumpers of ‘sparkling California.’
Afterwards, a sumptuous entertainment was
provided for the guests; next day was devoted
to the pleasing amusements of yachting and fish-
ing. This was one of the most agreeable parties
of the season; and was conducted with that lib-
erality and hospitality for which Captain Ban-
ning is so famous. We say, prosperity to New
Town and its enterprising proprietor. We may
add, that San Pedro will not, for the present, be
abandoned.” *
The new town or port was named New San
Pedro, a designation it bore for several years,
then it settled down to be Wilmington, named
after Captain Banning's birthplace, Wilmington,
Del.; and the slough took the name of the town.
That genial humorist, the late J. Ross Browne,
who visited Wilmington in 1864, thus portrays
that historic seaport: “Banning—the active, en-
ergetic, irrepressible Phineas Banning, has built
a town on the plain about six miles distant at
the head of the slough. He calls it Wilmington,
in honor of his birthplace. In order to bring
Senator.
Wilmington and the steamer as close together as
circumstances will 'permit, he has built a small
boat propelled by steam for the purpose of car-
rying passengers from steamer to Wilmington,
and from Wilmington to steamer. Another
small boat of a similar kind burst its boiler a
couple of years ago and killed and Scalded a num-
ber of people, including Captain Seely, the popu-
lar and ever-to-be-lamented commander of the
The boiler of the present boat is con-
sidered a model of safety. Passengers may lean
against it with perfect Security. It is constructed
after the pattern of a tea kettle, so that when
the pressure is unusually great, the cover will
rise and let off superabundant steam, and thus
allow the crowd a chance to swim ashore.
“Wilmington is an extensive city located at
the head of a slough in a pleasant neighborhood
of sand banks and marshes. There are not a
great many houses in it as yet, but there is a
great deal of room for houses when the popula-
tion gets ready to build them.”
The catastrophe to which J. Ross Browne re-
fers in the above extract occurred in the Wil-
mington slough April 27, 1863. The tug and
passenger boat, Ada Hancock, used for convey-
ing passengers between Wilmington and the
Ocean steamers, blew up. The explosion was
one of the most fatal on record. Of the forty-
two persons on board only seven escaped unhurt.
Twenty-seven men were killed outright and
eight wounded. As the vessel was rounding a
sharp point in the channel, a sudden gust of
wind careened her so far that the water rushed
Over her port guards onto her boilers and the
explosion followed. Among the killed was Cap-
tain Seely of the Senator, the vessel to which
the passengers were bound; W. T. B. Sanford,
Thomas H. Workman, Dr. Myles, Capt. W. F.
Nye and Albert Sidney Johnston, son of the fa-
mous Confederate general.
During the Civil war the government estab-
lished Camp Drum and Drum Barracks at Wil-
mington, and spent over a million dollars in
erecting buildings. A considerable force of sol-
diers was stationed there and all the army sup-
plies for the troops in Southern California, Utah,
Arizona and New Mexico passed through the
port. The Wilmingtonians waxed fat on gov-
406
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
ernment contracts and their town put on metro-
politan airs. It was the great Seaport of the
South, the toll gatherer of the slough. After
the railroad from Los Angeles was completed to
Wilmington in 1869, all the trade and travel of
the Southwest passed through it and they paid
well for doing so. It cost the traveler $1.50 to
get from ship to shore on one of Banning's tugs
and the lighterage charges from Wilmington to
anchorage out beyond Deadman's Island made
the heart of the shipper sad.
In 1873 the government buildings were sold
at public auction to private parties, and what
cost Uncle Sam over a million dollars returned
him less than ten thousand. The hospital build-
ing and officer's quarters were donated to the
Methodist Church South for educational pur-
poses. Wilson College, named for B. D. Wilson,
the donor, was established in the buildings and
for a time was well patronized. Having no en-
dowment it was found impossible to support it
from tuition charges alone and it was closed.
In 1880, or thereabouts, the railroad was ex-
tended down to San Pedro and wharves built
there. Then commerce left Wilmington and
drifted back to its old moorings at San Pedro.
For two decades after the railroad was ex-
tended down to San Pedro the town of Wil-
mington remained in statu quo. Property de-
clined in value. There was still considerable
business transacted at the old port. The fishing
industry was carried on quite actively. Tribu-
tary to the town was a large agricultural district
that brought in trade. With the general awak-
ening of business that began in Southern Cali-
fornia with the first year of the present cen-
tury shrewd business men, foreseeing the pos-
sibility of making a deep water harbor at Wil-
mington, have been investing in real estate in
and contiguous to the town. This has aroused
the old burg from its lethargy. The maps of
the United States survey designate the body of
water on which Wilmington is built as the “bay
of Wilmington.” The work of dredging the inner
harbor at San Pedro now in progress under the
direction of the United States engineering de-
partment will eventually be extended up the bay,
or slough as it was once called, to Wilmington.
When this is accomplished Wilmington bay will
be a commodious seaport, ranking among the
most important harbors on the Pacific coast.
During the year 1905 building was active.
The Bank of Wilmington was organized, and a
bank building costing $6,000 erected. The Con-
Solidated Planing Mill gives employment to one
hundred men.
SANTA MONICA.
Early in 1875, Senator J. P. Jones and Col.
R. S. Baker subdivided a portion of the rancho
San Vicente lying on the mesa, adjoining the
bay of Santa Monica. The town was named
after the bay and was of magnificent proportions
on paper. On the 16th of July, 1875, a great
sale of lots was held. An excursion steamer
came down from San Francisco loaded with lot
buyers and the people of Los Angeles and neigh-
boring towns rallied in great numbers to the
site of the prospective maritime metropolis of
the south. Tom Fitch, the silver-tongued orator
of the Pacific slope, inaugurated the sale by one
of his most brilliant orations. He drew a fasci-
nating picture of the “Zenith City by the Sun-
set Sea,” as he named it, when at a day not far
distant the white sails of commerce should fill
its harbor, the products of the Occident and the
Orient load its wharves and the smoke from its
factory chimneys darken the heavens. Lots on
the barren mesa sold at prices ranging from
$125 to $500. The sale was a grand success.
The town's growth was rapid. In less than
nine months after its founding it had one hun-
dred and sixty houses and a thousand inhab-
itants. A wharf was built by Senator Jones;
and the Los Angeles & Independence Railroad,
which he was pushing eastward, was supposed
to be the western terminus of a great trans-
continental railway system. The railroad reached
Los Angeles and there it stopped. A financial
blight had fallen on Senator Jones' projects, and
the town shared in the misfortunes of its pro-
genitor. After a time the railroad fell into the
hands of the Southern Pacific Company. That
company condemned the wharf, took down the
warehouse and transferred the shipping and
trade that had grown up at Santa Monica back
to Wilmington.
In 1880 the town and its suburb, South Santa
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
407
Monica, had only 350 inhabitants. Its attrac-
tions as a seaside resort began to be recognized
and it took on new life. The boom sent property
values away up. The magnificent Arcadia hotel
was built in 1887 and the location of the Sol-
diers' Home, three miles eastward, stimulated
the town's growth. The Los Angeles County
Railroad was built from Los Angeles in 1888
along the foothills to Santa Monica. It was not
a success and eventually went into the hands of
a receiver and was numbered with the enter-
prises that have been and are not. The Los
Angeles-Pacific Railroad, an electric road, se-
cured its right of way and has become a valu-
able line of travel. The road was opened in
1896. In 1891-92 the long wharf at Port Los
Angeles was built and shipping again returned
to the bay of Santa Monica. The Santa Fé
Railroad system built a branch line into Santa
Monica in 1892. The Santa Monica Outlook,
founded in 1876, is one of the oldest newspapers
in the county. The population of Santa Monica
in 1890 was 1,500, and in 1900, 3,057.
If the summer of 1905 the city trustees or-
dered a census of the city. The population was
found to be 7,208. This entitled the city to be
governed under a freeholders' charter. A com-
mittee was appointed and a charter drafted
which will be presented to the next legislature
for approval. Three new brick school houses,
costing $65,000, were completed and occupied
early in 1906.
San Vicente boulevard, 130 feet wide, and
extending from the Soldiers’ Home to the sea,
was completed in 1905. A new pleasure pier,
costing $30,000, was recently erected at the foot
of Hollister avenue. Work has been begun on
an electric railway that is to run up the beach
through the Malibu rancho and eventually on to
San Buenaventura and Santa Barbara. A tract
of land, known as the Palisades, has been sub-
divided into large building lots. Building re-
strictions have been placed so high that only
costly residences can be built on the tract.
During the year 1906 six new school houses
were erected at a cost of $150,000, the money
having been raised by a bond issue. A broad
gauge railroad up the beach from Port Los An-
geles towards Ventura was begun and five miles
completed during the year and a 700-foot wharf
built.
REDONDO.
Redondo is comparatively a new seaport. The
site was surveyed and plotted in 1887. A large
tourist hotel was built and the town was adver-
tised as a seaside resort. One of the most at-
tractive features of the place is its carnation
gardens. Redondo carnations have a reputation
all over the west. They are shipped to different
points in Southern California and as far away
as Denver, Dallas, Omaha and Chicago. The
floral business is growing. Carnations, violets,
Smilax, Sweet peas, chrysanthemums and ferns
are shipped from the floral gardens.
Redondo is an important shipping point for
lumber and fish. In 1905 over one hundred mil-
lions feet of lumber were landed on its wharves
and one million four hundred thousand pounds
of fish have been shipped away. A union high
School was opened during the past year.
In July, 1905, H. E. Huntington bought the
holding of the old syndicate that founded Re-
dondo. The report of the purchase started a
boom similar to the frenzied fakes of 1887. Men
and women stood for hours in a line before a
tent where syndicate lots were for sale waiting
their turn to make a deposit on a piece of real
estate, no matter where located, provided it was
in Redondo. The buying went on for three
days and then the tide turned and selling or at-
tempts to sell began. An army of self-constitu-
ted real estate agents besieged the new arrivals
to buy choice corners, business frontages, house
lots with magnificent marine views and strips
of sand dunes with free bathing privileges. The
Los Angeles Times of August 20, 1905, com-
menting on the wild rush to Redondo, said:
“The fake boom created at Redondo a month
ago is bearing fruit every day. That fake has
hurt every bit of beach property on the ocean
front of Southern California. Women pledged
their jewels, heirlooms coming down for gen-
erations, to speculate in Redondo lots at ten
times their intrinsic value. Business men went
crazy for the time being, and took checks which
never could be cashed, and thus tied up property
which might have been sold at high figures.
408
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Contracts flew from hand to hand so fast that
no one knew where the chain of title ran. Some
buyers thought when they had paid $1,500 and
upward for a lot, that was the end of the mat-
ter. When they came to get a deed they found
there was $800 to $1,000 to be paid some former
Owner, the second seller having made only a
partial payment. So the wild business ran. It
is a month since it all passed. It only lasted
three days, but its fruits ran longer, are running
still. Those who got left with the property
on their hands now find there is no sale for the
property at the price they paid, and they have
no use for it. They bought on speculation, and
their money is where it will stay. There is gool
value in Redondo property at the right price for
those who want it. But that is now lost sight
of by those who are ‘stuck.” The lamentation
of those who were trapped has reached many
ears and now ‘beach lots are beach lots’ to many
minds. They are so afraid they will not touch
a beach lot anywhere at any price. So much
for ‘a wild boom and its effects. It is a thou-
sand pities the thing ever broke loose to hurt
the sale of property which is all right in itself.
. The market may not soon recover its tone.”
The “hurt to beach lots” was of short dura-
tion even in Redondo. Those who put their
money “where it will stay” in most cases have
gotten it out without loss. Redondo has forged
ahead notwithstanding the “fake boom.”
HERMOSA.
Hermosa is a nineteenth century city. It was
founded in 1902 and made a city of the sixth
class at the close of 1906. It is a seaside resort.
Its resident population is about 600, but during
the summer it is a city of 2,000 inhabitants.
ALONG THE SHORE.
Manhattan, North Manhattan, Peck’s Beach,
Shakespeare and Hyperion. are villages on the
sea shore between Del Rey and Redondo. They
are all of recent origin and are accessible to Los
Angeles by the Los Angeles-Pacific Electric
Railway.
AVALON.
Avalon, the metropolis of Santa Catalina
Island, bore the name of Shatto City at its
founding. It was one of the boom towns of 1887.
For several years after the bursting of the boom
the town made little or no progress. When the
Banning Brothers purchased Santa Catalina
Island they set to work to develop Avalon as a
summer resort. A number of improvements
were made, and during the summer season now
daily steamers (the Hermosa and Cabrillo) con-
vey passengers across the channel. The loca-
tion of Avalon makes it an ideal summer resort.
The absence of breakers in its bay makes boat-
ing and fishing safe and pleasant pastimes. Its
resident population is about a thousand, but dur-
ing July and August the transient population
often reaches six or seven thousand.
PLAYA DEL REY.
Playa del Rey (Beach of the King) was
known to the old-timers as Will Tell's. It was
a popular seaside resort thirty years ago, where
sportsmen went for duck shooting on the lagoon.
The southeasters of the great flood year of 1884
destroyed its hunting grounds, and for two de-
cades it was deserted. With the great boom of
Ocean frontage that began in 1902 the capa-
bilities of the place for a seaside resort were
brought to the front and extensive innprove-
ments begun. In 1904 fully a quarter of a million
dollars were expended. A new pavilion was built
at an outlay of $100,000 and was dedicated on
Thanksgiving day, IQO4.
On the lagoon side, and extending from the
level of the pavilion to the water's edge, an am-
phitheater with a seating capacity of 3,000 was
erected. From this a fine view of the boat races
and aquatic sports can be obtained. A hand-
some three-story hotel was erected at a cost of
$20,000 and a number of fine residences were
erected. During the year 1905 extensive im-
provements were made at the King's Beach.
The lagoon’s banks were bulkheaded for miles
on either side. Two suspension bridges of con-
crete were constructed to connect the strand
with the mainland, and an incline railway was
built from the beach to Mount Ballona, as the
eminence is called that rises above the beach.
A two-story bank building was constructed, and
the Los Angeles-Pacific Electric Railway ex-
pended $5,000 in building a passenger depot in
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
409
the so-called 1mission design. Gold has been
found in the black sands of the beach. It is one
of the possibilities of the future that gold min-
ing may be made to pay.
OCEAN PARK.
In 1892, Abbot Kinney and F. G. Ryan bought
a long strip of sand dunes along the shore line
of the Pacific Ocean, a portion of which was com-
prised within the municipal limits of Santa
Monica, the remainder being south of it.
At this time the tendency of investors in
beach properties favored bluffs. Kinney and
Ryan believed that the time would come when
the sand close to the ocean's rim would be
eagerly sought after for residence and resort pur-
poses, and time has since demonstrated the
soundness of their judgment.
Kinney and Ryan immediately purchased
rights of way and secured the entry of the Santa
Fe Railroad to Ocean Park. They also arranged
with the Y. M. C. A. to establish a branch at
Ocean Park and erect an auditorium and bath-
house. They also built two piers.
Abbot Kinney laid out the plan of the beach
city as it now exists; a unique feature of this
plan is the parking of the sand streets with side-
walks in the center. He also brought in the elec-
tric railroad through the sand dunes and had
nearly completed a new electric road in partner-
ship with W. S. Hook, when Mr. Hook sold his
interests to the Southern Pacific, through Sen-
ator Clark. This forced Mr. Kinney to sell
shortly afterward.
As the property was bought with a long view
to the future, it was decided not to put any of it
on the market, but to encourage building. Lots
were leased to persons desiring to put Small cot-
tages upon them at nominal rentals, water was
brought in, the tract was sewered and board
walks laid. Under this policy began the com-
munity of Ocean Park, and before any of the
original townsite was put upon the market, hun-
dreds of cottages had been erected along one
mile and a half of frontage, to what is now
known as Brooks avenue in Ocean Park. Dur-
ing this development Mr. Ryan died, and T. H.
Dudley succeeded to his interest. Messrs. Kin-
ney and Dudley had made arrangements to put
the tract upon the market, when, in the winter
of I90I, the interest of Dudley was purchased
by A. R. Fraser, G. M. Jones, H. R. Gage and
Others, Mr. Kinney retaining his one-half.
The sale of the leased lots was made rapidly.
This period also marked the beginning of a
great building era. The type of houses con-
Structed rapidly improved with the advance in
the price of lots, and Pier avenue became a busi-
IneSS Center.
The most notable improvement, begun in 1904,
was the erection of a magnificent bath house,
which was completed early in 1905 at a cost,
including furnishings, of $185,000. On the ocean
front a toboggan railway was constructed at a
cost of $25,000. On Hollister avenue a new
double-decked recreation pier was built. During
the year 1904 a number of handsome brick busi-
ness blocks were built and about 35o residences.
In 1905 a horseshoe pier was constructed. Its
features include a large auditorium. Two new
banks were opened during the year and a number
of business blocks built. There are now three
banks at Pier avenue and two in Venice. Every-
where throughout the city new dwelling houses,
costing from $1,000 to $6,000, have been con-
structed. |
In the city of Ocean Park, which does not in-
clude Pier avenue nor the north beach section,
municipal bonds to the amount of $85,000 were
voted. A considerable part of this fund was ex-
pended in the construction of a modern sewer
system with a septic tank. Part of it will be
used in building a city hall and library.
It is a curious feature of the district known
as Ocean Park that the part with the postoffice
of Ocean Park is in the municipality of Santa
Monica, and that the postoffice of Ocean Park is
Venice. Ocean Park is in two cities.
In 1904 that portion of the sand strip not in-
cluded in Santa Monica, together with adja-
cent subdivisions, became incorporated as the
city of Ocean Park. The marvelous growth of
the city in wealth and population is indicated
by the increase in its assessed valuation in one
year of $4,000,000. This year it is $6,000,000.
The city, formerly confined to a sand strip run-
ning from the ocean back an average depth of
900 feet, has spread to the hills back of it.
410
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
In the year 1904 a notable event in the history
of Ocean Park occurred. It was the purchase
by Abbot Kinney, from his partners, of the lands
on the southern end of the tract for the purpose
of building the Venice of America, with its can-
als, bridges and arcades.
The boundaries of Ocean Park City are, San-
ta Monica on the north and Del Rey on the south.
The Pacific Ocean is its western frontage. At
Venice it has public improvements, such as a
large surf and plunge bath house, Oriental ex-
position, a beautiful country club with tennis
courts, the finest dancing pavilion in the world,
a grand auditorium, skating rink, bowling alleys
superior to any, boat-house, power plant, ship
Cabrillo restaurant, fine hotels, two banks, a
large school with industrial training department,
and so forth.
The first city officials were Dana Burks, G. M.
& Jones, W. R. Robinson, Force Parker and W. T.
Gibbon. This board held over in 1906, with the
exception of Mr. Gibbon, whose place is filled at
this writing by David Evans.
VENICE OF AMERICA.
Venice of America, the creation of Abbot
Kinney, is not merely one of the notable sights
of Southern California. It ranks in interest with
the famous resorts of the world.
Venice of America is a phenomenal city. At
the beginning of the year 1904 the site of the
city was made of tide-flats, sand dunes and salt-
water lagoons. Its only permanent inhabitants
were ducks and fish, and its visitors wild geese
and sea gulls.
The end of that year found a magic trans-
formation of the once dreary expanse. A still-
water swimming pool, capable of accommodating
5,000 bathers, graced the tide-flats. Three-story
brick blocks loomed above the sand dunes and
canals had been channeled out of the sloughs and
lagoons. A recreation pier had been built out
into the ocean a thousand feet. All of this
wonderful transformation had been made pos-
sible, had been brought about through the genius,
the faith in the future and in the indomitable per-
severance of one man, Abbot Kinney.
The first work on Venice was done in the lat-
ter part of the year 1904. It had proceeded satis-
factorily toward a proposed opening in July,
I905, when in March one of the fiercest storms
seen in many years on the Southern Californian
coast did large damage to the unfinished build-
ings. To guard against any future disaster of
like kind, Mr. Kinney obtained from the govern-
ment permission to construct the only private
breakwater in the United States and put upon
the work an army of artisans, pushing it toward
completion at enormous cost. On July 20 the
Splendid auditorium, built several hundred feet
out from the land, was dedicated. The develop-
ment of Venice since that time has been extraor-
dinarily rapid. Countless thousands of people
are there on all great days, cars reaching Wind-
ward avenue on an average of one a minute.
The Venice of America is like the Venice of
Italy in its canal system and the architectural
lines of that famous art center have been followed
in a measure. But it is not an imitation ; it has
an individuality of its own clearly defined. Its
several miles of canals are bordered with flowers
and palm trees. Its arcaded streets present the
only uniform architecture in the United States.
It is uniform in the sense of being not discord-
ant. There is a boldness in the color scheme that
fills the eye with beauty and the soul of an artist
with delight.
The Venice of America is a high-class resi-
dence center as well as a high-class resort. More
residences have been built in Venice than in any
other tract outside of Los Angeles in the same
time. It also sets the pace in things musical.
The leading organizations of the country com-
pete for engagements in Venice.
Roycrofters and other disciples of Ruskin de-
light in Venice, as do lovers of Oriental art,
because of its permanent exposition under the
auspices of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce.
In this are specimens of exquisite individual
handiwork whose like cannot be found else-
where in the United States.
Four lines of the Los Angeles-Pacific Electric
Railway system reach Venice from Los Angeles.
The most direct route is by way of The Palms,
the distance from Fourth and Hill streets being
twelve and seven-eighths miles and a little Over
nine miles from the city limits. The Los An-
geles-Pacific has acquired rights of way and
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
411
financed bonds for the construction of a new
through line out Fourth street, which will make
Venice from its Fourth street depot in less than
twenty minutes. The other ways in which Ven-
ice is reached are via Santa Monica, Sawtelle,
Hollywood, Westgate and Redondo.
That Venice is destined to be the center of a
great population within a few years is indicated
by its geographical situation. The best resi-
dential section of Los Angeles is now only nine
miles from Venice and it is steadily growing in
its direction, while the growth from the beach
will naturally be along the short line of the rail-
road from Venice toward the metropolis.
NAPLES.
Early in 1905 A. M. and A. C. Parson secured
a large tract of land on Alamitos bay and set
about transforming it into the “Dreamland of
Southern California.” “Through the canals and
under the high arching bridges gay gondoliers
will propel their crafts like those in the waters
of the Adriatic under the blue skies of Italy.”
Since the acquisition of the site the promoters,
backed apparently by unlimited capital and
aided by the labor of an army of men, have been
pushing the improvements as rapidly as men and
machinery can do it.
Naples is located at the mouth of the San
Gabriel river; “a still-water inland bay forms
One of the attractions, and hundreds of thou-
sands of dollars have zeen expended in dredg-
ing, constructing imposing bulkheads of re-
inforced concrete and in creating the foundations
for a splendid waterway city.” There will be
when the dredging is completed twenty miles of
still water in the bay and river for boating.
There are now under construction in Naples
broad cement promenades and an immense pa-
vilion which is to be a reproduction of the famous
Palace of the Doges. The houses are all to
have red tiled roofs. Several expensive resi-
dences fronting on the bay have been built. The
building restrictions prevent the erection of
cheap dwellings.
CHAPTER LX.
SANTA BARBARA COUNTY.
ORIGIN OF THE NAMIE.
/* | NHE discoverer of the Santa Barbara chan-
nel, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, seems not
to have named it. He named the islands
and a few of the prominent points of the main-
land that bound the channel. The names he gave
to the islands have all been changed. If he
named the channel, there is no record of it. When
Sebastain Viscaino sailed through the channel
Padre de La Ascension, one of the three Carmelite
friars accompanying the expedition, writing a
letter descriptive of the mainland and islands,
headed it Santa Barbara, December 4, 1602. This
he did in honor of Santa Barbara, virgin and
martyr, whose day in the Catholic calendar is
December 4th. Santa Barbara was born in Nico-
media, Asia Minor, and suffered martyrdom
December 4, A. D. 218, during the persecution
of the Christians under the Emperor Maximum.
She is said to have been decapitated by her father,
a Roman officer serving under the Emperor.
One hundred and sixty-seven years after Vis-
canio's explorations, Portala's expedition passed
up the coast and through the valley where the
city of Santa Barbara now stands. Through all
these years the channel still retained the name
given it by Padre de La Ascension, although so
far as we know no ship's keel had cut its waters
since Viscaino's time.
When the presidio was founded, April 21,
1782, the name of the fort and of the mission that
was to be had already been determined. To
Padre de La Ascension belongs the honor of
naming the channel, from which came the name
of the presidio, the mission and the pueblo that
grew up around these. An account of the found-
412
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
ing of the presidio and the principal incidents in
its history during the Spanish and Mexican
periods have been recorded in previous chapters
of this volume. -
In Chapter VIII I have given a brief account
of the burning of Monterey, the destruction of
Ortega's rancho and the looting of the mission
San Juan Capistrano by Bouchard, the privateer,
in 1818, known in California history as El Año
de Los Insurgentes—the year of the insur-
gents. The account given there is compiled
from Spanish sources and tells the story from
the standpoint of the defenders. Since the above-
named chapter was written I have obtained some
original historical material in regard to Bou-
chard's operations on the Pacific coast not known
to Bancroft, Hittell or any other historian of
California.
This is the narrative of Peter Conrey, an Eng-
lish sea captain, engaged in the fur trade on the
northwest coast of America, and who between
1813 and 1818 made several voyages to Cali-
fornia and the Sandwich Islands. After his re-
turn to England his narrative was published in
the “London Literary Gazette” of 1821. In
1896 it was published in book form by Thomas
G. Thrum, of Honolulu, H. I. Captain Conrey
was at Honolulu when Bouchard, in the man-of-
war Argentina, came there in search of a lost
or runaway vessel that had been in the employ
of the Argentine Republic (Buenos Ayres).
This vessel, the Santa Rosa, alias Checka
Boca, alias Libertad, had been fitted out at the
Rio Plata under command of Captain Turner,
an American, to cruise against the Spaniards in
the north and south Pacific. After rounding
Cape Horn the crew, which seems to have been
a bad lot, mutinied, seized the officers and con-
fined them in irons. A master's mate, named
McDonald, took command, assuming the name
of Turner. When off Valparaiso they sent the
officers ashore. The mutineers ran up the coast
of South America, capturing towns, destroying
vessels, robbing and burning churches. They
became the terror of the coast. Fearing capture,
they steered their vessel to the Sandwich
Islands, where they sold her to King Kame-
hameka. When Bouchard arrived at Honolulu
he demanded the Santa Rosa from the king.
It was given up. The mutineers, who were still
on the islands, were hunted down by the na-
tives and delivered to Bouchard. McDonald
made his escape, but the second in command, a
Mr. Griffith, was tried by court-martial and shot
in two hours after sentence was passed. Some
of the leaders were given twelve dozen lashes
and the remainder of the crew pardoned.
Bouchard offered the command of the Santa
Rosa to Captain Conrey, who accepted it. Sup-
plies having been obtained on the 20th of Octo-
ber the two ships sailed for the coast of Cali-
fornia to cruise against the Spaniards. I quote
from Captain Conrey's narrative:
“The ship Santa Rosa was American built,
about 300 tons burthen; mounting eighteen guns,
twelve and eighteen pounders; with a comple-
ment of IOO men; thirty of whom were Sand-
wich Islanders; the remainder were composed of
Americans, Spaniards, Portuguese, Creoles,
Negroes, Manila men, Malays, and a few Eng-
lishmen. The Argentina had 260 men, fifty of
whom were Islanders, the remainder a mixed
crew, nearly similar to that of the Santa Rosa.
She carried forty-four guns. On our passage
towards California we were employed exercising
the great guns and putting the ship in good con-
dition for fighting, frequently reading the arti-
cles of war, which are very strict and punish
with death almost every act of insubordination.
“After getting a supply of eggs, oil, etc., from
the Russians, we made sail towards the bay of
Monterey. The commodore ordered me into the
bay, and to anchor in a good position for cover-
ing the landing, while he would keep his ship
under weight, and send his boats in to assist me.
Being well acquainted with the bay, I ran in
and came to at midnight under the fort; the
Spaniards hailed me frequently to send a boat
on shore, which I declined. Before morning they
had the battery manned and seemed quite busy.
I got a spring on the cable, and at daylight
opened a fire on the fort, which was briskly re-
turned from two batteries. Finding it useless to
fire at the batteries, the one being so much above
us that our shot had no visible effect, the com-
modore came in with his boats, and we landed
on Point Pinos, about three miles to the west-
ward of the fort; and before the Spaniards had
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
413
time to bring their field-pieces to attack us we
were on our march against it. We halted at the
foot of the hill, where it stood for a few min-
utes, beat a charge and rushed up, the Sand-
wich Islanders in front with pikes. The
Spaniards mounted their horses and fled; a
Sandwich Islander was the first to haul down
their colors. We then turned the guns on the
town, where they made a stand, and after firing
a few rounds, the commodore sent me with a
party to assault the place, while he kept posses-
sion of the fort. As we approached the town,
the Spaniards again fled, after discharging their
field pieces, and we entered without opposition.
It was well stocked with provisions and goods
of every description, which we commenced send-
ing on board the Argentina. The Sandwich
Islanders, who were quite naked when they
landed, were soon dressed in the Spanish fashion,
and all the sailors were employed in searching
the houses for money, and breaking and ruin-
ing everything. We took several Creole pris-
oners, destroyed all the guns in the fort, etc.
We had three of our men killed and three taken.
Next day a party of horsemen came in sight, to
whom the commodore sent a flag of truce, re-
quiring the governor to give up our people and
save the town. Three days were granted to con-
sider this proposal, and on the third day, not
receiving an answer, he ordered the town to be
fired, after which we took plenty of live stock
on board, wood, water, etc., and on the Ist day
of December got under weight from Monterey,
and stood along the coast to the southward.
“On the 4th we made a village called the
Ranch (near Point Conception), where we in-
tended to call for provisions, got the boats all
ready, landed a party without opposition, and
took the town, all the inhabitants flying on our
approach. The men remained all night, and next
morning the place was plundered. About noon
a lieutenant and two seamen having strayed a
short distance from the town, a party of horse-
men rushed on them, threw the la’s–aws (lassos)
over their heads and dragged them up a neigh-
boring hill before we could render them any as-
sistance. This so enraged Captain Bouchard
that he ordered the village to be fired instantly,
and embarked all the men. After dark we again
landed a party, well armed, to try and surprise
the Spaniards and make some prisoners, but
the next morning embarked without success.
We then weighed and made sail along shore to
the southward, two miles from shore; a great
number of Spanish troops riding along the beach,
at whom we fired several shots. In the evening
of the 8th of December we were off the town
and mission of St. Barbara, in latitude 34° 36'
N. and longitude I 19° W. It falling calm, we
hoisted the boats out to tow the ships into the
bay, where we anchored, the town bearing N.
by W. one mile, seemingly deserted. We fired
a gun and hoisted the colors with a flag of truce,
and sent a boat on shore to say if they would
give up our men we would spare the town ; to
which the governor agreed, and accordingly, on
the Ioth, we got our companions on board,
weighed the anchor and made sail to the south-
ward. We again ran into a Snug bay, in latitude
33° 33' N., where we anchored under the flag of
truce. The bay is well sheltered, with a most
beautiful town and mission, about two leagues
from the beach. The commodore sent his boats
on shore, to say if they would give us an imme-
diate supply of provisions we would spare their
town; to which they replied that we might land
if we pleased, and they would give us an imme-
diate supply of powder and shot. The commo-
dore was very much incensed at this answer and
assembled all the officers to know what was
best to be done, as the town was too far from
the beach to derive any benefit from it. It
was therefore agreed to land, and give it up to
be pillaged and sacked.
“Next morning, before daylight, the commo-
dore ordered me to land and bring him a sample
of the powder and shot, which I accordingly
did, with a party of 140 men, well armed, with
two field-pieces. On our landing, a party of
horsemen came down and fired a few shots at us,
and ran towards the town. They made no stand,
and we soon occupied the place. After break-
fast the people commenced plundering; we found
the town well stocked with everything but
money, and destroyed much wine and spirits,
and all the public property; set fire to the king's
stores, barracks and governor's house, and about
two o'clock we marched back, though not in the
414
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Order we went, many of the men being intoxi-
cated, and some were so much so that we had
to lash them on the field-pieces and drag them
to the beach, where, about six o'clock, we arrived
with the loss of six men. Next morning we pun-
ished about twenty men for getting drunk.”
They cruised off San Blas for the Manila
ships, but did not capture any. After much
suffering from sickness and shortage of pro-
vision, the Santa Rosa arrived at Valparaiso
July 9, 1819; the Argentina arrived the 17th,
having buried forty of her men. The ships were
laid up and most of the crews entered on board
Chilian fleet.
“I now applied to Captain Bouchard for my
pay and prize money, and told him I was heart-
ily sick of the service of the Independents, and
that I intended to go to England in the first
vessel that sailed for that country, the port be-
ing then embargoed on account of the expedi-
tion going against Peru; he replied that he could
not pay me unless I continued in the service and
took the ship to Buenos Ayres, which I de-
clined doing, and left her in charge of Mr.
Woodburn, the first lieutenant.”
I have introduced this long digression for sev-
eral reasons—the chief of which is that all ac-
counts of the event published in California his-
tories are one sided. The privateer's story has
never been told in any of these. Conrey's narra-
tive bears upon its face the impress of truth. It
contradicts many of the exaggerations derived
from Spanish sources published in Bancroft’s
and Hittell's histories. The Spanish officers and
soldiers who fought Bouchard, in their reports
of their several contests with “the pirate
Bouchard,” as they called him, were inclined to
magnify their achievements.
Governor Sola in his report claims that
Bouchard landed 400 men at Monterey. The
total complement of men on both ships, accord-
ing to Captain Conrey, was only 360. Sola re-
ported five of the insurgents killed and a num-
ber wounded. Conrey reports three killed and
three taken prisoners at the battle of Monterey.
One of the three men captured, according to Ban-
croft, was Joseph Chapman, the first native-born
citizen of the United States to settle in Southern
California. According to Sola's report, these
America.
three men were sent ashore in response to a de-
mand of the Spaniards, the Santa Rosa having
lowered her flag in token of surrender. Sola,
unable to obtain from these men anything but
“lies and frivolous excuses,” reports that he put
them in the guard-house; a high-handed pro-
ceeding, if he did it. Sola's refusal to surrender
the men captured at Monterey, according to
Captain Conrey, was the reason why Bouchard
burned the town. The refusal of the Spaniard
to give up the three men captured at Ortega's
rancho was also the cause of Bouchard’s burning
the buildings there. His demand for their re-
turn at Santa Barbara with a threat to burn the
town brought the comandante of the presidio to
terms at once. Whether this demand included
the three men captured at Monterey, Conrey
does not state.
Captain Conrey reports the loss of six men at
San Juan Capistrano. The Spanish authorities
report the capture of four there. I am of the
opinion that Joseph Chapman was captured at
San Juan Capistrano, and not at Monterey, as
stated in Bancroft's history. Stephen C. Foster
gives a romantic account of Chapman's capture
at Ortega's rancho, and his rescue by a daughter
of Ortega from the doom decreed to him by the
Spaniards—that of being dragged to death by
wild horses. According to Foster, he married
his rescuer a year later. Chapman was not cap-
tured at Ortega's rancho. Foster's romantic
story, except the marrying part of it, is pure
fiction. The three men captured at Ortega's
rancho were given up at Santa Barbara.
Joseph Chapman was the first citizen of the
United States to permanently locate in Cali-
fornia. He figured prominently in the history
of Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. As the pio-
neer American resident of California it would
be interesting to know something of his early
history and what induced him to leave his New
England home and join the insurgents of South
It is probable that he was one of the
crew of the Santa Rosa. A number of his de-
scendants are living in Santa Barbara and Ven-
tura counties.
ORGANIZATION OF THE COUNTY.
Santa Barbara is one of the original twenty-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
415
seven counties into which the state, or rather the
territory, of California (for it had not yet been
admitted as a state of the Union) was divided by
an act of the legislature, approved February 18,
1850.
Section 4 of that act created the county of
Santa Barbara. The boundaries as given in the
act are as follows: “Beginning on the Seacoast
at the mouth of the creek called Santa Maria
and running up the middle of said creek to its
source; thence due northeast to the summit of
the Coast Range, the farm of Santa Maria fall-
ing within Santa Barbara county; thence follow-
ing the summit of the Coast Range to the north-
west corner of Los Angeles county; thence along
the northwest boundary of said county to the
Ocean , and three English miles therein; and
thence in a northerly direction parallel with the
coast to a point due west of the mouth of Santa
Maria creek; thence due east to the mouth of
said creek, which was the place of beginning; in-
cluding the islands of Santa Barbara, San Nic-
olas, San Miguel, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz and
others in the same vicinity. The seat of justice
shall be at Santa Barbara.” By an act of the
legislature of 1851-52 the boundaries of the
county were more clearly defined and Some slight
changes made in the lines.
The legislature passed acts creating county
organizations and providing for the election of
county officers.
ish and Mexican rule and under the American
rule from the time of the conquest was swept out
of existence. In place of ayuntamientos and
courts of first, second and third instance, and of
offices of alcaldes, prefects, sub-prefects, regi-
dores and sindicos, were substituted district
courts, courts of sessions, county courts, justices
of the peace, common councils, mayors, sheriffs,
district attorneys, treasurers, assessors, recorders,
surveyors, coroners and constables. To the na-
tives who had been reared under the simple
forms of early years the American system of
government was complicated and confusing. An
election for county officers was ordered held
throughout the state on the first Monday of
April, 1850, and the machinery of county govern-
ment was put into operation as speedily as pos-
The old system of municipal
government that had been in force under Span-
sible. The transition from the old form to the
new took place in Santa Barbara in August.
Henry A. Tefft was appointed judge of the
second judicial district, which consisted of the
counties of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo.
John M. Huddars acted as clerk of the court.
At the April election Pablo de la Guerra, who
had represented the Santa Barbara district in the
constitutional convention, was chosen state sen-
ator, and J. M. Covarrubias and Henry S. Cranes
the first assemblymen.
Joaquin Carrillo was the first county judge,
and by virtue of his office presiding justice of the
court of sessions. This court consisted of the
county judge and two justices of the peace, who
acted as associate justices. Besides its judicial
duties it also fulfilled the functions of county
government now performed by boards of super-
visors. The first meeting of the court of Sessions
was held October 21, 1850, and its first recorded
act was the ordering of a county Seal. The de-
sign of the seal is described as follows. “Around
the margin the words, county court of Santa
Barbara county, with the following device in
the center: A female figure holding in her right
hand a balance and in her left a rod of justice;
above, a figure of a rising Sun; below, CAL.”
The associate justices of the first meeting of the
court of sessions were Samuel Barney and Will-
iam A. Streeter.
José A. Rodriguez, the first sheriff of the
county, was killed in the fall of 1850 on the
present site of the oil wells of Summerland, while
leading a party in pursuit of the murderers of
the Reed family at San Miguel Mission. Rodri-
guez was recklessly brave. The murderers had
been surrounded. The members of the sheriff's
posse hesitated to close in on them. Rodriguez,
to inspire his men with courage, rushed in upon
the murderers, and seizing one of them, pulled
him from his horse. In the scuffle the fellow shot
and killed the sheriff. One of the desperadoes,
endeavoring to escape, Swam to sea and was
drowned. Three of them, Lynch, Raymond and
Quin, were captured, taken to Santa Barbara
and shot.
Gen. W. T. Sherman in an article, “Old Times
in California,” published in the North American
Review of March, 1889, gives an entirely dif-
416
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
ferent version of the capture of the murderers of
the Reed family. Jim Beckworth, who was car-
rying the mail from Monterey to Dana’s rancho,
stopping at the Mission San Miguel, which Reed
had fitted up for a hotel, found the bodies of
Reed, his wife and children. They had recently
been murdered. Beckworth, on arriving at
Monterey, reported to Lieutenant Sherman the
story of the murder. Sherman, who was acting
adjutant general, reported it to Col. R. B. Ma-
son. Mason ordered Lieut. E. O. C. Ord to take
a detachment of soldiers and “pursue the mur-
derers to the death.” Lieutenant Ord with his
detachment found the trail of the assassins, which
led south by Santa Inez, back of Santa Bar-
bara, and at Rincon below Santa Barbara he over-
took the party, who proved to be four deserters
from the sloop-of-war Warren, lying in the har-
bor of Monterey. They had a running fight in
which Ord lost one of his men, killed the ring-
leader and captured the other three men. They
were taken back to Santa Barbara and delivered
to the alcalde, Lewis Dent, brother of Mrs. Gen-
eral Grant. They all made full confessions, were
tried, condemned to death and shot. This oc-
curred in October, 1848.
The first assessment of property was made by
Lewis T. Burton, county assessor. The total
value of all property in the county, real and per-
sonal, was placed at $992,676. Cattle were as-
sessed at $8 per liead, sheep at $3 per head and
land at twenty-five cents per acre. The assess-
ment list of Don José de la Guerra y Noriega is
a good illustration of how lands of the county
had been monopolized by a few men. Noriega
owned the Conejo rancho, which contained 53,-
880 acres; the Simi, containing 108,000 acres;
Las Posas, containing 26,640 acres; San Julian,
2O,OOO; the Salsipuedes, 35,2OO acres; a total of
243,120 acres; the assessed value of which was
about $60,000. - -
It took the new officers some time to become
acquainted with the duties of the several offices.
There was a disposition to mix American and
Mexican law. In the county as in the city gov-
ernment there were frequent resignations, and
the officers changed from one official position to
another. County officers held city offices and
vice versa, sometimes by appointment and some-
times by election. Joaquin Carrillo, in 1852,
was county judge and mayor of Santa Barbara
city at the same time. J. W. Burroughs breaks
the record as champion officeholder.
elected sheriff in 1857; appointed recorder Sep-
tember 3, 1851 ; justice of the peace September
I6, 1857; acted as county clerk January 23, 1852,
and was appointed treasurer April 14, 1852.
January 29, 1851, he had been elected a member
of the common council. He held , six distinct
offices within a little more than a year.
The frequent recurrence of the same family
name in the lists of city and county officials
might give rise to the charge of nepotism or a
family political ring. The de la Guerras and
the Carrillos were ruling families in Santa Bar-
bara before the conquest and they continued to
be for some time after. The first mayor of the
city was a de la Guerra (Francisco). The first
state senator was also a de la Guerra (Pablo).
Don Pablo, although a bitter opponent to the
Americans during the war, after the conquest
became thoroughly Americanized. He held many
offices. He was a member of the constitutional
convention, state senator, acting lieutenant-gov-
ernor, mayor of Santa Barbara, council man,
supervisor and district judge. At a meeting of
the court of sessions December 6, 1852, the
judges of the court were Joaquin Carrillo, county
judge; Pedro Carrillo and José Carrillo, asso-
ciate justices.
In early days politics had very little to do
with the selection of county officers. Fitness
and family (particularly family) were the chief
qualifications. It was urged against Don Pablo
de la Guerra when he was a candidate for dis-
trict judge that in a great many cases which
would come before him if elected he would be
barred from sitting as judge because about half
of the population of Santa Barbara county was
related to him by blood or marriage. In 1852
District Judge Henry A. Tefft was drowned at
Port San Luis while attempting to land from
the steamer to hold court at San Luis Obispo.
Joaquin Carrillo was elected district judge to
fill the vacancy. He held office by appointment
and election fourteen years. He did not under-
stand English and all the business of the court
was conducted in the Spanish language. Al-
He was
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
417
though not a lawyer his decisions were seldom
overruled by the higher courts. Charles Fer-
nald was appointed county judge to fill the va-
cancy caused by the promotion of Joaquin Car-
rillo. The first county building, a jail, was com-
pleted December 1, 1853. In 1853 the county
was divided into three townships of about equal
3.T63.
Buenaventura; No. 2 at Santa Barbara, and No.
3 at Santa Ynez. By act of the legislature of
I852-53 a board of supervisors was created for
each county. This relieved the court of sessions
of the legislative part of its duties. The first
board of Supervisors of Santa Barbara consisted
of Pablo de la Guerra, Fernando Pico and
Ramon Malo.
Up to 1856 Santa Barbara was solidly Demo-
cratic in politics. The Whig party seems not
to have gained a foothold. In local politics, fam-
ily, as I have said before, was one of the chief
requisites. So one-sided was the county polit-
ically that at the state election of 1855 the Su-
pervisors in canvassing the vote recorded only
the Democratic. The opposition vote seems not
to have risen to the dignity of scattering.
November 27, 1855, the supervisors purchased
the house of John Kays for a court house, pay-
ing for it and the ground $6,000. The county
was now equipped with a court house and jail.
The prisoners, who were mostly Indians, were
mot doomed to solitary confinement. The jail
was not capacious enough to hold them. They
were given employment outside. We find among
the proceedings of the board of supervisors in
1856 an order to the sheriff to sell the adobes
made by the prisoners at the county jail at not
less than $2.50 per hundred.
CRIME AND CRIMIN AI.S.
During the early '50s the coast counties were
the scenes of many deeds of violence. The Ar-
gonauts who came to the state by the southern
routes and the Sonoran migration traveled the
coast road on their way to the mines. The cattle
buyers coming south to the cow counties to buy
stock came by this route. The long stretches of
unsettled country in Santa Barbara and San
Luis Obispo counties gave the banditti who in-
Township No. I, elections held at San .
fested the trail an opportunity to rob and mur-
der with but little fear of detection.
The Solomon Pico band of outlaws was the
first organized gang that terrorized the coast
counties. Their victims were mostly cattle buy-
ers. This gang was finally hunted down and
most of them died “with their boots on.” Some
of the remnants of this gang that escaped jus-
tice and others of the same kind were gathered
up by Jack Powers, who became the recognized
leader of a band of robbers and desperadoes.
Powers came to the coast as a member of Stev-
enson's regiment. After his discharge from serv-
ice he turned gambler and robber. Although it
was known that he was implicated in a number
of robberies and several murders, he escaped
punishment. He was arrested in 1856 when the
vigilance committee was disposing of his kind.
Although he was released he felt safer to be
beyond the jurisdiction of the committee. He
went to Sonora, Mexico, where he stocked a
ranch with stolen cattle. In a quarrel with one
of his men he was shot and killed. His body,
when found, was half eaten by hogs.
Fear of the vigilance committee drove out of
San Francisco in 1856 a number of undesirable
citizens. Among those who fled from the city
was Ned McGowan, a notorious and disreput-
able politician, who, with several others of his
kind, had been indicted by the grand jury of
San Francisco county as accessory before the
fact of the murder of James King of William.
McGowan made his escape to Santa Barbara,
where he was assisted and befriended by Jack
Powers and some others whose sympathies were
with the criminal element. The vigilantes char-
tered a vessel and sent thirty of their men, under
the command of one of their captains, to capture
him. McGowan’s Santa Barbara friends, some
of whom were wealthy and influential, kept him
concealed until the vigilantes left. After the
disbanding of the vigilance committee McGow-
an’s friends in the legislature secured the pas-
Sage of a bill giving him a change of venue
from San Francisco to Napa county. He was
tried and acquitted mainly on the evidence of
one of the twenty-two doctors who attended
King after he was shot. This physician testi-
27
418
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
fied that King was killed by the doctors and not
by Casey.
Local vigilance committees, between 1855 and
1860, in Los Angeles, San Luis Obispo, Monte-
rey and Santa Cruz to a considerable extent
purified the moral atmosphere of these coast
counties; but Santa Barbara, judging from a
grand jury report made to the court of Sessions
in 1859, seems to have been immune from out-
breaks of vigilantes. Says this report: “Thieves
and villains of every grade have been from time
to time upheld, respected, fostered and pampered
by our influential citizens, and, if need be, aided
and assisted in escaping from merited punish-
ment due their crimes. * * * Offenses,
thefts and villainies in defiance of the law, of
every grade and character, from the horse and
cattle thief to the highway robber and midnight
assassin, have dwelt, to our knowledge, for the
last five years in our very midst.”
THE DOWN FALL OF THE CATTLE KINGS.
For a decade and a half after the discovery
of gold in California the owners of the great
ranchos of Santa Barbara continued, as they
had been in the past, the feudal lords of the land.
Their herds were more profitable than gold mines
and their army of retainers gave them unlimited
political power, which they did not always use
wisely or well.
The high price of cattle, the abundant rainfall
of the years 1860-61-62 and the consequent lux-
uriant growth of grass led to an overstocking of
the cattle ranges. When the terrible dry years
of 1863 and 1864 came, the stockmen were in
no condition, to carry their numerous herds
through the drought. “The county assessment
roll of 1863 showed over 200,000 head of cattle
in Santa Barbara county. This probably was
IOO,OOO less than the true number. When grass
started in the winter of 1864-65 less than 5,000
head were alive. The great herds were gone,
and the shepherd kings were kings no more, for
their ranchos were mortgaged beyond redemp-
tion, and in the next five years passed entirely
out of their hands.”
The downfall of these feudal lords was in-
deed pathetic. For nearly a century their an-
*Mason's History of Santa Barbara.
cestors and they themselves had ruled the land.
The transition of the country from the domina-
tion of Spain to that of Mexico had not affected
their rule. The conquering Saxon had come,
but his advent had only increased their wealth
without lessening their power; at least such was
the case in the coast counties. The famine years
and their own improvidence had at last undone
them. In the days of their affluence they had
Spent lavishly. If money was needed, it was
easy to negotiate a loan on their broad acres.
Rates of interest in early times were usurious,
ruinous. Five, ten and even fifteen per cent a
month were no uncommon rates. Present needs
were pressing and pay day was manaña (to-
morrow). The mortgage, with its cancerous in-
terest, was made and the money spent. So when
the “famine years” swept away the herds and
flocks there was nothing to sell or mortgage to
pay interest and the end came quickly. It was
with the stoicism of fatalists that the great ranch
owners viewed their ruin. They had besought the
intercession of their patron saints for the needed
rain. Their prayers had been unanswered. It
was the will of God, why complain P. Thus do
Faith and Fatalism often meet on a common
plane.
During the next four or five years several of
the great ranchos were subdivided, or segregated
portions cut up into small tracts. When immi-
gration began to drift into the coast counties in
the early '70s many of these small tracts in
Santa Barbara were bought by eastern immi-
grants and the transition from cattle-raising to
grain-growing and fruit culture wrought a great
change, not only in the character of the products,
but in the character of the population as well.
The write-up of the climate and agricultural
possibilities of the coast counties by Nordhoff
and others, the judicious advertising of the re-
sources of the county by J. A. Johnson, editor
of the Santa Barbara Press (a paper established
in 1868), increased steamer communication, and
the prospects of a railroad down the coast, all
combined, attracted settlers from Northern Cali-
fornia and the eastern states. The price of land
advanced and in 1874 the city and the county
experienced their first boom. The dry year of
1876-77 checked the rising wave of prosperity,
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
419
and disastrously affected the sheep industry,
which since the “famine years” had to a con-
siderable extent taken the place of cattle-raising.
Business revived in the early ’80s; and the
county made good progress.
Santa Barbara in 1887 of the southern end of
the Southern Pacific Coast Railroad, and the
prospect of an early closing of the gap between
the northern and southern ends of that road
gave the city and county their second boom.
Real estate values went up like a rocket. In
1886 the county assessment roll footed up $8,-
585,485; in 1887 it went up to $15,035,982, an
increase of seventy-five per cent in one year.
The completion to
When railroad building ceased the reaction came.
Land values dropped, but the county continued
to grow, notwithstanding the long and discour-
aging delay of fourteen years in closing the gap
in direct railroad communication between San
Francisco and Santa Barbara. March 31, 1901,
the first through trains from the north and the
south passed over the completed coast line of
the Southern Pacific Railroad. The event was
not heralded by any great demonstration, nor
was it followed by a land boom, as in 1887, yet
there can be no doubt but that it marks the be-
ginning of a new era in the growth and devel-
opment of the city and county of Santa Barbara.
CHAPTER LXI.
SANTA BARBARA
tº HE first public school opened in Santa Bar-
T bara was taught by a young Sailor named
José Manuel Toca. He taught from Octo-
ber, 1795, to June, 1797. José Medina, another
sailor of the Spanish navy, succeeded him and
trained the young ideas until December, 1798.
Manuel de Vargas, a retired Sergeant of the army,
who, in 1794 taught at San José the pioneer public
school of California, was teaching at Santa Bar-
bara in 1799. How long he continued to wave the
pedagogical birch, or rather, ply the cat-o'nine-
tails, which was the schoolmaster’s instrument of
punishment then, is not known. With the depart-
ure of Governor Borica, the schools of California
took a vacation. During the closing years of
Spanish rule, it seems to have been mostly vaca-
tion in them.
The first school under Mexican rule in Santa
Barbara that we have any report of was in 1829,
when a primary school of sixty-seven pupils was
conducted at the presidio. Governor Echeandia
was a friend to education, and made a vigorous
effort to establish public schools. But “unable,”
says Bancroft, “to contend against the enmity
of the friars, the indifference of the people and
the poverty of the treasury, he accomplished no
more than his predecessors. Reluctantly he
abandoned the contest, and the cause of educa-
COUNTY –Continued.
tion declined.” And it might be added, the
cause of education continued in a state of de-
cline during the remaining years of Mexican
rule. The curriculum of the Spanish and Mex-
ican schools was like the annals of the poor—
“short and simple.” To paraphrase Pete Jones'
alliterative formula, it consisted of “lickin’ and
no larnin’.” The principal numbers in the course
were the Doctrina Cristiana and Fray Ripalda's
Catechism. These were learned by rote before
the pupil was taught to read. If there was any
time left him after he had committed to memory
these essentials to his future spiritual welfare,
he was given a little instruction in reading, writ-
ing and numbers for his earthly advantage.
Governor Micheltorena attempted to establish
a public school system in the territory; but his
scheme failed from the same causes which had
neutralized the efforts of his predecessors.
Under his administration in 1844, a primary
school was opened in Santa Barbara, but was
closed after a few months for want of funds.
Pio Pico, the last governor under Mexican rule,
undertook to establish public schools, but his
efforts were fruitless. The old obstacles, an
empty treasury, incompetent teachers and indif-
ferent parents, confronted him and put an end
to his educational schemes.
420
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
During the first two or three years of Ameri-
can rule in Santa Barbara but little attention was
paid to education. The old indifference re-
mained. The discovery of gold had not greatly
increased the population nor wrought any change
in social conditions. 3
When the common council in April, I850,
took control of the municipal business of the
newly created city, it inherited from the ayunta-
miento a school taught by a Spanish School-
master, Victor Vega. The school was in part
supported by public funds. The council sent a
certain number of poor pupils—i. e., pupils who
were unable to pay tuition—for whom they paid
a certain stipulated sum. March 26, 1851, “the
committee appointed to examine the school re-
ported, and the president was ordered to pay
the schoolmaster, Victor Vega, $64.50, and to
draw $64 for every month.” This is the first
recorded school report of the city.
Evidently there was considerable truancy. At
the meeting of the council, November 8, 1851,
José M. Covarubias was appointed a committee
to examine the school once a month and to re-
port precisely the number and names of pupils
who absent themselves and the time of their ab-
sence. Any pupil absent over a day lost his
Seat.
In November, 1852, three school commis-
sioners were elected in each of the three town-
ships of Santa Barbara county. Each township
was a school district. After their election the
control of the schools in Santa Barbara passed
from the council to the school commissioners of
the district. In 1854 a tax of five cents on the
$IOO was levied for the support of the public
schools. Previous to this the school revenues
had been derived from liquor licenses, fines, etc.
At the election in 1854 Joaquin Carrillo, dis-
trict judge, was elected county School superin-
tendent. He did not qualify, and A. F. Hinch-
man was appointed to fill the vacancy. The Ga-
gette of December 20, 1855, says: “According
to the school census there are 453 white children
between the ages of four and eighteen years in
Santa Barbara district, which is sixty miles long
and forty wide. There is one school in it, in
charge of a schoolmaster.” December 24, 1855,
George D. Fisher, county school superintendent,
reported a school taught in the first district (San
Buenaventura) by John Rapelli, and one in the
second (Santa Barbara) taught by Pablo Cara-
cela. Both of these schools were taught in the
Spanish language. American residents had no
place to send their children except to a school
kept by George Campbell at the Mission Santa
Inez (third district), a distance of fifty miles
from the bulk of the people.
February 4, 1856, two teachers were employed
in the Santa Barbara city schools, Owen Con-
nolly teaching the English school in “the house
adjoining the billiard saloon,” and Victor Mon-
dran teaching the Spanish school in “the house
Of the late Pedro Diablar.”
In 1857 it was decided “that instruction in
the public schools shall be in the English lan-
guage.” The native Californians had opposed
this, but the aggressive Anglo-Saxan won. It
was the ringing out of the old, the ringing in of
the new. .
The Schools had now passed the experimental
stages, and had become an institution of the land.
Although no school district in the county owned
a schoolhouse, yet public education had been
systematized. Teachers were required to pass
an examination in the subjects taught in the
schools, and their compensation was no longer
subject to whims of the parents.
Although public schools had been established
and somewhat systematized, the people were
slow to avail themselves of the educational facili-
ties afforded. In 1867, fifteen years after the
public school system of California had been in-
augurated, there were but three school districts
and five teachers in Santa Barbara, which then
included all of what is now Ventura county. Of
the 1,332 census children, only 305, or 23 per
cent of the whole, attended any school, public or
private, during the year.
The next decade showed a wonderful change
in educational conditions. Ventura county had
been cut off from the parent county in 1873, but
taking the territory as it stood in 1867 there were
in it, in 1877, 33 districts and 53 teachers. Of
the 4,030 census children, 2,782 had been en-
rolled in the Schools.
In 1890 there were 4,420 census children in
Santa Barbara county, 3,439 of whom attended
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
421
school. In 1900 there were 5,617 census children
and 66 districts.
CITIES AND TOWNS.
LOMIPOC.
In August, 1874, the Lompoc Valley Com-
pany, an incorporation, bought the ranchos Lom-
poc and Mission Vieja de La Purisima, contain-
ing a total of 45,644.49 acres. A considerable
portion of these lands were divided into 5, Io,
20, 40 and 80 acre tracts. One Square mile
about the center of the Lompoc valley and nine
miles from the coast was reserved for a town
site. The sale of the lands began November 9,
1874. It had been widely advertised and at-
tracted a large crowd. The capital stock of the
company was divided into IOO shares of $5,000
each. While the sale was in progress shares rose
to a premium of $1,000. During the sale about
$700,000 worth of land and lots were disposed
of. The average price of the farm land was $60
per acre. Some of the corner lots in the town
site sold as high as $1,2OO.
Lompoc was founded as a temperance colony,
and like all such colonies has had its battles with
the liquor traffic. The first engagement was
with a druggist who was carrying on an illicit
traffic in forbidden liquids. His place was in-
vaded by a number of citizens, and a Mrs. Pierce
plied an ax on a 40-gallon cask of whiskey and
flooded the store with the fiery liquid. The
druggist drew a pistol and threatened to shoot
the destroyers of his intoxicants, but, confronted
by two hundred crusaders, he concluded that dis-
cretion was the better part of valor and put up
his gun. Another engagement, which scored a
“knock-out” for the opponents of the liquor
traffic, took place on the evening of May 20,
1881. A bomb was thrown into the saloon of
George Walker. Nobody was hurt, but the
saloon and its contents were completely demol-
ished. The Lompoc Record, commenting on the
“earthquake” (as the people facetiously called
it), said: “Any one looking for a location for a
saloon had better not select a community founded
on temperance principles, where the land is sold
on express conditions that no liquor shall be
made or sold thereon, where public sentiment is
so nearly unanimous against Saloons and where
‘earthquakes' are so prevalent and destructive.”
The seismic disturbances that shook up saloons
in the early days of the colony have ceased. The
crusaders have buried their little hatchets, but
not in the heads of whiskey barrels. The report
of the Santa Barbara Chamber of Commerce for
1901 says of Lompoc : “The liquor traffic is con-
fined by license of $75 per month each to two
saloons.”
Lompoc is an incorporated city of the sixth
class. It has a grammar school building, costing
$15,000; a union high school that, with its fur-
nishings cost $12,000; the Methodist North,
Methodist South, Baptist, Christian, Presby-
terian, Roman Catholic, Episcopal, and Christian
Science, have each its own church building.
Banks, mercantile houses, hotels, restaurants,
blacksmith shops, creamery, livery stable, ware-
houses, fruit packing houses, etc., make up the
business establishments of the town. Two week-
ly newspapers are published in the town, the
Record and the Journal. The Lompoc Record
was established April 10, 1875, and is one of the
oldest newspapers in the county.
Surf, nine miles west of the city, is Lompoc's
station of the Southern Pacific's coast line road.
Here the railroad comes close to the shore line
of the Ocean. The beach here is one of the most
picturesque in California. It is the favorite sea-
side resort of the people of Lompoc Valley dur-
ing the summer. There is a branch railroad
from Surf to Lompoc. There is also an excel-
lent driveway nine miles long. The founders of
Lompoc laid out the city on a generous scale;
the streets are one hundred feet wide and cross
each other at right angles.
The municipality owns its own water system
and maintains a fire department. Just north of
Lompoc lies one of the richest oil fields in Cali-
fornia. One well in this district flows 600 bar-
rels a day of 36 gravity oil. The development
of this field has but recently been begun.
GUADALUPE.
This town is ninety-five miles northwesterly
from Santa Barbara on the Southern Pacific
Railroad. In 1872 John Dunbar opened a store
at this point and was appointed postmaster when
422
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
the postoffice was established here. This was
the beginning of the town. In 1874 it had grown
to be a villagé of IOO houses. In 1875 a news-
paper, the Guadalupe Telegraph, was estab-
lished. It has now a bank, hotels and several
mercantile establishments. A spur of the South-
ern Pacific Railroad runs to the Union Sugar
Factory at Betteravia.
BETTERAVIA.
The Union Sugar Factory at Betteravia was
built in 1898 at a cost of $1,000,000. It em-
ploys during the Sugar-making season 500 men
and works up 500 tons of beets per day. The
lime used in the manufacture of sugar from
beets is burned and prepared for use at the fac-
tory. Last season the factory used 8,000 tons
of lime. The company has a store, shops and
boarding houses at Betteravia.
SANTA MARIA.
Santa Maria, situated near the center of the
Santa Maria valley on the Pacific Coast Rail-
road, was founded in 1876. It is the business
center of a rich agricultural district. A branch
line of railroad, five miles long, extends to the
Sugar factory on Guadalupe Lake.
The town has a union high school, an excel-
lent grammar and primary Schools. It has sev-
eral hotels, two banks and a full quota of stores
and shops. The community supports two weekly
newspapers, the Santa Maria Times, founded
in 1876, and the Graphic. The town is supplied
with excellent water from a private water sys-
tem and is lighted by electricity.
South of the town of Santa Maria, and about
ten miles distant, lie the Santa Maria oil fields.
These are among the best producers in the state.
One of these, in which oil was struck December
2, 1904, flowed 1,500,000 barrels in less than one
year. The oil is of light gravity, ranging from
25 to 30 degrees; some of the wells flow without
pumping. A pipe line 35 miles long conveys
the oil products to a shipping point on the Ocean.
The oil producers of the valley are independent of
the railroads and are not in danger from the
clutches of the Standard Oil octopus. Santa
Maria is the metropolis of this oil district.
SANTA YNEZ.
The village of Santa Ynez is situated in the
midst of the Rancho Canada de Los Pinos or
College ranch. The College ranch or grant was
given to the padres in 1843 to found a college,
hence the name. The town of Santa Ynez has
an excellent hotel, grammar schools, a high
School, stores, shops, etc.; also a weekly news-
paper, The Santa Ynez Argus. It is surrounded
by a large area of farming and grazing lands.
LOS OLIVAS.
Los Olivas, founded in 1880, is the present
terminus of the Pacific Coast Railroad and is a
shipping point of considerable importance.
LOS ALAMOS.
Los Alamos, founded in 1878, situated on
the Pacific Coast Railway, midway between San-
ta Ynez and Santa Maria, has a population of
about 300. It is the commercial outlet of an
agricultural district of about I 50,000 acres, most
of which is grazing land.
GOLETA.
Goleta is a small village eight miles to the
northwest of Santa Barbara. The country around
to a considerable extent is devoted to walnut-
growing and olive culture.
EL MONTECITO.
El Montecito (the Little Forest) is properly
a suburb of Santa Barbara. It is about four
miles eastward of the city. The valley is near-
ly Oval, and opens to the Southwest on the sea.
It is divided into small tracts, and is a favorite
place for the suburban residences of persons do-
ing business in the city. The Santa Barbara
Country Club's grounds are here. The cottages
are built on a level bluff above the Ocean. The
club has its golf links, tennis courts, bath house,
wharf for boating and other accessories for pleas-
ure and amusement.
SUMMERIAND.
Summerland, six miles below Santa Barbara,
on the Southern Pacific Railroad, is the princi-
pal petroleum district of Santa Barbara county.
Oil was struck here in 1893. The oil belt is
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
423
about a quarter of a mile wide and a mile long.
Most of the wells are sunk in the ocean beyond
low-water mark. Wharves are run out and the
‘wells bored beside the wharves. Some of these
wharves are 1,500 feet long. The output of the
wells, of which there are about 3OO, is about
I5,OOO barrels a month. A railroad station, post-
office, several business places, boarding houses
and residences of oil operators constitute the vil-
lage of Summerland.
CARPINTERIA.
Carpinteria valley is about fifteen miles due
east from Santa Barbara.
mountains on three sides and opens to the sea.
Its area is about ten Square miles, and its width
between the mountains and the ocean varies from
One to three miles. It is one of the oldest set-
tled valleys in the county. It bears the name
given it by the soldiers of Portola's expedition
in 1769. They ſound the Indians here manufac-
turing canoes, and they named the place Car-
pinteria (carpenter shop). The village is lo-
cated near the center of the valley on the South-
ern Pacific Railroad.
THIE CHANINEL ISLANDS.
Three ºf the Channel Islands are included in
the area of Santa Barbara county, namely San
Miguel, Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz. These
islands are mainly devoted to sheep and cattle
raising. -
San Miguel, the most westerly of the group,
is seven and one-half miles long, with an aver-
age width of two and one-half miles. The
It is sheltered by.
principal landing place is Cuyler's Harbor. At
this landing Cabrillo, the discoverer of Cali-
fornia, is buried. The island is now owned by
the San Miguel Island Company. .
Santa Rosa Island is nine and three-fourths
miles long, with an average width of seven and
one-half miles, and contains 53,000 acres. It
was granted by the Mexican government to Don
Carlos Carrillo after his failure to secure the gov-
ernorship of California in 1837. He gave it in
1842, as a marriage portion, to his two daughters,
who were married on the same day, one to J. C.
Jones, United States consul to the Sandwich
Islands, and the other to Capt. A. B. Thompson.
It now belongs to the heirs of A. P. More.
Santa Cruz Island is twenty-two and one-
half miles long by five and one-half wide, and
contains 52,760 acres. It lies almost opposite
the city of Santa Barbara and twenty-five miles
distant. The surface is uneven, the hills at one
point rising to the height of 1,700 feet. . The
Mexican government at one time attempted to
utilize the islalid for a penal colony. About a
dozen convicts were landed on the island with
live-stock and provisions, with the expectation
that they would become self-supporting. They
remained on the island long enough to eat up
the provisions and the live-stock. Then they
constructed a raft, crossed the channel to Santa
Barbara and quartered themselves on the Mis-
sion fathers. They served out their sentences in
irons. The island once had a large Indian pop-
ulation. It is a favorite hunting ground for
Indian relic hunters. It is now owned by the
Santa Cruz Island Company.
CHAPTER LXII.
THE CITY OF SANTA BARBARA.
HE story of the founding of the Santa
Barbara presidio, which was the nucleus
of the town, is given in Chapter VI of
this volume. Its history under the Spanish régime
was uneventful. Under Mexican rule the inhab-
itants were noted for their conservatism. Un-
like the people of Monterey and Los Angeles they
their own
did not indulge in revolutions. They were
Sometimes drawn into the uprisings of their
neighbors on the north and the south, but ad-
hesion to the cause of the revolutionary fac-
tions was more often forced than espoused of
free will.
Commodore Stockton, on his first expedition
424
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
down the coast to subjugate the Southern towns
loyal to Mexico, anchored at Santa Barbara Au-
gust 5, 1846, and took possession of the town
without opposition. He left a small garrison
there to hold it. On his return from San Pedro
the men were taken away and a detail of ten
men under Lieutenant Talbott drawn from Fre-
mont's battalion were stationed at the presidio.
After the recapture of Los Angeles by the Cali-
fornians under Flores and Verala the lieutenant
and his men were driven out of Santa Barbara.
Under the guidance of Elijah Moulton, an old
trapper, they made their way through the mount-
ins to the upper San Joaquin valley. They
finally reached Monterey by the way of Pacheco's
Pass, and joined Fremont, who was preparing
to march down the coast to operate with Stock-
ton in the recapture of Los Angeles.
Fremont’s battalion on its march down the
coast entered the town on the 27th of Decem-
ber, 1846. Lieutenant Bryant says: “The Uni-
ted States flag was raised in the public Square of
the town the day after our arrival.”
The people peaceably submitted to the transi-
tion from Mexican domination to that of the
United States. There was but little friction be-
tween the conquered and the conqueror, and
when there was it was usually the fault of the
latter.
The legislature of 1850 incorporated the city.
The Act to incorporate the City of Santa Bar-
bara was passed April 9, 1850. The following
is the text of the Act:
The People of the State of California, repre-
sented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as fol-
lows:
Sec. I. The Town of Santa Barbara, in the
County of Santa Barbara, is hereby declared to
be incorporated according to the provisions of
the Act, entitled “An Act to provide for the in-
corporation of Cities,” approved March 18, 1850.
Sec. 2. The boundaries of the City of Santa
Barbara shall be as follows: Beginning at the
old Presa of the Mission of Santa Barbara on
the Creek Pedregosa, continuing in a line with
said creek to its intersection with the cart road
which leads to the Cimduita; from said inter-
section in a direct line to the easterly corner of
the Positas; thence in a southwesterly direction,
following the southeast boundary of the Positas,
to the coast or sea shore; thence following the
beach to the Salinitas; and thence in a north-
easterly line, including in Santa Barbara the
lands of Monticito, to the mountain range; and
thence following said range to the place of be-
ginning; Provided, nothing in this Act contained
shall impair the rights of the Pueblo of Santa
Barbara to other lands, belonging to the said
Pueblo, not contained within the above-mentioned
limits.
Sec. 3. The number of Councilmen for the
Government of the City shall be Five; there shall
be no Recorder, but the Mayor shall have all the
powers and perform all the duties of Recorder.
The first Election of City Officers shall be held
on the second Monday of May next.
Sec. 4. The Corporation, created by this Act,
shall succeed to all the rights, claims and powers
of the Pueblo de Santa Barbara in regard to
property, and shall be subject to all the liabilities
incurred and obligations created by the Ayun-
tamiento of the said Pueblo.
The early municipal records were kept very
carelessly. There is no record in the archives of
the first city election. The first record of any offi-
cial action taken for the organization of a city is
the minutes of the meeting of the common coun-
cil held August 26, 1850. A mayor and mem-
bers of the council had been elected at some pre-
vious date, and the councilmen-elect met to Or-
ganize. The minutes of their proceedings were
kept on sheets of foolscap stitched together.
Either record books could not be obtained then
in Santa Barbara, or the members of the coun-
cil did not consider their acts of municipal legis-
lation worth preserving in any better form. The
minutes of the first meeting are as follows: “In
the city of Santa Barbara, on the 26th day of
August, 1850, the persons elected to the com-
mon council assembled and proceeded to elect
a president. Lewis T. Burton, having received
a majority of the votes, was declared elected.
Luis Carrillo was then elected clerk.
LUſs CARRILLO (Rubica),
TENIO (Clerk).
From the subsequent minutes we learn that
Francisco de La Guerra was the first mayor,
and “the persons elected to the common council”
were Isaac J. Sparks, Anastasio Carrillo, Luis
Carrillo, Lewis T. Burton and Antonio Rod-
riguez. Having elected a president and clerk,
or secretary, the council took a vacation for
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
425
nearly three months. Evidently municipal busi-
ness was not pressing. The record of the next
meeting reads: “November 21, 1850. At the
house Anastasio Carrillo, Common Council of
Santa Barbara. Present, Isaac J. Sparks, Ana-
stasio Carrillo and Luis Carrillo. Lewis T. Bur-
ton and Antonio Rodriguez sent in their resig-
nations as members of the council, which were
accepted. Isaac J. Sparks was elected president
of the council. An election was ordered to be
held on the second day of December next for
two members of the council, a treasurer and a
marshal; the election to be held in one of the
corridors of the house of Lewis T. Burton.
Nicolas A. Den was appointed inspector. Au-
gustus F. Hinchman was chosen clerk of the
common council. -
(Signed)
At the special city election, held December 2,
1850, Samuel Barney and Edward S. Hoar were
elected councilmen; Carlos Antonio Carrillo,
treasurer, and Juan Ayala, marshal. At the next
meeting of the council, a committee, consisting
of Isaac J. Sparks, Antonio Maria de La Guerra
and Nicolas Den, was appointed to receive pro-
posals for a survey of the city and report thereon
to the council within six weeks. At the meeting
of December 14, 1850, a demand was made on
the members of the late ayuntamiento for all
papers and documents belonging to the old pueblo
of Santa Barbara and an accounting for all funds
in their hands on April 9, 1850, the date of the
city’s incorporation.
At the meeting of January 8, 1851, the com-
mittee appointed at a previous meeting to ascer-
tain what had become of the papers, documents
and moneys in the hands of the officers of the
late ayuntamiento reported that the moneys were
in the hands of the late prefect, Joaquin Carrillo.
From subsequent minutes it seems they remained
there. What became of the papers and docu-
ments of the ayuntamiento the records of the
council do not show.
A contract was made by the council, January
29, 1851, with Salisbury Haley, “To make a
complete survey of all that part of the city
bounded on the southeast by the shore of the
sea; on the northwest by a straight line running
LUIs CARRILLO, Secretario.”
parallel to the general direction of said shore
boundary directly through the southwest corner
of the Mission Garden and from hill to hill on
either side; on the southwest by a line running
along the foot of the mesa; and on the north-
east by a line beginning at the Salinitas and fol-
lowing the city boundary to the foot of the hills,
then to the said northwest line; to divide said
tract into squares of I50 yards by Streets which
shall be sixty feet wide, except two streets to be
designated by the council, which shall be eighty
feet wide; to make an accurate map of said
city.” For making the survey and map, Haley
was to receive $2,000, to be paid in installments
of $500 each. April 5, 1851, Haley presented to
the council a map of his survey of the city and
a demand for the first installment of $500 on
the contract.
October 23, 1852, Vitus Wrackenrueder was
given a contract to survey the central part of
the city and make a new map. His survey is
now regarded as the official survey of the city.
These surveys in some places ran streets through
houses and in others left the residences without
street frontage. It was many years before all
the streets were opened through the central or
thickly inhabited portion of the city. Those
whose land was taken for streets, were given
equivalent tracts in the squares belonging to
the city. -
At the municipal election held in May, 1851,
Joaquin Carrillo was elected mayor; he was also
county judge. Raymundo Carrillo was chosen
treasurer; Thomas Warner, marshal and asses-
sor; Esteban Ortega, John Kays, Antonio Arel-
lanas, José Lorenzano and R. W. Wallace, mem-
bers of the council. Although the flag of the
United States had been waving in California
for four years and the constitution had arrived
more recently to keep it company, yet the peo-
ple of Santa Barbara had not become accustomed
to the new order of things. At the meeting of
the council, May 26, 1851, Samuel Barry, Esq.,
sent a communication to the council informing
that body that he had been appointed United
States revenue officer at the port of Santa Bar-
bara. Whereupon the council by resolution
agreed to grant him official recognition as an
officer of the United States. Had the council
426
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
considered him a persona non grata and refused
him recognition, it is hard to say what the con-
sequence might have been—to Santa Barbara.
The early ordinances. of the common council
give us glimpses of conditions existing then that
have long since become obsolete. The Indian
question, fifty years ago, was one that worried
the municipal officers of Santa Barbara, as it
did those of all other cities and towns of South-
ern California. The ex-neophyte of the mis-
Sion was a pariah. He was despised and abused
by the whites. His one ambition was to get
drunk, and there were always high caste whites,
or those who considered themselves such, ready
and willing to gratify poor Lo's ambition. To
imprison an Indian and give him regular rations
was no punishment. He enjoyed such punish-
ment. In Los Angeles, Indian convicts were
auctioned off every Monday morning to the
highest bidder for the term of their sentence. In
Santa Barbara, an ordinance passed June 4, 1851,
reads: “When Indians for violations of city
ordinances are committed to prison, the recorder
shall hire them out for the term of their im-
prisonment.”
One of the most singular decisions ever an-
nounced by a court of justice was given in a
case of liquor selling to Indians. A certain festal
day in the early '50s had been celebrated with
a great deal of hilarity and imbibing of wine and
aguardiente. The noble red man had vied with
his white brothers in celebrating and in getting
drunk. This was an offense to the white man,
and as there was a heavy fine for selling liquor
to Indians, some of the whites instigated the
arrest of certain liquor dealers. Among the ac-
cused was a Scion of one of the most influential
families. He was charged with having sold
liquor to a Yaqui Indian. The evidence was
very clear that the liquor had been sold by the
defendant to the Yaqui, but to convict a member
of that family, the justice very well knew, would
be his political undoing for all time. So in the
trial the ethnological question was sprung as to
whether a Yaqui was an Indian or a white man.
The race question was argued at great length by
the attorneys on both sides, and the judge, after
summing up the evidence, decided that the
prominent cheek bones, yellow skin, straight
black hair and dark eyes of the Yaqui were the
effects of climate and not of heredity, and in-
side the Yaqui was a white man. The saloon-
keeper was declared not guilty and discharged.
The city government was administered eco-
nomically in the early '50s, and taxes were light.
According to Ordinance No. 30, adopted June
29, 1852, the mayor, acting as recorder or police
judge, received $2 for each conviction, which
amount he was required to pay into the city
treasury. It does not appear that he was allowed
to draw anything out of the treasury for salary.
The city clerk received $35 per month, the city
marshal $20, the city treasurer three per cent on
all moneys paid in ; the city tax collector six per
cent on all collections and the city attorney $10
per month. :
The lighting of the city was accomplished in a
very economical manner. An ordinance passed
in 1852 required “every head of a family in that
part of the city bounded north by Santa Barbara
street, east by Ortega, South by Chapula and
west by Figueroa, to cause a lantern containing
a lighted lamp or candle to be suspended every
dark or cloudy evening in front of his house
from dark to ten o’clock; neglecting to do so he
will be fined not less than fifty cents or more
than $1 for each offense.”
Fifty years ago Santa Barbara was, to use an
expressive slang phrase of today, a “wide open
town.” Saloon keeping was the most popular
industry. Of fifty licenses granted between Au-
gust, 1850, and February, 1851, thirty-two were
for permission to retail liquors. Sunday was a
gala day, and dissipation reached high tide then.
Before the conquest, the Californians were
moderate drinkers. Although using wine freely,
they seldom drank to excess. When they wished
to indulge in a social glass, and some one stood
treat for the crowd, they all drank, not standing,
but sitting on their horses. A squad of three or
four, or half a dozen may be, would ride up to
a pulperia and, without dismounting, one of the
party would order the drinks. The mercader
de vino (wine merchant) would bring out a cup
or glass filled with wine or aguardiente; each
one would take a sip and pass it to his neighbor.
One cup served all the party; it was a sort of
loving cup. It is said that once, when a crowd
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
427
of American miners bestowed their patronage
for the first time upon a native vinatero, and
each called for a separate glass, the wineseller,
who had but one glass in his shop, had to send
out and borrow enough glasses from his neigh-
bors to supply the demand. When each one of
his patrons poured out a full glass of fiery
aguardiente and gulped it down, the astonished
saloon-keeper crossed himself and implored the
saints to protect him from the American diablos.
In 1855, a spasm of virtue seems to have
seized the city council. It passed a Sunday clos-
ing Ordinance: “All stores, shops, taverns and
groceries shall close from 12 o'clock Saturday
night to I2 o'clock P. M. the following Sunday,
except butcher, baker and apothecary shops,” so
read the Ordinance. For a violation of this mu-
nicipal law the penalty was a fine of not less
than $10 or more than $50. -
The early councils did business very careless-
ly. The Office of councilman was not a lucrative
one. The members took their pay in honors, and
honors were not always easy. The office sought
the man, but the man dodged it when he could.
Resignations were frequent, and as vacancies
were not promptly filled, the membership of the
council was not often full. The council elected
in May, 1853, held no meeting between May 5
and August 27 for want of a quorum. When a
quorum was obtained, the distinguished clerk
offered his resignation, and it was found that
the mayor and two councilmen-elect had failed
to qualify. An election was ordered to fill
vacancies. Whether they were filled or what
that council afterwards did does not appear.
When a new council was elected in May, 1854,
the minutes of the old council had not been
engrossed. The new council ordered them writ-
ten tip, and blank pages were left in the record
book for their entry, but the pages are still
blank.
The members of the new council instituted an
investigation to find out whether the old council
could grant its members city lands at lower rates
than the appraised value; and also to ascertain
whether the land laws of the old ayuntamiento.
were still in force. What they found out is not
written in the record.
CITY LANDS.
Shortly after the organization of the United
States land commission in California, Santa
Barbara presented her claim for eight and three-
fourths leagues of pueblo lands. In May, 1854,
the council allowed a bill of $700 for prosecuting
the city's claim. December 23, 1854, a public
meeting was called to consider the advisability
of prosecuting the city’s claim to its pueblo
lands in the United States courts. The land
commission had rejected the city's claim to eight
and three-fourth leagues. March Io, I855,
Hinchman & Hoar were given a fee of $500
“for prosecuting the city's claim to her lands
before the United States Court”. After a long-
drawn out contest in the courts the city's claim
was finally allowed in 1861 for four leagues, or
17,826.17 acres, extending from the Rancho
Goleta to the Arroyo de La Carpinteria. It
was surveyed by G. H. Thompson, May, 1867,
and a patent signed by President U. S. Grant,
May 25, 1872.
Under the Spanish and Mexican régimes
there was no survey made of the pueblo lands
and no map or plat of the town. The ayunta-
miento granted house lots on the application of
any one desiring to build. The only survey made
was to measure so many varas from some pre-
vious grant. Streets in those days were not made,
but, like Topsy, they “just growed,” and in
growing many of them became twisted. It took
years after the Haley survey was made to un-
twist some, or rather to adjust the houses to the
new street lines. The street names given were
mostly in Spanish. The mixed population of
the early '50s so bungled the spelling of these
that in 1854 the council appointed a committee
“to correct the orthography of certain streets.”
In the nomenclature of its streets, Santa Bar-
bara has remembered many of the famous men of
the Spanish and Mexican eras of California. Not
only have famous men been remembered, but lo-
cal historical incidents, too, have been commem-
orated. The historical event that gave Cañon
Perdido street its name, gave names also to two
other streets and a design for a city seal. Briefly
told, the story runs about as follows: In the
winter of 1847–48, the American brig Elizabeth
428
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
was wrecked near Santa Barbara. Among the
articles saved was a six-pounder brass cannon.
It was brought ashore and lay on the beach for
some time. One dark night in April, 1848, a
little squad of Californians stole down to the
beach, hauled it away and buried it in the Sands
on the banks of the Estero. What their ob-
ject was in taking the gun no one knows, prob-
ably they did not know themselves. Several
days passed before the gun was missed. Cap-
tain Lippett of Company F, Stevenson's Regi-
ment of New York Volunteers, was in command
of the post. He was a nervous, excitable man.
In the theft of the cannon he thought he dis-
covered preparations for an uprising of the na-
tives. He dispatched a courier post haste to
Colonel Mason, the military governor of the
territory at Monterey, with a highly colored ac-
count of his discovery. Mason, placing re-
liance in Lippett's story and desiring to give the
Californians a lesson that would teach them to
let guns and revolutions alone, levied a military
contribution of $500 on the town, to be paid by
a capitation tax of $2 on every male over twenty
years, the balance to be assessed on the real and
personal property of the citizens, the money when
collected to be turned over to the post quarter-
master. The promulgation of the order in San-
ta Barbara raised a storm of indignation, and
among those whose wail was the loudest were
the American-born residents of the town, who
had become Mexican citizens by naturalization.
Colonel Stevenson, commander of the southern
military district, who had been ordered to col-
lect the pueblo's ransom by tact, by the soothing
strains of a brass band and the influence of
Pablo de La Guerra, all exerted on the nation’s
lirthday, July 4, succeeded in collecting the
money without any more dangerous outbreak
than a few muttered curses on the hated gringos.
After peace was declared, Governor Mason
ordered the money turned over to the prefect of
the pueblo to be used in building a jail. When
the city survey was made in 1850, three street
names commemorated the incident, Cañon Per-
dido (Lost Cannon) street, Quinientos (Five
Hundred) street, and Mason street. When the
council, in 1850, chose a design for a city seal
they selected the device of a cannon statant, en-
circled by the words “Vale Quinientos Pesos—
Worth Five Hundred Dollars.” The members of
the city council made repeated demands on the
ex-prefect for the $500, but he refused to turn it
into the city treasury, claiming that it was en-
trusted to him for a specific purpose, and until
a jail was built no money would the city get.
The city built a jail, but the ex-prefect still held
on to the money. The council began legal pro-
ceedings to recover the money, but as the judge
of the district and the ex-prefect were very
closely related the case was transferred to San
Francisco. In some unaccountable way the pa-
pers in the case were lost, and as no new suit
was begun the city never recovered the money.
The council chose a new design for its seal and
all the city has left for its $500 is some street
1121116 S.
One stormy night in 1858 the Estero cut a
new channel through its banks. Some citizen
next morning, viewing the effects of the flood,
saw the muzzle of a cannon protruding from the
cut in the bank. Unearthing the gun, it proved
to be the lost cannon. It was hauled up State
street to Cañon Perdido, where, mounted on an
improvised carriage, it frowned on the passers
by. Ten years had wrought great changes in
the town and the people. The cannon episode
was ancient history. Nobody cared to preserve
the old gun as an historic relic, and as finders in
this case were keepers, they sold it to a city
merchant for $80, and he disposed of it in San
Francisco at handsome profit to a junk dealer
for old brass. -
Santa Barbara in early days had her squatter
troubles, in common with other parts of the state
covered by Spanish grants. The most noted
of these was what is known as the Arroyo Bur-
ro affair. I give the following account of it
taken mainly from Mason's History of Santa
Barbara : John Vidal, an ex-member of Steven-
son's Regiment of New York Volunteers, had
for some time rented a piece of land. from Dr.
Den. When the lease expired he laid claim to
the land under the United States pre-emption
laws. The court adjudged the land to Dr. Den,
and Sheriff Twist was ordered to evict Vidal.
A number of gamblers, among whom was the
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
429
º
notorious Jack Powers, rallied to the assistance
of Vidal.
Vidal and his friends were reported to be for-
tified at his ranch house. Sheriff Twist sum-
moned a posse comitatus of two hundred men,
and secured a small cannon that stood on the
Plaza to batter down the fortifications. The
Twist party assembled at the Egirrea house, then
used for a court house. Vidal and his compan-
ions came riding up as if to begin the fight.
Some say their intentions were to effect a com-
promise. As Vidal rode up two of his men,
“Little Mickey” and a Spaniard, lassoed the
cannon and tried to drag it away. Twist fired
upon them, and the firing became general. Vidal
was shot and fell from his horse. The Spaniard
of the cannon episode stabbed Twist with a
knife. A running fight ensued, but without any
further casualties. Vidal lingered fourteen days
before death relieved him of his sufferings.
Pablo de La Guerra went out to the fort next
day and induced the Powers gang to submit to
legal authorities. The disputed tract was after-
wards declared by the courts to be government
land.
TEIE PIONEER NEWSPAPER.
The pioneer newspaper of Santa Barbara was
the Santa Barbara Gazette. The first number
was issued Thursday, May 24, 1855. It was a
four-page, five-column weekly, size of page I2x
18 inches. One page was printed in Spanish.
W. B. Keep & Co. were the proprietors. The
names of the members of the company were R.
Hubbard, T. Dunlap, Jr., and W. B. Keep.
Later on the firm was Hubbard & Keep. In
their salutatory the publishers say: “After tak-
ing into consideration the fact that there are
now in California more newspapers than in any
three states in the Union, the doubt of future suc-
cess of one more might naturally arise in the
minds of some wisacres of our county. A field is
undoubtedly open for enterprise and energy in this
portion of the state. The counties of Los An-
geles and San Diego have for some time sup-
ported papers, and without boasting we believe
that the county of Santa Barbara possesses many
advantages over these.”
The Gagette was vigorously edited. It made
strenuous efforts to arouse officials and the citi-
zens of the sleepy old city to make improve-
ments, but it was labor in vain. If it did not
arouse them to put forth efforts, it did excite
their wrath. In the issue of October 4, 1855,
the editor draws this picture of existing condi-
tions within the city: “There are deep, uncov-
ered wells, pit-falls and man-traps in various
parts of the city, rendering it extremely hazard-
ous to traverse the streets at night, not only for
horses and teams, but foot passengers as well.
There are unsightly gorges and gullies through
which the water flows into the street in winter.
The slaughter houses reek with filth, and the
horrid stench from them pollutes the atmos-
phere.” In another issue the editor appeals to
the citizens “to tear themselves away from the
blandishments of keno, billiards and cards long
enough to examine the route for a post road
over which the mail could be carried through
the coast countries to and from San Francisco.”
The Gazette in its issue of May 1, 1856, thus
inveighs against the want of public spirit in the
city officials and citizens: “It does not sound
well to hear it said that since the incorporation
of this city, more than six years ago, not a sin-
gle improvement of general utility has been
made, if the survey and maps be excepted. Not
a street has been graded at the public expense,
nor an artesian well nor a public edifice of any
kind even projected, nor a wharf at the landing
attempted or planned or even its cost estimated.”
These plain statements of facts were not relished
by the old fogies of the town, and they resolved
to crush the paper. Its principal revenue had
been derived from the public printing. A bill
was passed by the legislature (at the instiga-
tion, it is said, of a scion of one of the ruling
families whom the Gagette had castigated) au-
thorizing the county officials to publish legal
notices by posting them on bulletin boards. The
public patronage was not sufficient to support
a newspaper. The plant was sold in 1858 to two
Spaniards, who removed it to San Francisco,
where the paper was printed in Spanish as the
Gaceta de Santa Barbara. It lingered out an
existence of several years, being edited and
printed in San Francisco and published in San-
ta Barbara. Then it died.
430
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Through the first decade of its existence as
an American city, Santa Barbara grew in a
leisurely way. It was in no haste to become a
great city. Old customs prevailed. The Span-
ish language was the prevailing form of speech.
Trade and travel came and went by sea as in
the old hide drogher days. Twice a month a
steamship landed the little budget of mail, some-
times water-soaked in passing through the Surf
from ship to shore. Passengers were carried
ashore from the surf boats on the backs of sail-
ors, for there was no wharf. If there was no
tip offered the sailor there might be a dip prof-
fered the passenger. The sailor was already
soaked; if he toppled over with his burden when
a breaker struck him a little more salt water did
not disturb him. It was different with his bur-
den. Those acquainted with the bucking pro-
pensities of the sailors always tipped before
they left the boat. $
The feudal lords of the old régime still ruled.
They had cattle on a thousand hills and an army
of retainers. The retainers had votes and the
cattle kings controlled their dependents' ballots.
The second decade—the decade between 1860
and 1870—saw the beginning of the end of the
old-time manners and customs. The story of
the dethronement of the cattle kings more prop-
erly belongs to the history of the county at large
than to that of the city.
THE NEW ERA.
The terrible dry years of 1863 and 1864,
which destroyed cattle raising, the dominant in-
dustry of the county, disastrously affected the
city. Destitution prevailed and everybody was
discouraged. There was no advance, no build-
ing, no progress during the early '60s. It was
not until immigration began to drift Southward
about 1867 that the city shook off its lethargy
and aroused itself to action. The Santa Barbara
wharf was constructed in the summer of 1868.
This greatly facilitated commerce. Previous to
this vessels anchored a mile or two from shore,
and all freight to and from the ship was taken
on surf boats. In early times the only road be-
tween Santa Barbara and San Buenaventura
was along the beach around Punta Gorda and
Rincon Point. In high tide it was often impas-
Sable, and it was rendered dangerous on account
Of the masses of earth falling from the cliffs.
A new road was constructed that avoided the
dangers of Rincon Pass, and a stage line up the
coast gave increased mail facilities and regular
communication by land between Los Angeles
and San Francisco without waiting for low tide.
Increased steamship communication with San
Franicsco brought tourists and visitors, and the
city began to fix up to receive its guests. June
2, 1870, a franchise was granted to Thomas R.
Bard, S. B. Brinkerhoff, Charles Fernald and
Jarrett T. Richards to lay gas pipes in the
streets and light the city with gas. Several large
hotels were erected, among them the famous
Arlington. Property values advanced. Blocks
that in 1870 sold for $100 in 1874 changed, hands
at $5,000. *
The Santa Barbara College was founded in
I869 by a joint stock company, of which El-
wood Cooper was a leading member. The col-
lege building was erected in 1871. The college
suspended in 1878 for want of support.
The corner-stone of the new court house was
laid October 5, 1872. The building was com-
pleted in 1873, at a cost of $60,000.
The First National Bank of Santa Barbara
was organized in 1873. In 1876 its building
was completed and occupied. The Santa Bar-
bara National Bank was organized in July, 1875,
as the Santa Barbara County Bank.
The Natural History Society was organized
December, 1876, with a list of twenty-one mem-
bers. For the first two years of its existence
the society met in the Santa Barbara College
building. It had but a small collection. In 1883
about 1,200 volumes of government publica-
tions that had been in charge of the Santa Bar-
bara College was transferred to it. Funds were
donated for furniture and bookcases.
THE PLUBLIC LIBRARY.
The first movement looking towards the
founding of a public library for Santa Barbara
originated with the Odd Fellows. That organi-
zation along in the later '70s had a considerable
collection of books which were loaned out to
readers. The time and trouble involved in loan-
ing the books and looking after them was too
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
431
great to be done gratuitously, and the association
after a time discontinued loaning, and the books
were stored away. -
Under the state law of 1880 for establishing
free libraries, the city council, February 16, 1882,
adopted a resolution to establish a free library
and reading room. At the next city election T.
B. Dibblee, James M. Short, O. N. Dimmick,
W. E. Noble and S. B. P. Knox were elected li-
brary trustees. The Odd Fellows donated all the
books in their collection, numbering 2,921 vol-
umes. The first librarian appointed was Mrs. Mary
Page. The city has erected a neat and commodi-
ous library building, so planned that it can be
enlarged without change of design or incon-
venience to the patrons of the library. The li-
brary now has about 16,000 volumes. Mrs.
Frances Burns Linn is the present librarian.
The decade between 1870 and 1880 marked
the transformation of Santa Barbara from an
adobe town to one built of brick and wood. The
increase of population was not great. After the
decadence of the cattle industry many of the na-
tives left the country. The population of Santa
Barbara in 1860 was 2,351 ; in 1870, 2,970, an
increase of 26 per cent; in 1880, 3,469, an in-
crease of 17 per cent. The decade between 1880
and 1890 witnessed its most rapid growth. Its
population in 1880 as previously stated was
3,469; in 1890, 5,864, an increase of nearly 70
per cent. In the early ’80s began a concerted
movement among the counties of Southern Cali-
fornia to advertise their resources in the eastern
states. “California on Wheels” was sent on its
mission east. Railroad building, and particular-
ly railroad projecting by real estate agents, was
active. It is remarkable how easily railroads
were built then—on paper. A beautifully illus-
trated pamphlet advertising the Santa Ynez val-
ley issued at this time, states that among the
many railroads building or soon to be built is
the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe line from
Santa Monica via San Buenaventura to the head-
waters of the Santa Ynez river, making the
“shortest, coolest and most superb scenic route
from Los Angeles via the Salinas valley to San
Francisco.”
August 17, 1887, the first passenger train
from Los Angeles arrived in Santa Barbara.
The same afternoon came one from San Fran-
cisco via Saugus. The city turned out en masse
to celebrate the event. There was a banquet
in the evening and a grand ball. The boom in
real estate was on in earnest and prices expand-
ed, but the railroad before the end of August
stopped building, and the real estate bubble col-
lapsed. While the boom lasted, some large sales
were made. The recorded transfers for seven
months aggregated over $5,000,000. As many
of the contracts were not recorded, the sales
really reached about $7,000,000. A number of
substantial improvements were completed. State
Street was paved with bituminous rock for two
miles at a cost of $180,000. Other streets were
graded and miles of sidewalk laid.
The first through train on the Southern Pa-
cific coast line from San Francisco and Los An-
geles passed through Santa Barbara March 31,
I90I. Among the recent improvements at Santa
Barbara is the completion of St. Anthony’s Col-
lege, a Franciscan college for the preparation
of young men who wish to enter the priesthood.
It is located on rising ground near the old mis-
sion; the corner-stone was laid June 13, 1899. It
was formally dedicated April 25, 1901. It is a
stone building, three stories high, and cost about
$50,000. The school for a number of years had
been conducted in a wing of the old mission.
The president is Rev. Peter Wallischeck, O. F.
M. February 27, 1896, a horrible tragedy oc-
curred in the monastery of Santa Barbara. An
insane domestic, employed in the building, shot
and killed the Guardian Father Ferdinand Berg-
meyer.
The completion of the Coast Line Railroad
in the first year of the present century placed
Santa Barbara on the high road to progress. Its
movements were slow at first, but its speed has
been accelerated as the years pass. The years
of 1903-O4 were marked by extensive improve-
ments in the way of street grading and the ex-
tension of its sewer system. The Ocean boule-
vard was extended and paved with asphaltum.
The city acquired an additional park of sixteen
acres in the Oak Park district. During the year
I905 the permanent developments in the city
cost over $1,000,000. The Southern Pacific con-
structed a new double track line through the city
432
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
tem will
and a new depot costing $20,000. The Potter
Hotel Company has improved its thirty-acre
park surrounding the hotel buildings at an ex-
penditure of $150,000. A new electric light
company constructed a new power house at a
cost of $50,000. Two new schools were erected
at a cost of $40,000.
The city has completed the construction of an
Ocean boulevard 8,000 feet long at a cost of
$40,000. For several years the municipality has
been tunneling into the Santa Ynez Range to
increase its water supply. When completed it
will connect with large reservoirs on the Santa
Ynez river that will impound 6,000,000 gallons
of water. The cost of the improved water sys-
amount to a quarter million dollars,
give an abundant supply of water to
The celebrated Potter hotel was com-
I904. It is one of the most complete
and will
the city.
pleted in
hotels on the Pacific coast. It has 800 rooms
and accommodations for I,2OO guests.
The United States government a few years
since put a system of trails through the Santa
Barbara forest reserve. The principal one of
these follows the summit of the range from
Ojai, in Ventura county, to Refugio, a distance
of between 70 and 80 miles. To connect with
this system the citizens of Santa Barbara by
private subscription have built from Mountain
drive, near Santa Barbara, a road and named it
La Cumbre (summit) trail. The distance from
the city to the summit is twelve miles, nearly
all of which is in the mountains. In the survey
of the route all the most attractive points of
scenic beauty coming within the general course
of the trail were included. Few roads of its
length present a more varied scenery or a vaster
range of landscape than La Cumbre.
CHAPTER LXIII.
SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY.
N the subdivision of California into counties
| by the first legislature a considerable portion
of the territory that later constituted San Ber-
nardino county was apportioned to San Diego
county; that county extending northwest from
the source of San Mateo creek to the state line
in the neighborhood of Death Valley. The leg-
islature of 1851 changed the boundaries of San
Diego and Los Angeles counties, and the latter-
named county became possessed of the valleys,
the mountains and the deserts of the future San
Bernardino. The white inhabitants of this
vast area were few and far between.
The Lugos in the San Bernardino valley,
Isaac Williams at del Chino, Prudhomme
at the Cucamongo, Louis Robidoux at Jurupa,
Diego Sepulveda at Yucaipa, the employes of
the rancheros, and the inhabitants of the New
Mexican settlements of La Placita and Agua
Mansa constituted about all the settlers in an
area large enough for a state.
Robidoux was one of the two justices of the
peace that constituted the first court of sessions
—the motive power that set the municipal ma-
chinery of Los Angeles county in motion.
County Judge Olvera in a session of his court
held May 31, 1850, made a provisional Order di-
viding the county into four townships, namely:
Los Angeles, San Gabriel, San Bernardino and
San Juan Capistrano. An election for justices
was held and one elected from each of the town-
ships. On the 24th of June (1850) the justices
met and selected two of their number for judges
of the court of sessions. Jonathan R. Scott of
Los Angeles, and Louis Robidoux of San Ber-
nardino township were chosen. Robidoux was
not at the meeting. His residence was at his
rancho the Jurupa. The city of Riverside was
carved from that rancho. So little communica-
tion was there then between the county seat and
the outlying districts that Robidoux was elected
a justice of the peace and chosen a member of
the court of sessions before he had even heard
that an election had been ordered. Although
the court held frequent sessions and transacted
much important business it was not until a
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 433
month after his appointment that Judge Robi-
doux took his seat as one of the justices of the
court of sessions.
The first settlement within what is now San
Bernardino county was made at what was
known in early times as Politana, or as it was
often written Apolitan. This settlement was lo-
cated on the route explored by Capt. Juan Bau-
tista de Anza in 1774. It extended from Tubac
in Sonora to the San Gabriel Mission. It crossed
the Colorado river at Yuma and from there west-
ward its route was practically the same as that
now followed by the Southern Pacific Railway.
Father Juan Caballeria in his “History of San
Bernardino Valley” thus describes the founding
of Politana and its subsequent destruction:
“San Gabriel Mission became an important
stopping place on the road, and the first place
where supplies could be procured after crossing
the desert. In the course of time, as travel over
this road increased, it was arranged to establish
a supply station at some intermediate point be-
tween the mission and the Sierras on the north,
in order to lessen the hardships of this journey
by providing travelers with a place where they
could rest and obtain food.
“With this object in view, a party of mission-
aries, soldiers and Indians neophytes of San
Gabriel Mission, tinder the leadership of Padre
Dumetz, were sent out to select a location. On
the 20th of May, 1810, they came into the San
Bernardino Valley. This, according to the RO-
man Calendar of Saints was the feast day of
San Bernardino of Sienna and they named the
valley in his honor.
“They found here an ideal location. The val-
ley was well watered and luxuriant with spring-
time verdure. It might become to the weary
traveler a perfect haven of rest. The Indian
name of the valley, Guachama, when translated,
signified ‘a place of plenty to eat.’ The Indians
inhabiting this section of the valley were known
as Guachama Indians and had here a populous
rancheria.
:: >: :}; >k :k >{<
“The supply station was located at the
Guachama rancheria, which was near the place
now known as Bunker Hill, between Urbita
Springs and Colton. The location was chosen
on account of an abundance of water in that
vicinity. Here a ‘capilla' (chapel) was built,
which was dedicated to San Bernardino, the
patron saint of the valley. After completing the
building of the station the padres returned to
San Gabriel, leaving the chapel, the station and
a large quantity of supplies in charge of neophyte
soldiers, under command of a trustworthy In-
dian named Hipolita. The settlement, or
rancheria of mission Indians, taking its name
from this chief became known as Politana.
“During the next two years the padres made
frequent visits to the capilla; the Gauchama In-
dians were friendly; grain was planted and the
settlement seemed in a fair way to permanent
prosperity.
“The year 1812, known in history as “el afío de
los temblores' (the year of earthquakes), found
the valley peaceful and prosperous—it closed
upon the ruins of Politana. The presence of
the padres and Christian neophytes among the
gentile Indians of the valley had been productive
of good results and many of them became con-
verted to Christianity. When the strange rum-
blings beneath the earth commenced and fre-
quent shocks of earthquake were felt, the ef-
fect was to rouse the superstitious fears of the
Indians. The hot springs of the valley increased
in temperature to an alarming extent; a new
‘cienagata' or hot mud spring appeared near
Politana (now calley Urbita). This so excited
the Indians that by direction of the padres the
spring was covered with earth, hoping to thus
allay their fears. These hot springs were re-
garded by the Indians with superstitious venera-
tion. They were associated with their religious
ceremonies and were known to them as medi-
cine springs. When these changes became so
apparent they were filled with apprehension of
danger bordering on terror. This, accompanied
by the frequent shocks of ‘temblor, so worked
upon their superstitious natures that, looking
for a cause, they came to believe it was the mani-
festation of anger of some powerful spirit dis-
pleased at the presence of the Christians among
them. Desiring to appease this malevolent deity
and avert ſurther expression of his displeasure,
they fell upon the settlement of Politana, mas-
28
434
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
sacred most of the mission Indians and converts
and destroyed the buildings.
“The Guachamas rebuilt the rancheria and
inhabited it until long after the decree of Secu-
larization. A few Indians remained there at the
date of American colonization, and older Set-
tlers of the county retain a recollection of the
rancheria of Politana. As the country settled
the Indians decreased in numbers and dispersed;
the few miserable habitations fell into decay, and
there is now no trace of the rancheria, except
as the plow of the rancher may occasionally
bring to the surface a piece of tile, sole relic
of the first Christian settlement in San Ber-
nardino Valley.”
The next attempt of the padres of San Gab-
riel Mission to found a branch mission or
asistencia was made in 1819. The location chosen
was that still known as old San Bernardino. The
building had a cobble-stone foundation. The
walls were adobe brick a yard thick. The building
was 240 feet in length by 80 feet in breadth and
20 feet in height. The floors were kiln-burnt
brick, the roof was made of tule thatch. So sub-
stantially built was this structure that after years
of disuse and abandonment it was still habitable.
A corral about IOO feet square was built adjoin-
ing the main building, surrounded by a high
adobe wall, to protect the cattle from raids by
the thieving mountain Indians. A chapel was
built and a building erected for the priest to
lodge in when he came from San Gabriel to hold
service. A community of Indians settled around
the mission building. A zanja was constructed,
a vineyard and Olive orchard planted, and a con-
siderable amount of land was sown to grain.
The valley was well adapted to grazing and
great numbers of cattle were raised for their
hides and tallow. The branch mission was quite
prosperous and it bid fair in time to equal the
mother mission, San Gabriel.
In 1831, the mountain Indians made a raid
upon it, damaged the building and drove away
and scattered the stock. The buildings were re-
paired and work resumed in the old way. In
October, 1834, the mountain Indians, who, un-
like the Indians of the valley, were warlike, and
could not be brought under mission rule, at-
tacked the mission. It was bravely defended by
the neophytes, but they were unable to hold out
against the enemy and finally abandoned the
buildings and retreated to the Mission San Gab-
riel.
The enemy gave up the pursuit and returned
to the mountains. The mission buildings were
again Occupied by the padres and the neophytes,
but in December of the same year an uprising
Occurred among the Indians. Led by two
renegade neophyte chiefs formerly of San Gab-
riel, they attacked the mission buildings at San
Bernardino. The neophytes in charge were un-
able to defend them. The mission was taken,
plundered and set on fire. The priest in charge,
Padre Estango, was made a prisoner and carried
away by the hostiles. He was afterwards ran-
Somed. No attempt was made to repair and Oc-
cupy the buildings after this raid. Seculariza-
tion came SOOn after, and the branch missions
passed out of the control of the padres. The
Second attempt to settle the San Bernardino val-
ley like the first ended in disaster.
For several years after the destruction of the
asistencia of San Bernardino the valley was
abandoned to the Indians. The secularization of
the missions had scattered the neophytes. Some
of these became renegades and joined the wild
Indians. The wild tribes of the mountains and
the desert, guided by these renegades, made fre-
quent raids on the cattle and horses of the bor-
der ranchos. It was difficult and dangerous to
follow these thieves to their hiding places, and
they were seldom punished for their raids.
THE FIRST LAND GRANT.
After the secularization of the missions came
the era of land grants. The first of these made
in San Bernardino valley was the Jurupa, grant-
ed to Juan A. Bandini, September 28, 1838. This
grant lies along the Santa Ana river in the
southwestern part of the valley. Part of it is
now included in the city of Riverside. Bandini
stocked his rancho with cattle and horses. The
Indians prevented the rancho from becoming
Overstocked. Their raids were frequent and ex-
ceedingly disastrous to the rancheros.
NEW MEXICAN COLONISTs.
There had been, beginning in the early '30s,
a limited immigration into California from New
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
435
Mexico. It came by way of the upper Green
river, the Rio Virgin, to the Colorado river, then
across the desert and through the Cajon Pass.
This route was known as the Spanish trail. The
Lugos had given to a small number of these New
Mexican settlers a grant of land at the Apoli-
tan. Bandini, about the year 1844, induced some
of those at the Apolitan to locate on the north-
ern part of his rancho. The chief object in
forming these settlements was to protect the
ranchos from Indian cattle thieves. Bandini
gave these settlers a grant of land bordering on
the Santa Ana river for cultivation. The land
lying near the river was easily irrigated. The
colonists planted vineyards and fruit trees. This
settlement was known as La Placita (The Small
Place).
Another colony of New Mexicans located on
the river about a mile above Placita. From the
smooth flow of the Santa Ana river here, this
settlement was known as “Agua Mansa” (Gen-
tle Water). These colonists were joined by
others until quite a flourishing settlement was
built up. They cultivated the soil and assisted
the rancheros in taking care of their stock.
Louis Slover, a German, for whom Slover
mountain was named, was one of the Agua Man-
sa colonists.
A church was erected at Agua Mansa which
served both settlements. The year 1862 was the
year of the great flood—the greatest ever
known in California. The Santa Ana river
rivaled the Father of Waters. It spread out
across the valley. On the night of January 22
a cloudburst occurred in the mountains. A rag-
ing torrent swept down upon the little settle-
ments. The inhabitants of La Placita fled to
the hills and those of Agua Mansa took refuge
in the church which stood on higher ground than
the village. The town was swept away, only
the church and one house near it remained. Their
vineyards and trees were washed out and car-
ried down the stream.
destitute.
THE - LUGO GRANTS.
On the 21st of June, 1842, Governor Alvarado,
on the petition of Don Antonio Maria Lugo,
granted to José del Carmen Lugo, José Maria
The inhabitants were left
Lugo and Vicente Lugo, Sons of Don Antonio,
and to his nephew, Diego Sepulveda, the rancho
de San Bernardino, containing nine leagues or
about 37,000 acres of land. In 1841 the Santa
Ana del Chino had been granted to Don An-
tonio Lugo. It contained five leagues. Don An-
tonio already owned extensive grants east and
south of Los Angeles city. He seems to have
been somewhat of a land grabber. Governor
Alvarado was his nephew. It is barely possible
that he had a “pull” in official quarters. Julian
Isaac Williams, later owner of the Chino rancho,
was a son-in-law of Don Antonio's
THE TRANSITION ERA.
The transition of California from the rule of
Mexico to the domination of the United States
had little effect upon the sparse population of
the San Bernardino valley. The only echo from
the war of the conquest that reached the valley
was the battle of Chino, September 27, 1846.
Fifty Californians under command of Serbulo
Verala and Diego Sepulveda attacked a company
of Americans under command of B. D. Wilson,
who had taken shelter in the Chino ranch house.
In the charge upon the house one Californian,
Carlos Ballestras, was killed and several wound-
ed. Three Americans were wounded. The at-
tacking party set fire to the roof of the house.
The Americans were compelled to surrender.
The most prominent of these were held prisoners
until Los Angeles was retaken by Commodore
Stockton and General Kearny, January Io, 1847.
General Castro and part of his staff left Cali-
fornia for Sonora at the approach of Stockton
and Fremont in August, 1846, by the way of the
San Gorgonino Pass. General Flores and his
aids left by the same route after the battle of La
Mesa in January, 1847.
In April, 1847, Cok Philip St. George Cooke
sent Company C of the Mormon Battalion to
guard the Cajon cañon and prevent the
desert Indians from making raids on the settlers’
stock. The troops were instructed to build a
fortification across the cañon of logs and earth
at the narrowest place in the pass where water
and grass could be obtained, so as effectually to
prevent the Indians from making incursions
through the cañon into the valley. The com-
436
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
*
manding officer, Lieutenant Rosencrans, was “to
send out armed parties either on foot or mount-
ed to defend ranchos in the vicinity or to attack
wandering parties of wild Indians.” A band of
hostile Indians was surprised in the mountains
by a detachment of the Mormon Battalion. In
the fight that ensued eight of the hostiles, ac-
cording to an account of this affair given to the
author by the late Stephen C. Foster, were killed.
The Mormons cut off the ears of the dead In-
dians and with these strung on a string brought
them to Los Angeles as an evidence of their suc-
cess against the thieving Los. Another author-
ity says that it was a Californian that did the
ear cropping. *
After peace was declared and the soldiers dis-
charged, the settlers in the valley had to defend
themselves against the horse and cattle thieves.
As related in Chapter XXXVII, of the history
of San Diego county, a company of volunteers
under General Morehead was sent to the Col-
orado river to punish the Yuma Indians for the
murder of Dr. Lincoln's party. With these vol-
unteers was sent a lieutenant whose duty it was
to reclaim and return to the owners any stock
captured by the troops from the Indians. If
the expedition recaptured any stolen horses
there is no record of it in the archives.
The Indians were not the only horse thieves
who raided the ranchos of the valley. Renegade
white men stole stock and the red man got the
punishment—bore the white man’s burden.
In one instance retribution overtook the white
thieves and that, too, by the hands of the In-
dians. There are mally versions of what is
known as the Irving affair; some of these full
of errors. In the Los Angeles Star of May 31,
1851, is given a very full account of the killing
of Irving's gang by the Indians. This is con-
temporaneous history. The account was pub-
lished a few days after the occurrence of the
event and undoubtedly is the most nearly cor-
rect of any version of the affair in existence.
“About two months since a party of men,
some twenty-five in number, arrived at this place
and encamped a short distance from the city.
They were under the command of Capt. John
Irving, said to be an old Texan ranger. We do
not suppose that many persons here were in-
formed as to the objects of the company. Irving
gave out that he was going to Sonora to fight
Indians. One member of the company in en-
deavoring to induce a citizen to join them stated
that they were going to Mexico to rob some of
the specie conductas (convoys) between the
mines and Mazatlan. When here they excited
the terror of the citizens and many offences were
charged upon them. About ten days since they
took their departure, moving in the direction of
the Colorado, and probably not one in ten of our
citizens supposed they should ever hear again
of the party.
“On Sunday last letters were received in town
from Colonel Magruder at Chino and Mayor
Wilson representing a state of things which
seemed to indicate that actual war existed be-
tween Irving's men and the native Californians.
It was said that Irving and his party were kill-
ing cattle, stealing horses and conducting them-
selves in such a lawless manner as to render it
necessary that they should be speedily checked.
“In the course of the forenoon a public meet-
ing was held in the court house. Addresses
were made by various citizens and suggestions
made as to a proper course of action. The pre-
vailing opinion seemed to be that it was advisable
that the men should be pursued and brought to
justice. There was much excitement in the com-
munity, and all our citizens were prompt in de-
nouncing the marauders. -
“The sheriff summoned a posse and on Mon-
day morning proceeded to Chino, where it was
represented that forces were concentrating. The
sheriff was armed with a warrant issued by
Jonathan R. Scott for the arrest of Irving's party
on charge of grand larceny.
“On Tuesday morning the sheriff proceeded
to Robidoux's ranch, where they were informed
that Irving had encamped the previous night.
From spies sent to Temescal it was ascertained
that a body of men supposed to be Irving's had
crossed over towards Lugos on Tuesday morn-
‘ing, and the sheriff, fearing that they had gone
there for no good purpose, deemed it advisable
to follow them. The sheriff had not proceeded
far before he learned that Irving's party had all
been killed by the Apolitans, a tribe of the Cowie
Indians.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
437
"It appears that Irving's party first went to
Felipe Lugo's and broke into and entered the
house. Whether or not they stole anything of
value is not certain. They ransacked the trunks
and scattered the clothing about and probably
took away some articles of small value. They
then proceeded to José Maria Lugo's, some six
miles distant from Felipe’s. The people at the
ranchos fled at their approach, but it does not
appear that they entered any house except the
Lugo's. At José Maria Lugo's it is said that
they stole various articles. It is the prevailing
Opinion that their object was to murder the two
young Lugos. Irving had been heard to say
that he would take the scalps of the young Lugos
and there can be little doubt that he was bent
On murder as well as plunder.
“Not finding the Lugos at home, Irving left
the premises and struck into a road leading into
the mountains. He must have supposed that
he could gain the valley beyond or he would
never have allowed himself to be surrounded in
the manner which he was. The Cowies, many of
whom are domiciliated at Lugo's, followed up
Irving's party and attacked them with bows and
arrows and lances. Irving followed a road into
a ravine, the steep banks of which prevented his
egress and here it was the whole party was slain.
Not one was left to tell the tale. The Indians first
shot them down with bows and arrows and beat
in their skulls with stones. Persons who have
seen the dead bodies describe them as being
mangled in a manner shocking to behold.
“Those who are known to be killed are John
Irving, Frank Wilson, Perley, Jack Hitchcock,
Charles Lovelle, and George Clarke. Besides
these men there were known to be with Irving
when he left here, William O’Donnell, Peter
(supposed to be a brother of O’Donnell), Alfred
Spencer, Mason Bozet, and three men called
Mac, Sam and Pat. It is possible that the three
last named are included among the foregoing,
whose Christian names are not given. Only one
Indian was killed and two or three wounded.
The Indian known to have been killed was an
alcalde of the Apolitans and was cut off from
the main body and shot, as it is said, by Irving.
The Indians were headed by Ricardo, a native
Californian and one who has been in many af-
Lake in the winter.
frays. There were from three to four hundred
Indians.
“The Indians say that Irving fought very
bravely. He was mounted on a superb horse
and was conspicuous throughout the engage-
ment, encouraging his men and charging into
the very midst of his opponents. He was found
with five arrow wounds in the region of the
heart. It is supposed that Irving's men had
about $5,000 with them, all of which fell into
the hands of the Indians. They exhibit their
booty freely to all who visit the rancheria. The
bodies were found entirely naked, the Indians
having stripped them of their clothes, which, to-
gether with the arms and horses, they carried
off to the rancheria as spoils of war. As long
as Irving's men kept upon the plains they could
offer resistance, but the moment they entered the
cañada their doom was sealed; the Indians eas-
ily gained access to the hills above them and
shot them to death with their arrows.”
MORMON IMMIGRANTS.
Whatever was the real design of Brigham
Young in sending a colony of Mormons to set-
tle in California will never be known. The os-
tensible purpose “of the establishment of this
colony was (according to Brigham's own state-
ment) that the people gathering in Utah from
the Sandwich Islands and even from Europe
might have an outfitting post.” One ship did
land Mormon immigrants from Honolulu at San
Pedro in 1855.
It was no doubt part of his design to secure
a winter route to Salt Lake. The Rocky moun-
tains on the east and the Sierra Nevadas on the
west, on account of the deep snows, were im-
passable in winter. If a southern route could
be opened supplies could be obtained for Salt
The distance too from the
sea coast for the converts to travel to the new
Zion would be shortened and they could be sent
to their destination without running the gaunt-
let of the Gentiles, which they would encounter
in crossing the continent from the east.
A company was organized at Salt Lake in
March, 1851, to go to California to form a set-
tlement in the neighborhood of the Cajon pass.
The original intention was to send a company of
4.38
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
twenty under command of Amasa M. Lyman
and Charles C. Rich, but so popular was the
Scheme that 500 enlisted. The emigrants were
divided into three divisions. The first com-
manded by Rich, the second by Lyman and the
third by Lytle. Jefferson Hunt, late captain of
Company A of the Mormon Battalion, piloted
the advance division. He had been over the
route several times, and in 1849 had guided a
large company of immigrants from the States
who had reached Salt Lake City too late to
cross the Sierra Nevadas. Andrew Lytle, the
commander of the third division, had also been
an officer in the Mormon Battalion.
The advance division arrived at the Cajon
pass late in May. The Los Angeles Star of
May 31, 1851, gives this notice of the arrival:
“We learn that I5o Mormon families are at
Cajon pass sixty miles east of this city on their
way here from Deseret. These families, it is
said, intend to settle in this valley and to make
it their permanent home. We cannot yet give
full credit to these statements because they do
not come to us fully authenticated—but if it be
true that Mormons are coming in such numbers
to settle among us we shall, as good industrious
citizens, extend to them a friendly welcome.”
THE STATE OF DESERET.
In the above extract the editor of the Star
states that the Mormons are on their way here
from “Deseret.” The word Deseret, once in
common use as the name of the Mormon settle-
ment at Salt Lake, is now almost obsolete and
needs a few words of explanation in regard to
the origin and use of the term as applied to
Utah. When the Mormons located at Salt Lake
July 24, 1846, all the territory now included in
Utah and Nevada was part of Upper California.
On the 4th of March, 1849, a convention met at
Salt Lake City to form a state government. A
provisional government was organized under the
name of the state of Deseret. The word “des-
eret” occurs in the book of Mormon and is
translated honey bee: “No pent-up Utica” con-
tracted the powers of the makers of that com-
monwealth. The southern line of Deseret was
the northern boundary of Mexico. Its western
boundary followed the 118° 30” longitude west
from Greenwich northward to where said line
intersected the Sierra Nevadas and along the
crest of the mountains to Oregon. Its eastern
boundary was the Rocky mountains. Had the
State of Deseret materialized it would have had
a Seaport at San Diego. All of the sea coast
from the Mexican line to the port of San Pedro,
as well as the greater part of Southern Califor-
nia, would have been a part of the state of the
Honey Bee. Brigham Young was elected gov-
ernor. Three of the apostles were made supreme
judges and a delegate to congress elected.
Six months before the Californians had
aroused themselves to form a state government,
the state of Deseret was knocking at the doors
of congress for admission into the Union; but
the doors would not open, the delegate to con-
gress from the state of Deseret was not admit-
ted, nor the state either. A year later, when
California was admitted into the Union, the self-
constituted state of Deseret, shorn somewhat of
its proportions, became the territory of Utah.
The Mormons still clung to the name Deseret.
The territorial seal adopted in 1850 contained
a cut of a bee hive with a swarm of bees ram-
pant, and One of Brigham Young's harems was
known as the bee-hive house. The Deseret
News is still the official organ of the Mormon
church.
That the San Bernardino valley was once in-
cluded in the inchoate state of Deseret may have
had some influence in directing Brigham
Young's attention to it. I take the following ex-
tract from the Los Angeles Star of July 5, 1851.
It gives a description of the San Bernardino
valley as it was fifty-five years ago when the
Mormons settled there. The story of the won-
derful snow storm of 1848 is new history, but
whether true or not I cannot say. If a snow
storm severe enough to destroy thousands of
cattle swept the valley in 1848 the climate must
have changed since then.
THE MORMONS.
“A body of this people, numbering five hun-
dred souls, are now encamped in the neighbor-
hood of the Cajon pass in this county. We
learn that they are negotiating for the purchase
of the rancho of San Bernardino from the fam-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
439
ily of Don Antonio Maria Lugo, by whom it is
held. This rancho is about 65 miles from Los
Angeles on one (and the best) direct road to
Sonora. It will, without doubt, one day be a
point of no inconsiderable importance. There is
Soil, water, timber, everything abounding to sus-
tain a large and prosperous population. Though
lying right under the snow capped mountain of
San Bernardino the temperature is pleasant
enough generally—even in winter.
“The year 1848 was a remarkable exception,
for snow fell to the depth of several feet and
covered the plains a long time. Several thou-
sand head of cattle were destroyed. The rancho
now, after scarcely three years, is supposed to
have from eight to ten thousand head in spite
of such severe visitation. The river Santa Ana
takes its rise here and even before it leaves the
rancho affords quite a strong body of water.
“This is the former site of the old mission of
San Bernardino; and the drafts of a thousand
mills for many years would not exhaust the tim-
ber of the mountains of the same. Here prob-
ably this interesting people will make the first
establishment on the shores of the Pacific. They
profess the best intentions towards the old set-
tlers of the county and show no disposition in
the slightest degree to interfere with the rights
of others. Thus acting they deserve a kindly
consideration and every encouragement in their
plans of settlement.”
From the above extract it will be seen that
the Mormon leaders immediately after their ar-
rival began negotiations with Lugos for the pur-
chase of the San Bernardino rancho. Before
deciding to purchase it they examined several
other ranchos, but finally decided to buy the
San Bernardino. The contract for its purchase
was made in September, 1851, but the deed did
not go on record until February 27, 1852. The
purchase price was stated to be $77,500. The
settlers obtained from the Lugos seventy-five
head of cattle for beef. The great herds of cat-
tle belonging to the Lugos were removed during
the following winter. The rancho was pur-
chased on credit. The Mormons had plenty of
faith but little cash. It is said that the aggre-
gate wealth of the whole band in money was
only $700, and this had to suffice to buy food
until they could raise crops. While negotiations
were pending they had remained encamped near
the mouth of the Cajon pass. In September
they removed their camp to the present site of
the city of San Bernardino.
During 1851 and the early part of 1852 the
mountain and desert Indians were on the war
path. Warner’s ranch had been plundered, emi-
grant trains attacked, and Antonio Garra had
boasted he would exterminate the white race in
California. A military post had been established
at Chino and a guard kept there. I find this
item in the Los Angeles Star of March 2, 1852:
“The military post at Chino, under command
of Captain Lowell, has recently received the ac-
cession to its members of sixty men who have
been ordered there from San Diego.”
In December, 1851, a company of thirty-five
men was raised in Los Angeles to quell the In-
dian disturbances. The Star of December 6,
1851, says: “It is supposed that all the southern
Indians are in a plot to massacre the whites.”
The Mormons, fearing raids from the Indians,
proceeded to erect a stockade. It was made of
the split trunks of cottonwood trees and large
willows. The palisades were set about three
feet in the ground and stood about twelve feet
high. The inclosure was in the form of a par-
allelogram, three hundred feet wide and seven
hundred feet long. Inside of this log cabins and
adobe houses were erected. The southern end
of the stockade was just below what is now the
intersection of C and Third streets and the
northwest corner was intersected by Fourth
street near C street. The settlers lived in the
fort for nearly a year. After the Indians had
been subjugated, the colonists settled on their
individual possessions and the development of
the colony was rapid.
In 1852 a large flour mill was built “with two
sets of bufr stones and a race-way one mile in
length.” The wheat raised was converted into
flour. The farmers of the southern coast Coun-
ties did not produce flour enough for their own
consumption. It cost $10 freight on a barrel of
flour from San Francisco to San Pedro. The
Mormons found wheat growing very profitable,
but the crop was uncertain.
440
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
CHAPTER LXIV.
SAN BERNARDINO
ORGANIZAT1 () N OF THE COUNTY.
created. It was cut off from the eastern
part of Los Angeles county. The act creat-
ing the county was approved April 26, 1853.
There seems to have been no opposition to its
creation; Los Angeles had territory enough left.
The area of San Bernardino county was 23,472
Square miles.
The town site of San Bernardino was laid out
in 1853. The plan was copied from that of Salt
Lake City. The town was a mile square, the
streets crossing each other at right angles. Each
block contained eight acres. Irrigating ditches
ran along the streets, the same as in Salt Lake
City. San Bernardino was incorporated as a
city by a special act of the legislature, approved
April 13, 1854. The council house built by
Lyman and Rich was used as the court house
after the organization of the county. It was
located on the southeast corner of Third and
what is now C streets.
The land was surveyed into tracts of various
sizes to suit purchasers. Prices ranged from
$10 to $20 per acre. There were some non-
Mormons among the settlers. These were
known as independents. Many of these were
immigrants who came to California by the south-
ern routes. Attracted by the cheapness of the
land and the fertility of the soil in the San Ber-
nardino valley they located there. They were
not in accord with the Mormons in religion nor
in many of the social customs. Congress, in
1854, appropriated $50,000 for the survey and
location of a wagon road between San Ber-
nardino and Salt Lake City. May 1, 1855, Gil-
bert & Co.'s Great Salt Lake Express was estab-
lished. It made monthly trips, stopping at the
following stations: Coal Creek, Parowan, Red
Creek, Fillmore City, Nephi City, Summit Creek,
Provo City, American Fork and Great Salt Lake
|. I853 the county of San Bernardino was
COUNTY –Continued.
City. It carried letters, parcels, packages and
treasure. It was at first a pony express, but later
On the mail and express were carried in wagons.
In 1855 there was a failure in the wheat crop
in the valley on account of a dry year. There
were hard times in the colony. Elders Thomas,
Jackson, Daley, Hopkins and Rich started out
On a missionary and business tour through the
State to explain their doctrines and to influence
capitalists and others to purchase lots in their
new city, or farming lands adjoining. The Los
Angeles Star of August 4, 1855, says: “Our
Mormon neighbors have to make their last pay-
ment, amounting to some $35,000, on their ranch
on the 7th of October next, and they are dis-
posed to hold out great inducements to specu-
lators and all those who may wish to settle per-
manently among them. -
“The failure of the wheat crop has placed our
Mormon friends under great pecuniary embar-
rassments, which have forced them to ask re-
lief from Saints and those who are friendly to
their cause and to whom they will give good and
Sufficient titles to land as an equivalent for aid
furnished.” Centrally located city lots, con-
taining an acre, were offered at $125, and five-
acre suburban lots at $25 per acre. It seems to
have been alternately feast and famine in the
colony. The year of 1856 was a season of
plenty. The Star of January 21, 1856, gives
this report of the prosperity of the colonists:
A PROSPEROUS COLONY.
“From the settlement of San Bernardino we
have received favorable reports. The people are
engaged in securing their crops, which are very
abundant and in prime condition. It is esti-
mated that the harvest will produce one hundred
thousand bushels of wheat, and fifty thousand
bushels of barley. The grass is so plentiful on
the ranch that Don Bernardo Yorba has placed
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
441
a band of 5,000 head of cattle to remain there
nine months. There are already belonging to
the community IO,OOO head on the ranch, which
is capable of sustaining 50,000 head of cattle.
“The grist mill has been repaired and very
much improved and flour has already been
ground from this year's wheat. The saw-mills
have ceased operation for want of water, but
there is an abundance of lumber. The schools
are in a prosperous condition, there being 165
children in attendance at the two schools with
four teachers, three males and one female. The
abundant harvest of the present year will make
up for the heavy losses of the previous years.”
POLITICAL.
San Bernardino county was strongly Demo-
cratic. At the presidential election of 1856, Bu-
chanan received 314 votes, Fillmore 7 and Fre-
mont 93. Evidently the denunciation in the Re-
publican platform of that year of the “twin relics
of barbarism—polygamy and slavery”—was not
acceptable to the Mormon voters. Their votes
did Buchanan no good. Either through the
county clerk's neglect or the mail's delay the re-
turns did not reach Sacramento in time to be
counted in the official vote of the state.
THE RECALL OF THE SAINTS.
For ten years after the organization of the
territory of Utah, Brigham Young had been its
governor. Through all that time there had been
more or less friction between him and the of
ficials appointed to represent the United States
government in Utah. Brigham Young and the
hierarchy were supreme in the territory. Some
of the officials sent out by the government were
unfit for their positions and the Mormons had
good reasons for objecting to them. President
Buchanan determined to remove Brigham from
the governorship of the territory. Brigham de-
fied the government. He had said in one of his
Sunday harangues in the tabernacle, “I am and
will be governor and no power can hinder it
until the Lord Almighty says: ‘Brigham, you
need not be governor any longer.’” When the
news reached him that the president had deter-
mined to appoint another governor and that the
laws would be enforced in Utah even if an army
had to be sent there to enforce them, Brigham
issued his mandate recalling all the saints to
Zion. Apostles Lyman and Rich, who also bore
military titles and were in charge of the saints
at San Bernardino, were ordered to break up
their settlement and rally to the defense of Zion.
THE EXODUs BEGINs.
The Los Angeles Star of May 2, 1857, con-
tains this notice of the departure of Lyman and
Rich, the founders of the colony: “Our corre-
spondent informs us that on Saturday Gen. C.
C. Rich and Colonel Lyman, with thirty more
members of the Mormon church, started from
San Bernardino for Great Salt Lake City. The
train consisted of about thirty wagons. The
party was escorted by a large number of the citi-
zens as far as Cajon pass, where they encamped
and passed the night. Next morning the friends
Separated and the pilgrims proceeded on their
journey to the Mecca of the Great Prophet.”
RIVAL FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATIONS.
The Mormons and Independents did not be-
come more harmonious as time went by. In all
their social functions they kept apart. The cele-
bration of the 4th of July always stirred in them
not so much a spirit of patriotism, as a feeling
of animosity. There were usually two celebra-
tions. In 1856 each tried to outdo the other in
noise. The Independents imported a cannon
from Los Angeles and won out on boom, but
lost on flag pole, the church party erecting one
a hundred feet in height against the Independ-
ents sixty feet.
In 1857 there were rival celebrations. The
Mormons built a bowery on the Plaza to ac-
commodate one thousand persons. There was a
procession of all the young Mormon ladies in
the colony. They were dressed in white with
wreaths of flowers on their heads and marched
in twos to the bowery. Prayer, reading of the
Declaration of Independence and an oration by
Jefferson Hunt filled out the literary program;
while a dinner to which everybody was invited
filled out the individual, dancing to sundown
completed the celebration.
The Independents held their celebration at
Fort Benson. This fort had been built by a
442
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
man named Benson in 1854. Benson claimed
that he was located on government land, a claim
the ranch owners disputed. To defend his claim
Benson built the fort. It became a rallying
point for the Independents. The rivals tried to
excel each other in the numbers attending their
respective celebrations. The Independents se-
cured the attendance of Cabezon and his tribe of
Cahuilla Indians. They won out on the con-
sumption of viands, for every Indian brought
along an aching void. The day ended with a
shooting scrape. A young Mormon assailed a
crippled Independent, who shot him in self-de-
fense, so a jury afterwards decided. This was
the last rival 4th of July celebration. Next year
the Mormons were in Salt Lake.
In August, 1857, a large sale of cattle was
made for the purpose of liquidating the debt
that still encumbered the ranch. The cattle had
been contributed as tithes by the members of the
Mormon church. The amount realized was
about $13,000.
HASTENING AWAY.
When the reports of the Mountain Meadows
Massacre were received in California they
aroused the indignation of the people to the
highest pitch against the Mormons. A mass
meeting was called at the Plaza in Los Angeles
and Brigham Young and his followers roundly
denounced. Resolutions were passed calling
upon the governor to enforce the laws against
the “community of Mormons residing in the
adjoining county of San Bernardino, many of
whom are living in open violation of one of the
most sacred laws of our state.” The animosity
engendered against the Mormons on account of
the massacre hastened their departure from San
Bernardino. They were compelled to sacrifice
their property to get means to take them away.
The Star of December 5, 1857, “gives some
items of sales recently made; one tract of 82
acres that cost $10.50 an acre, fenced with a
good picket fence which cost $2 per rod, the
entire tract under cultivation, with good ditches
for irrigation, was sold for $500. Another tract
containing 600 acres, under fence, on which
there were 7,500 vines, assessed last year at
$10,000, sold for $1,500. Another property con-
taining a flouring mill, distillery, saw-mill and
300 acres of land that cost in all $75,000, sold
for $6,000.”
On December 7, 1857, a meeting was held in
Los Angeles for the purpose of preventing the
Sale of arms and ammunition to the Mormons
returning to Salt Lake City. The Star of De-
cember 26th estimated that 250 wagons and
I,200 people “fitted out for Utah at San Ber-
nardino. These took with them not less than
fifteen tons of powder and between two and
three thousand guns and revolvers.” At a pub-
lic meeting held in Los Angeles, December 12, it
was decided to ask Gen. N. S. Clark, command-
ing the Department of the Pacific, to station 500
troopers at the Cajon pass to prevent an inva-
sion of Southern California by Brigham Young's
army.
THE LAST TRAIN.
The last detachment of the Mormons gathered
in camp on the Mojave. There were about IOO
wagons in the encampment. The Star of Janu-
ary 16, 1858, says: “The camp on the Mojave
cannot be so devoid of the comforts of life after
all as it might be supposed. We have heard it
stated by several that since the camp was estab-
lished there has been no less than fifty marriages,
the young men of the party agreeing to take
charge of all the young ladies, to which the lat-
ter freely consented, thus securing protection
through the long journey. There have been no
less than twenty-five births in the camp.”
At the time of the exodus there were remain-
ing of the San Bernardino rancho in the posses-
sion of the firm of Rich, Lyman, Hanks & Co.
about 25,OOO acres; on this there was a mort-
gage held by Pioche, Bayerque & Co. This mort-
gage was purchased in January, 1858, by Conn,
Tucker, Allen & Coopwood and the ownership
of the magnificent estate was transferred to
them. The original purchase by Lyman, Rich
& Co. was 38,000 acres. The difference between
that and the purchase by Conn and his partners
represented the amount sold to settlers. Some
of the Mormon colonists refused to obey the
call of the prophet and were cut off from the
fellowship in the church. The farms sold, most-
ly passed into the possession of people from
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 443
Texas, the Monte and Los Nietos; and San Ber-
nardino ceased to be distinctively a Mormon
colony.
However opposed to the Mormon religion any-
one may be, it must be admitted that as colonists
no people have been more successful. The Pil-
grim Fathers had no more hardships and afflic-
tions to contend with than had the Mormon
apostles and their followers of Salt Lake. Pov-
erty and persecution and famine drove them
from Missouri and Illinois; destitution, suffer-
ing and death marched with them in their mi-
gration to Salt Lake, and hunger came to their
chosen land. During the famine years of 1855
and 1856 many a family never knew what it was
to have a full meal. Through all they perse-
vered and built a prosperous empire in a desert.
Of the many colonies that have been founded
in California since the Mormon colony of San
Bernardino none have accomplished so much
from so little to begin with in so brief a time.
Buying their land on credit, with a bare pit-
tance to subsist on until the harvest time, which
might not come, with frequent failures of crops;
yet in six years they built up a prosperous set-
tlement, and made the beautiful valley of San
Bernardino a marvel of productiveness. From
an excellent History of San Bernardino County,
written by Miss Rose L. Ellerbe and published
by L. A. Ingersoll, I take this extract from the
reminiscences of Marcus Katz, an old and high-
ly respected pioneer, illustrative of the condition
of affairs after the departure of the Mormons.
He puts a touch of humor in his tale of the
border wars.
AFTER THE MORMON EXODUS.
“After the Mormons had left the country a
new immigration set in, chiefly from Texas and
the southwest; then the band began to play' and
the ‘ball commenced.’ Quarrels, fights and gen-
eral disturbances, sometimes shooting and kill-
ing—ensued. On one occasion a pitched battle
was fought on the corner of C and Fourth
streets, between the Coopwood and Green fac-
tions. About twenty men were engaged in the
conflict and a sharp fusilade lasted for twenty
minutes. Green, the leader of his faction, a des-
perado, marched through the streets, a gun at
his shoulder and a revolver at his side, and de-
fied any Official or any citizen to touch him. He
denounced all of the Coopwood faction as a set
of cowards—except that ‘Little Devil,' pointing
his finger at Taney de la Woodward. ‘That lit-
tle devil understands the business.’
“It is needless to say that many of these new-
comers were very excellent people, but they were
in the minority. *
“Politically, socially and morally, San Ber-
nardino was ruled by a set of corrupt politicians,
gamblers and desperadoes, with the sheriff of
the county as their leader. The district attorney
openly declared that he meant to get even with
the county. He was successful in his commend-
able enterprise, but shortly afterwards left the
county of his own free will. He changed the
election returns of V. J. Herring, county clerk,
in favor of James Greenwade, who proved the
most efficient clerk that San Bernardino ever
had. He drove the board of supervisors, three
in number, out of the court house at the point
of a cocked revolver. The board understood the
situation at a glance and rushed for the door in
a body. Greenwade, reformed, committed Sui-
cide and became a better man.
“At another time, in 1861, a forgery was com-
mitted in the campaign for legislative honors.
It was the hardest fought election that ever Oc-
curred in the county. The Piercey faction con-
sisted of shrewd political tricksters—unscrupu-
lous is scarcely a strong enough word to apply
to them. The Conn party was made up of Our
best citizens. It was arranged that the editor
of the only paper, the Herald, should print the
tickets for the election. But this editor was al-
ways drunk during office hours, and in his leis-
ure hours—not sober. Rather than depend on
him to get the tickets ready, a friend and myself
obtained his permission to use the press our-
selves. When the Piercey party found out that
the press was placed in our hands, their leaders
asked us to lend them the press, promising to
return it in plenty of time. Fearing a trick on
their part, we sent to Los Angeles and had two
thousand tickets printed for the outside pre-
cincts. Our expectations were realized; they
kept the press until the evening before the elec-
tion and then the editor was too drunk to Open
444
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
the office. Having no key, we kicked the door
open and found everything in the Office topsey-
turvey, in order to prevent our printing the tick-
ets. But in their haste, they had left a notice,
or hand bill, already set up and in perfect order,
announcing that ‘To-day is the day to vote for
Charles W. Piercey.' We erased the name of
Piercey and put in the name of William A. Conn
in its place; then we sent a messenger to the
Spanish settlement to post our bills Over those
of Piercey. The Piercey men wondered much
how such a gross mistake could have occurred,
but they never found out who did the mischief.
“On the day of the election one of the Piercey
party challenged any man to bet on Piercey's
election. I foolishly offered to bet with him.
No sooner did I say the word than he drew his
pistol and fired, but I quickly dodged—I was
afraid he would soil my new coat. He was held
before the grand jury without results; grand
juries in those days were afraid to discharge their
duties. -
“William A. Conn was duly elected our repre-
sentative, but the Piercey interests were managed
by a fellow named Skinker—a derivative of
“skunk.” He was one of the election officers of
Temescal precinct and two weeks after the
election he changed the poll list in favor of Pier-
cey, and by this fraud placed Piercey in the leg-
islature. Piercey had scarcely taken his seat
when he challenged another member of the body
to a duel. Showalter, the man challenged, ac-
cepted, and Piercey was killed at the second
shot. This, to a certain extent, broke up the
combine; still, ‘the band played on.’
>{< >k >{< sk >{< >{< >{<
“Some of the social events of those days were
slightly unsocial. As an instance, this affair
may be mentioned. The colored elite of the
town were giving a dance and a general fes-
tivity according to the code of dusky etiquette,
when they were unceremoniously interrupted by
the entrance of a number of white sports under
the leadership of one McFeely, who desired to
participate in the amusements. The colored pro-
prietor objected and McFeely ordered a general
house-cleaning with a solid thrashing of the
colored leader—all of which was accomplished
in double-quick order. The proprietor was sore-
ly grieved at being ejected from his own house
and having his guests so grossly insulted. The
next day he swore out a complaint before Judge,
Wilson, J. P., against McFeely and his asso-
ciates. McFeely, with his chums, appeared on
the day Set for trial and asked to plead his own
case (he very politely requested the court to let
him read the complaint); the court readily com-
plied with the request and handed him the paper.
The defendant took the complaint and handed it
to the prosecuting witness and, holding a cocked
pistol to his head, ordered him in most em-
phatic language to eat that complaint.’ The
poor fellow turned as pale as nature would allow
him to do, and while his pearly teeth chattered,
ground the complaint at the rate of a running
quartz mill. An additional demand was made
of the prosecuting witness: ‘You swallow the
mutilated complaint.’ The defendant still held
his weapon in a bee-line with the African's face,
and it is needless to say that his royal decree
was strictly carried out.
“The court graced the official chair with sealed
lips, ashen pale face and bristled hair, but dared
not interrupt the proceedings. He watched his
first opportunity to adjourn court—sine die—
lest he should have to swallow the record of
his court.”
H.ARD TIMES.
During the years immediately following there
was little or no progress in San Bernardino. It
was hard times in the colony, money was scarce,
rates of interest high and prices of products low.
The distance to market was too great and cost
of transportation too high to leave anything to
the producer from the sale of his produce. The
leading productions at that time were wheat,
barley, corn, alfalfa and mission grapes. The
cultivation of citrus fruits, now the great indus-
try of San Bernardino, was then untried. At
that time it was believed that Oranges could be
grown only on the lowlands in the river valleys,
and the climate of San Bernardino was consid-
ered too severe in the winter to make Orange
growing a success.
GOLD MINING.
In 1860 there was a gold rush to the moun-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 445
tai of San Bernardino that materially benefited
the merchants and producers of the county.
In the spring of 1860, W. F. Holcomb, John
Martin, Jim Ware and several others prospect-
ing for bear in Bear valley found gold. The
first claims were located May 5, 1860. They
named the part of the valley where gold was
found Holcomb valley, a name it still bears.
When the miners bought their supplies in San
Bernardino and Los Angeles and paid for them
in gold dust the secret was out and the rush
was on. Miners came from every direction,
some on horseback, some with pack trains and
some with their outfits on their backs.
The Los Angeles Star of June 23, 1860, re-
ports three hundred men working in the new
mining district of Bear valley. Childs & Hid-
den, hardware merchants, had received sixty
ounces in one package for supplies and other
merchants had received considerable amounts.
“All the idlers about San Bernardino were off
to the new mines, and a general furore is pre-
vailing in that locality.”
Kelley's Camp was the business place of that
district. New mines were discovered in what
was called the Upper Holcomb valley, and the
town of Belleville became its business center.
During the winter of 1860-61 snow fell to the
depth of five feet and mining operations were
suspended. In the spring of 1861 the rush was
on again, and the population of the mining dis-
tricts nearly equaled that of all the rest of the
county. The diggings were shallow and easily
worked where water could be obtained. The
mines were what in mining parlance are known
as “poor men's diggings”—mines that pay good
wages, but in which no big strikes are made.
There was a very rough element in these camps
—cutting and shooting scrapes were of almost
daily occurrence. The victims of these scrapes
were no loss to the community.
About the time of the mining excitement in
Bear valley, gold was discovered in Lytle creek
and a considerable quantity taken out. Hy-
draulic mining was introduced in these mines
and large returns received on the outlay.
In 1863 there was a great rush to new mines
discovered on the Colorado river. Many of the
miners fitted out at San Bernardino. The va-
rious mining camps furnished a market for home
products and the financial outlook for the county
was greatly improved.
THE PIONEER NEWSPAPER.
The Los Angeles Star of November 26, 1859,
publishes this notice: “J. Judson Ames has is-
sued the prospectus of a paper to be published
at San Bernardino and to be called the San Ber-
nardino Herald. It will advocate the creation
of the territory or state of Southern California,
the construction of the Pacific Railroad and other
matters and things needful to make San Ber-
nardino what was promised long ago for San
Diego—the most prosperous city in the state.”
At the time of issuing this prospectus Ames
was publishing the San Diego Herald, a paper
made famous by John Phoenix. For nearly a
decade Ames had labored in season and out of
season for two objects—the up-building of San
Diego and the construction of a Pacific Railroad,
whose terminus should be San Diego. He had
failed in both. Poor in pocket and broken in
health he was about to try a new field.
It was not until the 16th of June, 1860, that
the first number of the paper appeared. Its ap-
pearance from that time until its final disappear-
ance in February, 1861, was intermittent. It
was subject to temporary fits of suspension. It
was like the little joker, “now you see it, now
you don't.” December 22, 1860, its light failed
—that was the last issue under the management
of Ames. His career as a newspaper man ended.
January 12, 1861, J. S. Waite took charge of
the paper and for a short time conducted it.
Ames died shortly after he quit the newspaper.
His widow sold the plant to Major Edwin A.
Sherman, a Mexican veteran and a pioneer of
1849. The last issue of the Herald was Febru-
ary 21, 1861. Major Sherman began the publi-
cation of the San Bernardino Patroit, a strong
Union paper, in March, 1861. The Confederate
sympthizers in San Bernardino were numerous,
aggressive and outspoken; consequently the Pa-
triot was not popular nor well patronized.
San Bernardino was a way station on the road
to the southern Confederacy. A number of sym-
pathizers in 1861 returned to the south by the
Yuma route to join the armies of the Confed-
446
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
eracy. Dan Showalter and a party of twenty-
nine on their way south were captured by United
States troops and imprisoned at Fort Yuma;
their horses and accoutrements were confiscated,
but they were afterwards set at liberty. Some
of them returned to California, others made their
way to Texas. Showalter, a renegade northern
man, was one of these. After the killing of
Piercey, the San Bernardino assemblyman, in a
duel, he, like Terry, who killed Broderick, was
very unpopular in California.
In February, 1862, -Major Sherman suspend-
ed the publication of the Patriot, loaded the
plant on an ox wagon and the historic old press
that Ames, after much tribulation, had brought
by sea to the coast made a perilous journey by
land across the desert, through Owens river val-
ley and over the mountains to Esmeralda, a flour-
ishing mining camp, then supposed to be on the
eastern border of California, but later found to
be in Nevada. There Sherman founded the ES-
meralda Star—San Bernardino had to worry
along several years without a newspaper.
FLOODS.
The great flood of 1861-62 was a miniature
Noachian deluge. The city of San Bernardino
was flooded, adobe houses melted down in the
continuous rains of thirty days. There was con-
siderable loss of property in the city of San Ber-
nardino. There were two companies of troops
stationed at Camp Carleton near the city. The
soldiers came to the rescue of the imperiled in-
habitants. No lives were lost, but there was con-
siderable suffering. Agua Manza and Placita,
on the Santa Ana river, were swept out of ex-
istence, and the valley of San Bernardino was
cut off for some time from communication with
the outside world.
The winter of 1867-68 was another of the
deluge years. The water did not rise as high as
in 1861-62, but the valley was again cut off from
communication with the rest of the world. It
rained almost continuously for six weeks. The
damage from the floods was counterbalanced by
the benefits of an increased water supply both
for mining and irrigation.
INDIAN DEPREDATIONS.
The desert Indians still continued to commit
depredations—stealing stock and murdering
stockmen and prospectors whenever an oppor-
tunity offered. In March, 1866, Ed. Parrish,
E. K. Dunlap, and an employee (Pratt Whit-
sides), who were collecting a band of cattle at
their ranch on the Mojave river to drive to
Montana, were ambushed in a ravine and killed.
This outrage was committed by a band of Chi-
mehauvas from Rock creek. In February, 1867,
a company of rangers was organized at San Ber-
nardino to punish the thieving red skins. A de-
tachment of this company had a fight with a
band of Indians—Chimehauvas, Mohaves and
Pahoutes—numbering about one hundred. Four
Indians were killed and a number wounded.
In April of the same year a company of pros-
pectors on the way to Borax Lake surprised a
rancheria of Indians and killed nearly all of its
Occupants. The assailants found in the camp ar-
ticles taken from white people murdered by the
Indians. A few summary punishments like this
taught the Indians to behave themselves.
SLOW GROWTH.
The population of San Bernardino county, in
1870 was 7,31O. Its growth had been slow. The
people had to depend upon their resources. For-
eign capital was averse to traveling so far in-
land to find a chance for investment. San Ber-
nardino had the back country, but no harbor.
Twenty years since the Mormons had bought
the greater portion of the valley on credit and
had started in to make it pay for itself, and no
doubt would have succeeded had Brigham Young
and the hierarchy let them alone.
For a decade after the departure of the Mor-
mons their successors, except for a few mining
rushes, had followed along in the beaten track
set by the first settlers—producing wheat, bar-
ley, corn and hay and selling these for little more
than the cost of production. A new era was
dawning, the era of fruit-growing colonies. The
first of these to organize was Riverside, whose
history is given in the chapters on Riverside
county. The colonists that brought about the
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
447
great change in production and cultivation were
not old Californians, but the new comers. They
were laughed at for their folly in attempting to
grow fruits and vines on barren mesas that were
considered only fit for sheep pasture.
RAILROAD PROJECTS.
The early '70s was an era of railroad building
and railroad projecting. The Southern Pacific
had built eastward from Los Angeles twenty-
five miles. This was a link in the transconti-
nental chain that was to connect Los Angeles
with the Texas Pacific which was building west-
ward. San Bernardino had great hopes that it
would be on the through line. Riverside was
Sanguine that it would be a station on the trans-
continental, but both were doomed to be disap-
pointed. The railroad managers founded the
town of Colton, located between the two aspir-
ing cities.
The San Bernardino people, exasperated at
the action of the Southern Pacific Railroad of-
ficials, made overtures to San Diego for an out-
let to the coast. That ambitious metropolis voted
bonds to the amount of $600,000 to build the
road. San Bernardino bonded itself to the ex-
tent of five per cent of its total assessed wealth.
The road was not built. San Diego had a har-
bor, but no back country, while San Bernardino
was all back country and no harbor. To link the
bay of San Diego to'the back country of San
Bernardino was beyond the financial ability of
both combined.
A wagon road was built to Anaheim Landing,
which shortened the distance to a shipping point
Over twenty miles and freighting with teams
was tried, but the grades over the mountains
were too steep and the road was abandoned.
CHAPTER LXV.
SAN BERNARDINO
CITIES AND TOWNS.
SAN BERNARDINO CITY.
HE first two decades of the history of
T San Bernardino county and that of San
Bernardino city are so closely interwoven
that I have not attempted to separate them. Pre-
vious to 1875 there was no other city or town to
compete with the city of San Bernardino for the
trade of the valley. On account of its distance
from the sea coast and from railroads it was not
often visited by travelers or newspaper corre-
spondents, and “write ups” of an early date are
rare. A stage ride of sixty miles, a third of it
across what was then known as the twenty-mile
desert, did not give the tourist a favorable opinion
of the city and country around. It had quite an
extensive trade with the mining camps of Arizona
by wagon train. It was headquarters for some of
the largest freighting outfits. It was not until
the advent of the railroad in 1875 that the city
began to awake to a realization of its advantages.
COUNTY —Continued.
The Southern Pacific Railroad authorities un-
dertook to build up a rival town, but the growth
of Colton was slow and business sought its old
haunts. Riverside people were more engrossed
in planting vineyards and Orange groves than
building a city. So San Bernardino still did the
business of the valley. Among the improve-
ments made at this time was the completion in
I875 of a new court house, at a cost of $25,000.
This court house was then the finest in Southern
California. The extension of the Southern Pa-
cific Railroad into the mining regions of Arizona
gave San Bernardino products an outlet to a
new market, but it also curtailed the freighting
business by teams. While the agricultural dis-
tricts were benefited the business of the city was
not greatly increased. The Southern Pacific
Railroad was completed to Deming in 1881, thus
giving a direct transcontinental route to South-
ern California. As yet San Bernardino was on
no railroad line, but on the I3th of September,
1883, the first railroad train entered the city.
448
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
It came over the California Southern road from
San Diego. Two years later the Atlantic & Pa-
cific, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé, com-
bined with the California Southern, completed
a new transcontinental line from Kansas City
to San Diego. The first overland train entered
San Bernardino November 15, 1885. Great was
the rejoicing thereat. San Bernardino people
saw a brilliant future for their city. In May,
1886, it was incorporated as a city of the fifth
class. The erection of the California Southern
car shops and a depot at an expenditure of near-
ly a quarter million dollars gave employment to
a large force of men and greatly stimulated all
kinds of business enterprises.
In October, 1887, a board of trade was or-
ganized, John Anderson, Jr., president; C. J.
Perkins, recording secretary; and E. C. Sey-
mour, financial secretary. One of the most am-
bitious enterprises of this period was the build-
ing of the Stewart hotel, begun by J. H. Stewart.
He died from an accident while the building was
in the course of construction. A stock company
was organized and the building finished. It was
the most capacious and costly hotel at that time
in Southern California. It was four stories high
and contained four hundred rooms. It was com-
pleted in 1887, at a cost of $150,000. The boom
of 1887 greatly stimulated real estate values;
the reaction, however, was not so great as in
Los Angeles and San Diego. *
The year 1888 was noted for the building of
interurban motor lines. The Redlands and San
Bernardino line was completed August 17, and
the Riverside, November 16.
In 1889 bonds to the amount of $150,000 were
voted to secure a municipal water system. The
city for thirty years had retained its original
area of one mile square. A considerable popula-
tion had settled beyond the city limits. January
17, 1891, an election was held and the area of
the city was increased to six and one-half miles.
The Stewart hotel, the pride of the city, was
burned to the ground on the night of November
5, 1892.
In 1893 San Bernardino county was com-
pelled, by the act of the legislature creating
Riverside county, to lose some of its most valu-
able territory. The people and the press of San
Bernardino city made a vigorous fight against
the segregation, but in vain.
The closing years of the century were marked
by several disasters. The First National Bank
failed in 1894. Five years later, after much liti-
gation, when its assets were finally all distrib-
uted among its depositors, they recovered but a
little over fifty per cent of their claims. A dis-
astrous fire in 1897 destroyed Whitney's mill, St.
Johns Episcopal church and a number of dwell-
ing houses. A new board of trade was organ-
ized in 1900. The old board, after several years
of usefulness, wearied of well doing and dis-
banded. J. B. Gill was made president of the
new board; John Anderson, Jr., vice-president;
F. D. Keller, secretary, and C. Cohn, treasurer.
A board of directors was chosen. This commer-
cial organization has done most effective work
in advertising the resources of the county. It
inaugurated the custom of holding a street fair
and has successfully managed several. The board
of trade has been largely instrumental in secur-
ing for San Bernardino a modern water system.
The policy of the Southern Pacific officials in
the early years of road building was to secure
all the land for depot purposes that a city or
town could be coaxed into giving, and besides
the land a subsidy was demanded as a gift for
the inestimable benefits the road would confer
on the community. Los Angeles donated sixty
acres of valuable land and half a million dollars
in bonds to induce the road to seek the business
of the city. San Bernardino, when asked, did
not respond to the demand and the railroad pro-
moters undertook to build up a rival to it in
Colton. With the advent of the Santa Fé Rail-
road the business men of San Bernardino were
practically independent of the Southern Pacific.
It obtained possession of the motor road, but
this was not satisfactory, so in 1903 it purchased
lands in the heart of the city for a depot site
and in 1904 it began the erection of a $30,000
depot. The track was made a broad gauge into
the city, and frieght and passengers are now
brought into the city.
In 1904 a freeholders' charter was drafted
and was submitted to the legislature. It was ap-
proved by that body and became the organic
law of the municipality. It now has a mayor,
HISTORICAT. AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
449
common council and full set of commissions,
fire, police, and water.
COLTON.
Colton is one of the towns which owes its
origin to the Southern Pacific Railroad. When
that road built the twenty-five miles eastward
which was one of the conditions required when
Los Angeles county agreed to give five per cent
of its taxable wealth to the railroad company for
building fifty miles of road in the county, Spa-
dra was made its eastern terminus. Here the
road halted for some time. The officers had
several routes surveyed eastward from Spadra.
San Bernardino was so sure of the road that it
offered little inducement to the road builders.
Riverside, too, had hopes of becoming a railroad
town. The railroad company was looking out
for subsidies. The Slover Mountain Colony
owned a tract of 2,000 acres on the sandy plain
south of San Bernardino and bordering on the
Santa Ana river. Out of this tract the directors
of the colony deeded a mile square to the South-
ern Pacific officials, acting under the title of the
Western Development Company. The railroad
company was to build a depot, lay Out a town
site and make other improvements. The town
was platted and named Colton. D. R. Colton
was one of the original incorporators of the Cen-
tral Pacific Road. The first railroad train reached
Colton August II, 1875.
The first store was opened in the town in
March, 1876, and a small building used for a
hotel was erected about the same time. The
railroad company built the Transcontinental
hotel in the fall of 1876. The pioneer newspa-
per of Colton was the Advocate, published in
1877 by Godfrey and Franklin. Scipio Craig
purchased it in 1878 and changed the name to
the Semi-Tropic. In 1889 R. M. McKee pur-
chased it and changed its name to the Colton
Chronicle. -
The town grew very slowly. The people of
San Bernardino were indignant at being side-
tracked by the railroad and spoke slightingly of
the new town, and the citizens of Riverside felt
that the claims of their growing colony should
have been more favorably considered by the rail-
road officials. In 1882 the Southern California
Railroad from San Diego to Colton via the Te-
mécula Cañon route reached Colton. The citi-
zens donated the right of way and gave land for
railroad shops. The Southern Pacific attempted
to bar the Southern California road from enter-
ing the town, but after a protracted struggle had
to give up the contest and let its rival in.
In July, I887, the town was incorporated as a
city of the sixth class. In 1887 a motor road
was built to San Bernardino; this afterwards
came into the possession of the Southern Pacific
Company. -
When the question of building a new court-
house for the county came up, Colton made a
vigorous effort to become the county seat. It
offered to donate a block of land and build a
court-house to cost not less than $200,000, but
the formation of Riverside county had cut off
a large slice from San Bernardino and Colton
was too much on one side of the county. It lost
the fight through location.
The California Portland Cement Works, half
a mile south of Colton, were completed in 1894.
The company employs from 80 to IOO men and
turns out a fine article of Portland cement.
The Globe Flour Mills were built in 1902.
These mills are well equipped with modern ma-
chinery and are capable of turning out 200 bar-
rels of flour per day.
Colton has an excellent high school, organized
in 1896. It is well provided with grammar and
primary Schools. An ordinance establishing a
free-public library was passed May 7, 1906.
REDLANDS.
, The usual form of colonization in Southern
California was the town first and country later.
Redlands reversed that order, the settlement de-
veloped first and the town came as an after-
thought. The settlement of Redlands was begun
in 1881. The colony tract was a bare mesa only
fit for sheep pasture. The land was regarded as
almost worthless. Two enterprising promoters,
Frank E. Brown and E. G. Judson, who had set-
tled in 1880 on the Lugonia, were convinced that
could water. be brought upon the land it would
become very valuable for the growing of citrus
fruits.
F. E. Brown, who was an engineer and sur-
29
450
|HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
veyor, after making a series of surveys and
running levels convinced himself that water
could be brought from the head of the Santa
Ana river to irrigate the land. Messrs. Judson
and Brown set about securing all the land they
had means to purchase. They planned a settle-
ment and called it Redlands. The Redlands
Water Company was organized and incorporated
with a capital of $1,500,000, October 27, 1881.
The land was divided into tracts of two and
one-half, five and ten acres, and was sold with a
water right of one inch to eight acres. Later
the water right was changed to one inch for four
acres. The land sold rapidly and buildings were
erected and the cultivation of the soil began. By
I887 the settlement had so increased in popu-
lation that Messrs. Judson and Brown deter-
mined to locate a new town site on the north
side of their possessions adjoining the settle-
ment of Lugonia. The plat of the town of Red-
lands was filed March 10, 1887. This was at the
beginning of the great real-estate boom. The first
lots were sold at $200 each. The price advanced
rapidly and the town kept pace with the rise
in value of the lots. Six months after the town
was laid out lots on the business streets were
selling at $100 a front foot, and a dozen two and
three story brick buildings had been erected.
The Citrograph, the pioneer newspaper of
Redlands, was already firmly established and
under the editorship of Scipio Craig, who was
proclaiming to the “cyclone-stricken, frost-bit-
ten denizens of the east,” where they could
spend the remainder of their days in “peace,
prosperity and quietude.” The town grew with
the rapidity of a mining camp in the days of '49
but with a very different class of buildings, no
shacks were allowed; the business houses were
substantial brick structures and the residences
neat cottages or two-story dwellings.
The question of incorporating as a city was
agitated. It was proposed to unite Lugonia, the
first settlement, Redlands and Brookside into
a city of the sixth class. Unlike Romeo, the
dwellers in the rival towns believed there was
something in a name. Each was unwilling to
lose its identity and become a nonentity in the
new municipality. After a year of agitation,
and it might be said of aggravation too, the
Smiley.
board of supervisors on petition called an elec-
tion to vote upon the question of incorporation.
The election was held November 26, 1888,
the vote stood 218 for and 68 against incorpora-
tion, and the rivals united under the name
of the city of Redlands. The first communi-
cation with the outer world from what is
now Redlands city was in 1882 by stage. Trips
were made from Cook's store in Lugonia to San
Bernardino two or three times a week. Later
a daily stage ran between the points. In 1886,
the Southern Pacific put in a siding at Brook-
side, and a road was graded to the station, but
there was no means of reaching the settlement
by public conveyance. To accommodate the
rapid increase in travel in 1887 a four-horse
Concord coach was put on the road to meet ev-
ery train at Brookside station. The motor line
connecting San Bernardino and Redlands was
completed and began regular service June 4,
1888. The valley road began service February
13 of the same year. The belt line, now the
well-known kite-shaped track, began running
regular trains January 17, 1892. With regular
train service Redlands increased rapidly in pop-
ulation. Unlike most of the towns of Southern
California it experienced no retrogression in the
early '90s. The United States census of 1890
gave it a population of I,904. It had then three
banking institutions.
THE SMILEY BROTHERS.
In the winter of 1888-89 came to Redlands
the twin brothers, Alfred H. and Albert K.
These two persons did more to spread
the fame of Redlands and attract a high class of
settlers than all other influences. They had
made their fortunes in the hotel business at Lake
Mohonk and Lake Minnewaska, in New York
state. They were very popular and their com-
ing to Redlands attracted to that place many of
their old patrons. They purchased some two
hundred acres of a ridge looking down into the
San Timoteo cañon. Out of this they created
one of the most beautiful parks in California—
the celebrated Smiley Heights or Cañon Crest
Park. In addition to the beautiful heights which
the Smiley brothers threw open to the public,
A. K. Smiley purchased lands near the business
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
451
center and donated these to the city for a park.
The Smiley library building was presented to
Redlands April 29, 1898, by the Smiley brothers.
The library contains about I2,000 volumes and
receives from taxation over $6,000 annually. Al-
fred H. Smiley died at Redlands January 25,
I903.
The success of every settlement in Southern
California depends on its water supply for ir-
rigation. The system of irrigation in vogue un-
der the Mexican régime was extremely waste-
ful. It required a large stream to water a small
area. When the settlement of the East San
Bernardino valley began and the colonists di-
verted the water from the small streams then
the old-timers prophesied failure. The con-
serving of the waters of the creeks in reservoirs
during the winter rains increased the irrigable
area and made it possible to produce fruits and
grain from land that had been considered by old
residents as fit only for sheep pastures. The
waters of Mill creek, the most considerable
stream in the Eastern valley, were used by the
first settlers in a small way for irrigation. The
method in use then was to build a temporary
toma or dam across the stream and divert the
water into an open ditch. What was not lost
by seepage into the sands, diverted into gopher
holes or taken up by evaporation reached the
land to be irrigated. If the ditch was of any
considerable length not more than twenty-five
per cent of the water taken out of the creek or
river reached its destination.
The Redlands Water Company was organized
October 27, 1881, with a capital stock of $1,500,-
OOO, divided into 1,500 shares. This was the
first regularly incorporated company in the East
San Bernardino valley. There had been a num-
ber of associations and companies formed in ir-
rigation districts previous to this—some of these
incorporated later. The principal supply for
Redlands comes from the Domestic Water Com-
pany organized in January, 1887. The principal
source of supply for this system comes from the
Bear Valley reservoir, the Santa Ana river and
Mill creek. One of the most potent influences in
bringing settlers to Redlands through the dissem-
ination of information about the city and valley
is the Redlands Board of Trade. The first board
Spadra settlement and Cucamonga.
was organized in February, 1888. It did excel-
lent service, but the supporting of the institution
was a heavy tax on the Small population and
about 1890 the board ceased its exertions. De-
cember II, 1893, a Chamber of Commerce was
organized. The Chamber of Commerce after
two or three years of active service went out of
business. Early in 1899 the Redlands Board of
Trade was organized. Since it came into exist-
ence it has been a most efficient agent in building.
up the city. It maintains a permanent exhibit,
sends out descriptive literature and answers thou-
sands of letters of inquiry.
Redlands quite early in its history became fa-
mous for the fine quality of its citrus fruits. It
still maintains its reputation for superiority in
the production of oranges.
In less than two decades Redlands has grown
from an inchoate straggling settlement of a few
houses to a substantial and progressive city of
ten thousand inhabitants.
ONTARIO AND UPLAND.
Nearly forty years ago the author of this his-
tory first passed over what is now the site of On-
tario—the “model colony.” The most common
means of conveyance then was the deck of a
mustang. There was no monopoly of lines of
travel then, no cut rates of fare—no reduction
for round trips. The only line of travel between
Los Angeles and San Bernardino was the old
Camino Real (road or highway) that Captain
Anza surveyed in 1774. The principal means of a
travel between local points was the mustang;
and a man was poor indeed who did not own a
horse and saddle. At the time of my first visit
there was not a human habitation between the
The future
site of the “Model Colony” was sprinkled here
and there with clumps of Sage brush and grease
wood. At intervals were stretches of short grass
that afforded scant pasturage for bands of sheep.
The solitary and stolid sheep herder, day after
day, followed his band as they nibbled the scant
herbage; and always in the trail of the sheep
crept the stealthy coyote on the watch to snatch
a stray lamb from the flock. The shepherd and
his Nemesis, the coyote, were the only inhabi-
452
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
tants forty years ago of that expanse where now
the “golden orange glows.”
Ontario was founded by George B. Chaffey,
Jr., and W. M. B. Chaffey, who came from On-
tario, Canada, and located at Riverside. Here
they engaged in buying and selling land. Their
first purchase was what was known as the “San
Antonio lands,” being a part of the Cucamonga
grant and comprising 6,216 acres of land, “to-
gether with the water right and privileges of
San Antonio creek and the waste water of Cu-
camonga creek.” These lands extended from
San Antonio cañon on the north to the Ranch
del Chino on the south ; and from Cucamonga on
the east to the Rancho San José on the west.
The purchase price was $60,000. The land was
bought in April, 1882. The Chaffey Brothers
immediately set about improving their tract. The
land was surveyed by J. C. Dunlap. That ad-
joining the Southern Pacific Railroad was di-
vided into town lots, adjoining these were sub-
urban lots of two and a half and five acres. The
remainder was cut into ten and twenty acre tracts.
The water was conveyed in cement pipes from
San Antonio creek to the town site and to the
various subdivisions.
Twenty acres were donated for an agricult-
ural college. March 17, 1883, was a gala day
for Ontario. The corner-stone of the college
was laid on that day. Excursion trains were run
from Los Angeles and from Colton and San
Bernardino. Conveyances of all kinds, ancient
and modern, from the country round about gath-
ered at the railroad siding (that the Chaffeys
themselves had built) to convey the passengers
by train to a beautiful mesa near the mouth of
San Antonio cañon, seven miles away, where
under live-oak trees a bountiful repast had been
spread. After dinner the visitors were con-
veyed to the college site where with appropriate
services the corner-stone was laid. Improve-
ments were pushed rapidly. Additional lands
were purchased by the Chaffeys.
The fame of the “Model Colony,” as it was
called, spread abroad and settlers flocked to it.
The Ontario postoffice was established in March,
1883, and a public school in March, 1884.
The business houses kept pace with the growth
of the colony. The pioneer newspaper, the On-
tario Record was started, December 13, 1885, by
E. P. Clark. The college was opened the same
year, Professor Wheeler and Miss Blount
teachers. A college building built of brick had
been erected at a cost of $20,000. In 1886 ad-
ditional lands were purchased on the south side
and the colony area extended. The completion
of the Santa Fe Railroad in 1887, which passed
through the central part of the colony lands, cre-
ated another town known until recently as North
Ontario, now Upland.
The Bedford Brothers bought 200 acres. This
was subdivided into lots and put on sale in May,
1887. The lots went off like the metaphorical
hot cakes. A town grew up around the station
and rivalry grew between the north and the
South.
One of the unique features of the Ontario
Colony is Euclid avenue, named for the famous
Euclid avenue of Cleveland, Ohio. It is two
hundred feet wide and extends from the South-
ern Pacific Railroad to San Antonio cañon—sev-
en miles up grade. On each side of the avenue
were planted shade trees and in the middle two
rows dividing the avenue into two broad drive-
ways and a right of way for street cars in the
middle. A street car line was built up the av-
enue. When the road was put in operation a
span of mules pulled the car up the grade. At
the summit the mules stepped on a platform and
rode back to the town. The car rolled down
the long grade without any propelling power ex-
cept gravity. At one of the great citrus fairs
a model of the gravity car done in oranges was
Ontario's exhibit. In November, 1891, Ontario
was incorporated as a city of the sixth class.
In 1900 the incorporation was extended over an
area of twelve square miles. Ontario is emi-
nently a fruit colony. Its citrus fruits have a
high reputation in the eastern markets. Its
Oranges and lemons are marketed through as-
sociations. Ontario is well provided with schools.
The Chaffey College, as it was usually called,
failed through want of an endowment. The
building is now used for a high school. It is well
supplied with churches. All the leading religious
denominations have church buildings.
Ontario's library was established in 1886, and
made free to the public in March, 1902. Its an-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
453
nual income from taxation is $1,500. It has
on its shelves 3,000 volumes. The town pur-
chased a lot 92x125 feet. Andrew Carnegie
donated $10,000 for the erection of a building.
The building is now in the course of erection.
Upland was formerly known as North Ontario.
A village had grown up around the Santa Fe
station and Magnolia Villa hotel was built in
1888. In 1902 the county supervisors in response
to a petition from the citizens changed the name
to Upland. Later the names of the station and
postoffice were changed to Upland. The town
has a park, six packing houses, a newspaper and
several stores. Upland has a public library es-
tablished in 1900. The total number of its vol-
umes is 600.
CHINO.
What is known as the Chino rancho is com-
posed of two Mexican grants, the Santa Ana del
Chino and the Addition to Santa Ana del Chino.
The first, containing 22,234 acres, was granted
to Don Antonio Maria Lugo, March 26, 1841 ;
the addition was granted to Col. Isaac Williams,
a son-in-law of Don Antonio's, April I, I843.
Williams purchased the Rancho del Chino from
his father-in-law Lugo and added it to his own
grant, thus giving him a magnificent holding of
35,6OO acres.
The word “Chino” in Spanish is defined Chin-
ese, “a half-breed Indian ;” it also seems to have
had a provincial meaning—“curly headed.” Tra-
dition says that the rancho received its suffix
“del Chino” (of the Chino) from the fact that
Lugo's mayor-domo (overseer) was a curly
headed half-breed Indian.
Colonel Williams built a house on his rancho
which Robinson in his “Life in California” pro-
nounces “the most spacious building of its kind
in the country.” -
The Chino rancho was the scene of many
stirring events in the history of California. These
are narrated in other parts of this history. Col-
onel Williams died in 1856, and his landed es-
tate descended to his two daughters—Maria
Merced, who married John Rains, and Fran-
cesca, who married Robert Carlisle. Both hus-
bands met violent deaths. John Rains was way-
laid and assassinated on the public road near the
block.
Cucamonga in 1863, and Robert Carlisle was
killed in an altercation with the King Brothers
in the Bella Union hotel, Los Angeles, July 5,
1865. After the death of Carlisle the rancho
passed through several hands and in 1881 was
purchased by Richard Gird. By subsequent pur-
chases of adjoining lands he increased his hold-
ings to 47,000 acres. Mr. Gird used the rancho
several years for stock-raising. The year of the
great real-estate boom (1887) he had 23,000
acres of the rancho surveyed into ten-acre tracts
and laid out a town site a mile square. g
He built a narrow gauge railroad to Ontario
and improved his town by building a large brick
The pioneer newspaper, The Chino
Champion, began publication November II, 1887.
Artesian wells were struck. These gave a plen-
tiful supply of water for irrigation and domestic
use and the town and settlement made rapid ad-
vance. The soil was found to be well adapted to
the cultivation of the sugar beet. In 1891 the
Oxnard Brothers began the erection of the Chino
Beet Sugar Factory. The factory was completed
in August of the same year. The raising of
sugar beets gave the farmers a new industry,
which proved quite remunerative.
In 1896 the Southern Pacific Railroad pur-
chased the narrow gauge road to Pomona and
later made this its main line through Chino to
Ontario. November 25, 1894, all the unsold
land of the rancho and its additions, amounting
to 41,000 acres, was sold to Charles H. Phillips
of San Luis Obispo for $1,600,000. In 1896
these lands were again sold to an English syndi-
cate. The land is on the market in small tracts.
Chino has a population of about I,8OO, and is
steadily growing. -
RIALTO.
The town of Rialto was born in the year of
the boom, 1887. The Semi-Tropic Land & Water
Company purchased of Henry Pierce and others
28,000 acres and secured water rights in Lytle
creek to the amount of 800 inches. A cemented
ditch six miles long was constructed to convey
the water to the land. The land was subdivided
into tracts ranging from five to twenty acres and
sold to settlers at a reasonable price.
The Semi-Tropic Land & Water Company
454
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
failed and in a foreclosure suit lost all its posses-
Sions, which passed into the hands of the San
Francisco Savings Union. After several
changes of ownership the lands and water rights
became vested in the Fontana Development Com-
pany. An organization known as the Kansas
Colony purchased 16,000 acres of the Semi-
Tropic Company and founded the town of Rialto.
The Kansas Colony was unable to meet its ob-
ligations and lost its lands. Some of those who
had bought lands paid out for them and secured
titles. A considerable portion of the Semi-Trop-
ic's purchase has been set to citrus fruits and
the town and settlement are prosperous. There
are several business blocks in the town and a
number of fine residences.
HIGFILAND.
The town of Highland is the business center
of a belt of mesa land lying along the southern
base of the San Bernardino mountains. This dis-
trict is divided into Highland, East Highlands
and West Highlands.
Although there were a few settlers in this
district fifty years ago no permanent improve-
ments were made until the early '70s. The one
thing needful to build up a district in Southern
California—water for irrigation—could not be
brought upon the land without an outlay of capi-
tal beyond the means of the early settlers. Ex-
periments made in a small way demonstrated
that the land in the Highland district was well
suited to the production of citrus fruits. During
the '80s the water resources were developed.
Orange and lemon trees were extensively planted,
and the Highland district increased rapidly in
population. g
In 1891 the citizens by subscription raised
$10,000 to secure a right of way for the Santa
Fe Railway. The road was built from San Ber-
nardino through Highland, East Highlands and
West Highlands to Redlands and forms a part of
the famous “kite-shaped track.” The San Ber-
nardino Valley Traction Company in 1903 built
an electric line from Redlands through Highland
to San Bernardino.
Highland is one of the youngest towns of San
Bernardino county. It has made a vigorous
growth. It has all the conveniences of a town
twice its age, a bank, hotels, stores, churches,
telegraph and telephone service, library, schools
and a newspaper, the Highland Messenger.
East Highlands has a School, store, postoffice
and several packing houses. The Brookings
Lumber & Box Company is the most extensive
manufacturing establishment in the Highland
district. Its sawmill at Fredalba and a large
amount of lumber were destroyed recently in a
mountain fire. The mill will be rebuilt. The
company’s output of lumber has reached as high
as ten millions feet in a single year, over fifty
per cent of which is made into boxes. The com-
pany owns five thousand acres of timber land
on the San Bernardino mountains. West High-
lands has a postoffice named Del Rosa (of the
Rose) a school house and a store.
CU CAMONGA.
The Cucamonga rancho has been famous in
California history for more than half a century.
It was the first outpost of civilization in Cali-
fornia that the immigrants by the Salt Lake route
found prior to the Mormon settlement of San
Bernardino. Its wines have spread its fame over
the continent.
The Cucamonga Homestead Association sub-
divided a portion of the rancho and put it on
sale in ten and twenty acre tracts. The scheme
was a failure; there was not sufficient water for
irrigation. The Cucamonga Fruit & Land Com-
pany was organized in 1887. A town site was
laid out at the old winery and a settlement
formed there. Originally grapes were the only
product of Cucamonga, but of late years a num-
ber of orange groves have been planted.
ETIWANDA.
Etiwanda is one of the Chaffey Brothers col-
onies. In January, 1887, the Chaffeys purchased
7,600 acres of the Cucamonga plains and I,OOO
acres of the Garcia property, together with what
water rights it possessed.
They organized the Etiwanda Water Com-
pany with a capital stock of $500,000. Later the
Chaffeys organized The California Land Im-
provement Company, to which they deeded their
land. The lands were sold in small tracts. The
cultivation of the raisin grape was at first al-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
455
most the exclusive industry of the colony, later
on lemon and orange groves were planted.
IOAMOSA.
The word Ioamosa is a mongrel, part Spanish
and part imported Indian. The “Io” is taken
from the first syllables of Iowa, and “mosa”
from the Spanish word Hermosa. The “a” is
presumably thrown in for euphony in such a
lingual mixture.
Hermosa settlement was begun in 1881 by a
Pasadena syndicate which formed the Hermosa
Land & Water Company. Water rights were se-
cured in Deer creek and Alder creek and the
water brought on the land and four shares of
water stock assigned to each acre.
The Iowa colony secured 500 acres of the old
Cucamonga homestead in 1883. The union of
the two settlements accounts for the amalgamated
name Ioamosa. Fruit culture is the principal in-
dustry of the colony.
|BARSTOW.
Barstow, formerly Waterman, is a railroad
town situated at the junction of the Southern
California and Santa Fe system proper. It has
an elevation of 1900 feet. Thé climate is clear
and dry. It has considerable trade with the
mines. The project of building the Victor res-
ervoir, which will bring a large area of the so-
called desert under cultivation, has revived inter-
est in Barstow as a prospective agricultural
district.
THE NEEDLES.
The Needles is the chief metropolis of San
Bernardino's portion of the Colorado desert. It
is located at the point where the Santa Fe Rail-
road enters California. It takes its name from
a number of spire-shaped rocks near it, which
were so named by Lieutenant Ives in 1857, when
lie explored a railroad route on the thirty-fifth
parallel. A railroad station was located at the
crossing in 1883, when the bridge over the Col-
Orado was completed. A railroad eating house
was built for passengers and employes. Frank
Monaghan, who had been a conductor on the
Southern Pacific road, and Dan Murphy opened
a small store. The desert station gradually grew
into a town. It is the headquarters of one of the
divisions of the Santa Fe system which absorbed
the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. In 1888 Dr.
J. P. Booth and F. H. Harberd started a news-
paper and named it Our Bagoo. In 1891 the title
was changed to The Needles Eye. *
The Needles contains a number of business
houses, two hotels and several manufacturing es-
tablishments. The Santa Fe has a large round-
house here and its repair shops. The town has
considerable trade with the mining camps con-
tiguous to it. It claims a population of 2,500
Souls.
CHAPTER LXVI.
VENTURA
included in Ventura county was part of
Santa Barbara county, and the early
history of that part properly belongs in that coun-
ty. Its history in the Spanish and Mexican eras
centers around the Mission of San Buenaven-
tura. There was but little settlement beyond the
immediate vicinity of the mission. The country
after the secularization of the mission was held
in Santa Barbara city or in Los Angeles. These
ranchos were managed by mayor-domos. There
| NOR twenty-two years the territory now
county.
was no opportunity for small settlers to get a
foothold. -
Two roads led up the coast from the pueblo
of Los Angeles in early times. One of them
el camino viejo (the old road) was via Cahuenga
pass to Encino, from Encino to Las Virgenes,
from Las Virgenes to Trumfo, and from Trum-
fo to San Buenaventura; the other, from Los
Angeles by Cahuenga or Verdugos to San Fer-
nando and thence to San Buenaventura. Com-
ing together as they did at the old mission made
456
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
the little settlement there an important station
in the travel up and down the coast in the days
when the mustang was the chief means of trans-
portation. Like Jordan, they were hard roads to
travel. By the shortest road, that via the En-
cino, the distance between the mission and the
pueblo was seventy miles, yet the wiry mustang
and his tireless rider could easily make the jour-
ney in a day.
Although surrounded by a magnificent cattle
country there was but little shipping from its
port in the hide droghing days. Dana, Robinson
and others who were on the coast at that time
make but meager mention of it. The cattle of
its extensive ranchos transported their own hides
and tallow to the market, that is, they were driven
to some point near Santa Barbara or San Pedro
for slaughter.
The old mission figured in the Civil war of
1838, when Juan Bautista Alvarado and Don
Carlos Carrillo were hostile rivals for the gov-
ernorship of the territory. The battle of San
Buenaventura was the Waterloo of Carrillo. It
was not much of a battle, as battles were fought
in the American Civil war from 1861 to 1865,
but it was the most sanguinary conflict in the
struggle between Northern and Southern Cali-
fornia over the question of which, Los Angeles
or Monterey, should be the capital, and who, Al-
varado or Carrillo, should be governor.
Castefiada, in command of Carrillo's army of
the south, had fallen back from Santa Barbara
on the approach of Castro with the army of the
north and taken position in the mission church
of San Buenaventura. Castro pursuing, with
three pieces of artillery, reached San Buenaven-
tura in the night and planted his cannon on the
heights overlooking the mission. In the morn-
ing he summoned Castefiada to surrender. The
summons was indignantly rejected, and the bat-
tle was on. For three days there was a rattle of
musketry and a roar of artillery. Each supposed
he was annihilating the forces of the other. On
the third night the southern soldiers, weary of
slaughter, attempted to steal out under the cover
of darkness and make their way to their desolate
homes. They did the stealing part admirably,
but when they had crawled out they were prompt-
ly halted by the enemy lying in ambush; and as
promptly surrendered. After the battle came
the painful duty of burying the dead and car-
ing for the wounded—a dead southerner and a
wounded northerner, or possibly the reverse (au-
thorities differ). The mission building had re-
ceived several severe wounds. Castro's marks-
men could hit a mission, but not a man. It is
said that there are several of Castro's cannon
balls still embedded in the adobe walls of the
old mission. The battle of San Buenaventura
was the Gettysburg of the Civil war between the
arribanos (uppers) and the abajanos (lowers).
At the time of the American conquest there
was not, So far as known, an American settler in
San Buenaventura. Colonel Stevenson, when he
was commander of the military district of the
South, in 1847–48, sent Isaac Callahan and W.
O. Streeter to take charge of the mission prop-
erty, which had been abandoned by the super-
intendent. After the organization of Santa Bar-
bara county the San Buenaventura district con-
stituted a township of that county. In Novem-
ber, 1852, an election was called to elect three
School commissioners for the township of San
Buenaventura, but whether any were elected the
records do not show. The boundaries, as de-
fined in 1855, are as follows: “First township to
extend from the division line of Los Angeles
county to the Arroyo known as Arroyo del Rin-
con. The election shall be held at the Mission
San Buenaventura.” The boundaries of the
school district were the same as those of the
township. The school trustees elected in No-
vember, 1855, were José A. Pacifico and Sanchez
Rey Olivas.
In December, 1855, John Roselli was teach-
ing a public school at the mission of San Buena-
ventura. The school was taught in the Spanish
language. This was probably the first common
School taught in the district and the pioneer
school of Ventura county. -
In 1857 A. Schiappa Pietra, than a resident of
Santa Barbara, started the first store in San
Buenaventura. At that time there were but two
places in the whole district where travelers could
be entertained. One was a tent on the Sespe
rancho and the other a hotel kept in the east
wing of the mission. In 1858 the American resi-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
457
dents were A. M. Conway, Griffin Robbins, W.
T. Nash, W. D. Hobson, McLaughlin and Park.
In 1859 the first attempt was made to form a
county out of the eastern portion of Santa Bar-
bara. A petition containing I30 names was sent
to the legislature praying for the formation of
the county of San Buenaventura.
The Los Angeles Star of January 29, 1859,
commenting on the project says: “We might,
however, have remained silent, had not the in-
terests of Los Angeles county been brought into
the question. Our informant stated to us that
we are to be deprived of Fort Tejon township;
and that according to the petition it was to be
incorporated into the new county, giving to us
the rancho of Conejo or some other place almost
entirely valueless in exchange. It is an old
maxim not only taught by the fireside, but
spread upon every statute book, that he who
takes from another without his consent is guilty
of robbery. And he who assists in such an act
is equally guilty with the leaders. Has Los An-
geles county been consulted in this matter? We
are certain it has not. Has Tejon district been
asked if it would accede to it? We find no one
can answer. San Buenaventura then would like
to control not only the 130 persons who are said
to have signed the petition, but also the board of
supervisors of Santa Barbara county and the
like body of Los Angeles county. Don Antonio
de La Guerra, chairman of the board of super-
visors of Santa Barbara, immediately on hearing
of the movement, ordered the clerk of the coun-
ty to send the representatives of the county in
the legislature and the senator of the second
district a comparative statement of the number of
votes the would-be new county could cast; the
pro rata amount of debt they would have to as-
sume; and requesting these representatives to
show to the legislative body the folly of the un-
dertaking.” The Star assures its readers that
our delegation in the legislature will see to it
that no “snap judgment” is taken by these plot-
ters for a new county.
It is rather strange that this county division
project did not carry in that legislature. The
legislature of 1859 was a secession body. It
passed a bill dividing the state and creating the
state of Colorado, subject to the approval
of the people and congress. At an elec-
tion held in the fall of 1859 the proposi-
tion was voted upon by the counties of San
Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, San
Diego, San Bernardino and Buena Vista. A
large majority of the voters favored division,
but state division failed. Congress took no ac-
tion on the scheme to form a new state or terri-
tory out of California. Nothing came of the
county division scheme, either.
In 1860 there were but nine American voters
in the precinct of San Buenaventura. The first
survey of a town site was made in 1862, by Wat-
erman, Vassault & Co., who owned the ex-mis-
sion lands. The first attempt to incorporate the
town was made in 1863. Messrs. Simpson, Bee-
be, Stow, Escandon and others met at the hotel
kept by V. A. Simpson and drew up a petition
to the legislature asking for incorporation. The
legislature, probably considering it too small a
matter to waste time on, did nothing with the
petition.
The Noachian deluge of 1861-62 made an in-
land sea of the Santa Clara valley, but did very
little damage. The cattle and horses escaped to
the foothills and the loss of stock was light. Dur-
ing the famine years of 1863 and 1864 there was
a heavy loss of cattle. The dry years, however,
did not bring about a subdivision of the ranchos
as in Los Angeles. The ranchos were restocked
gradually and the old industry, cattle-raising,
continued for a time.
The flood of 1867-68 was more severe than
that of 1861. “On Christmas day, 1867, the
water rose until it was three feet deep in Main
street of San Buenaventura. The lower por-
tions of the town were submerged and the in-
habitants had to be removed to a place of safety.
The warm rain falling on and melting the re-
cently deposited snows of the mountains filled
the rivers to overflowing and caused the flood.
The land from the Santa Clara hotel to the river
was flooded. Forty-seven women were rescued
from the flooded houses and carried on the backs
of horses or on the shoulders of men to places of
safety.”
In 1868 the current of immigration, which for
years had steadily flowed into Central and
Northern California, turned southward. The
458
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
subdivision of the great ranchos of the south had
begun and cheap farm lands were thrown on the
market. Successive years of abundant rainfall
had obliterated the traces of the “famine years.”
Prices of all products were good and men of
Small means in Central California, who had made
money by grain-raising on rented lands, began
to look around for homes of their own. The
completion of the first transcontinental railroad
(the Union and Central Pacific) in May, 1869,
brought many home-seekers to the coast and
some of these drifted southward.
The coast stage line had been established in
1868 on a better basis, and with increased serv-
ice, running on regular time, attracted land
travel. Heretofore travel up and down the coast
had been almost entirely by steamer; and as the
large passenger Steamers did not stop at San
Buenaventura, it had remained comparatively
unknown. The stage passengers, coming down
from the mountains on their journey northward
or, rising as it were out of the sea on their south-
ward trip, beheld stretched out before them the
valley of the Santa Clara in all its loveliness and
were delighted with the view and enthusiastic
over the country’s future prospects.
The following table of distances and stations
gives the line of the old stage route between Los
Angeles, San Buenaventura and Santa Barbara
in I868:
From Los Angeles to Cahuenga Pass
House
tº º e º e º e s tº e s m e º e is e º e º 'º a
93.4 miles
To New Station . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5%
To Mountain House (Larry's) . . . . I5% “
To Simi Ranch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 834 “
To Las Posas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I2 ( *
To Santa Clara River . . . . . . . . . . . . IO & 4
To San Buenaventura . . . . . . . . . . . . 834
To Rincon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I2 & S
To Santa Barbara . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I5 & S
tº g ſº tº it tº # * * * * * * * * g º º tº $ tº gº &
98% miles
The stage, which carried the daily mail, left
Los Angeles at 6 A. M. and arrived at 8 P. M.
The through time from San Francisco to Los
Angeles by stage was 66 hours. The following
extract taken from Josephine Clifford’s “Tropical
California,” a series of articles descriptive of the
coast counties from San Luis Obispo southward,
published in the “Overland Monthly” several
years before Nordhoff's famous letters appeared,
gives a pleasing description of the stage ride and
of San Buenaventura as she saw it in 1870:
“The regrets I expressed on leaving Santa
Barbara came from my heart; it is a lovely spot,
and even when I went from it I could not but
lean out of the window to catch departing
glimpses of it as it faded more and more from
sight. The stage road winds along by the sea;
the Sun was shining, golden, as it seems ever to
Shine on these Serene, blue ripples of water, and
there was something so quieting in the soft
plashing of the waves against the shore that I
laid my head back and, with open eyes, dreamed
—dreamed till I fell asleep, and was waked up
again by the Sound of water rushing immediately
under the coach. I looked out in bewilderment;
it was true, the horses were drawing the coach
through the foaming, flashing waves. The other
passengers expressed no concern; SO I, too, re-
mained quiet, and soon found that this was the
pleasantest way of traveling along the coast.
“Twenty-five miles below Santa Barbara lies
San Buenaventura, another old mission, around
which quite a flourishing place has sprung up.
The flimsy, garish frame houses have crowded
themselves in where the olive, the palm, and the
fig-tree once grew in unbroken lines; but now
only patches of ground, covered with giant pear
trees and huge olives, are visible back of the
fast-growing town. Passing through in the
broad, positive light of noonday, I could look on
these things philosophically and with equanim-
ity; but on my way back from Los Angeles some
time later, in the chill hours of the waning night,
the sight of the place made me feel sad, almost
bitter. Night had not yet lifted her mantle from
the earth as the stage rolled heavily toward San
Buenaventura, and the roar of the ocean fell on
my ear with hollow sound. Soon I distinguished
the bell towers of the Mission Church, and the
tinkling of the bells, just touched, had a feeble,
complaining tone; now we turn into the One long
street of San Buenaventura, and in the darken-
ing halls, the clerk of the hotel shows me into
a cheerless room, upstairs. I walk to the win-
dow—to the rising light—and there, in the yard
Pelow are those peerless, graceful palm trees I
saw waving and bending in the dim distance.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
459
How pitiful, to see these neglected daughters of
the torrid zone lifting their royal shafts among
the stove pipes and empty dry goods boxes of a
country store back yard. I stretched out my
hands lovingly, and they nodded their proud
heads, and flung their arms to the morning
breeze, pointing to where those clusters of dark
olives stood. But it grows lighter, the stage is at
the door, and bears us rapidly away. In the far
east breaks the cold gray morning—those Amer-
icans’ are coming !”
And “those Americans” continued to come;
the “garish frame houses” crowded out the adobe
structures. The age of wood supplanted the age
of unbaked clay, and in turn was crowded back
from the business streets by brick and stone.
The “clusters of dark olives” have been thinned
by the woodman's ax and but two of the palms
nod their proud heads in the morning breeze.
And still “those Americans are coming,” not by
stage, but by steam. -
Mrs. Clifford's description of a night ride over
the mountains between San Buenaventura and
Los Angeles illustrates some of the perils and
inconveniences of travel a third of a century ago:
“We had been ascending the mountains for Some
time, when, during a breathing spell given the
borses, the sharp, decided rattle that seems pe-
culiar to just these stages, sounded back to us
from somewhere above, as though it were the
echo of our own wheels. The driver listened a
moment, and then broke out with an abrupt Oath,
for which he didn’t even apologize. ‘D that
fellow ! But I’ll make him take the outside,' he
muttered. “What's the matter?' I asked, appre-
hensively; “anything wrong?’ ‘Oh, no!' with a
look over to my side of the road where the light
of the lanterns fell on the trees that grew up
out of the mountain side below us, and were
trying to touch the wheels of our coach with
their top branches—'nothing at all. Only he's
got to take that side of the road and take his
chances of going over. He’d no business com-
ing on me here.' The rattling had come nearer
all this time and now a light flashed up a little
in front of us and directly a fiery, Steaming mon-
ster seemed rushing down to destroy us. The
air had grown chilly and the horses in the ap-
proaching stage seemed to have cantered down
the mountain at quite a lively gait, for the white
steam was issuing from their nostrils and rising
in clouds from their bodies. The six gallant
horses, reined up short and stamping nervously
to be let loose for the onward run, were a noble
sight; and the heavy coach, with its two gleam-
ing eyes, was grandly swaying in its springs.
Our own horses were blowing little impatient
puffs from distended nostrils, and our coach
drawn safely up on the rocky hillside. Both
drivers stopped to exchange the compliments of
the day—or, rather, the night—our driver speak-
ing in crusty tones, and, pointing down to where
the road fell off steep and precipitous below him,
warned the other driver ‘not to run ahead of his
time again.’ -
“There was nothing remarkable about the sup-
per we took that night except the bats that kept
coming in at the front door in a perfectly free-
and-easy manner, swarming about our heads till
they thought they knew us, and then settling in
their favorite nooks and corners. Noticing my
untiring endeavors to prevent them from inspect-
ing my head and face too closely, the station
keeper observed that people were ‘most always
afraid of them things when they first come,’ but
that they ‘needn't fright of them; they wouldn't
hurt nobody.” The rest of the night was passed
inside the stage, though of sleep there was no
thought, such jolting and jumping over rocks
and boulders; I ache all over to think of it even
now ! Just before daybreak we entered the City
of the Angels.” < * *
San Buenaventura became ambitious to be
classed as a seaport. In January, 1871, a fran-
chise was secured to build a wharf; work was
begun upon it in March; and in February, 1872,
it was so near completion that steamers were able
to discharge their cargoes directly on it. The
next advance was the establishing of a news-
paper. April 22, 1871, appeared the first number
of the Ventura Signal. The editor and proprie-
tor, J. H. Bradley, was a wide-awake, progress-
ive newspaper man. He directed his efforts to-
wards building up the prospective county. He
was an earnest and intelligent advocate of county
division and labored to organize and unify public
sentiment in favor of that measure.
460
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
ORGANIZATION OF THE NIEW COUNTY.
After the failure of the attempt to divide Santa
Barbara county in 1859, the scheme fell into a
state of “innocuous desuetude.” It was not given
up; only held in abeyance. The people were
biding their time. There were abundant reasons
why the people of the eastern portion of Santa
Barbara should have a county of their own when
they could afford the expense. It was a long
distance to the county seat and the journey had
to be made over roads that were next to im-
passable in the winter time. The western and
more populous part of the county monopolized
the Offices; and the most harrowing grievance
that the average American office-seeker can suf-
fer is to have his claims to political preferment
ignored by his party. Then, too, Santa Barbara
city, which really dominated the politics of the
county, had a large purchasable element among
the voters, which, under the leadership of and
controlled by crafty politicians, decided the po-
litical destiny of aspirants for office on a coin
basis. The advocates of a new county pointed
to the many and grievous wrongs against the
right of suffrage committed by the political
bosses of Santa Barbara and urged a separation
from their contaminating influence. Examples
were many.
It is said that at one time political feeling ran
so high a whole tribe of Indians were voted. At
another closely contested election the passenger
iist of a Panama steamer was copied and a pre-
cinct of 20 voters rolled up 160 votes. The “hole
in the wall” election fraud of 1852 was one of
the many scandals that shook confidence in the
verdict of the ballot box. At that election the
voter passed his ballot through a hole in the
wall. The election officers, who were all of one
political faith, disposed of the ballots as seemed
good to them. The electors of the other side had
the privilege of voting early and often. If their
votes were not counted, at least they had the sat-
isfaction of casting a goodly number. The reg-
istry law of 1866 checked some of the more fla-
grant abuses, but bribery, coercion and the open
buying of votes went on for several years after-
wards.
Immigration had brought into the eastern end
of Santa Barbara county a population almost
entirely American, and the desire to cut loose
from the western end with its peculiar election
methods increased as population increased. In
1869, ten years after the failure of the first, a sec-
Ond effort to form a new county was made. Hon.
A. G. Escandon was elected to the assembly
largely on a county division issue, but Santa Bar-
bara bitterly opposed the scheme when it came
before the legislature and the bill for the creation
of a new county failed to pass.
In the legislature of 1871-72 the measure again
came to the front. Hon. W. D. Hobson, who
represented the county divisionists in the legis-
lature, was successful in carrying the measure.
The bill creating the county of Ventura was ap-
proved March 22, 1872. The boundaries of the
county are as follows: “Commencing on the
coast of the Pacific Ocean at the mouth of Rincon
creek; thence following up the center of said
creek to its source; thence due north to the boun-
dary line of Santa Barbara county; thence in an
easterly direction along the boundary line of
Santa Barbara county to the northeast corner of
the same; thence southerly along the line be-
tween the said Santa Barbara county and Los
Angeles county to the Pacific Ocean and three
miles therein; thence in a northerly direction to
a point due south and three miles distant from
the mouth of Rincon creek; thence north to the
point of beginning; and including the islands of
Anacapa and San Nicolas.”
The bill provided for the appointment of five
commissioners to effect a county organiation.
Early in January the governor appointed Thomas
R. Bard, S. Bristol, W. D. F. Richards, A. G.
Escandon and C. W. Thacker.
A special election was called for February 25,
1873, to elect county and township officers. The
total vote cast was 608 and the following were
declared elected :
J. Marion Brooks . . . . . . . . . . . . district attorney
F. Molleda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . county clerk
Frank Peterson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . sheriff
John Z. Barnett . . . . . . . . . . . . . . county assessor
E. A. Edwards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . county treasurer
C. J. De Merritte . . . . . . . . . . . . county surveyor
F. S. S. Buckman. . . . . . . county sup’t of schools
Dr. C. L. Bard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . coroner .
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
461
The supervisors were James Daly of the first
district, a hold-over from Santa Barbara; J. A.
Conaway of the second; and C. W. Thacker of
the third district. All the officers except the cor-
oner were Democrats. The coroner had no op-
position or he, too, would have been over-
whelmed by the Democratic tidal wave. Pablo
de la Guerra was the district judge of the second
district—San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and
Ventura. Milton Wasson was county judge.
Frank Molleda, county clerk, died a few weeks
after his election and S. M. W. Easley was ap-
pointed to fill the vacancy. The officers having
all qualified and filed their bonds, the county of
Ventura opened for business March I4, 1873.
The offices of the county officials, except that of
the treasurer, were located in a rented building
On the corner of Main and Palm streets in what
was known as Spear's hall. San Buenaventura
owned a jail and this was used jointly by the
town and the county until the county jail was
built. A plat for a court house Square in the
old mission orchard was deeded to the county
by Bishop Amat; and in 1873 bonds were issued
to the amount of $6,000 by the county; the town
donating $4,000 for the purpose of building a
court house and jail. The project of building a
court house in San Buenaventura aroused the op-
position of other towns ambitious to be the
county seat (particularly Saticoy and Hueneme),
and a court house war was on with all its bitter-
ness. The court house, nevertheless, was built
among the century-old olives in the mission gar-
den; and, although the mutterings of the dis-
contented towns were heard for years afterwards,
it availed them nothing. It is not probable that
any one of the aspirants of early days will ever
become the seat of county government. The
main building of the court house was completed
in 1874; a wing was added in 1878, and in 1884
four rooms were added to the west end.
During the years of 1872 and 1873 business
was active in San Buenaventura and throughout
the county. New buildings were going up, prop-
erty changing hands, and the old town, after its
sleep of a century, awoke from its lotus dream of
ease to find itself metamorphosed from a sleepy,
half-Indian, half-Mexican hamlet to a bustling,
wide-awake, progressive American town.
CHAPTER LXVII.
VENTURA COUNTY-Continued.
ANNALS OF VENTURA TOWN AND COUNTY.
HE colony form of settlement which was
T very popular in Southern California dur-
ing the decade between 1870-1880 did not
reach or, at least, did not find lodgment in Ven-
tura county. The county was off the line of rail-
road travel then, and the line of passenger Steam-
ers did not stop at its ports. The seekers for
colony sites preferred locations easily accessible
by railroad or steamer. The county developed
more slowly than its sister counties of the South.
Its development while slower was more perma-
ment. It was not inflated by booms nor depressed
by hard times like some of the adjoining counties.
Early in 1872 San Buenaventura district is-
sued school bonds to the amount of SIO,OOO to
build a new school house. The bonds were sold
and the corner-stone of the building laid Sep-
tember 16, 1872. The number of school census
children in the county in 1872 was 809, of which
323 were in the town of Ventura. .
The year of 1874 was one of abundant rain-
fall; crops were good, prices of grain and stock
high, immigrants were steadily coming and the
city and county were riding on the wave of pros-
perity. The town had grown rapidly. Its popu-
lation was about I,OOO.
The Ventura Library Association was incor-
porated November 23, 1874. The incorporators
were: Milton Wasson, James Daly, C. G. Fin-
ney, L. F. Eastin, G. S. Gilbert, Jr., C. H. Baily,
J. J. Sheridan, T. B. Stepleton and L. C.
462
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Granges. All members paid $5 a year to the sup-
port of the library; those not members were al-
lowed the privilege of drawing books on the pay-
ment of twenty-five cents per month. A room
was secured, and with the proceeds of a fair and
festival was fitted up with shelves and furniture.
Six hundred volumes were bought and the
library opened. . It was kept open until 1878,
when, becoming involved in debt, it was closed.
The library trustees, Messrs. James Daly, M. H.
Gay, C. H. Baily, L. F. Eastin and J. J. Sheri-
dan, made a proposition to the board of town
trustees to transfer the assets of the association
to the town, provided the town trustees would
pay the library indebtedness and agree to levy
a tax for the support of the library in accordance
with the state law providing for a library fund
in incorporated cities and towns. The town
board accepted the proposition and took charge
of the library August 21, 1878. J. F. Newby
was appointed librarian and held the office until
February, 1888. The town owns its own library
building, which is a part of the city hall. New
books are added as means will allow. The library
is in charge of Miss Florence Vandever. The
annual income received from taxation amounts
to $1,000. The total number of volumes now in
the library is 4,750.
In 1875 the town and the county had grown
populous enough to support another newspaper.
J. H. Bradley had done good work with the
Signal, the pioneer newspaper founded in 1871.
He made it a model country newspaper. His
health failed and in 1873 he disposed of his in-
terest in it to E. Shepherd and J. J. Sheridan.
They kept up the early reputation of the paper.
The first number of the Daily Ventura Free
Press was issued November 14, 1875. It was pub-
lished by O. P. Hoddy. The subscription price
of the daily was $8; weekly, $3. In his saluta-
tory, the editor says: “In conducting the Free
Press we shall endeavor to the best of our ability
to be a champion and friend of the people.”
The daily was a four-page, eight-column blanket
sheet. The editor was often driven to despera-
tion to fill his local columns with news items.
The town was small, the people were intent on
their own business and it was the same wearying
round of sameness day after day. At the end
of an uneventful week the editor utters this wail:
“If ever in the publication of a local paper we
were driven to desperation in search of items we
are this week. Not even a dog fight has oc-
curred to relieve the monotony. We have felt
almost justified in placing a man on the watch
for wild geese or sending a reporter to the clam
beds.” -
February 19, 1876, H. G. McLean became pro-
prietor of the daily and weekly Free Press. With
the advent of a rival paper a newspaper war
broke out. There was no scarcity of items after
that. There was perhaps no more news, but
there was more noise. People never quarrel si-
lently. Expletives, hot with wrath or icy with
irony, were hurled back and forth from sanctum
to Sanctum. During the famous More murder
trial the rival papers assailed each other vicious-
ly, the Signal scathingly condemning the murder
and the Free Press excusing it.
The Monumentals, a fire company, was or-
ganized in 1875; B. F. Williams, president; L.
F. Eastin, secretary; and R. G. Surdam, foreman.
The Gas Company was organized the same
year; J. M. Miller, president; L. F. Eastin, sec-
retary. .
February 25, 1876, the steamer Kalorama, 491
tons burden, belonging to the Coast Steamship
Company, was lost. While lying at Wolfson's
wharf, on account of the rough sea, she chafed
against the wharf and was ordered to move out
to the floating buoy. On the way thither her
screw fouled with the mooring rope and left the
vessel at the mercy of the wind, which drove her
ashore. As she lay on the beach her heavy ma-
chinery broke loose in her hull. The loose ma-
chinery and the beating of the waves broke her
to pieces. The loss was estimated at $77,500.
CRIMES.
The first murder in the new county was com-
mitted March 3, 1873. In a dispute over land
boundaries George Hargen shot and killed George
Martin, on the Colonia rancho. Hargen, after
the murder, attempted to escape by flight. He
was followed by some of his neighbors, Over-
taken, arrested and taken back to the scene of
the murder. He was confined in a small house
and closely guarded. An inquest was held on the
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
463
body of Martin and the verdict was that he had
been murdered by Hargen without provocation.
Martin was a peaceable man and a good citizen,
Hargen a quarrelsome and dangerous fellow.
After the inquest, Hargen was taken to a lone
tree on the ranch and hanged. He showed no
penitence for his deed, but expressed himself
glad that he had killed Martin. No effort was
ever made to arrest the vigilantes. It was gen-
erally conceded that Hargen had received his
just deserts.
In 1877 occurred the murder of T. Wallace
More. The excitement, prejudices and political
issue even that arose out of the varying cir-
cumstances connected with the trial of the con-
spirators made this one of the most celebrated
cases in the criminal annals of California. Thom-
as Wallace More, by purchase from the old
California families, had acquired large land hold-
ings in the Santa Clara valley. He and his
three brothers at one time owned a tract thirty-
two miles long, bordering on the Santa Clara
river. Among his purchases was the Sespe
rancho, originally granted to Don Carlos Car-
rillo in 1829. More bought this grant in 1874,
paying in full for six leagues, the amount of
land the grant was supposed to contain. The
United States Land Commission had confirmed
the grant in 1853 for this amount. The United
States, as adverse claimant, appealed the case
to the United States district court. When the
plat was brought into court it was found that
the number of leagues had been changed from
two to six at some time during the existence
of the grant. More, to prevent the whole grant
from being rejected, consented to take two
leagues; the remaining four leagues being gov-
ernment land, was open to settlement and about
forty squatters located on it. Frequent disputes
arose between More and the squatters. The ill
feeling between them was intensified by More
attempting to buy the four leagues from the gov-
ernment under an act passed subsequent to the
rejection.
On the night of the 23rd of March, 1877,
More was sleeping at the ranch house on his
grant. About midnight the barn was discovered
on fire and he and his hired man rushed out to
save the contents of the buildinig. More was
shot down as he came into the light by some
masked men, and while lying on the ground beg-
ging for his life, was riddled with bullets. Sus-
picion fell upon the squatters. To avert it they
held a meeting and some of the murderers were
loudest in their condemnation of it, and passed
resolutions denouncing it and offering their as-
sistance in ferreting out the murderers. Austin
Brom, one of the Sespe settlers, having quar-
reled with Curlee, one of the conspirators, re-
vealed to the administrator of the More estate
the names of those who had conspired to kill
More. As a result of these revelations and some
other evidence obtained by the authorities, F.
A. Sprague, J. S. Churchill, J. F. Curlee, Jesse
M. Jones, Ivory D. Lord, Charles McCart, H.
Cook and J. A. Swanson were arrested. N. H.
Kickerson, chairman of the meeting at which
the resolutions were passed, being on his death
bed, also made some revelations. After the ar-
rest Jesse M. Jones turned state's evidence. On
trial, Sprague and Curlee were found guilty.
Sprague was sentenced to be hanged and Cur-
lee to imprisonment for life. On the trial of
Lord the jury disagreed. When the trial of the
next conspirator was begun, Jones, a weak and
unscrupulous fellow, having evidently been in-
duced to do so by purchase or persuasion, re-
tracted his former evidence and admitted that
he had perjured himself. As it was impossible
to convict without his testimony, the others were
discharged. Sprague's sentence was commuted
to imprisonment for life. Stoneman, when gov- .
ernor, pardoned him. Curlee obtained a new
trial and, the jury disagreeing, his case was final-
ly dismissed. Jones' financial circumstances
were greatly improved by his connection with
the plot.
DISASTERS.
The year 1877 was one of disasters to Ven-
tura, both by sea and land. Two vessels were
wrecked in the bay that year. The brig Crimea,
223 tons’ burden, loaded with lumber, while
made fast to the wharf, parted her cable and was
driven ashore by the heavy northwesterly gale
prevailing at the time. The loss was estimated
at $9,2OO.
December 1, 1877, the brig Lucy Ann, 200
464
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
tons' burden, parted her mooring during a vio-
lent northwester and was broken to pieces. One
life was lost. The vessel was valued at $6,500.
Eighteen hundred and seventy-six was one
of the dreaded dry years. After the almost to-
tal destruction of cattle-raising in the “famine
years” of 1863-64 the sheep industry came to
the front in Southern California. The high
price of wool in the years immediately following
the close of the Civil war, the rapidity with
which sheep multiplied and the small cost of
their maintenance made the business of wool-
growing very profitable. As the agricultural
lands of the valleys were utilized for grain-grow-
ing the ranges were curtailed and the sheep were
crowded back on the mesas and foothills. When
drought came the feed on these was soon ex-
hausted and sheep were dying by thousands. On
the island of Santa Cruz alone 25,000 starved
to death. On the mainland whole droves per-
ished. Some of the owners drove their sheep
to Arizona and Southern Utah and thus saved
a remnant of their flocks. Others, depending on
a late rainfall, delayed their departure until too
late and, attempting to cross the deserts with
their starving bands, lost them all. The dry year
put a temporary check to the prosperity the
county had been enjoying for several years.
PROGRESS.
In 1879 the assessed value of the property of
the county was $3,399,000. The land under cul-
tivation was estimated by the county assessor at
75,000 acres. Of this amount about one-half
was sown in barley; corn came next and wheat
third, the three cereals monopolizing about 60,-
OOO acres of the cultivated lands; while the bean,
now one of the great agricultural staples, only
occupied 1,800 acres, and the sugar beet was
then unknown among the products of the county.
The great flood of 1884 swept down through
the Soledad Cañon and carried the Southern
Pacific Railroad track out of the cañon down the
Santa Clara river to the sea. Out beyond the
mouth of the river for several days during the
flood a great raft made up of bridge timbers,
ties and telegraph poles, the wreckage of the
railroad, was tossed back and forth by the riv-
er current and the breakers. When the flood
Subsided this flotsam was cast on the beach or
carried out to Sea. The Santa Clara river spread
Out Over the valley and for some time rivaled
the Mississippi river during a spring rise. The
flood did but very little damage in Ventura
county.
In 1886 the construction of the coast line of
the Southern Pacific Railroad was begun at
Saugus, a station on the main road from Los
Angeles to San Francisco. Work was pushed
rapidly down the Santa Clara valley, and early
in 1887 the road was completed to San Buena-
ventura. The reaction from the debilitating ef-
fects of the bank failures on the coast, dry years
and low prices of grain did not begin till about
1882; from that on there was a steady advance
in the price of real estate. With the advent of
the railroad in 1887 it went up with a bound.
The real estate agent became very much in evi-
dence. What the town or the county lacked in
actual conditions his vivid imagination supplied.
On every side was evidence of growth and prog-
ress. The magnificent Hotel Rose was built at
a cost of $120,000. To prevent business from
drifting up town too rapidly a syndicate of down-
town property holders built the Anacapa hotel.
Streets were graded, sidewalks laid, a theater
built and the town assumed metropolitan airs.
The railroad reached Santa Barbara in August,
1887, and there it stopped. The halt would not
be long. The gap between the northern and
Southern ends would soon be closed, so the real
estate boomers said. Besides, the Atchison, To-
peka & Santa Fé had surveyed a route from
Santa Monica to San Buenaventura, then up the
river of the same name, crossing the divide to
the Santa Ynez, down its valley and by way of
the Salinas valley and San José to San Francis-
co. Rivalry between the two roads would force
them to hurry up the work. San Buenaventura
On two main lines would become a great
railroad center. But the Santa Fe did not ma-
terialize; the Southern Pacific remained sta-
tionary and the gap was wide open. Hope de-
ferred made the heart of the real-estate agent
sick. The boom subsided and San Buenaven-
tura awoke from a dream to the reality that
she was not a great railroad center.
In 1890 the federal census gave the town a
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
465
population of 3,869, a very healthy growth for
the decade. The population of the county was
Io,071. The total number of school census chil-
dren between five and seventeen was 2,703, of
whom I,962 attended school.
September 1, 1890, the town was lighted by
electricity.
The Ventura County Pioneer Society was or-
ganized September 19, 1891. Dr. C. L. Bard was
made president and L. F. Eastin secretary. The
vice-presidents were John Barry, J. Hobart, K.
P. Grant, Thomas A. Rice and J. A. Conaway.
James Daly was chosen treasurer and A. J. Snod-
grass marshal. All male residents of the coun-
ty, June 2, 1873, were made eligible to mem-
bership. Sixty-two members signed the rolls the
first evening. /
F. S. S. Buckman, the first superintendent of
schools of Ventura county, was assassinated in
San Francisco by a man named Daly. He shot
Buckman in the back, mistaking him for his
(Buckman’s) brother, with whom he had a quar-
rel. Daly was tried, found guilty and sentenced
to the state's prison for life.
December 29, 1891, José de la Rosa, the first
printer to set type in California, died in the town
of Ventura. He brought a printing press and
font of type to Monterey in 1834, and printed
the first book ever issued in California. He was
born in the pueblo of Los Angeles, Old Mexico,
and lacked but eight days of being IO3 years old.
At the time of his death he was the oldest print-
er in the world. On the press he brought was
printed the first newspaper published in Cali-
fornia, the Californian, published by Semple &
Colton, August 15, 1846.
The railroad to Nordhoff was completed in
1892.
July 9, 1895, an election was held to vote up-
on the proposition of bonds to the amount of
$IO6,500 to purchase the property of the Santa
Ana Water Company. The bond issue was car-
ried by a vote of about seven to one in favor. On
the question of issuing bonds in the sum of $23,-
500 to purchase the arc light system of the Ven-
tura Land and Power Company, submitted the
same day, the vote stood six to one in favor. The
proposition to purchase the water system was
afterwards rejected by the town trustees on ac-
count of defective title, so it was claimed.
The number of census children in the county
in 1895 was 3,592. In 1905, 3,979. Two high
Schools had been established, Ventura and San-
ta Paula. Oxnard now has a high school. The
assessed valuation of the county in 1895 was
$8,236,147. It was estimated that the county in
I895 produced 2,600 carloads of beans, valued
at $1, IOO,OOO.
The year 1898 marked the beginning of a new
industry and the introduction of a new agri-
cultural product into the county. The Pacific
Beet Sugar Company erected a sugar factory
and refinery at Oxnard and inaugurated the
cultivation of the sugar beet. Oxnard was
founded in January, 1898. The population of
Ventura county, according to the Federal cen-
sus of 1900, was 14,367, an increase of 4,298 in
ten years, or about thirty per cent; that of San
Buenaventura, 2,470; of St. Paula, I,047; of
Oxnard, I,000.
In 1904 the Chatsworth tunnel was complet-
ed, making a cut-off on the Southern Pacific
Railroad by which a heavy grade was avoided on
the old line.
OTHER TOWNS.
HUENEME.
Hueneme, or Wynema, as the name was for-
merly spelled, is an Indian word meaning a rest-
ing place or place of security, and was so named
by the Indians because in this bay or harbor
they found a resting place from adverse winds.
The town was founded in June, 1870, by W. E.
Barnard, G. S. Gilbert and H. P. Flint. It was
the first town really founded in the district which
later formed Ventura county. San Buenaven-
tua, the oldest town of the district, grew up
around the mission without founding. Hueneme
is twelve miles south of the county seat and is
situated on a coast projection of the Colonia
rancho. The Hueneme Lighting Company es-
tablished a shipping port here in June, 1870,
and received shipments of lumber. During the
first year 60,000 sacks of grain were loaded on
vessels by means of lighters. Thomas R. Bard
and R. G. Surdam obtained a franchise to con-
30
466
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
struct a wharf at the point. Work was pushed
rapidly on the structure, and in August, 1871,
the wharf, 900 feet long and extending out to
where the water was eighteen feet deep, was
completed. (In 1897 the wharf was extended to
I,600 feet, with an average depth of water at
its end of thirty feet.)
Upon the completion of its wharf, Hueneme
became one of the most important shipping points
on the Southern coast. It was the outlet by sea
of the rich corn, barley and bean district south
of the Santa Clara river, and of the wheat and
fruit-growing valleys of the Las Posas, Simi
and Conejo. Hueneme is a town of warehouses.
It now has seven of these, with a capacity of
500,000 sacks. It has a bank with a capital of
$50,000, three churches and supports a week-
ly newspaper.
NORDHOFF.
Nordhoff, named for the celebrated writer,
Charles Nordhoff, is located in the center of the
Ojai valley, fifteen miles north of San Buena-
ventura. It has an elevation of 900 feet above
the sea level. The town was founded in 1874.
R. G. Surdam purchased sixty acres, which he
subdivided into town lots. The town contains
Several churches, a good school and a public li-
brary. It supports a weekly newspaper, the
Ojai, established in 1890. The Ojai valley is a
famous citrus fruit belt. Nordhoff is connected
with San Buenaventura by railroad.
SANTA PAULA.
Santa Paula, sixteen miles easterly from San
Buenaventura, on the coast line of the South-
ern Pacific Railroad, was founded in 1873 by
Blanchard and Bradley. It is located at the junc-
tion of the Santa Paula creek with the Santa
Clara river and takes its name from the creek.
The first hotel opened in the town was Dod-
son's. Wiley Brothers opened the first mercan-
tile establishment. One business place that an-
tedated the founding of the town was Major Gor-
don’s saloon, The Cross Roads. Qne Septem-
ber day in 1873, Tiburcio Vasquez and his gang
of robbers and cutthroats visited the major's li-
quid dispensary and spent money for drinks
most lavishly. Their high toned liberality and
disregard for money made a deep impression on
the major, and after their departure he was loud
in their praise. “The most polished gentlemen,
sir, I ever met in California.” The major very
nearly had a fit when an officer of the law who
was on their trail told the major who his “pol-
ished gentlemen” were.
In 1875 Santa Paula contained two hotels,
two stores, two Saloons, a postoffice and a flour-
ing mill half a mile above the business center.
The discovery of petroleum that year in Santa
Paula cañon greatly accelerated its growth. It
experienced another boom in 1887, when the
railroad was built through the town. Since
1875 Santa Paula has been the headquarters of
the oil industry of Ventura county. The larger
oil companies have offices here and a pipe line
from the wells conveys the oil to Ventura. Be-
sides the support the town receives from the
oil industry it is the center of a rich fruit-grow-
ing district. Both citrus and deciduous fruits
are produced here. Santa Paula is a city of
churches. It supports more different denomina-
tions than any other town of its size in the state.
The Universalists, Presbyterians, Catholics, Bap-
tists, Methodists, Episcopalians, Holiness and
Christians have church buildings, and there are
several other religious organizations who have
not yet erected buildings. The town has an ex-
cellent high School. Two weekly newspapers—
the Chronicle, founded in 1886, and the Senti-
nel—keep the people posted on the news of the
day.
OXN ARD.
Oxnard, named for Henry T. Oxnard, pres-
ident of the American Beet Sugar Company, is
one of the youngest towns in the county. Jan-
uary, 1898, it consisted of one lone house—a
structure of rough upright boards. In March,
two months later, there were seven buildings.
In June, 1901, it boasted of an elegant hotel, a
bank, a $22,000 school house, a $16,000 Masonic
hall, a number of mercantile establishments,
among them one carrying a $100,000 stock, a
daily newspaper (the only one in the county),
a number of fine residences, a sugar factory
(the largest, with one exception, in the world),
three church buildings, one of the prettiest de-
signed plazas in Southern California and a pop-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
467
ulation of 2,OOO. Its school census, taken May,
1901, gave its School population 523, the larg—
est of any town in the county except that of San
Buenaventura, which numbered 720.
The following, compiled from the Oxnard
Courier, gives a brief description of the sugar
factory: “The construction of the Oxnard Beet
Sugar Factory was begun early in 1898. The
main building is an immense structure. It is
121 feet in width by 401 in length and 90 feet
high. The sugar house, where the finished prod-
uct is stored, extends from the west end of the
building 220 feet, and is 65 feet in width. The
boiler house is IOOx300 feet. Crude oil is used
for fuel and three iron tanks placed 700 feet
away from the main building have a storage
capacity of 33,000 barrels each. The twin steel
smoke-stacks are twelve feet each in diameter
at the base, and rise to a height of I55 feet. They
constitute a landmark that can be seen miles
away. There are two vertical lime kilns, one
95 feet high and the other 85 feet, supplying
180 tons of lime a day, which is used in clarify-
ing and purifying the beet juice in the process
of sugar making. The building, machinery, etc.,
cost $2,000,000. Oxnard is on the main line of
the Southern Pacific, via the Chatsworth tun-
nel.
EL RIO.
El Rio was formerly known as New Jerusa-
lem. It was founded by Simon Cohn in 1875.
As about all the business of the town was in the
hands of Hebrews, it took the name of the holy
city of the Jews, with a prefix. It has consid-
erable business. There is no synagogue in it,
but it has a large Catholic church and parson-
age. The Methodists had a church building
there, but it has recently been removed to OX-
nard. El Rio is on the stage road between Mon-
talvo and Oxnard, and about half way between
San Buenaventura and Hueneme.
MONT.VLVO.
Montalvo, five miles by railroad easterly from
San Buenaventura, is a small town with one of
the Southern Pacific Milling Company's great
warehouses in it. It is the center of the apricot
region. It was laid out in 1887, when the rail-
road was built. The Chatsworth branch of the
Southern Pacific unites at this point with the old
line via Saugus. &
S.ATICOY.
Saticoy, on the railroad nine miles east from
the county seat, was formerly known as the
Springs. It is the principal town of the Santa
Paula y Saticoy rancho. Saticoy and West Sat-
icoy, two different settlements, are practically
one for business. West Saticoy contains sev-
eral churches and a school building that cost
$10,500.
FILLIMORE.
Fillmore began its existence at the advent of
the railroad in 1887. From it is shipped the fa-
mous brown building stone. It is surrounded
by oil derricks.
BARDSDALE.
Bardsdale is on the old Sespe grant, and was
Inanned for Thomas R. Bard, who sold I,500 acres
to R. G. Surdam. The latter laid out the town
in 1887.
CAMIU LOS RAN CHO.
Camulos Rancho, made famous by Helen Hunt
Jackson in her story of “Ramona,” is in the ex-
treme eastern end of the county, near the rail-
road. Visitors have been debarred admittance
to the ranch house, as it was in danger of being
carried away piecemeal for relics.
Other post towns are Simi, thirty-four miles
from the county seat; Springville, fifteen miles
away; Piru City, thirty miles; Newberry Park,
a mountain town; and Timberville, also in the
mountains.
THE ISLANDS OF VENTURA COUNTY.
ANACAPAS.
Ventura county includes within its area two
islands—Anacapa, eighteen miles from the
coast, and San Nicolas, distant eighty miles. The
Anacapas are seven miles long and one wide.
They are uninhabited. There is no water upon
them. On the higher portions there is some
vegetation, upon which a band of sheep subsists.
obtaining water out of their feed. From the
main land there appears to be but one island.
Father Caballeria, in his History of Santa Bar-
bara, writing of the Channel Islands, says:
468
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
“One of them, formerly called the uninhabited
island, was named Anacapa, meaning deceptive
vision. This name the Indians had always ap-
plied to it. The Indians were wont to ply be-
tween the coast and the island with their canoes,
and Anacapa island presents a complete decep-
tion to the navigator. At times the island seems
quite near, when in reality it is a long distance
away ; and again it appears from afar a pano-
rama brilliant with rich vegetation, while in fact
it does not possess sufficient water to supply life's
needs. The natives styled it for this reason
Anacapa–false appearance, deceptive, illusory.”
The Anacapas are eleven miles off Hueneme
Lighthouse Point. They are separated from Santa
Cruz Island by a channel four miles wide. There
are three islands in the group. The extreme west-
ern end is a cliff 980 feet high, two miles long
at the base and about a half mile wide. There
is a passage for skiffs ten feet wide between this
and the next island, which is over 320 feet high
and one mile long. -
In December, 1853, the steamship Winfield
Scott from Panama at midnight with a full head
of steam struck with such force that she was
wedged into the rocks. She was broken up by
the rough seas. Her two hundred and fifty pas-
sengers remained on the island eight days. They
were taken off by the steamer California. The
large gray rats that infest the island are said to
have been brought there by the wrecked steam-
er.
This island is separated from the third by a
large gap, impassable for a skiff, as it is filled
with rocks. There are many caves on the is-
land. Some of these can be entered from the
sea in a skiff in calm weather.
SAN NICOLAS.
In the Santa Barbara Gazette of November,
1856, I find this account of the massacre of the
Indians on San Nicolas Island by the Aleuts of
Russian America: “In 1811 a ship owned by
Broodman & Pope, of Boston, commanded by
Captain Whettemore, trading on this coast, took
from the port of Sitka, Russian America, about
thirty Kodiak Indians to the islands of the San-
ta Barbara Channel for the purpose of killing
sea otter, which were very numerous on these
islands. Captain Whettemore, after landing the
Kodiaks on the island and placing in their hands
firearms and the necessary implements of the
chase, sailed away to the coast of Lower Cali-
fornia and South America. In the absence of
the ship a dispute arose between the natives and
the newcomers on account of the seizure of the
females by the Kodiaks. The Kodiaks, possess-
ing more activity, endurance and knowledge of
war and having Superior weapons, slaughtered
the native males, old and young, without mercy.
“On the island of San Nicolas not a male, old
or young was spared. At the end of a year Cap-
tain Whettemore returned, took the Kodiaks on
board and carried them back to Sitka. From
that period little is known of this island till 1836,
when Capt. Isaac Williams, collector of the port
of San Pedro, visited the island in a small ves-
sel and took on board all the Indians remaining,
except one woman, who was left in the manner
stated by Captain Russell in the California Mag-
azine. The Indians of the island were of the
type of the coast Indians, and were no doubt
a part of them.”
Retribution overtook Whettemore. His ship
was captured the following year (1812) near the
Sandwich Islands by the British ship of war
Phoebe and he was taken to England a prisoner
of war.
The following is Captain Russell's “Narrative
of a Woman Who Was Eighteen Years Alone
Upon the Island of San Nicolas, Coast of Cal-
ifornia,” referred to in the above extract from
the Santa Barbara Gazette. It was published in
Hutching's California Magazine, November,
1856, and probably is the earliest and one of the
most reliable accounts of the lone woman of San
Nicolas Island. I omit the introduction, which
does not directly apply to the subject, and leave
out the sentimental padding that the author
stuffed into the story.
“One evening, while seated beside our quiet
camp fire, placidly smoking our pipes, Mr. Nid-
ever related to me the following remarkable his-
tory: Twenty years ago the whole of the Indian
tribes inhabiting this group of islands were en-
gaged in a fierce and exterminating war with
each other, and to such an extent was this dead-
ly hostility waged that already the population
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
469
had very much diminished and would in all
probability before many years become entirely
extinct. To prevent this, and at the same time
to ameliorate the condition of the Indians, the
fathers of the mission of Santa Barbara con-
ceived the idea of removing them to the main
land. For this purpose they visited the islands
in company with a few partially civilized Indians
and explained to them the advantages of re-
moving to the mission. They finally consented
to go, on promise of protection from their ene-
mies being given by the fathers.
“Accordingly a small vessel was sent to the
different islands and the various tribes were ta-
ken, one by one, to the mission of Santa Barbara.
But while the last of the Indians were embark-
ing at the island of San Nicolas and all were
supposed to be on board, a child was missing,
and its mother, after frantically looking for it
on the ship and adjacent rocks, rushed off to
the interior of the island to seek for it. A
storm was threatening, and the captain, after de-
laying as long as he dared, put to sea. The
storm broke in all its fury, and the vessel, after
narrowly escaping shipwreck, landed its living
cargo at Santa Barbara. Before the vessel could
return for the woman it was wrecked and en-
tirely lost, and as no other could be obtained at
that time, the poor woman had to remain upon
the island, where she lived alone for eighteen
years. After the discovery of gold it was ru-
mored that San Nicolas was inhabited. Sea Ot-
ter hunters had frequently found human foot-
prints on it. As the footprints were all alike it
was concluded that there was but one person
living on it, and many attempts were made to
find out who this strange being was. Mr. Nid-
ever, of Santa Barbara, a pioneer who came to
California twenty-five years ago, took up the
search. He had been a Rocky Mountain trap-
per, and was as expert as an Indian in follow-
ing a trail. Visiting the island he discovered
the tracks and followed them until he saw among
the rocks of the island near the mouth of a
cave a singular object on its knees, skinning a
seal. Upon approaching he found it to be a
woman clad in a dress of feathers. When she
saw him she jumped up, and with excessive joy
ran towards him and seemed almost beside her-
self with delight at the sight once more of a
human being. In her hand she held a rude knife-
blade that she had made from a piece of old iron,
probably obtained from the fragment of some
wreck, which she valued beyond anything in her
possession. She was unable to make herself un-
derstood except by signs. She willingly accom-
panied her rescuer to Santa Barbara. Father
Gonzales of the mission tried to find some of
the Indians who had been taken from the island
eighteen years before, but none were discovered,
and none of the Santa Barbara Indians under-
stood her language.
“It appears from her narrative that after leav-
ing the vessel in search of her child she wan-
dered about for several hours, and when she
found it the wild dogs which infest the island
even to the present day (1856) had killed and
nearly devoured it. When she returned to the
landing the vessel was gone with all her friends
and kindred. 4.
“From day to day she lived in hope, beguiling
the weary hours in providng her wants. With
snares made of her hair she caught birds, and
with their skins, properly prepared, she made
her clothing; her needles were neatly made of
bone and cactus thorns; her thread was of sinews
from the seal. In these and many other articles .
found in her possession she exhibited much of
the native ingenuity she possessed. Whether
she still remembered her own language or not
will forever remain a mystery. She was very
gentle and kind, especially to children, and noth-
ing seemed to please her more than to be near
them.
“The sympathy felt for her welfare caused
the people to supply her bountifully with every-
thing she needed, and very imprudently allowed
her to eat almost anything she chose, and the
result was that in about six months after her
escape from her lonely exile she sickened and
died, having undoubtedly been killed by kind-
ness.”
In the February number (1857) of Hutching's
Califormia Magazine, the editor, in an article on
“The Indian Woman of San Nicolas,” states
that “George Nidever, the gentleman who dis-
covered the woman, had presented Capt. C. J. W.
Russell on his recent visit to Santa Barbara with
470.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
a water-bottle made of grass, a stone mortar,
necklace and other things made by the woman
during her long and solitary residence on the
island.” He further states: “There is upon
this island a good sized cave in which she took
up her abode, and on the walls of which she had
kept a rude record of all the vessels that had
passed the island, and of all the most remarkable
occurrences in her lonely history, such as see-
ing large quantities of seals, hailing of vessels
in the distance, etc.”
THE OIL INDUSTRY.
Next to Ventura's magnificent agricultural
resources comes its wealth in petroleum. It is
the pioneer county in oil production. The first
attempt to utilize the oil from the seepages which
abound in various parts of the county was made
by George S. Gilbert in 1861. He put up a
small refinery on the Ojai rancho and a similar
one in the Santa Paula cañon, and made a fair
quality of illuminating and lubricating oil. The
experiment did not pay; the cost of production
exceeded the profits.
In 1864 a company, composed of Leland Stan-
ford, W. T. Coleman and Levi Parsons, com-
menced operations in Wheeler cañon, Cache
cañon and at several other points. They hoped
to find light oil similar to that of Pennsylvania.
With the imperfect machinery for boring then
in use, they could not sink deep wells. Their
development work was done by running tunnels
into the ridges where the seepage showed the
presence of oil. One tunnel in Wheeler cañon
yielded fifteen barrels of oil a day, but as it was
a heavy black oil they had no use for t. So
the tunnel was abandoned and work ceased.
In the same year, 1864, the California Petro-
leum Company, with a capital of $10,000,000,
was organized in Pennsylvania by Col. Thomas
A. Scott, the great railroad magnate of that day.
The company purchased the Ojai, Colonia, Cal-
leguas, Simi, Las Posas and Guadalasca ranchos.
Machinery, tools, piping and everything needed
in well boring were purchased in the east and
shipped to California by water. Thomas R. Bard,
late United States Senator of California, was
sent to superintend the business of the company.
Some of the machinery was lost while landing it
at Hueneme. In June, 1865, the first well was
begun in Ventura cañon, seven miles from San
Buenaventura, near a large pit of tar. It was
not a success. Another was bored, but was also
a failure. After considerable experimenting a
gusher was struck, but it soon ceased to gush.
Several tunnels were run into the hills. Some
of these gave a fair yield of black oil, but that
was not what the Pennsylvanians were looking
for. After four years of experimenting with-
out success, the company retired from the oil
business, having sunk over $200,000 in prospect-
ing.
About the time the Pennsylvania Company
abandoned the field Messrs. Adams and Thayer
began prospecting. They had purchased land
in what is now Adams cañon with the intention
of going into stock raising. From the oil indi-
cations they imagined that oil stock might be
the more profitable stock to raise. They devel-
oped several small wells. In 1876 they sunk a
well and obtained a fine quality of light oil, just
what prospectors for a decade or more had been
Seeking. Later in the year the Pacific Coast Oil
Company made an important strike in oil of the
Same quality. The oil business began now to as-
Sume importance. In 1883 Lyman Stewart, an
experienced Pennsylvania oil man, came to Cal-
ifornia and shortly afterwards W. L. Hardison
came from the same state. They formed the
Hardison-Stewart Company. This company and
the Torrey cañon and Sespe companies were lat-
er merged into the Union Oil Company of Cal-
ifornia. One of the wells sunk by the Hardison-
Stewart Company is 2,800 feet deep. Another
in the same cañon, bored in 1888, has produced
I22,OOO barrels in a single year, worth at that
time $4 per barrel. Well No. 16 of the Union
Oil Company was a genuine gusher. It was
estimated that IO,OOO barrels of oil ran to waste
before it could be capped. Oil development has
steadily progressed in Ventura for a quarter of
a century with no sign of decline. The princi-
pal oil districts are Santa Paula cañon, Adams
cañon, Torrey cañon, Sespe, Little Sespe, and
Pirt1. *
The strikes of the later '70s developed the first
oil boom of Southern California. Wherever a
seepage showed a claim was located, then a com-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
471
pany was formed and stock sold. As the boom
progressed, sharpers sunk holes and poured oil
into them to entrap the confiding into purchas-
ing claims or stock. The second oil boom of
Southern California, that of 1900, is too recent
and too well remembered by those who were
duped into purchasing wildcat stock to need re-
cording here. History repeats itself sometimes,
and so do oil booms.
CHAPTER LXVIII.
ORANGE COUNTY.
the state into counties the territory now
included in Orange belonged to Los An-
geles county. Up to 1868 that territory was held
in large ranchos and the growth and develop-
ment of its resources had been slow. It was
sparsely settled. In 1869 there were but three
school districts between the New San Gabriel
river and the southeastern limits of the county.
The total school attendance at the time for all
of what now constitutes Orange county did not
exceed one hundred pupils. The subdivision into
small farms of the Stearns ranchos, nearly all
of which were in the territory now included in
Orange county, and the placing of the land on
the market at low rates brought in a number
of immigrants.
The country between the New San Gabriel
river and the Santa Ana settled up rapidly. Ana-
heim became the business center for this district
and aspired to be the capital of a new county.
The scheme to cut off an area of about one thou-
sand square miles from the southeastern por-
tion of Los Angeles county, and of this form a
new county, was originated and actively agitat-
ed in 1869, twenty years before its final ac-
complishment. Mayor Max Stroble, an old res-
ident of Anaheim, was the originator and most
active promoter of the scheme. He secured the
signatures of a number of signers to petitions
praying the legislature for the creation of a new
county. The reasons urged for county division
were many, among others being the long dis-
tance of the residents of the proposed county from
the present county seat, the inconvenience and
expense in reaching it over ungraded roads and
unbridged rivers. The only public conveyance
| S OR forty years after the subdivision of
then between the center of the disaffected dis-
trict and Los Angeles was a tri-weekly stage.
It cost $6 to make the round trip and used up
two days' time. Now the electric cars make a
round trip in two hours at an expense of only
$I to the traveler.
There was another reason more potent but not
SO prominent in the petition, and that was the
spoils of office. The politicians of the populous
center monopolized all the offices, while the dwel-
lers in the distant districts were compelled to pay
their proportion of the cost of government, but
had no representation. It was the far cry Of the
Revolutionary fathers against British tyranny
echoed back from the shores of the sunset sea—
“taxation without representation.” There was
truth and merit, too, in the cause of the county
divisionists and there were great hopes of its
S11CCCSS.
Stroble drew up a bill creating the county of
Anaheim and making the town of Anaheim the
county-seat. The dividing line between the old
and new county began at a point in the Pacific
Ocean, three nautical miles southwestward from
the mouth of the old San Gabriel river, thence
running northeasterly, following the channel of
that river to an intersection with the San Ber-
nardino base line; thence east on that line to the
division line between Los Angeles and San Ber-
nardino counties.
Stroble had enlisted in his scheme the active
co-operation of some of the wealthiest pioneers
of the county. William Workman of Puente,
Temple, Rubottom, Fryer, Don Juan Froster, Ben
Dryfus, A. Langerberger and others favored his
project. Armed with numerously signed peti-
tions and abundantly supplied with coin, Stroble
472
HISTORICAL AND B10CRAPHICAL RECORD. . .
appeared in Sacramento at the opening of the
legislative session of 1869-70. Early in the ses-
Sion his bill passed the assembly with but little
opposition. The hopes of the divisionists rose
high ; the new county was assured. Anaheim be-
came a political Mecca for office-seeking pil-
grims. Statesmen of Los Nietos and place hunt-
ers from San Juan counseled with the patriots
of Anaheim and parceled out the prospective
county offices among them.
Then came a long delay. Opposition to the
scheme had shown itself in the senate. The peo-
ple of Los Angeles city had awakened to the
fact that they were about to be left with a large
area of mountains and deserts, and but very little
else.
The new county took in all of the fertile val-
leys of the Los Nietos, the San José and the
Santa Ana. The delay lengthened. Stroble was
hopeful, but the opposition was working most
vigorously. Gold would win, and gold he must
have or all would be lost. The envious and un-
charitable queried as to what had become of all
the coin Stroble had taken with him, and inti-
mated that he had been fighting the tiger in the
jungles of Sacramento and that the tiger had
the best of it. But the faithful gathered to-
gether their hard earned shekels, and the pro-
ceeds of many gallons of wine, the price of many
a bronco and many a bullock were sent to Stro-
ble that he might convince the honest legislators
of the richness and resources of the new county.
Another long delay, and anxiety that was cruel
to the waiting statesmen on the banks of the Santa
Ana; then one day in the ides of March the lum-
bering old stage coach with its tri-weekly mail
rolled into the embryo capital of the new coun-
ty. The would-be office-holders gathered at the
postoffice, eager for the latest news from Sacra-
mento. It came in a letter from Stroble. The
bill had been defeated in the senate, but he was
working for a reconsideration and would be sure
of success if more money were sent. To Stro-
ble's last appeal even the most faithful were
dumb.
Major Max Stroble, the originator of the di-
vision scheme and its most earnest advocate in
its early stages, deserves more than a passing
notice. A soldier of fortune and a Machiaveli in
politics, he was always on the losing side. He
was a man of versatile genius and varied re-
Sources, a lawyer, an editor, a civil engineer, an
accomplished linguist and a man of education.
He was a German by birth, and reputed to be of
aristocratic lineage. A compatriot of Carl
Schurz and Sigel in the German revolution of
'48, on the failure of that movement, with Sigel,
his intimate friend, he fled to this country. He
drifted down to Nicaragua, and for a time fil-
ibustered with Walker. He finally located in
Anaheim, where he bought a vineyard and en-
gaged in wine making. But the life of a vine-
yardist was too narrow and contracted for his
genius; he was constantly branching out into
new projects. He was one of the pioneer petro-
leum prospectors of the state. In 1867 he sunk
a great hole in Brea cañon, where, if he did not
strike oil, he did strike the bottom of the purses
of those whom he enlisted in his scheme. Even
in this project his ill luck followed him. In the
immediate vicinity of where he bored for oil
forty years ago, oil gushers abound today and
fortunes have been made in oil.
After his failure to divide the county he start-
ed a newspaper in Anaheim. It was to be the
organ of county division. It succeeded in divid-
ing the divisionists into two factions, the Stroble
and the anti-Stroble, who waged a wordy war
against each other through the columns of their
respective organs, the Advocate and the Gazette.
Stroble's organ, The People's Advocate, died
from some cause, probably insufficient nutrition,
and was buried in the grave of journalistic fail-
ures. Stroble's last venture was the sale of
Santa Catalina Island to European capitalists.
Supplied with funds by the owners and rich
mineral specimens from the island, he sailed to
England and located in London. He succeeded
in convincing a syndicate of English capitalists
of the mineral wealth and other resources of the
island, and negotiated its sale for a million dol-
lars. A contract was drawn up and an hour set
on the next day when the parties were to sign
and the money to be paid. When the hour ar-
rived for closing the transaction Stroble did not
appear. Search was made for him. He was
found in his room dead, dead on the very eve of
success, for the sale of the island would have
|HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
473
made him rich. Negotiations for the island were
broken off by the death of Stroble. Nearly twen-
ty years after his death it was sold for one-
quarter of what he was to receive.
Stroble might be said to be the father of
Orange county. He was the progenitor of the
scheme that resulted in its creation, although he
died years before it was born. After his death
the management of the county division scheme
was placed in the hands of a committee. The
name was changed from the county of Anaheim
to the county of Orange, the committee arguing
that immigrants would be attracted by the name,
forgetful of the fact that there were only about
fifty other places named Orange in the United
States. The northeastern boundaries of the pros-
pective county were contracted so as to leave out
the San José valley, the people of that valley
electing to remain in the old county. A bill cre-
ating the county of Orange was introduced into
the legislative session of 1872, but it never
reached a vote.
In 1873 the division question drifted into poli-
tics. A county division convention was held in
Anaheim, and a man by the name of Bush from
Santa Ana was nominated for the assembly.
The policy of the divisionists was to force one
or the other of the political parties to place Bush
on its ticket to secure the division vote. In their
conventions neither the Democratic nor the Re-
publican party took any notice of Bush's candi-
dacy. Ignored by both parties, he made an in-
dependent campaign, received a few votes and
then passed out of the political arena forever.
In the legislature of 1874, Wiseman, nick-
named the “Broadaxe” from the vigorous way
he hewed the King's English, appeared as the
champion of county division. Neither his pa-
thetic appeals for the oppressed people of the
prospective county of Orange nor his superlative
denunciations of their oppressors, the county of—
ficials of Los Angeles, convinced the law-makers
at Sacramento that the people were suffering for
the want of a new county.
Another change was made in boundaries and
name. The northern line of the prospective
county drifted southward to the new San Ga-
briel river. In 1878 a bill to create the county
of Santa Ana and making Anaheim the seat of
its government was drafted. The name was a
concession to Santa Ana, a concession, however,
that failed to conciliate. The town of Santa Ana,
that had no existence when Stroble promulgated .
the division scheme in 1869, had now grown to
be a formidable rival of Anaheim. It was am-
bitious to become a county seat itself, and vigor-
Ously combated the division projects of its rival.
Local jealousies and the opposition of Los An-
geles defeated the measure in the legislature.
In 1881 another division effort was made.
Anaheim patched up a truce with her rival, Santa
Ana. The vineyard city was to have the seat of
government for two years, then it was to be a
free-for-all scramble among all the towns and
the One that could corral the most votes was
henceforth to be the capital of the county of
Santa Ana. Bills were introduced in both the
Senate and assembly, but died on the files, smoth-
ered by “slickens” (mining debris), the absorb-
ing question of that session.
The question of county division for nearly a
decade ceased to be a political issue in Los An-
geles county. he rivals, Anaheim and Santa
Ana, were preparing for the final struggle. It
came in 1889. Col. E. E. Edwards, a resident
of Santa Ana, was elected one of the members
of the assembly from Los Angeles county. He
introduced a bill to create the county of Orange
leaving the location of the county seat to a
vote of the people of the new county. The north- .
ern boundary line had again drifted southward.
Coyote creek had become the Rubicon, and it
was only four miles north of Anaheim. Santa
Ana, in the change of boundaries, had outgen-
eraled her rival, and virtually decided the county
Seat question against her opponent. For twenty
years Anaheim had contended for county divis-
ion. Now she opposed it, but in vain. The bill
passed and was approved by the governor. In
the county seat question Santa Ana won over
all of her rivals. The county of Orange set up
in business for itself, August 1, 1889, and so
ended the longest contest over the formation of
a new county of any in the history of the state.
An election for county officers was held July
17, 1889, and the following named officials were
chosen :
474
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
J. W. Towner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Superior judge
R. T. Harris . . . . . . . . . . Sheriff and tax collector.
E. E. Edwards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . district attorney
R. O. Wickham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . county clerk
G. E. Foster . . . . . . . . . . . . auditor and recorder
W. B. Wall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . treaSurer
Fred C. Smythe . . . . . . • - - - - - - - county assessor
J. P. Greely...county superintendent of schools
S. O. Wood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . county surveyor
I. D. Mills. ... coroner and public administrator
William H. Spurgeon . . . . . . . . . . . . . Supervisor
S. Armor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . & &
S. A. Littlefield . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ( &
Jacob Ross . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . & 4
A. Guy Smith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . & &
Orange county is bounded on the north by
Los Angeles county, east by Riverside, south by
San Diego and west by the Pacific Ocean. It
has an area of 675 square miles, or 432,000 acres.
All the area of Orange county, with the excep-
tion of a few hundred acres of mountain land,
was covered by Spanish land grants. The old-
time ranchos south of the Santa Ana river, ex-
cept the Santiago de Santa Ana, belonged to the
Mission San Juan Capistrano; those north were
attached to the Mission San Gabriel. After the
secularization of the mission, these ranchos, when
they became depleted of cattle and horses, were
granted by the government on recommendation
of the ayuntamiento of Los Angeles to applicants
who could comply with the law, that is, make
certain improvements and stock the rancho with
cattle.
SPANISH RAN CHOS IN ORANGE COUNTY.
The following named comprise the ranchos
within the limits of Orange county: Mission
Vieja or La Paz, Trabuco, Boca de La Playa, El
Sobrante, Niguel, Canada de los Alisos, Lomas
de Santiago, San Joaquin, Santiago de Santa
Ana, La Bolsa Chico, Las Bolsas, half of Los
Alamitos, part of LOS Coyotes, San Juan Cajon
de Santa Ana, Cajon de Santa Ana, part of La
Brea and a part of La Habra.
The Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana, on which
the cities of Santa Ana, Orange, Tustin and sev-
eral smaller towns are located, is one of the old-
est grants in California. Col. J. J. Warner,
writing in 1876, says: “During the first quarter
of the present century, the Santiago de Santa
Ana rancho was universally known among the
People inhabiting the county as one of the oldest
ranchos, and there are many good reasons for the
belief that its founding was contemporary with
that of San Rafael.” (The San Rafael rancho,
lying on the left bank of the Los Angeles river
and extending to the Arroyo Seco, was granted
by Governor Pedro Fages, October 20, I784, to
José Maria Verdugo.)
"There is no room to doubt the statement that
a grant of the Santiago de Santa Ana tract to
José Antonio Yorba was made in 1810 by Gov.
José Joaquin de Arrillaga, but in a partition
suit in the district court for this COunty, a few
years ago, for the partition of that tract of land
among the heirs and claimants, testimony was
introduced which showed that the Original Occu-
pant of that tract was N. Grijalva, who, as also
his wife, died leaving only two children, both
daughters; that one of these daughters married
José Antonio Yorba and the other Juan Pablo
Peralta, and it is far more probable that the for-
mer of these two latter persons obtained a new
or confirmed grant from Arrillaga in 1810 than
that Grijalva should have established himself
upon the tract without having obtained a grant
from the governor. In this partition suit the
court recognized the claim of the Peraltas as de-
Scendants of the original proprietor of the land.”
The boundaries of the Santiago de Santa Ana,
as defined in the grant made in 1810, were the
Summit of the mountains on the northeast, the
Santa Ana river on the west, the ocean on the
South, and a line running from what is now
Newport bay to a certain Red Hill for the south-
West boundary. The rancho contained 62,OOO
acres. During the great flood of 1825, the Santa
Ana river left its old channel at a point about
three miles easterly of where Orange now stands
and cut a new channel for itself some distance
Southeasterly from its former one. Between the
two channels there was about 13,000 acres. The
rancho was surveyed by a United States deputy
Surveyor, and the new channel was taken as its
western boundary, although all the old residents
claimed that the old channel was the true western
boundary. The rancho Las Bolsas was floated
over the land between the channels.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
475
THE SQUATTER WAR.
In the early '70s, a number of settlers squatted
on this land, claiming that it was government
land. The land was covered with a heavy growth
of willows and the squatters made a living by
cutting and selling the timber for fire wood.
The squatters soon found that they could not
hold the tract as government land, for since the
river was the dividing line between Las Bolsas
and the Santiago, the land must be in One or
the other ranchos. Their next move was to buy
claims of the Yorba heirs to all lands outside of
that portion of the Santiago de Santa Ana that had
been partitioned among the heirs. The legal con-
test between the squatters and the Los Angeles
and San Bernardino Land Company, the owners
of the Bolsas grant, was waged in all the courts
up to the supreme court of the United States. In
that court Judge Stephen J. Field decided that
since a United States patent had been issued to
the Bolsas first it held over the Santiago, which,
although the older grant, had been patented later
than the other. He required of the settlers a
bond of $75,000 before he would grant an appeal.
This ended the squatter war. They could not
put up the bond. The settlers were evicted by
the United States marshal and the land company,
after a decade of litigation, obtained possession
of the disputed territory, but the timber was
gone. The squatters really had the best of it.
Indefinite boundaries have been the cause of
much of the litigation that has impeded the set-
tlement of large ranchos. The original owners
did not make careful surveys. The landmarks
that fixed the boundary lines were carelessly
placed and easily removed. The following de-
scription of the boundaries of La Habra rancho
is taken from a legal document, and illustrates
the indefiniteness of the boundaries of a rancho
under the Mexican régime.
“Commencing at the camino viejo (old road)
and running in a right line 550 varas, more or
less, distant from a small corral of tuna plants
that forms the boundary of the lands of Juan
Perrez, which plant was taken as a landmark;
thence in a direction west by South, running
along the camino viejo 18,2OO varas to a point
of small hills, which is the boundary of Juan
Pacifico Ontiveras, at which place was fixed as a
land-mark the head of a steer; from thence east
by north, passing by a (cuchilla) waste land,
II,000 varas, terminating at a hill that is in a
direct line with another, which is much higher
and has three small Oak trees upon it, at which
place a small stone land-mark is placed, being
the boundary line of the rancho of La Puente;
north by east 2,000 varas, terminating at the
right line of the Small corral of tunas aforesaid,
the point of beginning.”
SCHOOLS.
According to the first school census taken after
the organization of the county (that of 1890)
there were 4,OII children between the ages of
five and seventeen. There were at that time in
the county thirty-nine school districts and sev-
enty-four teachers. The school census of 1906
gives 6,949 between the ages of five and seven-
teen. When the county was organized there was
not a high school within its limits; now there are
five.
The high school of Santa Ana was organized
in September, 1891. A fine new building, cost-
ing about $30,000, was completed in 1900. Six-
teen teachers are employed in the school. The
total enrollment of pupils in 1906 was 385.
Anaheim high school was organized in 1898.
It employs seven teachers and has an attendance
of sixty-six pupils. Bonds were issued and a
high school erected in 1902.
Fullerton high school is made up of a union
of six districts. It employs six teachers and has
an enrollment of sixty-two pupils. A two-story
high school building was completed and occupied
in 1898.
Orange high school employs six teachers and
has an enrollment of sixty-five pupils.
Las Bolsas union high school employs four
teachers and has an enrollment of thirty-three
pupils.
The pioneer school of the section now compris-
ing Orange county was the Upper Santa Ana,
now Yorba. The first school opened in it was
taught by T. J. Scully in 1857. Hon. William
M. McFadden, school superintendent of Los An-
geles county from 1870 to 1874, taught in the
district a number of years. About twenty years
476
Histor ICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
ago the name of the district was changed to
Yorba, the city of Santa Ana taking the former
name of the pioneer district.
Since the county set up in business for itself
it has built a handsome court house costing Over
$IOO,OOO. The affairs of the county have been
well managed. There has been a steady growth
in production and a healthy increase in popula-
tion. The census of 1890 gave the population
of the county at 13,589. In 1900 it had increased
it to 19,696, a gain of over thirty-three per cent;
it is now estimated at 25,000. Although one of
the smallest counties in the state, it ranks among
the highest in fruit production. Over 2,500
car loads of citrus fruits are shipped out of the
county annually, bringing a return of nearly half
a million dollars. ' The dried fruits amount to
about 2,000 tons.
Orange County Park, in the Santiago cañon,
is one of the finest natural parks in the state.
The park is the gift of James Irvine and con-
tains I60 acres, wooded with magnificent Oaks
and sycamores. .
THISTORY OF THE CELERY INDUSTRY.
Thirty-seven years ago, when the author first
visited the now celebrated peat lands of the
Westminster and Bolsas country, these lands
were known as ciénagas, and were regarded as
worthless. These ciénagas were tracts of
swampy lands containing usually ponds of water
in the middle skirted around with a rank growth
of willows, tules and nettles. During the rainy
season the entire area of the ciénaga was over-
flowed. In the fall and winter these marshy
lands were the resorts of millions of wild geese;
they were also the haunts of wild ducks and
other water fowl, and were the favorite hunting
grounds of the sportsmen of that day. The early
settlers counted the ciénagas as so much waste
land, or rather as worse than waste, for the
drier portions of these swamps were the lurking
places of wild cats, coyotes, coons and other
prowlers which preyed upon the settlers' pigs
and poultry. -
Later on the larger of these swamps became
the feeding places of wild hogs that subsisted
upon the tule roots and wild celery growing
there. About thirty years ago some of the small-
er of these marshes were drained, cleared of
their brush and vegetable growth and planted in
corn. The yield was so prolific that these lands
rose rapidly in value. The settlers organized
drainage districts and constructed canals to carry
off the waters and these swamps were reclaimed.
They became the most valuable corn and potato
lands in the county. The abundant growth of
wild celery upon which the wild hogs had fed
and fattened before the reclamation of the ciéna-
gas indirectly led to the experiment of growing
tame celery upon them for the eastern markets.
The following sketch of the origin and growth
of the celery industry of Orange county is com-
piled from the Santa Ana Blade's Celery edi-
tion of February 7, 1901 : “The first experiment
in celery culture on the peat lands was made in
1891 on a tract of land south of Westminster
known locally as the Snow & Adams place, on
which several thousand dollars was expended,
but without satisfactory results. E. A. Curtis,
D. E. Smeltzer and others were the prime movers
in making the experiment, the outcome of which
was such a flat failure that all but Mr. Curtis
gave up the idea. Mr. Curtis' pet scheme came
to fruition sooner than was anticipated, for about
this time he entered the employ of the Earl Fruit
Company, and with the consent of the firm re-
Solved to again give celery culture a trial.
“The proposition had many drawbacks, not
least of which was the scarcity of help to culti-
vate the crop and the entire lack of experience in
the laborers available. In this extremity Mr.
Curtis bethought himself of the Los Angeles
Chinese market gardeners and their knowledge
of celery growing, and at once entered into ne-
gotiations with a leading Chinaman to undertake
the work of growing eighty acres of celery on
contract, the Earl Fruit Company to furnish
everything, including implements, needed in the
cultivation of the crop, also money advanced for
rental of the land and the supplying of water
where needed by digging wells; so that $5,000
was advanced before a stock of celery was ready
for shipment. The result was fairly successful,
notwithstanding the untoward experience of the
Chinese laborers at the hands of white men, who
worried and harassed the Celestials both in sea-
son and out of season, carrying their unreason-
ing resentment to the extent of burning the build-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
477
ings erected by the Earl Fruit Company, carry-
ing off the implements used in cultivation and
terrorizing the Chinamen employed to the immi-
nent risk of driving them away entirely and thus
sacrificing the crop for want of help to attend it.
“All this risk and expense fell directly on the
Earl Fruit Company; returns for their invest-
ment could only come when the crop was ready
for market, and it may easily be imagined that
E. A. Curtis, as a prime mover in the venture,
occupied a most unenviable position. But Mr.
Curtis kept right on and overcame every obstacle
that presented itself, and to E. A. Curtis, as man-
ager for the Earl Fruit Company, is due the
credit of demonstrating the superior advantages
of Orange county for the successful growing of
celery and the introduction and establishment of
an industry that has permanently added hun-
dreds of thousands of dollars to the resources of
the county.
“The crop from the land thus experimented
with was shipped to New York and Kansas City
and consisted of about fifty cars, a considerable
shipment at that time, as prior to then a car load
of California celery was an unheard-of quantity.
There was, of course, not much profit made for
that season after everything was paid, for the
items of expense were many and included , all
the loss and damage suffered while the crop was
maturing and a bill of $1,000 paid an officer of
the law for protection afforded the Chinese la-
borers while at work during the season. But
it paid a margin of profit and proved beyond
dispute that under favorable conditions celery
culture might be undertaken with prospects of
success, and this fact once established the rest
was easy.”
Celery growing has developed into one of the
leading industries of Orange county. It is esti-
mated that the area planted this season will ex-
ceed 5,700 acres. About 2,000 cars were re-
quired to move last year's crop. The celery cars
carry 150 crates, or about 1,2OO dozen bunches.
The area of celery culture has extended from
the peat lands where it was begun, over a con-
siderable portion of the “Willows,” a tract of
land lying between the old and the new beds of
the Santa Ana river, the scene of the squatter
contest of thirty years ago.
The Southern Pacific Railroad has a branch
line running from Newport Beach, the terminus
of the Santa Ana & Newport road, to Smeltzer
(eleven miles), near the northern extremity of
the peat lands. The station and shipping points
on this road are Celery, La Bolsa, Wintersburg
and Smeltzer.
THE OIL INDUSTRY.
Prospecting for petroleum in what is now the
Fullerton oil district began forty years ago. In
1867 Major Max Stroble of Anaheim sunk a
well in Brea cañon. About the same time a
prospect well was sunk on the Olinda rancho,
but in neither place was oil found in paying
quantities. With the imperfect machinery in uses
at that time it was impossible to sink to any
great depth. Indications were plentiful and
every expert who prospected the cañon and foot-
hills of the district was convinced that rich oil
deposits existed in the locality. Brea cañon con-
tained large deposits of crude asphaltum, and
thirty years ago the Los Angeles Gas Company
was shipping two car loads a week of brea for
the manufacture of gas, it being cheaper than
coal at that time. In 1897 the Santa Fé Railroad
Company made a rich strike, and since then oil
development has gone on steadily.
The oil district extends from Brea cañon to the
head of the Soquel cañon. In depth the wells
range from 800 to 1,600 feet. The output now
reaches about 40,000 barrels. The Santa Fé
Railroad Company is an extensive operator. The
price of land in the oil district advanced with
boom-like rapidity. The Olinda rancho, contain-
ing 4,480 acres, was sold early in 1898, before
oil was struck on it, for $15,000. The purchaser,
after consulting some of his friends over his
bargain, forfeited his deposit. Two years later
the rancho was sold to a syndicate of capitalists
for $500,000, to-day the same territory is worth
a million. The oil of the Fullerton district is of
superior quality. Its gravity ranges from 30° to
32°. Wells have recently been bored in the
Coyote Hills districts that have proved to be
veritable gushers.
478
|HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
CHAPTER LXIX.
ORANGE COUNTY-Continued.
CITIES AND TOWNS.
ANAHEIM.
NAHEIM is one of the oldest success-
FA ful colony experiments in the state.
It was originated by several Ger–
man residents of San Francisco fifty years
ago. Their scheme was to purchase with
their combined capital a large tract of land,
plant it in vines for wine making and when these
were in bearing subdivide it among the share-
holders of the company, each one becoming a
resident of the colony. Early in 1857 they be-
gan an examination of different localities for
their proposed colony site. In the Los Angeles
Star of September 19, 1857, I find these items
regarding the project: “It is with much pleas-
ure we make the announcement that the com-
pany who have for some time been seeking a
location for an extensive vineyard have at last
succeeded in obtaining land suitable to their
purpose. The project is the most important ever
contemplated in the southern country, and as
it is to be carried out by energetic, practical men,
there can, of course, be no doubt of its full suc-
cess, especially as the stock required is already
paid up.
“The Los Angeles Vineyard Company is com-
posed of fifty shareholders, who, we believe, are
principally Germans, the majority residing in
San Francisco. Each share is rated at $750.
They have purchased a tract of land on the San-
ta Ana river, about twenty-five miles from the
city, consisting of 1,200 acres, which is to be laid
off in lots of twenty acres each. Streets are to
be made throughout the grounds so that each lot
shall open into a good highway. A park, prob-
ably forty acres, will occupy the center. On
each lot Io,000 vines are to be planted this year,
making a total of half a million vines. If at the
end of three vears (at which time it is likely
those plants will be bearing vines) it be deemed
advisable by shareholders, this number will be
doubled, thus taking advantage of the full capac-
ity of the land for grape culture. The grounds
are to be surrounded by a live fence, which, it is
calculated, will require 50,000 poles. The loca-
tion is about three miles from the river. A ditch
about five miles in length will conduct the water
of the river on to the land, over which it will
be carried by lateral ditches. Although the
lands are flat, sufficient fall will be found in
traversing the five miles to drive the water over
every part of the land. It is estimated that a
fall of twenty feet will be secured in that dis-
tance. -
“The land has been purchased from Don
Pacifico Ontivera, with certain privileges from
Don Bernardino Yorba, from whose residence
these grounds are situated about five miles. Mr.
George Hansen, a very competent gentleman,
has been appointed superintendent of the com-
pany. This, we understand, will be the largest
vineyard in the world, there being none in
Europe of such extent. *
“The company is under the direction of a
board of trustees in San Francisco : President,
Otmar Caler; vice-president, G. Charles Koh-
ler; treasurer, Cyrus Beythien ; secretary, John
Fischer. In Los Angeles the affairs are carried
out under the direction of an auditing commit-
tee, composed of the following gentlemen:
Messrs. John Frohling, R. Emerson and Jay-
zinsky; sub-treasurer, Felix Backman.” The
San Francisco Alta of January 15, 1858, has
this notice: “The stockholders of the Los An-
geles Vineyard Society held a meeting on the
evening of January 13, at Leutgen's hotel,
Montgomery street. They resolved to give the
name of Anaheim to their vineyard in the Santa
Ana valley in Los Angeles county.” Its name
is a combination of the German word heim
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
479
(home) and the Spanish form of the proper
name Ana—a home by the (Santa) Ana river.
The improvement of the tract, purchased was
begun in the winter of 1857-58 and pushed for-
ward vigorously by the superintendent, George
Hansen. The Los Angeles Star of January 30,
1858, contains this notice of the labor in prog-
ress on the colony site: “As may be expected,
Anaheim is a busy place. All is life, industry
and activity.” “ * * “In the operations at
present in progress there are employed seven
men, fourteen horses and seven plows in mak-
ing ditches; one man, one wagon and two
horses procuring provisions and firewood;
fourteen men, fourteen wagons and fifty-six
horses in hauling fence poles; one wagon and
ten horses in bringing cuttings; thirty-three men
making ditches and fences; there are two over-
seers, besides cooks, etc., making in all eighty-
eight men, ten women, eighty-four horses, seven
plows, and seventeen wagons. The daily expenses
are $216.”
The land owned by the company is a tract of
One and a half miles long by one and a quarter
miles broad. It is surrounded by a fence five
and a half miles long, composed of 40,000 wil-
low poles, each of which is eight feet long, be-
ing six feet above the ground. They are
planted one and a half feet apart, and are
strengthened by three horizontal poles, and de-
fended by a ditch four feet deep, six feet wide
at the top, sloping to a breadth of one foot at
the bottom.”
These willow poles took root and made a
living wall around the colony. Across the streets
were gates, which when closed shut out all in-
vaders. This live fence was necessary to keep
out the tens of thousands of cattle that roamed
over the plains for miles on all sides of the
little vineyard colony. The superintendent,
George Hansen, constructed for the company
a main zanja, Seven and a half miles long, to
bring water from the Santa Ana river to and
through the colony tract, and about three hun-
dred and fifty miles of lateral ditches for dis-
tributing the water to the different tracts. On
each twenty-acre lot, eight acres of vines were
planted the first year. These were cultivated
and cared for by the cormpany. At the end of
two years the vines first planted had come into
bearing, and all assessments having been paid, a
division of the lands was made. Each share-
holder had paid into the general fund $1,200.
Each lot had a value placed on it according to
situation, improvements, etc., the values rang-
ing from $600 to $1,400. The division was made
by lot. As each stockholder had paid in the
same amount—viz., $1,2OO—the man who drew
a $1,400 lot paid over $200 to the equalization
fund, and the man who drew a $600 lot received
$600 cash. In addition to his vineyard lot, each
shareholder received a lot in the town plot.
After the distribution, a number of the colonists
came down from San Francisco, built houses on
their lots and entered on the career of vine-
yardist and wine-maker. Each proprietor as-
sumed control of his vineyard lot December 15,
1859. The Los Angeles Star of March 29, 1860,
has this notice of the Anaheim colony: “The
affairs of this settlement are in a prosperous
condition. The shareholders are now nearly all
residents and are engaged in improvements of
their respective holdings. A large and very
well arranged hotel is just being finished by Mr.
Langenberger, which will be of great benefit
not only to the community there, but to the pub-
lic at large. The other proprietors are engaged
in erecting dwelling houses on their respective
lots.”
ANAHEIM TOWNSHIP.
Anaheim township was created December 17,
1860. The board of supervisors ordered “that
the tract of land purchased by John Frohling
and John Hansen of Don Pacifico Ontiveras in
1857, and also the tract of land purchased by
the Los Angeles Vineyard Society from George
Hansen, be set apart from Santa Ana township,
to be called Anaheim township, and that the re-
maining portion of Santa Ana remain and con-
stitute the township of Santa Ana.”
Among the original settlers there was but one
man who understood the art of wine-making.
The colonists were mostly mechanics. “There
were several carpenters, a gunsmith, an en-
graver, three watchmakers, four blacksmiths, a
brewer, a teacher, a shoemaker, a miller, several
merchants, a bookbinder, a poet, four or five
480
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
musicians, a hatter, several teamsters and a
hotelkeeper.” -
They went to work with that patient industry
characteristic of the Teuton. They had to learn
the art of wine-making mostly by experimenting.
The colony was thirty miles from Los Angeles,
the nearest point to obtain supplies. From there
they had to haul lumber for building and all
other necessities, until they established a land-
ing on the ocean twelve miles from the town.
It was a hard struggle for several years, but
their perseverance and industry won. The
property that cost them an average of about
$1,080 originally, at the end of ten years was
worth from $5,000 to $10,000. The colonists
during that time had supported their families
and paid for their improvements from the
products of their lands.
Unlike the Spanish pobladores (colonists),
who always built a church first and left the
building of a school house to those who came
after them, the Anaheim colonists built the
school house first and left the church building to
those who came later.
In the town plot of forty acres, which occu-
pied the center of the colony, a lot had been re-
served for a school house. On this a commodious
building of adobe had been erected to serve the
double purpose of a School house and assembly
hall, but during the great flood of 1861-62 the
waters of the Santa Ana river overflowed the
colony site and damaged the foundations of the
school house, rendering the building unsafe. A
school was maintained in the water company’s
building on Center street until 1869, when a
new building was erected.
The original colony tract contained 1,165
acres (it was part of the rancho San Juan Cajon
de Santa Ana), and was purchased from Juan
Pacifico Ontiveras for $2 per acre. In 1860
the Anaheim Water Company became the pos-
sessor of the ditches and water rights originally
belonging to the Anaheim Vineyard Company.
The stock of this company was an appurtenance
of the land and could not be diverted from it.
This company originally incorporated with
$20,000 capital stock. In 1879 its stock was
increased to $90,000, and the ditches extended
Tºnordhoff.
to cover what was known as the Anaheim ex-
tension. -
The Cajon Irrigation Company's ditch was
completed in November, 1878, at a cost of $50,-
OOO. It tapped the Santa Ana river at Bed Rock
cañon, and was, at the time of its completion,
fifteen miles long. It has since been extended.
In 1879, the Anaheim Water Company bought
a half interest in this ditch. All the water in-
terests on the north side of the Santa Ana river
have been consolidated into the Anaheim Union
Water Company. Anaheim was incorporated as
*
a city February 10, 1870, but a city government
was too great a burthen for the people to carry.
The legislature of 1872, on petition of the tax-
burthened inhabitants, disincorporated it. It
was incorporated as a town by act of the legis-
lature March 18, 1878. Thompson & West's
History of Los Angeles County, published in
1880, says of the schools of Anaheim : “The
town of Anaheim boasts of the handsomest school
building and the largest school in the county
outside of Los Angeles city.” -
For several years the school buildings had
been inadequate for the school population. In
1877, Prof. J. M. Guinn, who had been prin-
cipal of the Anaheim school for eight years,
drafted a bill authorizing the district to issue
bonds to the amount of $10,000. He was in-
strumental in securing its passage by the legis-
lature. It became a law March 12, 1878. The
bonds were sold at par and the school building,
costing over $10,000, was built out of the pro-
ceeds. This was one of the first, if not the first,
instance in the state of incorporating and bond-
ing a school district to secure funds to build a
school house—a method that since has become
quite common and has given to California the
best district school houses of any state in the
Union. Anaheim school district was extended to
take in what was formerly Fairview district and
a four-room school house erected in West Ana-
heim. A new high school was established in
1900. A new primary school building was
erected in 1905 at a cost of $10,000.
NEWSPAPERS.
The pioneer newspaper of Anaheim and also
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
481
of Orange county is the Anaheim Gazette. The
first number was issued October 29, 1870.
It was established by George W. Barter, who
obtained a subsidy from a number of public-
spirited citizens to found a newspaper in Ana-
heim. He bought the plant of the defunct Wil-
mington Journal. The old press that he ob-
tained had come around the “Horn,” and in 1851
had been used in printing the Los Angeles Star,
the pioneer paper of Southern California. Bar-
ter, after a short and inglorious career, sold the
paper to Charles A. Gardner in 1871. Gardner
sold it to Melrose & Knox in 1872. Knox re-
tired in 1876. Fred W. Atheran was connected
with the paper for a time in 1876-77, after which
Richard Melrose became sole proprietor and
continued so until it was sold to its present pro-
prietor, Henry Kuchel. The Orange County
Plain Dealer was established at Fullerton in
March, 1898, and afterwards removed to Ana-
heim. It is an eight-column, four-page weekly;
size of page, 20x25 inches.
For a quarter of a century Anaheim was the
greatest wine-producing district in California.
About 1885 a mysterious disease attacked the
vines. Within five years from its first appear-
ance two million vines that made up the vine-
yards of Anaheim and vicinity were dead. After .
the destruction of the grapevines, the vineyard
lots were planted with orange trees and English
walnuts. These have come into bearing and
have transformed the appearance of the old vine-
yard colony. The living wall of willows that
surrounded it and the four gates on the four
sides that shut out the great armies of cattle that
once . Damed over the plains beyond disappeared
long ago. There is little in the present appear-
ance of Anaheim to remind the old-timer of the
“Campo Aleman” (German camp), as the native
Californians named it fifty years ago.
CHURCHES.
The pioneer church of Anaheim is the Pres-
byterian. It was organized by Rev. L. P. Weber
(the founder of the Westminster colony) in
1869.
The church building was erected in 1872, at .
a cost of $3,500. The Episcopal Church of Ana-
heim was organized April 27, 1875. The
church building was completed in the fall of
1876, at a total cost of $3,600. The Roman
Catholic Society was organized in 1876. A
church, costing about $1,000, was built in 1879.
These are the pioneer churches. In addition to
these, the Methodist Episcopal North and the
Christian denominations have church buildings.
IMPROVEMENTS.
In January, 1875, the Southern Pacific Rail-
road completed a branch to Anaheim. For
nearly two years that town was the terminus;
then the road was extended to Santa Ana, where
it ended. In 1887 the San Diego line of the
Southern California or Santa Fé system was
built through the city. The same year a num-
ber of vineyards in the eastern part of the town
were divided into buildings lots. The Hotel del
Campo, a $40,000 tourist caravansary, was built,
but it did not pay and came very near bank-
rupting its progenitors. The city has steadily
progressed through all vicissitudes. It has banks,
a number of stores, several manufacturing estab-
lishments, and is the center of a large trade.
Its growth has always been solid and substantial.
The Anaheim free public library was estab-
lished in 1902. It has now on its shelves 1,250
volumes. Its annual income from taxation in
I905 was $453.
CITY OF SANTA ANA.
Santa Ana, the capital of Orange county, was
founded in October, 1869, by William H. Spur-
geon. He purchased the allotment of Zenobia
Yorba de Rowland, one of the heirs to the
rancho Santiago de Santa Ana. The tract pur-
chased contained seventy-six acres. This, with
the exception of ten acres reserved for a public
Square, Mr. Spurgeon platted in town lots and
placed on the market for sale. He built a store-
room, 18x36 feet, on the northeast corner of
Fourth and West streets, of rough redwood
boards battened. This was the first building
erected in the town. In this building he opened
a general merchandise store. At first the only
patronage he received from the citizens of the
town was his own, for the reason that he con-
stituted the town’s entire population. But he
did not long remain “monarch of all he sur-
veyed.” Others joined him, and in December
31
482
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
there was a population enough to organize a
school district. The district was named Spring.
In January a public school was opened; Miss
Annie Casad was the first teacher. The school
house was a rough board structure, with long,
backless benches for seats, and no desks or
blackboards. It stood on Sycamore street near
Third.
Santa Ana was about two miles south of the
old stage road that led from Los Angeles to
San Diego. This road was the camino viejo, or
old road, that had been traveled for a century.
There were no bridges across the Santa Ana river
at that time. In winter, when the waters were
high, on account of the quicksands fording the
river was a hazardous undertaking. The Rod-
riguez crossing, just north of Orange, on the
old stage road, was the only safe crossing in
times of high water. Mr. Spurgeon built a road
at his own expense from the stage road to his
town, and subsidized the stage company to
diverge its route through Santa Ana. He se-
cured a postoffice for the town and was appointed
postmaster. His salary was the munificent sum
of $1 a month. He held the office until 1879,
when the yearly compensation had increased to
$800. Then several public-spirited citizens were
not only willing, but anxious, to relieve him of
his burden. At first the town grew slowly.
Much of the country around it was held in large
tracts and was sparsely settled. In 1877 the
Analeim branch of the Southern Pacific Rail-
road was completed to Santa Ana. This gave
the town an impetus that sent it away ahead of
its competitors, Orange and Tustin. It became
the business center of a large area of country.
The first newspaper established in the town
was the Santa Ana News, founded by Nap. Don-
ovan, May 15, 1876. It was not a paying ven-
ture, and after running it about a year he sold
it to Spurgeon, Fruit and James McFadden,
who experimented with it for a fime and then
discontinued its publication.
PIONEER CHURCHES.
The first church organized at Santa Ana was
the Methodist Episcopal South. The organiza-
tion was effected at a meeting held in the resi-
dence of W. H. Tichenal in December, 1869.
Services were held in a private residence at
first, and later on in the school house. A church
building was erected in 1876. The Methodist
Episcopal Church North was organized in 1874.
The Baptist Church was organized in March,
1871. Its building was completed and dedicated
in September, 1878. The United Presbyterian
Church was organized June 22, 1876. Its edi-
fice was completed August, 1877. These are the
pioneer church organizations, all of which were
organized over thirty years ago." Now almost
every religious denomination is represented in
the city.
PIONEER BAN KS.
The pioneer bank of Santa Ana is the Com-
mercial, incorporated in April, 1882. It trans-
acts a general banking business. -
The First National Bank was organized in
May, 1886. It has a paid-up capital of $150,000.
It pays interest on deposits, as well as doing a
general banking business.
Orange County Bank of Savings was organ-
ized in 1889. It pays interest on deposits.
THE PRESS.
Santa Ana is well supplied with newspapers.
The pioneer paper of Santa Ana, as has been
previously stated, was the Santa Ana Weekly
News, established May 15, 1876, by Nap. Don-
Ovan. It was short lived. The next paper was
the Santa Ana Herald, established in October,
1877, by Nap. Donovan. In 1880 it was sold to
Jacob Ross. November 13, 1881, A. Waite be-
came the publisher. He continued in charge to
1886. As the Orange County Herald, weekly
and Semi-weekly, its publication was continued
by Hon. Linn Shaw.
The Pacific Weekly Blade was founded in
1886 by W. F. X. Parker and J. Waterhouse.
Later Waterhouse purchased Parker's interest in
the paper and founded the Daily Blade in 1887.
In 1889 the paper passed into the hands of a
Syndicate composed of Victor Montgomery,
W. H. Spurgeon, J. M. Lacy and C. W. Hum-
phreys. The syndicate conducted the paper
until May, 1895, when McPhee & Co. purchased
the property. The daily is an evening paper.
The Santa Ana Weekly Bulletin was founded
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
483
June 16, 1899, by D. M. Baker and J. W. Rouse.
It is Democratic in politics. The semi-weekly
Standard is published by Belmont Perry.
RECENT IMPROVEMENTS.
Santa Ana, like all the cities of Southern
California, took on a new growth with the be-
ginning of the new century. Its population, ac-
cording to the federal census of Igoo, was 4,933.
In 1904 its estimated population, according to
the school census and election registration, was
7, IOO ; a year later it was estimated at 8,000.
In 1904, according to the building inspector's
report, permits had been issued for residence
and business blocks aggregating $250,000; in
I905 the total amount expended in building ex-
ceeded $300,000. During the year 1904 a new
city hall was erected at a cost of $2O,OOO. A new
fire engine house was built at an expense of
$4,000, and a new alarm system and a fire wagon
and apparatus installed at a cost of $7,000. In
the fourth ward a school house costing $14,OOO
was completed and occupied at the beginning of
the school year of 1904-05. Among the new
buildings erected in 1905 were the First Pres-
byterian Church at a cost of $18,000 and the
Methodist South at an expenditure of $10,000.
In 1905 $100,000 was devoted to the extension
and improvement of the water system, putting
in new machinery at the pumping plant and al-
most entirely rebuilding the distributing system
so that all parts of the city are amply supplied.
THE PARADE OF PRODUCTS.
Santa Ana has inaugurated one of the unique
exhibitions for which the counties of Southern
California are famous. The “Parade of
Products” is an autumn display of the wealth
of the products of Orange county. It is to
Orange county what La Fiesta is to Los An-
geles, the Tournament of Roses to Pasadena and
the Street Fair to San Bernardino. The parade
of 1906 was held in December, and consisted of
a number of tastefully decorated floats, display-
ing samples of the products and telling the value
and the amount of each produced. “The story
of the floats told that Orange county shipped
600 tons of honey during the year 1906, that her
egg crop was worth more than her orange crop.”
There was a float of strawberries—fresh
strawberries in December. The banner over the
float bore the inscription $250,000, telling in
briefest phrase the wealth from a single seem-
ingly insignificant product. From the county's
Orange crop half a million dollars had been
realized the previous season. Twenty-carloads
of peanuts had been shipped during the year
from the three-hundred-acre ranch of the “Pea-
nut King of Tustin.” Leading all the rest and
greatest of all came the celery float, telling the
story of the development in the production of
this crisp delicacy within the last two decades.
Three thousand carloads sent to eastern markets
from 5,700 acres of peat land devoted to its
cultivation and $750,000 received by the pro-
ducers. The parade displayed a comparatively
new industry for Orange county—bean rais-
ing—I 75,000 sacks grown on I,200 acres of the
San Joaquin rancho. A procession of thirty-six
automobiles brought up the rear of the parade.
PUBLIC LIBRARY.
The Santa Ana public library was established
in 1891. It contains about 7,000 volumes. The
library owns a lot IOOxI25 feet—a donation to
the city by its founder, William H. Spurgeon.
The library building was built from funds do-
nated by Andrew Carnegie. The building is
two stories high and is built of brick and cement.
It was completed in 1903 at a cost of $16,000.
The annual income received from taxation
amounts to about $2,300.
ORANGE.
The territory of Orange originally bore the
name of Richland. In 1870, A. B. Chapman
and Andrew Glassell bought the allotments of
several of the Yorba heirs in the Santiago de
Santa Ana rancho, comprising several thousand
acres. This tract was subdivided into ten,
twenty and forty acre lots. Eighty acres were
divided into town lots.
A ditch from the Santa Ana river was con-
structed to the tract in the winter of 1871-72.
Several vineyards of muscat grapes were planted
in the spring of 1872, and a few orange trees.
Early in 1873 a postoffice was established and
named Orange. The agitation for the forma-
484
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
tion of a new county to be named Orange was
Quite active about this time. The town of
Orange had hopes of becoming the seat of gov-
ernment of the new county. The former name
of the district, Richland, fell into disuse and
Orange took its place both for the town and
school district. A school house was built in
I873. In 1874 the first church was built. It be-
longed to the Methodist denomination, but was
also used by others. A hotel was erected, but
as the patronage was not sufficient to support
it, it was used as a sanitarium. Three stores,
the hotel and a saloon constituted the business
houses of the town in 1875. In the winter of
I878-79 a new ditch was constructed at a cost
of $60,000. This gave an abundant water sup-
ply and the settlement flourished.
The ravages of the yellow scale in the early
'80s retarded citrus tree culture, and the vine
disease materially injured the raisin industry.
The energy and perseverance of the people over-
came all obstacles, and the district has become
a large producer of oranges and lemons.
Orange supports six churches, each owning its
own house of worship.
Orange was incorporated as a city of the sixth
class in 1888; its area was three square miles and
it claimed then a population of about 2,000 in-
habitants. Orange was among the earliest of
the smaller towns of the south to establish a
public library. Its library was founded in 1885
and made free in January, 1894. It contains
3,860 volumes, and receives an annual income
from taxation of about $700.
Orange is located at the junction of the kite-
shaped tract and the surf line of the Santa Fé
Railroad. It is connected with Santa Ana by
an electric line. During the year of 1905 Orange
had a building boom. One hundred and eighty
houses were erected at a cost of $230,000.
TUSTIN.
In 1867 Columbus Tustin and N. O. Stafford
bought of Bacon & Johnson a tract of land
containing 5,000 acres. This they divided
equally between them. Mr. Tustin, on his por-
tion, subdivided about IOO acres into town and
suburban lots and named the place Tustin City.
On the town site, at his own expense, in 1872,
he built a school house. The same year a post-
Office was established in the town or city. In
1887 the Tustin branch of the Southern Pacific
Railroad was built to the town, which ever since
has remained the terminus of that road. The
town has a bank, hotel, stores and other busi-
ness facilities. It has an excellent school, em-
ploying several teachers. -
FULLERTON.
Fullerton, while one of the youngest towns
of the county, is one of the most thriving. It is
a child of the boom and was founded in 1887.
It is located on the Santa Fé Railroad, twenty-
three miles southeast from Los Angeles and ten
miles northerly from the county seat. It is sur-
rounded by an excellent fruit country and does
a heavy shipping business in oranges and lemons.
The oil from a number of wells in the oil dis-
trict is piped to Fullerton for shipment. The
town has several hotels and a number of mercan-
tile establishments. The pioneer newspaper, the
Fullerton Tribune, was established in 1898.
The union high school building, a brick struc-
ture, costing about $10,000, was completed and
dedicated in 1898.
Fullerton was incorporated in 1904 as a city
of the sixth class. It recently voted bonds to
build a city high school. Fullerton is the center
of the English walnut district; nearly 3,000,000
pounds were shipped from there in 1905.
HUNTINGTON BEACH.
Pacific City, the predecessor of Huntington
Beach, was founded in 1902. A large acreage
lying north and west of the original plat was
purchased by a syndicate of which H. E. Hunt-
ington was a member. The name of the town
was changed to Huntington Beach. A number
of new blocks were platted; extensive improve-
ments were made. The streets were graded and
oiled. Four blocks were donated to the Meth-
Odists, who completed in 1906, an auditorium
capable of seating three thousand people. The
annual camp meetings of that denomination in
Southern California will be held in it. The
Chautauqua Assembly has selected Huntington
Beach as the site for its meetings. A canning
factory was built in 1906 for the canning of
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
485
vegetables. The most considerable product put
up at this factory is celery. The famous celery
fields lie but a short distance north of the town
limits. The factory for preparing peat for fuel
was built in 1906 and put into operation. The
original wharf of Pacific City has been extended
2OO feet further into the ocean. In addition to
its advantages as a beach resort, it has tributary
to it a rich agricultural district.
WESTMINSTER COLONY.
In the autumn of 1871 Rev. L. P. Webber
secured from the Los Angeles and San Ber-
nardino Land Company a tract of 8,000 acres
lying between Anaheim and the ocean on which
to locate a colony. It was intended to be a tem-
perance colony. The settlers pledged themselves
not to grow grapes for the production of wine
and brandy.
he was able, to secure settlers of his own church
and the colony was known as a Presbyterian
settlement. The first church erected in the col-
ony was Presbyterian. A tract of 160 acres in
the center of the colony lands was subdivided
into town lots. A hotel, a school house, three
churches, a blacksmith shop, two store buildings,
a doctor's office and drug store were built on
the town site; then, the town stopped growing
and has remained nearly stationary ever since.
Of late years dairying has become the principal
industry and two creameries are located near the
town. Near Westminster are the celebrated
peat lands, where trainloads of celery are grown
and shipped to the eastern states. -
GARDEN GROVE.
The town of Garden Grove was founded in
1877 by Dr. A. G. Cook and Converse Howe. A
postoffice was established the same year. A
large business house was built and a store opened
in it. The building was burned down in 1880.
The town has a fine school house and employs
several teachers. It has a hotel, a Methodist
church and several , religious organizations.
There are a number of walnut groves in its im-
mediate vicinity. It is surrounded by an ex-
cellent agricultural country. The electric car
line from Los Angeles to Santa Ana passes
through the town.
The founder endeavored, as far as
LOS ALA MITOS.
A large Sugar factory was located on the Ala-
mitos rancho in 1897. Around this has grown
up a town. It is located on a branch of the
Southern Pacific Railroad, extending from the
Santa Ana line at Lorra, near Anaheim, to Ala-
mitos, nine miles. The beet sugar factory dis-
tributes about a half a million dollars yearly
among the farmers in this district. There is a
school building, a church and boarding houses
for the employes of the factory.
BAY CITY.
Bay City, located on the south side of the en-
trance to Alamitos bay, was founded by Hon.
P. A. Stanton. The town is near the site of the
now deserted and almost forgotten Anaheim.
Forty years ago the yearly wine shipments from ,
this port exceeded that of any other port in the
United States. Bay City is a seaside resort. The
residences stretch along the ocean front a mile
or more. It can be reached by two electric car
lines.
Blj ENA PARIK.
The town of Buena Park was laid out in 1887.
It is located on the Southern Pacific Railroad,
thirteen miles northerly of Santa Ana. It has a
condensed milk factory, established in 1889. This
factory distributes monthly about $15,000 for
milk and labor. The town has a hotel, several
stores, a school building and a Congregational
church.
NEWPORT BEACH.
Newport Beach is the chief seaport of Orange
county. It is ten miles southwest of Santa Ana
and is reached by the Santa Ana & Newport
Railroad. An electric railway was completed in
1905 from Los Angeles to Newport. It has a
pier where freight and passengers are landed.
It is a favorite seaside resort for the people of
Santa Ana.
CAPISTRANO.
The first settlement in Orange county was
made at what was formerly known as San Juan
Capistrano. The mission of that name was
founded in 1776. After the secularization of the
missions an Indian pueblo was established here,
but it was not a success. A Mexican population
486
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
built up a town at the ruins of the old mission
buildings. Capistrano is probably the most thor-
Oughly native Californian of any town in the
state. The Mission church, destroyed by an
earthquake, was the largest and most imposing
building ever built by the Mission fathers. Its
ruins attract many visitors. Capistrano has a
hotel, several stores, a school house and a num-
ber of saloons. Church service is still held in a
room of the old Mission buildings. Capistrano
is on the surf line of the Santa Fé Railroad, sixty
miles from Los Angeles and about the same dis-
tance from San Diego.
CHAPTER LXX.
RIVERSIDE COUNTY.
cluded in Riverside county will be found
in that of the counties from which it was
segregated—San Diego and San Bernardino.
The first attempt to form the county of River-
side was made in the legislature of 1891. Three
ambitious towns in Southern California were at
the same time seized with a desire to become
county seats, and bills were introduced in the leg-
islature of 1891 to form the three new counties
from territory taken from the three old counties,
Los Angeles, San Bernardino and San Diego.
Pomona county was to have been formed from
the eastern portion of Los Angeles county and a
slice taken from the western side of San Ber-
nardino. Riverside county sliced a triangle off
the southwestern part of San Bernardino and
appropriated a rectangle of San Diego's north-
western area; while San Jacinto county cut deep
into San Diego's eastern area. Bills creating these
counties were introduced in the legislature. Then
there was a triangular contest between the pro-
spective counties, each fighting its rivals. The old
counties, San Bernardino and San Diego, bitterly
opposed the schemes of the divisionists. One
San Bernardino editor denounced the division
pian as “geographical sacrilege,” and another
charged the divisionists with attempting mayhem
àn the Saints (Diego and Bernardino). The
Riverside bill passed the senate with only eleven
opposing votes and the hopes of its progenitors
soared high. The county offices were divided
up and a county seat selected for the new county.
Then came an agonizing delay. The assembly
had become involved in one of those interminable
T HE early history of the territory now in-
Scandals that crop out during the sessions of our
legislature. Before the “waste basket scandal”
could be hushed up the session ended and the
Riverside bill died on the files.
In the legislature of 1893 the Riverside scheme
came to the front early in the session; the other
two division projects were held in abeyance, or
at least were not pushed with vigor, and did not
reach a vote. The act to create the county of
Riverside was approved March I I, 1893. River-
side county was formed from the southwestern
part of San Bernardino county and the northern
part of San Diego. From San Bernardino it
took 560 square miles and from San Diego 6,418,
thus giving the new county an area of 7,008
square miles. It is bounded on the west by Or-
ange county and on the east by the Colorado
river. In its contour Riverside county is widely
diversified. In it rises one of the highest peaks
(Mount San Jacinto) in Southern California and
the deepest depressions below the sea level are
found within its limits. -
It possesses every variety of climate. In the
wooded cañons of Mount San Jacinto the snow
never melts; in the depression of the Colorado
desert the heat exceeds that of the torrid zone;
while on its western mesas, where the breezes
waft the fragrance of the rose and the orange
blossom, perpetual spring rules the year.
Its productions are as varied as its climate.
Its mountains produce lumber; its deserts yield
salt, and its western plains are the greatest or—
ange growing districts in the world. It pro-
duces deciduous fruits as well as the semi-tropic.
Peaches, apples, apricots, prunes, pears and cher-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
487
ries thrive and yield abundantly. In the low-
lands along the Santa Ana river alfalfa makes
dairying a profitable industry. Gold, silver, coal
and asbestos are found within its borders.
ERA OF AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMIENTS.
The terrible drought of 1863 and 1864, which
destroyed the cattle-raising industry of Southern
California, brought about the subdivision of
many of the large grants that had been held for
stock ranges. The decline of the cattle industry
compelled the agriculturists of the south to cast
about for some other use to which their lands
could be turned. The later ’60s and the early
'70s might be called the era of agricultural ex-
periments in California. Olden-time tillers of the
Soil will recall perhaps with a sigh the silk-
culture craze, the Ramie-plant fad, the raisin-
grape experiment and other experiences with
tree and plant and vine that were to make the
honest farmer happy and prosperous, but which
ended in dreary failure and often in great pecu-
niary loss.
To One of these fads—the silk-culture craze—
Riverside owes its location, and for this reason
the sericulture mania deserves more than a pass-
ing notice. . To encourage silk culture in Califor-
nia the legislature in 1866 passed an act author-
izing the payment of a bounty of $250 for every
plantation of 5,000 mulberry trees two years old,
and one of $300 for every IOO,OOO merchantable
cocoons produced. This greatly stimulated the
planting of mulberry trees if it did not greatly
increase the production of silk.
In 1869 it was estimated that in the central or
southern portions of the state there were ten mil-
lions of mulberry trees in various stages of
growth. Demands for the bounty poured in upon
the commissioners in such a volume that the state
treasury was threatenéd with bankruptcy. At
the head of the silk industry in the state was
Louis Prevost, an educated French gentleman,
who was thoroughly conversant with the busi-
ness in all its details. He saw a great future for
it, and firmly believed that the Golden State
would outrival his native country, France, in the
production of silk. He had established at Los
Angeles an extensive nursery of mulberry trees
and a large cocoonery for the rearing of silk
worms. His enthusiasm had induced a number
of the leading men of the south to enter into an
association for the purpose of planting extensive
forests of mulberry trees for the nourishment of
silk worms; and for the establishment of a colony
of silk weavers. The directors of the association
cast about for a suitable location to plant a col-
Ony.
I take this notice of the visit of the presi-
dent and a director of the association to San
Bernardino from a letter of a correspondent of
the Los Angeles Star June 15, 1869: “Messrs.
Prevost and Garey have been here looking out
for land with a view to establish a colony for
the culture and manufacture of silk. The col-
ony is to consist of one hundred families, sixty
of whom are ready to settle as soon as the loca-
tion is decided upon. Both of these gentlemen
are highly pleased with our soil, climate, etc.,
and consider it far better adapted to the culture
of the mulberry than any other of the southern
counties.” The directors of the California Silk
Center Association of Los Angeles (by which
name the organization was known), through its
Superintendent, purchased 4,000 acres of the
Robidoux rancho, which was a part of the Juru-
pa rancho, granted to Juan Bandini in 1838,
and 1,460 acres of government land on the Harts-
horn tract, which adjoined the Robidoux rancho
to the eastward. They also arranged to pur-
chase from the Los Angeles & San Bernardino
Land Company 3, 169 acres of that portion of the
Jurupa rancho opposite the Robidoux rancho on
the east side of the Santa Ana river.
Prevost, the president of the association, died
August 16, 1869, before the land deal was com-
pleted. The winter of 1869-70 was one of short
rainfall and but little was done towards plant-
ing trees on the colony grounds, and no effort
was made to colonize the tract. The death of
Prevost had deprived the association of its main-
spring and its works stopped. Besides the silk
culture craze had begun to decline. The im-
mense profits of $1,000 to $1,2OO per acre that
had been made in the beginning by selling silk
worm eggs to those who had been seized by the
craze later had fallen off several figures from
Over-production; and to give a finishing blow
to the fad the state canceled the bounty. The
488
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECôRD.
y
Silk Center Association having fallen into hard
lines, offered its lands for sale on most advan-
tageous terms, and it soon found a buyer.
THE COLONY ASSOCIATION.
“On the 17th day of March, 1870, at Knox-
ville, Tenn., J. W. North issued and sent to num-
erous persons in the northern states a circular,
entitled, ‘A Colony for California.’ In that cir-
cular was briefly stated what was expected as
to the establishment and carrying on of the pro-
posed colony which had not at that time any
definite form or special proposed location.”
In this circular Judge North said: “We do
not expect to buy as much land for the same
amount of money in Southern California as we
could obtain in remote parts of Colorado or
Wyoming; but we expect it will be worth more
in proportion to cost than any other land we could
purchase in the United States. We expect to
have Schools, churches, lyceum, public library,
reading room, etc., at a very early date, and we
invite such people to join our colony as will es-
teem it a privilege to build them.”
In the summer of 1870 Judge J. W. North,
in company with several other gentlemen who
had become interested in the proposed colony,
visited Southern California to secure a location
for their prospective colony. After examining a
number of tracts of land offered, they, on the
I4th of September, 1870, purchased from the
stockholder of the Silk Center Association all
the real estate, water rights and franchises of
that corporation. The purchasers had organ-
ized under the name of The Southern California
Colony Association. The members of the as-
sociation were Judge John W. North, Dr. James
P. Greves, Dr. Sanford Eastman, E. G. Brown,
Dr. K. D. Shugart, A. J. Twogood, D. C. Two-
good, John Broadhurst, James A. Stewart and
William J. Linville. Judge J. W. North was
made president and general manager of the as-
Sociation. The land was bought at $3.50 per
acre. It was mesa or table-land that had never
been cultivated, and so dry that one old-timer
said he had seen “the coyotes carrying can-
teens when they crossed it.” It was not even
*Riverside—The Fulfillment of a Prophecy. By John G. North.
good sheep pasture, and it is said that Robidoux
at one time had it struck from the assessment
roll because it was not worth paying taxes on.
During the fall of 1870 a portion of the lands
was surveyed and platted. A town was laid out
and named Jurupa, from the name of the rancho,
but this was changed to Riverside. The river,
the Santa Ana, did not flow by the site of the
town, but the colonists hoped that a considerable
portion of its waters would eventually be made
to do so.
The first families to arrive
reached it late in September,
in the colony
1870. Their
dwellings were constructed of rough upright
redwood or pine boards, the families camping
out while the buildings were in the process of
construction. As there was neither paint nor
plaster used and the chimney was a hole in
the roof out of which the stove pipe projected,
it did not take long to erect a dwelling. The
nearest railroad was at Los Angeles, sixty-five
miles away, and from there most of their sup-
plies and building materials had to be hauled on
wagons.
It was easy enough to survey their land and
plat a town site, but to bring that land under
cultivation and to produce from it something to
support themselves was a more serious prob-
lem. Land was cheap enough and plentiful, but
water was dear and distant. It required engi-
neering skill and a large outlay of capital to
bring the two together. Without water for
irrigation their lands were worthless and the
colony a failure.
The colonists set to work vigorously in the
winter of 1870-71 to construct an irrigating
canal from a point on the Santa Ana river to
the colony lands. Early in the summer of 1871
the canal at a cost of about $50,000 was com-
pleted to the town site. A few enthusiasts in
citrus culture, before the canal was dug, bought
seedling orange trees in Los Angeles at $2
apiece, and after hauling them across the arid
plains sixty-five miles, planted them in the dry
mesa and irrigated them with water hauled from
Spring brook in barrels. The rapid growth of
these trees, even under adverse circumstances,
disapproved the sneer of the old-timers that
Orange trees would not grow in the sterile soil
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
489
of the mesas, and greatly encouraged the colon-
ists.
The raisin grape was at that time coming in-
to notice, and many of the early settlers planted
their grounds in vineyards. Others experi-
mented with the deciduous fruits, and a few had
an abiding faith in the Orange. Orange trees
had to be raised from the seed, and the eight or
nine years required to bring a seedling orange
to bearing looked like a long time to wait for
return.S.
After a series of experiments, some of them
costly, the colonists finally evolved the “fittest”
product for their soil and market, and that was
the Bahia orange, or, as it is now called, the
Washington navel orange. In December, 1873,
L. C. Tibbetts, a Riverside colonist, received by
mail from a friend at Washington, D. C., two
Small orange trees which had been imported
from the city of Bahia, in Brazil, by the agri-"
cultural department. This variety is seedless
and of fine flavor. It became immensely popu-
lar. Buds were taken from the parent trees and
inserted in the stock of the seedling orange trees
and the variety was propagated by budding from
tree to tree as rapidly as buds could be obtained.
The descendants from these two trees number
well up to a million. One of these old trees
has been recently presented to the city by its
present owner, O. Newberry.
ARLINGTON.
In 1875 Samuel C. Evans, a wealthy banker
of Fort Wayne, Ind., came to Riverside. He
purchased a half interest in Io,000 acres of land
known as the Hartshorn tract (now known as
Arlington), lying to the southward of the orig-
inal colony tract. Capt. W. T. Sayward of
San Francisco was the owner of the other half.
These gentlemen began the construction of a
canal for the irrigation of their lands. They
were denied the right of way across the lands
of the Southern California Colony • Association.
Mr. Evans quietly secured a controlling interest
in the stock of the Colony Association and then
dictated his own terms. In 1875 he assisted in
organizing the Riverside Land and Irrigation
Company, and in 1876 he became its president.
This company absorbed the Southern California
Colony Association, its unsold land, water rights
and canals. The two water systems were con-
solidated under one management, the canals
were extended and thousands, of acres of fertile
land brought under irrigation.
Up to 1875 Riverside had grown slowly, but
with the accession of a larger territory, with an
increased water supply, new settlers coming and
more money in circulation, it took on a new and
healthier growth. The world-famous Magnolia
avenue was begun at this time. From a pam-
phlet published by Capt. W. T. Sayward in 1875.
descriptive of the new lands just thrown on the
market, I take this description of what Mag-
nolia avenue was intended to be by one of its
progenitors: “A grand avenue has been sur-
veyed and laid out from Temescal creek nearly
to San Bernardino in a straight line eighteen
1miles long and I32 feet wide, running through
the lands of the Santa Ana, New England and
Riverside colonies. This avenue is to be lined
the entire distance with fruit, shade and orna-
mental trees on each side and one row in the
center; and when completed will make the most
beautiful drive and be the most ornamental road
in the world.”
The amount of land contained in the colonies
named above is, according to the pamphlet, as
follows: “Riverside colony, 8,000 acres; New
England, IO,OOC acres; Santa Ana, 7,000 acres.
All these colonies are united in one irrigating
system.” The city of Riverside has long since
swallowed up all these colonies and has taken in
about IO,OOO acres besides. The present area
of the city is about fifty-six square miles. It
was incorporated in 1883.
In 1875 the population of the Riverside settle.
1ments was estimated at I,000. The town then
had within its limits one church edifice, a School
house, a hotel, two restaurants, a carriage and
wagon factory, three general merchandise stores,
a drug store, a livery stable and two saloons. An-
other saloon was added to the number early in
1876. Although not large, it seems then to
have been a “wide open town,” judging from the
number of saloons in it. The saloons were closed
So long ago that many of the present inhabitants
are perhaps not aware they ever had any in the
town.
490
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
RAILROAD PROSPECT.
The first railroad meeting in Riverside of
which I have any record was one held in the
School house February 23, 1876. The Southern
Pacific was building eastward. San Bernardino
confidently expected to be on the main line, and
Riverside had hopes that it might be. The rail-
road passed between them and laid out a town of
its own, Colton. San Bernardino set up a wail
and petitioned the legislature to pass an act
bonding the county so that it could build a road
of its own to tide water at Anaheim landing.
Riverside cautic ned the legislature against the
Schemes of its 1 eighbor in the following amusing
resolution: “Resolved, That the people of River-
side respectfully request the honorable senate and
house of representatives of California not to be
too much moved by the touching appeal of the
town San Bernardino; Riverside could lament
just as hard if it were disposed to.”
THE FIRST CITRUS FAIR.
The first Citrus Fair held in Riverside opened
February 12, 1879. It was conducted under the
auspices of the Southern California Horticultural
Society. The exhibit was mainly seedling
Oranges, Mediterranean Sweets, St. Michaels and
Konahs, with a few specimens of the navel
Orange. The Riverside Press thus exultingly
describes one of the most attractive features of
the fair: “D. C. Twogood’s exhibit was four
boxes of Seedling Oranges packed. These four
boxes, open and full of fruit, made a broad glare
which fairly illuminated that end of the hall.”
The Oranges were exhibited on plates, and the
plates were not heaped. Cicily and China lemons
formed a part of the exhibit. A Konah orange
six inches in diameter was one of the wonders
of the fair.
GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT.
A census or enumeration taken in 1879 of the
citrus fruit trees in Riverside, Sunnyside and Ar-
lington gave the following numbers of each:
Orange trees, I60,861 ; lemon, 23,950; limes, 28,-
642. In addition to the citrus trees there were
22I,465 vines and about 50,000 deciduous trees.
A very good showing for a colony only eight
years old.
Twenty-five years later it had a million and
a half citrus trees alone. During the season of
1905, Riverside shipped 7,175 cars of citrus
fruits which sold for $3,456,050 net to the grow-
ers. Its other agricultural products returned to
the producers over $1,000,000. According to
Bradstreet the per capita of wealth to each of
its inhabitants makes Riverside the richest com-
munity in the world. All this wonderful devel-
opment of wealth and resources is the work of
a single generation. In the summer of 1871 the
author of this history rode over the site of Riv-
erside and the entire length of its since famous
avenue, Magnolia, and in the entire length and .
breadth of that extensive and almost uninhab-
ited area, there was not a bearing fruit tree
or vine: Then there was not a railroad within
sixty miles of the town, now it has three rail-
road systems, the Southern Pacific, the Santa
Fe and the San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake.
The Arlington and Riverside electric railway
operating within the city of Riverside has ten
miles of track.
SOME FIRST EVENTS.
The first building erected in the Riverside set-
tlement was the office of the Southern California
Colony Association, September, 1870. It was
built on land new occupied by the Santa Fe
depot.
The first child born in the settlement was a
daughter of John Broadhurst, born December
26, 1870. The first in the town of Riverside was
a daughter of A. R. Smith, born March 31, 1871.
The first sermon preached in the town was
delivered by Rev. A. Higbie, a Methodist min-
ister. He was also the surveyor of the colony
tract, afterwards a member of the legislature
from Los Angeles county.
The first resident clergyman was Rev. J. W.
Atherton, a Congregational minister. The first
church erected in the town was a Congregational.
The first school house was built in 1871. It
was a frame building costing $1,2OO.
The first mercantile establishment was opened
by E. Ames in the winter of 1870-71. The first
brick building, a store room 25x75, was erected
by Buet Brothers in 1875.
The first newspaper published was the Riv-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
491
erside Weekly News. The first number appeared
November 27, 1875.
RIVERSIDE LIBRARY.
The Riverside Public Library was established
in 1879. It was made free to the public in 1888.
It contains I6,700 volumes. Its annual income
from taxation is about $8,000. It has seven em-
ployes. In 1891 Andrew Carnegie gave the city
a donation of $2O,OOO. The city secured a site
165XI65 feet in a central location at a cost of
$3,000. A building was erected on this costing
$25,000 the city adding $5,000 to Carnegie's
donation. The building is one story and contains
five rooms. It is built of brick and cement in
the mission style of architecture. It was com-
pleted and Occupied in 1902.
PIONEER PRESS.
The pioneer newspaper of the colony was the
Riverside Weekly News. The first number was
issued November 27, 1875. It was founded by
jesse Buck and R. A. Davis. It was a five-col-
umn paper; size, 12x15 inches. April 29, 1876,
Buck retired with this brief valedictory: “The
bell rings, the curtain drops, Buck is out.” R.
A. Davis, Jr., continued the publication until it
was merged into the Riverside Press two years
later.
The Riverside Press, a seven-column weekly
paper, was founded by James H. Roe, June 29,
1878. L. M. Holt assumed the management of
it January 10, 1880. He enlarged it to eight
Columns and changed the name to the Press and
Horticulturist. The Daily Press was established
in 1886. It is still published as an evening daily.
The Valley Echo was established in 1882 by
James H. Roe and R. J. Pierson. December 6,
1888, the Echo was consolidated with the Daily
Press and the li/eekly Press and Horticulturist,
E. W. Holmes becoming a partner, the firm be-
ing Holmes, Roe & Pierson. The Weekly Re-
fler, established in 1895, was consolidated with
the Press and Horticulturist, October 1, 1896.
The Daily Enterprise, the oldest daily of Riv-
erside, was established in 1885. The Daily Globe,
established in 1896, was consolidated with the
Enterprise, October 30, 1897. A bi-weekly edi-
tion of the Enterprise is also published. The
Enterprise has absorbed the following named
weekly papers: the Weekly Searchlight, May 7,
1896; the Weekly Perris Valley Record, March
5, 1896; Moreno Indicator, November 7, 1896.
CHAP TER LXXI.
RIVERSIDE COUNTY-Continued.
RIVERSIDE WATER SYSTEMS.
HE citrus groves of the Riverside val-
ley cover about 20,000 acres. Four
large water systems supply water for
irrigating the territory covered by these groves,
viz.: The Riverside Water Company, the Gage
canal, the Jurupa canal and the Riverside-High-
land Water Company.
The Riverside Water Company is composed of
the land owners under the system. It supplies
the older orchards in the valley. Two shares of
stock are appurtenant to an acre. The company
obtains its water supply from the Santa Ana
river, and from Warm Springs and wells in the
San Bernardino artesian belt. This system has
forty miles of main canal (half of which are ce-
mented) and about 150 miles of laterals. This
company also owns and operates a piped water
system, by means of which it distributes through-
out the city about 150 inches of pure artesian
water under heavy pressure. The pressure is
sufficient to afford fire protection without fire
engines. This water is delivered through eight-
een miles of mains and twenty-six miles of small-
er pipes.
- THE G.AGE CAN AL.
Very few of the many irrigating schemes that
have been promoted in recent years for the de-
velopment of water and the reclamation of arid
lands have been so successful as that commonly
492
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
known as the Gage canal. From small begin-
Inings this enterprise has developed into magnifi-
cent proportions. In its gradual development it
well illustrates the truth of the old couplet:
“Tall oaks from little acorns grow,
Great streams from little fountains flow.”
Mathew Gage, a jeweler by occupation, came
to Riverside in March, 1881. He was compara-
tively a poor man. Shortly after his arrival he
took up under the desert land act a section of
land. This land was situated on the plain above
the canals and eastward of the Riverside settle-
ment. There was apparently no way of getting
water upon it except from the clouds. Around
it were thousands of acres fertile and productive
if water could be brought upon them, but bar-
ren without it. To perfect the title to his sec-
tion of desert land he must bring water upon it
from some source. His first move was to buy
some old water rights in the Santa Ana river.
Next he secured a large tract of land bordering
on that river and lying about two miles south-
east of San Bernardino city. On this land he
began sinking wells. In 1882 he began work on
his great canal. Wiseacres who “knew it all”
ridiculed the scheme of the tenderfoot, and
prophesied its failure. Narrow-minded people
who could not comprehend the magnitude of the
undertaking and who feared some injury to their
petty interests opposed it. But Gage labored on
undaunted, conquering every obstacle and Sur-
mounting every difficulty. On the IOth of No-
vember, 1886, he had twelve miles of the canal
completed and was delivering water therefrom.
In the year 1888 he extended the canal a dis-
tance of ten miles in a southwesterly direction,
skirting the foothills and bringing under irri-
gation the lands now known as Arlington
Heights. The main canal is twenty-three miles
long, it is twelve feet wide on the bottom and
four feet deep at the head; and reduces
to five feet wide and four feet deep
at the terminus. It is cemented through-
out with Portland cement, which prevents
any loss from absorption. The Gage water
system covers 7,500 acres. Its total cost, includ-
ing the land up to 1900, is about $2,000,000. The
system and the lands under it have been trans-
ferred by its progenitor to the Riverside Trust
Company, Limited, a corporation of English
capitalists. This company controls the lands of
Arlington Heights, and has spent a large amount
of money in grading and planting trees along
Victoria drive. This street rivals the celebrated
Magnolia avenue. Its elevation and graceful
curves afford magnificent views of the River-
side valley.
The Jurupa canal is used in common by four
or five different corporations. It carries about
850 inches and supplies the orchards of West
Riverside and the land along the Santa Ana riv-
er. The water rights of this system are the old-
est on the river, and come down from the orig-
inal granting of the Jurupa rancho.
The Riverside-Highland Water Company ob-
tains its supply of water from 175 acres of water-
bearing land in the Lytle creek basin. It has
developed about 500 inches, which is pumped in-
to its pipes by electricity. To economize the
cost of pumping, a tunnel was run Some 3,000
feet, reaching the wells forty feet below the sur-
face. The water is conveyed to the orchards
in a 24-inch steel pipe twelve miles long. This
water supply covers about 2,300 acres lying above
the Gage canal in the Highgrove section.
CITIES AND TOWNS.
RIVERSIDE CITY.
The city of Riverside is enlinently a modern
city. Its beginning dates back but little more
than a generation. Its municipal existence is a
little over a quarter of a century. Everything
about the city is new, spick and span new, bur-
nished like a newly minted silver dollar. There
is no lingering of passing things, no moss-
grown buildings crumbling to decay. To give
it a semblance of antiquity the so-called mission
style of architecture has been adopted in many
of the buildings, but the assumption of the style
does not give the antique flavoring of the old
mission buildings. The modern mission archi-
tecture, both in looks and convenience, is a great
improvement on the ancient. The early history
of Riverside is part of the colony development
and not separable from it.
The city's boundaries include 56 square miles.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
493
In area it is the largest city in California. The
object of extending its limits is the protection
given to orange growers by enforcement of city
ordinances against insect pests. The donation
to the city of one of the original navel orange
trees from which the millions of these trees that
to-day cover vast areas in Southern California
have been derived is referred to in the preceding
chapter. The transfer of that historic tree and
its replanting was a famous day in Riverside. It
was replanted in its present position on May 8,
1903, by President Roosevelt. It stands in front
of the Glenwood hotel, surrounded by a high
railing. Notwithstanding it has given thousands
upon thousands of its buds for the propagation
of its species it is still vigorous and bears a crop
of golden fruit each year. Tibbetts, who intro-
duced the Washington navel orange into South-
ern California, died a few years since in strait-
ened circumstances. Riverside like all the cities
of Southern California has experienced a rapid
growth during the past five years. The build-
ings, public and private, completed in 1904 cost
in the aggregate $550,000, among these were the
court house, $210,000; the Roosevelt block, $20,-
OOO ; the Pennsylvania building, $47,000; Salt
Lake depot, $15,000; Riverside Hospital, $30,-
OOO; Victoria Club House, $9,000, and about one
hundred dwellings averaging about $2,200 each.
The improvements and additional buildings to
the Sherman Institute, begun in 1904 and com-
pleted the following year, cost about $100,000.
Municipal improvements have kept pace with
the building of business blocks and residences.
During the year 1905 and 1906 a scenic boule-
vard was built to the summit of Mount Robi-
doux. This driveway was completed at a cost of
$50,000. From the summit of the Mount, now
easily accessible by carriage or automobile, a
most magnificent view of the city of Riverside
and the surrounding country can be obtained.
For a quarter of a century Magnolia avenue has
been one of the most famous driveways in the
country. Riverside has recently by the con-
struction of Victoria avenue and Harwarden
Drive in Arlington Heights added to the notable
thoroughfares of Southern California. Instead
of following straight iines the driveway curves
and winds with the configurations of the land,
presenting beautiful views of the valley and the
mountains. The macadamizing and oiling of
Magnolia avenue was completed in 1906 at a
cost of $15,000.
CORONA.
Corona, formerly South Riverside, is fifteen
miles southwest of Riverside on the San Diego
branch of the Santa Fe Railroad. It was found-
ed in 1887 by the South Riverside Land and
Water Company, of which ex-Governor Samuel
Merrill of Iowa was president. The town site
was platted in the form of a circle one mile in
diameter. The town is encircled by a boulevard
IOO feet wide, lined on each side by shade trees.
The town grew rapidly at first. Six months af-
ter its founding there were in it ninety buildings
completed, Some of them brick blocks—one a
$40,000 hotel. Then it came to a standstill. The
costly hotel burned down and building ceased.
Its water supply originally was obtained from
Temescal cañon. As the area of cultivated land
increased this supply proved inadequate. An at-
tempt was made to bring water from Elsinore
lake. The Corona Irrigation Company, in 1899,
purchased I60 acres of land near Perris in the
San Jacinto artesian belt. A cemented ditch was
constructed to bring water from this source to
the head of the old pipe line a distance of twenty-
one miles. This greatly increased the irrigating
facilities of the settlement. The town or city is
incorporated. The corporation boundaries like
those of Riverside take in a large area planted in
oranges. This is done in order that municipal
ordinances may be enacted and enforced for the
eradication of insect pests.
Corona supports an excellent high school. The
city has a number of mercantile and other busi-
ness houses. The First National Bank of Corona
was incorporated in 1905, also the Corona Home
Telephone Company and the Corona Mutual
Building & Loan Association with a capital stock
of $2OO,OOO. It has ten packing houses. The
Pacific Clay Manufacturing Company has ex-
tensive works near Corona in the hills. The
company manufactures pottery, tiling, fire-brick
find vitrified pipe. From the granite quarries
monumental building and paving rock are
shipped. ,
494
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
The Corona free public library was established
in 1900. It has an annual income from taxation
of about $2,000. The total number of volumes
in the library is 2,800. Andrew Carnegie, in
I905, donated $12,500 for a library building. A
one-story seven room building constructed of
pressed brick was opened with a formal recep-
tion July 2, 1906. The citizens donated a lot
I2OxI50 feet for the library site. A statue of
Tannhauser, the gift of the Musical Club, was
unveiled at the time of the dedication of the
building.
The population of Corona in 1900 was 1,434.
It now (1906) claims 2,500. Corona has several
sobriquets. It is known as Circle City and
Crown City, and the district as the Queen colony.
TEMECULA.
Temecula, the most southern town in the coun-
ty, is the terminus of the San Jacinto, Elsinore
and Temecula branch of the Santa Fe Railroad
system, fifty-one miles southeast from Riverside.
The town was formerly a station on the Cali-
fornia Southern Railroad (now the Santa Fe),
built in 1881, and connecting San Bernardino and
San Diego. The great flood of 1892 destroyed
the railroad in the Temecula caſion, and it has
not been rebuilt. Since then Temecula has been
the southern terminus of the Santa Fe system
in the valley between the Santa Ana and San
Jacinto mountains. It is the business center of
a large and productive area of fertile land. It
is largely devoted to grain raising. The Teme-
cula grant was in the olden time the wheat field
of the Mission San Luis Rey, to which it be-
longed.
M URIETTA.
Murietta, on the Temecula branch of the San
ta Fe Railroad, was laid out in 1886. The Muri-
etta portion (about 14,000 acres) of the Teme-
cula rancho was purchased by the Temecula Land
& Water Company, subdivided and placed on the
market in small tracts in the autumn of 1884.
Grain and hay are the principal products shipped
from Murietta. There are two churches in the
town, but no saloons.
The Murietta Hot Sulphur Springs, a well->
known health resort, are located about three
miles from the town.
ELSIN ORE.
Elsinore, known as the “Lake City,” is twen-
ty-eight miles south of Riverside. The town is
located between the hills and the shore of the
lake or laguna. This laguna, which gives the
name to the rancho, is about five miles long by
two wide. Its waters are slightly alkaline. In
1884 Graham, Collier & Heald bought the La-
guna rancho, subdivided it and placed it on the
market in small tracts. The town is celebrated
for its hot springs. Within its limits there are
Over One hundred of these springs. The waters
of these are efficacious in curing bronchial ail-
ments, asthma, dyspepsia, rheumatism and de-
rangements of the liver and kidneys. In the
neighborhood of Elsinore is the most extensive
coal mine in Southern California. The output
of this mine is largely used in operating the
factories for manufacturing vitrified salt glazed
sewer pipe. There is also near Elsinore one of
the largest deposits of potter's clay in the state.
The town is well supplied with schools and
churches, and Supports a good weekly newspaper,
the Elsinore Press.
PERRIS.
Perris, sixteen miles southeast of Riverside,
is located at the junction of San Jacinto and
Temecula branches of the Santa Fe Railroad.
The town was laid out in 1882. In 1883 the
Southern California Railroad was completed to
this point. The San Jacinto branch road was
completed in 1888. Perris has an elevation of
about 1,300 feet above the sea level. It is sur-
rounded by a fine agricultural region. The fail-
ure of the Bear valley, irrigation scheme was a
serious drawback to Perris valley, but the discov-
ery that the plain around it is a great artesian
belt has more than recompensed for the loss of
the Bear valley water rights. Near Perris is a
government Indian School, where boys and girls
are being educated and trained in the industrial
artS.
WIN CHESTER.
Winchester is a small town on the San Jacinto
branch of the Santa Fe Railroad, nine miles
westerly from San Jacinto. It is surrounded by
a fine agricultural country, and is within the ar-
tesian belt.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
495
LAKEVIEWV.
Lakeview is connected with the Santa Fe Rail-
road system by a short branch road, of which the
town is the terminus. It is twenty miles south-
east of Riverside. It derives its name from its
proximity to San Jacinto lake, or sink of the
San Jacinto river. The Lakeview Town Com-
pany, a Chicago association, controls about IO,OOO
acres of rich fertile mesa, varying in elevation
from 1,400 to 1,800 feet. The tract is irrigated
from artesian wells.
HEM ET.
Hemet is located on the foot hills of the San
Jacinto mountains at an elevation of 1,600 feet.
Its population in 1900 was 905. It has a mag-
nificent water supply, the source of which is
Lake Hemet, an artificial lake made by building
a dam across the lower end of the Hemet valley
at an elevation of 4,2OO feet. The dam is con-
structed of granite, and is IOO feet thick at the
bottom and 30 feet at the top, and I22 feet high.
The dam flows the water back nearly three miles.
This water supply covers about 7,OOO acres.
Hemet has the only flouring mill in Riverside
county. It is the starting point for the Straw-
berry Valley stages.
SAN JACINTO CITY.
San Jacinto City is the terminus of the San
Jacinto branch of the Santa Fe Railroad. It is
the oldest town in the county. The nucleus of
the San Jacinto settlement dates back into the
Mexican era. The rancho San Jacinto Viejo
was granted to one of the Estudillos in the early
'40s, and included some 36,000 acres of the
choicest land in the valley. The lines of the
grant were so run as to take in most of the San
Jacinto river. This gave the rancho control of
about all the pasture lands of the valley.
A syndicate of capitalists in the early ’80s
purchased 18,000 acres of this rancho, and laid
out the town of San Jacinto. The town was in-
corporated April 9, 1888. The corporate limits
take in six sections of land. It is substantially
built, most of the buildings being brick. It was
severely shaken by the earthquake of December
25, 1899, but no lives were lost in the city. San
Jacinto is an important shipping point, having
about 200,000 acres of choice fruit and grain
lands tributary to it.
STRAWBERRY VALLEY.
Strawberry Vailey, an elevated plateau in the
San Jacinto mountains, twenty-two miles from
San Jacinto, has for many years been a popular
Summer resort. It has an elevation above the
sea level of 5,200 feet. The valley is timbered
with pine and Oak, and has three streams of run-
ning water and several springs. There were
formerly two hotels in the valley, the old hotel
at Strawberry and a small one at Idylwild.
In the fall of 1899 a syndicate of Los Angeles
physicians, of which Dr. F. T. Bicknell is presi-
dent, bought the I2O acres on which the old ho-
tel was located: and next they secured the Idyl-
wild tract containing 160 acres. They have since
purchased adjoining tracts, making in all 1,090
acres of mountain land. This corporation,
known as the California Health Resort Com-
pany, is constructing a large central building of
sixty rooms for a sanatorium. Besides the main
building there are a number of cottages of from
three to five rooms each, the occupants of which
take their meals in the dining hall of the main
building. In addition to these improvements the
association has laid off the village of Idylwild,
where cottages will be built for rent. The creeks
and springs afford a plentiful supply of pure
mountain water.
There are in the village a livery stable, store,
bowling alleys, postoffice and many different
means of out-door amusement. During the sum-
mer season a daily stage connects with the Santa
Fe Railroad at Hemet. A road was built from
Banning in 1905 connecting by stage line the
Southern Pacific Railroad with Idylwild.
BEAU MONT.
Beaumont was formerly known as San Gorg-
onia. It is a station on the Southern Pacific
Railroad, and is located on the divide or summit
of the San Gorgonia pass, at an elevation of 2,500
feet above the sea level. The town was laid out
in 1887, and had for a time quite a rapid growth.
It has at present two mercantile establishments,
two churches, a school-house of three depart-
ments and two hotels. It is surrounded by a
grain-growing district.
496
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
EAN NING.
Banning, on the Yuma branch of the South-
ern Pacific Railroad, was laid out in 1882. A
Syndicate of Nevada capitalists purchased a tract
of land, a small plat of which was divided into
town lots and the remainder subdivided into farm
lots. A cement ditch eight miles long was con-
structed up into Moore's cañon, and an abundant
supply of water secured for the colony tract. Ban-
ning is most picturesquely located. In its immedi-
ate vicinity are Mount San Bernardino, Mount
San Jacinto and Mount San Gorgonio, the three
highest peaks in Southern California, and stretch-
ing out to the eastward lies the Colorado desert.
The Banning district produces large quantities
of excellent peaches. Banning has an excellent
high School, employing three teachers and hav-
ing a daily attendance of twenty-five pupils.
THE COACHILLA VALLEY.
That trite old metaphor, “the desert shall be
made to blossom as the rose” has been literally
verified in a desert section of Riverside county.
While the roses blooming in the desert may not
be very numerous, there are acres of melon blos-
soms. Fifty miles eastward from Riverside City
lies the Coachilla (Little Shell) valley, a part of
the Colorado desert. This valley extends forty
miles from northwest to Southeast, and is from
five to fifteen miles in width. On three sides
it is enclosed by mountain chains, and on the
fourth it merges into an unbroken plain that
stretches to the Colorado river. Its bottom is
from 120 to 250 feet below the sea level. Sev-
eral years since the Southern Pacific managers
procured water at some of their desert stations,
but the sinking of these wells was quite expen-
sive. Early in the year 1900 the hydraulic proc-
ess of well boring was introduced into the val-
ley and proved quite successful. Bountiful sup-
plies of fresh water were struck at depths vary-
ing from 350 to 600 feet.
As soon as it was known that an abundance
of artesian water for irrigation could be obtained
at a moderate cost there was a rush for claims.
Actual settlement did not begin until Septem-
ber and October, 1900, and but few of the set-
tlers had their wells bored and their land cleared
for cultivation before February, 1901. The crop
that seemed to assure the quickest returns and
the most profit was melons. By the middle of
June the farmers had harvested their grain crops
and were shipping cantaloupes and watermelons
to Chicago at the rate of a car load a day. There
are now about fifty flowing wells in the valley,
which will eventually form a fruitful oasis in
the desert. The heat and the entire absence of
fogs ripen fruits and melons from six weeks to
two months earlier than any other part of the
United States. As an example of the value at
which land is held, an offer of $8,000 was re-
fused for the relinquishment of a homstead
claim of 160 acres, of which only fifty acres had
been brought under cultivation.
Up to the autumn of 1905 over 700 acres had
been reclaimed and brought under cultivation
and 77,000 crates of cantaloupes were shipped.
A large quantity of watermelons and grapes were
produced. The encroachments of Salton Sea
(which began in 1905) as it filled up from the
Colorado river overflowed portions of the re-
claimed desert iands of the Coachilla valley.
The Salt works at Salton were entirely sub-
merged and destroyed. The Southern Pacific
Railroad was compelled to build what is known
as a “shoo fly” track three times. Its original
track through the sink is under water for many
miles.
SOME TWENTIETII CENTURY EVENTS.
Among the leading events that have agitated
Riverside city and county at the beginning of
the present century may be named the building
of a city high School at a cost of $30,000, the
purchase of the Chalmers block at a cost of $20,-
OOO for a court-house and county-jail site, the
donation of $2O,OOO by the millionaire philan-
thropist, Andrew Carnegie, to the city of River-
side for the erection of a free library building,
the letting of a contract by the board of super-
visors for the construction of a $35,000 county
jail, and the laying of the corner-stone of the
Sherman Institute, an Indian school. The ques-
tion of building a new jail called forth consid-
erable discussion. Some invidious comparisons
were made in regard to the policy of building a
$30,000 high school for the accommodation of
300 high School pupils and the building of a
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
$35,000 jail for the reception of a dozen or so
hobos. The supervisors nevertheless decided to
build the jail. -
The description of the library building will be
found in Chapter LXX of this volume. The
scandal about the construction of the court-house
continued and grew ranker with age. It is not
a pleasant subject for a Riverside resident to
discuss. The wrecking of the Orange Growers'
Bank is another event of unpleasant memory.
THE SHERMAN INSTITUTE.
Nearly fifty years ago Hon. B. D. Wilson, in
an able report on the condition of the Southern
California Indians, their needs, their treatment
by the whites, the laws enacted for their govern-
ment, and the cruelties to which they were sub-
jected, sums up the Indian's status thus: “All
punishment—no reform;” and such has been his
fate under the rule of Spain, of Mexico and of
the United States.
Though long delayed, for the remnants of
the Southern California Indians happier days are
coming. These wards of the nation are to be
cared for and given a chance to reform. En-
lightened statesmanship has taken away the gov-
ernmental support formerly given to Sectarian
Indian schools, and has established instead, Secu-
lar institutions for his intellectual and industrial
training.
Fifteen years ago the superintendent of In-
dian affairs under President Harrison recom-
mended the establishing at some point on the Pa-
cific slope a government school for the industrial
training of Indian youth, similiar to the great
school at Carlisle, Pa. During President Mc-
Kinley's first term commissioners were sent to
look over the field. They recommended the lo-
cation of a school at Some point South of
Tehachepi. The fifty-fifth congress appropriat-
ed $75,000 for the purchase of land and erection
of buildings. The commissioners authorized to
select a site commended that offered by River-
side, and congress ratified its purchase. This
site consists of forty acres on Magnolia avenue,
near Arlington. Congress in 1900 voted an
additional appropriation for the erection of build-
ings and other improvements. The plans for
interests of the school. It
brick buildings, suitable for school rooms, dormi-
tories, offices, laundry, mess hall, etc., were drawn
by a government architect in accordance with
suggestions made by Capt. A. Tonner, assistant
superintendent of Indian affairs. These build-
ings were completed March 1, 1902, at a cost of
$150,000.
July 18, 1901, was a gala day for Riverside.
It was the day designated for the laying of the
corner-stone of the Sherman Institute, an insti-
tution that is to be made the great Indian school
of the west. Every portion of Southern Cali-
fornia was represented and there were represen-
tative men from the northern and central parts
of the state. United States Senator Perkins pre-
sided and Hon. Will A. Harris of Los Angeles
delivered the oration of the day. A guitar and
mandolin club of twenty girls from the Indian
school at Perris and a brass band composed of
twenty-six boys from the same school furnished
the instrumental music for the occasion. Quar-
fets of Indian boys and girls of the Perris school
also rendered vocal selections that were highly
appreciated.
The school is named for Hon. James S. Sher-
man, congressman from the twenty-fifth con-
gressional district of New York and chairman
of the committee on Indian affairs of the present
house of representatives. He has been active in
securing the appropriation and in furthering the
is estimated that
there are about 600 Indian children in the vari-
ous Indian reservations of Southern California
without school facilities. If these are left to
grow up on the reservations they will follow in
the footsteps of their fathers. The only hope of
“reform” for the Indians of Southern Cali-
fornia is the removal of the young from the evil
environments of the reservations and an indus-
trial training in schools such as the Sherman In-
stitute is intended to be.
The Institute has fulfilled the expectations of
its founder. It has been well patronized since
its founding. A number of new buildings have
been added to it. The school has an excellent
brass band, made up entirely from pupils in the
school. It also has a football team that has won
victories over some of the best teams in the state.
32
498
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
THE CONCRETE BRIDGE.
Riverside can boast of one of the triumphs of
modern bridge building—the concrete bridge
across the Santa Ana river, built for the San
Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad in
1903. It is claimed that this bridge is the
largest of its kind in the world. It is over a
thousand feet in length and its maximum height
is seventy feet. It was planned and built under
the direction of Henry Hawgood, chief of the
engineering department of the San Pedro, Los
Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad. Ordinarily the
Santa Ana is a harmless looking river that ap-
parently might be spanned by an ordinary tres-
tle work. But at times during, the rainy season
it is subject to sudden rises when a huge torrent
of water freighted with sand dashes with power-
ful force against any obstacle. It was to provide
against freshets that so powerful and enduring
a structure was built. To secure a solid footing
on the bedrock of the river for its piers it was
necessary to sink to a depth in the river bed
varying from fifteen to fifty-five feet; as these
excavations were carried down it became neces-
sary to construct coffer dams and use steam-
pumps to keep the water out. During the greater
part of the time that the bridge was in the course
of construction a force of 200 men was employed
and the work was carried on night and day. An
idea of the magnitude of the bridge may be ob-
tained from the dead weight of the structure,
which is estimated at 34,000 tons. Its cost was
$2OO,OOO. The bridge was open for traffic early
in 1904.
º

JOTHAM BIXBY.
:k >k >k >; ; >k
O you youths, western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and
friendship,
Plain I see you, western youths, see you tramping with
the foremost,
Pioneers O Pioneers |
Have the elder races halted P
Do they drop and end their lesson, wearied, over there
beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden, and the
lesson,
Pioneers O Pioneers |
All the past we leave behind;
We debouch upon a newer, mightier world,
world;
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor
and the march,
Pioneers
varied
O Pioneers |
We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains
Steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing, as we go, the
unknown ways,
Pioneers O Pioneers |
We primeval forests felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing we, and piercing deep
the mines within ;
We the surface broad surveying, and the virgin soil
upheaving,
Pioneers : O Pioneers |
:k >k >k >k >k :k
Raise the rnighty mother mistress,
Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry
mistress, (bend your heads all,)
Raise the fanged and warlike mistress, stern, impassive,
weaponed mistress,
Pioneers | O Pioneers |
See, my children, resolute children,
By those swarms upon our rear, we must never yield
or falter,
Ages back in ghostly millions, frowning there behind
us urging,
Pioneers | O Pioneers
>k >k >k >k >k >k
All the pulses of the world,
Falling in, they beat for us, with the western move-
ment beat;
Holding single or together, steady moving, to the front,
all for us,
Pioneers | O Pioneers |
>k >k :k >k >k :
LO ! the darting bowling orb
Lo! the brother orbs around ! all the clustering suns
and planets:
All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams,
Pioneers O Pioneers |
Has the night descended ?
Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop dis-
couraged, nodding on our way?
Yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause
oblivious,
Pioneers O Pioneers'
Till with sound of trumpet,
Far, far off the day-break call—hark how loud and
clear I hear it wind;
Swift' to the head of the army l—swift spring to your
places,
Pioneers O Pioneers |
When Jotham Bixby, the subject of this sketch, º
just turned twenty-one, set sail from Boston,
March I, 1852, aboard the clipper Samuel Apple-
ton, Captain Doane, bound for a voyage of One
hundred and fifty days around the Horn for
San Francisco, it was doubtless because a certain
adventurous fire was still steadily burning in his
veins unquenched from that which prompted his
emigrant ancestor, Joseph of that name, to come
over from England in the early years of discov-
ery and clear a farm in the virgin forests of
Massachusetts, and which, a little later, while
this splendid mother of Colonies in the first flush
of her early matronhood as a Commonwealth
was busily engaged in bringing forth, suckling,
weaning and sending out to the frontier so many
others of her sturdy offspring, impelled the sons
and grandsons of that emigrant to themselves
blithely and bravely cut loose from parental ties
and as they became of age set their faces res-
olutely in the direction of more room. Thus it
happens that we find many apparently unrelated
families of this name, which is rather an odd one,
widely scattered over the continent, from New
England, New York and Missouri to Indian Ter-
ritory, California and Manitoba, all sprung from
men who were pioneers of their own particular
region and beyond doubt all tracing to a common
origin in this single Puritan ancestor.
The branch of the family now in question set-
tled in Maine toward the end of the eighteenth
century on the banks of the Kennebec river, then
an outpost of civilization. Here, in the second
generation, one of the sons, Amasa, married
Fanny Weston, granddaughter of Joseph Wes-
ton, one of the most active and capable of the
33
502
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
pioneer settlers who in the first year of the war
of the Revolution volunteered as a woodsman
guide to accompany the ill-fated expedition of
Benedict Arnold through the pathless forests of
Maine against Quebec, and lost his life in the
patriotic discharge of that service.
Under this roof-tree were reared to maturity
eight sons and two daughters, all of whom soon-
er or later removed to California, and of whom
Jotham and his older brother, Marcellus, who
came out together around Cape Horn, are now,
fifty-five years later, the only survivors.
These two brothers went at once to the mines,
and for several years followed the washing of
gold with varying but rather indifferent suc-
cess. Here, through the exercise of that thrift
and frugality which had been instilled into them
in a home where principle and character and com-
mon sense constituted the animating spirit rather
than mere idle catchwords of daily life, they
managed to save a few thousand dollars, which
they first invested in a small mountain farm Sup-
plying produce to the mines.
Later on, having sold this, they invested in a
flock of about one thousand sheep, which were
then valued at about $6 a head. During the
years of drought of 1863 and 1864 these flocks,
which in the meantime had materially increased
in numbers, were maintained with great diffi-
culty by the partners on free government range
in the foothills and mountains of San Luis Obispo
county. If the crop of acorns in the latter year
had not proved exceptionally abundant they would
probably have lost everything, but through this
providential circumstance and their own untiring
efforts, living with their sheep as did the pa-
triarchs of old, they saved most of them.
About this time the half interest of Marcellus
in the sheep business was bought by the firm
of Flint, Bixby & Co., composed of another
brother, Llewellyn, who was the first of the fam-
ily to come to California, and two cousins, Ben-
jamin and Thomas Flint. This firm was already
well established and doing business on an ex-
tensive scale, and through them the new firm of
J. Dixby & Co., then formed with Jotham Bixby
as half owner and managing partner, was en-
abled to buy lands in Southern California and
abandon the at best uncertain practice of graz-
ing on the free ranges. -
As an indication of the wildness and inac-
cessibility of Los Angeles county at this time,
as late as 1866, it may be mentioned without im-
propriety that one of the chief impelling motives
which induced the elder brother to sell out his
half interest to the wealthier firm, whose mem-
bers indeed did not have to live here, was the
fact that he dreaded to bring his family into so
rough and distant a region, at it was then viewed
even in the not over-thickly settled districts of
Central California.
Rancho Los Cerritos was purchased by J. Bix-
by & Co., in 1866, from John Temple, a well-
known trader and land holder who had come to
this coast also, as it happened, from Massachusetts
long prior to the Mexican war, and who died
in San Francisco soon after making this sale,
his widow, who was a daughter of one of the
old established Spanish families, thereupon re-
moving with her daughter and son-in-law to
Paris, never to return to the Pacific coast.
The great drought above referred to had all
but exterminated the formerly extensive herds
of cattle throughout Southern California, the
country being of course entirely without trans-
portation facilities, and as these cattle ranges
were now lying idle and unproductive of any
revenue to their owners they were held at what
at the present day seems an absurdly low value.
Los Cerritos, which contained twenty-seven thou-
sand acres of the best grazing lands in the Los
Angeles valley, embracing the present flourishing
farming districts of Clearwater, Hynes and
Llewellyn, and the townsites of Los Cerritos and
I.Ong Beach, was bought for $2O,OOO, and paid
for out of the first two clips of wool sold by the
1162W OW1161 S.
From this time dates an era of steady progress.
The close of the Civil war sent hitherward many
homeseekers out of both disbanded armies, farm-
ing settlements were started in some of the choice
alluvial lands of the San Gabriel and other ir-
rigible valleys of the county, and many of the
larger grants which had hitherto been used for
grazing alone were opened for settlement, their
owners being tempted to part with portions of
their holdings through advancing values. The
first sales from Los Cerritos were made along
the northern boundary contiguous to the colony
of Downey. Then followed fourteen hundred
acres to the Wilmington Colony, and later in
1884 six thousand acres off the north to the
California Co-operative Colony, and four thou-
sand acres on the ocean side called the American
Colony tract. Here is now situated the city of
Long Beach, whose growth has appeared as a
marvel of these latter years of improved electric
transportation, but is, after all, only the natural
outcome of her peculiarly favored situation up-
on gently sloping hills fronting the most at-
tractive of sea beaches, while, moreover, she is
no doubt destined to reap high benefits from im-
provements now in progress in the harbor of San
Pedro, a large part of which lies within her cor-
porate borders. More recent sales from this
rancho embrace one of seven thousand acres to
Senator Clark, of Montana, and one of one thou-
sand acres to Mr. Skinner and others, of Florida,
all of which make up one of the richest and most
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
503
productive bodies of farming land in the New
River district. Mr. Bixby still retains personally
some thirty-five hundred acres of the rancho
surrounding the original adobe ranch house,
built and first occupied by Mr. Temple, and
where he made his own home for so many years,
and to this he devotes much of his time in per-
sonal direction of operations in dairy farming,
and the growing of barley and alfalfa, never hav-
ing lost a primary interest in the live stock and
farming business.
Other extensive properties were acquired by
him and by the firm in which he was half-owner
and managing partner, from time to time since
coming to Los Cerritos. Some of these con-
sist of sixteen thousand acres of Los Palos Ver-
des rancho, situated on the coast between Red-
Ondo and San Pedro, six thousand acres of farm-
ing lands in Los Alamitos rancho near the Beet
Sugar factory, seven thousand acres of the rancho
Santiago de Santa Ana lying between Santiago
creek and the Santa Ana river in Orange county,
a little foothill orange ranch in Temescal cañon,
Riverside county, certain landed and livestock
interests in Arizona, various holdings in the
cities of Long Beach and Los Angeles, and in
other localities.
Mr Bixby was elected president of the first
bank established in Long Beach, and still remains
at the head of that institution now called the
National Bank of Long Beach, the growth of
which has been steady and rapid while practicing
a policy of conservatism and security in loans
and investments. He is one of the stockholders,
though not a controlling owner, in the Long
‘Beach Hotel Company, and other enterprises
which have been started with a view to develop-
ing the resources of the town in which the latter
years of his life have been cast, and in the
growth and prosperity of which he has always
taken a lively interest. Mr. Bixby has never
been in any strict sense a speculator, all of the
properties which he now owns having been
purchased with a view to permanance of invest-
ment. It was his good fortune to come early to
a favored region and to acquire large interests
here; to him was also given the clear head and
Sober judgment to manage these interests some-
times through seasons of prosperity and again
of perplexity and discouragement, but always
with skill and a good measure of that success
which comes alone from correct perception and
appreciation in the use of figures as applied to
receipts and disbursements in business. Califor-
nians, indeed, of that day and training were more
generally actuated, it may be, by the principle
known as “live and let live,” than those schooled
in an environment of more exacting commercial
competition. In this prevailing spirit of fair
dealing among Californians, which, of course,
like most rules, was not without its exceptions,
it is believed that the student of social condi-
tions may find an item of real compensation for
many of the hardships and drawbacks of a life
so far removed from the great metropolitan cen-
ters of social and industrial activity. At all
events to those who know Jotham Bixby best it
is not necessary to enlarge upon this side of
his character as a business man.
In 1862 at San Juan, San Benito county (then
in the county of Monterey), Jotham Bixby mar-
ried Margaret Winslow Hathaway, daughter of
Rev. George W. Hathaway of Skowhegan, Me.
This marriage followed an engagement made
some time before on a visit by Mr. Bixby to his
old home, and for this purpose this handsome
young woman came out alone under the protec-
tion of acquaintances, on the long steamer trip
by way of the Isthmus. An older sister was at
the time married to Llewellyn Bixby, who was
to become her future husband's partner, and they
were living in San Juan. Here the young couple
made their first home, and their oldest son,
George Hathaway, was born. Later at Los Cer-
ritos and Los Angeles six more children were
born, of whom two, their daughter Fanny Wes-
ton and their son Jotham Winslow, are now liv-
ing. Both these sons are married and there are
now six grandchildren of whom one is the son
of their son Harry Llewellyn, who died in 1902.
Larger fortunes than Mr. Bixby's are not un-
common among those who have combined the
exceptional opportunity of early residence in Cal-
ifornia, good judgment in investing and close
study in the handling of their affairs, but in this
case at least the best legacy which will be left
by the pioneer father to his offspring, when in the
days to come, let us hope still many long years
distant, his soul goes faring forth out of an out-
worn tenement, to join those of his own forbears,
will be a name unsullied by personal misconduct,
cowardice or any meanness. More than this, on
the positive side to those who really know him
will be revealed a depth of kindness and con-
siderateness toward others but thinly veiled un-
der habits of reserve and unostentation border-
ing on diffidence.
How are the strong, simple men of that gem-
eration to be replaced under these more artificial
and tense conditions of American Society? The
answer comes through an appreciation of the
spirit of the virile verses of the poet Whitman,
which have been prefixed to this article.
Hail and all hail our fearless, able, generous
pioneers! For the good of the Republic may
the fine example and stirring memories of your
adventurous lives prove a beacon guide alike to
leaders and to hosts of many a stalwart genera-
tion of Americans yet unborn
504
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
GEORGE H. B.LOUNT. In all avenues
pertaining to the growth of his adopted city
George H. Blount is proving himself an im-
portant factor and a citizen whose best endeavor
is enlisted for its growth and progress. He has
been a resident of Long Beach since 1890, and
for the greater part of this time has engaged in
the handling of real estate and the opening up
of subdivisions, although he is also interested
in various mining enterprises in this state and
Nevada. He is a native of Columbiana county,
Ohio, his birth having occurred in the vicinity
of Salem February 14, 1858, the second son and
third child in a family of five sons and three
daughters. His father, Thomas Blount, a native
Of England, came to America in 1853 and in
Salem, Ohio, engaged in railway construction,
although he was a dyer and tailor by trade.
For many years he was identified with the in-
terests of the Pittsburg, Ft. Wayne & Chicago
Railway, when he finally retired from the active
cares of life and located in Alliance, same state,
where his death occurred at the age of seventy-
six years. His wife, formerly Hannah Cray,
born in the north of Ireland and reared in Eng-
land, died in the vicinity of Salem.
George H. Blount received his education in
the common schools of Salem, Ohio, and later
attended the Friends’ institution at Damascus.
Qualified to teach, he entered this field of labor
in 1880 and in Alliance was so engaged for two
terms, after which he engaged in buying and
shipping and also farmed to Some extent. In
1884 he engaged in a coal yard in Alliance
and after two years came to California, in El
Modena, Orange county, engaging in the real-
estate business. He laid out three different
tracts as subdivisions, and also built the Blount
hotel, which was burned before it was occupied.
Locating in Long Beach in 1890 he was employed
as foreman in the track department for eight
years, since which time he has followed the
real-estate business. He opened up Blount tract
No. I, and Blount tract No. 2, the latter con-
sisting of ten acres, and also handled and had
an interest in the Burton and Patch tracts. He
is a very successful man in his chosen work
and has done much toward the upbuilding of
Long Beach and surrounding country, at the
present writing opening up Alamitos, a sub-
division to Long Beach. He is also interested
in mining properties in Siskiyou county, and in
Nevada and Alaska.
In Alliance, Ohio, Mr. Blount was united in
marriage with Esther F. Jenkins, on the IOth
of August, 1880. She is a native of that place
and the daughter of William Jenkins. They are
now the parents of two children, Bessie M. and
William J.; their eldest child, Charles Garfield,
having died at the age of twelve years, Mr.
Blount is associated fraternally with the In-
dependent Order of Foresters (in which he has
passed all the chairs), the Knights of the Mac-
cabees and the Fraternal Aid. He is a member
of the Friends' Church, in which he is acting
as chorister. Politically he is a stanch Republi-
can and active in his efforts to advance the prin-
ciples he endorses. He is now a member of the
county central committee. Mr. Blount is in all
respects a man worthy of the position which he
holds as a citizen of Long Beach and the con-
fidence which he enjoys at the hands of his
fellowmen. -
T. HORACE DUDLEY. Standing pre-emi-
nent among the leading citizens of Los Angeles
county, is T. Horace Dudley, of Santa Monica.
Although yet a young man, he has met with al-
most phenomenal success in his career, winning
a position of prominence in financial and Social
circles, and becoming influential in the manage-
ment of public affairs, as mayor of Santa Monica
greatly advancing its civic development and im-
provement. Keen-witted and quick of percep-
tion, he has made himself useful as a business
factor, and is now connected with two of the
leading financial institutions of this part of the
county, being president of both the Ocean Park
Bank and of the Merchants’ Bank in Santa
Monica. He is of English birth and ancestry,
having been born, October 21, 1867, in Leices-
ter, England, which was likewise the birthplace
of his father, Melville S. Dudley.
A man of culture and talent, T. Horace Dud-
ley was educated in England, living there until
1889, when he came to California in search of a
place in which the business ambitions of his
youth might be realized. Locating at Bakers-
field, he invested money in city property and also
bought farming land near by. A few years later,
he came to Santa Monica, and at once began to
identify himself with the best and highest in-
terests of the place, his business ability and tact
being soon recognized and felt. With the growth
and prosperity of Ocean Park, he has been in-
timately associated from the time of its inception,
being one of its principal civic promoters, and
his name, with that of Abbott Kinney, will be
remembered for generations to come. In 1902
Mr. Dudley assisted in organizing the Ocean
Park Bank, and has since served acceptably as its
president, E. S. Tomblin being now the first vice-
president, W. A. Penny the second vice-president,
and P. J. Dudley, the cashier. Mr. Dudley also
helped to organize the Merchants' National Bank
of Santa Monica, which was incorporated Sep-
tember 23, 1903, and now occupies the hand-
somest bank building in the county aside from
buildings of the kind in Los Angeles. Of this


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
507
Institution Mr. Dudley has been president since
its organization, William S. Vawter, serving as
vice-president, and George F. Doty as cashier.
Mr. Dudley has likewise large business interests
in the city of Los Angeles, and is connected with
the Merchants' Trust Company. He is likewise
prominent in fraternal circles, belonging to the
Masons, and to the Benevolent Protective Order
of Elks.
Mr. Dudley has been twice married. He was
, married first, in Santa Monica, to Mary Addison
Smith, a daughter of Capt. Addison Smith, of
Baltimore, Md. His second marriage was with
Mrs. Matilda (Brooks) Ryan.
HON. THOMAS ROBERT BARD. As a
man of exceptional talent, high character, a
statesman of eminent ability, and a distin-
guished lawmaker ex-Senator Bard has left
the impress of his individuality upon the legis-
lation which was enacted during the period of
his connection with our national legislature,
and no man of this state has a wider or more
favorable reputation among his former col-
leagues of the senate. His is a family which
has for many generations been one of promi-
mence, antedating the founding of the United
States government on this continent, and
while on a trip to Italy in 1905 Mr. Bard suc-
ceeded in tracing his lineage back through the
British Isles, through France and into Italy,
where in the ninth century the family left its
record, at Ft. Bard, Piedmont. The history of
the family in America begins with Archibald
Bard who came from the north of Ireland, and
settled near Gettysburg, Pa. The next in line
was Richard Bard who was born in Pennsyl-
vania, served in the French and Indian war,
and in April, 1758, after Braddock's defeat he
and his wife were captured by the Indians
and held for a ransom. Mr. Bard succeeded
in making his escape after ten days’ captivity,
but his wife was carried away and held cap-
tive for two years and five months before her
whereabouts were discovered and her release
secured by the payment of forty pounds ster-
ling to the Indians. Richard Bard also served
in the Revolutionary war. Captain Thomas
Bard, the son of Richard, was born in Frank-
lin county, Pa., and took part in the second
war with Great Britain in 1812. This brings
us to Robert M. Bard, the father of Thomas
R. He was born at Chambersburg, Pa., being
an attorney of prominence who was consid-
ered the leader of the bar in his section of the
state. He was also a strong man in political
circles and the year before his death was nom-
inated by his party as a member of congress.
His death occurred in 1851, at the age of for-
1y-one years, in Chambersburg, a most suc-
cessful and promising career being cut. off in
the prime of life. David and William, broth-
ers of Richard Bard, were the founders of
Bardstown, Ky.
On his mother's side, also, Mr. Bard has in-
herited good blood. She was Elizabeth Lit-
tle, born in Mercersburg, Pa., the daughter of
Dr. Peter W. Little, who was born in York
county, Pa., was a graduate of the Jefferson
Medical College of Philadelphia, read medi-
cine under Dr. Benjamin Rush of Philadel-
phia, spent his lifetime in the successful prac-
tice of his profession and died at Mercersburg.
His wife was Mary Parker, a daughter of Ma-
jor Robert Parker, who was an officer in the
Revolutionary army, and in private life after
the war conducted a merchandising business.
His sister was the wife of General Andrew
Porter, whose great-grandson is General Hor-
ace Porter, late ambassador to France. While
visiting her son Mrs. E. L. Bard died at
Berylwood, his home, near Hueneme, in Ven-
tura county, on the anniversary of her birth-.
day, December 7, 1881. There were four chil-
dren in the family, two daughters who reside
in Chambersburg, Pa., and two sons. The
younger son, Dr. Cephas L. Bard, was the
foremost physician in Ventura county for
many years and died in 1902, loved and re-
spected by all who knew him. A sketch of his
life appears elsewhere in this volume. The re-
1maining Son is Thomas Robert Bard, who
was born in Chambersburg, Pa., December 8,
1841, and spent his boyhood days in that
to W11.
After preliminary work in the public
schools Mr. Bard attended Chambersburg
Academy and graduated from that institution
when seventeen years of age. Having decided
to study law he secured an opportunity to
read under Judge Chambers, a retired su-
preme justice of Pennsylvania, but soon
learned that his tastes inclined to a more
active occupation and he secured a position
on a railroad corps and worked for a while on
the Huntington & Round Top Railroad in
Pennsylvania. After this he resumed the
study of law for a short time, then accepted
an offer from his uncle by marriage, David
Zeller, to enter his office as bookkeeper, he
being engaged in a grain and forwarding busi-
ness at Hagerstown, Md. These were excit-
ing days, for at this time the Civil war broke
out and Mr. Bard, who was an enthusiastic
reader of the “Atlantic Monthly” and the
New York Tribune, which publications print-
ed strong abolition articles, was one of very
few people in Hagerstown who openly es-
508
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
poused that side of the question before the be-
ginning of the war.
While the war was yet in progress Mr.
Bard became an assistant to the superintend-
ent of the Cumberland Valley Railroad, hav-
ing charge particularly of the movement of
trains carrying military supplies. While an
incumbent of this position he became ac-
quainted with Colonel Thomas A. Scott, sec-
retary of war, and president of the Pennsyl-
vania Railroad, and was induced by him to
take charge of his large land holdings in Cali-
fornia. Mr. Bard started about the 20th of
December, 1864, via the Panama route, spent
Christmas of that year on the sea, and ar-
rived in San Francisco January 5, 1865.
While a part of Colonel Scott's property was
located in Humboldt and Monterey counties
the greater area of the three hundred and fifty
thousand acres of land was located in Los An-
geles and Ventura counties, and in the last
named locality Mr. Bard made his home.
Mr. Bard was the pioneer in the develop-
ment of the oil fields of that setcion of the
state, and as superintendent of the California
Petroleum Company sunk some of the earliest
oil wells in California on the Ojai ranch. The
results of this work were not equal to the ex-
pectations of the company, and in 1868 the
work was abandoned. Among other oil en-
terprises in which he was interested and was
the organizer are the Union Oil Company of
California, the Torrey Cañon Oil Company
and the Sespe Oil Company, of which he was
president, both of which were ultimately ab-
sorbed by the Union Oil Company. In 1868
he subdivided the Rancho Ojai and sold it as
small ranches and a little later disposed of the
Rancho Canada Larga in the same way. It
is a notable fact that while there has been
Imuch trouble over titles to lands comprised in
the various grants in this state, there have
never been any controversies over the acres
disposed of by Mr. Bard. In 1871 he built the
wharf at Hueneme and laid out the town. He
subsequently acquired the ownership of this
wharf from Colonel Scott, built warehouses,
enlarged and improved the landing and ex-
ploited its advantages until it became a very
important shipping point, handling more ag-
ricultural products than any other wharf
south of San Francisco, it being possible for
him to secure cheap transportation rates on
account of the returning lumber schooners
from ports below. The building of the wharf
at Hueneme encouraged others to engage in
such enterprises at places on the coast, as ex-
posed and unprotected as was Hueneme; and
as the mechanics whom he employed on the
Hueneme wharf were desirous of securing
further employment in their business, they
took contracts in his name, but on their own
account, to build wharves along the channel.
Among others were the wharves at More's
landing, Gaviota, Santa Cruz Island, and the
wharf built for the Los Angeles & Independ-
ence Railroad at Santa Monica.
Mr. Bard next subdivided for Colonel Scott
the Rancho El Rio de Santa Ciara o la Colonia
and secured some undivided interest for him-
self in that grant. He became one of the prin-
cipal owners of the ranchos Simi and Los
Posas, and bought as well, from the company
he represented, the San Francisco ranch
which he afterwards disposed of to Henry
Newhall. He was largely interested in sheep
raising several years ago and at one time he
and his co-partner owned thirty-five thousand
head. During the dry years following 1875
thousands were lost, but the business was con-
tinued, and later success made the venture a
profitable one as a whole. Since its building
Mr. Bard has been president of the Hueneme
Wharf Company and was one of the organ-
izers of the Bank of Ventura, serving as pres-
ident of that institution for many years. He
was likewise an organizer of the Hueneme
Bank and is now its president. He was one
of the supervisors of Santa Barbara county
and when Ventura county was created he was
One of the commissioners appointed to organ-
ize this county. Although in charge of such
extensive business interests, no movement
calculated to be of material benefit to his sec-
tion of the state went without his support,
and both time and means were freely given to
every interest deserving the attention of a
good citizen.
The political career of Mr. Bard has been
a long and honorable one which culminated in
a term in the United States senate. He was
sent as a delegate to the Republican National
Convenion in 1884 when James G. Blaine was
nominated for the presidency, being the only
elector from California sent to the electoral
college in 1892. At a special session of the
state legislature in IOOO Mr. Bard was elected
to the United States senate by a unanimous
vote of the Republican members of the state
Senate and served his term with great credit
to himself and satisfaction to the people whom
he represented. Whenever a question came
up for his decision he studied the pros and
cons of the matter deeply before expressing
an opinion, which however when once arrived
at was almost invariably right. He made an
especially thorough study of the Panama Ca-
nal project, even before assuming his sena-
torial duties at Washington, and in the con-
sideration of the amendments to the first Hay.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 509
Pauncefote treaty his colleagues accorded to
Senator Bard the credit of having offered cer-
tain suggestions which resulted in several of
the important amendments to that document.
When Mr. Bard assumed his duties as su-
perintendent of the lands and wharf at Hue-
neme he met with opposition from Some of
the residents. His life was even threatened at
times and it is said that upon One occasion a
gibbet had really been erected for his execu-
tion. Mr. Bard felt himself in the right on
disputed questions, however, and pursued the
even tenor of his way apparently unconscious
of trouble, and the time came when even those
who were once his pronounced enemies be:
came his stanch friends.
It was in 1876 that Mr. Bard began to im-
prove the grounds of his beautiful home and
make it what it is today, one of the finest res-
idence places in the state. There are fifty
acres of ground attached, half of which is laid
out in a park and contains trees, plants and
flowers, from all parts of the world. Floricult-
11re has always been one of the most pleas-
urable recreations of Mr. Bard, and in his
flower gardens are found many fine roses
which were originated on his grounds.
His marriage, which occurred in 1876,
united him with Miss Mary, daughter of C. O.
Gerberding of San Francisco, founder of The
Evening Bulletin of that city. She was a
Inative of San Francisco, and became the
mother of eight children: Beryl B. ; Mary L.,
wife of Roger G. Edwards of Saticoy; Thom-
as G.; Anna G. : Elizabeth Parker; Richard ;
Philip ; and Robert. All are now living ex-
cept Robert, who died at the age of two years.
Mr. and Mrs. Bard also opened their home to
an adopted daughter, Alethea Malden, a
young English lady.
Mr. Bard was made a Mason in Ventura
and is now a member of Oxnard Lodge, F. &
A. M., and of Oxnard Chapter, R. A. M., and
of the Ventura Commandery, K. T. He is a
member and liberal supporter of the Presby-
terian Church, and a man of superior integrity
and rectitude. There is a pronounced yet un-
explainable influence felt in the presence of
some people that can be accounted for in no
other way than that it is caused by the in-
ward thoughts and high motives of the per-
son to whom they are ascribed. When in the
presence of such a man one feels, instinctive-
ly, that he has lived a pure and upright life
and is one who can be trusted implicitly with-
out fear that any confidence imposed in him
will be betrayed. There is no necessity to
eulogize a man of the well known reputation
and eminence of Senator Bard, yet it will not
to a remarkable degree this personal magnet-
ism, as it is popularly called. While naturally
endowed with the qualities which win the love
and esteem of his fellow men, there is a
strength of purpose in all his actions without
which it would be impossible for him to live
the blameless life he has with a career so
filled with public and private duties as have
fallen to his share.
*mºmºmº
CEPHAS LITTLE BARD, M. D. No man
has more opportunity to endear himself to the
members of a community, rich and poor, high
and low, old and young, than has the physician,
who not only ministers to the sufferings of the
afflicted ones, but brings cheer to the house-
hold of those whose physical pains he relieves.
Dr. Cephas L. Bard was one of those who was
loved, honored, respected and almost rever-
enced by every inhabitant of Ventura city and
in the country for many miles around. Dr. Bard
was born at Chambersburg, Franklin county,
Pa., April 7, 1843, a member of an old estab-
lished family which came to this country in
colonial days.
The great-great-grandfather, Archibald Bard,
came to this country before 1741. We find him
settled with his family in Adams county, Pa., on a
farm granted to him by the proprietaries in 1741.
Here his son Richard Bard and his wife, the
great-grandparents of Dr. Bard, were captured
by Indians. Richard Bard made his escape at the
urgent Solicitation of his wife, after his body
had been painted by the Indians in colors indi-
cating that he was doomed to torture and death.
After making many hazardous attempts to res-
cue his wife he eventually succeeded in ransom-
ing her from captivity, which had continued for
more than two years. Richard Bard was a prom-
inent citizen of Cumberland, now Franklin
county, Pa., and was a member of the Penn-
sylvania convention that ratified the Federal con-
stitution. Among Richard Bard's sons was
Thomas Bard, a captain in the war of 1812. His
son, Robert M. Bard, the father of Dr. Bard,
was for many years a prominent lawyer at
Chambersburg, Pa. He was a man of great
talent and ability in his profession, recognized
as the leading member of the local bar. He
was a Whig, took an active part in politics
and was a candidate for congress at the
time of his last illness. He died in 1851. It
is not true, as has been stated in published
notices of his death, that Dr. Bard was con-
nected with the family which was represented by
Dr. John Bard and his son, Dr. Samuel Bard,
distinguished over a century ago as physicians of
the City of New York. If there be any connection
be out of place to mention that he possesses between the two families it is very remote. But
510
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
his taste for the medical profession was inher-
ited by Dr. Bard from the maternal side of his
house. His grandfather, Dr. P. W. Little, a
student under Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of
the Declaration of Independence, was a promi-
nent physician at Mercersburg, Pa., and had
two sons, both of whom were physicians: Dr.
Robert Parker Little, who practiced at Colum-
bus, Ohio, and Dr. B. Rush Little, who at the
time of his death was professor of obstetrics in
the Keokuk (Iowa) Medical College.
Dr. P. W. Little's wife, Mary Parker, was
the daughter of Col. Robert Parker, who served
with distinction in the Revolutionary war. Col-
onel Parker's sister was married to General
Andrew Porter, from whom descended David
Rittenhouse Porter, governor of Pennsylvania,
and his illustrious son, General Horace Porter,
late ambassador to France.
While still very young C. L. Bard had deter-
mined to devote himself to the medical profes-
Sion and after completing a course of classical
studies at the Chambersburg Academy he en-
tered the office of Dr. A. H. Senseny, one of
Pennsylvania’s most talented physicians, and
began to read medicine. This was at the time
of the Civil war and when the news of McClel-
lan’s reverses reached him he decided to re-
spond to the call of patriotism and enlisted as
a private in Company A, One Hundred and
Twenty-sixth Regiment of Pennsylvania Vol-
unteers and with that regiment participated in
the second battle of Bull Run, Antietam, Fred-
ericksburg and Chancellorsville. His term of
service having expired he attended a course of
lectures at the Jefferson Medical College, and
after passing a satisfactory examination Secured
the appointment as assistant surgeon of a regi-
ment of Pennsylvania volunteers and remained
in the war until the surrender of General Lee,
when he returned to his old home and prac-
ticed at his profession until 1868. He then came
to San Buenaventura, Cal., the place being
at that time but a very small village. He was
the first doctor to locate there, and with the ex-
ception of short intervals of time in which he
attended post-graduate courses in Eastern med-
ical schools, lived in San Buenaventura until
death. At the first county election in Ventura
county he was unanimously elected coroner, both
parties having nominated him, and for twenty
years he served as county physician and surgeon,
and was also an efficient health officer. He was
popular in all medical circles having filled the
office of president of the Ventura County Med-
ical Society, being an active participant in the
actions of the California State Medical Society,
of which he was made president for One term,
and at various times was a member of the Board
of Pension Examiners.
He was a man of well rounded interests and
took a leading part in Social and civic life, was
a prominent member of the Grand Army of the
Republic, of the military order of the Loyal Le-
gion, and was a Knights Templar. True to his
ancestral teachings he adhered to the beliefs of
the Presbyterian denomination. One of the dear-
est dreams and ambitions of Dr. Bard during
his lifetime was the establishment of a complete
and modern hospital at Ventura, and for years
he studied and planned the details of the build-
ing, its arrangements and fittings. The culmi-
nation of his desire was realized the last year
of his life when the beautiful Elizabeth Bard
Memorial Hospital at Ventura, erected to the
memory of a loving mother, was completed by
the two Sons, Dr. Cephas L. and Hon. Thomas
R. Bard.
His attention to the exceedingly large prac-.
tice which he had built up in this section of
the state did not prevent him from taking an ac-
tive interest in all public enterprises. He was
a stalwart patriot and his love for the flag and
pride in the institutions for which it stands were
as strong as his love for his profession and pride
in his medical and surgical skill. His death,
April 20, 1902, removed one of the most valued
citizens and well beloved men in Ventura county.
Of his qualities of mind his literary talent was
most remarkable and he found time during a
busy professional career to read the classics, be-
come familiar with the riches of literary artists,
and write numerous literary productions. His
inventive genius was also of a high order and
contributed to his remarkable success as a sur-
geon and practitioner. That he had the quali-
ties of a great man none who knew him will
deny; that he would have been great in any call-
ing in life there is no doubt; and that he was the
most dearly beloved and most highly esteemed
man in the community is a fact acknowledged
by all.
GEORGE F. MANDER. In the making of
his choice of a permanent location as well as in
his identification with a growing industry,
Mr. Mander feels that he has been especially
fortunate. Since he became a resident of Long
Beach in 1898 he has been a loyal and enthu-
siastic supporter of local affairs and a firm be-
liever in the increasing importance of the town,
this faith being evidenced by his investment in
local real estate and business enterprises. When
he first came to this point he followed the car-
penter's trade and assisted in erecting a number
of buildings, among them the plant utilized by
the Long Beach Gas Company. Having be-
come familiar with the manufacture of gas dur-
º
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
513
ing a sojourn in Rockford, Ill., and having
shown skill in the installing of the machinery
and putting in of pipes, the members of the com-
pany decided that he possessed peculiar qualifi-
cations for the office of superintendent and
chose him for that position. The plant as it
stands to-day is the direct outcome of his
undivided attention. At the first installa-
tion a small machine was selected suited
for a town of the size of Long Beach at that
time. The growth of the place, however, was
beyond even his sanguine expectations, and in
two years it became necessary to increase the
capacity, which was done by installing a plant
twice the size of the first one. During 1905 a
new machine was installed having eight times
greater capacity than that of the machine it dis-
placed. The plant is operated by twelve regu-
lar employes under the direction of the superin-
tendent and is managed with a skill and intelli-
gence appreciated by the stockholders and pa-
trons of the company.
One of the recent undertakings with which
Mr. Mander's name is associated is the Seaside
Sanitarium and Medical Dispensary Company,
of which he was one of the originators, and
which has a capital stock of $2OO,OOO. It is the
plan of the company to erect and conduct a san-
itarium on the bluff at Long Beach overlooking
the Pacific.
the kind along the coast and will add another
beneficial feature to Long Beach. The building
will be up-to-date and modern in every respect
and absolutely fire-proof. Mr. Mander is presi-
dent of the company.
A resident of California since 1885, Mr. Man-
der is of English parentage and ancestry. His
father, James, a native of London, came to
America and settled in Wisconsin while that
part of the country was still undeveloped. When
he became a citizen of Beloit, that now thriving
city had only three houses and the county of
Rock was still in the primeval condition of na-
ture, its soil uncultivated and its possibilities un-
known. For some years he engaged in teaming
from Milwaukee to his home neighborhood, and
after the advent of railroads turned to other
avocations. The balance of his life was passed
in that locality. His son, George F., was born
in Rock county, Wis., August 25, 1861, and re-
ceived such advantages as the common schools
afforded. When nineteen years of age he went
into the city of Beloit and spent three years
learning the machinist's trade, but relinquished
that occupation by reason of its injurious effects
upon his health. Later he was engaged at car-
pentering for two years, and for two years acted
as a traveling salesman for agricultural imple-
ments, sewing machines and pianos, then for
a year engaged in the manufacture of cigars,
This will be the only institution of .
ress and development.
but sold out in order to resume work at his
trade.
On coming to the west, Mr. Mander was em-
ployed by the government as a teacher in the In-
dian school at Fort Yuma, where he remained
for two and one-half years, and then resigned
and removed to Pasadena. At that time this now
beautiful city was only a small village. With
A. Bliss as a partner he engaged in carpentering
and took contracts for the erection of residences,
after which he assisted in the building up of
the town of Epworth in Ventura county. Pasa-
dena continued to be his home until 1898, when
he came to Long Beach and has since been ac-
tive in the material growth of this popular re-
Sort. Before leaving Wisconsin he was mar-
ried in Beloit to Miss Fannie E. Lewis, a native
of that state; they are the parents of a daugh-
ter, Pearl G., who was born in California Janu-
ary 9, 1886. Politically he has no partisan at-
tachments, but supports the men who, as can-
didates, seem to him to be best adapted for the
position at issue. In fraternal relations he holds
membership with the Independent Order of Odd
Fellows, being past grand of his lodge, is fur-
ther connected with the Daughters of Rebekah
as an honorary member, and was one of the
incorporators of the Universal Order of Forest-
ers, of which he has been supreme vice chief
ranger since its organization.
WILLIAM HAYES PERRY. The busy
years of an eventful career found their
fulfillment in the life of one of Los Angeles’
old pioneers—William Hayes Perry, whose in-
herited traits of character led him not only to
seek his fortunes among the less tried oppor-
tunities of a new country, but to establish a
home and surround it with all the refining and
uplifting influences which accompany prog-
His parents were pio-
neer settlers of Ohio, where they endured the
privations and hardships incident to life in a
new country, establishing a home and giving
of the best of their efforts in the development
of the commonwealth. Their son, William
Hayes Perry, born in Newark, Ohio, October
I7, 1832, was reared among the primitive sur-
roundings of a pioneer home, in the midst of
whose duties he attended the rude school in
pursuit of whatever education it was possible
for him to procure. Following the custom of
the early days he became an apprentice in
youth and learned the trade of cabinet-maker,
which occupation was interrupted by the ac-
complishment of his desire to try his fortunes
in the land but shortly before made famous by
the discovery of gold. In 1853, immediately
514
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
following his majority, he joined a party of
about fifty men and women made up at Coun-
cil Bluffs, Iowa, and with them began the us-
ual perilous journey whose destination was
“the land of sunshine and flowers.” The party
had with them a large band of cattle, sheep
and horses (Colonel Hollister, of Santa Bar-
bara, bringing back with him to the coast a
large number of stock), and this presented
quite a temptation to the Indians, who con-
stantly attacked them. Not until February,
1854, did the party finally reach Los Angeles.
The first employment of Mr. Perry in the
then small city of Los Angeles was at his
trade of cabinet-maker and in this work he
managed to accumulate some means. After
one year occupied thus he opened the first fur-
niture store and factory of the town, in part-
nership with an acquaintance, the firm name
being Perry & Brady. Enterprise and ability
were the only requisites of the business, as
there was no competition demanding a display
of capital. The firm grew in importance, and
after the death of Mr. Brady in 1858 the late
Wallace Woodworth purchased an interest in
the business, which was then known under
the name of Perry & Woodworth; in 1864 S.
H. Mott purchased an interest in the business
and they were henceforth known as Perry,
Woodworth & Co. The original business of
the firm was the manufacture and sale of
furniture, but other interests later became a
part of the organization. In 1865 Mr. Perry,
through Captain Clark, applied for a franchise
to furnish gas for the city, and combining
with others built the works and began the
manufacture. In 1873 the firm of Perry,
Woodworth & Co. changed from the manu-
facture of furniture and the cabinet business
to dealing in lumber, mouldings, doors, sash,
blinds, builders’ hardware and finishing sup-
plies of all kinds. With the growth of the
city and the demands upon their business, the
plant was enlarged and constantly improved
with all modern devices in machinery and gen-
eral equipment. Their plant was located on
Commercial street, extending through to Re-
quema street, where they built a branch
of the Southern Pacific Railroad for the ac-
commodation of their interests. This plant
was put up in 1899, the original building hav-
ing been destroyed by fire. The death of Mr.
Woodworth occurred in 1883, after which the
business was incorporated as the W. H. Perry
Lumber & Mill Company, and this today is
one of the strongest firms of its kind on the
Pacific coast. They own timber lands in va-
rious places along the coast, logging camps,
sawmills, vessels, wharves, spur tracks to the
railroads, and handle the lumber from the tree
to the structure into which the finished product
goes. This has brought to the company prof-
its undivided by successful competition, and
has also proved a wonderful power in the work
of development of the Pacific coast country.
Along this same line of business Mr. Perry Or-
ganized the Los Angeles and Humboldt Lum-
ber Company, of San Pedro, with the object of
sending lumber to all points of Arizona; and
also the Pioneer Lumber and Mill Company,
of Colton, near this city, to supply the coun-
try adjacent to that point. The Los Angeles
Storage Cement and Lumber Company, which
supplies to builders of Los Angeles lime, plas-
ter, fire-brick, cement, hair and other materials
used on buildings, is another corporation in
whose organization he was the most prominent
factor and the controlling element.
Mr. Perry's identification with the business
enterprises of Los Angeles was such in
the past years that scarcely an improvement
or mark of development missed the mas-
terful touch of his hand. In 1868 the waters
of the Los Angeles river had been leased to a
company with the privilege of laying pipes in
the streets of the city and supplying water to
the citizens. The company did not meet with
the success it had anticipated and after eleven
years had not succeeded in establishing a
sound financial basis. At that time (1879),
Mr. Perry was elected president and general
manager of the company, and continued to
act in that capacity until the sale was made
to the city. Seeing that the supply would
not equal the demand he purchased
three other small companies, becoming presi-
dent and manager of them as well. Under
his able supervision the stockholders retired
from the water company very rich men.
Mr. Perry was, perhaps, associated as presi-
dent and director of more companies than any
other one man of Los Angeles, his many busi-
ness interests constantly calling upon him for
the benefit of his experience. In banking cir-
cles he was eminently prominent in South-
ern California, serving as a director in the
Farmers' & Merchants’ Bank of Los Angeles,
with which institution he became connected
at an early date in its history, contributing
materially to its substantial growth and pros-
perity. He was a stockholder in the Ameri-
can National Bank of this city, and likewise
identified with the Nevada Bank and the Union
Trust Company, of San Francisco. Besides
being president of the W. H. Perry Lumber
& Mill Company, he was president of the Pio-
neer Lumber & Mill Company; president and
director of the Southern California Pipe &
Clay Company : while he formerly served as
president of the Cosmopolis Mill & Trading
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
515
Company, of Grays Harbor, Wash. He was a
stockholder in the Charles Nelson Shipping
Company, of San Francisco, which has large
timber, mill and railroad interests in Hum-
boldt county; in the Vallejo & Napa Elec-
tric Railroad ; the Gas Consumers’ Associa-
tion and the National Electric Company, both
of San Francisco; the Bard Oil & Asphalt
Company; the Olinda Crude Oil Company;
the Western Union Oil Company, of Santa
Barbara; and was formerly in the Reed Oil
Company, of Kern county. He was one of
the original stockholders in the Home Tele-
phone Company, of Los Angeles. Although
so constantly occupied every enterprise with
which he was connected has profited largely
by his unusual business ability and wide ex-
perience. He was largely interested in real es-
tate in Los Angeles, his faith in the permanent
prosperity and growth of this city being un-
bounded and surely justified in the light of his
Career.
The home life of Mr. Perry was not the least
of a successful career, for it is one thing to
found a fortune and another to establish a
home and rear a family that shall add honor to
the name. In 1858 he was united in marriage
with Miss Elizabeth M. Dalton, the daugh-
ter of a pioneer of Los Angeles, and herself
One of the courageous, self-sacrificing women
who faced the hardships of the frontier life.
Side by side they walked together when the
road was rough, youth, courage and confi-
dence promising them something that the
future held for them. After a happy married
life of nearly a half century the bond was brok-
en by the death of Mr. Perry October 30, 1906.
Six children blessed their union, of whom one
son and two daughters are living: Charles
Frederick is located in Washington and is en-
gaged in the lumber business; Mary Barker be-
came the wife of C. M. Wood ; and Florence,
the wife of E. P. Johnson, Jr., both being resi-
dents of Los Angeles, and with their mother
are prominent in the select social circles of
the city. The eldest daughter, Mrs. Wood,
is one of the most accomplished musicians
of Los Angeles, having received her educa-
tion in Milan, under the tuition of Anton
Sangiovanni, one of the most noted instruc-
tors of that city. She made her debut in
Milan and during her engagement there made
a favorable impression on the musical world.
Mr. and Mrs. Perry had nine grandchildren
in whose lives their own youth was renewed.
Mrs. Wood's children are named in order of
birth as follows: Elizabeth Marie, Florence
Perry, William Perry and Mona Chapman;
those of Mrs. Johnson, Katherine, Robert,
Margaret, Eleanor and Edward P.
The characteristic traits of Mr. Perry which
helped bring about his financial success
also made their impress upon his personality.
By inheritance he was endowed with many of .
the qualities which make a successful fron-
tiersman—personal fearlessness, a cheerful
optimism in the face of reverses, a spirit of
conscious ability and perseverance—and these
have proven potent factors in his career. In
the early days of the state he was foremost
among the citizens in preserving good gov-
ernment and peace, it being necessary to
guard the families from the lawless Mexican
element. Many times he had occasion to wish
himself out of the country, but with the per-
sistence characteristic of his entire career he
remained a helpful element in the troublous
times and with the passing years mounted
to a position of prosperity in a manner well
worthy of emulation by the younger genera-
tion. He had taken time to ally himself with
the Masonic organization, being a member of
the blue lodge, chapter and commandery, and
is a Thirty-second degree, Scottish Rite Ma-
son. When he arrived in Los Angeles, now
a little more than a half century since, he was
penniless, friendless and alone. The journey
had been a hardship, having worn out his
shoes by constant walking and his only clothes
were in rags, and he was thus left without
sufficient clothing in which to make applica-
tion for work ; he therefore sought the only
way open to him by going to a clothier and
asking him for a suit of clothes on credit. He
was trusted, and he let that lesson sink deep
into his life, giving to others the faith that
was given to him, and extending a helping
hand to many who would have sunk to utter
failure and insignificance but for the help
which he gave at the time most needed. The
position given Mr. Perry was not his alone as
a man of business ability, but as a liberal and
loyal citizen, an honorable man and a stanch
friend. His death October 30, 1906, removed
one of California's great and honored pioneers.
COL. WARNER LOWDER VIESTAL,
Through southern ancestry the genealogy of
the Vestal family is traced to Scotland and
from that country back to the ancient city of
Rome. The religion of the Society of Friends
was adopted about two centuries ago, and the
records show that successive generations ad-
hered to that faith, both in the old world and
in the new. Established in the south during
the colonial period, the family became promi-
nent in North Carolina. In Guilford, that state,
516
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
occurred the birth of Jaben Vestal, who at an
early age accompanied his father to Indiana and
settled in the wilderness of Hendricks county.
Later he took up farming for himself and im-
proved a tract near Plainfield, where he died in
December, 1904, when more than ninety years
of age. In preceding generations also longevity
had been a marked characteristic. His wife,
Charity, was a daughter of Matthew Lowder,
a sterling Quaker gentleman. At her death,
which occurred in Indiana, she was survived by
four children, namely: John Newton, who was
a sergeant in the Fourth Indiana Cavalry dur-
ing the Civil war and is now an editor and pub-
lisher in Indianapolis; Warner Lowder, of San
Bernardino, Cal. ; Hiram, who was a member
of a regiment of Indiana artillery in the Rebel-
lion and now carries on a hotel business in
Shreveport, La., and Mrs. Jane Wasson, of In-
diana.
On the homestead near Plainfield, Hendricks
county, Ind., Warner Lowder Vestal was born
November 28, 1839, and there he spent the first
seventeen years of his life. Meanwhile he not
only attended district schools, but also had the
advantage of a course in Plainfield Academy.
Going to Iowa in 1856 he learned the printer's
trade at Indianola, and after returning to In-
diana in the fall of 1859 he joined his brother,
J. Newton, in the purchase and publication of
the Danville Ledger at Danville, Hendricks
county. At the outbreak of the Civil war he
was still editing that paper, but immediately af-
ter the firing on Fort Sumter he enlisted, and
April 21, 1861, was enrolled as a Sergeant in
Company A, Seventh Indiana Infantry. After
a brief period of drilling the regiment went to
the front and took part in the battles of Philippi,
W. Va., and Carrick’s Ford. The young vol-
unteers had feared the war would be at an end
before they could get to the front and they were
gratified at the order to go to West Virginia.
They longed for an actual experience with war,
but after their first baptism in blood, and after
wounds, forced marches, privations and suffer-
ing they realized indeed that grim-visaged war
is not altogether enjoyable. At Philippi they
witnessed the first instance of the amputation of
a limb of a Confederate soldier by a Union sur-
geon, this operation being performed in a stable.
At Carrick’s Ford they crossed a stream of cold
water, then climbed a hill and started to flank
the Confederates, when the latter retreated in
haste, leaving a cannon behind them. The boys
in blue concluded that, now the cannon had been
taken, the war was ended. It was at this same
engagement that they witnessed the death of
Gen. Robert S. Garnet, who was shot by one of
the men of the regiment, and was the first
Rebel general killed during the Civil war. Gen-
eral Garnet was a pioneer of California and
Originated the seal adopted by this state.
Company A was mustered out August 2, 1861,
and the young soldier from Danville returned
to his work in that town. However, it was im-
possible for him to remain contented with busi-
ness affairs while the country needed his serv-
ices. Accordingly he sold the Ledger and Feb-
ruary 24, 1862, enlisted as a private in Com-
pany A, Fifty-third Indiana Infantry, being
mustered in as eighth corporal. April 26, 1862,
he was commissioned sergeant-major. Though
he was by birth a Quaker, he was fond of mili-
tary tactics and had few superiors in drilling the
men. W. Q. Gresham, then colonel of the regi-
ment, noticed that Company A was well drilled,
and when a captain's commission was to be giv-
en he called the Sergeant-major to him and
Stated he wished to recommend him for captain,
but realized that there were two lieutenants de-
sirous of the commission. Mr. Vestal suggested
that the matter be left to an election by the
company. Colonel Gresham consented. The
election was duly held and Mr. Vestal received
every vote but one, so that the commission was
given him June 14, 1862, and he commanded
the company.
When a vacancy occurred in the office of
major the young captain was next to the young-
est in commission and Colonel Gresham again
offered to promote him. The matter was left
to an election by the commissioned officers, and
he received all the votes excepting three. His
commission as major was dated October 5,
1863. His commission as lieutenant-colonel
bore date of October 31, 1863, and the commis-
sion as colonel of the Fifty-third Indiana In-
fantry was dated January 31, 1865, this and
the commission of lieutenant-colonel being ten-
dered by Governor Morton of Indiana. As an
officer in the Fifty-third he served in the bat-
tles in the advance on Corinth, Holly Springs,
Lumpkin's Mill, second battle of Corinth, bat-
tle of Matamoras (one of the most serious en-
gagements of the war), the siege of Vicksburg,
and after the surrender he was provost-mar-
shal at Natchez, and a member of the court
martial, of which he was the youngest officer,
Immediately after the battle of Resaca Col-
onel Vestal joined General Sherman at Ac-
worth, Ga., in the spring of 1864, and partici-
pated in later engagements up to Atlanta, where,
July 22, 1864, in the same hour and within a
hundred yards of where General McPherson
fell, he was seriously wounded and left for dead
on the battlefield. This was immediately after
he had taken command of the regiment on the
wounding and death of Lieutenant-Colonel
Jones. Perhaps five hours elapsed before he
regained consciousness. As he came to his
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
519
senses and endeavored to move, some sharp-
shooter saw him and sent a bullet into the right
knee. His call for help was heard and he was
carried from the field to the hospital. From
there he was sent back to Indiana. Meanwhile
he had been reported as fallen on the battlefield,
and on the day of his return home he was
the first member of the family to open the Dan-
ville Ledger. The first notice that met his eyes
was his own obituary. After nine months at
home he was able to return to the army, al-
though still obliged to use crutches. He re-
joined the regiment at Goldsboro, N. C., and
after the surrender of Lee he went to Wash-
ington, where he took part in the grand re-
view. The regiment was mustered out at Louis-
ville, Ky., July 21, 1865, and honorably dis-
charged from the service. e
Returning to Plainfield, Ind., Colonel Vestal
for two years engaged in the drug business.
From there he went to Iowa, where he was em-
ployed as a reporter in the state legislature and
also on the staff of the Iowa State Register. In
October of 1870 he established the Storm Lake
Pilot at Storm Lake, Iowa, and this he pub-
lished successfully for a long period. On leav-
ing Iowa he came to California in 1886 and
settled at San Diego, where he acted as manager
of the San Diego Sun. The year 1892 found him
a resident of San Bernardino, where since he has
made his home and where now he is secretary
of the board of trade, also city recorder. After
his arrival in this city he was editor and manager
of the Times Indear until the paper was sold in
1896, since which time he has engaged in the
real-estate business and also has devoted con-
siderable attention to the writing of articles for
papers in this state and in the east. Ever since
the organization of the Grand Army of the Re-
public he has been interested in the order, and
while living in Iowa was commander of the
Storm Lake Post, also since coming west he
has held a similar position in Post No. 57 at
San Bernardino. Stanchly true to Republican
principles, he always has voted the straight tick-
et in national elections and has rendered local
Service to the party in the capacity of the sec-
retary of the county central committee. Short-
ly after the close of the war he established do-
mestic ties, being united in marriage at Wash-
ington, D. C., November 13, 1865, with Miss
Frances Y. Young, who was born in Belfast,
Me., received an excellent education, and is a
lady of culture and refinement, an ideal com-
panion for a citizen as popular, prominent, pub-
lic-spirited and progressive as Colonel Vestal.
WILLIAM H. WORKMAN. The family
represented by William H. Workman boasts
an ancestry which has given to its descendants
sturdy qualities of manhood and insured the
success of their careers. The paternal grand-
father, Thomas Workman, was a native of
England and a prominent yeoman of West-
moreland county; the maternal grandfather,
John Hook, inheriting from German ancestry
a strong character, was born in Fincastle, Va.,
and served under General Washington in the
Revolutionary war. His wife was Elizabeth
Cook, a relative of the distinguished traveler
of that name. As early as 1819 the Hook
family located in Missouri, which was then
the frontier, where the Indians preyed upon
the settlers and constantly threatened their
lives and property. It required courage to
face these dangers and ability to establish a
home in the midst of the wilderness. David
Workman, the father of William H., married
Nancy Hook, and born of this union were three
sons, of whom the eldest, Thomas H., was
killed by the explosion of the steamer Ada
Hancock, in Wilmington Harbor, April 27,
1863. The second son, Elijah H., settled at
Boyle Heights; while the third, William H.,
is the subject of this review. --
He was born in New Franklin, Howard
county, Mo., in 1839, and accompanied his
parents to California, the family crossing the
plains with ox-teams in 1854, taking six
months to make the trip. This was the third
trip of the father, who had just returned east
to bring his wife and children to the Pacific
coast. He came first in 1849 to seek his for-
tunes in the mines; returned home, then in
1852 came back to the state and again in 1854.
His brother William came as a trapper from
Santa Fe with John Rowland, and while on a
visit to this brother he conceived the idea
from him to bring his sons to this state and
enable them to start in life and make a home
in California, and make “men of his boys,”
this suggestion coming from his brother.
Their first location upon their arrival in the
state was in Los Angeles, making the trip
through the mining section of Northern Cali-
fornia, whence they came by boat to this city.
Previous to his location in the west William
H. Workman had attended the public schools
in Boonville, Mo., where he obtained an ele-
mentary education, after which he pursued a
course at F. T. Kemper’s Collegiate Institute,
and later 1earned the printer's trade with the
Boonville Observer. Following his settlement
in Los Angeles he followed this trade in the
office of the Southern Californian, which was
published by Butts & Wheeler, on the corner
of Court and Spring streets, in a corrugated
iron building brought from England by Hen-
ry Dalton, the owner of the Azusa ranch.
ſlater he worked in the office of the Los An-
520
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
geles Star, located on Spring Street opposite
the Temple block. After a brief time spent
in this position he clerked for a time, then
accepted the offer of employment to carry
messages on horseback between Los Angeles
and San Bernardino for the Banning Trans-
portation Company. These were the early
days of the state and the very beginning of a
civilization which should one day place Cali-
fornia on a par with all other states of the
Union ; but at that time the country was
sparsely settled, hardships were the lot of the
many and only the far-sighted pioneer could
look to a future beyond his primitive surround-
ings. In the early years of his manhood Mr.
Workman engaged with his brother, Elijah
H., in the establishment and management of
a harness and saddlery business, and from a
modest beginning this grew into a lucrative
and important enterprise which continued suc-
cessfully for twenty-one years. -
In the meantime, in 1867, Mr. Workman
married Miss Maria E. Boyle, the only child
of Andrew Boyle, the first settler of Boyle
Heights. His old brick house, built in 1858,
still standing as a historical landmark of the
East side, is being preserved by Mr. Work-
man. Although at this time he was identified
with real estate transactions in Los Angeles
his interests naturally became centered in
Boyle Heights, and through his efforts was
effected much of the improvement of this sec-
tion of the city. To induce settlement Mr.
Workman built a carline (the second line in
the city) on Aliso street and Pleasant avenue;
in 1886 he built the First street line and after-
wards was instrumental in building one on
Fourth street, extending
Heights and then on Cummings, and though
at first it was operated by mule-teams Once
every hour it afforded ample, transportation.
A later enterprise required an expenditure of
$30,000 as a bonus on the part of Mr. Work-
man to assist the traction company to connect
Ilos Angeles with the south side of Boyle
Heights through on Fourth street, he having
to secure the right of way, which with the
cutting down of the street took two years.
In numerous other ways he also sought to
improve the locality, in conjunction with Mrs.
Hollenbeck, Mr. Workman donating two-
thirds of the 1and for that which is now known
as Hollenbeck Park, the two later giving it
to the city.
With the passing years Mr. Workman had
also assumed a place of importance in the
public affairs of Los Angeles and was called
upon to fill many offices of trust and respon-
sibility. As a Democrat in his political affili-
ations he occupied a prominent place in the
through Boyle
councils of his party, and in 1873 was nomi-
nated for the legislature. Being anti-monoply
he was defeated in the election that followed.
As a member of the city council for several
terms he was instrumental in bringing about
needed reforms, and in 1887 and 1888 served
acceptably as mayor of the city, giving an
earnest and conscientious fulfillment of duty
which won for him the commendation of all
parties. This being in the year Öf the great
boom when property ran to such incalculable
heights in value, Mr. Workman's strict ad-
herence to his official duties and the conse-
quent neglect of his personal interests is all
the more commendable. In 1900 he was elect-
ed city treasurer by a majority of one hun-
dred and thirty votes and again proved his
efficiency in official position; two years later
he was enthusiastically re-elected by a major-
ity of three thousand votes, and upon the ex-
piration of his term was elected a third time
by twenty-three hundred majority. This be-
ing the year of the Republican landslide shows
more fully the esteem in which he is held by
the citizens of Los Angeles. During his term
of service the grand jury took up the matter
of keeping money in various banks of the city,
the city not owning a vault. This being
against the law Mr. Workman had to provide
for the occasion and he did so by hiring
guards and a vault for the protection of the
money. Although this movement withdrew
from circulation over $2,500,000 it proved no
detriment to business interests. Mr. Work-
man was one of the stanch advocates of the
scheme for bonding the city for $2,000,000 in
order to secure funds for the purchase of a
water plant, and with the city attorney, W.
B. Mathews, went east to float the bonds, but
on account of the low rate of interest—three
and three-fourths per cent—encountered many
difficulties in disposing of them. They final-
ly succeeded, however, in New York City,
and this movement proved very advantageous
in the growth and development of Los An-
geles. After retiring from the office of city
treasurer he assisted in organizing the Ameri-
can Savings Bank, of which he is now presi-
dent. As a charter member and first vice-
president of the Los Angeles Chamber of
Commerce Mr. Workman has always main-
tained a prominent place in the advancement
of this organization. Fraternally he is a
Mason, having been made a member in 1861
and holds membership in the Los Angeles
Lodge and Chapter.
Mr. Workman has been versatile in his tal-
ents and accomplishments. He has made his
own way since the early years of boyhood
and has won his way step by step to a position
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
521
of honor among the representative citizens of
Southern California. He has established a
home and reared a family of children of whom
any parent might well be proud. His chil-
dren, three sons and four daughters, Boyle,
Mary, Elizabeth, William H., Jr., Charlotte,
Gertrude and Thomas E., appreciate fully their
father's standing as a prominent citizen of
their native city. The family home at No.
357 South Boyle avenue is in the center of a
well-kept lawn, spacious grounds, and there
their friends are always welcome and the
stranger given the warm hand of fellowship.
Mrs. Workman presides over the home with
a quiet dignity and has reared their children
to ways of usefulness.
Mr. Workman is a pioneer and is justly
proud of his connection with the Pioneer As-
sociation of Los Angeles County and the His-
torical Society of Southern California, the
former of which he was instrumental in or-
ganizing. He has served as its president three
terms and has always taken a deep interest in
the preservation of early historical data. He
recalls the days when a vineyard occupied the
ground now a part of the railroad terminals
of the city; in the early '70s he was a member
of the board of education and assisted in hav-
:ng the first high school building erected in
the city, where the present courthouse stands,
since which time he has taken a never failing
interest in the advancement of educational
standards. He has contributed liberally to-
ward all movements calculated for the growth
of the city, having given lots for the building
of five different churches regardless of de-
nomination, and supports all charitable enter-
prises with equal liberality. To young and
old he is “Uncle Billy.” To celebrate his
fiftieth anniversary as a citizen of Los Angeles
he banqueted five hundred pioneers and served
them with a Mexican menu from which to se-
lect their favorite dish, in memory of the early
customs of Southern California. The event
marked an epoch in the history of our beau-
tiful southern city. Mr. Workman has truly
won a place of exceptional prominence in the
citizenship of Los Angeles, where he has been
actively associated in business for many years.
It has been said of him by those who know
him best that he is generous to a fault, pos-
sesses the confidence of the people, and no
man in Los Angeles stands higher in the es-
timation of the representative men. He has
not been entirely free from reverses, but at
the same time has ably managed his affairs
and those entrusted to him ; conscientiously
discharged the duties of the offices to which
he has been elected, often to the detriment of
his personal affairs. In the evening of his
days he can look back upon a life well spent
and forward without fear to whatever future
awaits him, for he has lived in all conscience
for and toward the right.
COL. J. A. DRIFFILL, manager of the Amer-
ican Beet Sugar Company of Oxnard, is de-
scended from a long line of ancestors who have
been interested in manufacturing pursuits of
various kinds, and while his own life has not
all been spent in active manufacturing interests,
the greater part of it has been so employed. He
was born in Rochester, N. Y., September 24,
1859, being the oldest of the three sons in the
family. The grandfather, James Driffill, emi-
grated from Devonshire, England, when his fam-
ily was still young, and settling in Rochester, en-
gaged in the shoe manufacturing business, which
was the same Occupation he had followed in
England. William Lewis Driffill, the father of
Colonel Driffill, was born in Devonshire, Eng-
land, but grew to manhood in Rochester, N.
Y., and became a lumber manufacturer and
dealer, first in Western New York, then in Mich-
igan, finally going back to Rochester, where he
died. His life had been one of honesty and in-
tegrity and he was held in high esteem by his
friends. The Baptist Church held his affiliations
and he took a personal interest in church activ-
ities as well as contributed generously to its
benevolences. Colonel Driffill’s mother was
Eliza Glascow, born in Ontario, the daughter of
James Glascow who came from Scotland, where
he had been a prominent and influential citizen.
In Scotland he was interested in steamship
building, in this particular following a long line
of ancestors had bequeathed the business from
father to son from early days when the first
ones were shipbuilders on the Clyde. In Ontario
Mr. Glascow became connected with a shipbuild-
ing company and continued in the work until his
death. The mother died several years ago.
J. A. Driffill was given a public school edu-
cation, Supplemented by a course at the
Rochester Free Academy and Commercial Col-
lege. Following his graduation he secured a
position with L. P. Ross, a shoe manufacturer,
and succeeded in working up to an important
position with the firm. Too close attention to
his work impaired his health, and after serving
his employers four and one-half years, he re-
signed. In 1883 he decided to remove to Cali-
fornia, after careful consideration of the ad-
vantages of different points deciding upon
Pomona as a location. During the same year
Colonel Driffill was united in marriage with Miss
Emma Gordon, daughter of Alexander Gordon
of Rochester, and born of this union were two
daughters, Mary Edith and Emma Mabel.
522
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
During the ten years of his residence at
Pomona he was interested in the cultivation of
Oranges and other horiticultural products, but
the venture proved unsuccessful. In 1893 he re-
moved with his family to Chino and there first
became connected with the American Beet Sugar
Company. Encouraged by the large returns
which the farmers about Chino were receiving
for their beets which they sold to the sugar fac-
tory, the people about Oxnard decided that they
would try beet culture. In 1896 a few were
grown with flattering results, and in 1897 a
large crop was produced which it was necessary
to ship to Chino. Then the company decided to
build one of the finest, largest and most up-to-
date beet sugar factories on the Pacific coast at
Oxnard, and Colonel Driffill was made manager
of the new factory, in recognition of the efficient
Service he had given to the Chino plant as store-
keeper and manager's assistant. The success of
the Oxnard factory has conclusively proven the
wisdom of the choice of their man as manager.
Work was commenced on the plant at Oxnard
and its completion accomplished within eighteen
months’ time. This left the 1898 crop to be
shipped to Chino, but in 1899 the Oxnard factory
began operations and from that time to this the
company has paid the farmers of that section
about $6,000,000 for their beets. All of the
product has been manufactured into standard-
grade granulated sugar, and the track which the
Southern Pacific found it necessary to lay from
Montalvo to haul in the material when the
factory was being built, is now used to haul out
the immense quantity of Sugar manufactured.
The capacity of the factory is two thousand
tons per twenty-four hours run, and to insure
a sufficient quantity of beets to operate profitably
during the season (from one hundred to one
hundred and twenty-five days) necessitates that
contracts be made with the farmers to plant
eighteen thousand acres of beets each season.
Conditions are very favorable in this section for
the growing of the crop and a maximum return
of from $75 to $100 per acre is realized by the
grower. The main building of the factory is an
immense structure 4OIxI2 I feet, and has seven
floors. Besides this there is a sugar warehouse
220x60 feet, boiler house, machine shops, etc.
Six hundred men are employed in the factory
during the operating season, while from twelve
hundred to fifteen hundred men are required to
harvest the crop. Oxnard has grown as high
as eighteen thousand acres of beets in one sea-
son, and when one considers that in 1897 the
country was practically one vast bean field this is
indeed phenomenal.
The initial, continued and present success of
the whole industry is attributable in very large
measure to Colonel Driffill’s unflagging zeal and
remarkable executive and financial ability. In
all the years the enviable record of never having
had a contract forfeited nor been obliged to col-
lect a debt by law has been made. But even the
management of so large a business enterprise
has by no means filled or exhausted the capacity
of Colonel Driffill to accomplish things and he
has been active in other important enterprises
of vital interest to the city of Oxnard. When
the town was laid out in the spring of 1898 he
organized the Colonial Improvement Company
and became its president and manager and as-
sisted in the sale of lots. To this enterprise the
city is indebted, in large measure, for its present
prosperity. -
In 1903 the light and water properties were
separated from the town properties and the Ox-
nard Light and Water Company was organized,
Colonel Driffill becoming president. The com-
pany built a water plant, put down artesian wells
and secured an abundance of water, after which
they constructed a light and power plant and in-
stalled the finest modern power house on the
coast for the size of the municipality, the build-
ing being IO6x50 feet in dimensions and the
engine being of three hundred horse power. The
company also furnishes light and power to El
Rio, a village two miles north of Oxnard, and
to Hueneme on the south, as well as to a num-
ber of intervening farm houses. In July, IOOO,
Colonel Driffill assisted in the organization of the
first bank in Oxnard, starting it with a capital
stock of $50,000. In 1905 the capital stock was
increased to $100,000 and a surplus of $25,000,
all paid in. For several years he was vice-presi:
dent of the institution and is now filling the
office of president.
A well rounded man has other interests be-
sides business, however, and Colonel Driffill has
well earned this distinction. In military lines he
has always been active wherever he has been
located, and the various organizations have
found in him a member capable of leading them.
While in Rochester, he was a member of the
Fifty-fourth Regiment, National Guards of New
York. Removing to Pomona he became lieu-
tenant and later captain of Company D, Seventh
California Regiment, and from there was trans-
ferred to the Ninth California Regiment and
made captain of Company D. Later he became
major inspector on General Johnson's staff, and
was also at one time lieutenant-colonel, and as-
sistant adjutant-general on General Last's staff.
Fraternally Colonel Driffill has received high
degrees and offices in the Masonic lodge which
he first joined in Pomona, and is now a member
and past master of Oxnard Lodge No. 341, F.
& A. M. Made a Royal Arch Mason in Los
Angeles, he is now a member of Oxnard Chapter
No. 86, R. A. M., received the Templar degrees
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
525
in Coeur d’Alene Commandery at Los Angeles,
and is a member of the Southern California Com-
mandery No. 37, K. T. He is also a member of
Los Angeles Consistory No. 3, and belongs to
the Al Malaikah Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S. of
Los Angeles.
In politics Colonel Driffill is a Republican and
he gives to his party the same loyal Support that
he accords every interest—business, Social or
otherwise—and is an active member of the Union
League Club of Los Angeles. In fact, he does
nothing in a half-hearted way and when he gives
his name to the support of any cause it also
means that he gives to it his talents. He holds
membership in the Citizens Club of Oxnard, and
belongs to the California Club of Los Angeles.
That Colonel Driffill is a man of versatile talents,
great ability and discriminating tact is thorough-
ly evidenced by the list of positions which he is
daily filling, and when it is stated that in all of
his multitudinous dealings with men in so many
different channels he has been enabled to make
of every one his friend, no higher tribute could
be paid him. He is very popular both in his own
community and in the state at large where he is
known. Any community might well congratulate
itself on having Colonel Driffill among its citi-
zens, and that Oxnard has so fully accorded him
the leadership in so many branches of its busi-
ness, social and political life is but just recogni-
tion of a strong man's worth.
HON. MEREDITH P. SNYDER. There
are names so closely associated with the per-
manent development of Los Angeles that the
mention of the city’s growth brings to the Old
residents thoughts of the personality of these
citizens and their important contribution to
local progress. None has been more active
than Mr. Snyder in promoting measures for
the welfare of the city; none has been more
deeply interested in municipal affairs, and
few have been more influential in fostering
enterprises necessary to the city's material,
commercial and educational growth. Hence
in local annals his name is worthy of perpetu-
ation, and a complete history of the place could
not be written without giving due mention to
the citizenship of this prominent man.
The Snyder family is of Southern origin,
North Carolina becoming the scene of their
labors during the colonial period of our coun-
try. At Lexington Court House, in that state,
October 22, 1859, Meredith P. Snyder was
born, the son of K. D. and Elizabeth (Heiher)
Snyder. Both parents passed away when their
son was but a lad in years, and the estate be-
ing rendered worthless by the devastating ef-
fects of the Civil war he was compelled to seek
a livelihood early in life. Of a studious na-
ture through inheritance he devoted all the
time he could possibly spare to securing an
education, accumulating sufficient means to
give him considerable collegiate training, al-
though he did not graduate. In 1880 he be-
came a resident of Los Angeles, where he has
since made his home and successfully estab-
lished for himself a place among the repre-
sentative men of this city. His first occupa-
tion was as clerk in a furniture store, after
which he engaged in like capacity for B. F.
Coulter Dry Goods Company and had charge
for four years of the drapery department.
Following this clerkship he engaged in the
real-estate business for eight years, when, for
a similar period, he was at the head of the
M. P. Snyder Shoe Company, a business which
is still successfully carried on although un-
der different management. -
A Democrat in his political convictions Mr.
Snyder early became associated with this party
in Los Angeles and was chosen to represent
the people in various positions of trust and
responsibility. For twelve years he was the
leader of the Democratic party in the city and
practically controlled their movements. Elect-
ed in 1891 a member of the police commission
he served acceptably until the expiration of
his term, when he was re-elected. Two years
later he was elected to represent the second
ward in the city council, where he took an ac-
tive part in all movements tending toward the
upbuilding of the town. Careful and dis-
criminating in his public office as he has al-
ways been in business life, he considered the
worth of all measures introduced before giv-
ing them his support, and after having once
made up his mind nothing could swerve him
from his point. An evidence of his standing
as a citizen and his prominence in the Demo-
cratic party was his nomination in the fall of
1896 for the office of mayor. His election by
a large majority followed and in January,
1897, he took his seat and began an adminis-
tration which has meant no little in the wel-
fare of the city. Although exercising a con-
trolling influence in local affairs this influ-
ence was used only for the best purposes and
for the distinct good of the municipality. Be-
tween the expiration of this term and his re-
election in 1899 he engaged in the real-es-
tate business, his interests being confined to
acreage subdivisions, in which he met with
success. Again chosen to the office in 1899
he began his administration in 1900, and was
re-elected in 1902, closing his third term as
mayor of the city of Los Angeles in 1905. His
record is one which may well be emulated by
aspirants to this office, because he had always
34
526
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
in mind the welfare of the municipality, its
growth and upbuilding, and with this his aim
made a success of his work. His reasons for
political actions have always been based upon
Sound judgment and common sense, a careful
study of the point in question from all view
points, after which he has taken decisive ac-
tion. He is universally esteemed by thought-
ful men whether of his party or another, and
justly named among the men who have done
much for the upbuilding of the city.
Like all men who work for the good of a
municipality Mr. Snyder's hobby was and is
municipal ownership of the water supply.
Before his entrance into official politics he
served as Secretary of a municipal water works
club and very strongly advocated a supply of
pure water, firmly believing that the city
would need an unlimited supply. Not liking
the methods employed by the old water com-
pany he fought them for twelve years, en-
deavoring to induce them to sell out to the
city. He was elected to the office of mayor on
the platform of municipal water works owner-
ship. He finally induced the old company to
Set a figure of $2,000,000, at which time he
opened a campaign, taking the platform and
working to have the city bonded for that
amount. When success attended his efforts
and the bonds were floated in New York City
by attorneys Dillon and Hubbard it was found
they were faulty and could not be disposed of
until they were out of the hands of the water
company. After considerable discussion the
water company agreed to deed the works to a
trustee and the city selected the same man
and even though Mr. Snyder had fought them
for years, yet the water company chose him
as the party and for fifteen days he was sole
owner, without bond, of that all-important
source of the city's development. By this
means the bonds could be negotiated and from
this the present system has developed. He
appointed the first commission which was the
one that brought about the present Owens
river project. In 1904 Mr. Snyder organized
the California Savings Bank and became its
president. A company had secured the char-
ter for a bank but were unable to effect its
organization, finally giving the entire matter
into the hands of Mr. Snyder. They began
with a capital stock of $300,000 and in the
brief time that lias elapsed have become one
of the strong banking institutions of this city.
Their growth has been phenomenal and they
now find their building, located at the corner
of Fifth and Broadway, inadequate for their
needs. In the near future they contemplate
the erection of a new building, Mr. Snyder
is vice-president and director of the Gardena
Bank & Trust Company and one of the original
Stockholders in the Central Bank.
The home of Mr. Snyder is presided over
by his wife, formerly Miss May Ross, with
whom he was united in 1888. She is a daugh-
ter of William W. Ross, who served in the
body guard of President Lincoln during the
Civil war and later became a prominent citi-
zen of Topeka, Kans., where he served as
mayor and in other prominent positions. Her
uncle, Hon. Edmund G. Ross, was governor
of New Mexico and also served as United
States Senator. Mr. and Mrs. Snyder have
one son, Ross. In his fraternal relations Mr.
Snyder is a Royal Arch Mason, a member of
the Elks, Knights of Pythias, and various
others, being very prominent in these circles.
In his business transactions he has been open
and always in favor of a square deal. While
a prominent Democrat his election as mayor
was upon a much broader basis ; it was “For
the people and by the people.” While in of-
fice he gave his undivided attention to the peo-
ple's interests with the same fidelity that he
would give to his own. Such men as he build
for all time and leave a monument to their
memory in substantial form, as well as a heri-
tage to their posterity and an example worthy
of emulation.
CAPT. JOHN T. BRADY. Wherever cir-
cumstances have placed him Captain Brady has
been a prominent figure in his community, a
fact which has been nowhere better or more
forcibly illustrated than since his identification
with Pomona in 1801. When he had been in the
town only a few months he comprehended thor-
oughly her advantages and opportunities, and
was equally well prepared to enlist his services
in a way that would redound to the mutual credit .
and advantage of himself and his adopted home
town. It was in January of 1892 that he opened
the National Bank of Pomona, the history of
whose growth and prosperity was made a possi-
bility through his wise management as president
for fourteen years. It was started with a capital
stock of $50,000, and in April of 1904 its capital
stock was doubled and its name was then
changed to the American National Bank of
Pomona. At that time it paid its stockholders
seventy per cent, which left a surplus of $25,000.
From the time of its organization the bank has
had a steady, conservative growth, and in 1901
it bought the People's Bank. Throughout its
history, until January of 1906, Captain Brady
was at the helm to weather the financial storms,
and although he has resigned the presidency he
is still interested as a stockholder in the institu-
tion. -
H] STORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. - 527
Captain Brady was born in Cass county, Illi-
nois, October 17, 1834, and is a son of Charles
and Mahala (Graves) Brady, the former born
in Washington county, Kentucky, in 18OI, and
the latter in 18O2. When he was a young man
of twenty-six years the father went to what
was then considered the frontier, settling on a
farm in Cass county, Illinois, which ever after
remained his home. In his political sympathies
he was an old-line Whig and advocated the aboli-
tion of slavery, a belief to which he had been
trained by his progenitors. When he was about
twenty-five years of age, in 1859, Captain Brady
was one of the number whose object in coming
west was to seek the gold fields of Pike's Peak,
whose discovery that year took thousands of
young men from farms in all parts of the coun-
try. On the way he stopped in Nemaha county,
Kansas, and it was not until the following year
that he carried out his original plan in coming
to the west—namely, to reach Pike's Peak. The
fact that he returned the same year and settled
in Kansas is sufficient evidence that his anticipa-
tions in regard to reaching sudden wealth in the
gold fields there were not realized. Undismayed
by this change in his plans he entered into the
life of the pioneer farmer in Kansas. The break-
ing out of the Civil war brought another change
in his life, and in July, 1861, he volunteered as
a member of Company A, Seventh Kansas Regi-
ment, being mustered in as duty Sergeant.
During his term of three years he saw much
hard service, and among the notable battles in
which he participated were those at Corinth,
Iuka and Holly Springs. Upon his return to
Kansas he was for some time engaged in border
warfare, and was finally mustered out at Leaven-
worth in October, 1864.
Returning to Nemaha county, Kansas, Captain
Brady resumed the duties which he had laid
down to answer his country's call, and in the
years that followed became a large land owner
and stock-raiser in the new state. In 1870 he
was president of the company that located and
laid out the town of Sabetha. A new impetus
was added to the little town by the building of
a railroad through it, and from that time onward
it had a steady growth. In 1882 Captain Brady
was instrumental in organizing the Citizens'
Bank of Sabetha, of which he himself was presi-
dent. One year later it was merged into the
Citizens' National Bank, and two years later, on
a consolidation with the First National Bank,
the name was changed to the Sabetha State Bank,
under which title it remained until changed to
its present title, the National Bank of Sabetha.
Captain Brady's knowledge of financial affairs
and his ability as an organizer of banks made
him an important factor in his community, but
not there alone, for he was instrumental in start-
ing the bank at Fairview, of which he was presi-
dent for a time. He also started the bank at
Burns, Nemaha county, and was the founder of
a bank at Morrill, Brown county. Throughout
his residence in Kansas he was largely interested
in the cattle business, his partner in this enter-
prise being ex-Governor Butler of Nebraska.
Had it not been for the ill-health of his wife it
is doubtful if he would have given up his bright
prospects in Kansas for a home elsewhere. In
traveling about in search of a desirable climate
they came to California in 1888, but did not lo-
cate here permanently until two years later, then
settling in Ontario, San Bernardino county. The
following year they came to Pomona, and have
since been classed among the town’s active and
enterprising citizens. They have a beautiful res-
idence on the corner of Holt avenue and Palo-
mares street, the ground being laid out in attrac-
tive walks and drives, and numerous palms, fruit
trees and flowers further enhance the beauty of
the surroundings. Mrs. Brady was before her
marriage Emily E. Collins, a native of Cass
county, Illinois, although her marriage occurred
in Sabetha, Kans.
Associated with two others, A. C. Moorhead
and Frederick Hewitt, both of whom are now
deceased, Captain Brady purchased one hundred
and twenty acres near Ontario and set out the
land in oranges and lemons, this now being one
of the most attractive ranches in the Pomona
valley. On the organization of the Pomona
Fruit Growers' Exchange he was made its presi-
dent, a position which he filled for about ten
years. In 1896 he was instrumental, with others,
in incorporating the Consolidated Water Com-
pany of Pomona, supplying the water for do-
mestic purposes to Pomona, North Pomona and
Claremont. In 1903 they sold the latter system.
In 1905, upon the death of Mr. Longdon, Cap-
tain Brady was appointed by Governor Pardee
as a member of the board of supervisors at Los
Angeles for the first district. He is also a mem-
ber of the Republican county executive commit-
tee and was formerly a member of the Board of
Trade of Pomoria. Fraternal affairs have also
Imade claims upon his time, and besides holding
membership in the Benevolent Protective Order
of Elks, he belongs to the Odd Fellows Lodge
Of Pomona. He became identified with the order
in Illinois in October of 1855, at which time he
joined Saxon Lodge No 68, in Virginia. By
his membership in Vicksburg Post No. 61, G. A.
R., he keeps alive the memory of army days,
being one of the charter members, and is post
commander in Sabetha, Kans. In religious belief
he is of the Unitarian faith, attending the church
of that denomination in Pomona, and the only
strictly social order to which he belongs is the
Union League Club of Los Angeles.
528 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
PROF. J. J. MORGAN. The appreciation in
which Prof. J. J. Morgan is held as an educator
is shown by the important positions which he
has been called upon to fill since his location in
Southern California in 1894, and his worth is
justly estimated in the results which he has
accomplished. He is now serving as city super-
intendent of the schools of Long Beach, until
1905 having held the position of supervising
principal of all the schools and principal of the
high school of this city. In this work he was
instrumental in securing a rapid development
along the lines of educational advancement, en-
larging the schools, securing modern and up-to-
date equipment, and to a marked degree empha-
sizing the high standard of excellence which has
given the pupils of these schools entrée into the
best collegiate institutions of the state. At the
same time he has won for himself a popularity
which is not based upon his ability as a teacher,
but is the outcome of the qualities of manhood
which have formed no small part in the Success
of his career. -
Professor Morgan is a native of La Grange
county, Ind., his birth having occurred in that
section in 1865, and while still a child in years
was taken by his parents (representatives of
Scotch and English ancestry) to the state of
Michigan. The studious nature which he early
developed was an inheritance from the paternal
side of the family, all being teachers or profes-
sional men, his father a minister in the Method-
ist Episcopal Church. He became a student in
the public schools of Plymouth, Mich., where he
was graduated, after which he studied law. On
account of impaired health he was forced to give
up the study of law, and in Albion College and
the University of Michigan fitted himself for
teaching. He met with success in his chosen
work and finally accepted the position of Super-
intendent of city schools in Bad Axe, Huron
county, Mich. After two years he decided to
come to Southern California, in which state he
had previously traveled, and accordingly located
in the vicinity of Pomona, Los Angeles county,
where he began teaching school. Securing the
principalship of the public and high schools of
Covina, he held this position for seven years,
and in the meantime was instrumental in the
organization of the high school. In 1898 he
assumed the principalship of that institution, hav-
ing under him twelve teachers. In 1902 he came
to Long Beach in the capacity above named, that
of supervising principal of the whole and prin-
cipal of the high school, having eleven teachers
in the grammar schools and six in the high
school. This number has been greatly increased
in the past three years, in November, 1905, there
being seventy-five grammar and , fifteen high
school teachers, while the attendance of the
Schools is larger than that of Los Angeles in
1880 and three times larger than it was in 1902.
Professor Morgan has supervision of ten School
buildings and looks after all the improvements,
etc., throughout the city. An evidence of the
merits of the schools lies in the fact that they
have twenty-seven and a half credits among the
accredited Schools of the state, it being possible
for one school to score only thirty-nine and
ninety-nine one-hundredths credits. Pupils of
the Long Beach Schools are admitted to Leland
Stanford University; University of Southern
California; Occidental and Claremont Colleges,
and stand especially high among the schools in
debating and athletics.
In Michigan Professor Morgan was united
in marriage with Anna B. Smith, a graduate of
Plymouth high school and a teacher in the
schools of the state. They make their home at
No. 511 West Ninth street, where the professor
has built a handsome residence. He has also
invested in other property in Long Beach and
has built several houses. Fraternally he is iden-
tified with Long Beach Lodge No. 327, F. &
A. M.; Long Beach Chapter No. 88, R. A. M.,
having been raised to this degree in Azusa, Cal. ;
Long Beach Commandery No. 40, K. T., raised
to this degree in Pomona; and Al Malaikah
Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., of Los Angeles.
He is also a member of the Odd Fellows Lodge
at Covina, and the Elks of Long Beach. He is
a stanch Republican in his political affiliations
and in religion is a member of the Methodist
Episcopal Church. For some time he served as
a member of the county board of education and
is prominent in all movements tending toward
educational advancement. He belongs to the
Board of Trade and the Union League Club of
Los Angeles, and is a stockholder in the Ma-
sonic Association and the new hospital, and is
a member of the board of directors of the Long
Beach Building and Loan Association. He ex-
presses a firm belief in the future of Southern
California and especially of his adopted city,
to the advancement of whose welfare he gives
his best efforts, making the success of the city
parallel with his personal interests.
JOHN KING. During his residence of about
two decades in California John King greatly en-
deared himself to a multitude of sincere friends,
and though he was called to the silent land over
thirty-five years ago he is still remembered with
the kindliest feelings by his associates of the
early pioneers days. He was born in County
Down, Ireland, August 28, 1827, but at the age
of eighteen years became a resident of the United
States, his first stopping place being St. Louis,
Mo. Going still further south we next find


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
531
him in New Orleans, where for a number of
years he was employed in a hotel. In the mean-
time considerable interest had been created in
California by the discovery of gold, and he
wisely foresaw that the establishment of a hotel
there meant success from the start. In partner-
ship with his brother-in-law Marcus Flashner, he
opened a hotel in San Francisco in 1851, an
undertaking which was carried on with very
successful results for about five years. By
mutual agreement they then decided to give up
their interests in this metropolis and in 1856 they
came to Los Angeles and established what was
then known as the Bella Union hotel, but which
has since given place to the larger and more
dignified structure now occupied by the St.
Charles hotel. After the death of Mr. Flashner
Mr. King continued the business in partnership
with his sister until his own death, which oc-
curred in 1871, at which time he was only in
his forty-fifth year. During the formative period
of this now prosperous city he took an active
part in its governmental affairs, being a member
of the city council for many years, and at the
time of his death was serving as president of
that body. Politically he was a Democrat.
The marriage of John King and Miss Susan
Griffin occurred in Los Angeles in 1866. Mrs.
King was born in New York City, but since
1849 she has been a continuous resident of the
Golden state. Her father, Dr. P. J. Griffin,
who was a graduate of Jefferson Medical College
became a practitioner of considerable note. In
the early part of his professional career he made
a special study of the causes of and cure for
yellow fever, a disease which was then raging as
an epidemic in New Orleans, he at that time
having an office in Havana, Cuba. Some time
later he practiced his profession in Texas, and
in 1848 he came to California, settling in San
Francisco, where he was joined the following
year by his wife and children. Misfortune over-
took him in the partial loss of his eyesight ere he
had been in the state any length of time, and he
was therefore unable to resume his practice here.
Instead, however, he engaged in the general
merchandise business, having a store in San
Francisco and one in Sacramento. On two dif-
ferent occasions he was visited by fire, his stock
at both times being a total loss. Subsequently
he opened a merchandise store in San Juan,
but gave this up some time later and removed to
Philadelphia, Pa., where it was his intention to
spend the remainder of his life. His anticipations
in regard to the latter place fell short of realiza-
tion considerably, however, and in 1859 he again
came to the west, this time settling in Los An-
geles, here living retired on the means which he
had accumulated in former years. His death
occurred in Watsonville, in 1872, when over
seventy years of age. Mrs. Griffin was before
her marriage Mary Crane, a native of New
Jersey, and her death occurred in San Juan.
Of the children born to them Mrs. King was the
only one that attained mature years. She was
educated principally in Los Angeles, although for
a time she attended school in Philadelphia.
After the return of the family to the west, in
1862 she entered the Sisters school in Los An-
geles, remaining a pupil there up to the time of
her marriage to Mr. King in 1866. In 1881,
ten years after the death of Mr. King, she re-
moved with her children to the residence she
now occupies, on the corner of Vermont and
Santa Barbara avenues. The grounds surround-
ing the residence originally comprised eighty
acres, of this seventy acres have been sold and the
balance subdivided and sold in lots. The eldest
of her three children, Mary F., a graduate of the
Los Angeles normal school, is now a teacher
in this city; Alice G. is at home with her mother;
and John J. the only son, is in business in Los
Angeles. Mrs. King and her daughters are com-
municants of St. Vincent’s Catholic Church of
Los Angeles, and in the social life of this city
they take an active and interested part.
JOHN BORCHARD. Prominent annong
the sturdy and substantial residents of Ventura
county, whose place of birth was in the far-
away German Empire, and who, with the in-
dustry and thrift so natural to the people of
that country, have accumulated vast interests
in the home of their adoption, is John Bor-
chard, of Oxnard. A pioneer settler of this
place, he has witnessed wonderful transforma-
tions in the face of the land, with warmest in-
terest watching the growth of town and coun-
ty, and ever responding cheerfully and liber-
ally to the numerous calls for assistance in
establishing beneficial enterprises. He is a
man of far more than average business capac-
ity, and is not only one of the leading agri-
culturists of the county, but is an extensive
landholder and a man of much wealth and in-
fluence. During the accumulation of his large
property he has conducted his business on
strictly honest and honorable lines, and while
laying up riches for himself has lent generous
aid to many a needy person, giving to some
of the wealthiest men of this valley their first
start in life. A native of Germany, he was
born, October 8, 1838, in Hanover, a son of
Caspar and Elizabeth (Huch) Borchard, both
of whom spent their entire lives in the Father-
land, the mother dying in March, 1892, at the
age of eighty-three years, and the father in
1898, aged eighty-five years.
Having completed the course of study in
532
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD,
the public schools of his native town, John
Borchard served for one and one-half years
in the German army, after which he was
there engaged in agricultural pursuits for a
number of years. Immigrating to the United
States in 1871, he debarked in New York City,
from there coming to California, landing at
San Francisco. Coming immediately to Ven-
tura county, he located in the Santa Clara val-
ley, and the same year purchased four hundred
acres of land, which are now included in his
present home ranch. As a general farmer and
stock-raiser he has been eminently success-
ful, and in this, and in other localities as
well, has vast possessions of land. He has
four thousand acres of land in the Conejo val-
ley, where he has raised much grain and many
sheep and cattle ; about eight thousand acres
in Texas; two thousand acres in the Santa
Clara valley, a valuable tract which he rents;
and nine hundred acres at Huntington Beach,
having recently sold about five hundred acres,
which was partly platted to town lots. He
has other property of value, being a stock-
holder in the First National Bank of Hunt-
ington Beach and likewise in the Bank of Ox-
nard. -
In Germany, in 1865, Mr. Borchard married
Elizabeth Chothelm, who was born in Ger-
many, in 1834, and died on the home ranch,
March 22, 1892, aged fiftv-eight years. Three
children were born of the marriage of Mr. and
Mrs. Borchard, namely: Mary, wife of Al-
fred Fasshauer, of Hanover, Germany; Anna,
living at home and keeping house for her
father ; and Theresa, wife of Louis Maulhardt,
a resident of the Santa Clara valley. In 1895
Mr. Borchard and his three daughters went
abroad and spent three months in Germany,
having a delightful time with friends and rela-
tives. During the six months they were away
they visited in Texas, Cincinnati, New York
City, and other points of interest in our own
and European countries. The family are ev-
erywhere esteemed, and are valued and con-
sistent members of the Catholic Church.
JOHN GUESS. The oldest settler in the vi-
cinity of El Monte is John Guess, who is located
one mile west of the city and successfully engag-
ed in general farming and the raising of stock. Mr.
Guess came to California in October, 1852, as a
pioneer, since which time he has witnessed and
participated in the development and upbuilding
of the country. He is a native of the south, born
in Batesville, Independence county, Ark., March
20, 1830; his father, Joseph, who was born in
the east, became an early resident of Arkansas,
where he engaged in farming throughout his ac-
nia.
equipment and provisions for nine months.
tive life. His death occurred from cholera in
New Orleans while there on a trip for merchan-
dise. He was survived by his wife, formerly
Lottie Menyard, also a native of the east, her
last days being spent with her Son in California,
dying at the age of eighty-four years. She had
three children, of whom the eldest and only one
living is the subject of this review.
Reared in his native state, John Guess removed
with his parents to Conway county when a child,
and having lost his father when young, he was
deprived of even the limited advantages afforded
by the primitive schools of the country. He spent
his boyhood days on the home farm, assisting in
the work, and at twenty years of age began life
for himself, working farms on shares until he
had succeeded in accumulating some means. He
was married in Arkansas to Mrs. Harriet (Holi-
field) Rogers, a native of Conway county and a
daughter of James Holifield, a pioneer farmer
of Arkansas, whose death occurred in Santa
Barbara on a steamer on a return trip to Califor-
The first trip of Mr. Guess was made to
California April 7, 1852, following his marriage
in March, making the trip across the plains with
two yoke of oxen, one wagon and all necessary
He
came through Texas via Fort Belknap, El Paso
and Yuma, reaching El Monte after a seven
months’ trip. He had several skirmishes with
the Indians en route, but was with a train of
eighty wagons with seventy men well armed and
this necessarily précluded any serious trouble
with them. For three weeks following his ar-
rival he camped within three-quarters of a mile
of his present home, then he located in the vi-
cinity of Compton and began farming. In the
spring of 1855 he returned to El Monte, rented
some of his present land one year, then pur-
chased a ranch one mile north of El Monte,
where he farmed and engaged in the raising of
cattle. He subsequently returned to Arkansas
with the intention of purchasing a farm with the
$3,000 clear profit he carried back with him and
remain a resident of his native state; but finally
concluded to again locate in California and ac-
cordingly made the trip once more to the Pa-
cific coast in 1859. After selling his first ranch
he purchased forty-eight acres on the present
site of Savannah and remained in that location
until 1867, when he lost in the courts his title to
the land, as it was proven property of the early
grants. In the same year he located on the place
which he now owns, which was disputed land
known as the old Mission grant, taking posses-
sion of one hundred acres where he at once be-
gan improvement and cultivation. He set out
sycamore trees which today stand as massive
sentinels about the place, many of them large
and spreading, one measuring two and a half

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
535
feet in diameter. He engaged in the raising of
cattle, hogs, mules and horses, and a little later
purchased one hundred and fifty head of cattle,
which he drove to Tehachapi and sold. He fol-
lowed a like course on the Chino ranch, while
his family still lived on the ranch near El Monte.
In 1888 he bought an interest in the San Jacinto
ranch, then in the Santa Rosa ranch near Tem-
ecula, where he had a herd of eight hundred cat-
tle. He eventually added to his original ranch
in El Monte by a purchase of sixty-four acres
all being in one tract adjoining Savannah. He
has made many improvements on the place and
brought it to a high state of cultivation, being
able to raise alfalfa without irrigation on Seventy
acres of the place. He devotes considerable time
to the raising of stock, in which enterprise he
has been more than usually successful.
Mr. Guess' first wife died March 18, 1897,
eight children having been born to them, namely:
Henry, of Pomona, the first American boy born
in Los Angeles county; Louis, who died in in-
fancy; Sallie, wife of William Slack, of San Ga-
briel; Alice, who died in childhood; Emma, wife
of William Parker, in the vicinity of Compton;
Richard, engaged with his father; Fannie, who
died at the age of sixteen years; and Hattie,
wife of Joseph Steel, of El Monte. The second
t1nion of Mr. Guess occurred in Rivera, Cal., and
united him with Mrs. Sarah (Anderson) Hooper.
Mr. Guess has taken a prominent part in public
affairs in the community, being one of the organ-
izers of the First National Bank of El Monte,
and has served as school trustee for two terms.
Fraternally he is a Master Mason, having been
made a member of the organization in 1862,
in Lexington Lodge No. IO4. He belongs to the
Baptist Church of El Monte, in which he has
officiated as frustee. Politically he is a stanch
Jeffersonian Democrat. In memory of the early
days in which he came to California he belongs
to the Los Angeles County Pioneers.
WALTER JARVIS BARLOW, M. D.
Among the names of distinguished physicians
holding prominent place in the medical pro-
fession is that of Dr. W. J. Barlow. Though
born of a long line of eastern ancestry, the
west has claimed him and welcomed him, as
the west always welcomes the brain and the
strength of the sons of the east and is proud to
enroll them as her own. The homely but oft-
heard expression that “blood tells” has be-
come axiomatic, and if the saying is as true
as believed to be the Barlow family may just-
ly lay claim to whatever distinction lies in be-
ing well descended.
of the Barlow family, from which Dr. Barlow
is descendéd, dates from colonial days when
P. A. in 1880.
The American branch .
Samuel Barlow, the founder of the family in
America, was among the early colonists who
emigrated from England in 162O and settled
in Massachusetts. Those were days of trial
and tribulation and the men who unflinch-
ingly faced them were worthy progenitors of
a race to be that should point with pride to
the line from whence they sprang. Among
the numerous descendants of Samuel Barlow
was Joel Barlow, the distinguished author and
philanthropist, and also of the immediate
family of which Dr. Barlow is a member.
Dr. Barlow's great-great-grandfather, John
Barlow was a native of Fairfield, Conn., and
a merchant by trade. He married Sarah Whit-
ney, of the well known New England family.
Their son John married Larana Scott, and the
son of the latter, also John, married Julia Ann
Jarvis, whose family name is prominent in the
history of Connecticut. Though of English
descent they were true American patriots, her
grandfather being a soldier in the Revolution.
She was also a niece of Bishop Jarvis, the first
bishop consecrated in America, and the sec-
ond bishop of Connecticut.
Dr. Barlow's father was William H. Bar-
low. He was born in Connecticut, afterwards
removing to Ossining, N. Y., where he en-
gaged in business as a hardware merchant.
He was a man of sterling qualities, a devout
member of the Fpiscopal Church, and a mem-
ber of the Masonic fraternity. He married
Miss Catherine Stratton Leut, also a native
of Connecticut, a daughter of Robert and
Catherine (Stratton) Leut. Her mother was
a Van Weber, descendant of Aneka Jans of
New York City, whose vast estate was the
subject of litigation for many years, and be-
came a cause celebre in the annals of the New
York State bar. The Leut family were orig-
inally from Holland. The proper name, Van
Leut, became in time shortened to Leut.
Catherine Stratton Barlow, who died in 1891,
became the mother of nine children.
Dr. Walter Jarvis Barlow was born at Os–
sining, Westchester county, N. Y., January
22, 1868, and his early boyhood years were
passed at his home on the banks of the pictur-
esque Hudson. Graduating from Mt. Pleas-
ant Military Academy in 1885, he entered Co-
lumbia University and received his degree of
In 1892 he graduated from the
College of Physicians and Surgeons and re-
ceived his degree of M. D., which was fol-
lowed by three years as interne in a New York
City hospital. Too close attention to study
had somewhat indermined his health and he
sought to regain it through traveling and a
vear's sojourn in the mountains of Southern
California. As soon as his health was restored
536
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
he located in Los Angeles and engaged in the
practice of his profession. His specialty is in-
ternal medicine.
In 1898 Dr. Barlow married Miss Marion
Brooks Patterson, of Los Angeles, and a na-
tive of Dunkirk, N. Y. They have three
children, Walter Jarvis, Jr., Catherine Leut
and Ella Brooks.
Dr. Barlow has achieved an enviable posi-
tion in his chosen profession, and is held in
high esteem among the fraternity of which he
is an honored member. His culture, refine-
ment and worth are well established and uni-
versally recognized in the community. He
holds the chair of clinical medicine in the Medi-
cal College of Southern California;
member of the American Medical Association;
member of the Clinicalogical Association;
member of the Chamber of Commerce; and
vice president and director of Merchants’
Trust and Savings Bank. In 1902 he founded
and incorporated the Barlow Sanitarium for
the poor consumptives of Los Angeles county,
which has proven more than a success.
DOLORES MACHADO. Prominent among
the Castilian residents of Los Angeles county is
the Machado family, whose representative above
named is the owner of a beautiful home in the
town of Venice. The family was founded in Cal-
ifornia by Manuel Machado, a native of Spain
and in early life a resident of Mexico, but later a
pioneer of California, settling in Santa Barbara.
As a soldier of the king of Spain he received a
grant to a tract of land now embraced within the
limits of Los Angeles, where he died at the age
of four-score years. Next in line of descent was
Augustine, father of Dolores, and a native of
Santa Barbara, Cal., but from an early age identi-
fied with the development of Los Angeles county.
In conjunction with his brother Ygnacio, Augus-
tine Machado purchased the La Bayona rancho
of fifteen thousand acres in Los Angeles county,
and eventually the latter acquired five thousand
acres of the grant, where he engaged in raising
cattle and horses, and met with such success that
he was wealthy at the time of his death, when
eighty-five years of age. To each of his children
he bequeathed a ranch, but much of the land has
passed out of their possession, although Dolores
and his brothers and sisters own about two hun-
dred and thirty acres of the old La Bayona grant,
the same being now very valuable property.
The marriage of Augustine Machado united
him with Ramona Sepulveda, a native of Los
Angeles and a daughter of Francisco Sepulveda,
a Spanish gentleman and a soldier of the king of
Spain. In return for his services to his country
Francisco Sepulveda received a grant to San Vi-
centes, comprising thirty thousand acres, on a
is a
part of which the town of Santa Monica now
stands. By reason of his large holdings he be-
came a man of prominence among the Spanish
residents of Los Angeles county, and his ability
also gave him a foremost place among the men of
his day and locality. At the time of his death he
was about ninety years of age, and his daughter,
Mrs. Machado, was seventy-five at the time of
her demise. Both the Sepulveda and Machado
families were devout members of the Roman
Catholic Church.
In the family of Augustine and Ramona Mach-
ado there were the following named children:
Martine, who died at the age of fifty-five; Vin-
cente, who was forty-five years at the time of
death; Domingo, who lived to be forty-eight;
Dolores, whose name introduces this sketch; As-
cuncion, the widow of Louis Lopez and the own-
er of a portion of La Bayona grant; Suzana,
widow of Juan Bernard and a wealthy resident of
Los Angeles; Francisco, who died at forty-eight
years; Bernardino, who owns a part of the old
grant; Jose Juan, Andres and Jose De Luce, all
of whom Own parts of the old grant. Dolores
Machado was born in Los Angeles March 2,
I833, and remained with his parents until the
death of his father, when one-half of the estate
fell to the widow, and the other one-half was di-
vided among the children. At that time, in 1864,
he received three hundred acres and later inher-
ited one hundred acres from his mother. The
greater part of the land he has sold, but he still
retains fifty acres in the town of Venice, valued
at $2500 per acre, and here he engaged in farm-
ing until about 1902, when he retired from active
business and agricultural cares. Politically he
votes the Democratic ticket. Though all of his
life has been passed in this county and he is fa-
miliar with its development, he still retains the
habits and customs of the Spanish race and uses
that language exclusively. However, all of his
children have received excellent English educa-
tions and have adopted the customs and the lan-
guage of their American neighbors. In religion
all are actively connected with the Roman Cath-
olic Church.
The marriage of Mr. Machado occurred April
I5, 1875, and united him with Miss Gregoria De
Leon, who was born in Los Angeles, and is a
daughter of Ramon De Leon, a native of Spain.
The children of their union are named as fol-
lows: Alfredo, a government surveyor, now lo-
cated at Salt Lake, Utah : Ascuncion, wife of
Harry Minor, who owns a mill at Manila, Philip-
pine Islands: Jose De Luz, at home; Florentina,
at home; Dolores, who went to the Philippines as
a teacher and there was married to John Borrow,
their home now being in Manila; Yloria, at
home; and Francisco, who also remains on the
home place.
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HSTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
539
DAVID F. NEWSOM. The history of any
community is best told in the lives of its citi-
zens. Especially is this the case when these
citizens are men of power and ability, wield-
ing an influence along moral and educational
lines, and exerting efforts for a personal suc-
cess parallel with those necessary to the ad-
vancement of their adopted state. Almost un-
interruptedly from 1853 David F. Newsom
was identified with the history of San Luis,
Obispo county, and he left an impress which
places his name in the list of those of her
most representative men. Through the sub-
stantial qualities of character he was able to
gain for himself financial prosperity and that
which is still more desirable, the respect and
esteem of all who knew him. Mr. Newsom
was born at Petersburg, Va., September 5,
1832, of an old established southern family
prominent during the old plantation days,
when chivalry, gallantry, courtly manners and
open-handed hospitality were matters of pride
and honor with every gentleman of the south.
Mr. Newsom's father was a slave-holder and
had all masters been as considerate and hu- .
mane as he there would have been no war
over the question of slavery. He was kind to
the negroes, gave them all that was required
to make them comfortable, and asked less of
them than many employers of labor do of
their white help today. No warm Sunday
dinners were served in the Newsom house-
hold because the negroes were given from
Saturday noon till Monday morning as time in
which to do what they liked, no work being
required of them except that which was abso-
lutely necessary. His mother was even known
to have milked the cows on Sunday in order
to give the milkmaid her outing, and in re-
sponse to this treatment the negroes appeared
to take pleasure in furthering the interests of
the family.
In the schoolroom. Mr. Newsom made rap-
id progress and after preliminary work in the
lower grades and two years at the Petersburg
Classical Institute, a Presbyterian school, he
entered the Wake Forest College at Forest-
ville, N. C., but in his fifteenth year, on ac-
count of his father's business failure, he was
obliged to give up his studies and endeavor to
do something toward his own support. Af-
ter careful consideration of the subject he de-
cided that it would be wise to learn a trade
and accordingly accepted an opportunity to go
to New York City and apprentice himself to
Dietz Bros. & Co., brass finishers. One of
the Dietz brothers was the husband of his
mother's sister and it was because of this con-
nection that the position was secured. On
March 15, 1849, he boarded the schooner Ann,
owned by Captain Bogart, who kindly offered
him free passage to New York, where he ar-
rived after an eight-day voyage. The schoon-
er was docked on East river and under the
direction of the captain Mr. Newsom immedi-
ately made his way to the principal store of
the Dietz firm, found his uncle, who directed
him to his boarding place at No. 66 Beek-
man Street, which was then a very fashionable
thoroughfare. ' This was the home of Ed-
mond Dietz and there the nine apprentice boys
of the firm were boarded and lodged. The
balance of this first week in the city was
spent visiting relatives and on Monday morn-
ing, March 29, Mr. Newsom began his two
years' apprenticeship. He took great pains
with his work from the first and within six
weeks it compared favorable with that of his
superior and he was advanced rapidly from
one department to another. His uncle and
aunt were the editors of Holden’s Magazine
and as such were the recipients of many com-
plimentary tickets to operas, lectures and con-
certs, and these tickets were frequently given
to their nephew. Mr. Newsom was glad to
take advantage of every opportunity to fur-
ther educate and cultivate himself and also
availed himself of his apprentice’s right to
draw books from the Mechanics' Library. His
uncle noting his ambition secured for him a
like privilege at the Mercantile Library, where
he was also entitled to attend the lectures
frequently given there. In this way he heard
a course of lectures on political economy giv-
en by Horace Greeley and listened to other
authorities on various interesting and instruc-
tive subjects. Through the Dietz family, a
member of whom was superintendent of Bar-
num's American Museum, he secured free ad-
mission to that place and saw and heard many
things of interest and profit. It was Mr. Bar-
num who made the engagement with Jenny
Lind, the Swedish nightingale, to come to the
United States and sing thirty nights for $30,-
OOO. The Battery was selected as the place
for the concerts and the firm for whom Mr.
Newsom was working secured the contract
for lighting the building. He was one of the
lighters sent to the hall the night of the first
concert to attend to the lights and so had the
pleasure of hearing the first concert. An in-
teresting fact in relation to this incident is
that through a clever maneuver Mr. Newsom
had the privilege of sitting in the seat for
which the first ticket was sold at the auction
for $600. He had been informed that the
buyer did not intend to occupy it, and when
after the first overture was ended and it was
still empty Mr. Newsom slipped into it and
sat there through the concert.
540
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
From Mrs. Taylor, another friend, Mr.
Newsom received invitations to attend Henry
Ward Beecher's church, occupying a seat in
the Taylor pew, and thus heard that noted
Orator and divine a number of times. He ad-
mired his power to sway an audience and car-
ry his hearers from tears to applause and
frenzy, but did not agree with him in his ut-
terances on the slavery question, believing
that Mr. Beecher was not correctly informed
as to facts concerning the negroes and their
treatment. Lectures were not the only medi-
um of education which he availed himself of,
but believing that bookkeeping would be of
very great assistance to him he made arrange-
ments to attend the Public Night School No.
5, on Duane street, where he also took les-
Sons in vocal and instrumental music. In spite
of the many things which he accomplished
for Self-advancement he still found time for
amusement and recreation and on Sundays
often visited the various nearby places of in-
terest. The three weeks’ vacation which was
given him during his apprenticeship he spent
in Connecticut, at Saybrook, Middletown and
Durham, the latter being his mother's birth-
place. After visiting relatives at these points
he then returned to New York, making a
short stop at Saratoga Springs. The trip took
him up the Hudson river and at one point the
steamer stopped, dipped her flag, and then
proceeded on the way. Upon inquiry as to
the reason for this salute he was told that it
was in honor of the Polish nobleman, Kos-
ciusko, who there fought for American indepen-
dence. Mr. Newsom also visited Troy, Al-
bany and Poughkeepsie and upon his return
to New York went to work at his trade with
tiew vim. Apprentices were paid $30 the first
year and $40 the second, and when Mr. New-
som's two years had expired he had due him
of these amounts just $20. On the day of the
expiration of his apprenticeship, March 29,
1851, he left New York a good mechanic, a fine
bookkeeper, and with an unusually large fund
of general information.
He immediately started toward his home in
Virginia, stopping at Philadelphia, where he
was met by his father, who was in the north
buying goods at that time. While there he
visited friends and called at the factory of
Cornelius & Co., a firm doing work of the
same kind that he had been engaged in, and
his intelligent criticism of some lacquer work
which he inspected secured for him a flatter-
ing offer of a position in the establishment.
He deferred a decision in regard to the offer
until he had opportunity to consult with his
parents; as his mother preferred that he dis-
continue work at the trade he acceded to her
wishes and remained in Petersburg. Accept-
ing a position in a shoe store owned by Lyon
& Davis, the firm that had bought his father's
business, he remained there for two years, af-
ter which he decided to come to California.
Desiring to become a member of the Ma-
Sonic order before his departure from home
his employer presented his application to the
lodge and on the evening of his twenty-first
birthday, September 5, 1853, he received the
first and second degrees. On the tenth of the
month the third degree was conferred, the
lieutenant-governor, who was grand master of
the state, being present, assisting in the rais-
ing and delivering the lecture. The initiation,
passing and raising of Mr. Newsom was under
a special dispensation from the Grand Lodge
of Virginia and he had the honor of being,
with one exception, the youngest Master Ma-
son ever made in Virginia. The exception
was George Washington, who had received
his degrees under a special dispensation from
the Grand Lodge of England. In later years
Mr. Newsom also became a member of the
Knights of Pythias order.
On September 15 Mr. Newsom started for
New York, and after spending several days
there renewing old acquaintances, secured pas-
sage to San Francisco by the Nicaragua rotite
on the steamer Star of the West, which left
the harbor September 25. Ten days later the
passengers were in San Francisco. Mr. New-
som went immediately to Samuel Prichard's
office there and inquired for Petersburg
friends and one of the first to make an ap-
pearance was Oscar M. Brown, a neighbor,
who had stood high in the estimation of the
public. Mr. Brown informed him that he had
two ranches in San Luis Obispo county, and
he also held the office of county judge. He
said there was a vacancy in the clerk's office
and would appoint him to fill it if the $2,OOO
salary was sufficient inducement. Mr. New-
som decided to accompany the judge south
and a few days later they arrived at San Luis
Obispo. The clerk appointment materialized,
but the salary did not, and as the small sum
of money which he had with him was soon
gone it was necessary for him to do something
to replenish his purse. He finally decided to
run a feed stable and this enterprise developed
into a very remunerative one. Meanwhile he
continued his work on the clerk’s books,
which he found in a decidedly chaotic condi-
tion. It took a great deal of hard work to
get them into any kind of order and when
it is known that the county clerk was also
clerk of the district, county and probate courts,
recorder, auditor, county sealer, superinten-
dent of schools, and clerk of the boards of
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
541
supervisors and equalization, one realizes that
the office was no sinecure. As ex-Officio coun-
ty superintendent of schools Mr. Newsom em-
ployed a teacher and opened the first public
school of the county in a room in the old mis-
sion building. After the expiration of the
term of his appointment to the Office he was
elected by the voters and continued in that
official capacity until June IO, 1857, when he
changed his residence and went to try his
fortunes in Washington,
His first business venture in that state was
a mercantile store at Olympia, Wash., and
following that, in April, 1858, he started the
first general store at Bellingham, meeting with
very good success.
year he disposed of his business and moved
to Fort Hope, British Columbia, remaining
there but six months, however, when he again
turned his steps Californiaward. Upon his
arrival at San Juan Island, where he found
General Pickett with a detachment of United
States soldiers trying to prevent his arrest by
the British, Mr. Newsom organized a company
of sharpshooters to assist him, and when a
compromise of the trouble between the Brit-
ish and American factions was agreed upon
Mr. Newsom was chosen as one of the two
magistrates to represent the different factions,
He remained on the island until 1861, having
charge of the sutler's store and assisting in
the establishment of the San Juan lime works.
Following this he again took up his residence
in San Luis Obispo county and from that
time until his death identified himself with
the development and upbuilding of that part
of the state. For thirty years he affiliated
with the Democratic party, but in later life held
independent views and did not cast his bal-
lots on strictly party lines.
After his return to this county he was again
prominent in political life and filled various
offices, including those of justice of the peace
and deputy county clerk. In 1864 he removed
to Arroyo Grande and became the first teach-
er in the public schools of that district. He
was always especially interested in the sub-
ject of education and did everything in his
power to forward school interests in his own
county. . In the fall of 1864 he moved to the
Santa Manuela ranch, having purchased
twelve hundred acres of ground which is now
devoted to the raising of hay, walnuts, al-
monds, olives, citrus and deciduous fruits of
the various varieties. Cows, turkeys and
chickens are also raised and a flock of An-
gora goats adds materially to the income feat-
ures of the ranch. Mr. Newsom was inter-
ested in the Newsom tannery and other busi-
ness enterprises, but he was probably best
&
In December of the same.
known as the proprietor of Newsom's Arroyo
Grande Warm Springs, which are situated on
this land and which he developed. The waters ,
of the Springs are specific for many diseases,
which fact was first proven by the curing of
patients which Mr. Newsom brought from
the county hospitals. That was many years
ago, and the place has since become one of
the most popular winter resorts in this sec-
tion of the state, and the curative powers of
the waters have been tested with great satis-
faction by thousands of tourists who have
come long distances to bathe in the health-
giving mineral waters. To those who desire
it, camping privileges are free, and there are a
number of cottages on the grounds which are
rented to winter dwellers. The location is
ideal and picturesque. The ocean with its de-
lightful privileges is but a short distance away
and the place has an atmosphere of quiet re-
finement. No saloons have ever been allowed
on the grounds—a restriction which was the
cause of many predictions of failure when the
resort was first opened to the public. The
place is now being conducted by Mrs. Newsom
with great success.
It was in 1863 that the marriage of Mr.
Newsom to Anita Branch occurred. The story
of his courtship, which was probably one of
the shortest and sweetest on record, is an in-
teresting one. Mr. Newsom was inclined to
be timid and bashful and in his bachelor days
was often bantered by his friends for remain-
ing single when there were so many nice girls
in the community who lacked a husband. One
day a San Luis Obispo merchant made him
a novel wager. He offered to make out a list
of eligible young, women and Mr. Newsom
was to commence at the beginning and pro-
pose to each girl in succession until he had
been accepted or the end of the list was
reached. For each rejection the merchant
agreed to forfeit a box of wines and when ac-
cepted the suitor was to pay a like forfeit to
the merchant. The wager was agreed to ‘and
Mr. Newsom started out. To his great Sat-
isfaction the first name on the list was that of
a maiden upon whom he had long cast his
eyes in admiration, Miss Anita Branch, a
daughter of F. Z. Branch, a prosperous farmer
of Arroyo Grande. She was busily arranging
flowers in the parlor when the young man
called early in the morning. After the usual
salutations and a few words of desultory con-
versation the would-be lover arranged a white
and red rosebud on a rose geranium leaf and
asked her to accept them with their signifi-
cance. Her reply was a white and red pink
on a rose geranium leaf. When the young
man returned to San Luis Obispo after this
542
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
happy consummation of his brief though de-
lightful courtship and met the merchant he
exultantly announced the result in this con-
cise language. “Eight words, two bouton-
nieres, and in less than a minute the matter
was ended. The wine is yours, Old Fell” The
best part of all was that the courtship was fol-
lowed by forty years of happy and prosperous
married life. Twelve children were born to
them, all of whom are still living, three in
Bakersfield and nine on the home ranch where
they were born. Their names are David Z.,
Edward F., Mary M., Eliza, Anna, Alexan-
der D., Louisa G., Michael A., Ruth R., Belle
L., William H., and Robert P.
As a boy David F. Newsom was bright, ac-
tive and full of mischief, but was not vicious,
although when very young he had earned the
reputation of being incorrigible on account of
various escapades both in and out of school.
Within a space of two years’ time he had been
expelled four times, but this was because his
teachers misunderstood him and did not know
how to manage a boy of his lively disposition
and highstrung nature. In those days the
most popular and often expressed sentiment
was “Spare the rod and spoil the child,” and
teachers were especially fond of the admoni-
tion. They seemed to be employed for their
ability to develop all the latent evil there
might be in a child’s nature, rather than to
educate their minds. Mr. Newsom felt strong-
ly on this particular question throughout his
life and often said: “Oh that our teachers
could realize the injustice they are doing
themselves and the great harm they are doing
the child by inflicting corporal punishment.
If a child must be punished, send it home and
let the parents do it, while you retain the love
and respect of your pupil.” In his own ex-
perience in the schoolroom he practiced this
principle and when in 1863, while teaching a
private school in San Luis Obispo, a mother
brought her twelve-year-old son to him and
advised him to use the whip and not spare the
rod he requested her to take him home and
do the whipping herself if she wished him
whipped, for he would not strike a child.
That boy grew up into an honored and re-
spected citizen, for he was not whipped but,
on the contrary, made to feel that he was a
gentleman and was expected to act as one.
It was not alone in school, however, that
the boy’s exuberant spirits and love of fun
and practical jokes crept out and got him into
trouble. One day his father took the rest
of the family to spend a day with an uncle on
his plantation, leaving David and the negro
cook, Mammy Vinney, at home alone. After
a noonday shower the boy discovered a num-
were the best he had ever eaten.
ber of rats drinking water under the eaves
and succeeded in shooting two of them. Up-
on picking the bodies up he noticed that they
were very fat and plump, and an impish idea
seized him. He carefully skinned and dressed
them, finding them very tender and tempting
in appearance, and not being able to resist
the temptation he took them to the cook tell-
ing her they were young squirrels and asked
her to cook them for supper. “In due time,”
said . Mr. Newsom in relating the experience,
“the family returned, supper was announced,
and the young squirrels were eaten with a
relish. All were loud in praise of the dish.
My uncle advised me to try again, for they
A leg re-
mained in the dish, I ate it and if epicureans
do not add fried rats to their list of delicacies,
they will miss a treat. Supper being over we
were assembled in the parlor and again the
delicacy and fine flavor of the squirrels was re-
marked upon. I determined to tell them what
we had eaten, but was careful to take a stand
near the door ready to run. Upon being in-
formed that instead of young Squirrels they
had eaten rats my uncle was indignant, my
aunt cried, while my cousins ran out of doors
with their fingers down their throats endeav-
oring to eject the loathsome rodent from their
stomachs, and bedlam reigned for a few mo-
ments.”
While Mr. Newsom never lost his apprecia-
tion of jokes and was the instigator of many
through his life he was never unkind in the
practice. This trait which in the boy led him
to play so many pranks, in the man developed
an optimistic temperament. And his was an
optimism of the right kind—one that not only
made him think and talk optimistically, but
act so. He was a man of clean life and strong
principles, and his influence was always on
the side of every elevating and progressive
enterprise. His death in January, 1902, re-
moved an honored citizen, loved and respected
by all with whom he came in contact.
GEORGE WASHINGTON HUGHES. In
a state noted for magnificent scenic effects, the
view from Signal Hill is not one of the least
striking. Stretching only two miles from the
great Ocean and south of the Sierra Madre range,
it affords an attractive view of both, as well as of
twenty-seven cities and villages. Those who are
familiar with its landscape claim as the chief
beauty its ever-changing views with the passing
of morning, noon and night. Every morning the
island of Catalina may be seen on the One hand
and the great city of Los Angeles on the other.
9.


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 545
Every evening the stars shine down upon myr-
iads of lights gleaming from lighthouses and
piers, or swinging from ships and yachts, or
twinkling through the windows of countless
homes. Near by is the city of Long Beach, with
its auditorium seating six thousand, its hotel
costing nearly one-half million dollars, its bank
building costing $100,000, its pier costing $100,-
OOO and eighteen hundred feet in length, and its
population growing with unprecedented rapidity.
The promoter of Signal Hill and the president
of the Signal Hill Improvement Company is G.
W. Hughes, a young man of great energy and
progressive spirit, who was born near Vincennes,
Ind., July Io, 1870, being the eldest among eight
children, four sons and four daughters. His par-
gnts, John B. and Abbie G. (Warman) Hughes,
were natives of Indiana and Illinois, and the
father, after a lifetime of industrious application
to agricultural pursuits, died in Indiana, where
his widow now makes her home. After complet-
ing the studies of the common schools G. W.
Hughes was sent to the Southern Indiana Col-
lege at Mitchell, where he remained for one
term, and then returned to take up farm pursuits
near the large estate, LOO-goo-tee, owned and OC-
cupied by his father. In 1896 he became interest-
ed in the hotel business at Odon, Daviess county,
Ind., and two years later removed to Tunnelton,
Lawrence county, same state, where he conducted
a department store. Coming to California in
1902 with $800, he embarked in the real estate
business at Long Beach and the next year platted
forty acres on Signal Hill, also the Elin avenue
addition of ten acres and several large purchases
on the Ocean front.
The Signal Hill Improvement Company was
incorporated in 1904, with a capital stock of
$2OO,OOO, the object being to improve and sell in
building lots a tract of one hundred and eighteen
acres on Signal Hill. A number of prominent
men were interested in the enterprise, but their
stock was acquired by Mr. Hughes and Mr.
Crowe, who now operate the company's holdings.
On the first sale day, May 25, 1905, when lots
were open to the public, $58,OOO worth of lots
were sold, and the sales have since continued at a
gratifying rate. The lots are 60x130, with oiled
boulevards eighty feet wide, cement sidewalks,
artesian water piped to each lot, no saloons, no
stores. Water is supplied by the Signal Hill Wa-
ter Company, of which Mr. Hughes is president,
and he is also vice-president of the Signal Hill
Gravel Company. After coming to the coast he
was married at Long Beach to Miss Marie Wolf,
a native of San Francisco, and they are the par-
ents of a son, LeRoy. Politically he maintains
an independence of views, voting for the men and
measures he considers best qualified to promote
the interests of the people, and in fraternal rela-
tions he is associated with the Ancient Order of
United Workmen at Los Angeles.
JAMES VINING BALDWIN was born in
Weston, Ohio, a suburb of Toledo, October
25, 1870, the second in a family of three chil-
dren born to his parents, Edward and Harriett
(Taylor) Baldwin, both of whom were born
and reared in the eastern states, the paternal
name ranking high in mercantile circles in
New York City. In young manhood Edward
Baldwin removed to Ohio, and in Weston
carried on a merchandise establishment for
many years. Not unlike his predecessors he
thoroughly understood his calling, and the
name of Baldwin soon bore the same stand-
ing in business circles in Weston that it had
in the east. Having disposed of his store he
is now living in Weston at an advanced age.
Exceptional advantages for securing an edu-
cation fell to the lot of James V. Baldwin,
his realization of this fact spurring him to
greater effort as he went from school to col-
lege. His graduation from the high school
was followed by his matriculation in the Ohio
Wesleyan University at Delaware, that state.
Before graduating from that institution how-
ever he discontinued his studies and took a
position in his father's mercantile establish-
ment in Weston, remaining there for a short
time, after which he embarked in business and
for five years carried on a very successful
and growing enterprise independently. In the
meantime he had satisfied himself regarding
the chances for a young man in the west and
hither he came in 1896, coming directly to Los
Angeles. During the ten years of his residence
here he made a name and place for himself
in the business circles of the city, and is es-
pecially well known in real-estate circles, his
transactions in this line being extensive and
numerous. Among the tracts which he has
purchased and subdivided into . lots may be
mentioned Seaside Park, West Adams Heights
and Westmoreland Heights, while with others
he is interested and has been a leading factor
in the Playa Del Rey tract, Westminster Place,
Wellington Place, Wilshire Hills and the Fair
Oaks Land Company. The present improve-
ments on Wilshire boulevard, in the extreme
western part of the city, are due to the efforts
of Mr. Baldwin, at whose instigation the pres-
ent syndicate was formed. His plan was the
purchase of hundreds of acres in that locality
for the purpose of subdivision and sale as city
lots, and the wisdom of his keen forethought
is seen in the fine improvements which now
grace that boulevard.
546
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Before locating in the west Mr. Baldwin
formed domestic ties by his marriage with
Miss Maude L. Munn in Weston, Ohio, she
also being a native of that town. After attend-
ing the primary schools of Weston she com-
pleted her education in the higher schools of
Oxford, Ohio. One child, Andrew Edward,
has blessed the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Bald-
win. To say that Mr. Baldwin is a Repub-
lican is superfluous when it is stated that his
name is on the roster of Teddy’s Terrors and
the Republican Club. Other social organiza-
tions with which he is identified are the
Jonathan Club, the California Club, the
Country Club and the Ocean Park Country
Glub. He is also a member of the Chamber
of Commerce of Los Angeles. Besides his
interests already noted he is identified with
various important corporations of this city, be-
ing a director of the California Savings Bank,
and also of the Union Home Telephone &
Telegraph corporation, which has a capital
of $10,000,000 and covers Southern California.
JOHN L. BEVERIDGE. As in the heyday
of youth men long for the giant possibilities with-
in the borders of cities, so in after life, with
faculities matured and illusions vanished, they
again gravitate towards those ceaseless activities
which whet their interests, and tune their hearts
and minds to a more than bountiful present.
Such an one is John L. Beveridge, strong in mind
and character, brave and resourceful in emer-
gency, and since December, 1895, a resident of
Hollywood, Cal. On both sides of the family
he is descended from a long line of Scotch an-
cestors, who bequeathed to their children and
children's children all of the characteristics for
which that sturdy nationality is noted.
paternal grandfather, Andrew Beveridge, was
the first of the family to come to the new world,
leaving his home in Scotland in 1770, when a
lad of eighteen years, and settling in Washington
county, N. Y. Fifteen years later, in 1785, the
maternal grandparents. James and Agnes
(Robertson) Hoy, also came to the United States,
they too settling in the same county in New York.
Both grandparents spent the remainder of their
lives in the Empire state and their remains lie
buried in the Hebron and Cambridge Cemeteries
in Washington county. Among the children born
to the paternal grandparents were eight Sons,
and of these George (the father of our subject)
and James enlisted for service in the war of
1812; while on their way to Plattsburg to partici-
pate in the battle of Lake Champlain, hostilities
came to an end and there was no further need
of their services. However, at considerable dis-
tance from the scene of the conflict, they could
The
£
hear the boom of cannon echo and re-echo across
the lake. Retracing their footsteps they returned
to their home in Washington county and were
mustered out of the service. -
Born and reared in Washington county, N.
Y., George Beveridge was early in life initiated
in the hard work which fell to the lot of the
farmer before the era of labor-saving machinery.
For many years he followed this vocation in his
native county, but in middle life, when his son
John L. was in his eighteenth year, he removed
to Illinois, settling in DeKalb county. There
as in the east he followed the peaceful life of
the agriculturist, and on the farm which he
there established his earth life came to a close,
his wife, who was in maidenhood Ann Hoy, also
dying on the Illinois homestead.
While his parents were still living in New
York state John L. Beveridge was born in Green-
wich, Washington, county, July 6, 1824. He re-
ceived such education as the schools of his home
district afforded, but as his parents could main-
tain their family only by the most rigid economy,
all thought of going away to college, which was
then his greatest ambition, had to be abondoned.
Until he was eighteen years of age he assisted
in the work of the home farm in Washington
county, and after the removal of the family to
Illinois still continued farming, teaching school
during the winter months in order to provide
means with which to prosecute his studies. It
was in the fall of 1842 that he entered the
academy at Granville, Putnam county, Ill.,
where he spent one term, later entering
Rock River Seminary at Mount Morris, where
he completed his academic course in the fall of
1845. His parents and brothers were anxious
to have him follow this training by a course in
college, but as his means were insufficient for
this undertaking and not caring to be a burden
to his family, who were anxious and willing to
help him, he packed his trunk and with all the
money he had ($40) started for the south to
Seek his fortune. Going to Tennessee, he taught
school in Wilson, Overton and Jackson counties,
interspersing the reading of law as his other
duties would permit. As the result of his studious
habits and persistency in the course which he
had mapped out for himself he was admitted to
the bar in Jackson county in November 1850.
It was in December of 1847 that Mr. Beve-
ridge returned to the north, and on January 20
following was united in marriage with Miss
Helen M. Judson, the ceremony being performed
in the old Clark Street Methodist Episcopal
Church, Chicago, of which her father was then
pastor. During the spring of 1848 he returned
to Tennessee with his bride, and in that state
their two children, Alla May and Philo Judson,
were born. Mismanagement on the part of an
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
547
associate with whom he had entrusted his means
threw him in debt in the fall of 1849, and as soon
as he could earn the amount of his indebtedness
and clear himself he returned to Illinois, and in
Sycamore, the county-seat of DeKalb county, be-
gan to practice the profession of law. His recent
financial experience had left him practically with-
out funds, so that it was only by the most rigid
economy that he was able to earn enough from
his legal practice to support his family. As op-
portunity offered he did outside work, such as
keeping books for some of the business houses
of the town, besides some railroad engineering.
A dawn of brighter prospects began to appear
when, in the spring of 1854, he removed to
Evanston, a town twelve miles north of Chicago,
which had recently been laid out under the super-
vision of the Northwestern University, a Metho-
dist institution, of which his father-in-law was
then financial agent and business manager. The
following year Mr. Beveridge opened a law office
in Chicago, meeting with some discouragements
at first, but finally gathering around him a large
and influential clientele.
There is probably no epoch in Mr. Beveridge's
long and brilliant career of which he is more
proud than the four years and fifty-five days
spent in his country’s service during the Civil
war. It was on August 25, 1861, that he signed
the muster roll and recruited Company F, Eighth
Illinois Cavalry, receiving rapid promotion from
his superiors, who soon noted his knowledge
and ability in the line of military tactics. From
captain of Company F he was promoted to major.
As a part of the Army of the Potomac his regi-
ment was active in the campaign of 1862-63, and
participated in the battles of Williamsburg, Fair
Oaks, in the seven days fight around Richmond,
White Oak Swamp, Malvern Hill, Antietam,
Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg.
In the campaign of 1863 his regiment had
the post of honor, the right of the First
Brigade, First Division of the cavalry corps
of the Army of the Potomac. In command
of his regiment he held the advance of the
army to Gettysburg and his regiment was
the first to receive the fire of the enemy on that
memorable battle field. It was at the request
of Governor Richard Yates that on November
2, 1863, Mr. Beveridge resigned his commission
as major to accept the rank of colonel of a
cavalry regiment authorized to be raised by the
stcretary of war. Later he recruited and or-
ganized the Seventeenth Illinois Cavalry, of which
he was commissioned colonel, his rank to date
from January 28, 1864. He served with his
regiment in the department of Missouri, taking
an active part in the Price raid. For some time
after his regiment was mustered out he was re-
tained by order of the secretary of war as presi-
dent of the military commission in St. Louis.
On May 1, 1865, he was commissioned brigadier-
general by brevet, and received his final discharge
February 7, 1866, having been four years and
fifty-five days in active service, and one hundred
and eleven days on recruiting service.
Returning at once to Chicago, Mr. Beveridge
resumed the practice of law, but at considerable
disadvantage, for he was without a library and
his former clientage had become scattered. In
November of 1866 he was elected sheriff of Cook
county, a position which he filled for one term,
after which he again practiced law until Novem-
‘ber, 1870, the latter date marking his election as
State Senator. One year later, in November of
1871, he was elected congressman at large, and
in November of 1872 was elected lieutenant-
governor on the ticket with Governor Oglesby.
The election of the latter to the United States
Senate resulted in Mr. Beveridge becoming gover-
nor of Illinois, taking his chair January 21, 1873.
From the foregoing it will be seen that honor up-
on honor was placed upon him in rapid succes-
Sion, any one of which would have satisfied the
most ambitious.
After the close of his gubernatorial term Mr.
Beveridge became associated in business with D.
B. Dewey, under the firm name of Beveridge
& Dewey, as bankers and dealers in commercial
paper, with Offices in the McCormick Block,
Chicago. In November, 1881, he was made
assistant United States treasurer, a position
which he filled with ability until September 1885.
On account of ill-health he retired from active
life about this time making his home in Evans-
ton, until December, 1895, when he removed to
California, and has since made his home in Holly-
wood. The wife of his youth is still spared to
him and together they are spending their last
days in the quietness and serenity which is the
just reward for noble and consecrated living.
Both of their children have been trained to lives
of usefulness and are now filling their place in the
world’s activities. The eldest child, Alla May,
is now the wife of Samuel B. Raymond, and they
make their home in Chicago, Ill.; the only son,
Phild Judson, has taken an active part in pro-
moting the interests of Hollywood, and at this
writing (1906) is traveling abroad with his fam-
ily. Mr. Beveridge's early religious training was
in the faith of the United Presbyterain Church,
but during later years he became a member of
the Episcopal Church. As a member of the
Illinois Commandery, Military Order of the Loyal
Legion of the United States, Mr. Beveridge, on
February 8, 1885, read a paper entitled The
First Gun at Gettysburg, and as he said of the
conflict, so we say of his life, “The battle was
fought, the victory was won.”
548
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
COL. JOHN KASTLE. Familiarity with
California Soil, climate and possibilities, ac-
quired through twenty years of residence within
the state, has made Colonel Kastle an authority
concerning real estate values, particularly those
pertaining to the southern half of the common-
wealth. While he was for years prominent in the
real estate development of San Diego and for
two terms officiated as president of the Chamber
of Commerce in that city, for some time past he
has made his home in Oxnard, whose growing
Opportunities and great possibilities attracted him
to its citizenship and caused him to invest in
property desirable for improvement. Since com-
ing to the city he has engaged in the real estate
business and has had charge of various sales for
others, as well as buying vacant property and im-
proving it himself for later sale.
The Kastle family is of French lineage and
was established in America by John Kastle, Sr.,
who in 1843 became a resident of New Orleans,
La., but after two years removed to Kentucky.
For years he held a prominent position among
the men of affairs in Lexington, where he was
proprietor of a large shoe store, and that city
continued to be his home until death. The lady
whom he married, Sophia Devning, was a mem-
ber Qf a French Huguenot family belonging to
the nobility. Among their children there was one
son, Charles, who served throughout the period
of the Civil war and took part in Sherman's
march to the sea; another son, Daniel, makes his
home in Kentucky. The third, Col. John Kastle,
was born in Strasburg, France, in 1833, and re-
ceived his primary education in French schools.
At the age of ten years he accompanied the fam-
ily to the United States, settling in New Orleans,
whence he removed to Lexington, Ky., in 1845,
and there completed his education in the city
schools. Upon leaving School he entered his
father's store and soon acquired a thorough
knowledge of the shoe business, which he con-
ducted successfully for a quarter of a century,
meanwhile gaining a reputation for keen business
judgment and substantial worth as a citizen.
Removing to Kansas City in 188o Colonel
Kastle remained a resident of that place for six
years, and meantime, as in Kentucky, became
prominently identified with local politics and
wielded a large influence in public affairs. At
the same time he engaged in the real estate busi-
ness and handled many important deals in town
property. While making his home in Kansas
City he married and not long afterward suffered
the misfortune of losing his wife by death. On
his arrival in California in 1887 he selected San
Diego as his location, being attracted by its equa-
ble climate. In a short time he had made severa!
important investments in real estate, including
business locations on Fifth and Sixth streets. On
various of his vacant lots he erected buildings,
among these being the Kastle block, which is still
One of the substantial structures of the town. In
addition he erected a number of cottages and
laid out on First street an addition of five acres to
the city. While he has disposed of considerable
property in San Diego, he still has valuable hold-
ings in the city and receives a regular income
from the same.
Not only has Colonel Kastle traveled exten-
sively in the United States, but he has also visited
points of interest in Europe and was a visitor at
the Paris Exposition of 1867. In all of his travels
he has found no country with a fairer climate
than California, nor has he found any possessing
greater material advantages or larger opportuni-
ties. Politically he has affiliated with the Demo-
cratic party since early manhood and has been a
warm admirer of the principles for which Will-
iam J. Bryan stands. During his residence in
San Diego he took a prominent part in the work
of the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks. As
early as 1855 he was made a Mason in Lexing-
ton, Ky., and in 1866 was raised to the Royal
Arch Chapter in the same state. At this writing
he affiliates with Oxnard Lodge No. 341, F. &
A. M., Oxnard Chapter, R. A. M., and Ventura
Commandery, K. T., and maintains a deep inter-
est in the philanthropic work of the order. For
Some time he has officiated as a warden of the
Episcopal Church. Personally he possesses many
genial traits of character and furnishes a type of
the famous “Kentucky colonel,” whose hospital-
ity, good fellowship and friendly impulses are
known the world around.
ROBERT CATHCART. In reading over the
events and happenings associated with the life of
Mr. Cathcart one immediately recognizes the at-
tributes that individualized his character, namely,
faithfulness to every duty and his purpose of will.
It was in 1853, when a youth of seventeen years,
that he accompanied his parents to California,
and from the year 1876 until his death, Novem-
ber 9, 1904, he was a continuous resident of the
Pomona valley, and as a pioneer of this com-
munity he took a prominent part in all measures
of an upbuilding and progressive nature; in fact,
no one labored more zealously to bring this sec-
tion of Los Angeles county into public notice
than did Mr. Cathcart. His efforts along this line
were of a practical nature, and any prospective
settler viewing his thrifty ranch was almost in-
variably counted as a newcomer. As a result of
his untiring efforts, an interest in horticulture
was established which transformed the barren
valley into a garden spot, and during his more
active years his ranch and nursery were counted
among the show places in this part of the county.
-

HISTORICAL \ND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
551
A native of Missouri, Robert Cathcart was
born in St. Louis in 1837, a son of Robert and
Hannah (Lee) Cathcart, both of whom were na-
tives of Scotland. Coming to the United States
during his youth, the father located in St. Louis,
Mo., where as an engineer his services were in
great demand. To him was given the credit of
building the first steam flouring mill ever erected
in that now flourishing city, and in many other
substantial ways was he identified with its early
upbuilding efforts. He keenly appreciated the
city's advantageous position on the river, and was
largely interested in steamboating between St.
Louis and New Orleans, owning the packet line
which he ran between these two points.
Until in his seventeenth year of age Robert
Cathcart remained in his native city, and in the
meantime received an excellent education in the
schools of St. Louis. Upon the removal of the
family to California in 1853 he also came and
settled with them on the ranch which the father
purchased in Santa Cruz county. Eight years
later he opened a general merchandise establish-
1ment in Santa Cruz, which he conducted two
years, and then, from 1863 to 1866, was propri-
etor of a livery stable in that town. Thereafter
he again associated himself with mercantile in-
terests, and for ten years, or until 1876, conduct-
ed a general store. Selling out his stock and
good-will that year he came to Los Angeles coun-
ty and settled in the San Jose valley about two
miles north of Pomona. From A. R. Meserve he
purchased a one hundred acre tract of land which
was about as uninviting and unpromising as it is
possible to imagine, but with a purpose he set to
work to make it habitable and productive, and
that his energy was well expended all will con-
cede who have followed his career. The Cathcart
ranch on San Antonio avenue has long been a
landmark in this section. During his later years
he disposed of a large part of his ranch, and at
the time of his death owned only thirty acres of
the original tract, and of this twenty-seven acres
were in oranges and the remainder in waſhuts.
He was very successful in the sinking of artesian
wells, and at one time had ten wells on his prop-
erty. In 1889 he with others was instrumental in
securing a contract for piping water into Po-
mona, an innovation which was a distinct advan-
tage to the citizens.
In 1867, in Santa Cruz, Mr. Cathcart was mar-
ried to Miss Augusta Durr, who was born in
Ohio. July 13, 1844, one of five children born to
her parents and only one of the number is now
living, a resident of San Francisco. Mrs. Cath-
cart died at her home on San Antonio avenue,
Pomona, March, 1907, having survived her hus-
band less than two and a half years. When a
child of eleven years she accompanied her par-
ents, John Durr and wife, to California, coming
3 ..)
by way of the isthmus, and thence by boat to
Monterey county. The mother did not long sur-
vive the tedious journey to the west, but the
father, who was a native of Germany, lived until
1867. Four children blessed the marriage of Mr.
and Mrs. Cathcart, all of whom are living with
one exception and in homes of their own. Frank
Baynham, lives in Los Angeles and is the father
of one child; John Lee, married Miss Amy
Green, and with his wife and two children lives
in San Bernardino; Charles H. is deceased ; Rob-
ert, married Miss Bessie Loebier and is also a
resident of San Bernardino. Politically Mr.
Cathcart was a stanch supporter of Democratic
principles. Throughout Los Angeles county Mr.
Cathcart was well known and honored for his
whole-souled generosity and kindly disposition,
ever in touch with the needs of his friends and
associates, and he enjoyed the confidence of a
large circle of business and social associates.
ELIZABETH A. FOLLANSBEE, M. D.
To be descended from ancestors who assisted
in the establishment of American independence
and in framing the laws that became the foun-
dation of the new national life, is a distinc-
tion of which any true patriot may be justly
proud. To the prestige of such ancestry Dr.
Follansbee has added the honors of a broad
and liberal professional education and as-
sured success, so that both by reason of dis-
tinguished lineage and personal prominence
she is entitled to the influential position she
occupies in the citizenship of Los Angeles.
The line of her maternal genealogy is traced
back to that gallant soldier of the army of
patriots, Col. William Mackintosh, whose his-
tory with the record of his brave services is
preserved in the archives of the State House
at Boston. Born at Dedham, Norfolk county,
Mass., June 17, 1722, Colonel Mackintosh was
a son of William and Johanna (Lyon) Mac-
kintosh, and a grandson of William and Ex-
perience Mackintosh. His public service be-
gan during the French war, and he was pres-
ent at Crown Point, Lake Champlain and
Lake George, receiving a commission as en-
sign September 0, 1755, at Lake George. Dur.
ing the war, and in recognition of his faithful
services, he was promoted to be first lieuten-
ant, the commission to the office bearing date
of March 13, 1758. At the expiration of the
war he returned to his home.
Some years afterward, when the struggle
with England commenced, Lieutenant Mac-
kintosh was qualified by experience in mili-
tary tactics to be of distinct service to his
adopted country, whose cause he espoused
with all the ardor of his enthusiastic nature.
552
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
The memorable engagements at Lexington,
Concord and Bunker Hill gave him his first
baptism of blood in the cause of independence.
With his sons he was present at Dorchester
Heights. On the same night there were pres-
ent, with their horses and oxen, Dr. Follans-
bee's great-great-grandfather, Henry Dewing,
Esq., with his sons, and another great-great-
grandfather, James Tucker, Esq., also accom-
panied by his sons. On the I4th of February,
1776, by the council of the state of Massa-'
chusetts, Lieutenant Mackintosh was appoint-
ed colonel of the first regiment of militia in
the county of Suffolk. Under this appointment
he went into the army and was engaged in
many of the important battles of the Revolu-
tion. By General Washington he was desig-
nated as “an efficient officer and a brave man.”
Hanging in the library of Charles Gideon
Mackintosh of Peabody, Mass., an uncle of
Dr. Follansbee, is a personal letter from the
General to Colonel Mackintosh.
But it was not only in the field that Col-
onel Mackintosh rendered valuable service to
the country. In 1779 he was a member of the
convention which framed the constitution of
the commonwealth of Massachusetts, and in
1788 he was a member of the convention that
framed the constitution of the United States.
After an unusually active and influential ca-
reer he passed into eternity January 3, 1813,
at his home in Needham, Mass. It had been
his privilege to participate in two of the early
wars of our country and to contribute to the
glory of American arms. When the second
struggle with England arose he was an aged
man, no longer able to endure the vicissitudes
of the camp and the battlefield, and death came
to him ere his country had gained its second
victory in the conflict with the mother coun-
try.
The line of descent is traced through Col-
onel Mackintosh and his wife, Abigail Whit-
ing, to their son, Gideon, who married Me-
hitable Dewing. Their son, Gideon, Jr., mar-
ried Nancy Sherman, and among their chil-
dren was a daughter, Nancy Sherman Mac-
kintosh, who became the wife of Capt. Alonzo
Follansbee. The Sherman ancestry is dis-
tinguished in the annals of New England, and
is traced to England, where Dedham, Essex,
was the seat of the family even before the
opening years of the sixteenth century. There
Edmond Sherman founded a school, Sher-
man Hall, which is still in existence. In the
same town there stands a church that was
“restored” by a friend of Edmond about the
same time that the latter built, endowed and
presented to the town the hall above-men-
tioned. One of the conspicuous adornments
President Garfield.
, resentative.
of the church is a stained-glass memorial win-
dow dedicated to Edmond. By his second
wife, Anne Cleve, Edmond Sherman had sev-
eral Sons, from one of whom the present Earl
of Rosebery is descended.
Another member of the family, John, had a
Son of the same name, who about 1634 emi-
grated from England to the new world with
his cousins, Rev. John and Samuel Sherman.
The last-named was the ancestor of Gen. Will-
iam Tecumseh Sherman and United States
Senator John Sherman. John, the ancestor
of Roger Sherman, served as a captain of the
militia. In 1635 he settled at Watertown,
Mass., with his wife, Martha, daughter of
Roger Palmer, of Long Sutton, Southampton,
England. The lands granted him were ad-
jacent to those owned by the ancestors of
He was a surveyor as
well as a farmer and aided Governor Win-
throp in fixing the northern boundary of Mas-
sachusetts. For a time he served as clerk of
Watertown, which he also represented in the
general court, and in addition he held the office
of steward of Harvard College. His son, JO-
seph, married Elizabeth, daughter of Lieut.
Edward Winship, of Cambridge. Born of
their union were eleven children, the ninth
being William, father of Roger Sherman.
Soon after his marriage to Mehitabel Well-
ington he removed to Newton, Mass., and from
there to what is now Canton, Norfolk county
(then a part of Stoughton). The record shows
that their marriage was solemnized at Water-
town, Mass., September 3, 1715; the bride,
who was his second wife, was a daughter of
Benjamin Wellington, Esq., of that place, and
was baptized March 4, 1688. While they were
residing at Newton, Middlesex county, their
son, Roger, was born April 19, 1721, he being
the third child of their union. -
In Roger Sherman the earlier generations
of the family had their most distinguished rep-
Mention of his service as jurist
and statesman appears in numerous historical
works, among them being Lamb's Biographi-
cal Dictionary, the National Cyclopedia of
American Biography, Universal Cyclopedia,
Genealogical Dictionary of New England,
Town Records of Stoughton (Canton), Mass.,
also those of Watertown and Milton. Dur-
ing 1743 Roger Sherman moved to New Mil-
ford, Conn., and in June, 1761, became a resi-
dent of New Haven, that state, where he died
July 23, 1793. His public service began in
1755, when he represented New Milford,
Conn., in the general assembly, to which po-
sition he was later again elected, serving from
1758 to 1761. In 1764 he was elected to rep-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
553
resent New Haven in the legislature, and two
years later he was honored by being chosen as
a member of the senate, serving as such until
1785. Meanwhile he was a judge of the su-
perior court from 1766 until 1789. His activity
as a patriot began with the effort of the
crown to enforce the stamp act, which he op-
posed with all the energy of his forceful mind.
On the repeal of the act in 1766 he was a
member of the committee of three appointed by
the legislature to prepare an address of thanks
to the king. In 1774 he was chosen a mem-
ber of the committee to consider the claims of
the settlers near the Susquehanna river. From
1774 to 1781 he was a delegate from Connec-
ticut to the Continental Congress, also in
1783-84, serving on the most important com-
mittees. With Jefferson, Adams, Franklin
and Livingston, he was chosen, June II, 1776,
to draft the Declaration of Independence, of
which he was one of the signers. He assisted
in preparing the Articles of Confederation
and those of the Connecticut Council of Safe-
ty in 1777-79. The convention of 1787, of
which he was a member, became famous for
its Connecticut Compromise, and all histor-
ians agree that Mr. Sherman was solely re-
sponsible for that plan of action, by which
was made possible a union of the states, also
a national government. Roger Sherman was
the only delegate in the Continental Congress
who signed all of the four great state papers
which were signed by all of the delegates of
all of the colonies, namely: the Declaration of
1774, the Declaration of Independence, the
Articles of Confederation and the Federal
Constitution. Together with Judge Richard
Long he revised the statute laws of Connecti-
cut in 1783. To prevent a Tory from becom-
ing mayor of New Haven, he was chosen the
first incumbent of that office in the city and
continued in the office until his death, also
was serving as senator when he passed from
life’s activities. From 1765 until 1776 he held
office as treasurer of Yale College, from which
institution in 1768 he received the degree of
Master of Arts.
In the town of Stoughton (now Canton),
Mass., Roger Sherman was united in marriage
by Rev. Samuel Dunbar with Elizabeth Hart-
well, eldest daughter of Deacon Joseph Hart-
well of Stoughton. Her death occurred in
New Haven, Conn., October 19, 1760. The
eldest son of the union, Capt. John Sherman,
was born in New Milford, Conn., September
5, 1750; married at Milton, Mass., October 7,
1793, Annie Tucker, daughter of James
Tucker, Esq., and a native of Milton, born
September 27, 1763. The captain died at Can-
ton, Mass., August 8, 1802. Among his chil-
dren was a daughter, Nancy, who was born
at Canton, Mass., November 28, 1794, and
died in the same town September 19, 1836.
In her home town, November 5, 1812, she was
united in marriage with Gideon Mackintosh,
Jr., who was born May 13, 1789, and died
September 19, 1859. Their daughter, who bore
her mother’s name, was born at Canton, July
Io, 1813, and is still living, making her home
at Dedham, Mass. Nancy Sherman Mackin-
tosh became the wife of Capt. Alonzo Follans-
bee at Canton, Mass., October 23, 1836. The
captain was born at Pittston, Me., August 19,
1809, and died January 6, 1857. Born in Pitts-
ton, Me., Elizabeth Ann Follansbee was taken
to Brooklyn, N. Y., by her parents, where
they resided until the death of her father. For
four years she spent her time abroad in school,
and after her return continued her studies in
Boston. For a time she taught in the Green
Mountain Institute and later in Hillside Sem-
inary at Montclair, N. J., but resigned her
work in the east on account of delicate health.
Coming to California in 1873 she taught in
Napa City, studied for one term in the Uni-
versity of California, and then matriculated
in the medical department of the University
of Michigan. Just prior to the date of her
graduation she accepted a position as interne
in the New England Hospital for Women and
Children in Boston. In 1877 she was gradu-
ated from the Woman’s Medical College of
Philadelphia and won the prize of $50 for the
best essay of the graduating class, her sub-
ject being “Review of Medical Progress.”
After her graduation Dr. Follansbee began
to practice in San Francisco, but was obliged
by reason of health to seek a different climate,
and in February, 1883, came to Los Angeles,
where under the influence of a beneficent cli-
mate she was soon restored to strength and
entered actively upon professional work. Upon
the organization of the medical department of
the University of California she was called to
the chair of diseases of children, in which
specialty she has won a widely extended repu-
tation. Organizations connected with the pro-
fession enlist her warm interest, and she has
been actively associated with the Los Angeles
County, Southern California, California State
and American Medical Associations. While
her chosen profession has commanded her time
and strength, it has not done so to the exclu-
sion of other avenues of mental activity; on
the other hand, she is familiar, to an unusual
extent, with literature and art. She has given
deserved honor to her ancestors through her
association with the Daughters of the Ameri-
can Revolution and the Colonial Dames of the
State of Connecticut.
554
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
JOHN BODGER. Buyers of seeds through-
out the entire country are familiar with the firm
name of John Bodger & Sons, whose seed farms
are situated three and one-half miles from Gar-
dena, Los Angeles county, and whose wholesale
business has grown to large proportions. Al-
though the founder of the business started with-
Out any capital, he has built up an industry of
which he may well be proud. The firm of which
he is the head owns three hundred and twenty
acres in one tract and leases adjoining tracts,
making an aggregate of five hundred and eighty
acres under their control. In addition farmers in
the vicinity work under their instructions, so that
the seed from about one thousand acres is
handled. One of the sons, Walter, travels on the
road as solicitor and agent for the firm, and the
Other Son, Charles, has the management of the
farm, the father residing in Los Angeles, but re-
taining personal supervision of the seed business.
The specialties in seeds are lima and pole beans,
tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, carrots and Salsify:
and in flowers they carry asters, balsams, stocks,
petunias, verbenas, phlox, Sweet peas, cosmos,
zinnia and mignonette, as well as the leading
novelties. g
In Somersetshire, England, where he was born
January 17, 1846, John Bodger passed the years
of boyhood at home and in school. At the age of
fifteen years he was apprenticed to a gardener,
working for two years in a private garden and
for a brief period in a nursery. On the comple-
tion of his time at the age of nineteen years he
began to work for wages and for two years was
employed as gardener in a private establishment,
after which he embarked in the nursery and seed
business. During January of 1891 he came to
the United States, landing in New York City,
whence he came to Ventura, Cal., joining a son
who had settled there two years before. For a
time he worked in the gardens of a successful
florist there. Upon selling his business in Eng-
land he removed to Santa Paula, leased lands for
the growing of seeds, and continued in business
for twelve years. At the expiration of that time
he had six hundred acres in garden and seed
beans, and he also operated fortv acres which he
had purchased in San Luis Obispo county.
Disposing of his lands in the central coast re-
gion, in 1904 Mr. Bodger came to Los Angeles
county and secured the tracts he now operates
near Gardena, meanwhile establishing his home
in Los Angeles. While still living in England he
met and married Miss Susan Marks, who was
born in Devonshire, came to California in 1802,
and died here February 22, 1808. In religion she
was a faithful member of the Church of England.
Seven children were born of that union, namely:
William James, who is emploved in a seed store
in Los Angeles: Anna Marks, wife of Herbert
E. George; Louise, wife of Chester F. Hewitt,
who works with the firm of John Bodger & Sons;
Walter, who is associated with his father in busi-
.ness; Ellen, wife of Jesse D. Foster, of Ventura,
Cal.; John Charles, a partner with his father and
brother; and Tom Marks, who resides with his
father. The present wife of Mr. Bodger was
Mrs. Helen Becker, a native of Pennsylvania. In
political views father and sons affiliate with the
Republican party and give their stanch support
to its principles; fraternally they have never been
active in secret orders or social clubs, the only one
affiliating with such an organization being Wal-
ter, who holds membership with the Independent
Order of Foresters.
HON, WILLIAM H. WICKERSHAMI. The
association of Hon. William H. Wickersham
(better known as “Billie”) with the interests of
Southern California dates from his first business
venture in manhood, as he was but three years
old when he was brought to the state by his
parents, and was here reared to maturity. He is
a native of Chester county, Pa., his birth having
occurred in Media, November 21, 1872, the fam-
ily having been located in that state by an Eng-
lish Quaker, John Wickersham, who crossed the
water with William Penn. Succeeding genera-
tions made Pennsylvania their home, and there
Isaac Wickersham, the father, engaged as a stock
dealer until the year 1875. He then came to
California and in Los Angeles engaged in the
same business until his retirement from active
cares which occurred early in 1905. He now
makes his home in Los Angeles at the age of
seventy-three years, enjoying the fruits of his
early industry. His wife is also living. In maid-
enhood she was Sarah Baker, a native of Chester
county, Pa., and the daughter of Evans Baker
and his wife, formerly a Miss Mitchell, a direct
descendant of the Harlan family. Mr. Baker was
a farmer by occupation, but was a man high in
public importance, having served as state treas-
urer. Mr. and Mrs. Wickersham became the
parents of ten children, five sons and five daugh-
ters, all of whom are living.
The third son and the fifth child in order of
birth, William H. Wickersham was reared in Los
Angeles, receiving an education in the public
schools of that city. At the age of fourteen years
he entered the employ of the Haniman Fish Com-
pany, of Los Angeles, beginning at the foot of the
ladder in the business. His close application to
the work and his thorough knowledge of it
served to bring him early reward, and until April
17, 1898, he acted as manager of the company.
In the meantine, as early as 1893, he began to
make trips to San Pedro in the purchase of prod-
uce, and gradually he became interested in the
|-



gº - HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
557
prospects held out to the business man by this
place. Resigning from his position in 1898, he
became connected with the Morgan Oyster Com-
pany as salesman and the following year as-
sumed the duties of manager and located in San
Pedro in charge of this office, whose headquarters
are in San Francisco. He has erected a residence
in this city and takes a keen interest in its
progress and development, serving at present as
chairman of the board of school trustees. In
addition to his interests with the Morgan Oyster
Company he also owns an interest in several
fishing boats and outfits, and is well known along
the bay.
In Los Angeles Mr. Wickersham was united
in marriage with Elizabeth Nerney, a native of
La Salle, Ill., and the daughter of John Nerney,
of Los Angeles. They are the parents of One
son, Howard Hollingsworth. In addition to his
manifold business duties Mr. Wickersham has
found time to take an interest in the politics of
his adopted state, becoming prominent in the
Republican party, which in 1904 elected him to
the state legislature by a majority of twenty-
six hundred votes, the largest majority ever
obtained by an assemblyman in California. He
served during the session of 1905 and was a
prominent factor on several important commit-
tees, among them being that on prison reform;
education; commerce and navigation; and public
morals. During this session he had the pleasure
of working and voting for F. P. Flint, and in
all avenues served his district with efficiency
and honor. For twelve years he has served as
a member of the county central committee, and
has been prominent on its executive committee.
In his fraternal relations Mr. Wickersham was
made a Mason in San Pedro, and also belongs
to the Eagles and is an Esteemed Knight in the
Renevolent Protective Order of Elks. As a man
and citizen Mr. Wickersham holds a high place
in San Pedro; as a politician he enjoys the re-
spect of his opponents; and as a business man
has met with gratifying success which places him
among the first men of the city.
HERMAN W. HELLMAN. The enter-
prises sustained by the financial aid and un-
erring business ability of Herman W. Hell-
man have given to Los Angeles within the
past few years a decided impetus toward a
phenomenal growth and development. For-
tunately a wise conservatism has held in check
any movement which might have tended to
inflate values, attract the speculator, and thus
produce a condition disastrous to permanent
development, Mr. Hellman's long association
with the banking institutions of this city prov-
ing his peculiar fitness as a leader in financial
circles. A résumé of the life of this substan-
tial pioneer is one which cannot fail to inter-
est those who have witnessed his rapid rise in
the business world, his subjugation of obsta-
cles in his path, and the position of esteem
and respect whith he has won among the citi-
zens of the city.
Born September 25, 1843, in Bavaria, Ger-
many, he was the son of natives of that coun-
try, by whom he was reared to the age of
fifteen years, receiving a practical training in
the common branches of study and also the
foundation for the principles which have dis-
tinguished his business career. At the age of
fifteen years he decided to try his fortunes
away from the shelter of the paternal roof,
and accordingly took passage on a vessel
bound for California. The city of Los An-
geles and its vicinity attracted him first and
practically continuous has been his residence
since. From the time of his location in the
city he was interested in commercial affairs,
accepting, in June, 1859, a position as freight
clerk in the forwarding and commission busi-
ness at Wilmington, conducted by Gen. Phi-
neas Banning. He held the position until ac-
quiring some means, when he resigned and
returning to Los Angeles he connected him-
self with the stationery business in partner-
ship with a cousin. After conducting a suc-
cessful enterprise for several years Mr. Hell-
man withdrew to take up the work on his
own responsibility, also dealing in fancy
goods, for which he found a constantly in-
creasing market. Having been absent from
his native land for nearly eleven years, he dis-
posed of his business interests in March, 1870,
and spent the following year in Germany and
other countries of Europe, enjoying the asso-
ciations of his boyhood years. Returning to
Los Angeles in November, 1871, he entered
into partnership with Jacob Haas, a former
schoolmate of his, and established a wholesale
grocery business under the firm name of Hell-
man, Haas & Co., and for the ensuing nine-
teen years catered to an extensive trade
throughout Southern California, Arizona, New
Mexico, and Texas, the strong, forceful man-
agement of the men who had proven their
ability adding materially to the commercial
supremacy of this section of the state. In the
Imeantime Mr. Hellman had become associ-
ated with various enterprises in Los Angeles,
an important movement being the purchase of
stock in the Farmers’ & Merchants’ Bank. In
1890 he retired from the firm of Hellman,
Haas & Co., disposing of his interest to Haas,
Barnett & Co., and became vice-president and
local manager of the Farmers' & Merchants'
Bank, since which time he has became one of
558
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
wº
the most widely known bankers in the state of
California. Shortly after his assumption of
duties in this bank the financial panic of '93
brought disaster to many of the monetary in-
stitutions throughout the United States; the
security with which this bank stood out among
others whose doors were closed either tempo-
rarily or permanently, and the long era of
prosperity which has followed that crisis, are
largely due to the wise conservatism and Sa-
gacious judgment of Mr. Hellman. That the
deposits have increased from $2,300,000 to
$8,000,000 since his association with the bank
are an evidence of the confidence inspired by
the policy which has been elemental in the
building up of this bank. Outside of his asso-
ciation with the Farmers' & Merchants’ Bank
Mr. Hellman has been intimately identified
with other financial institutions of the city,
in July, 1903, accepting the presidency of the
Merchants' National Bank, after his resigna-
tion in May, of the vice-presidency of the
former institution. At the present writing he
is acting as president, vice-president and di-
rector in twelve other banks, in this city and
Southern California, in the business of all
bringing to bear that energy and ambition
which have assured his success in whatever
enterprise he has been engaged. Mr. Hellman
has also been associated with other business
movements in Los Angeles, one of the most
important being the erection of an imposing
eight-story and attic building, fireproof and
modern in every particular, and accounted one
of the finest office buildings west of New York
City. The material used in the exterior is a
native light gray granite in the lower two
stories, and hydraulic pressed brick and terra
cotta in the upper stories; the corridors are
floored and wainscoted with white Italian mar-
ble. The finish of the ground floor is of ma-
hogany and all the office floors of quarter-
sawed white oak. The Security Savings Bank,
one of the largest institutions of its kind in the
west, and other business enterprises, occupy
the first floor, while above are well-equipped
offices, well-lighted and ventilated, and with
hot and cold water and every modern con-
venience; in the basement is one of the finest
grille rooms in Los Angeles, The Bristol.
This immense building was erected at a cost
of $1,000,000, and represents one of the larg—
est individual investments of this character in
California.
The home of Mr. Hellman is presided over
ly his wife, formerly Miss Ida Heimann, with
whom he was united in marriage in Italy,
July 26, 1874. Mrs. Hellman was born in Tre:
viso, near Venice, Italy. She is a woman of
rare culture and refinement and well endowed
by nature with those qualities which have won
for her a wide friendship and esteem. She is
the mother of two daughters, Frida, married
to L. M. Cole, of Los Angeles, and Amy, and
two sons, Marco and Irving. Mr. and Mrs.
Hellman are prominent members of the Re-
formed Jewish Congregation B'nai B'rith, Los
Angeles, of which he was president up to
1901; under his administration there was erect-
ed on the corner of Ninth and Hope streets
the elegant temple, one of the most beautiful
houses of worship in the city of Los Angeles.
The family are liberal supporters of all char-
itable movements, whether of the city, county
or state, and are intensely loyal to the inter-
ests of Southern California.
Notwithstanding his engrossing business
cares Mr. Hellman has found time to associate
himself with clubs and fraternal organizations,
being a member of the California, Jonathan,
Concordia and several other clubs of the city
and county, and is prominent in Masonic cir-
cles. He became an apprentice Mason in Sep-
tember, 1869, and on March 21, 1870, passed
to the degree of Fellowcraft; and June 14,
1870, was raised to the sublime degree of Mas-
ter Mason, in Pentalpha Lodge No. 202, of
which he is still a member. On the IOth of
July he was advanced to the honorary degree
of Mark Master; inducted and presided in
the Oriental chair as past master July 17, re-
ceived and acknowledged Most Excellent
Master August 8, and exalted to the sublime
degree of Royal Arch Mason August 14, 1883,
in Signet Chapter No. 57, of which he is still
a member. In 1906 he also took the Scottish
Rite and is now a Thirty-second degree
Mason ; and is also a Shriner, belonging to
Al Malaikah Temple.
In reviewing the life of Mr. Hellman an
impression is gained not of the Opportunities
which presented themselves throughout his ca-
reer, but by the manner in which he under-
stood and grasped a situation. Practically
empty-handed he came to the Pacific slope in
boyhood, at a time when the country was law-
less, when the survival of the fittest was the
unwritten decree, when it was far easier to sink
into insignificance with the multitudes than
to rise to the heights which few were success-
fully attempting. That he proved himself ca-
pable of holding his own in the beginning,
the later position which he assumed as factor
in the most important enterprises of this sec-
tion of the Pacific coast have demonstrated.
The multifold duties which are his as one of
the most prominent citizens and business men
of the city have not overburdened him, but
have rather spurred him on to stronger and
more forceful thought and effort and have



HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
561
brought out all the latent ability with which
nature endowed him. His position to-day is
one acquired by the few even where oppor-
tunities have abounded as in Southern Cali-
fornia, for it requires a quick, mental vision
and an unerring decision to know and improve
the opportune time. Loyal to the country of
his adoption and the city wherein has been
passed his eventful career, Mr. Hellman is
honored as a citizen whose worth and works
have been tested.
HON. HENRY H. MARKHAM. The
Markham family, represented in California by
Hon. Henry H. Markham, former congress-
man and governor of the state, was established
in America during the colonial period of our
history. In Connecticut the name flourished
for many generations, a motive power in polit-
ical, professional and business life of New
England. In Brookfield, Conn., March 2, 1738,
occurred the birth of Brazilla Markham, to
whom manhood brought the responsibilities of
business life. He settled in Pittsford, Vt.,
and later in Essex county, N. Y., his death
occurring in the latter state, in the town of
Wilmington, June 1, 1824. His wife, formerly
Ann Whittaker, was born September 1, 1758,
and died in Wilmington in 1804. In their
family was a son, Nathan B., who was born
in Pittsford, Vt., April 27, 1796, and who in
manhood followed the training of his youth
and engaged in a business career. For many
years he was located in Wilmington, N. Y., as
an iron manufacturer. Later in life he re-
moved to Manitowoc, Wis., where his death
occurred January 22, 1882. He was a man of
strong integrity and honor and became one
of the most prominent citizens in the com-
munity he made his home. Fraternally he
was a Royal Arch Mason; politically he was
a Whig during the existence of that party,
and afterward became a stanch Republican.
He was early taught the principles of patriot-
ism, and as a lad of eighteen years served as
a minute man in the war of 1812, participating
in the battle of Plattsburg, in 1814. The mus-
ket he carried is now in the possession of his
son, Hon. H. H. Markham, who values it
highly. The fortunes of Nathan B. Markham
were allied by marriage wıtir triose of an old
Scotch family long established on American
soil. Susan McLeod, to whom he was united
in Wilmington, New York, May 10, 1827, was
born in Sullivan, N. H., September 22, 1801,
a daughter of Deacon Thomas and Patty
(Wilder) McLeod, natives respectively of
Boston, Mass., and Sullivan, N. H. In 1790
Mr. Meleod located in Sullivan, where he re-
mained for some years, later removing to
Essex county, N. Y., where he engaged in
farming until his death. He was an influential
man in the county and held a prominent place
in the Presbyterian Church. His wife, born
in 1794, was the representative of an old co-
lonial family of New England. On October
15, 1882, less than a year after her husband's
death Mrs. Markham passed away. She was
the mother of ten children, six sons and four
daughters, all of whom lived to manhood and
Womanhood. Four of the sons became law-
yers and were prominent in their profession.
J.D. is a practicing attorney in Manitowoc,
Wis.; Alice married John Killen and died in
Manitowoc, Wis.; Byron, deceased, was a
business man of New Lisbon, Wis.; Perley
resides in Benzonia, Wis.; Elisha Alden re-
sides in Groton, Mass.; Clarissa became the
wife of Nelson Darling and died in New Lis-
bon; Delia died in New York; Henry H. is
the subject of this review; Earl died in Nee-
nah, Wis.; and George C. is an attorney and
first vice-president of the Northwestern Mu-
tual Life Insurance Company of Milwaukee.
Henry H. Markham was born in Wilming-
ton, N. Y., November 16, 1840, and was there
reared to young manhood. A common school
education was supplemented by a course in
Wheeler's Academy, Vermont, from which in-
stitution he was graduated in the spring of
J862. Removing to Manitowoc about this
time, in the same year he enlisted in Company
G, Thirty-second Wisconsin Infantry, for
service in the Civil war, and from Madison
Was Ordered into camp in Tennessee. His
services following were those of hardship and
danger, but were borne with the courage and
fortitude which were a part of his inheritance.
He marched with Sherman to the sea, and
thence started north through the Carolinas,
receiving a wound at River's Bridges, Salt
Kahatcha river, S. C., February 3, 1865, which
incapacitated him. He was sent to Beaufort,
S. C., whence :1pon his recovery he went north
and was mustered out of service in Milwaukee
July 23, 1865, with the rank of second lieuten-
a1nt.
Immediately following his return to civic
life Mr. Markham entered the law office of
Waldo, Ody & Van, of Milwaukee, and pur-
sued his studies with such pérsistence that he
was admitted to the bar of the state and the
United States supreme court in 1867. He at
once began the practice of his profession in
Milwaukee and two years later took into part-
nership his brother, George C. Markham.
They were successful in building up a large
and constantly increasing clientele, whose de-
mands upon the time and attention of Mr.
562
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Markham told seriously upon his health.
Much against his desire he was compelled to
relinquish his practice in 1879 and on the 22d
of February of that year he came to Pasadena,
Cal., where he hoped to recover his strength
and vigor. Shortly after his arrival he pur-
chased twenty-two and a half acres between
Fair Oaks and Orange Grove avenues. In
1887 he erected a magnificent residence on
Pasadena avenue. and has since then beauti-
fied the grounds and surroundings until he
has made of his home one of the most delight-
ful and attractive places in Southern Cali-
fornia.
It was almost impossible for Mr. Markham
to do otherwise than take a prominent part in
political affairs of his community, as he was
peculiarly equipped by education and expe-
rience to become a leader among men. In
1884, chosen by his party as a candidate for
congress from the Sixth District (which in-
cluded the counties from San Mateo to San
Diego, fourteen in all), he threw himself act-
ively into the canvass and visited all but three
of the counties. He was elected by a majority
of five hundred votes, his predecessor, a Dem-
ocrat, having received thirty-two hundred plu-
rality. Significant of his success was the fact
that upon the expiration of his term his own
party held the convention open two days wait-
ing for his acceptance and the Democrats tele-
graphed him that they would put no one in
nomination and the election would be his with-
out opposition. He declined the honor, how-
ever, and returned to his California home. Al-
though as a congressman Mr. Markham ac-
complished much for his district the greatest
feature of his work was the recognition he
secured for Southern California, which up to
that time had scarcely been regarded as a
community of any size or power. Through
his efforts a United States court was estab-
lished in Southern California and also as a
member of the committee on rivers and har-
bors he was instrumental of starting a move-
ºnent in favor of a harbor here. Loyal to the
cause of the soldiers who served with him in.
the Civil war he was active in securing the
establishment of one of the National homes in
Santa Monica, which has since become known
as the Pacific Branch of the National Home
for Disabled Soldiers, and he was afterward
elected by congress as a manager of these
homes and devoted much time to their direc-
tion, exercising supervision of the one at Santa
Monica. Upon being elected governor he re-
signed his office as manager. Through Mr.
Markham was secured the transfer of the head-
quarters of the regular army from Arizona to
Los Angeles, and in this city they remained
until the second administration of Cleveland,
which meant the bringing into the state of
about $3,500,000 annually. In order to assist
the Old Soldiers in securing pensions he hired
an assistant and paid him $75 per month out
of his own pocket. In the meantime, finding
the appropriation for the Home to be insuffi-
cient, he went to Washington, D. C., at his
Own expense and Secured an appropriation of
$187,000 for its completion.
He became candidate at the earnest de-
mands of the citizens of Southern California,
and in Opposition to ex-Mayor Pond, of San
Francisco (Democratic), he was elected gov-
ernor in 1890, receiving a majority of eight
thousand votes, and on the 7th of January of
the following year took the oath of office. In
January, 1895, his term of service completed,
he retired once more to private life. During
his administration occurred the Columbian
Exposition at Chicago and for this he secured
an appropriation of $300,000, which was the
largest raised by any state, with the exception
of Illinois, and selected a board of commis-
sioners, to whom he gave entire charge. This
exhibit was a motive power in the attraction
of thousands to the state of California. Among
other important movements he secured the
adoption of the Australian ballot system in
the state, which is now a part of every party
platform. He compelled the Southern Pacific
Railroad to pay back-taxes amounting to $1,-
3OO,OOO, and in countless ways gave to the
upbuilding of the state and the development
of its best interests. One important pledge
made by him in the executive position was
carried out—that the state tax should not ex-
ceed fifty cents on the valuation of $100.
In Chicago, Ill., Governor Markham was
united in marriage with Miss Mary A. Dana,
who was born in Wyoming, Ill., and educated
in Rockford Female Seminary, from which
institution she was graduated. Her father,
Giles C. Dana, a business man of Waukesha,
Wis., traced his ancestry to an old eastern
family, among other colonial men of power
and prominence claiming relationship with IS-
rael Putnam. Mr. and Mrs. Markham became
the parents of the following children: Marie,
a graduate of Leland Stanford University in
the class of 1900; Alice A., educated at Throop
Institute ; Gertrude; Hildreth ; and Genevieve,
who died in Sacramento in 1891, at the age of
seven years. In his fraternal relations Mr.
Markham is identified with the Masonic Or-
ganization, being a member of Corona Lodge,
F. & A. M.; Pasadena Chapter. R. A. M.:
Pasadena Consistory, Pasadena Commandery,
R. T.; and Al Malaikah Temple, A. A. O. N.
M. S., of Los Angeles In memory of his

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
365
"days and nights on the battlefield” he is a
member of John F. Godfrey Post, G. A. R.,
and the California Commandery Loyal Le-
gion. In local affairs no citizen has taken
greater interest in the upbuilding of the city
of Pasadena and the general welfare of South-
ern California. He was instrumental in or-
ganizing the First National Bank of Pasa-
dena, in which he served as a director, while
he was also identified with the movement
which resulted in securing the street railways
for Pasadena, and the building of the Santa
Fé Railroad. He was most active in his ef-
forts to secure a harbor for Southern Califor-
nia, realizing keenly the need of one, and in
this connection it is impossible to estimate the
value of his labors. In April, 1904, he was
again elected by congress as manager of the
National Home for the period of six years.
It is not necessary to eulogize on the life of
Governor Markham, for wherever his name is
known it is honored. His life has been one of
prominence, and through it all he has main-
tained the high standard of excellence which
has made it possible for him to stand fear-
lessly in the light of public scrutiny. He
seemed endowed by nature with those quali-
ties essential to leadership—a keen, forceful,
logical mind, an unusual executive ability, and
added to this an unswerving integrity and
honor which have given him a wide and last-
ing influence. No public man of California
has retired to private life with more of honor
or esteem by his fellow citizens, whether of
his party or another; so strong has been the
impression made by him that his deepest in-
terest lay in an advancement of the state’s
welfare rather than his own.
tant movements contributory to the growth
and development of Los Angeles has been that
fostered by Eli P. Clark, whose association
with the promotion of railroad enterprises in
this city for the past fifteen years has given
to him a prominent place among the repre-
sentative men of Southern California. A ré-
sumé of his life is in brief a history of the
progress of the city, for the enterprise with
which he has been connected is one of the
strongest factors in its upbuilding, and as
such is interesting to read by those who know
either the man or the city.
The Clark family were among the pioneers
of Iowa, where, in Iowa City, on the 25th of
November, 1847, Eli P. Clark was born. When
he was eight years old his parents removed
to Grinnell, Iowa, then but the beginning of
ELI P. CLARK. One of the most impor-_
a city, and there he attended the public schools
and later Iowa College, which was established
there. His first experience in the battle of life
was teaching one term of school in his eight-
eenth year, and in this work he acquired the
discipline and self-control which have marked
his success in other lines. About 1867 the
family removed to southwestern Missouri to
escape the rigors of Iowa winters, and follow-
ing this Mr. Clark remained at home engaged
in farming with his father during the sum-
mers, while he taught school in the winter
months. Becoming interested in the possibili-
ties held out to the man of courage and hardi-
hood by the newer sections of the southwest
he decided to locate in Arizona for a time, and
accordingly, in the spring of 1875, became one
of a party to cross the plains for that terri-
tory. This experience was one which required
courage in as great measure as in the earlier
days of the country, because travel was
fraught not only with danger from the Indians,
but as well from lawless white bands. They
came through safely, however, and after a
three months’ journey, made by way of the
old Santa Fé and Fort Wingate trail, arrived
at Prescott.
The associations Mr. Clark formed in that
city proved the foundation for his operations
later in Los Angeles, as one of his first ac-
quaintances was his present partner, M. H.
Sherman, who was then principal of the Pres-
cott high School, the first public school or-
ganized in the territory. He met with suc-
cess, also, in his ventures in that city, follow-
ing mercantile enterprises for a short time,
and also serving as postmaster for nearly a
year. In the winter of 1877, under the firm
name of Clark & Adams, he began the manu-
facture of lumber, operating three sawmills
and selling his product extensively throughout
the territory. The prominence of Mr. Clark
was not only a commercial one, for he quickly
rose to a position of importance in political
affairs, as a stanch Republican being chosen
territorial auditor in 1877, succeeding himself
four terms and serving for ten years. It was
during these years that he formed the ac-
quaintance of General Fremont, while he was
governor of Arizona, and counts the friend-
ship which grew out of their official relations
as one of the most pleasant in his life.
Through his association with the interests of
the territory as ex officio state assessor (made
so by territorial enactment) he was instru-
mental in bringing about many improve-
ments which are now the law of the land. It
was in that city also, on the 8th of April,
1880, that he was united in marriage with
Miss Lucy Sherman, a sister of his friend,
566
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
M. H. Sherman, and there he made his home
until January, 1891.
In the month and year just mentioned he
joined General Sherman in Los Angeles, in
answer to the latter's oft-repeated requests
that he do so, and became the vice-president
and manager of the newly organized Los An-
geles Consolidated Electric Railway Company.
Mr. Clark had already established prestige for
himself in the matter of promoting railroad
facilities for Arizona, having been active in
procuring favorable legislation to encourage
the building of a road from Prescott to Mari-
Copa, and afterward was instrumental in hav-
ing a bill passed in the legislature of 1885,
granting a subsidy of $4,000 per mile for a
road to be built from Prescott to connect with
the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. He helped
to organize the first company and became its
first treasurer and secretary, and finally turned
Over the organization to Thomas S. Bullock,
who financed and built the Prescott & Arizona
Central Railroad, which afterward gave way
to the Santa Fé, Prescott & Phoenix Railroad,
one of the best railroad properties in the west.
After locating in Los Angeles Mr. Clark co-
operated with General Sherman in the build-
ing of the present street railway system,
known as the Los Angeles Railway, their sale
of a half interest in their property to the bond-
holders having taken place in 1895, after its
successful financial establishment.
is due much credit for this enterprise, because
at the time of the foundation of the work Los
Angeles was only a small city and to all in-
tents and purposes gave no evidence of a fu-
ture which could make this venture a safe
investment. In face of hostile opposition and
discouraging obstacles they carried the enter-
prise to completion and but a little later were
justified in their gigantic undertaking. In the
year 1895 Mr. Clark conceived the idea which
has resulted in the famous “Balloon Route,”
his first step being the purchase of the old
steam road known as the Los Angeles & Pa-
cific Railroad, and following this with the con-
struction of the Santa Monica, Ocean Park,
Playa del Rey, Hermosa, and Redondo lines,
via the beautiful city of Hollywood, compris-
ing a system of nearly two hundred miles
which traverse one of the finest, if not the
finest, section of Southern California. With
the completion of further improvements now
in prospect the Los Angeles Railway will be
known as the finest electric road system on
the Pacific coast. The dominant character-
istics of Mr. Clark are in a large measure re-
sponsible for the success of this enterprise,
which has probably meant more to Los An-
geles as an attraction for tourists than any
To them.
other one feature of the section. Mr. Clark
well merits the position he holds among the
prominent men of Southern California, all pro-
moters and financiers instinctively looking to
him, and others of his class for an upholding
of the prestige which has made Los Angeles
famous wherever the name is known.
REV. CHARLES PEASE. The cultured ele-
ment of Long Beach society has a distinct ac-
quisition in the presence of Rev. Charles Pease,
for some years the pastor of the First Congrega-
tional Church. Though by reason of his pro-
fessional affiliations, his time and thought are
devoted largely to the upbuilding of his denomi-
nation, yet his mind has never been tinged by
narrowness of views. With a broad outlook
upon mankind and the destiny of the human
race, he aims within his chosen sphere of re-
ligious and intellectual activity to make the
world better for his presence therein. The edu-
cational advantages which he received were of
a Superior Order and, with a naturally receptive
mind and keen intelligence, they became broad-
ened and deepened under the influence of his
forceful personality. To him religion is the
harmonious rounding out of the soul, the per-
fect indwelling of the spirit of love and truth,
the unconscious imitation of Christ in daily acts
and Solitary thoughts. Both music and art
breathe to him of the spirit of religion; their
history he has studied with the devotion of a
Scholar and their possibilities are a source of
enthusiasm to him. To such as he the ministry
of the Gospel is a priceless privilege.
Many generations ago, as early as the year
I630, a family bearing the name of Pease immi-
grated to America and founded a town in Con-
necticut that then and now bears the name of
Enfield. In that little village many of that name
lived the quiet lives of farmers; there they were
born and there eventually they were laid to rest
in the family burying ground. Myron Pease, who
was born in that town and traced his lineage to
England through a long line of American pa-
triots, married Sarah M. Morritter, who de-
scended from French and English pioneers of
Mova Scotia. During much of his life Myron
Pease has followed agricultural pursuits and he
still makes Enfield his home, though for the past
twenty-five years he has been interested in the
Phelps Publishing Company of Springfield, Mass.
In the grammar school of Enfield Charles Pease
received his primary education. That is his na-
tive town, July 20, 1865, being the date of his
birth. For four years he was a student in Cor-
nell University, entering as a special student and
later taking up ministerial studies in Hartford
HISTOR1CAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
567
Theological Seminary, from which he was grad-
uated in 1896. Meanwhile, two years before,
he had entered upon active ministerial work as
pastor of the Third Congregational Church of
Chicopee, Mass., and continued successfully in
discharge of the duties of the position for some
years. During the summer of 1899, while at
Old Orchard Beach, he attempted the rescue of
a drowning man and the shock with the subse-
quent collapse proved too much for his system.
Ill health followed and induced him to resign his
eastern pastorate and seek the more salubrious
air of the western coast. For one year he rested
from preaching and spent his time in the Sierra
Madre mountains, after which, in 1900, he came
to Long Beach and assumed the charge now
under his oversight. Since January, 1905, he
has served as president of the board of trustees
of the Long Beach public library, and from its
Organization until this date served as its secre-
tary. In June, 1906, he was elected a member
of the Long Beach board of education and upon
Organization was chosen its president. He
has been greatly interested in the public life of
Long Beach since becoming a resident of the
city. In this city, February 12, 1901, he mar-
ried Miss Sallie S., daughter of Henry Rowan,
of Norwalk, this state, and of their union two
children have been born, Margaret and Rowan.
GEORGE H. PECK. The opportunities af-
forded for investment in San Pedro were early
appreciated by Mr. Peck, whose name is in-
dissolubly associated with the development of
the town. During the year 1882 he began his
real-estate operations in the then small village,
at which time he platted a sub-division known by
his name, and in the years since intervening he
has laid out Grand View, Harlem Heights, Barton
Hill, Caroline, Rudicinda and Harbor View
tracts, also a second addition to the Grand View
tract comprising one hundred and fifty acres,
and in addition he has laid out Terminal Island,
where he inaugurated the building industry. In
all he has laid out and platted three-fourths of
San Pedro and has erected about two hundred and
fifty cottages, also a number of business blocks
on Main Street, including both the old and the
new bank buildings, the postoffice building and the
Peck block, a three-story structure occupied by
business and professional firms. -
By no means limiting his real-estate holdings
to his home city of San Pedro, Mr. Peck for years
has handled Los Angeles property and has been
a successful buyer and seller of the same.
Another enterprise of magnitude receiving much
of his attention is the North Manhattan Beach, .
where in 1897 he purchased three miles of ocean
frontage, fifteen miles from Los Angeles and five
miles north of Redondo, with the Catalina island
On the west, Point Vicente on the south, and Point
Dume on the north. About the same time he
purchased twelve hundred acres of the Palo
Verdes grant north of San Pedro, which he laid
out in farms of fifty acres each and sold on easy
terms to home-seekers. The depression of prop-
erty during the first years of his large holdings
left him with twenty-two hundred acres of land
which he was forced to hold awaiting better
times; when conditions improved the lands sold
readily and at fair prices, making the investment
a profitable one for the owner.
Soon after his arrival in San Pedro Mr. Peck
realized the need of banking facilities. Others
were interested in the matter and during 1888
he opened the Bank of San Pedro, of which for
Some years he officiated as vice-president and is
now president as well as manager. Under his
capable supervision the bank has received a con-
stantly increasing share of the business of the
public and has won its way into the confidence
of all. The rapid increase of the business has
rendered advisable the doubling of the original
capital, which is now $50,000 paid in ; the stock-
holders are assured of conservative management
and wise investments of the funds, and the bank
has an assured position as one of the sound
financial institutions of Los Angeles county. Its
manager, by reason of long identification with
the locality, possesses the experience necessary for
Sagacious investments and at all times safeguards
the interests of depositors and the capital of the
stockholders. Though enterprising and progres-
sive, he yet possesses the cautious temperament
of the successful financier and seeks no invest-
ments attended by risks to the people’s funds.
Since the memorable year of 1849 the Peck
family has been identified with the history of
California, and it is interesting to listen to Mr.
Peck’s recital of the early experiences of his
father, George H., Sr., in the west at the time
of the great gold furore. The father was a
young man when he came to the coast and later
married Mary W. Chader, by whom he had two
sons and two daughters. The younger of the
sons, George H., Jr., was born in San Francisco
in 1856, and at the age of twelve years came with
his parents to a ranch of five hundred acres at
El Monte, Los Angeles county. Of the struggles
of the ensuing years little need be said except
that they were similar to those of all pioneers,
unremitting toil, frugal economy and constant
hardships, with no returns save a meagre liveli-
hood. When he reached the age of nineteen
years he decided that he would seek a source of
support more remunerative than ranching, and
accordingly he went to Oregon, where he ob-
tained work in a cannery at Astoria. After two
years in the same factory he returned to Southern
568
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
California intending to start a cannery for the
same company in this section, but circumstances
changed his plans, and instead of starting a
factory he became an employe on the Southern
Pacific Railroad out of Los Angeles. During the
eight years of his connection with the road he
worked his way up from baggageman to con-
(luctor. Meanwhile he had become interested in
Los Angeles county real estate and in 1886 he
resigned his position with the road in order to
devote his attention exclusively to his property
holdings. His attractive home in San Pedro
is presided over by his wife, formerly Olive M.
Betts, who was born in New York state, and by
whom he has four children, William, Rena, Alma
and Leland. The family are identified with the
Episcopal Church.
Institutions for the material upbuilding of the
county, notably the Chambers of Commerce at
San Pedro and Los Angeles, have received the
impetus of Mr. Peck’s practical co-operation and
sagacious encouragement. In his political views
he has always been a stanch supporter of Repub-
lican principles and at this writing is aiding the
party through his efficient service as a member
of the county central committee. In 1868 he
was appointed vice-consul for Sweden and Nor-
way in the district of Southern California, and
since then has remained in that position. In
fraternal connections he holds membership with
the Uniform Rank, Knights of Pythias, and the
Native Sons of the Golden West, while socially
he is a member of the Union League Club of
Los Angeles and a welcomed guest in the most
cultured circles of his home county. To such
Imen as he Southern California owes its steady
growth and its world-wide reputation as a desira-
ble place of residence, for he and many others of
similar devotion and loyalty have developed its
interests, improved its lands and attracted to
its genial climate cultured people from all portions
of the country.
HENRY H. GIRD. The large landed estates
which he acquired years ago (all of which he has
since divided among his children) give to Mr.
Gird a position among the most influential and
substantial residents of the San Luis Rey valley.
Though he has now reached an age and a finan-
cial independence justifying retirement from re-
sponsibilities, such is the energy of his tempera-
ment that he does not permit himself to lapse into
mental or physical inaction, but remains inter-
ested in the activities which filled his earlier years.
Much of his time is devoted to the care of his
orchard of twelve acres, in which may be found
every variety of fruit, tame and wild, that grows
in the three northern continents, as well as speci-
mens from Australia and Africa. In giving the
closest care to the orchard he is not actuated by a
desire to make the trees a source of profit, but
wishes to develop for family use every variety
of fruit known to the latitude.
Descended from an old eastern family, Mr.
Gird is a son of Henry H. and Sarah Ann (Kins-
ley) Gird, the former a graduate of the West
Point Military Academy, and the designer of the
plans for the fortifications at Petite Coquelle near
Mobile. After his resignation from the army he
became an instructor of mathematics in an insti-
tution of learning at Jackson, East Feliciana
parish, La., where he remained for thirteen years
or more. Removing to Illinois in 1844 he became
a pioneer of Clinton county and developed a
tract of unimproved land into a valuable farm,
remaining there until his death six years after
his removal from the south. His wife had died
prior to his removal from Louisiana. When the
family established their home in the south Henry
H. Gird was quite small, he having been born
February 16, 1827, at West Point, N. Y. His
education was conducted in private schools at
Jackson, La., and in the State college of Louisi-
ana, which institution he left in order to ac-
company his father to Illinois in 1844, and after-
ward he aided in developing a tract of virgin
Soil from its primeval state into a condition of
cultivation.
During August of 1853 Mr. Gird arrived at
the old town of Shasta after a journey of one
hundred and twenty days across the plains with
wagons and ox-teams. A brief sojourn was made
in Sacramento, after which he took up ranching
in Sutter county. From there, in 1861, he re-
moved to Santa Clara county and the following
year transferred his headquarters to Los Angeles
county, Settling six miles from Santa Monica and
buying land suitable for the raising of grain and
stock. While making his home in Los Angeles
county he invested in a tract of four thousand
five hundred and ninety acres in San Diego
county, which he purchased in 1876 and to which
he removed four years later. Of recent years
he has erected a substantial ranch house on the
place and has made improvements greatly en-
hancing the value of the property. Through
all of his active life he has been interested in
public affairs and since the organization of the
Republican party he has supported its princi-
ples. Some three months before he left Illinois
he was initiated into the Masonic order and ever
since then he has been a disciple of the lofty
principles of brotherhood and charity for which
the fraternity stands.
The marriage of Mr. Gird took place in Clin-
ton county, Ill., in February of 1849 and united
him with Miss Martha S. Lewis, who was born
and readed in that state. Four children were born
of their union, namely: William ; Mary, wife of


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
571
H. M. Peters, of San Diego county; Helen, Mrs.
D. O. Lamb, of the San Luis Rey valley, and
Catherine, who married Jefferson Shipley and
lives at Fallbrook. The only son, who is now
proprietor of the ranch, has a wide reputation
as a breeder and trainer of fine horses, and some
of his best trotters come from his stallion, Cob-
wallis. In the raising of cattle he has also been
more than ordinarily successful, his specialty be-
ing the Devon breed, registered stock, and he re-
cently brought a registered bull from Illinois,
paying a high price for the animal in addition to
$135 in transportation charges. Few men in San
Diego County are as familiar with the stock as
William Gird, who is regarded as an authority
concerning cattle and horses, and whose long ex-
perience in the stock business has made his name
familiar to stock raisers throughout this section
of the country. When a young man he attended
Arnold's Business College in Los Angeles, where
he acquired a knowledge of commercial affairs
and business transactions, but his large success
is the result of habits of close observation and
wise judgment rather than the study of text-
books. His home is with his father, and the two
are united by bonds of sympathy, kindred tastes
and mutual affection.
NILES PEASE. The commercial activity
of Los Angeles has had in Niles Pease, for-
merly president of the Niles Pease Furniture
Company, one of its strongest and most suc-
cessful men and one who has added steadily
to its prestige for the past twenty years.
When he first came to the Pacific coast it was
after a period of twenty-four years of success-
ful work as a manufacturer and merchant in
his native town, and with the capital and ex-
perience thus gained easily established himself
in a secure business position here. The suc-
cess achieved by Mr. Pease has been the re-
sult of earnest, indefatigable labor, sturdy ap-
plication and well-directed zeal, and bespeaks
possession of the strongest characteristics of
manhood.
Mr. Pease is of eastern birth and ancestry,
the name being widely known and honored
in Connecticut, where his grandfather, Simeon
Pease, enlisted for service in the Revolution-
ary war. His parents, Wells and Betsey
Pease, were also natives of Connecticut, where
in the vicinity of Thompsonville, on the 13th
of October, 1838, their son was born. He was
reared to young manhood in his native local-
ity, receiving his education in the public
schools until he was eighteen years old, when
he became apprenticed to learn the trade of
tinsmith. Three years later he engaged in
this occupation, establishing a manufactory
and dealing in stoves and tinware. He met
with success in his enterprise and gradually
enlarged his operations until he was well
known throughout the state and largely iden-
tified with its business interests. In 1876 he
suspended this branch of his business, and
devoted his efforts entirely to the sale of fur-
niture.
Finally deciding to locate on the Pacific
coast, Mr. Pease sold out his interests in 1884
and in the same year came to California, where
he identified himself with the Los Angeles
Furniture Company as a partner in the con-
cern. They established a store at No. 122.
South Spring street and began business. At
the end of the year Mr. Pease purchased the
entire interest of the business, and as his trade
increased enlarged his operations and added
to his stock. In 1887 he removed to the Har-
ris block, between Third and Fourth Streets,
on South Spring, and there he had a well-
equipped carpet and furniture salesroom.
With the splendid increase in patronage which
came with the passing years Mr. Pease found
it necessary to seek more commodious quar-
ters, and accordingly, in 1897, moved into the
large, five-story building at No. 439 South
Spring street, this being built by L. Harris at
that time to accommodate the Niles Pease
Furniture Company. On the 25th of Septem-
ber, 1897, this business was incorporated under
the latter name, his children being taken into
the concern. With the passing of years they
built up one of the largest and most extensive
trades in Southern California, their patronage
extending also to Arizona. December 1, 1995,
the business passed into the hands of the Pa-
cific Purchasing Company, the latter repre-
senting the combined business of five similar
enterprises in this city. wº
Aside from his other interests Mr. Pease
has been interested for a number of years in
various enterprises. He served for some years
as a director of the Columbia Savings Bank;
is at present a director in the Central Bank of
Los Angeles; a prominent member and a di-
rector of the Los Angeles Chamber of Com-
merce; and for four years, ending January I;
1906, served as president of the Merchants'
and Manufacturers' Association. Ever since
deciding to cast in his fortunes with those Of
the commercial interests of this city, Mr.
Pease has taken a deep interest in the ad-
vancement of its best interests, and has added
the force of a solid and substantial man of af-
fairs to the municipality’s growth. In his po-
litical convictions he is a Republican, and
while a resident of Connecticut, in 1876, was
chosen by his party to the state legislature,
where he served with credit to himself and
572 .
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
with satisfaction to his constituency. Frater-
nally he is a Knight Templar and a Thirty-
second degree Mason and stands exceptionally
high in the organization. For some years he
has been identified with the Unitarian Church,
to whose philanthropies he is a liberal con-
tributor, and served as trustee of the church
for some time. •
The marriage of Mr. Pease occurred in
Thompsonville, Conn., March 25, 1860, and
united him with Miss Cornelia Gleason, a na-
tive of that place, and born of this union are
the following children: Grace G., Jessie F.,
Sherman, Jewell, Anna, Herbert and Flor-
ence. Mr. Pease is passing on to a peaceful
and happy old age, surrounded by the com-
forts and luxuries which his years of labor
and effort have brought him, serene in the
conviction of duty cheerfully done wherever
met in his noteworthy career; of success
achieved ; of friendships won ; and ranking as
one of the representative men of Los Angeles
and of Southern California.
CAPT. WILLIAM HAZZARD PRINGLE.
The river Tweed along a certain part of its
winding course forms the boundary between Eng-
land and Scotland, and on the banks of that his-
toric stream in the shire of Northumberland,
England, lay the ancestral home of the Pringle
family, some of whose members removed thence
to establish the race in the new world. Capt.
John Pringle, who was a native of Massachusetts,
became a captain in the war of 1812 and after-
ward lived quietly on his farm near Ogdensburg,
N. Y., until death removed him from his labors.
In the captain's family there was a son, William,
who was born and reared on the homestead near
Ogdensburg, St. Lawrence county, and during
the greater part of his active life followed agri-
cultural pursuits in the same locality, but passed
his last days in Iowa. In his marriage to Miss
Eleanore Thompson, a native of St. Lawrence
county, he became the son-in-law of Seth Thomp-
son, a soldier in the war of 1812, and the latter
in turn was a son of a Revolutionary Soldier.
The family of William Pringle comprised ten
children, eight of whom attained mature years,
and two sons and one daughter are now living,
William Hazard being fourth in order of birth.
On the home farm, near Ogdensburg, N. Y.,
he was born July 30, 1831, and there he passed
the uneventful days of boyhood, alternating work
at home with attendance upon a subscription
school held in an old log building. As early as
1844 he left home to sail on the lakes, where he
remained until seventeen years of age, and then
shipped from New York City before the mast in
the West India trade, later sailing before the mast
on a trans-Atlantic vessel. On the arrival of the
ship in Australia he and the rest of the crew left
and secured employment in Sydney, but soon af-
terward he shipped on the whaler Albany, of New
Bedford, to New Zealand and Guam. From there
he accompanied the whaler Betsey Williams to
the Arctic seas as harpooner, returning after
seven months to Honolulu with a full cargo of
whale oil and bone. The ship was then put up
for repairs preparatory to a trip around the Horn
and Mr. Pringle was paid off at the market price,
after which he formed the acquaintance of the
Hawaiian royal family and remained for six
months as the guest of the king. From there
he accompanied the German ship Republic to
Tucahona, Chile, and thence around the Horn to
Bremerhaven, Germany, from which port he
traveled through Germany on a pleasure tour
and visited London, where he saw the famous
Crystal palace, as well as other sights of in-
terest.
Shipping on the bark Clio, of London, Mr.
Pringle went to the West Indies for a cargo of
sugar and there took passage on a vessel bound
for Philadelphia, where he landed in due time.
On the way the vessel stopped at Rumkee to be
loaded with rock salt. After this he accompanied
the brig George Washington to Portsmouth, N.
H., next was ten months in the riggers gang,
fitting out ships, and then went on the John
Wedon to Florida, from there to Liverpool, Eng-
land, and then back to Boston. There he be-
came second officer on the clipper Gentoo, which
was loaded with flour and sugar for San Fran-
cisco and made the voyage via the Horn, re-
turning thence to Boston. His next cruise was as
first officer on the vessel Louisa Margaret to
the Barbadoes, West Indies, and then he was first
officer on the bark Hahnemann, to Havre, France,
and returning to the United States. For three
years he was first officer on the Elizabethtown
between the United States and France, and at
the expiration of that time enlisted in the United
States navy, being assigned to the warship Ports-
mouth. Eighteen months later he was given an
honorable discharge and returned to the lakes,
becoming mate on the Palo Alto. From 1857 to
1859 he was captain of the Colonel Cook, and
then commanded the Torrent, L. H. Cotton and
Lucy Clark successfully, remaining for thirteen
years with boats owned by George W. Bissell,
of Detroit. Later he became a member of the
firm of John F. Rust & Co., which built and
operated the ship George W. Bissell, and later
built the vessel David W. Rust, which he com-
manded for nine years on the lakes. On the death
of the senior Mr. Rust he sold his interest in
that firm and joined a number of men in building
the first large iron steamboat used on the lakes,
this being given the name of Onoko. With others
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
573
he started an iron shipyard at Cleveland, Ohio,
where the Globe shipyards, the largest there, en-
gaged in building ships and conducting transpor-
tation business, with himself as general superin-
tendent.
On disposing of his interest in the shipyards to
Mark Hanna in 1883, Captain Pringle removed to
New Mexico and purchased a cattle ranch in the
upper Pecos valley near Fort Stanton, Lincoln
county. The following year he came to San Diego
but he did not sell his New Mexico holdings until
1886. On coming to California he first made a
specialty of the real estate and banking business.
Later he bought eight hundred and twenty-four
acres on the Mesa Grande, where he engaged in
raising standard and draft horses, importing a
Cleveland bay possessing the finest qualities of
that breed. In 1899 he sold the ranch and since
then he has lived in San Diego, limiting his
labors to the management of his property inter-
ests, and to the filling of his duties as harbor
commissioner. Under Governor Stoneman he
was appointed pilot commissioner with a re-ap-
pointment by Governor Waterman. In Novem-
ber of 1903, Governor Pardee appointed him
harbor commissioner to fill a vacancy, and two
years later he was regularly chosen to fill that
position.
The first marriage of Captain Pringle was sol-
emnized in Mount Clemens, Mich., and united
him with Miss Mary E. Huntoon, who was born
at Plattsburg, Vt., and died in San Diego. Nine
children were born of their union, but only two
are living, viz.: George, a member of the mount-
ed police force of San Diego; and William, cap-
tain of a steamer on the lakes. The present wife
of Captain Pringle was Mrs. Eleanor Keith, of
San Diego, a native of Illinois. In national poli-
tics Captain Pringle votes the Republican ticket,
but in local matters he votes for the man rather
than for the party. For some years he has been
identified with the Union League Club of San
Diego. While at Marine City, Mich., he was
made a Mason in the blue lodge, of which he be-
came master and at this writing he has his mem-
bership in Silver Gate Lodge No. 296, F. & A.
M., at San Diego. At one time he was active in
St. Clair Chapter, R. A. M., at St. Clair, Mich.,
but now is demitted, also was formerly promi-
nent in the Oriental Commandery, K. T., of
Cleveland, Ohio, and the Independent Order of
Odd Fellows.
Personally Captain Pringle possesses the genial
and companionable traits that win and retain
firm friends. With a breadth of views reminding
one of the illimitable sweep of the Ocean ; with a
heartiness of manner bespeaking the mariner;
with a bluff yet kindly courtesy, an outspoken and
frank, yet friendly, expression of opinion ; with
a frame that retains much of the strength of
youth yet suggests familiarity with storm-swept
Seas; with the perfect ease in all situations that
marks the seasoned traveler under all skies;
and with a kindliness of heart that extends an
equal courtesy and hospitality to friend and
Stranger, in his character and personality he af-
fords a splendid illustration of the men whose
lives are spent amid the limitless expanse of the
great Seas.
HUGO EUGENE SCHWICHTENEERG.
Preceded by about eight years as a traveling
photographer thiroughout the west Mr. Schwich-
tenberg came to Pomona in 1893 and established
a gallery at No. 386 West Second street for
the purpose of building up a local trade. With
what success he met may be realized when it is
said that in two years’ time he had outgrown his
Original quarters, and it was this circumstance
which necessitated his removal to the Avis build-
ing, where he is now located. With him photog-
raphy has been a life-time study, and when he
was only twelve years old he constructed a 4x5
wet plate camera, the ideas for its construction
being gathered entirely by self study and read-
ing. With this early attempt as a basis he pro-
gressed from year to year in his art, until to-
day he is recognized as one of the most artistic
photographers on the coast.
Although American born Mr. Schwichten-
berg is of German parentage, his father, Rev.
Henry A. Schwichtenberg, having been born in
Dantzic, Germany. For many years he was a
silk merchant in that city, but after the loss of
his stock by fire he came to the new world to
begin life anew. Going to Allegan county,
Mich., he worked at the tailor’s trade for a time,
from there going to Niles, that state, and still
later to Michigan City, Ind. While in the lat-
ter city he began to study for the ministry, and
during the time of his preparation for five years
taught in a German-American school. His Ordi-
nation as a pastor in the Reformed Church was
conferred upon him in 1876 and the same year
he went to Medaryville, Pulaski county, Ind.,
to take charge of a church there. Three years
later he was transferred to a pastorate in Bir-
mingham, Ohio, and after the same length of
time in that place was pastor of the church in
Piqua, Ohio. From Ohio he was transferred
to Boegers Store, Osage county, MO., his min-
istry there continuing for three years, when he
came west to Portland, Ore., in 1884. As there
was no church of the Reformed denomination
in Portland he was given charge of a Lutheran
pastorate, from there going to Mink, Clacka-
mas county, remaining there the usual term of
three years also. Ill-health necessitated a com-
plete rest, and when he was able to resume his
574
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
duties he was placed in charge of a Lutheran
pastorate in South San Francisco, remaining
there two years, and later was in Petaluma the
same length of time. From Petaluma he came
to Pomona and assumed charge of the German
Lutheran congregation at this place, but he is
now retired from active service and at the age
of seventy-one years makes his home in Port-
land, Ore. His wife, who was a native of
Berlin, Germany, died in Portland, leaving three
children, as follows: Max F., who is a drug-
gist, in Portland; Otto H., who is in the employ
of the Oregon Railroad & Navigation Company;
and Hugo E. - -
The youngest child in the parental family,
Hugo E. Schwichtenberg was born June 8, 1867,
in Allegan county, Mich., where he attended
the public Schools, and as he was naturally a
student and a lover of books generally, he gained
an excellent education. It was while the family
were making their home in Piqua, Ohio, that he
became interested in the subject of photography,
and when only twelve years worked out his first
problem in the art by constructing a camera from
descriptions which he had read. In 1884 the
family removed to Oregon, and in Portland he
was for a time employed in a bakery, although
he had by no means discontinued his interest or
Studies in his art. On the other hand he had
in the meantime kept up a diligent course of
study and preparation for independent work,
and by the time he was eighteen years old he
was prepared to set forth as a traveling pho-
tographer. A slight interruption in his plans
occurred about this time, occasioned by the ill-
ness of his father, who then had charge of a
school. He completed his father's term in the
school and in April of that year, 1886, started
out with his tent and photographing outfit for
Gervais, going from there to Lebanon, spending
the entire summer in the two places mentioned.
It was his practice to travel throughout the en-
tire Pacific coast during the summer seasons,
spending his winters in Portland, a course which
he followed for six years, and, during two years
he also conducted a gallery at Albina. In 1891
he came to California and for one year traveled
between San Francisco and the coast, during
which time he built up a reputation as an artist
of superior merit which had preceded him to
Pomona, whither he came in 1893 and estab-
lished the nucleus of his present flourishing busi-
ness. He opened his doors for business Novem-
ber 23, 1893, and August 15, 1895, he became
established in his present commodious quarters
in the Avis building. In connection with this
studio he also conducted a branch studio in
Azusa between the vears 1808 and 1904, and
durino the same time also had a studio at On-
tario for three vears, from 1901 until 1904, but
in the latter year he was compelled to discon-
tinue both, as the local work demanded all of
his time and attention. In January, 1905, he
bought out the studio of which Scholl & Scholl
were the proprietors, but since then he has re-
moved The Elite (as this studio is known) to
more commodious quarters, opposite the First
National Bank, Southwest corner of Second and
Main streets. In both studios he is carrying
On an excellent business.
In Pomona Mr. Schwichtenberg was married
to Miss Ada M. Hansler, who was also a native
of Michigan, her birth occurring in Niles. Two
children have been born to them, Otto and Al-
fred. The family attend the Presbyterian
Church, of which both Mr. and Mrs. Schwich-
tenberg are members, and politically he is inde-
pendent in the casting of his ballot. His mem-
bership in the Board of Trade is looked upon as
an acquisition to the well-being of that body, a
feeling which is shared by the various fraternal
Organizations of which he is a member, among
them being the Knights of Pythias, Benevolent
Protective Order of Elks, Knights of the Macca-
bees, Modern Woodmen of America and the
Order of Yeomen.
THOMAS G. GABBERT, one of Ventura
county's most prominent and successful citizens,
was born in Madison county, Iowa, January II,
1854, a Son of Jacob and Mary Jane Gabbert,
natives respectively of Kentucky and Indiana.
He was reared to young manhood on the paternal
farm, and at the same time he was receiving his
education in the public schools he was also being
trained in the practical duties which fall to the
lot of a farmer's son. Upon attaining his ma-
jority he became dependent upon his own re-
Sources and since that time has followed farm-
ing. Coming to California in 1883, he located in
Ventura county, remaining in the vicinity of
Saticoy until 1892, when he established his home
near El Rio, where he has since been occupied
in the cultivation of an extensive ranch. He is
principally engaged in the raising of lima beans
and beets, for which the soil of this locality is
admirably adapted, and also grain and stock
raising. While meeting with success in his agri-
cultural efforts he has at the same time won a
place of prominence among the public spirited cit-
izens of Ventura county, having labored untir-
ingly not only to further his own interests, but
those of the community at large, and by his per-
sistent energy, strict attention to business af-
fairs, honorable dealings, and superior manage-
ment, has attained a high standing in financial and
social circles. Liberal in his views, enterprisng
and public spirited, he takes an intelligent inter-

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
577
est in local matters, being ever among the fore-
most in establishing beneficial projects, and is
now serving his second term as supervisor, in
that capacity performing the duties devolving
upon him with credit to himself and to the honor
of his constituents. During the last two years
of his first term in this office he was chairman of
the board, and still retains this position with the
present board. He is a stanch Republican and
seeks to advance the party's interests at all times.
Fraternally he holds membership with the Ma-
sonic Organization.
In Madison county, Iowa, February 27, 1879,
he was united in marriage with Miss Ella Peters,
daughter of A. M. and Jane Peters, pioneers of
California in 1882. They are the parents of the
following children: Myron H., John Raymond,
Boyd E., Richard Clarence, Harry and Thomas
Arthur. Mr. Gabbert's long association with the
interests of Ventura county have served to bring
him in close contact with public affairs, and al-
though his time has been pretty well occupied
with his personal affairs (being identified with
several mining enterprises in addition to his agri-
cultural pursuits), he has still made it his aim
to keep in close touch concerning all problems
before the nation and to do his duty as a loyal
and law-abiding citizen.
THOMAS HUGHES, a representative citi-
zen of Los Angeles, was born in Greene coun-
ty, Pa., August 25, 1859, about forty miles
south of Pittsburg, where his father owned a
flouring mill on the banks of the Monongahela
river. His boyhood was passed among these
scenes, the knowledge gleaned from books
during his attendance of the public schools
being supplemented by a thorough practical
training under the instruction of his father.
Inheriting the spirit of independence from his
pioneer ancestry, and the self-reliance and
courage which induced their emigration to a
western world, he was but eighteen years old
when he became dependent upon his own re-
sources and sought a location among the more
abundant opportunities of the southwest. In
Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Clifton, and other
towns of New Mexico, he was employed as a
millwright and also in railroad construction
work for five years. From that location he
came to California and in Los Angeles—then
a small town of only fifteen thousand people—
began the foundation of a business that should
some day place his name among the success-
ful manufacturers of the Pacific coast. The
first year (1883) he secured work in a plan-
ing mill, and the following year, with his earn-
ings, entered upon independent operations on
a necessarily small scale.
Success accompa-
nied his efforts and he soon found it necessary
to increase his equipment. He constructed
and at different times operated eight different
mills, one of the most important being at San
Pedro, this having since burned. In 1896 he
Organized a business under the name of
Hughes Brothers, a connection which contin-
ued until 1902, when the enterprise was incor-
porated as the Hughes Manufacturing Com-
pany, with Mr. Hughes as president and most
extensive stockholder, L. L. Robinson as sec-
retary and Grant G. Hughes as general man-
ager. They have a very complete and up-to-
date equipment, having installed the most
modern machinery, and it can be truthfully
said that Mr. Hughes has brought more ma-
chinery into Southern California than any
other one man. They have a three-story brick
building, IO5x4OO feet, and in the manufacture
of their product employ over three hundred
men. Shipments are made to Nevada, Ari-
zona, Denver and surrounding towns in Cali-
fornia, their extensive business not only add-
ing to their personal returns, but giving to
Los Angeles a prestige as a manufacturing
center which has continued up to the present
writing. In the early days of this city small
opportunities were offered for manufactories,
and only men of discernment could foresee the
unlimited possibilities that were awaiting en-
terprise and ability along this line. Mr.
Hughes was the leader and has remained to
the present day foremost in the ranks of the
men who are advancing these interests. To
the upbuilding of Los Angeles he has given
every effort, platting Hughes addition to the
city, and has also invested otherwise in realty
holdings here.
Familiar from his youth with Los Angeles
and its surrounding country, Mr. Hughes was
among the first to develop oil, which was
known to exist in quantities in this part of
the state. There were only about fourteen
wells on Lakeshore avenue when he took up
the project, and thenceforward gave means,
time and personal attention to the accomplish-
ment of his plans. The first company formed,
and which he assisted in organizing, was the
American Oil Company, and following this at
a later period was the organization of the
Fullerton Oil Company, which owns fifty acres
in fee in the heart of the Fullerton district.
He was a member of the company that put
down the first well in the Santa Maria dis-
trict, and to this enterprise he gave his per-
sonal attention; after securing a small flow at
a depth of over two thousand feet, the well
caved ºn and the matter was then dropped for
a time. This location was then one hundred
miles from any other oil region, but has since
36
578
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
become one of the largest producing fields in
the world, ten thousand acres in this district
being owned by the Western Union Oil Com-
pany, of which Mr. Hughes is first vice-presi-
dent and supervising manager of the develop-
ment work. The first well put down by this
company was in the location started by Mr.
Hughes some years before, proving his theory
correct as to the location of oil. This Organ-
ization is one of the most extensive of its kind
in the west, being made up of prominent finan-
ciers of Los Angeles, whose ability and enter-
prise have been used to further the advance-
ment of the country along this line.
While a resident of New Mexico Mr.
Hughes was united in marriage with Miss Car-
rie Mosher, a native of New York, and their
home in Los Angeles is among the most at-
tractive of the city—evidencing within and
without the refined and cultured tastes of the
family. Mr. Hughes, although a busy man,
has still taken time to interest himself in va-
rious of the fraternal and social organizations
of the city, being a member of the Elks, the
Union League Club and the Driving Club,
while automobiling is a recreation in which he
indulges as freely as his business cares will
permit. Although never an aspirant for per-
sonal recognition no citizen is more actively
interested in the promotion of all measures for
the civic honor of the municipality. Locally
he supports the men and measures which judg-
ment impels him to believe best in the gov-
ernment of the city, although in State and na-
tional politics he is a stanch Republican. He
has always declared for “open shop” and equal
rights to all as citizens, willing to give the
“square deal” and demanding it. He can al-
ways be counted upon to give freely of time,
money and influence in the furtherance of any
movement tending toward the advancement of
the general welfare and with the aggression
which can only mean progression in such a
man as he, takes a leading part in all contests
in the support of his principles.
Personally Mr. Hughes is a man of many
parts. Combining with an unusual degree of
financial ability a stanch integrity in business
affairs and an unimpeachable honor, he has
won not only a competence in the world's field
of action, but also the friendship of the many
who have known him during the years of his
residence and association with the west. To
an unusual degree is he esteemed by his fel-
low-citizens and honored for the qualities of
his citizenship. Personally an unostentatious
manner, a kindly hospitality and generous
spirit have given him a place among those
citizens upholding the civic honor of our city.
JOHN BROWN, SR., was born in Worces-
ter, Mass., December 22, 1817. His grandfather,
John Brown, was in the war of the Revolu-
tion and fell at the battle of Bunker Hill. When
a boy John Brown, Sr., started west to realize
the dreams and fancies of youth. He stayed
awhile in St. Louis, Mo., after which he began
rafting on the Mississippi river, then went to
New Orleans. While on a voyage to Galves-
ton he was shipwrecked and from there went
to Ft. Leavenworth by the Red river route. In
the Mexican war he participated in the battle
of San Jacinto and saw General Santa Ana when
first taken prisoner. After two years at Ft.
Leavenworth, he went to the Rocky mountains,
and for fourteen years hunted and trapped from
the headwaters of the Columbia and Yellow-
Stone rivers, along the mountain streams south
as far as the Comanche country or northern
Texas with Such mountaineers and trappers as
James W. Waters, V. J. Herring, Kit Carson,
Alexander Godey, Joseph Bridger, Bill Will-
iam, the Bents, the Subletts and others of equal
fame. He engaged sometimes a free trapper,
at other times with Hudson Bay and other fur
companies, hunting the grizzly, buffalo, elk,
deer, antelope, mountain sheep, and trapping the
cunning beaver among the Arapahoes, Chey-
ennes, Apaches, Utes, Cherokees, Sioux, Crows
and other tribes. He helped to build Fort La-
ramie, Fort Bent, Fort Bridger and several oth-
er forts. This period is hastened over, for the
bear and Indian encounters and hair-breadth es-
capes of the above-named hunters would fill a
volume fully as interesting as “Kit Carson's
Travels” or Washington Irving’s “Captain
Bonneville.” Suffice it to say that such brave
and intrepid hunters and adventurers as Mr.
Brown and his companions piloted General
Fremont across the Rocky mountains on his ex-
ploration of the American continent, and if Gen-
eral Fremont had adhered more closely to Mr.
Brown's advice, he would not have lost so many
men and animals that dreadful winter in the snow.
Still, General Fremont has gone down in his-
tory as the great Pathfinder.
The gold fever reached the mountaineers in
1849. Messrs. Brown, Waters, Lupton and
White “fitted out” and joined one of the immi-
grant trains bound for the land of gold. They
spent the 4th of July, 1849, in Salt Lake City,
and arrived at Sutter’s Fort September I, and
began mining on the Calaveras river. In No-
vember, Mr. Brown moved to Monterey, and,
with Waters and Godey, opened the St. Johns
hotel and livery stable at San Juan Mission. Mr.
Brown was here elected justice of the peace for
two terms. His health failing him, he was ad-
vised to go to the milder climate of Southern
California. In April, 1852, he went to San
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
579
Francisco, and there, with his family, boarded
the schooner Lydia, Captain Haley commander,
and after a week’s voyage landed at San Pedro,
where he engaged Sheldon Stoddard to haul
him to San Bernardino, arriving in May, I852.
In 1854 he moved with his family to Yucaipe,
where he went into the stock business, but re-
turned to San Bernardino in 1857 and lived there
until his death.
In 1861, seeing the necessity of an outlet to
Southern Utah and Arizona for the productions
of San Bernardino, Mr. Brown, with Judge
Henry M. Willis and George L. Tucker, pro-
cured a charter from the legislature for a toll
road through the Cajon Pass, which he kept open
for eighteen years, thus contributing materially
to the business of the city in which he lived. In
1862 he went to Fort Mojave and established a
ferry across the Colorado river, thus enchanc-
ing the business of San Bernardino still more.
He was a liberal contributor to the telegraph
fund when assistance was required to connect
this city with the outside world, and favored rea-
sonable railroad encouragement to place San
Bernardino on the transcontinental line.
own expense he enclosed the public Square,
where the pavilion now stands, with a substantial
fence, and in many ways by his public spirit
contributed to the advancement and improve-
ment of this city. In the winter of 1873-74 he
delivered the United States mail to the miners
in Bear and Holcomb valleys, where the Snow
was three and four feet deep, thus showing that
he still retained that daring and intrepid disposi-
tion that he acquired in the Rocky mountains.
In the world of religious thought Mr. Brown
had a wonderful experience. Born near Ply-
mouth Rock on the anniversary of the landing
of the Pilgrim Fathers, he seems to have partak-
en of their religious freedom and liberality of
thought, and his years among the grandeur of
the Rocky mountains aided in developing an in-
tense love for nature, the handiwork of the great
Creator. Here, as a child of nature, among the
fastnesses of the mountain forests, or among the
cliffs and peaks, he saw the Great Ruler in the
clouds, and heard Him in the winds.
Without any education except that derived
from the broad and liberal books of nature, he
was the author of a book entitled, “Medium of
the Rockies,” in which kindness, gentleness, un-
selfishness, charitableness and forgiveness are
set forth, dedicated to “the cause that lacks as-
sistance, the wrongs that need resistance, the
future in the distance, and the good that he could
do”—the character that he acquired and lived
all his life. -
As old age began creeping on and many of
the old friends were passing away, and the ac-
tivities of life had to be transferred to others,
At his .
Mr. Brown joined President Lord, William Heap,
R. T. Roberts, W. F. Holcomb, De La M.
Woodward, Major B. B. Harris, David Seely,
Sydney P. Waite, Marcus Katz, Lucas Hoag-
land, Henry M. Willis, his old Rocky mountain
companion James W. Waters, his son John
Brown, Jr., and others, and organized the San
Bernardino Society of California Pioneers, be-
lieving that many hours could still be pleasantly
passed by those whose friendship had grown
stronger as the years rolled by and thus live the
sentiment of the poet—
“When but few years of life renain,
'Tis life renewed to laugh them o'er again.”
Mr. Brown raised a large family; six daugh-
ters and four sons: Mrs. S. P. Waite, Mrs.
Laura Wozencraft Thomas, Mrs. [...ouisa Waters,
Mrs. Sylvia Davenport, Mrs. Mary Dueber, now
deceased, and Mrs. Emma Rouse; and John, Jo-
seph, James and Newton Brown.
Mr. Brown outlived all of his Rocky mount-
ain companions, and all of the commissioners
appointed to organized this county, and all of the
first officers of San Bernardino county; he re-
mained alone to receive the tender greetings of
his many friends who held him not only with
high esteem and respect, but with love and ven-
eration. He was greatly devoted to the Pioneer
Society; its pleasant associations were near and
dear to him. Although feeble with declining
years, he appeared at the meeting of the society
on Saturday, April 15, 1899, and discharged his
duties as President, and on the following Thurs-
day, April 20, 1899, at 7 o'clock p. m., at the
home of his daughter, Laura, his spirit depart-
ed to that new and higher sphere of existence
he so fondly looked to while in earth life. A
large concourse of friends attended the funeral
of their old friend, from the Brown homestead,
corner Sixth and D streets, the present resi-
dence of his son, John Brown, Jr. The funeral
services were conducted by Mrs. J. A. Mar-
chant, of the First Spiritual Society of San Ber-
nardino, and also by Rev. White of the Presby-
terian Church of Colton. An excellent choir un-
der the direction of Mrs. H. M. Barton and
Mrs. Lizzie Keller discoursed appropriate se-
lections. The floral offerings were profuse;
one emblematic of the Pioneers, being a tribute
from the Pioneer Society. &
According to directions from the deceased,
frequently given by him to his children, the
casket, and everything else necessary for inter-
ment, was like his character and belief, as
white as the mountain snow. The honorary
pallbearers were among his oldest friends then
living: Sheldon Stoddard, W. F. Holcomb, R.
T. Roberts, Lucas Hoagland, J. A. Kelting and
Lewis Jacobs; and the active pallbearers were
580
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
J. W. Waters, Jr., George Miller, De La M.
Woodward, Randolph Seely, H. M. Barton and
Edward Daley, Jr.
JOHN E. YOAKUM. From the age of ten
years a resident of California, Mr. Yoakum re-
calls with interest the rapid development of
the state and the remarkable increase in val-
ties displayed by both city and country prop-
erty. Missouri is the state where he was born,
his birth having occurred in Ray county,
July 6, 1851, to William and Sarah (Stone)
Yoakum. The maternal grandfather, John
Stone, was a member of one of the aristocrat-
ic families of Virginia and some years after
his marriage removed from that common-
wealth to Missouri, where he settled near
Knoxville. Three Yoakum brothers, Will-
iam, Jesse and Isaac, came to the Pacific coast
during the early development of the west, and
of these, Jesse was killed in 1854 while driv-
ing cattle across the plains to California. In
I861 William Yoakum returned east for the
purpose of bringing his son, John E., back .
with him, and the latter vividly recalls the
memorable journey which began at Kansas
City in the midst of wintry storms in 1861,
and ended twenty days later at Folsom, Cal.,
the travelers having kept on the road night
and day without pause, by virtue of $700 stage
fare paid to the Holliday Stage Coach Com-
pany. For a time they remained at what is
now East Oakland (then known as San An-
tonio), but in 1862-63 they made their head-
quarters at Virginia City, Nev., during which
time they owned large lumber, mining and
timber interests in the Truckee valley.
Three years after his journey across the
plains John E. Yoakum accompanied his
father via Panama to New York City, return-
ing to California in 1865 across the plains,
with mule teams. With them were his sister,
Mary A., also a half-sister, Sarah, born of his
father's second marriage. For some years the
father engaged in the stock business in Solano
county and from there removed to Tulare
county. When quite advanced in years he
died near Armona, Kings county, in the fam-
ous Mussel Slough country.
tended the public schools of Oakland and in
Contra Costa and Solano counties, John E.
Yoakum became a student in Heald’s Busi-
ness College, San Francisco. At an early age
he took up the raisin-growing business in So-
lano county and was so successful in produc-
ing a fine quality of product that in 1874, and
1875 he was awarded a prize for his raisins
and grapes ‘in San Francisco. The vineyard
which he planted in the Mussel Slough coun-
After having at-
try comprised ten acres, forming a portion of
a forty-acre ranch, which in 1885 he traded
for seven city lots in East Los Angeles.
Almost immediately after locating in the
San Joaquin valley Mr. Yoakum became a
land agent and speculator in lands. At one
time he owned fifteen thousand acres in
Fresno, Tulare and Kings counties, a portion
of which was lake and swamp land. Among
his most important enterprises was the found-
ing of the village of Armona and the platting
of the town site, one-half of which he later
sold to the Southern Pacific Railroad Com-
pany. At this writing he yet owns property
in Armona and farm lands in Fresno, Tulare
and Kern counties, much of the property be-
ing especially valuable by reason of its fruit
orchards and alfalfa meadows. Probably one
hundred thousand acres of land passed
through his hands as selling agent and no one
in the entire valley is more familiar with land
values than he. By reason of having operated
road and land graders he received a keen in-
sight into the real values of lands and could
handle the same intelligently. In addition he
handled large tracts of railroad lands.
The so-called “boom” had just inaugurated
in Los Angeles when Mr. Yoakum came
to this part of the state in 1885 and he as-
sisted in organizing the Tulare Immigration
Association, in whose interests he spent his
time between San Francisco and Los An-
geles. While the boom lasted he did consid-
erable speculating in lands. When its col-
lapse came he suffered in common with all
property-holders, but was saved from finan-
cial disaster through his valuable holdings in
Tulare county. His remarkable recuperative
powers in finance were put to a thorough test,
and when the reverses in the business world
were needed he became a stronger power in
real estate than he had been before. His con-
nection with railroad excursions and the emi-
gration business made it possible for him to
be in close touch with the real-estate interests
of Central California, especially in the San
Joaquin valley, where his interests have been
extensive for many years. -
The name of John E. Yoakum is closely as-
sociated with the upbuilding of Ocean Park
in the laying out and handling of various sub-
divisions. Included in the real estate still
owned by him may be mentioned interest in
Seagirt No. 1 and 2, Venice View tract, Club
House Place, Santa Monica tract, Roseboro
Heights tract, Short Line Beach tract, Venice
of America, Highland tract. Venice Hill tract,
Ocean Park Place, Ocean Park Terrace, San-
ta Fe tract and various others. He owns con-
siderable property in East Los Angeles and

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
583
large tracts in the San Joaquin valley as afore-
said, the whole aggregating several thousand
acres. In all movements that have had as
their objects the upbuilding of the state Mr.
Yoakum has always been a generous support-
ter with both time and money and is justly
entitled to a place in the annals of California.
Though not a partisan in belief Mr. Yoa-
kum is stanchly in favor of Democratic prin-
cipals, while fraternally he is associated with
the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks. By
his first marriage, to Jennie S. Reeves, a na-
tive of England and daughter of George
Reeves, who was a pioneer resident of Napa
county, he had one daughter, Jennie, now the
wife of Charles Dickerson. His second wife,
whom he married in Kings county (then Tu-
lare), was Alma R., the daughter of Foreman
B. Cody, a resident of California since 1871.
They have three children, Queenie, wife of
Sidney Graves; John Vaughn and Valentine
Stone.
PHILETUS SPRAGUE CARR. Of the
men in Ventura county who have taken an
active interest in developing the beet and bean
industry none has been more prominent than
P. S. Carr, better known by all his friends as
“Major.” He was born near Battle Creek,
Mich., November 30, 1839, a son of Simon
Vader and Angeline (Sprague) Carr, both
natives of New York state, of Scotch-Irish
ancestry.
His ancestry goes back to the time of the
emigration of three brothers to America from
Scotland, one locating in New York, one in
Massachusetts and another in the South.
“Major” Carr descending from the New York
branch. His great-grandfather Carr served in
the Revolutionary war as a commissioned of-
ficer and his grandfather in the war of 1812 as
a colonel.
Simon Vader Carr was a pioneer settler of
Michigan, then a territory, locating four miles
south of what is now Battle Creek, Calhoun
county. At this early date the wheat had to
be carried to Detroit, the nearest mill, and
ground into flour; there being no roads they
followed Indian trails. This he accomplished,
first on foot and later packing on horseback.
He brought the first span of horses into the
county, established the first brickyard in that
section and improved his farm from a dense
forest to a high state of cultivation. He served
as justice of the peace, was a Master Mason,
a member of the Presbyterian Church and a
man much esteemed by his fellow-citizens.
His wife was the daughter of Dr. Sprague, a
prominent physician of New York. Both par-
ents died in Battle Creek at advanced ages.
“Major”. Carr is the only one living of five
children; his education was received in the
public and union schools of Battle Creek. In
1863 he responded to his country's call for
volunteers, enlisting in Company C, Sixth
Michigan Heavy Artillery, and mustered in at
Jackson, and assigned to the Department of
the Gulf, participating in the engagements of
White River, Baton Rouge, Port Hudson and
Siege of Vicksburg. After this he served on
the Mississippi and the Gulf, principally at
Fort Gaines and Fort Morgan, and was with
Farragut at the capture of the latter, this then
giving command of the entrance to Mobile.
He was discharged at Jackson, Mich., in 1865.
After recuperating on the old homestead for a
time he engaged in farming and in the manu-
facture of brick, making the brick from which
was built the original Battle Creek Sanita-
rium.
In 1877 he removed to Chillicothe, Mo.,
where he engaged in farming and at the same
time as a traveling salesman for the Eureka
Mower Company, of Utica, N. Y., his terri-
tory being Missouri and Illinois. In 1887 he
located in Ventura county, Cal., purchased his
present ranch of twenty-one acres, one and
one-half miles north of the present site of Ox-
nard, which was set to walnut trees, this to-
day being one of the finest groves in the state.
With Major Driffils he has six hundred and
sixty-five acres in beets in the vicinity of Ox-
nard; also has fifty-five acres in beans.
“Major” Carr labored assiduously in securing
the location of the sugar factory in Oxnard,
knowing the richness of the soil, the possibili-
ties of the Santa Clara valley of Southern Cali-
fornia and having great faith in its production
of the sugar beet. From its inception, in 1887,
he has been one of the agriculturists for the
American Beet Sugar Company and superin-
tends the putting in of the crops and the har-
vesting of the same among the farmers in his
district with whom they have contracts. He
was one of the promoters of the Oxnard Elec-
tric Light plant.
In Augusta, Mich., November 14, 1866, he
was united in marriage with Mary Earle, a
native of England, and a daughter of Edward
Earle, a pioneer miller of Augusta. By this
union three children have been born, Luella,
wife of Lincoln Hall : Martin V., and Earle,
all of Oxnard and vicinity. “Major” Carr was
made a Mason in Hueneme Lodge No. 311,
F. & A. M., of which he served as master three
terms, was one of the organizers and is past
master of Oxnard Lodge No. 341, F. & A. M.;
exalted to the Sublime Royal Arch in Ventura
584
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Chapter No. 50, R. A. M.; was one of the or-
ganizers and first high priest of Oxnard Chap-
ter No. 86, R. A. M. He is also a member of
Ventura Council, R. & S. M.; Ventura Com-
mandery No. 18, K. T., of the Los Angeles
Consistory, 32d degree, and Al Malaikah Tem-
ple, A. A. O. N. M. S. With Mrs. Carr he is
a member of Eastern Star Chapter No. 185.
He is a charter member of Lodge No. 613,
B. P. O. E., of Santa Barbara, and a member
of Cushing Post No. 44, G. A. R., of Ventura.
Mrs. Carr is a member of the Presbyterian
Church and the Women's Relief Corps of Ox-
nard. He is a strong Republican and has been
a member of the county central committee,
taking an active part in its councils and shap-
ing the destiny of the party in this county.
All matters that have had for their object
the development of the county, the betterment
of the condition of its citizens and the ad-
vancement of its commercial interest in the
state have always found “Major” Carr ever
ready to give of his time, money and influence,
and perhaps no one is better known as a man,
nor more highly esteemed as a friend. It is
the sentiment of those who know him inti-
mately that he is well worthy a place in the
annals of Southern California.
LEVI R. MATTHEWS. In the interval be-
tween his arrival in California and his death
about twelve years later Mr. Matthews acquired
considerable property by energy and foresight,
and at the same time, by the exercise of the
highest principles of honor and uprightness, he
made for himself a lasting place in the regard
of acquaintances and associates. His death oc-
curred in Long Beach July 2, 1902, of apoplexy,
but his remains were buried in his home city,
Pomona, with whose upbuilding he had had so
much to do.
Born in Rochester, Vt., February 9, 1830,
Levi R. Matthews, was a child of about two years
when his father, Josiah Matthews, removed to
the frontier of Illinois and settled on a farm in
Sangamon county, later, however, going to Taze-
well county, same state, and purchasing a farm
ten miles east of Pekin. On the homestead
farm that he there improved from the wilder-
ness he passed away, as did also his wife, who
before her marriage was Monette Waters, a
native of Vermont. Levi R., the eldest of their
children, was educated in the public Schools of
Tazewell county, Ill., and also in Knox College.
Following in the footsteps of his father in the
choice of a life calling he too settled down to
farming and stock-raising, improving a farm
from the raw prairie near Tremont. To his origi-
nal purchase he added from time to time until
still living.
he laid claim to five hundred acres of fine land
all in one body. Not only was he known as
an extensive cattle dealer, but he was an im-
portant figure in the public life of his community,
and for many years served his community as
highway commissioner. In 1886 he gave up his
personal ſhanagement of his farm and removed
to Colorado Springs, Colo., and four years later
made a trip to California. So well pleased was
he with the outlook in this state that he decided
to make it his future home, coming hither in the
fall of 1890 and purchasing a ten-acre orange
grove on the corner of Olive and San Antonio
avenues. Subsequently, he disposed of his Illi-
nois property and bought a thirty-acre alfalfa
ranch south of Pomona, improving it into one
of the finest ranches of the kind in this vicinity.
A distinguishing feature of his ranch was a
four-hundred foot well which he sunk, and which
is considered one of the finest wells in the Po-
mona valley, furnishing water for irrigation for
the entire vicinity. The family retain consid-
erable of the property he owned in Colorado
Springs.
In Morton, Ill., April 20, 1852, Levi R. Mat-
thews was united in marriage with Miss Marie
Antoinette Sill, who was born in Solon, Ohio,
the daughter of Prof. Horace L. Sill, a native
of Adams, N. Y. Grandfather John Sill, who
was also born in the Empire state, was a survey-
or and civil engineer first in his native state and
later in Solon, Ohio, where he died. From New
York state, where he was reared, Horace L.
Sill removed to Ohio, where he taught school
for a time, later removing to Morton, Ill., where
he owned a farm, but followed teaching for a
livelihood. From Illinois he later removed to
Fremont, Nebr., where as teacher and farmer
he rounded out his life, passing away on his farm
in that vicinity. Mrs. Sill was before her mar-
riage Mary Pettibone, born near Sacket Harbor,
N. Y., the daughter of Elijah Pettibone, who was
born near Hartford, Conn., following farming
there until his removal to Ohio, where he died.
He was of English descent, and many of the
Pettibone ancestors fought in the Revolutionary
war. Mrs. Sill passed away in Nebraska. Of
the seven children born to Mr. and Mrs. Mat-
thews five grew to years of maturity and are
The eldest, Mary Louise, was edu-
cated at Eureka College and is the widow of
Raphael Leonard, of Tremont, Ill. ; Ellen Mabel
was also educated at Eureka College, and is the
wife of Charles Major, of Eureka, Ill. ; Kate
Luella, also educated in that college, became the
wife of Charles Stubblefield, of McLean, Ill. ;
Annie May, Mrs. Charles Buckley, of Tremont,
Ill., was also educated in Eureka College; Lee
R. is a farmer in Pomona; Grace L. is the wife
J. H. Payne, of Los Angeles; and Winnifred

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
587
G., who became the wife of Samuel R. Eccles-
ton, died in Los Angeles in 1900. Since the
death of her husband Mrs. Matthews has con-
tinued to reside in the homestaead which he
erected at No. 659 North Gordon street, and in
the management of the large property which he
left she is meeting with splendid success.
FRANK PETIT. The Santa Clara valley
of Southern California can lay claim to no
more, enterprising citizen than Frank Petit,
as all will agree who are familiar with the
transformation which his ranch near Oxnard,
Ventura county, has undergone during the
past twenty-four years. His first purchase,
in 1883, was devoid of any improvements
whatsoever, but the location was an excep-
tional one and he began to improve, and at
the same time add to his possessions until he
is to-day the proprietor of ten hundred and
forty acres of well improved and valuable land.
His parents, John B. and Elizabeth Petit, who
were natives of France, came to this country
when Frank was a small child and settled on
a farm in Clearfield county, Pa., where they
remained until the close of the war. Remov-
ing to Douglas county, Kans., they there en-
gaged in agricultural pursuits until the death
of Mrs. Petit, when she was sixty-one years
of age. Subsequently, Mr. Petit came to Cali-
fornia, arriving in this state in 1874, making
his home with his daughter, Mrs. M. J. Lau-
rent, for a time, and later engaged in ranching
with his son Justin. His death occurred in
1894, at the advanced age of eighty-five years.
Frank Petit was born in France, in April,
1848, and was brought to this country by his
parents when only a small boy. He spent his
childhood and young manhood in a lumber
camp in Clearfield county, Pa., gaining what
education he could in such surroundings.
Early evincing a proficiency in the manage-
ment of steam sawmills, he soon became fore-
man of sawmills in Pennsylvania, and proving
an expert in that line, was made head sawyer
at the early age of nineteen years. Coming to
California November 18, 1882, he located on
the Colona grant and has since that time been
an important factor in the development and
upbuilding of that section. The story of his
rise is akin to that of all the successful men
of this or any self-improved region, entailing
endless work from morn until night and dur-
ing everv season of the year. Constituting
himself his own architect and builder, Mr.
Petit erected a roomy and comfortable resi-
dence, large. barns and outbuildings. Modern
agricultural implements are found in their
best order, buildings and fences in repair, and,
in fact, few farms in the country present an
aspect of greater prosperity, thrift and enter-
prise, and few are more representative of the
character and individuality of their owner. Of
his landed possessions Comprising over a thou-
sand acres, six hundred and forty are in the
Colona grant, four hundred in the hills, while
he owns, with his brother Justin, four hundred
acres lying four miles east of Santa Paula,
one hundred and eighty acres being devoted
to the culture of lima beans and eighty acres
to sugar beets. The home farm consists of
two hundred and fifteen acres and this is
under Mr. Petit's personal supervision.
The marriage of Mr. Petit was solemnized
in Clearfield county, Pa., December 25, 1872,
and united him with Miss Caroline Dough-
erty, a native of Pennsylvania, and five chil-
dren have blessed this union: John F., a his-
tory of whose career will be found elsewhere
in this volume; William ; Mamie, who is the
wife of Earl Hart, of Ocean Park; Charles,
attending Cornell University; and Albert, at
home. Mr. Petit is director of the Bank of
Oxnard, and has served as school trustee of
this district. Fraternally he is identified with
Oxnard Lodge, F. & A. M., Oxnard Chapter,
R. A. M., and also of the Commandery of
Ventura, and A1 Malaikah Temple, A. A. O.
N. M. S., of Los Angeles. The high character
of Mr. Petit is borne out by his gracious and
friend-winning manner. His success has been
won solely through his own efforts, and that
he is worthy of the good fortune which has
come to him is believed by those who have
profited by his generosity and his good fellow-
ship.
ANDREW JOUGHIN. The possibilities
offered by the Pacific coast regions nowhere
find a more striking illustration than in the
life of the late Andrew Joughin, a pioneer of
1866 in Los Angeles and for years one of the
large land-owners of Southern California. Al-
though he came to the west practically with-
out means, he was a keen, capable judge of
!and values, and saw in this soil and climate
a fair opening for investment. Acting upon
this theory he purchased land as it came with-
in his financial ability to do so, and the re-
sults proved the wisdom of his judgment in
the matter. While he achieved financial suc-
cess and left an estate valued at $150,000, the
accumulation of wealth did not represent the
limit of his success, for he was also successful
in gaining and retaining the respect of asso-
ciates, the affection of his family and the
good-will of the community, and the latter
588
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
type of success surpasses the former in per-
manent significance. Possessed of a stalwart
physique, he was six feet in height and
weighed considerably more than two hundred
pounds, so that even in a large crowd he at-
tracted attention by reason of his rugged frame
and splendid physical proportions. Nor were
his physical characteristics greater than his
mental qualifications, for with a large frame
he had a large heart and behind his genial
countenance there was a frank and ardent tem-
perament.
The earliest recollections of Andrew
Joughin were associated with the Isle of Man,
around whose rugged shores washed the
waves of the Irish sea. There he was born
February 23, 1824, a son of industrious and
intelligent parents, who, desirous of preparing
him for the earning of a livelihood, appren-
ticed him in youth to the blacksmith's trade.
After having followed that trade on the island
for some years he crossed the ocean to Amer-
ica in April, 1852, and upon landing in New
York proceeded toward the unsettled regions
of the Mississippi valley, his course of travel
taking him, subsequent to a month's stay in
Rochester, to Illinois, where he followed his
trade in Rockford. During 1859 he came via
the Panama route to California and settled in
Sacramento, where he experienced the hard-
ships attendant upon the great floods of 1861
and 1862. For some years he operated a shop,
but in 1865 he began to work in connection
with the building of the railroad. -
During the year 1866 Mr. Joughin estab-
lished his home in Los Angeles and purchased
one-quarter of a block of ground on Second
and Hill streets. This investment proved a
wise one, for he bought at $500 and sold for
$1,500. Shortly afterward he went to Ari-
zona, but in a year returned to Los Angeles
and followed his trade. Removing to San
Juan Capistrano in 1869, he carried on a
blacksmith's shop and a hotel, but in 1870
returned to Los Angeles, where he operated a
shop of his own. With the earnings of his
trade he invested in land. During 1874 he
invested in three hundred and sixty acres near
Hyde Park comprising a part of Rancho la
Cienega, for which property, he paid $6,000.
Two years after buying the land he removed
to it and operated a shop on the ranch for a
few years. In 1883 he acquired three hundred
and five acres known in early days as the Tom
Gray ranch, but more recently designated as
the Arlington Heights tract. Subsequently
he disposed of the greater portion of this
property, although about fifteen acres still re-
main in the possession of the family, and some
of this has reached the valuation of $100 per
front foot. During 1885 he purchased the
Palos Verdes ranch of six hundred acres, sit-
uated near Wilmington, and this was operated
largely by his sons, he having no special liking
for farm pursuits. After many years of un-
wearied industry, in 1888 he allowed himself
to enjoy a long vacation in the form of a trip
to Europe, where he renewed the friendships
of youth and visited many points of historic
interest. On his return to the United States
he did not take up business activities, but in
the midst of the comforts accumulated by his
wise judgment and industrious application he
passed his last days, and February 7, 1889,
his earth-life ended at about sixty-five years
of age.
Surviving Mr. Joughin and occupying a
comfortable residence on West Adams street,
Los Angeles, is his widow, formerly Ann Can-
nell, whom he married November 22, 1851,
and was born on the Isle of Man October 8,
1832. Ten children were born of their union,
namely: Eleanor J., wife of Andrew Mattei,
of Fresno county, Cal. ; Catherine N., who
died at three years; Andrew, Jr., a resident of
Los Angeles, and represented elsewhere in
this volume; Alice, who was removed from
the family circle by death at the age of five
years; John T., a rancher whose sketch ap-
pears on another page; Matilda, wife of
George R. Murdock, who is connected with
the Artesian Water Company of Los Angeles;
Edward E., who died in infancy; Emma, who
married Earl R. Osborne, of Los Angeles;
Minnie, who resides with her mother and min-
isters to the needs of her advancing years;
and Isabella Grace, who is the wife of Emil
H. Granz, residing in Tulare county, Cal.,
near the town of Dinuba.
On the organization of the first congrega-
tion of Episcopalians in Los Angeles Mr. and
Mrs. Joughin became members of the church
and ever afterward maintained an interest in
its activities and Mrs. Joughin still contrib-
utes regularly to its maintenance, as well as
to various missionary, educational and philan-
thropic movements of undoubted value to
the welfare of the race, carrying out in this
respect the plans inaugurated by Mr. Joughin,
who was a man of generous impulses and
large philanthropy. After becoming a citizen
of the United States he affiliated with the
Democratic party, but he took no part in pub:
lic affairs, nor did he ever consent to hold
office, his tastes being in the line of business
activities rather than politics. Yet as a citi-
zen he was keen to give his support to every
measure for the general good, active in for-
warding progressive plans and enthusiastic in
co-operating with public-spirited movements,

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
591
hence he merits, and occupies a distinct place
in the annals of local history and is remem-
bered as one of the progressive pioneers.
JOHN SCARLETT. Perhaps no greater
tribute can be bestowed upon a man than to
state that he passed through life wronging no
one, but giving to all a kindly consideration
and a warm-hearted fellowship as well as prac-
tical assistance in times of need. Such may be
said of Mr. Scarlett, whose life was an open
book to be read by all, whose character was
unwarped by deceit and untainted by selfish-
ness, yet whose intelligence was so keen and
energy SO great that he accumulated a valu-
able property and at his death left an estate
worthy of a lifetime of achievement. Success
did not come to him with fleet footsteps, but
the way proved long and difficult, and only an
energetic temperament would have overcome
the obstacles which he confronted in youth.
When but an infant his father was taken from
the family by death. Their means were lim-
ited. The home in his native place at Innes-
killen, Ireland, was destitute of comforts, and
a livelihood was earned only by the severest
toil. When he had saved an amount sufficient
to defray his expenses to America, he crossed
the ocean, settled in Philadelphia, and from a
very humble position rose to be a dyer in a
woolen manufacturing plant. With the sav-
ings from his work he sent to Ireland for his
mother, who joined him in Philadelphia and
there remained, surrounded by every comfort
he could provide, until she passed away in
January, 1865. Meanwhile he had become a
pioneer of 1857 in California, settling in San
Francisco, where he was employed as engineer
in a sugar refinery for three years, this being
the first cane sugar refinery in California.
Removing to Alameda county and settling
in Dougherty, Mr. Scarlett erected a hotel
building in 1861 and for six years conducted
a hotel under his name. At the expiration of
that time he moved to Fresno county and en-
gaged in the sheep business on a large scale
on the West side, in which occupation he met.
with gratifying success. During 1874 he came
to Ventura county upon a tour of inspection.
The prospects pleased him and he purchased
a ranch on the Colonia from W. T. Rice. The
following year he brought his family to the
tract of six hundred and ninety acres and here
engaged in general farming and stock-raising:
Later he made a specialty of Lima beans and
sugar beets, for which products no land in the
entire county is better adapted or produces
larger crops. . The estate lies four miles from
Oxnard and ranks as one of the most valuable
in the valley. Since the death of Mr. Scarlett,
which occurred February 14, 1902, the land
has been operated by his only son, John, who
makes his home on the estate. Though not
active in politics nor a partisan, Mr. Scarlett
iield firm convictions on the subject of tariff,
currency, etc., and voted with the Republican
party. As a citizen he was honored by all,
and his name was a synonym for generosity,
kindness, energy, tact and integrity.
The marriage of Mr. Scarlett was solemn-
ized September 22, 1864, at Dougherty, Ala-
meda county, and united him with Miss Anna
Lyster, a native of Sydney, Australia. Dur-
ing his early life her father, Lawrence Lyster,
emigrated from Roscommon, Ireland, to Syd-
ney, Australia, where he followed the building
business. In 1852 he brought his family to
California and settled in San Francisco,
where he was employed in the building of the
old custom house. Not long afterward he
bought and removed to a farm near Dough-
erty, where he died in 1861. His wife, Sarah
(Moran) Lyster, was born in Roscommon,
Ireland, and died at Pleasanton, Cal., in March
of 1896. Of their family of ten children all
but three are still living. Mrs. Scarlett was
educated in the Sisters’ school, which was held
on the present site of the Palace hotel in San
Francisco. After the death of her husband
she left the ranch and came to Oxnard, where
in 1903 she purchased a residence on C street
near Second. In addition to her other prop-
erty she is a stockholder in the Bank of Ox-
nard. Of her family the elder daughter is Mrs.
Elizabeth Williams, of Oxnard, while the
younger daughter, Anna, resides with her in
their beautiful home in this city. Both are
members of the Santa Clara Catholic Church
and are prominent in the most cultured so-
ciety of the community, charitable in disposi-
tion, generously contributing to movements
for the public good, and possessing the liberal
views and the 1efinement that wins and re-
tains friends. -
HON. DAVID TOD PERKINS, assem-
blyman from the Sixty-fifth district of Cali-
fornia, was born in Akron, Ohio, April 23,
1852. His father, Simon Perkins, was a na-
tive of Warren, Ohio, to which location the
paternal grandfather, Simon Perkins, Sr., emi-
grated from Connecticut, the state of his birth,
in the pioneer days of the middle west. He
was in charge of the settling of the Western
Reserve and prominent in the upbuilding of
that section. Simon Perkins, Jr., became a
large landowner and capitalist of Akron, Ohio,
among his chief interests being the presi-
592
HISTORICAL AND RTOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
dency of the railroad company that construct-
ed a line from Hudson to Millersburg. His
prominence, however, in his native section
was not limited to financial enterprises alone,
but he was also known through his connection
with many of the most important movements
for the moral and enducational growth of the
general public. Through marriage he allied
his interests with those of another prominent
family of Ohio, Grace Ingersol Tod, a native
of the state, becoming his wife. She was a
daughter of Judge Tod, and a sister of ex-gov-
ernor David Tod, of Ohio, representatives of
a Scotch family of worth and ability. The
death of Simon Perkins, Jr., occurred in Ohio
and that of his wife in Sharon, Pa. They left
a family of eleven children, six of whom are
now living. The oldest brother, George T.
Perkins, was colonel of the Ohio Volunteer
Infantry and is president of the B. F. Good-
rich Rubber Company, and lives with his
family in Akron, Ohio. The second brother,
Simon Perkins, was captain of Ohio Volun-
teer Infantry during the Civil war. He is now
an iron and steel manufacturer in Sharon, Pa.,
where he lives. The third brother, Charles
Ezra Perkins, is the state engineer of Ohio,
and has held the office uninterruptedly for
sixteen years; his home is in Columbus, Ohio.
David Tod Perkins, the subject of this
history, is next to the youngest child. He
was named for his uncle, David Tod, who was
one of the war governors of Ohio. He was
reared in his native state, and educated in the
Akron public and high schools. Until 1880 he
remained a resident of Ohio, and engaged in
farming and merchandising. Attracted to
California by its multifold opportunities Mr.
Perkins located in Ventura county in 1880, and
on the Los Posas ranch became associated
with Senator Thomas R. Bard in general farm-
ing and the raising of sheep.
dustry required no small effort, for the flock
at times numbered as high as thirty thou-
sand head. Mr. Perkins gave his entire time
and attention to the management of the ranch
interests for some time, but it is now many
years since he became actively identified with
movements of public importance in both Ven-
tura and Santa Barbara counties as well as
other sections of the state. He was promi-
nently connected with the Union Oil Com-
pany, into which was merged the Sespe, Tory
and Hardison Stewart companies, and for a
time served as its president. He is also as-
sociated with the Graham & Loftus Oil Com-
pany, of Fullerton, Orange county, Cal., as a
director and vice-president, and is likewise a
stockholder in the Bard Oil & Asphalt Com-
pany. With Senator Bard he was instrumental
This latter in-
in the organization of the Simi Land & Water
Company, and also the Los Posas Water Com-
pany, at this writing being a director in the
former and president of the latter. Sixteen
years ago he became interested in the Huen-
eme Wharf Company and at that time as-
sumed its management, retaining an active in-
terest in the concern until July, 1906, when he
Sold out. A most important enterprise in the
development of business interests is the Peo-
ple's Lumber Company, of which Mr. Per-
kins is serving as president. This corporation
has extensive receiving yards in Hueneme and
Ventura, Nordhoff, Oxnard and Santa Paula,
in the last-named place operating a large plan-
ing mill. The product is shipped to various
points throughout Southern California, its ex-
tensive interests bringing this enterprise to
rank as an important factor in the industrial
element of the state. In the midst of his im-
portant duties Mr. Perkins has still found
time to interest himself in banking circles, as-
sisting in the Organization of the Bank of
Hueneme, in which he is still identified as
director and secretary.
Not alone, however, in the city of his resi-
dence has Mr. Perkins given his aid in mat-
ters of enterprise and finance. The Oxnard
Electric Light and Water Company claims
him as its vice-president, while he is also a
stockholder in the Santa Paula Electric Light
Company. In Santa Barbara his name is fa-
miliar through his association with various
public enterprises, among them the Santa
Barbara Theater & Amusement Company,
which is erecting an adequate building for
amusement purposes, he serving as presi-
dent of this organization. He is a director in
the Potter Hotel Company, a stockholder in
the Central Bank of Santa Barbara, and presi-
dent of the Santa Barbara Realty Company.
He has manifested his faith in the future of
that city by investing in holdings of consid-
erable value. He is also a large holder of
real estate in Ventura county, leasing to the
Ventura Agricultural Company (of which he
is a director) about eighteen thousand acres,
upon which is raised grain, stock, beets and
beans in vast quantities.
Mr. Perkins has made his home in Hueneme
for many years, having erected a residence on
the Springville road. He married Mrs. Em-
ma R. (Cranz) Perkins, of Akron, Ohio, and
they have two children, Anna, wife of Tod
Ford, Jr., of Pasadena; and Charles C., a di-
rector in the Thomas Hughes Manufacturing
Company of Los Angeles. Mrs. Perkins is a
member of the Presbyterian Church, although
both Mr. Perkins and she give their support
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
593
liberally to all charitable enterprises regardless
of denomination.
Ventura county rose to an appreciation of
the evident ability of Mr. Perkins many years
ago, and after conferring upon him minor of-
fices, among them that of county supervisor,
which he held acceptably for nine years, he
was elected in 1894 to the state legislature, as-
semblyman from the Sixty-fifth district. This
was pre-eminently a Democratic legislature
and although there was little opportunity for
a member of the opposition to gain a foothold,
yet Mr. Perkins was remembered when sent
back to the State house in 1904. He gave ac-
tive service to his constituency along various
lines, taking a prominent part in affairs of
the House as a member of the Agricultural
committee, Ways and Means committee; Rev-
enue and Taxation committee; Banking com-
mittee, of which he was chairman ; Oil and
Mining committees, and others.
strong fight for the re-election of Senator
Bard, both his personal friend and the man
whom he knew to be efficient, honorable and
tpright, a loyal citizen of his state and a
stanch upholder of civic rights.
It is not necessary to eulogize upon the life
of Mr. Perkins. Those who know him—and
his circle of acquaintanceship is wide,-have
never failed to recognize his sterling traits of
character, a recognition given him unhesitat-
ingly for a display of unusual business abil-
ity, but better still for social qualities which
have won him friends within the boundaries
of a half dozen different counties where he is
known familiarly. Always courteous, he has
time for friends; always a man of business
he holds this as a requisite to success. Both,
perhaps, have been indispensable to his own
success; but the one has given a kindliness to
his own character, and while he has won finan-
cial prominence he has made his efforts par-
allel with the welfare of the general public.
No one doubts his loyalty and no one ques-
tions his sincerity in matters of public impor-
ta1n Ce.
EDMUND CARSON THORPE. Not only
is Edmund Carson Thorpe known as a promi-
nent and influential citizen of San Diego, but
his acquaintance extends throughout the United
States, he having attained some fame as the
author of many original poems and stories, writ-
ten in the German dialect, in which he excels.
Among the more popular of these writings may
be mentioned “The Huckleberry Picnic,” “Sur-
prise Party,” and “The California Flea,” His
wife also is a woman of great literary note, and
as the author of “Curfew Shall Not Ring To-
He made a
night,” which has been translated into almost
every language extant, and many other books
and poems, the high rank of Rose Hartwick
Thorpe in the world of letters has been thor-
oughly established. The Thorpe family was
Originally of English stock and early in the
history of America its members were represent-
ed in New York, the great-grandfather having
served in the Revolutionary war. Edmund
Carson, who was born July 6, 1849, in Berea,
Cuyahoga county, Ohio, was the son of Lucian,
and the grandson of Jeremiah Thorpe, both of
whom were natives of Canandaigua, N. Y. The
grandfather became a pioneer farmer in Summit
county, Ohio, and the father located in Berea,
where he was occupied as builder. He made
a trip across the plains to California in 1849,
in company with Kit Carson, returning in due
time to Ohio, and when the Civil war broke
out went to Cleveland and enlisted in Company
G, Sixty-seventh Ohio Volunteer Infantry, in
which he was drum major. He died in 1862 and
was buried on St. Helena Island, S. C. Mr..
Thorpe's mother was Corria Pixley, a native of
Canandaigua, N. Y., and her death occurred
when Edmund Carson was three years of age.
Of the three children, two sons are now living,
Stephen R., who was a sergeant in the Tenth
Regiment of Michigan Volunteer Infantry dur-
ing the Civil war, being now a resident of Grand
Blanc, Mich. -
The education of Edmund C. Thorpe has bee
entirely self-acquired for from the time he was
eight years of age it was necessary for him to sup-
port himself, his first work being in Cleveland,
Ohio, where he sold papers and blackened shoes.
In 1865 he went to Litchfield, Mich., and at
eighteen years of age apprenticed himself to a
carriagemaker there and after the trade had
been learned engaged in carriagemaking, build-
ing up a large establishment. The business em-
braced complete carriage and blacksmith works
and he was very successful in the manufacturing
of cheap carriages. In 1880 he removed to Chi-
cago and entered the employ of the Abbot Car-
riage Company, but the condition of his health
would not permit him to remain there, and he
accordingly went to Grand Rapids, and built
a home in that city. His health became worse
here, however, and his next move was to San
Antonio, Texas, where he was engaged as bag-
gagemaster on the Southern Pacific Railroad,
for four and one-half years. -
In September, 1887, Mr. Thorpe located in San
Diego, Cal., invested in property and engaged
in the printing business, in which he met with
good success. Mrs. Thorpe's health requiring a
change in the spring of 1888 they removed to
Pacific Beach, becoming the first residents on
that beach. There he set out the first lemon trees
594
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
and laid the first water pipe on the beach, the acre
which he then set to an orchard being now owned
by Coffeen. He next bought five acres of raw
land and set it to lemons, converting it from
an almost valueless sagebrush tract to a fine
revenue-producing ranch. He then began the
clearing of a tract of about a thousand acres. The
railroad at that time terminated at Pacific Beach,
and the same year a hotel was built at LaJolla.
In 1892 the California National Bank, in which
Mr. Thorpe had deposited his savings failed and
he then engaged in contracting and building and
has ever since been engaged in that business, tak-
ing contracts in Pacific Beach, San Diego and La
Jolla, building the greater part of the latter place.
He is now engaged on the erection of the bath
house there, and has twenty-four hands in his
employ. Since 1900 he has had a fine residence
on Lincoln avenue, La Jolla, and also owns other
property there. Several years ago he served two
terms as member of the city council in San Diego
and in April, 1905, was elected to a place in the
present council and is chairman of the gas and
electric light committee, being also a member of
the telephone; fire, water and police; health and
morals; and sewers committees, on each of which
he gives efficient service.
September II, 1871, in Litchfield, Mich., Mr.
Thorpe was united in marriage with Rose Hart-
wick, who was born in July, 1850, in Mishawaka,
Ind., the daughter of William Hartwick, a na-
tive of Brockville, Canada, and the grandmother
of Morris Hartwick, of English, French and
Norman descent. The father, who was a mer-
chant tailor in Ontario, later removed to Indiana.
He married Elenore Cole, born in Ontario, her
family tracing back to the English nobility, her
great-grandfather being a son of the younger
son of an English nobleman. He settled on
the American side of the St. Lawrence river and
was cast into prison for his Tory principles, the
sons having been banished to Canada. There
were five children in the family of which Mrs.
Thorpe was a member, and of the three now
living, one brother, Louis Maurice, is an at-
torney in Orange, and a sister, Nellie, now Mrs.
Andrus, resides in Hart, Mich. Mrs. Thorpe's
mother lives with her at the present time.
The first nine years of Mrs. Thorpe's life were
spent in Indiana and Michigan, after spending
a year in Kansas the family returned to Litch-
field, Mich., and there the daughter attended the
public and high schools. Her marked literary tal-
ent was early evident, the famous poem, “Cur-
few Shall not Ring Tonight,” having been
written when she was but sixteen years of age.
From her eighteenth year she engaged in educa-
tional work at different times and at the same
time continued to write stories and poems for
publication, her reputation growing steadily until
now it has spread into every land. While in
Chicago she did editorial work for Fleming H.
Revel! Company, the book publishing firm, in
addition to her writing. In 1883 Hillsdale Col-
lege conferred on her the degree of A. M., in
recognition of her work, and upon that Occasion
President Dugan took the opportunity to Say
that “Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight” was a
poem that would live so long as the English
language is spoken. Among others of her works
that have attained great popularity might be
named, “The Fenton Family,” “Fred's Dark
Days,” “Chester Girls,” “Nina Bruce,” “Ring-
ing Ballads,” “Sweet Song Stories,” “Temper-
ance Songs,” “The Yule Log,” “The Year's
Best Days,” “The White Lady of La Jolla,”
etc. She has also written for Golden Days,
having twelve numbers in that series. From
London Mrs. Thorpe received great honors and
in 1903 she was presented with a handsome ban-
ner costing $300, which the city of Litchfield
had sent to the World's Fair in Chicago, and
which has upon it a portrait of herself in gold,
and an extract from “Curfew.”
Mr. and Mrs. Thorpe have made numerous
trips throughout the United States, and on these
occasions have always met with flattering re-
ceptions. “Sweet Song Stories” were set to
music by L. Brooks and L. O. Vincent, and il-
lustrated by Mr. and Mrs. Thorpe's daughter,
Lulo Thorpe Barnes. She is a woman of con-
siderable talent and was one of the first kinder-
garten teachers in San Diego, in which city she
now lives, being the wife of Edward Y. Barnes,
a commission merchant. The daughter, while at
home, was also of great assistance to her father
in the preparation of his building plans. They
are members of the Union Church in La Jolla
and exert a beneficial and elevating influence
upon the community in which they make their
home. Mr. Thorpe is a member of the San Diego
Chamber of Commerce, and politically an advo-
cate of the principles embraced in the platform
of the Republican party.
RICHARD R. TANNER adds to the distinc-
tion of being a native son of California by rising
to a prominence which gives him a place among
the representative professional men of Southern
California. As an attorney of Los Angeles coun-
ty, located for business in the city of Los Angeles
and Santa Monica, he is esteemed as a leading
light in the profession and has won through many
years of active work the position he now holds.
Born in San Benito (then Monterey) county, he
was one of a family of nine children, of whom
six are now living. His father, Albert M.
Tanner, came to the state as a soldier in the
Mormon Battalion under Captain Hunt, and a

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
597
year later (in 1848), received his honorable dis-
charge in Los Angeles, where he was stationed.
The following year found him occupied as were
so many others of the inhabitants in mining. He
was associated with Samuel Brannan, who was
later located in San Francisco and engaged in
business. He was successful in his efforts until
the great flood of 1850, when he located in the
vicinity of San Bernardino and engaged as a
rancher. After his marriage with Lovina Bick-
more he removed to Monterey county, thence
to Santa Cruz county, and in 1871 to Ventura
county. He remained in that location until his
death, which occurred in 1881. He was success-
ful in his efforts and acquired considerable prop-
erty in the vicinity of Santa Paula, his wife sur-
viving him and making her residence on the old
homestead in the vicinity of that place. Mrs.
Tanner is a native of Brown county, Ill., whence
her parents, William and Christine Bickmore,
crossed the plains with ox-teams in 1853 and
settled in San Bernardino. They finally removed
to Santa Cruz county and located on a farm,
where they spent the remainder of their lives.
The oldest son in the family of his parents,
Richard R. Tanner spent his boyhood on the
paternal farm in Ventura county until he was
sixteen years old, when, in San Buenaventura,
he served as assistant postmaster for the period
of six years. During this time he studied law
under Nehemiah W. Blackstock, formerly rail-
road commissioner and the present bank com-
missioner of the state of California, and also
under William E. Shephard, a prominent attorney
of Ventura. In 1885 Mr. Tanner was admitted
to the bar and licensed to practice law in the
courts of the state. In February of that year
he located in Santa Monica and in Los Angeles
county began the practice of his profession which
has continued uninterruptedly up to the present
time. It is no little credit to Mr. Tanner that
he at once assumed a prominent place in the af-
fairs of Santa Monica and has ever since re-
mained an important factor in its citizenship. He
became deputy district attorney under Frank P.
Kelley, now a prominent railroad attorney for
the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, located
in San Francisco, and in 1887, was elected city
attorney of Santa Monica, in which position he
remained until 1900. He also carried on a gen-
eral practice, for a part of the time being alone
in his work. In 1894 he formed a partnership
with Fred H. Taft and this association continues
to the present writing; in January, 1905, the in-
terests of the firm were extended by taking in-
to partnershp S. W. Odell, a prominent mem-
ber of the Illinois bar, the style of the firm name
now being Tanner, Taft & Odell. This firm is
employed regularly by many of the most import-
ant business concerns of Los Angeles county,
their clientele embracing with others the Mer-
chants National Bank of Santa Monica; the
Ocean Park Bank; First National Bank of Ocean
Park; Title Guarantee & Trust Company and
Mission San Fernando Land Company. They
were also the leading attorneys for the city of Los
Angeles against the farmers in San Fernando
valley, representing the defendants. It involved
upwards of ten million dollars and was of vast
interest to many thousands of people. The
offices of the firm are located at No. 217 South
Broadway, in the Coulter building, Los Angeles.
They have a wide general practice in the courts
of the state and of the United States and occupy
a high place among professional men throughout
California.
Mr. Tanner has been married twice, his first
wife being Elizabeth Robinson, a daughter of
Judge Henry Robinson, and born of this union is
one daughter, Nora, now the wife of S. F. Orms-
by, San Diego Cal. His present wife was in maid-
enhood Sabaldina M. Bontty, a native of Portland,
Ore. Mr. Tanner is prominent in fraternal cir-
cles, being identified with the Masons, the Bene-
volent Protective Order of Elks, Independent
Order of Odd Fellows, Independent Order of
Foresters, Foresters of America and Knights of
Pythias. He is active in all matters pertaining
to the advancement of the best interests of Santa
Monica and is associated with various enterprises,
among which are the Merchants National Bank
and the Santa Monica Savings Bank, in both of
which he acts as director. Not only as a profes-
sional man is he esteemed, but also as a citizen
of worth and ability, his upright methods in
business, strong integrity and principles winning
him many friends in social circles.
JUSTIN PETIT merits the position which
he holds in Ventura county as that of an en-
terprising, substantial citizen, eager to uphold
the best in public administration and always
ready to give his efforts to advance the wel-
fare of the community at large. He is not a
native of California nor yet of the country in
which he holds citizenship, his birth having
occurred in France, on the 18th of November,
1851, his parents being residents of Fresnes.
During the childhood of Justin Petit the fam-
ily fortunes were placed upon American soil,
John B. Petit bringing his wife and children
to Pennsylvania, where, in Clearfield county,
he located upon a farm. Later, in Douglas
county, Kans., he engaged in general farming,
where the mother died at the age of sixty-one
years. The father came to California eventu-
ally and in the home of his son passed away
in 1894, at the age of eighty-five years. The
four children surviving of the eight born to
598
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
the family are as follows: Henrietta Roussey,
of Santa Paula; Mrs. Annette Laurent, of Ox-
nard; Frank and Justin, both of whom are
farmers near Oxnard, Ventura county.
Reared to agricultural pursuits, it was but
natural that Justin Petit should so engage
upon completing his school course in Kansas,
he being quite young when the family located
in the state. With his brother, Frank, he re-
turned to Clearfield county, Pa., for a time,
and there engaged with him in operating a
sawmill. However, the west held out greater
attractions to him than did the east, and on
the 21st of November, 1878, he set out for
California, which was then as now the Mecca
of youthful dreams. Ventura county was his
choice of a home and in this section he began
as a farmer, purchasing one hundred acres of
Senator Bard, after having accumulated suf-
ficient means. He has continued to add to his
property until to-day he owns a homestead of
two hundred acres near Oxnard; one hundred
and sixty acres six miles southeast of his
home; a half interest in nine hundred and
fifty-three acres in the Simi grant; and an
undivided half interest in four hundred acres
near Santa Paula, besides which he owns busi-
ness and residence property in the city of Ox-
nard. He has continued not only to purchase
property, but to invest his means in improve-
ments, which have increased the value of his
property as well as that of the adjoining sec-
tions. His home was erected in 1896 and is
accounted one of the handsomest in Ventura
county, being equipped with every modern
convenience—electricity, etc. Mr. Petit is ex-
tensively interested in the raising of fruit, hav-
ing a large lemon orchard, while he also de-
votes considerable time to the cultivation of
sugar beets, lima beans and grain. He has
been very successful in his work, and in the
face of circumstances which are ordinarily dis-
couraging has risen to a commanding position
among the farmers of Ventura county.
The home of Mr. Petit is presided over by
his wife, whom he married in Ventura county
in 1884, formerly Miss Frances Kaufman, who
was born in Minnesota and came across the
plains with her parents in childhood. She is
the owner of seventy-five acres in the city of
Oxnard, which is leased to a tenant and de-
voted to the raising of lima beans. Mr. and
Mrs. Petit have a family of seven children,
namely: Marv E., Alfred J., Anna C. (the
two latter twins), Edward William, Joseph
B., Ida and Jessie. Tn his political affiliations
Mr. Petit inclines toward the principles of the
Democratic party, although he is broad-
minded and so thoroughly patriotic that he
never allows party connections to interfere
with his efforts to promote a good administra-
tion of public affairs. Mr. Petit and his
brother Frank and J. E. Borchard are equal
partners in an outfit for threshing grain and
lima beans.
DAVID H. COLLINS. The name of Col-
lins needs no introduction to the readers of
this volume, for it has become well known
through the advent of the father and his sons
into the state over a half century ago. The
present representative of the family, David H.
Collins, is one of the influential citizens of
Spadra, in which vicinity he owns and man-
ages a large grain ranch. He is a son of La-
fayette and Elizabeth (Hayden) Collins, born
respectively in Vermont in 1796 and Water-
bury, Conn. Of the five children born of their
marriage all are now deceased with the excep-
tion of David H., who was born in East
Bloomfield, Ontario county, N. Y., April 19,
1838. During the territorial history of Mis-
souri the father removed thither and began the
practice of law, at the same time becoming
well known in the public life of that common-
wealth. Before the state was admitted into
the Union he became a candidate for United
States Senator, but withdrew his name in hon-
or of Thomas H. Benton, and instead, can-
vassed the state to secure the election of the
latter. Mr. Benton’s service in the senate cov-
ered a period of over thirty years, during
which time he earned the sobriquet “Old Bul-
łion” as a result of his opposition to the paper
currency. Lafayette Collins remained in Mis-
souri about ten years, after which he returned
to New York state and was elected judge of
the district court of Rochester. From there
he went to Ontario county and once more set-
tled down to his profession, his erudition and
high standing in the profession enabling him
to practice before the highest courts in the
United States. It was with these bright pos-
sibilities before him that he temporarily laid
aside his profession and in 1854 came to Cali-
fornia with his two sons. Their experiences
in crossing the plains were not without hard-
ships, but they finally reached Sonoma coun-
ty, and in Petaluma the father established a
dairy business. His knowledge of the law,
however, was not to be suppressed but on the
other hand was constantly called into service
by citizens who were drawn into litigations.
Among other noted cases which he defended
was that of Horace Gates et al. Subsequently
he was elected district attorney of Sonoma
county. Politically he was well known in Re-
publican circles, and during his early years
was an active worker in the Masonic order.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
599
When he was about sixteen years old he had
charge of a school in Vermont, and with about
twenty of his pupils he offered his services to
his country, then in the throes of warfare with
the Mother country in the war of 1812. His
eventful and interesting career was brought to
a close in Petaluma in 1867, at which time he
was seventy-one years of age.
As his father was a man who appreciated
the worth of a good education David H. Col-
lins had more than average advantages along
this line, and in addition to attending the com-
mon schools of East Bloomfield, also took a
course in the academy at that place. When
only fourteen years old he went to Buffalo
and there took steamer for Toledo, Ohio, from
there going by train to St. Louis, Mo. It was
there that the father and two sons outfitted
for the trip across the plains, and with the cat-
tle which they purchased at Independence
they took up the weary march. Disaster met
them in the loss of all of their cattle before
they reached the Humboldt, and as this left
them without any motive power for their
wagons they sold them for $12, their original
price being $300. From the sink of the Hum-
boldt they started on foot to complete the
journey, and finally arrived at Hangtown, now
Placerville, where David H. Collins was inter-
ested in mining for about six months, during
which time he took out considerable gold.
From there he went to Sacramento, and for
about a year carried on a ranch in that local-
ity, but the unhealthful condition of the coun-
try at that time caused him to remove to So-
noma county. In the vicinity of Petaluma he
secured a position on a large diary ranch,
whose record averaged one thousand pounds
of cheese per day. He remained here for about
seven years, but upon the death of his father
in 1867 he gave up his position and with his
brother continued the similar business which
the father had left. Later they bought a ranch
of about one thousand acres, but they finally
disposed of their holdings and came to the
southern part of the state. In San Diego
county, about forty miles from San Bernar-
dino, they bought about three thousand acres
of the San Jacinto ranch, and during the five
years in which they were associated together
they bred about three hundred and seventy-
five head of cattle, besides establishing a good
dairy business, finding a market for their pro-
duce in San Diego.
Leaving his brother in charge of the ranch
David H. Collins went to Santa Ana and en-
gaged with Robert McFadden in the dairy
business and in raising corn, a partnership
which was mutually agreeable and existed for
many years. When the business was sold Mr.
Collins settled upon the Chino ranch, then
owned by Dick Gird, and for two years was
there interested in the dairy business, from
there going to the San Jose ranch owned by
L. Phillips. It was while in charge of the lat-
ter property that he purchased his present
ranch of two hundred acres near Spadra, in
connection with which he continued to run the
Phillips ranch for eighteen years. Besides his
ranch, which is entirely in grain, he also has
a small family orchard, wherein may be found
all of the fruits common to Southern Califor-
1112.
In 1867 Mr. Collins formed domestic ties by
his marriage with Miss Zilla A. Martin, a na-
tive of California, by whom he had five chil-
dren, as follows: Frederick, who is married
and with his family lives in Los Angeles; Bes-
sie, the wife of Charles Weigle, who with
their one child live in Pomona; Gertrude, the
wife of William Hewitt, residents of Los An-
geles; Grace Z., Mrs. William Howell, who
with her husband and two children lives in
Lemon ; and John, who is married, and with
his wife and child lives in Los Angeles, where
he owns a drug store. The mother of these
children died at the early age of thirty-five
years, in 1882, and the following year Mr. Col-
iins was married to Miss Ida Arnold, a native
of Nevada county, Cal. By this marriage one
child has been born, Henry L., who is still at
home and practically has charge of the ranch,
thus relieving his father of the arduous duties
connected there with and making it possible
for him to live in comparative ease. Frater-
nally he is identified with but one order, hold-
ing membership in Pomona Lodge No. 246, I.
O. O. F., and politically he supports Repub-
lican principles.
Before his marriage, in 1863, Mr. Collins
went to Arizona and helped to lay out the
town of Prescott, and while there became in-
terested in the mines for which that state is
famous. It was during the time in which he
was engaged in mining there that he fell in
with Pattline Weaver, an Indian scout, who
took Mr. Collins and his partner, William Brad-
shaw, into his mining interests. The first nug-
get which he found, in the shape of a heart, was
valued at $8. The partners worked together
in Arizona for a number of years, in the mean-
time losing considerable through the depreda-
tions of the Mexicans, who came upon them in
large numbers and so overpowered them that
they were helpless. However, there was a
bright side to their undertakings. In one pan
of dry washing Mr. Collins took out thirty-
three ounces of gold, and during seven months
he secured $20,000 in gold dust.
600
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
HENRY CLAY YERBY. Up to the time
of his death, which occurred May 13, 1900,
Henry Clay Yerby was an interested witness
and active participant in the growth of the
state of California and the development of its
internal resources, having become a pioneer
of the west in 1849. Of southern lineage, he
was born in Fauquier county, Va., August 13,
1828, a son of John and Mary (Edwards) Yer-
by, the former of English and the latter of
Welsh descent. Both were members of a
Revolutionary family, long established on Vir-
ginian soil. John Yerby engaged as a planter
in Virginia until mature manhood, when he
became a pioneer of the middle west, locating
in Lexington, La Fayette county, Mo., where.
he passed the remainder of his days. His
wife passed away in Virginia, leaving a fam-
ily of ten children, of whom Henry Clay was
the youngest.
Reared in his native state until attaining
the age of twelve years, Henry Clay Yerby
was then taken to Missouri and there grew
to manhood's estate. He received his educa-
tion in the common schools and the Lexing-
ton Academy. He was but twenty-one years
old when he was attracted to the Pacific coast
by the glowing reports sent out by California
pioneers, who were engaged in the mines of
that territory. He crossed the plains with ox-
teams, and upon his safe arrival went at once
to the mines and followed this occupation for
several years. He met with success and ac-
cumulated means which enabled him to en-
gage in the mercantile business in what was
then a small town, now the capital of the
state, and later he went to Yolo county and
in Woodland followed a similar occupation.
July 7, 1857, he was married in Lodi, San
Joaquin county, Cal., to Miss, Mary Eliza
Thompson, a native of Tazewell county; Va.,
who was reared in California and educated in
the subscription schools of Woodbridge. Af-
ter marriage Mr. Yerby continued in the mer-
cantile business in Woodland, but later he re-
moved to Oakland and became a charter mem-
ber of the San Francisco Produce Exchange,
in which association he remained for fifteen
years. Coming to Santa Barbara at the ex-
piration of that time, he lived retired in that
iocation until 1895, when he came to Los An-
geles county and two and a half miles south
of El Monte purchased the ranch now owned
by his widow, and here he spent the last
days of his life, passing away in the spring of
Tooo. He was at that time staying in the city
of Los Angeles, where he had been under
medical treatment. He was a man of strong
personality, a forceful character, and one who
took a prominent part in all matters of public
import. Politically he was a stanch adherent
of the principles advocated in the platform of
the Democratic party, which he had espoused
from young manhood.
Mr. Yerby left a widow and eight children:
Mary, Mrs. Bush of Woodland; Genevieve,
Mrs. Durkee of Los Angeles; Reese Camillus,
engaged in an oil refinery in Martinez, Cal.;
Frank Buckner, engaged in the furniture busi-
ness in San Francisco; Lucy Nelson, Mrs.
Monckton, of San Francisco; Georgie, Mrs.
Coleman, of Montecito; John E., handling
real estate in Los Angeles; and Clay Thomp-
son, in Mexico. Mrs. Yerby is the daughter
of California pioneers, her father, John Thomp-
son, grandfather, John, and great-grandfather,
all being natives of Virginia, of Scotch-Irish
ancestry, the last named a patriot in the Rev-
olutionary war, the second in the war of 1812,
and all planters in their native state. Her
father combined the raising of cattle with his
occupation of planter, remaining in Virginia
until 1846, when he removed to Athens, Gen-
try county, Mo., where he farmed for six
years, crossing the plains in 1852 with ox-
teams and mules, and bringing with him a
herd of three hundred cattle. They had many
experiences on their long journey, and some
trouble with the Indians, who stole some of
their mules, while some cattle were lost on
the desert. Without serious mishap, however,
they arrived in California, where in San Joa-
quin county, near the present site of Lodi,
Mr. Thompson entered land and improved a
farm, making several subsequent trips across
the plains and by water to the eastern states
to secure cattle, which he brought to North-
ern California and sold at a large profit. On
one of these trips he was a passenger on the
Winfield Scott, which was wrecked, all but
one passenger, however, escaping. The last
days of Mr. Thompson were spent with Mr.
Yerby in Oakland, where his death occurred.
He was a man of prominence and ability, held
in highest esteem by all who knew him, and
as a citizen of unusual power was selected at
different times to represent the people in po-
sitions of honor and responsibility. A Demo-
crat politically, he was twice elected to the
state legislature on the Republican ticket,
where he served his constituency with ability
and honor. By marriage he had allied his for-
tunes with those of another old and promi-
nent family of Virginia, his wife being Mary
Adams Williams, a native of that state and
the descendant of a Revolutionary family
whose location on American soil long ante-
dated that struggle in the history of our coun-
try. Mrs. Thompson died en route to Cali-

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
603
fornia at the sink of the Humboldt river. She
was the mother of four children, namely:
Reese Bowen, of Oakland; John Chattan, of
Stockton; Mary Eliza, Mrs. Yerby; and Vica,
wife of Thomas Wheeler, of Milton, Cal.
Since her husband's death Mrs. Yerby has
divided her time between Los Angeles and
the home ranch, the latter consisting of twen-
ty acres of peet land, which is rented for
gardening purposes. In religion she is a mem-
ber of the Seventh Day Adventists Church,
of Los Angeles, and liberally supports its
charities and progressive movements. She is
a woman of rare worth and character, enjoy-
ing a wide circle of friends, and giving the
best of her life to those about her.
JOHN ROBERTS. Indissolubly associated
with the early history of Long Beach is the
name of John Roberts, who as the first mayor
gave an impetus to the pioneer development
of the town and surmounted many obstacles
opposing its steady growth. While due credit
should be given to the progressive spirits of
the present generation whose highest talents
are devoted to the progress of the city, yet it
must not be forgotten that there were men who
faced discouragements in the not remote past;
had these men given up the battle at the criti-
cal point, the present charming and popular
resort might not have been founded or its ex-
istence might have been of a merely temporary
nature. There was a time when citizens con-
sulted with reference to giving up the city's
charter and a majority favored such action as
the only recourse, but Mr. Roberts about that
time became interested in the building of the
first pier at this point and so gave a necessary
revival to the interests of the little town, there-
by saving the charter. Through his efforts
also the Salt Lake Railroad was built through
Long Beach, thus bringing the place into inti-
mate relationship with the outside world.
Many other enterprises of the highest im-
portance in the early growth of the town owed
their inception to his foresight and wise dis-
cernment, much of his most important work
for the town being done during the ten years
of his service as a member (and five years of
the time president) of the town board of trus-
tees, all of whom were loyal men.
The Roberts family is of colonial strain and
in an early day crossed from the United States
into Canada, where Charles Roberts was born
and reared, but he early removed to Ohio and
took up farm pursuits in that state. There he
married Sarah Harris, a native of Ohio, and in
Belmont county, that state, their son, John,
was born, June 16, 1831. Fventually the fam-
ily settled in Harrison county, Mo., and from
there went to Iowa, where Mrs. Roberts died
at Chariton in 1870, at sixty-one years, and
Mr. Roberts passed away five years later at
the age of sixty-seven. The common schools
of Ohio afforded John Roberts fair advantages
for that day, but observation and self-culture
formed the basis of his most important educa-
tion. March 31, 1856, he landed in Iowa, but
in a brief time removed to Missouri and from
there went to Nebraska as a pioneer of Otoe
county, where he turned the first furrows in
the soil of his large farm. Ilater other enter-
prises engaged his attention to the exclusion
of agricultural pursuits. Removing to Omaha
in 1873, he took up the duties of deputy clerk
of internal revenue, and continued in that ca-
pacity until 1878, when he removed to Lin-
coln. same state.
Among the dates memorable in the life of Mr.
Roberts, that of May 4, 1884, which marked
his arrival in Long Beach, is not the least im-
portant. When he landed in the town he
found it comprised a small population, housed
in seventeen small cottages of primitive con-
struction. In a short time he had erected a
cottage somewhat similar to those about him
and the following year he opened the San
Pedro Lumber Company's yard, which he
conducted for four years. Afterward other en-
terprises occupied his time until he retired from
business activities. The house in which he
first made his home long since has been re-
placed by a modern structure, this being one
of two houses which he built on grounds, IOO
x 150 feet, occupying a convenient and attrac-
tive location. te
The first wife of Mr. Roberts was Mary
|Barrett, who was born in Ohio, grew to wom-
anhood in that state, was united with him in
1852, and died in Ohio two years later. The
only child of their union, Mary, is now the
wife of Charles O. Mortley, of Centerburg,
Knox county, Ohio. The second marriage of
Mr. Roberts occurred in 1855 and united him
with Sarah Ann McKee, who died in 1883.
Born of their union were the following chil-
ríren: Charles Henry, who resides at Park-
ersburg, W. Va., and is employed as a com-
mercial traveler for the house of Parke, Davis
& Co., of Detroit, Mich. : Sarah Elizabeth,
who married Dr. J. E. Steers, of Long Beach ;
Ida Frances, wife of Harry Christie, of Los
Angeles: Edith Belle and Eva Dell (twins),
the former married to C. W. Fleming, of LOS
Angeles, and the latter the wife of W. O.
Welch, tax collector of Los Angeles county;
John, who died in infancy; and Dwight J., a
physician in Los Angeles. The present wife
of Mr. Roberts, . whom he married October
37 &
604
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
I3, 1892, in the house where they still reside,
bore the maiden name of Clara F. Meyer and
was born in Canada. Politically Mr. Roberts
has always been a stalwart Republican and at
one time took an active part in political mat-
ters, aiding to secure the nomination of Gen-
eral Grant for his second term as president,
and being a delegate to the national conven-
tion in Philadelphia. Many years ago he was
made a Mason in Ohio and still retains his
affiliation with the order, being now identified
with Long Beach Lodge No. 327, F. & A. M.,
and a contributor to the various charities con-
ducted by the fraternity.
WILLIAM HARRIMAN JONES, M. D.
The family represented by this influential physi-
cian of Long Beach was established in America
during the colonial period and numbered among
its members many men of ability and the highest
standing. Among the ancestors perhaps the
most distinguished was Governor Harriman of
New Hampshire. The doctor's father, Charles
Jones, was born in Manchester, N. H., and re-
mained in the east until 1874, when he removed
to Michigan to take charge of the printing busi-
ness of the Review & Herald Publishing Com-
pany. From there he came to California in 1878
and has since made his home in Oakland, being
now president and general manager of the Pacif-
ic Press Publishing Company, of San Francisco,
with printing plant at Mountain View, Santa
Clara county. Before leaving New England he
married Miss Josephine Emerson Lunt, a native
of Portland, Me., and a distant relative of Ralph
Waldo Emerson. Of their three children the
two sons are now living, William H. being the
second of these. When he was only two years
of age (his birth having occurred at Battle Creek,
Mich., February 22, 1876) the family removed
to the Pacific coast; hence his earliest recollec-
tions are of the west, and his education was be-
gun in Oakland public schools.
graduated from the high school in 1893 he went
to Michigan and became a student in the Battle
Creek College, from which he was graduated in
1894 with the degree of A. B. On his return to
California he took a commercial course in the
Aydelotte Business College of Oakland, from
which he was graduated in the spring of 1894.
Shortly afterward he took up the study of medi-
cine in Cooper Medical College of San Fran-
cisco, from which in 1899 he received the degree
Of M. D.
In order to further perfect himself in the
profession he had chosen, Dr. Jones went to
New York City in the fall of 1899 and at St.
John's Hospital had special advantages for study
while filling a position as interne. During the
After having
next year he spent three months in the Battle
Creek Sanitarium and then returned to Califor-
nia, where for two years he was resident physi-
cian and surgeon in St. Helena’s Sanitarium at
the village of Sanitarium in Napa county. Dur-
ing his service in that capacity he also acted as
managing editor of the Pacific Health Journal.
On resigning he returned to New York City and
during the winter of 1902-03 studied in the New
York Post-Graduate Medical College, where he
availed himself of every opportunity to enlarge
his professional information and thus broaden
his sphere of usefulness. For a time after com-
ing back to the west he carried on a private
Sanitarium in Santa Barbara, from which city he .
came to Long Beach in 1903, and now conducts
a large private practice, also holds the position
of city health officer and is associate professor
of gynecology and abdominal surgery in the
College of Physicians & Surgeons, Los Angeles.
In addition he is actively interested in promoting
the Long Beach Hospital, of whose building
committee he has been chosen the president.
Intensely interested in professional work, Dr.
Jones maintains an active association with the
Los Angeles County Medical Society, the Acad-
emy of Medicine, the California State Medical
Society and the American Medical Association.
Whatever advance is made in the science of
materia medica and whatever development each
year brings to surgery, he keeps in touch with
such advancement, adopting the best in his pri-
vate practice. So keen has been his devotion to
professional matters that he has had little leisure
for Organizations not directly allied therewith,
yet he belongs to a number of lodges and acts
as their physician, among others being the
Knights of Pythias, the Benevolent Protective
Order of Elks (in which latter he is a past ex-
alted ruler) and the Masonic orders. As a
Republican and a stanch advocate of party prin-
ciples, he has been interested in politics from
youth, and participates in county and municipal
affairs. Mr. Jones was married March 29, 1906,
to Ida Belle Musselman, daughter of Edward
Musselman, a retired capitalist.
AURELIO W. SEPULVEDA. Among the
families that became prominent during the early
history of California none boasts of a prouder
lineage than that of Sepulveda, whose founder in
the new world, Dolores, came from his native
Castillian province as an employe of the govern-
ment of Spain and in return for services was ten-
dered a grant of land extending from San Pedro
to Redondo Beach along the ocean and for miles
back into the foothills, the whole forming thirty-
nine thousand acres, the Palos Verdes grant. In
order to perfect his patent it was necessary for
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
605
him to go to Monterey, then the capital of Cali-
fornia. On the way thither he was attacked
and killed by the Indians, who secretly awaited
his coming and attacked him from ambush. After-
ward the title was perfected by his sons, but a
dispute arose and only after protracted litigation
was the claim of the Sepulveda family estab-
lished beyond further dispute.
On the great estate of the family near San
Pedro José Diego Sepulveda was born in 1813,
being one of the five heirs to the Palos Verdes
grant of thirty-nine thousand acres, and also one
of the heirs to the Yucaipe ranch, occupying the
present site of San Bernardino, which he and
the other owners sold to the Mormons. Choos-
ing the stock industry as his occupation, he made
the Palos Verdes rancho his headquarters and
bought and sold large numbers of cattle and
sheep. Over the hills for miles in every direc-
tion roamed his herds and flocks. His vast pos–
sessions were handled with keen judgment and
great energy, and he proved himself the inheritor
of much of his father’s talents. At the time
of his death in 1872 he was fifty-nine years of
age. In marriage he was united with Marie E.
Desoldé, a native of San Diego, and a member
of an old family of that place. At her death she
left three children, Aurelio W., Roman D. and
Rudecinda F., Mrs. James H. Dodson, of San
Pedro. The second son, who is a large land
Owner and has erected a number of brick blocks
in San Pedro, is president of the First National
Bank of his home city.
On the family estate Aurelio W. Sepulveda
was born September 28, 1852. At an early age
he accompanied his parents to San Pedro and
here he still makes his home, having received
his education in its public schools and enjoying
the friendship of its old families. Though still
quite young when his father died, he had already
learned habits of self-reliance and perseverance
and these aided him in the later years of his
activity. From his father he inherited consid—
erable property, to the care of which he gives
thoughtful attention and wise oversight. Of re-
cent years he had laid out the Palos Verdes
addition to San Pedro of eight acres, in the center
of which runs Sepulveda street. In addition he
owns business property, a number of substantial
cottages and eight hundred acres adjoining San
Pedro to the northeast. His beautiful resi-
dence on Signal street is presided over by his
wife, formerly Maria Ramus, who was born in
San Juan Capistrano and possesses the charm
and courtesy of manner characteristic of the
ancient family which she represents. One child,
Esperanza, blessed their union. He is a stock-
holder in the First National Bank and the Harbor
Savings Bank of San Pedro. In fraternal rela-
tions Mr. Sepulveda affiliates with the Order of
Eagles and the Elks, both of San Pedro. Of
a modest, unassuming disposition, averse to
public life and little interested in politics, he
finds his greatest enjoyment in the society of
family and friends and in the management of his
property interests. Popular, honored and honor-
able, he is a worthy representative of an ancient
113 ITT e.
C. J. E. TAYLOR has spent more than half
of his life in California, with whose interests he
has been identified since 1873. He is now serv-,
ing as Superintendent of streets in Long Beach,
Los Angeles county, where he has been located
since 1901, taking an active part in the growth
and development of the city. A native of the
northern part of England, he was born October
31, 1847. When thirteen years of age he was
brought to the United States by his parents, with
whom he remained in New York state for some
years, attending the public Schools and at the
same time working as the opportunity offered.
Although but a brief time was spent in the
Schoolroom a good memory and an aptitude for
books enabled him to acquire a foundation for
the education which the experience of later years
gave him. When about fifteen years old he went
to the woods of Michigan, where for three years
he worked at logging in all its various depart-
ments. Following this he located in Leaven-
worth, Kans., as a teamster, freighting with
oxen to Pike's Peak, Montana and Mexico.
Through this association Mr. Taylor became
acquainted with the attractiveness of western
life and in 1873 decided to come to California.
In Humboldt county he worked in the redwoods
until June Ist, when he located in Kern county
and engaged in the store at Weldon, remaining
there for six years. In the meantime he pur-
chased a ranch in Kern county and began sheep-
raising, and also mined, for a short time, but
both these ventures proved less remunerative
than he anticipated and he gave them up. While
a resident of Kern county, in 1879, he married
Sarah E. Gilliam, and born of this union were
the following children, all natives of that local-
ity: Roy, located in Arizona, in the employ of
the Southern Pacific Railroad Company; Clyde,
electrical engineer in the employ of the Tacoma
& Seattle Power Company, his home being in
Seattle, Wash. : Mabel, a graduate of the Long
Beach High School, class of 1904; Nora, a grad-
uate of the same in the class of IQ05; and Myma
and Gordon, both students in the public schools
of Long Beach. In order to give his children
better educational facilities Mr. Taylor moved
his family to Long Beach in 1899 and two years
later took up his permanent residence in this
city, purchasing a lot and erecting a home at the
606
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Corner of Eighth and Chestnut streets. He has
also purchased several pieces of real estate, buy-
ing and selling, and adding to the growth of the
City.
ways taken an interest in the advancement of the
principles he endorses and has been chosen at
times to represent the party in public office, while
a resident of Kern county, serving as supervisor
two terms, during which was voted $250,000
for the building of the jail, court house, hospital
and new county high school, and many other
improvements seen to-day in that county. He
was a delegate to the state convention when M.
Estey ran for governor the first time, and in
1904 he was delegate to the county convention.
In that year, also, he received the appointment
to the position of city superintendent of streets,
his duties including entire charge of all street
work, sewers, etc., and although but a brief time
has elapsed he bids fair to rank among the ablest
city officials, winning public commendation by
his devotion to duty and the best interests of
the city. He supports all church and charitable
work and is in entire sympathy with the present
school management. Fraternally he is identified
with the Masons and Foresters of Long' Beach.
He is a stockholder in the new hotel and a firm
believer in the future of Long Beach, and in-
deed, of all Southern California.
MARK KEPPEL. One of the most im-
portant offices in the educational field is that of
county superintendent of schools. The educa-
tional interests of the county are delivered into
his hands and he is held responsible for the con-
duct and advancement of all schools coming with-
in his jurisdiction. It is a position demanding
talents of a high order and the man who fills it
successfully must be endowed with rare in-
telligence and executive ability. Los Angeles
county is particularly fortunate in securing the
right man for the place in Mark Keppel, its
earnest and efficient superintendent of schools.
Mark Keppel’s father, Garret Keppel, was a
native of Holland, born at Gorkum in 1835. He
came with his parents to the United States in
1844. The family lived for a time at Baltimore,
Md., then in Michigan and later in Keokuk,
Iowa. He attended the public schools of Michi-
gan and Iowa. His wife was Rebecca Hurl-
burt, a native of Missouri. Her father, Isaiah
Hurlburt, was a native of Canada, and her
mother, in maidenhood Rebecca Breeden, was a
native of Kentucky. Mr. Keppel was one of the
pioneers of California, immigrating to the west
in 1859. His objective point was Pike's Peak,
Colo., but owing to unfavorable reports received
while en route he changed his course and desti-
A Republican in politics Mr. Taylor has al-
nation and crossed the plains to Oroville, Cal.,
and became one of the leading farmers of Butte
county. His wife died in Butte county in 1882,
and twenty years later, in 1902, he also passed
away at his Butte county home.
Mark Keppel was the second child born in his
father's family of eleven children, his birthday
being April II, 1867. His early years were
passed on the farm. At nine years of age he
entered the public school and laid the strongest,
most perfect foundation for a successful future
in whatever line he should elect to follow. The
instinct for a higher education was deep rooted
in the boy and as soon as he was able to do SO
he entered San Joaquin Valley College at Wood-
bridge, graduating from that institution in 1892
with the degree of Ph. B. He returned to the
farm and remained there one year, then ac-
cepted a position as teacher in San Joaquin
Valley College, which he filled for one year, and
the next year following was a teacher at Fair-
view, Yolo county.
Mr. Keppel came to Los Angeles in 1895 and
was first engaged as a teacher in the Eighth
street school. In 1896 he became principal of
Harper, now Vermont Avenue school; in 1897
he was made principal of the Union Avenue
school, where he remained until March, 1902,
when he was promoted to the principalship of
Twentieth Street school, where he remained until
his term of office as county superintendent of
schools began in January, IQO3.
During Mr. Keppel’s incumbency there has
been a constant period of transition, due to re-
vision of text books and the rapid development
of the county. Mr. Keppel has proven himself
equal to the task imposed upon him and has met
all demands upon his time and ingenuity with
most satisfying results. The present excellent
condition of the schools throughout the county
attests his capable management and places him
in the front ranks as a successful educator in the
broadest sense of the word. r
Mr. Keppel is ex-president of the School
Masters Club of Los Angeles; member of the
School Masters Club of Southern California;
president of the Southern California Teachers
Association; and a member of the State Teachers
Association, and of the National Educational
Association.
Mr. Keppel married Miss Mae Hubbard,
daughter of Hanford Hubbard of Yolo county,
April 15, 1894. Mrs. Keppel is a native of
Yolo county. They have one daughter, Ester
Mae Keppel. Mr. Keppel is a Republican, hay-
ing served for years as a member of the Republi-
can county central committee. He is also a
member of numerous fraternal organizations:
Ramona Parlor, N. S. G. W.; Woodmen of the
World; Knights of the Maccabees; Fraternal
-44%z-

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
609
Brotherhood; and a member of the Chamber
of Commerce of Los Angeles. His popularity
is unquestioned. He is devoted to educational
work and his clear comprehension of the duties
devolving on him in his official capacity, together
with his efficient management, has been of
material advantage to the schools of Los An-
geles county.
ISAAC L. FETTERMAN. Not the least
prominent and influential representative of the
pioneers of Long Beach is the gentleman
whose name introduces this article and whose
personality is familiar to the leading citizens
of the place. When he came to his present lo-
cation in 1888 the now thriving city was a
mere hamlet of insignificant dimensions,
scarcely worthy of a place on a state map or
mention in a state history. Shortly after his
arrival he started a livery business which was
the second of the kind in the town and in ad-
dition he conducted a hotel, but after about
eight years he turned his attention to the
grading industry, in which he was the pio-
neer, having charge of the first official grad-
ing done in the city and conducting an en-
terprise that was and yet is the largest of its
line in the community. When the first board
of town trustees was organized he was elected
a member of the same and continued faithfully
to discharge the duties of the position for two
term S.
Mr. Fetterman was born in Venango coun-
ty, Pa., April 7, 1849, being a son of Isaac and
Nancy (Titus) Fetterman, the former a farmer
by occupation and at an early date a captain
in the state militia. The Titus family became
identified with Pennsylvania during the colon-
ial period and founded the town of Titusville,
which was named in their honor. During the
year 1853 the Fetterman family removed to
the then new state of Iowa, where the father
took up a tract of unimproved farm land and
remained until his death five years later. His
wife died two years prior to his demise. At
that time their son, Isaac L., was but a small
lad, not vet prepared to earn his own liveli-
hood, but in a comparatively short time he de-
veloped into a self-reliant, capable youth, ready
to take his part in the world’s activities.
When sixteen years of age he was employed
around the oil wells in Pennsylvania during
the first oil boom there, and for four years
continued in that work, after which he re-
moved to Kansas and started out as a farmer
and stock-raiser in a new country. Various
causes conspired to prevent satisfactory re-
sults and after six years he disposed of his
*.
holdings in that state and came to the Pacific
COaSt.
Agricultural pursuits in Kern county for a
brief period occupied the time and thought of
Mr. Fetterman, but soon he relinquished such
work in order to accept a position as fore-
man of the Goose lake canal and a year later
moved to Los Angeles county, where since he
has made his home. . Supplementary to farm-
ing he engaged in the buying and selling of
hogs, but four years later he entered the con-
tracting business with the Dodsworth Pack-
ing Company. For eight years he continued
with the same firm, and during a portion of
the time owned an interest in the business.
On retiring from the firm he removed to Long
Beach and since then has been associated
with the growth of this city, where he is uni-
versally known and honored as an old settler
and a man of high principles.
In 1904 he began improvements on Camp
Fetterman at the corner of Sixth and Main
streets, where he owns a half block of two
acres, very conveniently located near the Daisy
Street School building. He began by erecting
a modern seven-room house, to be followed by
a California bungalow 24x36, with all mod-
ern conveniences, to shelter his employes.
There is also a blacksmith shop where all his
repair work and shoeing his animals is done,
This is well equipped with all necessary ap-
pliances to work with, and his stable room,
when finished, will be two story, 50x90, con-
nected with a one-story structure, 48x60. He
has an increasing volume of business as a street
grader and for excavations of all kinds, em-
ploying from thirty to sixty teams and fifty
men. His business office is also located on
the premises, both connected with telephones.
The valuation of his property, when fully com-
pleted, will be more than $50,000, and is a
great credit to the city.
Like all the members of his family (among
whom was a cousin, Captain Fetterman, who
was killed in the struggle with the Indians at
the fort named in his honor), Mr. Fetterman
displays courage in every crisis, unfailing
rectitude in every transaction, and generosity
in his treatment of others. While he has never
loeen a fraternity man, yet he is not without
fraternal connections, having for years been an
active member of Long Peach Lodge No. 327,
|F. & A. M., in the work of which he main-
tains a warm interest. After going to Kan-
sas Mr. Fetterman formed domestic ties in
his early manhood. In Butler county, that
state, in 1870, he was united in marriage with
Miss Minnie Carey, a native of Indiana. Nine
children were born of their union, but two of
the number have passed from earth, Walter
610
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
being two years old and Frederick an infant
of six months at the time of death. Those
now living are as follows: George W., Charles
E. and Leonard, all of whom are employed in
Los Angeles; Samuel, who makes Long Beach
his home; Maude May, who married Lester
Nye and resides in Los Angeles; Clarence and
Minnie, who are with their parents at the
Long Beach homestead.
FRED H. TAFT. Numbered among the in-
fluential law firms of Los Angeles is that which
had its origin in the partnership of Tanner &
Taft, in March of 1894, and to which later Mr.
Odell was admitted. The firm is unique in that
each of its members bears a governor's name and
holds some distant relationship to prominent
statesmen of the age. In addition to the offices
in the Coulter building, Los Angeles, an office
is maintained at Santa Monica, where one mem-
ber or another has been city attorney most of the
time for almost twenty years until January I,
1907, when the subject of this sketch resigned
the office on account of pressure of other busi-
mess. The firm has always avoided criminal
cases and has made real-estate law and corpora-
tion matters, if anything, a specialty. At this
writing they are counsel for several large cor-
porations in Los Angeles, as well as a number
of important corporations and banking houses
elsewhere. Perhaps the most prominent case
in which they have recently participated is that
of the city of Los Angeles against hundreds of
land owners for control of the waters of the
San Fernando valley, a case that has gained
almost national prominence and is the most im-
portant in its relation to the water question ever
tried in the entire west.
While the family of Rev. Stephen H. Taft
was residing in the village of Pierrepont Manor,
Jefferson county, N. Y., the subject of this
sketch was born. His father platted and founded
the village of Humboldt, in Humboldt county,
and also founded Humboldt College, with which
he was intimately connected for many years, as
he was also with the religious upbuilding and
moral welfare of the village. Later he, too,
came to California, and now makes Sawtelle his
home. In the college established by his father
the son received a classical education and was
graduated in 1879. During his college course
and after graduating he was engaged in news-
paper work as publisher of the Humboldt
Kosmos, the only paper of that name in the
United States; in addition, he for a time had the
distinction of being the youngest editor in the
country. Later he was connected with news-
paper work at Sioux City and for three and one-
half vears edited the Fort Dodge Messenger.
While still engaged in newspaper work Mr.
Taft took up the study of law in the North-
western University at Sioux City, from which
he was graduated with the class of 1892. On
New Year's day of 1893 he arrived in California,
and since then has been identified with the pro-
fession of law in the county of Los Angeles,
his home being in Santa Monica, where he
ranks among the more progressive of its citizens.
None of the secret fraternal organizations have
ever won his allegiance with the exception of
the Independent Order of Good Templars, with
which he became identified by reason of his
Sympathy with its purposes in creating a senti-
ment against the liquor traffic, and an early few
years membership in the Independent Order of
Odd Fellows. Politically he has always sup-
ported the Republican party, but his inclinations
have never tended toward official life, he choos-
ing, instead, his private professional work. Dur-
ing his residence in Iowa he met and married
Frances M., daughter of Hon. Ira L. Welch,
M. D., one time a member of the legislature
from the Humboldt district, and one of the most
Successful physicians of northern Iowa. Their
family comprises two children, Muriel C. and
Harris W., both of whom are now seniors in
Stanford University. -
TIMOTHY A. STEPHENS. When T. A.
Stephens, president of the Star Mill and Lumber
Company of Long Beach, first came to Califor-
nia with the idea of looking over the country to
See what the prospects were for a young man
just starting out in life, he was so thoroughly
impressed with what he saw that he decided to
remain in Southern California. Subsequent
events have proven the wisdom of his choice.
Mr. Stephens was born in Monroe county,
Ohio, October 19, 1872. He attended the pub-
lic Schools of Senecaville until he was eighteen
years of age, thus acquiring a substantial educa-
tion, the very best preparation for the future a
young man can make. Two years later, in 1892,
he came to California. His first work in the
State was in a lumber yard at San Pedro hand-
ling lumber. After working there two years
he came to Long Beach and went to work for
the San Pedro Lumber Company. Long Beach
at that time was a very insignificent place; no
improvements of any consequence had been be-
gun and there was not a graded street in the
town. During the eight years he remained in
the employ of the company he learned the lum-
ber business from the foundation up and became
thoroughly familiar with it in all its branches.
As the town began to grow and new buildings
were erected he saw an opportunity to go into
'business for himself. Soon he had a small plan-
|

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
613
ing mill in operation and was employing three
men. His first venture was on a small Scale, but
as the town grew and prospered his business
advanced also. There was an increasing demand
for his products and he enlarged his plant to
keep pace with the times and growth of the city.
The business of buying and selling lumber
seems to be a natural accompaniment of a plan-
ing mill and Mr. Stephens enlarged his plant to
take in that branch of the trade. From a very
small beginning he has watched his business in-
crease with the brightest of prospects for future
growth and prosperity. Starting with one small
gasoline engine and inferior facilities for doing
his work he enlarged his plant until he had
a fully equipped and up-to-date planing mill.
In 1904 he organized the Star Mill and Lumber
Company, of which he is president, and which
has developed wonderfully since its organization.
Mr. Stephens is a man of shrewd, Sound judg-
ment and enterprising spirit, and by reason of
these qualities he has made a success of his
business.
In 1899 Mr. Stephens married Miss Grace L.
Shaw of Long Beach, and they have one child,
a son, Kenneth L. Mr. Stephens is a liberal Sup-
porter of all church work and a member of
several fraternal organizations, among them the
Knights of Pythias, Woodmen of the World, Be-
nevolent Protective Order of Elks, the Masons
and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He
is a member of the Board of Trade and a direc-
tor in the State Bank of Long Beach, also a
member of the Cosmopolitan Club.
For four years he served as a member of the
City Council and has been chosen delegate to
represent the city in county convention. He may,
with truth, be classed as one of the representa-
tive men of Long Beach.
JOHN J. MORTON. One of the most high-
ly esteemed residents of Compton, John J.
Morton, has been prominently identified with
its development and progress, and is distin-
guished not only for his life work, but as being
one of the five men selected by the original
settlers of this community to choose the site of
the town of Compton, the committee being
composed of the following-named men: W. M.
Morton, T. J. Morton, Griffith Dickinson Comp-
ton, William Fowler, and Jonas L. Miller. A
son of William Morton, he was born March I3,
1839, in Michigan, where he grew to manhood,
attending the common and high schools of his
native town, and completing his studies in a
select school under Professor Tenney.
Born and reared in New York, William Mor-
ton remained there until after his marriage
with Mary A. Moore, also a native of that state.
About a year and a half later, in 1834, he re-
moved with his family to Michigan, where he
resided for twenty-five years. In 1859 he came
to California and located near Lodi, San Joa-
quin county, where he engaged in grain ranch-
ing. Eight years later, in 1867, he came to
Los Angeles county, settling in Compton,
where both he and his good wife spent their
remaining years, his death occurring in 1874,
and hers many years later, in I905. For forty
years he was a member of the Methodist Epis-
copal Church, and she was a communicant of
the same for three score years. Six children
were born of their union, namely: Plinn, who
died in infancy; John J., the subject of this
sketch ; Eunice A., who died at the age of
eight years; William H., who came to Cali-
fornia when his parents did, and died here in
1902; Charles Henry, who died at the age of
three years; and Ella C., widow of the late
Isaac Ingraham, by whom she had a large
family of children, three of whom died within
three weeks and were buried in the Compton
cemetery.
Coming to California in 1859, John J. Mor-
ton settled first on the Mokelumne river, San
Joaquin valley, twelve miles north of Stock-
ton, where he was engaged in tilling the soil
for a few years. In 1867 he was one of a
small colony of Sturdy, enterprising men who
came down to Los Angeles county, and as
pioneers of this section selected the site of
the present town of Compton, as previously
stated. Having accomplished his purpose,
Mr. Morton returned to the San Joaquin val-
ley, disposed of his property there, and in De-
cember, 1867, came back and bought the
eighty-six acres included in his present ranch,
also buying a tract of sixty-five acres north of
the town. Laboring industriously, he has made
improvements of value, erected commodious
and convenient farm buildings, and has since
carried on general farming, dairying and stock-
raising in a skilful and intelligent manner, be-
ing well repaid by the substantial pecuniary
reward that he receives each season.
Returning to Michigan in 1864, Mr. Mor-
ton there married Catherine Cooley, who was
born and brought up 1n the same neighbor-
hood that he was. Into the happy household
thus established ten children were born, name-
ly: Jasper S., who died in 1904; Anna, wife of
Edward Putney; Eva, who was accidentally
shot and killed when twenty-three years of
age; John, who married Lizzie Duke and re-
sides near Compton ; Jerry I., of Los Angeles,
who married Ninna Hecock, of Compton:
Katie and Willie, twins, the latter of whom
married Mattie Clawson and resides in Los
Angeles; Lydia, the wife of Leo W. Marden;
614
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
and Richard and Asa, both of the latter living
at home. In the growth and prosperity of
Compton Mr. Morton takes a lively interest,
willingly contributing of his time and means
to further its interests. He has served with
fidelity in the various offices within the gift
of his fellow-men, having been justice of the
peace, School trustee and road overseer, and
from 1876 until 1879 was county supervisor.
He is a stanch Republican, running for the
position of assemblyman before the party was
Strong enough to elect him, and was one of
the first Republicans to be elected to any of—
fice in this county. Fraternally he is promi-
ment in Masonic circles. He is a member of
Anchor Lodge No. 273, F. & A. M., of Comp-
ton, which he has served twice as master,
and for sixteen years the secretary; of Long
Beach Chapter No. 83, R. A. M.; of Long
Beach Commandery No. 47, K. T.; of the Los
Angeles Council No. II, R. & S. M., and Al
Malaikah Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S. of Los An-
geles. He also assisted in organizing Cen-
lennial Lodge No. 247, I. O. O. F., of Comp-
ton, in which he has passed all of the chairs,
being the only charter member whose name
is still on the rolls; belongs to the Veteran
Odd Fellows, and is likewise a member of the
Pioneers of Southern California. Religiously
he is in sympathy with the doctrines of the
Methodist Episcopal Church.
GILBERT KIDSON. The ten-acre tract
forming the homestead of Gilbert Kidson occu-
pies an advantageous location at Palms, on the
Short Line electric railway. At the time of ac-
quiring the land, for which he paid $256 an
acre, it was considered that the price was high,
but since then he has made important improve-
ments, including substantial barns and modern
residence. The improvements, together with the
great advance in all lands, brings the present
value of the property to a point many times great-
er than that of the cost price; indeed, those
who consider themselves authorities in land
values assert that his ranch is easily worth $2,000
per acre. After acquiring the home place he
bought forty acres of alfalfa, grain and corn
land, now worth $1,000 per acre, its high value
being due not only to fertility of the soil, but
also especially to the close proximity of Venice.
The birth of Gilbert Kidson occurred in Jack-
son county, Iowa, May 18, 1859, his father be-
ing Richard Kidson, represented elsewhere in
this volume and now living retired in Los An-
geles. Educated in country schools and reared
on a farm, Gilbert Kidson laid the foundation of
future success by the development of sturdy, self-
reliant traits of character. On leaving home to
earn his own livelihood he worked out for eight
months, but this first experience as a wage-earner
proved discouraging, for he was cheated out of
his wages. For two years afterward he operat-
ed a rented farm and also operated a threshing
machine for two years. In 1883 he disposed of
his interests in Iowa and removed to California,
where for a year he rented land at Pomona. The
following year he rented three hundred and
twenty acres near Inglewood. At the expiration
of two years he bought the ranch which he now
conducts and occupies. In addition to the man-
agement of the the ranch he engages in team-
ing, and also since 1900 he has been road fore-
man of his district, which responsible position he
fills with satisfaction to all concerned.
The first marriage of Mr. Kidson was solem-
nized April 18, 1889, and united him with Miss
Caroline Brown, who was born in Minnesota
and came to California in girlhood. At her
death in 1894 she left three children, Gilbert R.,
Henry J. and Bertha C., the latter of whom
joined her mother October 29, 1906. Subse-
quently Mr. Kidson was united in marriage with
Miss Annie Ray, who was born in Germany, but
in infancy was brought to California by her par-
ents and received an excellent education in Los
Angeles county schools. The three children of
this union are named Arthur, Harold and Violet.
Ever since attaining his majority Mr. Kidson
has voted the Republican ticket at national and
local elections and has kept well posted concern-
ing political affairs. In fraternal relations he
holds membership with the Woodmen of the
World. As a pioneer of Palms, he maintains a
constant interest in the development of the town
and has been a contributor to its rapid growth.
Not many years have passed since he plowed the
furrows where now the trees are planted on the
town site, but these years have witnessed a
steady increase of population, a steady advance
in 1and values, a steady development of educa-
tional facilities and a corresponding gratification
on the part of residents.
CHARLES JONES HARGIS. As a con-
tractor and builder Charles Jones Hargis is en-
gaged in an active upbuilding of the city of Long
Beach, where he has been a resident since Novem-
ber, 1900. He is a native of Bell county, Ken-
tucky, born September 17, 1855, a son of Samuel
Hargis, who went from Virgina to Kentucky
after his marriage and located as a farmer in Bell
county, where his death eventually occurred. His
wife, Frances Callaway, was born in North Caro-
lina and died in Kentucky. They were the par-
ents of four children, three sons and one
daughter, of whom Charles Jones Hargis was
the oldest. He received his education in the

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
617
common schools of Kentucky, where, in young
manhood, he engaged in general farming. He
remained in his native state as a farmer until
1887, when he located in Pineville, Bell county,
and followed a general merchandise business and
later engaged as a brick manufacturer and
builder. Deciding to locate in the more remote
west he came to California in November, 1900,
and in Long Beach followed the carpenter’s
trade for two years, when he took up contracting
and building, which has since occupied his entire
time and attention. He has invested his means
liberally in real estate, in both this city and Mon-
rovia, where he now owns several dwellings.
In Knox county, Kentucky, November 23,
1876, Mr. Hargis was united in marriage with
Sarah C. Ingram, a native of that state, and born
of this union were two children: Lydia, deceased,
and George W., city clerk of Long Beach. In
his fraternal relations Mr. Hargis is identified
with Long Beach Lodge No. 327, F. & A. M.,
and the Fraternal Brotherhood. He is a member
of the Christian Church, in which he has offici-
ated for many years as elder, both here and in
Kentucky. He is also Bible teacher in the Sun-
day school of the First Christian Church. In na-
tional politics he is a Republican, while in mu-
nicipal affairs he is a stanch advocate of the prin-
ciples of the Prohibition party. During his resi-
‘dence in Kentucky he served as deputy assessor
of Bell county and was twice elected to the city
council of Pineville.
RUSSELL P. WAITE. Among the repre-
sentative citizens of Fernando is Russell P.
Waite, a man of pronounced ability and worth,
who, as manager of the Fernando Improve-
ment Company, is carrying on a substantial
business. He was born January 31, 1852, in
Wisconsin, and was there reared and educated,
completing his studies at the Lawrence Uni-
versity, in Appleton, which he attended two
years.
On leaving school Russell P. Waite learned
the printer's trade, and was subsequently em-
ployed on the Appleton Post for two years.
His health failing, he spent a year in south-
ern Wisconsin, but not deriving much physi-
cal benefit in that time, in January, 1876, he
came to Riverside, Cal., where for twelve
months he lived with his brother, L. C. Waite.
Removing then to Arlington, a suburb of Riv-
erside, he bought a tract of wild land, which
he set out to oranges and small fruits, be-
coming the pioneer fruit grower of that sec-
tion of the country. Meeting with good suc-
cess with his own orange grove, he engaged
in work of that kind, and, by contract work,
set out over five hundred acres of oranges.
Disposing of his property in Riverside coun-
ty in the fall of 1886, he was for a year and
a half engaged in the real-estate business in
Los Angeles, being head of the firm of Waite
& Phillips. The partnership being dissolved in
1888, Mr. Waite came to Fernando, where he
had previously purchased land, and immedi-
ately began the culture of fruit, setting out
fifty-eight acres of oranges and olives, from
which he is now reaping a handsome annual
income. He is also the owner of fourteen
more acres of land, which is highly improved,
and has a fine residence in a pleasant part of
the town. In April, 1903, as junior member
of the firm of Powell & Waite, Mr. Waite em-
barked in the lumber business in Fernando,
continuing until the following January, when
the partnership was dissolved, Mr. Waite con-
tinuing the business as the Fernando Im-
provement Company. He has since built up
a fine business of his own, carrying a full line
of lumber, lath, sash, doors, all kinds of build-
ing material, distillate, gasoline, lime and ce-
ment, in fact everything demanded by the
trade. He also deals to some extent in reak
estate; was one of the organizers and is an
official member of the Fernando Building As-
sociation ; is a director of the Board of Trade
of Fernando ; is a director of the Fernando
Valley Bank, of which he was one of the orig-
inal stockholders, and was one of the organ-
izers and is one of the directors of the Fer-
nando Fruit Growers' Association.
In 1879 Mr. Waite married Jessie E. Berry,
a daughter of D. M. Berry, of Pasadena, and
into their household nine children have been
born, namely: Helen, Mabel, Rosebud (who
died aged one year). Clarence, Lillian, Wini-
fred, Marcia, William and Theodore. Polit-
ically Mr. Waite is a straighforward Republi-
can, and religiously he is a member of the
Presbyterian Church, which he has served in
an official capacity for many years. He was
a charter member of Fernando Lodge No. 365.
I. O. O. F., but does not now belong to that
organization.
-*-
MERTON. L. KENYON, a promoter and
real estate dealer of Long Beach, Los Angeles
county, was born in Utica, N. Y., April 18, 1853,
and in that section was reared to young manhood.
His education was received through an attend-
ance of the common school in the vicinity of his
home, after which he was trained to the practi-
cal duties of a farmer. His first independent
venture in manhood was along these lines, locat-
ing on a farm near Brookfield, N. Y., where he
remained engaged in agricultural pursuits for a
period of twelve years. At the expiration of this
618
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
period he entered the employ of the United States
Express Company at Binghamton, same state,
and remained there for another twelve years,
when he went to Michigan and in St. Johns
opened up an agricultural implement establish-
ment. This business proved profitable and he
built up an extensive trade throughout the states
of the northwest. After ten years he came to
California with the intention of looking over the
ground and being favorably impressed with the
climatic conditions and business prospects he sold
out his interests in Michigan and located per-
manently in Long Beach, where he has since
made his home. He engaged in the real estate
business, forming a partnership with two others,
the firm name being Gary, Paul & Kenyon. In
1907 Mr. Kenyon organized the Long Beach
Opera House Company. He has been success-
ful and is numbered among the upbuilding fac-
tors of the city.
Mr. Kenyon has been twice married, his first
wife being Ellen Burdick, to whom he was united
in Binghamton, N. Y. She died in New York
state, leaving one son, Norman H., who is in
business in that state. Mr. Kenyon later mar-
ried Myra Burdick, and they have one daughter,
Laura C., who is now a student in the Shorb
Convent. Mr. Kenyon bought a lot and erected
a handsome home at No. 642 Cedar avenue. He
is a stockholder in the new hotel and is a mem-
ber of the Board of Trade, taking an active in-
terest in the progress of the city, whose future
he believes to be unsurpassed throughout this
section of the country. He supports all church
and charitable movements, and in his political
convictions gives his support to the advancement
of Republican principles, having always been
active in his endorsement of this party.
JOSEPH H. WHITWORTH. Prominent
among the pioneer settlers of Los Angeles county
was the late Joseph H. Whitworth, who during
the forty or more years that he resided near Sher-
man was actively identified with the development
and growth of the place, whether relating to its
agricultural, financial or social progress. A
keen-sighted, practical man, possessing great
business tact and judgment, he was exceptionally
fortunate in his agricultural operations, becom-
ing owner of various tracts of valuable land, and
acquiring a valuable property. A native of Eng-
1and, he was born February 25, 1847, a son of
James and Mary Ann (Hilton) Whitworth, who
joined the Mormons in their native land, and sub-
sequently immigrated with their family to the
United States, settling first with the Mormons in
Utah, from there coming to California in 1857.
A more extended history of the parents may be
found elsewhere in this volume, in connection
with the sketch of James H. Whitworth, another
SO11. *
Coming with his parents to this country when
six years of age, Joseph H. Whitworth lived at
Nephi, Utah, three years or more, and then came
with the family to California, settling first in
San Bernardino county, from there coming in
I862 to Los Angeles county. He assisted his
father in clearing and improving the land which
he bought, lying near Sherman, doing his full
share of the pioneer labor incidental to life in a
new country. With his brother James and his
father, he carried on general farming on the
home ranch until his father retired from active
work. Assuming then the charge of the home-
stead estate, a large part of which he bought, he
continued ranching for a number of years, be-
coming one of the leading farmers and stockmen
of this vicinity. He accumulated considerable
wealth, obtaining title to one hundred and ninety-
five acres formerly included in the parental ranch
and of six hundred and fifty acres of land located
two and One-half miles above Santa Monica, on
the coast. He also acquired valuable property in
Santa Monica, becoming owner of the Whitworth
block, and of five lots and three houses. In 1899
he turned the care of his ranch over to his three
Sons, Robert Gray, Joseph William and Alfred
Henry, and thereafter lived retired from act-
ive pursuits until his death, November 18, 1904.
He was a man of sterling character, an active
member of the Republican party, and a strong
advocate.of temperance.
On April 19, 1871, Mr. Whitworth married
Elizabeth Cunningham, who was born in Eng-
land, September 16, 1841, came to the United
States in July, 1870, settling in Los Angeles
county, her family here renewing their acquaint- .
ance with the Whitworth family, which they
knew in England. Seven sons blessed the union
of Mr. and Mrs. Whitworth, one of whom died
in infancy, while six are living, namely: James
Cunningham, Robert Gray, Arthur, Joseph Will-
iam, Alfred Henry and Walter. All of the sons
are living with their widowed mother on the
home ranch, in the management of which they
assist, adding each year to the substantial im–
provements already inaugurated.
Mr. and Mrs. Whitworth were members of the
Methodist Episcopal Church for many years.
HOMER LAUGHLIN. The name of Homer
Laughlin is synonymous with all that has stood
for the highest development in the city of Los
Angeles during the last decade, and to those who
know him it speaks eloquently of the worth and
works of the man. A true cosmopolitan, he is
equally at home in the city of his adoption or the
state of his birth, his loyalty to the one in no wise
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
619
detracting from his loyalty to the other; his
friends of the west, although of more recent ac-
quisition, holding the same place in his regard
as his friends of the east. Los Angeles is proud
to claim him as a representative citizen and place
his name in the list of those who have done most
for the promotion of enterprises calculated to de-
velop the resources of the city.
Scotch-Irish ancestors have given to Mr.
Laughlin the salient points of his character, the
name being to-day a prominent one in western
Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio. James Laugh-
lin, the grandfather of Homer Laughlin, was born
in Maryland, where he spent his young manhood,
eventually removing to Pennsylvania, where his
death occurred when past middle life. He was
survived by his wife, formerly Nancy Johnson,
a native of Pennsylvania, and who died in Ohio.
In their family was a son, Matthew, who was
born in Beaver county, Pa., March 31, 1799, and
in the vicinity of his birthplace was reared to
years of maturity. Inheriting the instinct which
brought to American shores the first emigrating
ancestor, he became a pioneer of Ohio in the days
when the middle west was as unknown as the
Pacific coast at the time of the discovery of gold
in California. He was a man of strong business
ability, high principles and the qualities which
make the best type of citizen, and although he
never enjoyed the advantages which belonged to
the era of his children, yet he acquired a broad
fund of information and a financial success in
life. He was known for the period of forty-five
years as postmaster, miller and merchant at
Little Beaver, Columbiana county, Ohio, and
finally he removed to East Liverpool, where, his
death occurred in 1876. His wife, formerly
Maria Moore, was a native of Columbiana coun-
ty, Ohio, her birth occurring in 1814. She sur-
vived her husband and later went to Pittsburg,
Pa., where she died June 19, 1888. Her father,
Thomas Moore, was born in the vicinity of Bel-
fast, Ireland, where he received an excellent edu-
cation. Of an enterprising disposition he de-
cided to seek a fortune in the western world and
accordingly came to the United States. In the
employ of the government as a civil engineer he
was sent to Ohio when it formed a part of the
Northwestern Territory. He continued to make
that section his home until his death, which oc-
curred in Columbiana county at the age of sixty-
six years. He married in America Nancy Lyon,
who was born in Beaver county, Pa., and died in
Ohio at an advanced age.
Homer Laughlin was born in Columbiana
county, Ohio, March 23, 1843, and in the vicin-
ity of his home received a primary education in
the common schools. Later his studies in the
Neville Institute were interrupted by the call to
arms for the maintenance of the Union. On the
12th of July, 1862, he offered his services, en-
listing in Company A, One Hundred and Fif-
teenth Ohio Infantry, under Capt. H. R. Hill,
and immediately accompanied his regiment to
the front, remaining actively engaged until the
close of the war. In Murfreesboro, Tenn., he
was mustered out of service and received his
final discharge in Cleveland, Ohio, July 7, 1865,
after which he returned to his home and as-
sumed once more the duties of civic life. Dur-
ing the years which he had spent in the army
he had passed from boyhood into manhood and
thus his outlook upon life and its responsibilities
had perceptibly changed. Following his dis-
charge from the army he engaged in the oil
regions of Pennsylvania in the boring of wells,
putting down twelve in a little more than a year.
Deciding then to take up active business life he
went to New York City and together with a
brother began the importation of china from
England, which was disposed of here through
a wholesale and retail trade. After three years
he returned to Ohio and still in partnership with
his brother built the first white-ware pottery es-
tablished in East Liverpool, Ohio, and together
the two conducted their interests until 1877. He
then purchased the entire business interests and
since that time has carried on a constantly in-
creasing trade under the name The Homer
Laughlin China Company. The demand for this
ware has called for constant improvement in
method and equipment and is now numbered
among the important enterprises not alone in
the city where it is located, but of the United
States, in that the product is shipped to every
state in the Union. In 1876 he received the
highest prize at the Centennial Exposition and
in 1879 his work was recognized at the Cincin-
nati Exposition by the presentation of a gold
medal, and in 1893 he was awarded three dip-
lomas and a medal at the Columbian Exposition
at Chicago, Ill., for both plain and decorated
Ware.
The business experience of Mr. Laughlin has
well fitted him to pass judgment upon the op-
portunities presented by any section of the coun-
try, and when in 1894 he purchased property in
Los Angeles it might well be considered a move-
1ment after thoughtful and mature deliberation.
Subsequently events have proven the wisdom
of his choice and have brought to him large
financial returns for the money invested in
realty in this city. Three years later he estab-
lished his home in Los Angeles and at that time
organized a corporation known as the Homer
Laughlin China Companv to carry on that busi-
ness in East Liverpool, Ohio. In 1897 and 1898
he erected the magnificent structure known as
the Homer Laughlin building, located on Broad-
way between Third and Fourth streets, which
620
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
was the first fireproof building in Southern Cali-
fornia and is equipped with all modern con-
veniences. Up to 1905 the building was ade-
quate for the demands made upon that location,
but in that year he built a re-inforced concrete
fireproof annex, which continues his building
from Broadway through to Hill street, and giv-
ing him a depth of three hundred and twenty-
Seven feet and a frontage of one hundred and
twenty-one feet, both on Broadway and Hill
Street. This was the first building of its kind
ever erected in Los Angeles and indeed on the
Pacific coast, being entirely of re-inforced con-
crete, faced with white enamel terra cotta, and
absolutely fireproof. In addition to his building
Operations he has taken a prominent part in
other enterprises, serving as director in the
American National Bank and various organiza-
tions. He served as a member of a committee
of three to select and purchase a lot for the new
Chamber of Commerce building, and this pur-
pose accomplished he became a member of the
building committee which erected the magnifi-
cent structure now occupied by this department
of the city’s activities.
The home of Mr. Laughlin is presided over
by his wife, formerly Miss Cornelia Battenberg,
a woman of gracious presence, cultured and
refined, and a welcome addition to the social life
of Los Angeles. Their union has been blessed by
the birth of two children, Homer, Jr., a chemical
engineer and a graduate of Stanford university,
and Gwendolen Virginia. His home and inter-
ests in this city, Mr. Laughlin has given per-
sonal time and attention to the duties which he
considered of vital importance in citizenship.
Politically he upholds the principles of the Re-
publican party and has always been a stanch sup-
porter of this platform. He is known and held in
, the highest esteem by a large majority of the
former and present day leaders of the party, dur-
ing his long residence in Ohio numbering among
his warmest friends the late William McKinley,
an attachment which continued unabated up to
the time of the latter's death. Mr. Laughlin was
chairman of the reception committee when the
late President McKinley, with his wife and cabi-
net, visited Los Angeles, and while here were the
guests of Mr. Laughlin. For several years he
held the presidency of the United States Potters'
Association and for twelve years served as chair-
1man of the executive committee. In his fra-
ternal relations Mr. Laughlin has been associated
for many years with the Masonic organization, as
a member of the Allegheny Commandery of
Knights Templar visiting Europe in 1871 with a
partly of forty representatives, known as the First
Crusaders.
In summing up the life of Mr. Laughlin it
would be impossible to close without brief men-
tion of Some of his personal characteristics, for it
is through their exercise that he has won his high
position financially and socially. A man of strong
intelligence and mental power, he has still not
allowed this to be the dominant force of his life,
but with its cultivation has also developed a
kindly personality, a ready and stanch friendship,
and a citizenship whose influence for good is felt
wherever his name is known.
JOHN WILDASIN. When Mr. Wildasin
came to his present location little less than a
quarter of a century ago the land was a vast
barley field, holding forth small inducement,
but as he was a man of indomitable spirit he
lost no time in beginning its improvement.
The original tract comprised forty acres, for
which he paid $125 per acre, some of which
has since been sold either in acre tracts or in
city lots, a sale of ten acres recently bringing
$1,000 per acre. He has reserved twenty-one
acres for his own use, and what is not planted
to garden produce is devoted to raising alfalfa.
The ranch is located just three-quarters of a
mile southwest of the city limits, and is bound-
ed by Slauson and Normandy avenues, he hav-
ing laid out Wildasin street through the tract.
Born in Muscatine county, Iowa, October
I2, 1850, John Wildasin is a son of Samuel
and Catherine (Menche) Wildasin, the former
a native of Pennsylvania, where until 1850 he
had spent his life. In 1851 he settled on gov-
ernment land in Muscatine county, Iowa,
which he improved and cultivated for many
years, during which time he became known
as one of the wealthiest men in that locality.
Subsequently he went to Wilton, that state,
there opening a bank of which he himself was
president, a position which he was filling at
the time of his death in 1884, when he was
seventy years of age. He left an estate valued
at between $50,000 and $60,000, all of which
accumulation was the result of his own efforts,
for he started out to make his own way empty-
handed. The ancestry on the paternal side
can be traced back in direct line to Revolu-
tionary times, and was of Dutch origin. On
the maternal side the family is of German ex-
traction, and it is thought that the earliest
emigrant settled in Maryland, for the family
flourished there for many generations. Mrs.
Wildasin was born and reared in Maryland,
but soon after her marriage removed to Iowa,
in which state her death occurred when she
was in her eighty-seventh year. Both herself
and husband were members of the Reformed
Church. -
Until reaching his majority John Wildasin
remained at home and gave his services to his


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
623
father, and when he was twenty-six inherited
from the latter two hundred acres of the home-
stead. There he conducted quite an exten-
sive business in the raising of horses and cat-
tle for about eight years, when, in 1884, after
disposing of his interests in Iowa, he came to
California and purchased his present property.
October 12, 1878, John Wildasin and Mag-
dalena Crusius were united in marriage in Illi-
nois. Mrs. Wildasin was born in Bavaria,
Germany, where her father, George Crusius,
was a farmer, his death occurring there when
he was sixty-two years old. His wife, Louisa
Guth in maidenhood, was also a native of
Bavaria, and some time after his death brought
her family to the United States, in 1863, set-
tling in Pennsylvania. Two years later she
died in Ohio, when in her forty-fifth year.
After her mother's death Mrs. Wildasin was
reared in Illinois, and in 1884 came to Cali-
fornia with her husband. Three children have
blessed the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Wilda-
sin: Louesa, Florence Nightingale and Mag-
dalena May, all of whom are at home with
their parents. Although Mr. Wildasin ap-
proves of Republican principles he is not an
active participant in party affairs, and the only
fraternal order to which he belongs is the In-
dependent Order of Foresters. Both himself
and wife are members of the Methodist Epis-
copal Church, assisting in its upbuilding both
by personal work and by generous donations
of their means.
*E=-º-º-º-º-
FRANCISCO PICO. The name of Pico is
inseparably connected with the history of Cali-
fornia since the very earliest days when the .
country was still under the jurisdiction of the
Mexican government, and Governor Pico held
office under that country's rule. One of the
most prominent and best known representa-
tives of this illustrious family in the present day
is Francisco Pico, who is now engaged as a
ranchman on a very large scale in the San Ja-
cinto valley, his three thousand acres of highly
improved land being known as Casa Loma
rancho, and is located four and one-half miles
northwest of the town of San Jacinto. Mr.
Pico raises some very fine stock of the Black
Polled breed and in addition to the land which
he owns rents four thousand acres from J. W.
Wolfskill.
The birth of Mr. Pico occurred February 16,
1844, in Sonoma county, Cal., he being the son
of José Antonia and Magdaline (Baca) Pico,
the father having been born in 1797 at San
Gabriel Mission, Cal., and the mother being a
native of New Mexico. The elder Pico, who
was a brother of Governor Pico, became a lieu-
communicants of the Catholic Church.
tenant in the Mexican army, in which he
served until 1849, when he removed to the San
Margaretta rancho near Oceanside and en-
gaged in stock-raising there until his death in
1872, at the age of seventy-five years. The
mother died when sixty-three years of age, in
1891. Francisco Pico received a very fine edu-
cation, having been sent first to a private Cath-
olic school at San Diego and later entered a
private school in Los Angeles. All of his edu-
cation was in the Spanish language, which was
then universally used in California.
After his education was completed he as-
sisted his father in the management of the San
Margaretta ranch until 1868, when he pur-
chased the land which he now owns. It was
then entirely unimproved and had only an old
adobe house on it. Mr. Pico built modern and
commodious buildings thereon and purchased
all necessary machinery for the cultivation and
harvesting of crops. In 1874 he removed his
residence to Los Angeles and established the
first wholesale butchering business carried on
in that city. It was located on the Downey
road at first, but he afterwards purchased what
was known as the five-mile house, where Mr.
Myer's slaughter house is now located. In 1888
Mr. Pico disposed of the business and went to
San Diego, where he engaged in the wholesale
hay and grain business for two years. He is
also the owner of a large tract of real estate
located near San Diego. Among his other
property interests is stock in the San Jacinto
National Bank.
The marriage of Mr. Pico occurred in San
Diego, November 8, 1884, when Dolores
Aguirre, a native of that city, became his wife.
They became the parents of four children, two
sons and two daughters, Clarence, Albert, Ger-
trude and Ruth. The family adhere to the re-
ligious faith of their fathers, being deyoted
Mr.
Pico is a fine old gentleman, well known all
over Southern California, and admired for his
business ability and estimable personal quali-
ties. -
GEORGE T. COCHRAN. Few names have
been more prominently identified with the devel-
opment of natural resources in Southern Cali-
fornia than that of George I., Cochran, profes-
sional, financial and industrial factor during the
period of his seventeen years’ residence in the
city of Los Angeles. Credit is due him for the
efforts he has put forth in his association with
important movements; the success achieved is
a part of the man—native ability, perserverance
and energy—combined with the conservatism
made progressive by decision of character, and
624
HISTORICAI, AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
by the demonstration of these qualities he holds
the position he has thus won.
Mr. Cochran fortunately brought to bear upon
his lifework qualities inherited from a family
whose name has been made honorable by deeds
of various members. His father, the Rev.
George Cochran, D. D., of Toronto, Canada,
was a prominent minister in the Methodist Epis-
copal Church, by which he was sent as a mis-
sionary to Japan in 1873. George I. Cochran
was then ten years old, his birth having occurred
in the vicinity of Toronto July 1, 1863, and there-
after he spent six years in the eastern country.
Upon the return of the family to Toronto in
1879 the elder man resumed his work in that
city and his son entered the Toronto University,
and was later called to the bar at Osgoode Hall,
Toronto, where he began the practice of his
profession under the favorable circumstances
engendered by his native qualities, and education
acquired by application and will, and the position
of esteem and respect which he had already won
among the younger generation of the citizens of
that city. In March, 1888, he came to California,
and with the decision of character which has
ever distinguished his career made his interests
at once parallel with those of his adopted State
and city. Opportunity is for the man of action
and hence when the time came for Mr. Cochran
to assume a prominent place in the affairs of
Los Angeles he unhesitatingly faced the respon-
sibilities and fulfilled the trust which he had
won during the preceding five years. This was
in 1893, at the time of the financial crisis, when
Mr. Cochran was attorney for the Los Angeles
Clearing House and directed its legal affairs and
counseled its business interests through the panic
which prevailed in all business circles. Since
that time no citizen of Los Angeles has been
more prominently identified with its growth and
upbuilding. In the organization of the Broad-
way Bank and Trust Company he was a most
important factor and has held continuously the
office of vice-president since its inception. This
institution has become one of the most important
in the monetary affairs of the city, its growing
demands calling for an enlargement of the
counting room, which occupies the larger part
of the Broadway side of the imposing Bradbury
building.
In addition to a nominal connection with the
practice of law as a member of the firm of
Cochran. William, Goudge, Baker & Chandler,
Mr. Cochran gives much of his time and atten-
tion to the concerns of the corporation known
as the Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company
of California, the largest life insurance company
in the west, with an income of over $4,OOO,OOO
per year, and serves as its president, in active
charge of its business. Mr. Cochran is also in-
terested as a director in the Los Angeles Trust
Company, First National Bank of Los Angeles
and the Rosedale Cemetery Association (vice-
president of the latter), which owns one of the
most beautiful plots of ground in the city of
Los Angeles; was for many years Secretary and
director of the United Gas, Electric & Power
Company and was largely instrumental in its
consolidation with the Edison Electric Com-
pany; and was also one of the chief factors in
the enterprise known as the Seaside Water Com-
pany, which supplies water for Long Beach,
San Pedro and Wilmington for irrigation and
domestic purposes, while recently he has taken
a prominent part in the opening up of the addi-
tion to Los Angeles, known as the West Adams
Heights tract. This achievement has been of
such vast importance in the opening up of a
beautiful residence district to the people of the
city that Mr. Cochran has once more won for
himself the unqualified commendation of the
populace. He also has some interests in Santa
Barbara, “the city by the sea,” where he acted
as director in the street railway company, while
the Artesian Water Company, a local organiza-
tion that has been expending money with a
lavish hand in developing water for near-by
towns, is indebted to Mr. Cochran for legal and
business advice at all board meetings.
Soon after his arrival in California Mr. Coch-
ran was united in marriage with Miss Alice Mc-
Clung, a native of Canada and a friend of
several years' standing. She died June 16, 1905.
Mrs. Cochran presided with gracious dignity in
the beautiful home which they established on
Harvard boulevard, a residence reflecting with-
in and without the cultured and refined tastes
of the family. Their home life was permeated,
not with the spirit of self-seeking, but with a
spirituality which had come through long asso-
ciation with high ideals. Their membership was
enrolled in the Westlake Methodist Episcopal
Church, which Mr. Cochran was instrumental in
founding, and since then he has been one of
the most important factors in its progress and
upbuilding. He was a member of a commission
of fifteen appointed by the General Methodist
Conference to consider and report a plan, if
feasible, to consolidate the big benevolences of
the church, and the report was almost unan-
imously adopted by the 'succeeding General Con-
ference. He also takes a keen and active in-
terest in all educational matters, seeking to ad-
vance the best interests of the educational in-
stitutions in Southern California. He is one of
the trustees and also treasurer of the University
of Southern California, and one of its most
liberal supporters. He has been far too busy
a man to seek political prominence and although
a stanch advocate of Republican principles has
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
625
confined his interests along these lines to the
support he could give the men and measures of
his party. He has always been, however, a
Strong advocate of the necessity of the moral
obligation of citizenship and has never shirked
a responsibility placed before him, a part of his
work being done as a member of the executive
committee of the county central committee for
many years.
In the truest sense of the word Mr. Cochran
is a Californian, for his interests are one with
those of the beautiful state he has made his
home, and in the past years he has spared neither
time, expense nor personal attention in his efforts
to advance the general welfare. And Los
Angeles has few citizens who have done more
for the general weal than he. Few progressive
or moral movements inaugurated in recent years
have lacked his support, nor has any enterprise
to which he has given his consideration failed of
success. He is truly a representative of the type
of men who have made Los Angeles what it is
to-day, strong in mentality, forceful in the dom-
inant qualities of manhood, and withal so far
removed in thought and deed from self seeking
and self aggrandizement that he has been en-
abled to wield more than a passing influence in
contemporary affairs.
COL. GEORGE F. ROBINSON. From
the time of the breaking out of the Civil war
until the year 1896, a period of thirty-five
years, Colonel Robinson was in the service of
his country almost continuously. During the
early part of his career he experienced all of
the rigors and hardships of the battlefield,
being wounded a number of times. After the
close of the war he was retained in the gov-
ernment employ, first holding the position of
clerk in the war department at Washington,
D. C., and later was made paymaster in the
army. It was in this latter capacity that he
came to the west and saw for the first time
the land of eternal sunshine in all of its beau-
ty. The climate was in such direct contrast to
that with which he had been familiar in the east
that he then and there determined to spend
the remaining years of his life in a climate
less rigorous than that prevailing in his native
state of Maine. It was this thought which
prompted him to purchase a ranch in Pomona,
the same on which he has made his home since
retiring to private life in 1896.
As has been intimated Colonel Robinson is
a native of Maine, born in Hartford, Oxford
county, August 13, 1832, and is a son of Isaac
W. and Deborah (Thomas) Robinson, both also
natives of that northern state. The mother
died when in her thirtieth year, and thereafter
the father again married. He passed away at
the age of fifty-five years, having become the
father of seven children, only one of whom,
our subject, resides in California. While he
was still a young child his parents removed
from Hartford to Rumford, and it was in the
latter place that he first attended school.
Subsequently he was privileged to attend Phil-
lips Academy at Phillips, Me., following this
course by a term at Spencerian Business Col-
lege in Washington, D. C. It was with this
training that he returned to his native county
and took up farming and also carried on a lum-
ber business, a dual occupation which was not
only congenial, but was returning to him a
fair income on both his investment and labor.
The breaking out of the war made a change
in his plans which he had not anticipated and
which for the time being put an end to his
private interests. Enlisting in the service as
a private in Company B, Eighth Maine Vol-
unteer Infantry, he served two years. While
engaged in the battle of Petersburg he was
severely wounded, May 20, 1864, having in
the mean time served in all of the principal
battles in and around Richmond. During the
time spent in the hospital while recovering
from his injuries the war came to a close.
During his convalescence Colonel Robin-
son was wounded in defending the life of Sec-
retary Seward, who himself was dangerously
wounded in April, 1865, when President Lin-
coln as assassinated. In 1865 he was given
a position in the treasury department at
Washington, D. C. After serving in this po-
sition for two years Colonel Robinson re-
signed and returned to his farm in Maine, but
it was not long before he received another
appointment from Washington, this time as
clerk in the war department, which he filled
acceptably for eleven years, from 1868 until
1879. Promotion and greater honor came to
him in the latter year, when he was appoint-
ed major and paymaster in the United States
army, a position which took him into a num-
ber of the distant states, especially into Tex-
as, New Mexico, Colorado and California.
With no other locality was he so favorably
impressed as with Los Angeles county, and
as advancing years were making his step less
elastic he was more than ever in favor of set-
tling down here rather than to resume life in
the east. In 1892 he purchased a twenty-acre
ranch in Pomona which was set out entirely
to oranges, and of which his son has had en-
tire charge since 1896. In that year Colonel
Robinson was retired, settling upon his ranch,
where with his wife and youngest son he is
spending his latter years in peace and quiet,
626
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
the just reward for faithful and unstinted serv-
1C e. -
In 1865 Colonel Robinson was united in mar-
riage with . Miss R. Aurora Clark, who was
also a native of Maine, born in Springfield,
April 26, 1841. Two children blessed this
marriage, George Prentiss, who is now em-
ployed in the city engineer's office in Los An-
geles, and Edmund Clark, who lives on the
ranch and assumes its cares and responsibili-
ties. As is natural Colonel Robinson is a
member of the Grand Army of the Republic
and also of the military order of the Loyal
Legion, membership in the latter consisting
only of army officers and their sons. Fra-
ternally he is a Mason, belonging to the blue
lodge and chapter at Washington, D. C., and
the commandery at Pomona. Politically he
is a Republican, and during his younger days,
while living in his native state, he filled a
number of local offices. For over thirty years
he has been a member of the Universalist
Church, while his wife is a member of the
Christian Science Church.
COL. ASA. W. WOOD FORD. Colonel
Woodford’s family has been a prominent one
since the early colonial days, his father, John H.,
having been a pioneer and native planter of old
Virginia; he was a near relative of Gen. William
Woodford of Revolutionary fame, and also a
relative of General Howe. His mother, who was
in maidenhood Nancy Minear, was of French
descent, and a native of Virginia, her ancestors
having also served in the Revolutionary war.
May 20, 1833, Colonel Woodford was born in
Barbour county, Va., (which was later made
West Virginia), and reared upon a plantation.
He was educated in the primitive log cabin
schools and upon reaching maturity, he engaged
in the stock business and farming, his herd of
finely . bred Hereford cattle having been famous
all over the country. He also became prominent
and influential in the exporting of beef cattle,
and during the years 1892, 1893 and 1894 shipped
some of the finest consignments that left the ports
of New York and Baltimore for European mar-
kets. His farm, which was situated near Wes-
ton, W. Va., was later found to be underlaid
with both coal and oil. He still owns a farm
near Weston and another one in Barbour county,
in the same state.
In Democratic circles Colonel Woodford was
very prominent in West Virginia and filled va-
rious important offices in county and state. He
served two terms as sheriff of Lewis countv and
was elected to the state 1egislature in 1868. As
a member of that body he helped in the forming
of the official code of that state, and in 1892 was
the Democratic nominee for governor. For a
number of years past he has traveled extensively
in Europe, South America, the Hawaiian Islands
and his own country, his first visit to California
having been made seventeen years ago. Since
I903 he has been a permanent resident of the
state, having located in Elsinore that year. Fra-
ternally he is affiliated with the Masonic lodge.
A. BONDIETTI. Practical and altogether
useful qualities are disclosed in the results
achieved by A. Bondietti, a well-known Swiss-
American rancher of the vicinity of Guada-
loupe, who is the owner of a ranch of one
hundred and sixty acres, who rents five hun-
dred and forty acres, and who is actively en-
gaged in raising beets, beans, potatoes and
hay, and in the management of a model dairy.
Since purchasing his present home about
twelve years ago Mr. Bondietti has exhibited
untiring zeal in its improvement, and has
studied and applied the most approved agri-
cultural methods. His buildings are modern
and substantial, the working life of his imple-
ments is lengthened by proper housing and
care, and his fences and incidentals exhibit
appreciation of detail and oversight.
Should misfortune overtake him as a farm-
er, Mr. Bondietti can turn his attention to
stone cutting or dairying with reasonable as-
surance of success. The former occupation be-
came his own in Switzerland, where he was
born January 21, 1851, and where he lived
until coming to the United States in 1879, at
the age of twenty-eight. His parents, who
were farmers, died in their Alpine home many
years ago, the former at the age of seventy-
two, and the latter at the age of seventy,
There were but two sons in the family, and
both live in the vicinity of Guadaloupe. A.
Bondietti abandoned stone cutting on this side
of the water, substituting for it dairying, which
he followed for several years in Guadaloupe,
or until purchasing his present ranch. His
marriage to Miss Dora La Franchi, a native
of Switzerland, occurred in 1882, and three
children have come to brighten the hospitable
ranch home: Adeline, wife of Virgil Lanotti;
Elvezia and Lillie. .
Mr. Bondietti has long been prominent in
local Republican politics, and for years has
promoted the cause of education as a member
of the school board. His genial manner and
spirit of good will have drawn to him many
friends and made him a welcome member of
the Guadaloupe Lodge of Odd Fellows, with
which he has been connected many years. He
is an honorable, upright gentleman, a consid-
erate neighbor and public-spirited citizen.


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
629
CLARENCE PAUL MACY. The Macy
family were early pioneers of Cedar county,
Iowa, where the grandfather, Samuel, was one
of the first settlers and lived there until the
time of his death. The father, Joseph A.
Macy, was born in Ohio and went to Iowa
with his father, engaging in farming in Cedar
county until 1862, when he enlisted in Com-
pany G, Thirty-fifth Iowa Volunteer Infantry.
While on duty he contracted a cold which re-
sulted fatally and he died at Cairo, Ill., in .
1863. In 1854, in Ohio, he had married. Miss
Lucinda Paxson, who was born in that state,
the daughter of Heston and Rachel (Ingledue)
Paxson, the latter the daughter of Blakeston
Ingledue. Heston Paxson was born in
Pennsylvania, from there removing to Co-
lumbiana county, Ohio, later to Stark county,
near Alliance, and finally to Cedar county,
Iowa, where he died. His wife died in Ohio.
The mother of Clarence Paul Macy had three
children when her husband died and after
rearing her family she married Ryal Strang,
who died in Iowa. She is now residing in
Elsinore. Of her three children by her first
husband Clarence Paul is the only one living.
Edwin T. died in Rialto, Cal., and Lillian R.,
died in Iowa.
The birth of Mr. Macy occurred in 1859,
in Springdale, Cedar county, Iowa, and when
still a young boy he was taken to Marshall
county, where he lived on a farm and attended
the public schools until thirteen years old.
He then began farming for himself and con-
tinued to be so occupied until 1880, when he
made a trip through Missouri, Kansas, Ne-
braska, and Iowa, upon his return to the lat-
ter state buying a farm of one hundred and
sixty acres in Hardin county upon which he
settled. During a part of the time until 1886
he was engaged in contracting for road grad-
ing work, and in that year came to Elsinore,
his brother, E. T., having located here,three
years previously. During the following four
years he engaged in teaming, hauling clay and
coal, and in 1892 purchased the general mer-
chandise store of C. S. Prince and has con-
ducted the business ever since. The store is
located on the corner of Main street and Gra-
ham avenue, in the Victoria brick front block,
the firm owning the corner and block I35XI2O
feet. Mr. Macy is also engaged in farming
and raises grain at Wildomar, has large hay
fields, buys and sells hay and grain, which he
ships to Colton and Olive Mills, and also de-
votes a part of his time to the horse breeding
business, and buying and selling horses. He
is the owner of a fine imported bay Percheron
stallion named Favoria. At various times Mr.
Macy has conducted a livery stable and also
two terms as noble grand of the
engaged in the blacksmith business. He has
quite extensive property interests, having
built a warehouse at the railroad tracks, and
owns a comfortable residence in Elsinore on
the corner of Chestnut and King streets.
Mr. Macy's marriage to Miss Sarah J.
Moyer, a native of Pennsylvania, and the
daughter of Michael Moyer, who settled in
Hardin county, Iowa, occurred in that county.
Her father served during the Civil war in a
Pennsylvania and later in an Illinois regiment,
and now resides in Iowa, and is in good health.
Mr. and Mrs. Macy became the parents of
eight children, namely: Justin Algernon, who
formerly managed the store in Elsinore and
now resides in Los Angeles; Pansy Gertrude,
now managing the store; Ozro Floyd, Rulief
Roy, Myron Earl, Pearl, Irvin and Alda
Vivian. Mr. Macy is a member of the Inde-
pendent Order of Odd Fellows, having served
Elsinore
Lodge. Politically he affiliates with the Re-
publican party.
FRANK W. THOMAS, M. D. A man of
large undertakings and with accomplishments in
proportion may in a word represent the life of
Dr. Thomas. He came from Ohio to Claremont
in 1899 and opened an office for the practice of
his profession, and his name is now a household
word not only in. this town, but throughout the
country roundabout, where his professional ser-
vices take him. Since 1901 he has also main-
tained an office in the Union block, Pomona,
caring for his patients in the last named city
in the afternoons. Even with the arduous duties
and constant mental strain of his profession Dr.
Thomas has not been indifferent to the well-
being of his home town, and indeed one might
seach long and unsuccessfully to find a citizen
more keenly alive to its best interests as judged
by the various projects with which his name is
associated. The credit for the present success-
ful telephone system in use in Claremont is in
large measure due to the efforts of Dr. Thomas,
who, with others, organized in 1903 the Pomona
Valley Telephone and Telegraph Union, of which
he is now the president. The value of the en-
terprise to the citizens of Pomona valley may
readily be recognized, for in the three years of
its operation the list of subscribers has reached
over eighteen hundred connections with the cen-
tral office at Pomona. Dr. Thomas is also a direc-
tor in the following stock companies of Clare-
mont: The Citizens Light and Water Company,
the Claremont Lumber Company, the Claremont
Inn Company, and the Oak Park Cemetery Asso-
ciation, he being president of the two last named
companies at this writing. He also owns consid-
38
630
HISTORICAI, AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
erable real estate, having laid out two additions
to the town of Claremont. His citizenship in the
neighboring city of Pomona is no less active than
in Claremont, where he is a stockholder in the
Citizens’ State Bank, the First National Bank,
the Pomona Building and Loan Association,
Pomona Valley Hospital and other enterprises.
The Thomas family is of Welsh descent, and
the grandfather, Griffith Thomas, is the first
of the family of whom we have any definite
knowledge, although he was not the first repre-
sentative in the new world, for he was born in
New York state. He was a public-spirited and
influential citizen and in the war of I812 was
colonel of a regiment; and later was warden of
the Ohio state penitentiary. His marriage with
Miss Sarah Mickey allied him with a family of
Scotch-Irish lineage, whose early members were
represented in the Revolutionary war. Among
the children of Griffith and Sarah (Mickey)
Thomas was Daniel W., the oldest son, who was
born in Columbus, Ohio, near which city he
passed his entire life as a successful farmer, an
influential man, and public-spirited citizen, pass-
ing away upon his farm there at the age of seven-
ty-eight years. His wife before her marriage,
Laura Hutchinson, was born in Franklin county,
Ohio, the daughter of Amaziah Hutchinson. Of
English descent, Mr. Hutchinson was born in
Pennsylvania, and while Ohio was still con-
sidered remote territory, he removed thither and
grew up with the country, for. many years own-
ing a farm and a mill on the Scioto river. Seven
children were born to Daniel and Mrs. Thomas,
but of these only three are now living, two
daughters, residing in Ohio, and the subject of
this sketch, next to the youngest child.
Prank W. Thomas was born near Dublin,
Franklin county, Ohio, September 4, 1853, and
was brought up as a farmer's son. Agriculture,
however, appealed to him less strongly than did
a professional life, and after finishing his com-
mon school studies he entered the preparatory
department of Ohio Wesleyan University, and in
1874 entered Wooster University, graduating
therefrom four years later with the degree of
Ph. B. Without loss of time he entered. Star-
ling Medical College, Columbus, Ohio, as a stu-
dent of Dr. Starling Loving, dean of the faculty,
and in 1880, graduated from that institution with
the degree of M. D. Returning to his home com-
munity he practiced his profession in Dublin,
Ohio, for two years, and then went to Marion, in
the same state; during the seventeen years of his
residence in that place he built up a large and
lucrative practice and at the same time was sur-
geon for the Erie Railroad Company and several
manufacturing establishments. His removal from
the east occurred in 1897, in which year he went
to Colorado on account of failing health, spend-
ing two years in Denver, Pueblo and other places
in that state. In seeking a still milder climate,
he came to California in 1899 and located at
Claremont, where he established himself as a
medical practitioner as soon as his health was re-
stored. Since then he has had continued success
not only in his profession, but also in his business
ventures, as has been previously noted.
Dr. Thomas' marriage united him with Miss
Mary Lee, who was born in Franklin county,
Ohio, with which commonwealth the Lee family
had been associated for many years. The Eng-
lish immigrant who established the family in the
new world, John Leigh, settled at Ipswich, Mass.,
in 1634. His spelling of the family patronymic
was adhered to for over forty years, but in 1677
was changed to its present form. From this early
immigrant the line is traced down to Mrs.
Thomas' grandfather, Capt. Timothy Lee, born
in Massachusetts, and who during the war of
I812 served first as a private, and later as a
captain. He it was who established the family
in Ohio, settling at Central College, where as a
farmer and miller he spent the remainder of his
long and useful life. Besides grain mills he
owned woolen mills, and was an extensive man-
ufacturer of cloth. He was an important fac-
tor in the material welfare of Central College, and
to him is given the credit of establishing this
educational institution in the town. He mar-
ried Rhoda Taylor, the daughter of Orson Tay-
lor, a Revolutionary war patriot. Theron Lee
was born in Central College, Ohio, of the mar-
riage of Timothy and Rhoda (Taylor) Lee, and
he too was a farmer and owned grist and woolen
mills in that town. During the Civil war he serv-
ed valiantly in an Ohio regiment, becoming cap-
tain of his company, and as such was honorably
discharged on account of physical disability. He
passed away in the city of his birth in 1872.
Annis Fuller, as Mrs. Lee was known in her
maidenhood, was born in Worthington, Ohio,
the daughter of Alvin Fuller of Monson, Mass.,
who established the family in Ohio. The wife of
Alvin Fuller was Elizabeth Wilson before her
marriage, and both passed away in Ohio, while
their daughter, Mrs. Lee, died in Claremont,
Cal., in 1905. Three children originally com-
prised the family of Theron and Annis (Fuller)
Lee, two of whom are now living; Mary, Mrs.
Thomas, who is a graduate of Mount Holyoke,
(Mass.) Seminary, and Rev. Charles Lee, who
is a graduate of the Ohio Wesleyan University
and of Princeton Seminary, and is now a Pres-
byterian minister in Carbondale, Pa. The mar-
riage of Dr. and Mrs. Thomas has resulted in
the birth of one daughter, Charlotte, who is at-
tending Pomona College. 4.
While in Marion, Ohio, Dr. Thomas was for
ten years a member of the board of education,
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
631
serving as president two terms, and for the past
five years has been a member of the board of
selectmen of Claremont, three years of this
time being chairman of that body. He is always
public-spirited and loyal to all the interests of the
community. Politically he is a Republican. In
1880, while in Ohio, he was made a Mason in
New England Lodge No. 4, at Worthington,
later joined Marion Lodge No. 7o F. & A. M., of
which he was master for five years, and since
coming to the west has been a member of Pomona
Lodge No. 246. He was exalted to the Royal
Arch degree of Masonry in Marion, Ohio, serving
as High Priest of his chapter for two years,
and is now identified with the chapter at Po-
mona. For five years he also served as prelate
of Marion Commandery, K. T., an office which
he now holds in Southern California Comman-
dery No. 37, K. T., at Pomona. He is other-
wise associated fraternally, being a member of
the Modern Woodmen of America of Clare-
mont and the Royal Arcanum. While in Ohio
Dr. Thomas was a member of the Presbyterian
Church, but is now a member of the Congre-
gational Church of Claremont, in which he is
a trustee and was associated as a member of the
building committee in the construction of the ele-
gant new church. In the line of his profession
he is a member of the American Medical Asso-
ciation, State, Southern California, and Pomo-
na Valley medical Societies, serving two years as
president of the latter society, and is also phy-
sician to Pomona College and medical exam-
iner for half a dozen life insurance companies.
He is one of the physicians connected with Po-
mona Valley Hospital as one of its founders, and
is also associated with its training school for
nurses as one of the lecturers. From a perusal
of the foregoing it will be seen that Dr. Thomas
is a very versatile man, to which is added a
thoroughness and penetration which bodes suc-
cess in whatever he undertakes.
WILLIAM VESTAL COFFIN, M. D. The
genealogy of the Coffin family is traced back to
the days of William the Conqueror, among
whose leading generals was Sir Richard Coffin.
In return for his illustrious services at the bat-
tle of Hastings he was tendered a large estate
in Devonshire, where he became feudal lord over
the original inhabitants; the old manor in that
shire is still in the possession of members of the
family. The founder of the race in America
was that noble pioneer, Tristram Coffin, who im-
migrated from Devonshire in 1642 and purchased
Nantucket Island, where many of the descendants
still dwell. During 1654-55 he officiated as a
magistrate in Massachusetts. The next genera-
ation was represented by John Coffin, a lieuten-
ant in the colonial army during the Indian wars.
The heads of the following generations were re-
spectively Samuel, William (I), William (2),
Elihu, Samuel Dwiggins and William Vestal.
(Elihu Coffin married Jane Starbuck, who was
also a descendant of Tristram Coffin through his
daughter, Mary, she having married Nathaniel
Starbuck, thereby becoming the mother of all
American Starbucks.) (Nantucket Records.)
Prior to the war of the Revolution the family
became established in North Carolina, where
during 1773 William Coffin became a pioneer of
Guilford county. In religion a Quaker, like.
others of that society he disapproved of the insti-
tution of slavery and had no slaves on his plan-
tation. The frank expression of his sentiments
in the matter brought upon him the dislike and
even persecution of the lawless element of his
community, but he adhered to his views with
the firmness characteristic of the family in every
relation. Samuel Dwiggins Coffin was born in
Guilford county and in early life found employ-
ment as a foundryman and machinist. How-
ever, his tastes inclined toward the medical pro-
fession and he availed himself of an opportunity
to study with Dr. Dougan Clark of Greensboro,
Guilford county, under whose preceptorship he
gained his primary knowledge of the science.
Later he took the complete course of study in
Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, from
which he was graduated with the degree of M.
D. In those days the central states were attract-
ing the great bulk of emigration and he followed
the drift of colonization toward the Mississippi
valley. Settling at Bloomingdale, Ind., he soon
built up an excellent practice and for twenty
years he lived and labored among the sick of
that region.
Removing from Indiana to Kansas Dr. Sam-
uel D. Coffin practiced medicine in Leavenworth
and in Lawrence for ten years, being in the gov-
ernment service under the old system of caring
for the Indians. His brother, William G., was
superintendent of the central district of Indian
affairs and he acted as physician in the same dis-
trict. On retiring from active professional work
he left Kansas and in 1890 settled in California,
where he lived in quiet contentment, enjoying a
well-earned relaxation from the arduous duties
incident to his profession. In this city his death
occurred on Christmas day of IQ03, when he
was seventy-eight years of age. From his an-
cestors he had inherited the religious faith of
the Friends, to which society he adhered through-
out all of his life. His wife, who bore the maid-
en name of Mary A. Newlin, was born in North
Carolina and now resides at Whittier, aged
eighty-three years. In religion she is connected
with the Society of Friends, and in that faith she
carefully reared her children. Of the six sons
632
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
and daughters comprising her family only John
E. and William Vestal now survive. The latter
was born at New Garden, Guilford county, N. C.,
March 31, 1857, and received excellent advan-
tages in an Indiana school conducted by the So-
ciety of Friends, this institution being Earlham
College, from which, in 1877, he was graduated.
Immediately afterward he took up the study of
medicine in Miami Medical College, Cincinnati,
Ohio, from which he was graduated in 1880 with
the degree of M. D., and an excellent standing
in class work. -
On opening an office for the practice of his
profession Dr. Coffin settled in Fairmount, Kans.,
where he remained until 1882, and then accepted
an appointment as resident physician to the Nez
Perces Indians in northern Idaho. After eigh-
teen months at that agency he was transferred to
the Indian training school at Forest Grove, Ore.
Soon after taking up that work he was appointed
superintendent of the school and superintended
its removal to Chemawa near Salem, Ore., where
he remained as superintendent for two years.
Upon a change in the national administration he
resigned his position and returned to Kansas,
settling in Lawrence. From there in 1890 he
came to California and opened an office in Whit-
tier, where from 1894 to the present time, with
a short intermission, he has been connected with
the state school as physician and assistant Super-
tendent. Like his forefathers he is of the Quak-
er faith, firm in his allegiance to the doctrines
of that society. In politics he stanchly advocates
Republican principles. His marriage took place
in Richmond, Ind., in 1897, and united him with
Miss Sarah Nicholson. Their family comprises
three children, Mary Louise, William Tristram
and Samuel Timothy.
REV. WILLIAM O. WOOD. The history
of the Wood family dates back to Belgium, and
can be traced in direct line to Theofilus Wood,
who landed at Plymouth Rock December 22,
1620. By his marriage with Lucinda Flood, the
family is traced through their son Abner, born
July 4, 1626; James, September 6, 1653; Samuel,
August 10, 1680; Simeon, January I, I7IO;
Louis, April 6, 1740; Abner, March 17, 1765.
The marriage of Abner Wood with Rebecca
Campbell resulted in the birth of the following
children: Daniel, born July 1, 1790; Nathaniel
and Lucy, born August 30, 1792; Theofilus and
Elizabeth, July 28, 1796; Abner B., born in New
York City, October 16, 1798; Samuel C., born
March 13, 1800; Rebecca Wood Bennett, Feb-
ruary 25, 1802; Simeon, September 7, 1804;
Phoebe Wood Morris, September 9, 1806; Emily
Wood White, February 13, 1809; Eliza Wood
Coryell, July 19, 1811, and Gilbert September
26, 1813. In Virginia, November 6, 1821, oc-
curred the marriage of Abner Benjamin Wood
and Nancy Stone Calvert, and born to them were
the following children: Mary Jane, born August
2O, 1822; Mills Calvert, July 15, 1824; William
Otterbien, July 28, 1826; George Dolson, Jan-
uary 21, 1829; Lucy Ann, May 17, 1831 ; Ira H.,
March 5, 1833; Hulda N., March 22, 1835; Job
K., June 13, 1837; and Abner B., September 30,
I839. In Marshall, Ill., January 2, 1852, was
celebrated the marriage of William Otterbien
Wood and Sarah Jane Marrs, and all of their
children were born in Illinois, although they are
now residents of California. Named in order of
birth their children are as follows: Mary, who
is now the widow of J. K. Newman, and the
mother of two children, Clara and Willie; Sarah,
who is the wife of A. L. Gordon, by whom she
became the mother of two children, Anita and
Fred, the latter passing away at the age of nine
years; William F., who is a rancher, and a
deacon in the Baptist Church in his home town
in San Luis Obispo county; and Ben M., who
makes his home on the old home place.
The pioneers of Ventura county remember
with grateful pride the name and accomplish-
ments of the late Rev. William O. Wood, one
Of the stanch upbuilders of the best interests
of this section of the state since 1868, when he
located permanently in California. When Mr.
Wood came west he brought with him the highest
attributes of manhood, inherited from a line of
ancestors prominent in the early public affairs
of the nation and as pioneer settlers of Ohio.
He was born in Scioto county, that state, July 28,
1826, and there he spent the years of his boyhood
alternating home duties on the paternal farm with
an attendance of the public schools. Of a stu-
dious nature he secured the best training afforded
by that day, and when, at the age of seventeen
years, the burden of the family fell upon himself
and older brother through the death of both par-
ents, he found himself equal to the occasion.
With his parents he moved to Clark county, Ill.,
and from that point Mr. Wood offered his ser-
vices in the Mexican war, but owing to the regi-
ment being filled he was not needed.
In 1849 Mr. Wood and his older brother be-
came members of a band of one hundred men
who set out for California—the wonderful El-
dorado that was attracting the attention of the
entire world—their journey being made by
Imeans of the slow-moving ox teams over the
desert, and plains. October 8 of the same year
found them at their journey’s end in spite of
many hardships and dangers, chief among which
were the ravages made by the dread disease of
cholera. Upon his arrival in the state Mr.
Wood at once sought work in the mining regions
and for several years followed this occupation,
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
635
but not meeting with the success anticipated
eventually returned to his home in 111inois. There,
January 2, 1852, he married Sarah Jane Marrs,
daughter of Representative Marrs of Kentucky,
and together they established a home which re-
mained in that location for the ensuing sixteen
years.
Mr. Wood came to California the second time
in 1868, bringing with him his wife and children
with the intention of making this state his per-
manent home. In Sutter county they remained
for two years and one year on the Kings river,
after which he came to Ventura county (then
a part of Santa Barbara county), and here pur-
chased eighty acres of the old colonial ranch,
which became the nucleus for the vast property
which he accumulated. His home remained in
this location throughout the remainder of his
life, the improvements marking the years with the
evidence of the owner's thought and effort. The
residence which he erected is a place of comfort
and elegance, being surrounded with beautiful
trees and shrubbery, plants and flowers, all con-
tributive to make of this estate one of the most
beautiful in Southern California. Mr. Wood
was eminently successful in his efforts and ac-
quired means which he immediately invested in
other lands, manifesting his faith in the future
of Ventura county, until at the time of his death
he owned about two thousand acres in the vi-
cinity of Springville, one hundred and sixty acres
in the celery district of Orange county, near New-
port, and thirty thousand acres in the state of
Durango, Mexico. With the increase of his large
landed interests he also invested considerable
means in improvements which not only enhanced
the value of his own property, but that of the
section as well. He took a deep interest in every-
thing pertaining to the general welfare of the
community in which he made his home and was
always accounted one of the most liberal and
enterprising citizens.
Not alone successful in his personal affairs,
Mr. Wood gave freely of his time and talents to
those about him in a strong, earnest effort to—
ward their moral welfare. While a resident of
Illinois he was ordained a minister in the Bap-
tist Church, and during his remaining years in
the middle west he filled several pulpits in the
church. After locating in California he con-
tinued his religious work, in 1871 holding services
where the city of Santa Paula now stands, and
in 1878 organizing a congregation at Spring-
ville. Mr. Wood was instrumental in securing
the erection of the first Baptist house of worship
in Ventura county, the land being deeded by
ex-United States Senator Bard, while Mr. Wood
paid off the remaining debt of $600 just before
dedication of the building. Up to the time of his
demise the church continued under his leader-
of those with whom he came in contact.
e
ship, its charities ably Sustained, its principles
broadly advocated. Mr. Wood merited the pro-
found respect and esteem in which he was univer-
sally held, for his every effort in life was to
advance the moral, mental and physical welfare
His
death, which occurred August 23, 1905, at the
age of seventy-nine years, removed from the
community a citizen of unusual worth and abil-
ity, a man of recognized breadth of mind and
the most humane qualities of heart, a friend to
the friendless and one who never failed to hold
out his hand to all in need. He had won for
himself a place in the hearts of his neighbors
who revere and honor his memory for the good
he tried to do.
MRS. DORA CZERNY. The family rep-
resented by Mrs. Czerny of Long Beach is
of Teutonic origin and still has its representa-
tives in the kingdom of Hanover, where for
many years her father, Christian Goebelhoff,
held an important and responsible position as
manager of the distributing department of a
government newspaper published in Hanover.
While still an active factor in journalistic af-
fairs he died in 1871, at fifty years of age, be-
ing survived by his wife, Christine (Broemer)
Goebelhoff, who attained the age of sixty-five
years and died in 1886. Leaving her native
place in Hanover when but a young girl of
eighteen years, Miss Dora Goebelhoff crossed
the ocean to the new world and after a SO-
journ of six months in Baltimore settled in
New York City. During her residence in the
metropolis, in 1865 she became the wife of
Charles E. Czerny, who was born in Austria,
but came to the United States at an early age.
Ten children were born of their union, but
eight of the number died in childhood and
Minnie lived only until twenty, passing away
at Long Beach October 15, 1891. The only
surviving member of the family is a son,
Charles G., now living in Seattle, Wash., and
engaged in business in that city.
Repeated bereavements have left Mrs.
Czerny almost wholly alone in the world; yet,
though suffering the agony of seeing her chil-
dren taken from her one by one until now one
alone survives, she did not allow her troubles
to blight her life or lessen her courage. Left
to struggle unaided in the effort to gain a live-
lihood, she buried her sorrows in the graves
of her children and with a calm and steady
faith bravely faced a solitary future. After
having spent sixteen years in New York and
Jersey City she came west about 1882 and
for four years remained in San Francisco,
from which city she came to Long Beach
636
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
March 17, 1887, and secured a position as
housekeeper in the Long Beach hotel. Three
months later she rented a bathhouse belong-
ing to the hotel company and located at the
foot of American avenue; this enterprise she
managed for fourteen years.
years she managed the surf bathhouse located
under the pier, and in July, IQO4, built the
East Side bathhouse on the sand, in a location
suitable for surf bathing. By the side of the
bathhouse she has erected a modern cottage
of six rooms, where she makes her home, and
in addition she owns two cottages and a twelve
room house on East Ocean avenue containing
all the modern improvements and conven-
iences. Since making her first purchase of
property in 1891 she has handled considerable
real estate, buying vacant lots, improving
them with cottages and then selling at a fair
profit. Energetic, capable and resourceful, by
lmer unaided efforts she has gained a com-
mendable degree of business success and has
proved what it is within the power of a woman
to accomplish under adverse circumstances.
Domestic cares and business responsibilities
prevented her from enjoying the pleasures of
travel and recreation until quite recently,
when she made a trip to Germany and visited
again the scenes familiar to her girlhood.
*-*.
HARRIE CLAYTON KNAPP. One who
through natural gifts and training has been led
to select electrical engineering as his vocation in
life may be congratulated upon his choice, for its
possibilities seem indefinite, each day revealing
new wonders and accomplishments of which the
father of electricity had no thought. From the
time of his graduation as a mechanical and
electrical engineer in 1881 until 1904 Mr. Knapp
had given his efforts almost exclusively to work
along this line, and it was with this practical
knowledge that in April of 1904 he entered
the employ of the California Portland Cement
Company as superintendent of power.
The ancestry of the Knapp family can be
traced in direct line to the great-great-grand-
father, who was of Holland-Dutch extraction,
and as a participant in the Revolutionary war
fought nobly in behalf of the colonies.
of the latter had inherited in a large measure the
patriotic spirit of his sire, for in the war of 1812
he rose from the ranks until he was made
colonel of his regiment. The martial tendencies
of two generations fell to the grandfather, who
though well advanced in years at the time of
the Civil war, performed well his part in bring-
ing hostilities to a close. For many generations
the family had lived and flourished in Pennsyl-
vania, and it was in that state that the father,
Later for two
the
The son .
Coleman F. Knapp, was born and reared. He
was a chemist and a manufacturer of perfumery
in Philadelphia, and there his death occurred.
During his young manhood he had married the
woman of his choice, Miss Margaret Bowes,
who was a descendant of French antecedents,
and like himself was a native of Philadelphia.
She is a daughter of Jacob Bowes, who by trade
was a manufacturer of furniture. Mrs. Knapp
is still living and now makes her home in Los
Angeles. -
Of the eight children who originally gathered
around the parental fireside H. C. Knapp is the
eldest and all are living with one exception.
Born in Philadelphia February II, 1862, his
early years were spent in the public schools of
his native city, a later privilege awaiting him
in the University of Pennsylvania, from which
he graduated in 1881, having taken the course
in mechanical and electrical engineering. With
the opening of the next term he matriculated as
a student in the post-graduate course, complet-
ing it three years later. The following year,
1885, he secured a position with the United
States Electric Illuminating Company, working
up from the lowest round of the ladder. Such
was his devotion to the duties which fell to him
that in two years he felt himself in a position
to engage in business on his own account, SO
frugally had he saved his earnings. For one
year he engaged in the manufacture of paper
boxes in Philadelphia, and after spending one
year in Chicago, once more resumed business
in his native city. -
Mr. Knapp's identification with the west dates
from July, 1892, at which time he went to Port-
land, Ore., where he became interested financially
with the Ainslee Lumber Company. A devastat-
ing fire reduced the plant to ashes some time
later and he lost all that he had put into it. After
this experience he came to California in 1895,
locating in San Francisco, where for a time he
was in the employ of the Land of Sunshine
Company. It was at this point in his career
that a favorable opening in the line of his pro-
fessional training came to him and he availed
himself of the opportunity. As electrical en-
gineer he had entire charge of the survey for
first electrical railroad in the Yosemite
valley, to run from Merced to Yosemite. How-
ever, this railroad was never built. Three years
later he went to Los Angeles, and as traveling
engineer in the employ of the Anglo-American
Company had charge of the company’s plants
at San Bernardino, Redondo and Phoenix,
Ariz., as chief engineer. As assistant chief en-
gineer of the Redlands Electrical Company he
was stationed at Mill Creek canon for a time,
later accepting a position with the San Bernardino
Valley Traction Company, his duties consisting

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
639
entirely in the installation of new machinery, and
he had the honor of running the first car sent
Out by the company. A later position was with
the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, where
as in his former position he assisted in the instal-
lation of the electrical apparatus in the company's
new shops. It was in April of 1904 that he
assumed the duties of his present position as
superintendent of power with the California
Portland Cement Company. His wide range of
experience in electrical engineering makes his
Services invaluable to the company, who re-
cognize and appreciate this fact in a substantial
Wa W.
Mr. Knapp has a pleasant residence in Colton,
which is presided over by his capable wife, who
before her marriage was Miss Marie Thompson.
She was born in Lincoln, Neb., and her marriage
was celebrated in San Bernardino. In his poli-
tical preferences Mr. Knapp is a Republican,
and in his religious connections he is a member
of the Episcopal Church, which he is now serv-
ing in the capacity of vestryman. The only
fraternal order of which he is a member is the
Knights of Pythias, while in the line of his
profession he holds membership in the American
Society of Electrical Engineers.
D. R. FOSS. Although the period of his
residence in the San Luis Rey valley was lim-
ited to fourteen years, Mr. Foss is remem-
'bered by all of the older settlers of the region
and the regret was universal when death ter-
minated his activities. Twenty years have
come and gone since he passed away; new
faces and new names betoken the changes
which the years in their flight bring to every
community; new towns have sprung up, im-
provements have been made possessing per-
manent value, and prosperity has set its seal
upon the county whose earlier and less pros-
perous days were familiar to him. In the
midst of these changes his family remain in
the community where he lived and labored and
where now, as then, they occupy an honored
position as pioneers and prominent citizens.
A native of New Hampshire, Mr. Foss was
born at Sandwich, November 22, 1832, and
at an early age accompanied his family to
Maine, where he attended the public schools.
On starting out to earn his own livelihood he
took up farm pursuits and became the owner
of a tract of land in Maine, but this he sold
upon deciding to remove to the Pacific coast.
His first location in the west was in Marin
county, Cal., where he became interested in
the dairy business and where for a number of
vears he made his home. From there he went
to a ranch in Napa county and afterward con-
ducted a commission business in San Fran-
cisco, from which city he came to San Diego
county in 1872 and settled in the San Luis
Rey valley. From that time he was inter-
ested in general farming, stock-raising and the
dairy industry, and also he took an active part
in local affairs. A leader among the Republi-
cans of his locality, he was by them chosen as
delegate to the State Republican convention at
Sacramento, where he was prominent in the
councils of the party. On the party ticket he
was elected a member of the county board of
Supervisors and justice of the peace, both of
which positions he filled with intelligence and
impartiality. Before coming to Southern Cali-
fornia he was identified with the blue lodge of
Masonry at Petaluma and later he transferred
his membership to the San Diego lodge. In
religion he sympathized with the doctrines and
work of the Baptist denomination, but was
broad in his views and rejoiced in the prosper-
ity of every worthy movement, whatever its
name and creed. Ere yet old age had come
to dim his vision or enfeeble his frame, he
passed away in 1886, at the age of fifty-four
years.
The marriage of Mr. Foss in 1853 united
him with Miss Rebecca A. Libby, member
of an honored and influential pioneer family
of San Diego county. Five children were born
of their union, two of whom, Elizabeth and
Benjamin H., died in infancy. The eldest
daughter, Florence Ada, married O. S. Stew-
art and resides in DeLuz, San Diego county.
The only living son, Albert J., makes his home
at Corona; he married Miss Hattie Neff (now
deceased) and has six children. The young-
est daughter, Lillian E., is the wife of Will-
iam Griffin, of Anaheim, Orange county, and
they have six children.
On another page of this volume will be
found a sketch of Benjamin F. Libby, a broth-
er of Mrs. Foss; another brother, William
E., resides at Long Beach and is engaged in
dairy farming. The father, William E., Sr.,
was born and reared in Maine, but in an early
day removed to Wisconsin and later became
a pioneer of Iowa, whence he came to Cali-
fornia accompanied by his wife. Settling in
the San Luis Rey valley he entered a large
tract of government land and eventually he
gave to his daughter, Mrs. Foss, one hundred
and sixty acres of land where now she makes
her home. Politically Mr. Libby supported
the Republican party from its organization un-
til his death. A man of large heart and gen-
erous impulses, he was a friend to every pio-
neer, and more than one had occasion to be
grateful to him for kindnesses quietly rend-
ered in a time of need. In his death, which
640
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Occurred in 1880, at the age of seventy years,
the county lost a whole-souled and broad-
minded pioneer. His wife, who bore the
maiden name of Catherine Higgins and was
born in Maine, died in San Diego county in
1878, at the age of sixty-seven years. To
their descendants they left the memory of self-
sacrificing toil, high principles of honor and
the kindly hospitality that characterizes the
p10neer.
\VILLIAM RILEY DODSON. An inter-
ested witness and participant in the develop-
ment and upbuilding of Los Angeles county
and particularly the country surrounding El
Monte, has been William Riley Dodson, now
the oldest settler of the town and a pioneer
whose history is as entertaining as that which
tells of the progress of the western common-
wealth. He is of southern birth, having been
born in Crawford county, Ark., September 3,
1839, a son of Ganum Magby Dodson, the lat-
ter a native of Virginia, whose father was a
planter in that state, where the name had
been established generations before by an
English ancestor. Ganum M. Dodson mar-
ried in Kentucky in 1832, and removed to
Missouri the following year, locating on the
Sauk river, where he remained for four years,
then settled in Arkansas. The place that is
now the town of Van Buren was then only a
wilderness, and in this he established his
home, clearing the land, building a house
and improving a farm. In 1863 he lo-
cated for a time in Texas, but soon
returned to Arkansas and in Little Rock
spent his last days, dying in 1866, at an ad-
vanced age. His wife was formerly Maggie
Thompson, who was born in Christian county,
Ky., in 1815, a member of a prominent pioneer
family of that state, two of her brothers serv-
ing in the war of 1812. She died in Arkansas
in 1870, leaving a family of eight children, all
of whom attained maturity, while but three
are now living.
William Riley Dodson, the only member of
the family in California, was reared to young
manhood in Arkansas, attending school in the
primitive log cabins of the day and obtaining
what education he could under the disadvan-
tages of the early days. He engaged in farm-
ing until 1861, when he enlisted in Company
B, Third Regiment Arkansas Infantry, known
as Gratiot’s Brigade. He was shortly pro-
moted to a lieutenancy and later was made
captain of Company A, serving under Col.
John B. Clark until the close of hostilities.
He participated in the battle of Springfield,
Mo., where he received a saber wound in his
ranch.
left wrist; Elk Horn ; Prairie Grove, and nu-
merous others, at Fayetteville receiving a
shot through his upper left arm which broke
it. His comrades bound up the arm and he
rode six hundred miles to Texas with it in a
sling; unfortunately the limbs of trees struck
it with such force that it was broken over
again. In Rockwall, Tex., the regiment was
disbanded by Gen. Joe Shelby. In Lavaca
county, Tex., Mr. Dodson received medical
treatment, and after his arm recovered he
went to work as a teamster, running a six-
mule team to Galveston until 1868, and mak-
ing $8,000 in the three years. With the pro-
ceeds of his work he came to California over-
land, with two others driving sixteen hundred
head of cattle, which they sold to the govern-
ment on the Rio Grande. He located at once
in El Monte, which he reached September 28
of that year, purchased a farm ten miles be-
low the town and began agricultural pursuits.
After five years he sold out and purchased
property in El Monte, which he has been
farming ever since. In 1880 he became pro-
prietor of the El Monte hotel, which had been
built by his father-in-law, W. L. Jones, in
I870, and continued its management until
I905, when he sold out and has since given
his entire time to the management of his
This consists of forty-eight acres,
three acres of which were devoted to a subdi-
vision, known as the Dodson addition, and on
which he owns five residences, while he also
owns two residences on Mission street, one
store building and a residence on Main street,
and one on Lexington street. The home prop-
erty is owned by his wife. He has two pump-
ing plants, one used for irrigation and the
other for domestic water supply for El Monte.
In addition to the property already mentioned
he also owns a business house in Puente.
In Texas Mr. Dodson was united in mar-
riage with Miss Clarimon C. Jones, a native
of Talladega county, Ala., and a daughter of
W. L. Jones, a pioneer of El Monte, who died
here. Mrs. Dodson, died here, leaving six
children, namely: William B., of San Pedro ;
May, wife of Dr. Bragg Mings, of Los An-
geles; E. J. and C. B., twins, the former a
contractor of Los Angeles, and the latter lo-
cated in Oakland, Cal. : W. L., a business man
of El Monte ; and Foster, at home. One son,
Thomas K., died in infancy some years before
the mother. Mr. Dodson was married the
second time to Mrs. Minerva (Johnston)
Blackley, a native of Missouri and a daughter
of Micajah Johnston, who built the first house
and blacksmith shop in what is now El Monte
in 1852; in 1884 he sold out and the follow-
ing year died in Savannah. Mr. Dodson is a
… */42/4
*—
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or
ºncº

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
643
member fraternally of the Ancient Order of
United Workmen, and the Los Angeles Coun-
ty Pioneers, while politically he is a stanch
Democrat, having served for years as a mem-
ber of the Democratic county central commit-
tee. On all matters of public import Mr. Dod-
son has taken a keen interest, and is always
counted upon to promote movements for the
benefit of community, county, state or nation.
HON. SAMUEL T. BLACK. The presi-
dent of the San Diego State Normal School
is a descendant of an old Scotch family and its
sole American representative of his genera-
tion. From Scotland the family became trans-
planted into England, where he was born in
Cumberland May 20, 1846, being fifth in or—
der of birth among the ten children of James
and Elspeth (Thorburn) Black, natives re-
spectively of the city of Glasgow and the shire
of Dumfries, Scotland. His father (whose
mother was a member of the McLean family
of ancient Celt origin) learned the trade of a
mechanical engineer and for years engaged
in the manufacture of iron, but eventually re-
tired from business cares. Both he and his
wife remained in England until their death.
Only two of their once large family still sur-
vive, and of these Samuel T., whose name in-
troduces this article, has become one of the
leading educators of the Pacific coast. With
the advantages of a thorough education in
the common-school branches and a later study
of the higher branches, in 1859 he began to
prepare himself for teaching and meanwhile
gained active experience by work as an ap-
prentice teacher. During 1864 he became an
employe in the offices and factory of his uncle,
William Thorburn, an extensive manufacturer
of pig iron, under whose oversight he gained
a general business education.
The memorable era of 1849 had brought to
California, among thousands of other gold-
seekers, a young Scotchman, John Thorburn,
an uncle of Professor Black. For some time
the family were kept posted concerning his
whereabouts but in 1867 it had been eleven
years since any letter had been received from
him. Doubtless the opportunities offered by
the new world would have attracted the
nephew in any event, but the desire to find
his uncle presented a special inducement for
emigration, and in 1867 he crossed the ocean
to the United States, where he found his uncle
at Mineral Point, Wis. While visiting in that
town he became interested in California
through the tales of early days told by his
uncle, and after having taught one term of
school at Mineral Point, in the spring of 1868
he came to the western coast and settled in
Yuba county. For one year he taught a rural
school at Indian ranch and then taught for
three years at Camptonville, receiving $100
per month as compensation for instructing
seventy-five pupils, without the aid of an as-
sistant. The children were of all school ages,
from the pupils of the primary grades to those
preparing for the university.
For some years after 1873 Professor Black
acted as principal of the Chico schools and
then resigned to accept the position of county
superintendent of the schools of Butte county,
to which he, a pronounced Republican, had
been appointed by the Democratic board of
county supervisors. On the completion of the
term as county superintendent he removed to
Susanville, Lassen county, where he was prin-
cipal of schools for two years. During the
three following years he filled the position of
principal of the Hollister schools. From 1881
tuntil 1886 he was principal of the Durant gram-
mar School in Oakland, but resigned in the
latter year to take up work as chief deputy
county clerk of Alameda county, and contin-
ued in the latter capacity for eighteen months.
Meanwhile he had given especial attention to
the study of law and as early as 1879 had been
admitted to the bar by the supreme court. At
one time he had planned to engage actively
in practice, but the splendid record which he
has made as an educator proves that the world
of pedagogy would have lost one of its most
brilliant disciples had his ability been divert-
ed from educational activities.
After having become a resident and land-
owner in Ventura county Professor Black or-
ganized at Ventura the first high School in
the state between Los Angeles and Santa
Cruz, and from the position of principal he
was called to be county superintendent of
schools, filling the office for four years. Mean-
while he had attained eminence as a capable
teacher and progressive educator, well quali-
fied for the responsible duties of state Super-
intendent of schools, to which position he was
elected in 1894 on the Republican ticket. Dur-
ing his incumbency of that important office
the San Diego State Normal School was
founded and he was chosen its president. ‘ On
entering upon his new duties in 1898 he re-
signed as state superintendent and has since
devoted himself to the welfare of the institut-
tion. Practically the first vacation of his long
and successful educational career occurred in
rooo, during which vear he visited relatives
in England and Scotland and at the same
time stººdied the methods of instruction adopt-
ed in British schools. Always deeplv inter-
ested in any movement connected with edu-
644
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
cational work, as early as 1895 he allied him-
Self with the National Educational Associa-
tion and since has been active in its work.
In addition he holds membership with the
Schoolmasters’ Club of Los Angeles and San
Diego. While making his home in Camp-
tonville in 1872 he was made a Mason and
later became a member of the blue lodge in
Oakland, also the Royal Arch Chapter and
Knight Templar Commandery of the same
city, Al Malaikah Temple, A. A. O. N. M.
S., and the San Diego Consistory. Since
coming to San Diego he has been identified
with the city's Chamber of Commerce. Reared
in the Presbyterian faith and in sympathy
with its doctrines, he yet has the breadth of
mind and soul which sees the good in all
creeds and lends a helping hand to move-
ments for the upbuilding of the race, unhamp-
ered in his sympathies by any sectarian bias.
A few years after he came west he married
Miss Jennie Craig, a native of Ohio and a resi-
dent of Camptonville, where she died. The
only son of their marriage is David Thorburn
Black, who is engaged in business in San
Francisco. In 1887 Professor Black was unit-
ed in marriage with Miss Pauline Pelham,
who was born and reared in California and
died here while still a young woman, leaving
a daughter, Pauline Thorburn Black, who is
now a student in the San Diego State Normal
School and makes her home with her father
in this city.
SAN DIEGO STATE N O R M A L
SCHOOL. No state in the Union surpasses
California in the care exercised and the pro-
visions made to secure the highest educational
attainments and the most thorough prepara-
tion on the part of those who in turn would
devote their lives to the teaching of the young.
The profession of an educator, than which
none exists of greater responsibility, demands
of its followers a training radically different
from that required by other professions or oc-
cupations, and thus the establishment of in-
stitutions for normal work meets an impera-
tive necessity of modern civilization. In or—
der to secure normal facilities for the most
southerly section of the commonwealth many
of the men most deeply interested in educa-
tional work advocated the establishment of a
normal school in San Diego, and after consid-
erable agitation concerning the feasibility of
the project a bill was presented to the legis-
lature and duly passed creating such an in-
stitution, also appropriating $50,000 for its
maintenance. At the time of the signing of
the act by Governor Budd March 13, 1897,
he chose as the first board of trustees W. R.
Guy, Victor E. Shaw, T. O. Toland, J. L.
Dryden and John G. North. Upon the first
meeting of the board a few months after its
selection W. R. Guy was chosen chairman and
J. L. Dryden secretary. After a careful in-
Spection of various sites offered for the insti-
tution the board selected sixteen and one-
half acres in the city of San Diego, tendered
by the College Hill Land Association. Sub-
sequent to the approval of the deed by the at-
torney-general the board let the contract for
the erection of the central portion of the struc-
ture, work on which commenced in August,
1898. The following month Hon. Samuel T.
Black, state Superintendent of public instruc-
tion, was elected president of the school by
the joint board of normal school trustees at
a special meeting held in Sacramento, and
Mr. Black immediatedly resigned his position
in order to accept his new responsibilities.
The first corps of instructors, selected by
the executive committee October 27, 1898,
comprised the following: Jesse D. Burks, A.
B., A. M., registrar; Emma F. Way, pre-
ceptress; Alice Edwards Pratt, Ph. B., Ph.
D.; David P. Barrows, A. B., A. M., Ph. D.;
Arthur W. Greeley, A. B., Florence Derby,
teacher of music; Sallie S. Crocker, teacher of
drawing; to which faculty Miss Helen Bal-
lard, A. B., was soon added. Pending the
erection of the institution temporary quarters
were secured on the corner of Sixth and F
streets, San Diego, where the school opened
November 1, 1898, with an enrollment of nine-
ty-one students. The corner-stone of the
building was laid December 10, 1898, with ap-
propriate ceremonies; and May 1, 1899, the
central portion of the structure was dedicated.
Later the two wings were added, thus com-
pleting a structure as symmetrical as it is
convenient and comfortable. Taking advan-
tage of the ample grounds, the board of trus-
tees spread the building over considerable
space and made it only two stories in height,
a plan that has proved practical and success-
ful. The building is planned so that each
class-room, recitation room and office is
equipped with two separate air-shafts, and
the library and assembly rooms, being larger,
have four such shafts. Each room was
planned with its ultimate purpose in view.
The library, with its seven thousand volumes
and standard periodicals, is a cheerful and
light room. A room, 50x50 feet, with a north-
ern exposure, is utilized for drawing and man-
ual training, and is supplied with reference
books, photographs, casts and objects for still-
life study. The gymnasium, located in the
west wing, is 36x74 feet, eighteen feet high,
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
645
and is provided with an equipment intended
for the Ling or Swedish system of gymnas-
tics. The physics, chemistry and biology
laboratories are equipped with modern appara-
tus. The entire building is heated with the
iatest system of steam-heating, the corridors
and rooms are well lighted, and the effect is
that of comfort, convenience and practicabil-
ity. The environment is in harmony with the
structure. The mesa stands three hundred
and fifty feet above the bay, commanding a
view of the ocean, bay, and the islands of the
sea to the west, while to the north and east
the horizon is broken by mountain chains and
rugged peaks.
The requirements for admission to the Nor-
mal School correspond exactly with those for
admission to the University of California. In
other words, candidates must have graduated
from an accredited high school, and must be
recommended by the principals of their re-
spective schools. The course in the Normal
School covers a period of two years, and is
intended to prepare its graduates to teach in
the elementary schools of the state. The
training school consists of the regular eight
public-school grades, wherein the usual ele-
mentary branches are taught by approved
modern methods. The teaching in the train-
ing school is closely supervised by members
of the Normal School faculty.
teaches in the training school during the en-
tire senior year, one hour per day during the
first term and two hours per day during the
second term. While acting as an assistant
the student familiarizes himself or herself
with those items of practice common to all
teaching, gains self-confidence in handling a
class, and forms the habit of regarding chil-
dren from the teaching standpoint. The de-
mand for teachers trained in the normal
schools of California is greater than the Sup-
ply, and there is also an increased demand for
men teachers in the cities, where fair salaries
are paid. For students entering from the
ninth grade the course of study may be com-
pleted in four years, while recommended grad-
uates of accredited secondary schools may
finish the stipulated course in two years.
The board of trustees comprises the follow-
ing gentlemen: Hon. George C. Pardee, Gov-
ernor, ex officio member of board; Hon. Thom-
as J. Kirk, state superintendent of public in-
struction, ex officio member; Dr. R. M. Pow-
ers, San Diego; Isidore B. Dockweiler, Los
Angeles: Senator M. L. Ward, San Diego;
George W. Marston, San Diego; Charles C.
Chapman, Fullerton. The officers are: Hon.
M. L. Ward, chairman, and Helen Dale, sec-
retary; executive committee as follows: Dr.
Each student
R. M. Powers, Senator M. L. Ward and
George W. Marston. The following instruc-
tors are in charge of the training of the stu-
dents during the present term, 1906-07. Hon.
Samuel T. Black, president, department of
school administration; Emma F. Way, pre-
ceptress, mathematics and reading; Alice Ed-
wards Pratt, registrar, English; Edith Mc-
Leod, principal of training school and, super-
vising teacher of grammar grades; Elisabeth
Rogers, supervising teacher of primary grades;
J. F. West, mathematics; W. F. Bliss, history
and civics; W. T. Skilling, physical sciences;
W. W. Kemp, director of training school and
instructor in department of education; Lucy
A. Davis, department of music; Anna H. Bill-
ings, department of English; Emily O. Lamb,
department of drawing and manual training;
Jessie Rand Tanner, physical education; Har-
riet H. Godfrey, English and history; and W.
C. Crandall, department of biological sciences.
It being universally conceded that the hope
of our nation’s future is based upon future
generations, the importance of carefully edu-
cating the young cannot be overestimated,
and therefore the value of an institution for
the training of teachers is surpassed by no
other movement of the age. The men and
women who are devoting their time, mental
energies and abilities to the preparation of
teachers for their life-work accomplish results
which are not limited to the present age, but
extend into the boundless future of human ac-
tivity and intellectual progress. Based upon
its present standing and future possibilities,
the San Diego State Normal School ranks
among the most important institutions of
Southern California, and its upbuilders may
be termed philanthropists in the broadest and
truest sense of that word.
*
JOHN T. JOUGHIN. Identified with the
far west throughout all of his life, the earliest
recollections of Mr. Joughin are associated
with California, for he is a native son of the
state and was born at Sacramento September
27, 1861. His father, Andrew Joughin, known
and honored as one of the resourceful pioneers
of Southern California, and a man possessing
a large circle of friends throughout the state,
is represented upon another page of this yol-
ume, and the family history will be found in
that sketch. The son was still a small child
when the family came to Los Angeles county
and therefore his childhood was principally
passed in this portion of the commonwealth;
while his education was acquired in local
schools. When not in school he helped his
father at the blacksmith's trade, and in 1874
646
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
accompanied the family to a ranch near Hyde
Park, Los Angeles county, where he has since
made his home.
Since assuming the management of the
ranch, about 1880, John T. Joughin has given
his attention very closely to the supervision
of the four hundred and forty acres compris-
ing the tract. However, of recent years he
has rented out some of the land and has util-
ized about two hundred and sixty acres for
the pasturage of his stock, so that his field
work has been greatly lessened. In addition
to superintending the interests of his mother
and himself on the home ranch he took charge
of about six hundred acres near Wilmington,
which was rented to tenants. This land, as
well as the property at home, forms a part of
the estate, which has not been divided since
the death of his father. With the general ad-
vance in land values during recent years the
estate has shared, so that its value is largely
enhanced beyond the amount at first esti-
mated. -
The marriage of John T. Joughin was sol-
emnized in 1892 and united him with Wilhel-
mina Roeder, a native of Los Angeles county
and a daughter of Louis Roeder, one of the
most influential pioneers of Southern Califor-
nia. The family history appears in his sketch
elsewhere in this volume. The two children
of Mr. Joughin are Gertrude and Andrew.
Though believing in many of the principles
accepted by the Republican party, Mr. Joughin
has never displayed any partisan spirit, but
thinks and reasons for himself without regard
to the platform adopted by his own or other
parties. Personally he is a man of quiet tastes,
home-loving nature and friendly spirit, and
has shown signal ability in guarding the in-
terests of the family estate.
RICHARD KIDSON. An illustration of
what it is within the power of energy and
perseverance to accomplish may be found in
the life-history of Richard Kidson, who as a
boy struggled against reverses more than or-
dinarily discouraging, but as a man achieved
independence and success. A native of York-
shire, England, born August 19, 1828, he was
only eighteen months old when death de-
prived him of a father's care and support, and
at seven years it became necessary for him
to earn his own livelihood. As the years
passed by he began to believe that success
could not be achieved in a region where the
mere struggle for a livelihood consumed all of
a man’s energies, and hence he came to a de-
cision to seek the greater opportunities of the
new world. When he landed in New York
City on the 4th of July, 1849, he had only $2.50
in his possession, with which to start life
among strangers. That sum was devoted to
the expenses of his journey to Pike county,
Pa., where he secured employment on a farm
at $10 per month and board.
The ensuing years passed without event un-
til his marriage, April 23, 1855, when he and
his young wife decided to seek a home in the
newer regions of the then west. When they
arrived in Sabula, Jackson county, Iowa, May
I, that same year, he had only $1 I with which
to make a start in the new country. How-
ever, he had an abundance of energy, per-
severance and determination, and from that
humble beginning he worked his way by means
of renting land and raising stock until he was
in a position to make his first purchase of
property. Giving as the first payment four
cows and four calves and giving his note for
$700 at ten per cent, he secured eighty acres
of farm land. His next step was to purchase
lumber (giving his note in payment) and put
up a small house. During the first year he
lost his crop of wheat and was unable to meet
the interest on the mortgage, but the break-
ing out of the Civil war raised prices of all
farm produce and enabled him to pay for the
land in three years.
After about nineteen years on the same
farm, Richard Kidson removed to Plymouth
county, Iowa, in 1874, and bought a tract of
wild prairie land from the railroad company,
for which he paid $6.25 an acre. Out of this
tract he developed a valuable farm, which he
sold, together with his other interests in Iowa,
on account of the failure of his health. At
the time of selling out his landed possessions
aggregated about six hundred acres. Coming
to Los Angeles in February, 1880, he soon af-
terward bought twenty-four acres near town,
but sold the property two years later. His
next purchase consisted of ten acres, for which
he paid $900. A year later he bought an ad-
joining tract of ten acres, for which he paid
$6OO. Recently he sold all of his twenty-acre
tract for $40,000, reserving, however, a lot,
181x96 feet, where his residence stands, at No.
4933 South Main street. For a short time he
owned and conducted a hotel at Pomona, and
also for some years he owned five lots, for
which he paid $1,000 and which he sold dur-
ing the boom of 1887 at a considerable advance.
From time to time he has bought and sold
real estate and is considered an excellent
judge of values, both of city and country
lands.
While living in Pennsylvania Mr. Kidson
married Winnifred Rowe, who was born in
Ireland, immigrated to the United States in

HHSTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
64!y
I849, and died in Iowa. Five children were
born of that union, namely: Mary Ann, de-
ceased ; David ; Gilbert, whose sketch will be
found on another page of this work; Sarah
Jane; and Winnifred. While living in Iowa
Mr. Kidson married Mrs. Isabelle Cook, who
died in that state, leaving a son, John R. Kid-
son, now a rancher of Los Angeles county. In
I875 Mr. Kidson married Mrs. Sarah Ann
Hitchcock, who died May 7, 1905, at the age
of eighty-five years, three months and five
days. In politics Mr. Kidson has always been
a stanch Republican. During the period of
his residence in Iowa he served as school
treasurer and also filled the office of road mas-
ter.
JAMES DEVINE DURFEE. One of the
oldest pioneers in the vicinity of El Monte,
James Devine Durfee is ranked as represen-
tative of the best class of citizens who had
given to the state of California its forward
movements in the last fifty years of its history
—the days of its statehood—and as such he
Occupies a pronminent place in local affairs. He
was born in Adams county, Ill., October 8,
1840, a son of James and Cynthia (Soulé)
Durfee, natives respectively of New York and
Rhode Island, the former born May 16, 1793.
The grandparents were Perry and Annie
(Sulsbury) Durfee, of Tiverton, R. I., and
Broadalbin, N. Y., the former a descendant of
Thomas Durfee, of Portsmouth, R. I., who
was born in England in 1643. James Durfee
died in Lima, Ill., July 16, 1844, his wife
passing away February 16, 1847, in Council
Bluffs, Iowa, where the family was located for
a time. They were the parents of nineteen
children, of whom eight are now living, James
T)evine Durfee being the sixteenth in order
Of birth.
Left an orphan in early childhood, James
Devine Durfee was reared by the older mem-
bers of the family and by different relatives,
his education being received in the public.
schools, whose sessions were held in the primi-
tive log houses of the day, equipped with slab
benches and puncheon floors, and the old quill
pen a part of the necessary equipment of the
scholar. He was fifteen years old when with
his brother George W., he joined a party of
emigrants bound for California, that left Coun-
cil Bluffs May 1o of that year (1855), with
sixty-five wagons. Mr. Dufree drove four yoke
of oxen through, via Salt Lake City and the
southern route to San Bernardino (then a
Mormon settlement), which place was reached
September 16. He was doing the work of a
man though he weighed only eighty pounds
and stood guard in his turn, entire confidence
being reposed in his abilities. He remained
in San Bernardino until 1857, after which
he went to Sacramento, thence to El Dorado
county, where he worked on a farm. He then
went to Contra Costa county and in the vici-
nity of San Pablo followed a similar employ-
ment. He was economical in his living and
managed to accumulate some money, with
which he decided to return to Southern Cali-
fornia, visit his people, and then once more
locate in the north. He came south but did
not return, as he became interested in the
prospects held out to the settler here, marry-
ing December 19, 1858, Mliss Diantha B. Clem-
inson, a native of Missouri and sister of James
Cleminson, represented elsewhere in this
volume, and with whom he established a home
in San Bernardino county on Lytle creek. He
had some stock but little money, but enter-
prise and ability soon supplied the lack, and
in his general farming Operations he was very
successful. In November, 1859, he came to
Los Angeles county and rented land in the
vicinity of El Monte, and in November of the
following year he located on his present pro-
perty, leasing the land with the privilege of
purchasing same at the end of two years. At
the expiration of that time in conjunction with
his brother, George, and James Cleminson, he
purchased the ranch and engaged in stock-
raising and general farming, later purchasing
the interest of Mr. Cleminson, and in 1882 the
brothers divided their interests. Mr. Durfee
is now the owner of the entire property, one
hundred and twenty-four acres in all, of which
eighty-three acres are devoted to a fine wal-
nut grove, which was first started in 1868 and
added to until it to-day ranks with the finest
in Southern California, one tree alone having
produced five hundred pounds in one year.
His land is very rich and being moist it is
tunnecessary to irrigate, on the other hand he
has been to the expense of placing a redwood
lumber drain seven and a half feet below the
surface of the land.
The magnificent success attained by Mr. Dur-
fee during his residence in Southern Califor-
nia may be traced directly to his foresight
and management, for as a rancher he is one of
the most progressive and enterprising men
of the community. He does not confine his
attention to one line of agriculture entirely,
but instead is interested in various products,
raising walnuts and apples and other fruits
in his orchards : corn, potatoes and different
vegetables in his fields; while stock-raising
has formed one of his most important in-
dustries. He has some of the finest hogs in
Southern California, from which he cures bacon
650
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
known throughout this state as well as Ari-
Zona as one of the finest products of its kind
in the west. He raises horses with the strain
of the Richmond pedigree in them, and also
carries on a fine and well-equipped diary of
sixty Jersey cows, forming the finest herd
in Southern California. He not only raises
them for diary purposes, but also sells fine
family cows, having disposed of some for $100
and $200 each, the Durfee Jerseys being
famous throughout the country. In its equip-
ment, improvements and management Mr.
Durfee's ranch takes high rank in Southern
California, being one of the finest in the sec-
tion, and its products are in demand among
commission merchants.
The Durfee home is one of the comfortable
places in the community, being equipped with
every modern device for comfort and conveni-
ence, and furnished with quiet elegance. Mr.
and Mrs. Durfee have two children, Eva I.,
who married Albert Slack January 12, 1890,
and has three children, Howard Albert, Perry
Durfee and Marjorie Diantha. James Roswell
Durfee, a farmer near El Monte, married Stella
Cain in September, 1894, and they have four
children: Diantha Ruth, Miles Roswell, James
and Hillard. Mrs. Durfee's father, John Clem-
inson, came from England in the year 1812,
and in Missouri married Miss Lydia Lightner,
who was born in Lancaster county, Pa., July
I2, 1800, and died in E1 Monte August II,
1873, where John Cleminson also died Novem-
ber 28, 1879.
Mr. Durfee has not allowed his own private
affairs to so absorb his attention that he has
neglected his duty as a citizen, no man being
more active in the promotion of all enter-
prises calculated to advance the general wel-
fare of the community. He is a true-blue
Republican in a politics and stanch in the prin-
ciples he endorses. For many years he served
as school trustee for La Puente district and
can always be counted upon to further edu-
cational matters. He was prominent in the
organization of the Los Nietos and Ranchito
Walnut Growers' Incorporation, and acted as
a director for three years following its or—
ganization, when he resigned from his
official position. This was the pioneer
association in this line and was established
to protect the growers, as at that time
the buyers were getting all the profits. By
virtue of his long residence in the state Mr.
Durfee is associated with the Los Angeles
County Pioneers, and prominent in their meet-
ings. Personally he is a man of many sterling
traits of character. Coming to California in
boyhood, dependent upon his own resources
at an early age, he was thus thrown upon the
!ege.
world with his character undeveloped, his man-
hood unattained, with nothing but his native
qualities to lift him above the average man
who failed to raise himself from obscurity in
the midst of the rush westward during the
pioneer days of the state. That Mr. Durfee
did more, that he became a citizen of worth
and prominence, that he stands to-day as a
landmark of the days of California’s early
Statehood, is due alone to his own efforts,
built upon the foundation of inherited charac-
ter. He has won a large circle of friends
throughout the state, who hold him in the
highest esteem. -
JAMES MILLER GUINN, of Los Angeles
City, was born near Houston, Shelby county,
Ohio, November 27, 1834. His paternal and
maternal ancestors removed from Scot-
land and settled in the north of Ireland in the
latter part of the seventeenth century. His
father was born near Enniskillen, in County
Fermanagh, and his mother, Eliza Miller, was
born near Londonderry. His father came to
America in 1819, and after ten years spent in
the lumber business in the province of New
Brunswick he migrated to Ohio, in 1830, and
located on a tract of land covered with a dense
forest. ~.
James M. Guinn spent his boyhood years in
assisting his father to clear a farm. The fa–
cilities for obtaining an education in the back-
woods of Ohio fifty years ago were very mea-
ger. Three months of each winter he attended
school in a little log schoolhouse. By studying
in the evenings, after a hard day's work, he
prepared himself for teaching; and at the age
of eighteen began the career of a country ped-
agogue. For two years he alternated teaching
with farming. Ambitious to obtain a better
education, he entered the preparatory depart-
ment of Antioch College, of which institution
Horace Mann, the eminent educator, was then
president. In 1857 he entered Oberlin Col-
He was entirely dependent on his own
resources for his college expenses. By teach-
ing during vacations, by manual labor and the
closest economy, he worked his way through
college and graduated with honors.
On the breaking out of the Civil war, in
1861, he was among the very first to respond
to President Lincoln’s call for volunteers, en-
listing April 19, 1861, four days after the fall
of Fort Sumter. He was a member of Com-
pany C, Seventh Regiment, Ohio Volunteer
Infantry. Later he enlisted in the same regi-
ment for three years. This regiment was one
of the first sent into West Virginia. He served
through the West Virginia campaign under
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
651
McClellan and afterwards under Rosecrans.
The Seventh Regiment joined the army of the
Potomac in the fall of 1861, and took part in
all the great battles in which that army was
engaged up to and including the battle of Get-
tysburg. In September, 1863, the regiment,
as part of the Twelfth Army Corps, was sent
to the west, and was engaged in the battles of
Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge and
Ringgold. Its three years being ended, it was
mustered out the Ist of June, 1864, in front of
Atlanta.
In August, 1861, while the Seventh Regi-
ment was guarding Carnifax Ferry, on the
Gauley river, it was attacked by three thou-
sand Confederates under Floyd and Wise. Af-
ter a desperate resistance it was forced to re-
treat, leaving its dead and wounded on the
field. On the retreat the company of which
Mr. Guinn was a member fell into an ambush
and nearly one-half of those who escaped from
the battlefield were captured. Mr. Guinn, af-
ter a narrow escape from capture, traveled for
five days in the mountains, subsisting on a few
berries and leaves of wintergreen. He finally
reached the Union forces at Gauley Bridge, al-
most starved. At the battle of Cedar Moun-
tain his regiment lost sixty-six per cent of
those engaged—a percentage of loss nearly
twice as great as that of the Light Brigade in
its famous charge at Balaklava. Of the twen-
ty-three of Mr. Guinn's company who went
into the battle only six came out unhurt, he
being one of the fortunate six.
Of his military service, a history of the com-
pany written by one of his comrades after the
war, says: “Promoted to corporal November
1, 1862; took part in the battles of Cross
Lanes, Winchester, Port Republic, Cedar
Mountain, second Bull Run, Antietam, Dum-
fries. * * * On every march of the
company till his discharge.”
After his discharge he was commissioned by
Governor Tod, of Ohio, captain in a new regi-
ment that was forming, but, his health having
been broken by hard service and exposure, he
was compelled to decline the position.
In 1864 he came to California (by way of
Panama) for the benefit of his health. After
teaching school three months in Alameda
county he joined the gold rush to Idaho, pack-
ing his blankets on his back and footing it
from Umatilla, Ore., to Boise Basin, a distance
of three hundred miles. For three years he
followed gold mining with varying success,
sometimes striking it rich and again dead
broke. His health failing him again, from the
effects of his army service, he returned to Cal-
ifornia in 1867; and in 1868 went east and
took treatment for a number of months in Dr.
Jackson's famous water cure, at Danville, N.
Y. He returned to California in 1869, and in
October of that year came to Los Angeles
county. He found employment as principal of
the schools of Anaheim—a position he filled
for twelve consecutive years. He reached the
town with $10; by investing his savings from
his salary in land, at the end of twelve years
he sold his landed possessions for $15,000.
During the greater portion of the time he was
employed in the Anaheim schools he was a
member of the county board of education. He
helped to organize the first teachers’ institute
(October 31, 1870) ever organized in the coun-
ty. In 1874 he married Miss D. C. Marquis,
an assistant teacher, daughter of the Rev. John
Marquis. To them three children have been
born : Mabel Elisabeth, Edna Marquis and
Howard James. The Marquis family is of
Huguenot ancestry. The progenitors of the
family in America left France after the revo-
cation of the edict of Nantes, and settled in the
north of Ireland. From there, in 1720, they
emigrated to America, locating in Pennsyl-
V3.1113.
In 1881 Mr. Guinn was appointed superin-
tendent of the city schools of Los Angeles. He
filled the position of school superintendent for
two years. He then engaged in merchandis-
ing, which he followed for three years. Sell-
ing out, he engaged in the real estate and loan
business, safely passing through the boom. He
filled the position of deputy county assessor
several years.
Politically he has always been a stanch Re-
publican. He was secretary of a Republican
club before he was old enough to vote, and.
arriving at the voting age, he cast his first
vote for John C. Fremont, in 1856, and has had
the privilege of voting for every Republican
nominee for president since. In 1873, when the
county was overwhelmingly Democratic, he
was the Republican nominee for the assembly
and came within fifty-two votes of being elect-
ed. In 1875 he was the nominee of the anti-
monopoly wing of the Republican party for
state superintendent of public instruction. For
the sake of party harmony he withdrew just
before the election in favor of the late Prof.
Ezra Carr, who was triumphantly elected. He
served a number of years on the Republican
county central committee, being secretary
from 1884 to 1886.
Mr. Guinn took an active part in the organ-
ization of the Historical Society of Southern
California, in 1883, and has filled every office
in the gift of the society. He has contributed
a number of valuable historical papers to mag-
azines and newspapers and has edited the His-
torical Society's Annual for the past ten years.
652
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
He is a member of the American Historical
Association of Washington, D. C., having the
honor of being the only representative of that
association in Southern California. While en-
gaged in the profession of teaching he was a
frequent contributor to educational periodicals
and ranked high as a lecturer on educational
subjects before teachers’ institutes and asso-
ciations. He is a charter member of Stanton
Post No. 55, G. A. R.; also a past post com-
mander. He has filled the position of post ad-
jutant continuously for fifteen years. When
the Society of Pioneers of Los Angeles Coun-
ty was organized in 1897 he was one of the
committee of three selected to draft a form of
organization and a constitution and by-laws.
He has filled the office of secretary, and also
that of a member of the board of directors
since the Society’s organization ten years ago.
In 1904 Mr. Guinn was nominated for mem-
ber of the city board of education by the Non-
partisan committee of one hundred. The Non-
partisans were elected by a majority of three
thousand over their Republican opponents, al-
though at the county election in November the
Republicans carried the city by a majority of
Over twelve thousand. He was renominated
in 1906, but declined the nomination. After
the organization of the new board, Mr. Emmet
J. Wilson, having been appointed assistant
city attorney, resigned. Mr. Guinn was urged
to fill the vacancy and finally consented. Be-
sides the historical portion of this volume he
has written a history of Southern California'
and a brief history of California.
*
GEORGE A. NADEAU. A pioneer of Los
Angeles county, a prosperous and successful
rancher and real-estate dealer, George A. Na-
deau occupies a foremost position among the
representative citizens of this section, to whose
upbuilding and development he has given a
distinctive service. He was born in Canada
March 27, 1850, a son of Remi Nadeau, also a
native of Canada, where for many years he
engaged at his trade of millwright. In 1860
he started to California across the plains,
spending the winter en route in Salt Lake
City; thence came to California and to Los
Angeles in the fall of 1861, making this his
headquarters, although he followed teaming in
Montana and Northern California. In 1866
he located permanently in Los Angeles coun-
ty, where he purchased property and engaged
in teaming, principally into the Owens river
country, and in 1873 organized the Cerro Gor-
do Freighting Company, doing a very exten-
sive business, which continued until the rail-
roads took the business. He added to his
holdings until he owned thirty-two hundred
and fifty acres of land. He became prominent
among the upbuilding influences of this coun-
ty, his name being perpetuated through his
erection of the Nadeau hotel, at the corner of
First and Spring streets, in Los Angeles,
which was completed in 1884. His death oc-
curred in 1886, at the age of sixty-eight years.
In his political affiliations he was a stanch
Republican. His wife, formerly Martha F.
Frye, was a native of New Hampshire, in
which state they were married; she survived
her husband Some years, passing away Janu-
ary 18, 1904, at the age of eighty-four years.
She was a member of the Congregational
Church. They were the parents of seven
children, of whom but three are now surviv-
ing ; Joseph F., of Long Beach ; and Mrs.
Mary R. Bell, located on a farm adjoining
that of her brother, George A. Nadeau.
George A. Nadeau is a Canadian by birth,
but at the age of seven years he was brought
by his parents to the United States. In Chi-
cago and Faribault, Minn., he passed his boy-
hood days, receiving his education in the pub-
lic schools and by personal contact with the
world. During the father's first years in Cal-
ifornia his family continued to make the latter
city their home, and there George A. engaged
in an effort to gain an independent livelihood.
In 1868 they went to New Hampshire, the
state of the mother's nativity, and thence to
New York City, where they sailed for Cali-
fornia via the Isthmus of Panama. Upon
landing in San Francisco they took a coast
steamer for San Pedro, and from that point
to the city of Los Angeles. Here Mr. Nadeau
engaged with his father in freighting to the
Owens river. Six years later he engaged in
the stock business in Modoc county near the
Oregon line, disposing of these interests
twelve months after, and upon returning to
Los Angeles engaged in this county in a like
occupation. The ranch upon which he now
lives, and where he has passed the greater
part of the past thirty years, was purchased
by his father in 1875, and contained one hun-
dred and sixty acres; which, since the death
of the mother has been divided among the
children.
After Mr. Nadeau's marriage in 1881 to
Miss Nellie Tyler they located permanently
on thirty acres of the old homestead, at the
corner of Compton and Nadeau avenues,
where Mr. Nadeau is following farming in ad-
dition to teaming. He has recently erected
an elegant residence, complete in all of its ap-
pointments. They are the parents of four
children. Joseph G., Delbert G., Grace, and
Stella Maie, the 1ast named the wife of Ray

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
655
Mathis, a dentist in Los Angeles. Mrs. Na-
deau is a native of Iowa, but was only three
years old when her parents removed to Cali-
fornia, where they have ever since resided.
In addition to his home property Mr. Na-
deau also owns sixty-three acres on Central
avenue, about three-quarters of a mile from
the city limits of Los Angeles, situated on the
corner of Florence and Central avenues, and
considered a valuable tract of land. One of
the most important enterprises which he has
undertaken was subdividing a forty acre tract,
known as the Nadeau Villa tract, and which
has since been entirely disposed of ; he also
owns property on Central avenue and Twen-
tieth street, besides some in Long Beach.
Like his father, Mr. Nadeau takes a promi-
nent part in public affairs, as a Republican in
politics voting this ticket and seeking to ad-
vance the principles he endorses. He is a
member of the Pioneers Society of Los An-
geles county and takes a deep interest in the
preservation of historical data and all associa-
tions of the past. *
l
JAMES CLEMINSON. Holding promi-
nent place among the citizens of Los Angeles
county is James Cleminson, one of the stanch
upbuilders of this section of the state. He
was . born in Independence, MO., August 7,
1833, a son of John, an honored pioneer. The
latter was born in England in 1798, and was
brought to America in 1812 by his father, who
landed in St. John’s, New Brunswick. The
family drifted to the United States and the eld-
er man became permanently located in Louis-
ville, Ky. John Cleminson later removed to
Lexington, Lafayette county, Mo., where he
engaged as a school teacher and later a cabi-
net-maker and carpenter. He was next locat-
ed in Galena, Ill., whence in 1852 he came
overland to California and engaged as a farmer
in E1 Monte, where his death occurred in 1879,
at the advanced age of eighty years. His
wife was formerly Lydia Lightner, a native
of Lancaster, Pa., who came to Missouri with
her parents and was there married to Mr.
Cleminson. She was born July II, 18OO, and
died in 1873. They had six children, four
daughters and two sons, of whom two daugh-
ters are deceased. John is a resident of LOS
Angeles county, located on a ranch in the
vicinity of El Monte; Mrs. Lydia A. Reeves,
of Clearwater, was the first American woman
married in San Diego; Diantha B. is the wife
of James Durfee; and James is the subject of
this sketch.
James Cleminson was born in Indepen-
dence, Mo., August 7, 1833, and was thirteen
years old when taken by his parents to Ga-
lena, Ill. From there they removed to Car-
roll county, same state, and in the schools of
that state he received his education. Decid-
ing to follow the westward trend of civiliza-
tion he outfitted for the overland trip to Cali-
fornia and on the I5th of July, 1851, left In-
dependence over the old Santa Fe trail for
the El Dorado state. The journey is strong-
ly impressed upon the memory of this early
pioneer, he recalling vividly the dangers and
privations they endured, during the slow,
weary months until they reached their des-
tination. The Indians stole a part of their
cattle and in Arizona the Apaches killed sev-
eral members of the train. Deprived of their
Oxen sixteen men pulled a wagon over the
mountains to Santa Cruz, thence on to Yuma,
where they had to give nearly all they had to
be carried across the river. There they re-
ceived assistance from a government train
that took them on to San Diego. In Santa
Ysabel members of the train stopped to work
for the government, but Mr. Cleminson made
his way to San Diego and did teaming to
Yuma. In November, 1852, he located in
San Bernardino county, purchased land on
Lytle creek and there made his home for five
years. He then came to Los Angeles coun-
ty and in the vicinity of El Monte bought a
squatter's right to land, for the title to which
he fought for twenty years, but finally suc-
ceeded in winning the legal contest. He en-
gaged in general farming and stock-raising
up to June 15, 1906, when he retired from the
active cares of life and located in Los An-
geles, at No. 3825 Woodlawn avenue. He
was uniformily successful in his enter-
prises and accumulated wealth, and at the
same time built up for himself a position of
prominence among the citizens of this sec-
tion. He improved his ranch, setting out
twenty-five acres in walnuts, and also laid
out several additions to El Monte, known as
Cleminson subdivision No. 1, consisting of
five acres, and Cleminson subdivision No. 2,
consisting of ten acres. He is intensely in-
terested in the development of the country
and without hesitation gave the right of way
to the electric railroad—about $3,000 worth
of land. He still owns sixty acres of fine land
adjoining El Monte, which is leased at the
present writing.
Mr. Cleminson has been twice married, the
first union occurring in San Bernardino and
uniting him with Mrs. Caroline (Singleton)
Beck, a native of England. Two children
were born of this union, James Devine, whose
sketch follows, and Willis S., who died at the
age of four years. In 1885 he was married in
39
656
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
El Monte to Emma Christ, a native of Iowa,
and they have one son, Hugh D. Fraternally
Mr. Cleminson is a member of Lexington
Lodge No. 104, F. & A. M., and Order of
Eastern Star, which he has served as treas-
urer since its organization. Politically he is
a stanch advocate of the principles of the Re-
publican party. During the half century and
more which he has been numbered among the
residents of the state he has not been an idle
witness of her progress, but has borne a noble
and telling part in her upbuilding. Progres-
sive and enterprising in the highest sense of
the word, he is accounted one of the stanch
supporters of that which goes to make up the
stability of a city, county or state.
JAMES DEVINE CLEMINSON was
born in San Bernardino county, February 14,
1870, and reared in E1 Monte, where he was
brought in childhood, receiving his education
in the public schools. He then engaged with
his father in the management of a fine dairy
of one hundred full-blooded Jerseys, and was
successful in this enterprise. He gradually
acquired a position of prominence among the
younger men of the community, esteemed for
the qualities of character which he early dis-
played. In 1898 he was honored by the ap-
pointment to the position of road overseer of
the El Monte district, by O. W. Langdon,
and since that time he has discharged his
duties in a capable and efficient manner and
to the entire satisfaction of all concerned.
Mr. Cleminson has been twice married, his
first wife being Miss Lulu Caldwell, who was
born in Duarte and died in El Monte, leaving
one child, James Ercel. Later he married
Miss Elizabeth Weigand, a native of San
Francisco, and born of this union are two
children, Caroline Pauline and George Del-
bert. In fraternal relations Mr. Cleminson is
a member of Lexington Lodge No. IO4, F. &
A. M., and also belongs to the Order of East-
ern Star. He is likewise identified with the
Ancient Order of United Workmen. Polit-
ically he is a true-blue Republican and ac-
tive in the advancement of the principles he
endorses. In addition to his duties as road
overseer he established a real-estate enter-
prise in El Monte in 1906, which he has since
conducted with success. He is prominent in
local affairs and is now serving his second
term as president of the high school board of
trustees. He put up the first brick building
in E1 Monte, which burned down about one
year ago, when he rebuilt it. Besides this
property he owns six acres in the heart of
town, the livery, other business and residence
property, in addition to a farm in the vicinity
of El Monte. Not unlike his worthy father
he is one of the enterprising citizens of his
community.
ANDREW JOUGHIN, JR. To those who
have spent all or the greater part of their lives
within the sound of the sunset sea or beneath
the shadow of the mountains of the west, this
portion of the country possesses a charm all
its own and unequaled by any other locality
to which their travels may bring them. It is
significant of Mr. Joughin's interest in Los
Angeles to state that all of his holdings are
compassed within the city and its inviron-
ments. It is here that he makes his home,
here he has labored to develop his personal
interests and the affairs of the city, here he
grew to manhood and has been content to re-
main without desire to investigate the will-o'-
the-wisp allurements of localities less dear to
him. In common with practically all of the
men who have been lifelong residents of Los
Angeles and Southern California, he main-
tains a deep and unceasing interest in move-
ments for the public welfare and contributes
of time and means toward such measures.
Upon another page of this work appears the
biography of Mr. Joughin's father, whose name
he bears and whose strong personality was
impressed upon the pioneer citizenship of
Southern California. During an early period
of the American development of Los Angeles
the family became residents of the city. An-
drew, Jr., was then a small child, he having
been born in Rockford, Ill., January II, 1857.
Educated in the schools of California, he early
left school in order to aid his father in ranch.
ing. Indeed, he was only sixteen years of age
when he came into the management of a ranch
owned by his father, and afterward he main-
tained a close supervision of its cultivation.
As the number of settlers increased the land
was gradually sold off in small tracts, until
but a comparatively small part of the Once
large tract was left in the hands of the Joughin
family. Since the death of the father the
widow and children have inherited the estate,
which now represents a large moneyed value.
The marriage of Andrew Joughin, Jr.,
united him with a young lady who, like him-
self, has been a resident of California from
early childhood. Miss Mary Elizabeth Davis
was born in Syracuse county, N. Y., and at
the age of seven years came to the Pacific
coast with her father, John Davis, settling in
the southern part of the state. Her education
was received in local schools and her home
remained with her parents until May 2, 1883,
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.,
657
when she became the wife of Mr. Joughin,
and they now have a residence on Arlington
Heights, Los Angeles, their place having been
a portion of the Joughin estate. Born of their
union were two children, Glenn and Ruth
Elizabeth, but death removed the oldest
daughter from the home at eight years of age.
The family are honored by their large circle
of acquaintances and number among their
friends many of the most cultured residents
of their home city.
LOUIS DIDIER. Another substantial and
enterprising citizen which France has contrib-
uted to the commonwealth of California is
Louis Didier, a glance at whose well-appointed
ranch two miles east of Puente will substanti-
ate the claim. He comes of a family well known
in Hautes-Alpes, France, his father, Jacques
Didier, carrying on a farm in that section of
the country throughout his life. A break in
the monotony of his farming life came in
1870, when as a soldier in the French army
he took sides against Germany in the Franco-
Prussian war. He did not live to know the
outcome of the struggle, however, for he died
the same year. His wife, formerly Madelena
Segnorete, was also born in Hautes-Alpes,
which has been her life-time home, and she is
still residing on the old homestead in that de-
partment. Of the seven children born into the
parental family all are living, and three of the
number are residents of California, Casimer,
Joseph and Louis, all in Puente.
Louis Didier was born in the ancient town
of Embrun, Hautes-Alpes, France, June 18,
1866, and until a lad of eighteen years was
reared on his father's farm there, in the mean
time, however, having the privilege of attend-
ing the common schools of Embrun. His eld-
er brother, Casimer, had taken advantage of
the opportunities offered by our western coast
country and had established himself on a
ranch near Puente, Cal., and hither Louis fol-
lowed in 1884, working as a ranch hand un-
til enabled to start in business for himself.
Hard work and determination soon made this
possible, however, and two miles east of
Puente he bought the nucleus of his present
ranch, upon which he at first carried on gen-
eral farming and stock-raising. Later he set
out twenty-five acres on the San José creek
to walnuts, besides which he has ten acres in
vines in the same vicinity. The home ranch
two miles cast of Puente now includes eigh-
teen hundred acres, upon which are raised
large quantities of grain and hay, besides
which large herds of fine cattle, horses and
hogs are also raised.
In Los Angeles Mr. Didier was married
to Mrs. Alphonsine (Gauscher) Amar, who
was born near Paris, France, and has been a
resident of California since 1876. Her first
married united her with August Amar, a na-
tive of Hautes-Alpes, France, who came to
the United States and settled in California
about 1869. From that time until his death
almost twenty years later he carried on gen-
eral farming and stock-raising, having pur-
chased for the purpose a portion of the Thom-
as Rowland ranch near Puente. He died in
Los Angeles in 1888, leaving three children,
Constance, August and Fidel. By her sec-
ond marriage Mrs. Didier has become the
mother of four children, as follows: Louisa,
Renee, Louis, Jr., and Claire. As is her hus-
band Mrs. Didier is an active and substantial
member of the community and as a member
of the school board in the Rowland district
has done much to make possible the present
satisfactory conditions which exist in that dis-
trict. Politically Mr. Didier is independent
in the casting of his ballot, and the only so-
cial organization to which he belongs is the
French Legion of Los Angeles. As a well-
earned respite after twenty years of continu-
ous labor Mr. Didier in 1904 took his wife and
family on a visit to France, on the way visit-
ing Chicago, Buffalo and New York.
FRANK H. NEWILOVE. The lineage of
the Newlove family goes back to English an-
cestors of substantial traits, and the entire
genealogy concerns men and women who were
unusually forceful in character and vigorous
in mind. These qualities were found in a
marked degree in the character of John New-
love, a native of England and a pioneer of
1862 in California. Upon coming to the Pa-
cific coast he settled in San Joaquin county,
but soon removed to Monterey county and
during the year 1874 he settled at Guadaloupe,
Santa Barbara county, where he soon became
prominently connected with the stock ranch-
ing interests of the locality. Eventually he
established his home in Santa Maria, where
he died at the age of sixty-three; since his
death his wife has continued to reside, in San-
ta Maria. Of their eleven children eight are
now living, all in California, and with the ex-
ception of one residing in Santa Clara county
they are residents of Santa Barbara county.
After becoming a citizen of the United States
the father voted the Republican ticket and
gave his stanch support to the principles of
that party. In religion he was associated
with the Methodist Episcopal denomination
and his wife also belongs to that church.
658
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
While the family were living in Monterey
county, Cal., Frank H. Newlove was born No-
yember 28, 1868, and when six years of age
he accompanied his parents to Santa Bar-
bara county, settling on a ranch at Guada-
loupe, and later removing to Santa Maria. The
common Schools of these two towns gave him
fair educational advantages and of these he
availed himself to the utmost, laying the foun-
dation of the broad knowledge he today pos-
sesses. In early youth he became familiar
with ranching in all of its details and the oc-
cupation has been his life-work. Starting for
himself in 1889, he settled in the Los Alamos
valley, and eventually, about 1905, removed to
his present ranch, where he has eight hun-
dred acres and engages in raising barley and
wheat. In addition to what he has accumu-
lated for himself he is heir to a share of his
father's estate and ranks among the prosper-
ous young men of the valley.
The marriage of Mr. Newlove was solemn-
ized in 1890 and united him with Miss Millie
Van Gundy, who was born, reared and edu-
cated in California, and is a lady of attractive
personality and an earnest member of the
Methodist Episcopal Church. Born of their
union are five children, Ida, Ray, Albert,
Dewey and Ruby. As a boy Mr. Newlove was
accustomed to hear his father discuss political
issues and he naturally fell into sympathy with
Republican principles. When he became of
voting age and considered national problems
unbiased by the views of boyhood, he found
no reason for changing his attitude on govern-
mental issues and still stanchly gives his sup-
port to Republican measures. In fraternal re-
lations he is connected with the Ancient Or-
der of United Workmen at Los Alamos.
THOMAS L. DE COUDRES. The lineage
of the T)e Coudres family is traced to France,
whence one of the name crossed the ocean to
America during the period of the nation’s col-
onial history. A son of this immigrant bore
the name of Christian and followed the occu-
pation of a tanner in New York. Francis,
son of Christian, followed farm pursuits in
New York state for a considerable period,
but about the middle of the nineteenth cen-
tury he became a pioneer of Wisconsin, where
he took up a tract of raw land near Port
Washington, Ozaukee county. In the man-
agement of that tract and its development in-
to a valuable farm the remaining years of his
iife were actively passed, his death occurring
in Racine county. While still living in New
York he married Sarah Leffingwell, who was
born in Newark, N. J., and died in Wiscon-
sin. Through her mother, who was a Miss
Van Gelder, she traced her ancestry to one
of the oldest Dutch families in the United
States. -
In a family of four children (all now living)
born to the union of Francis De Coudres and
Sarah Leffingwell the third in order of birth
was given the name of Thomas Leffingwell,
and was born near Groton, Tompkins coun-
ty, N. Y., January 30, 1849. When five years
of age he was taken by his parents to Wis-
consin, where he received such advantages as
an undeveloped neighborhood afforded. In
1872 he married and settled upon a farm near
the old homestead in Racine county, where
as the years went by he gained an increased
reputation for Sagacity in farm operations and,
wise judgment in the conduct of his lands.
As previously stated he had established do-
mestic ties in 1872. His wife, who bore the
maiden name of Ella Paddock, was born in
Wisconsin, and died in Walworth county,
that state. Two children were born of their
union: the daughter, Mrs. Elba Smith, makes
her home at Spring Prairie, Wis., and the
son, Ralph, is engaged in business in St. Paul,
Minn. The second marriage of Mr. De Cou-
dres was solemnized in Spring Prairie, Wis.,
in 1890, and united him with Miss Alice
Greene, by whom he has three children:
Thomas Greene, Sarah Clark and Charles
Greene. Mrs. De Coudres, who was born No-
vember 19, 1856, and educated in the normal
school at Whitewater, Wis., is a daughter of
George and Sarah (Clark) Greene, natives re-
spectively of Amherst, Mass., and Chautauqua,
N. Y., the former of whom became a pioneer
of Milwaukee, Wis., during the year 1836,
later became interested in the tilling of the
soil in Walworth county, and was one of the
organizers of the First National Bank of Elk-
horn, Wis. He traces his ancestry to Gen-
eral Greene of the Revolutionary fame.
It was in 1899 that Mr. De Coudres brought
his family to California and settled in Pasa-
dena. A year later he removed to Long
Beach, where since 1903 he has been associat-
ed with the Townsend-Dayman Company as
salesman. At the same time he has been in-
terested in the buying and selling of land, the
building and sale of dwelling houses, and has
also erected a neat residence for his family
on a lot I5OxI60, occupying a desirable loca-
tion on American avenue. In addition to his
other investments he is a stockholder in the
Long Beach National and Long. Beach Sav-
ings Banks, in both of which he officiates as
a member of the board of directors, being a
member of the finance and loan committees.
Through the Board of Trade he aims to as-



HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
661
sist in all enterprises for the material devel-
opment of Long Beach and has accomplished
much tending toward the public welfare dur-
ing the comparatively brief duration of his
residence in this city. All through his life,
from the time of casting his first ballot, he has
been a stanch adherent of the Republican
party and has given his influence and vote in
support of its men and measures. Although
not personally identified with any denomina-
tion, he is interested in religious movements
and contributes toward the maintenace of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, with which his
wife is identified. He has always been tem-
perate in his habits and an earnest advocate
of men of high moral character to fill offices of
trust. Mr. De Coudres is a strictly self-made
man in every sense of the word. Coming to
Long Beach in 1894 for the health of both
himself and his wife, after a few years in Wis-
consin, he moved to California permanently,
disposing of his property in the former state.
He has been very successful in his invest-
ments since locating here and is named among
the substantial citizens of Long Beach.
JACOB BEAN. The century which wit-
nessed the first permanent colonization of the
Atlantic Seaboard brought to the new world
a young Scotchman named John Bean, who
crossing the ocean in 1660 during the course of
his voyage met an Irish girl, Margaret, of a
family name not now known. An ardent wooing
resulted in their marriage and they set up their
first home in the primeval wilds of New Hamp-
shire, where many succeeding generations of
their descendants lived and labored and died.
From that state Jacob W. Bean, a brave sol-
dier in the war of I812, removed to Maine
and secured employment in teaming and
draying, later for some years holding a po-
sition as superintendent of the county poor
farm of Penobscot county. Eventually other
activities engaged his attention and he
achieved a success noteworthy for that day
and locality. Until his death at eighty-two
years he retained his interest in commercial
enterprises and movements for the develop-
ment of his community. Early in manhood
he had married Jane Danforth, who was born
in Eaton, N. H., and died in Minnesota at
about seventy-eight years of age. Both were
faithful members of the Methodist Episcopal
Church and reared their children (of whom
there were three) to habits of industry, hon-
or and persevering energy.
The youngest child in the family of Jacob
W. Bean was a son to whom was given the
father's name and whose birth occurred in
Penobscot county, Me., January 19, 1837. At-
tending school between the years of six and
fourteen, he then began to earn his own live-
lihood, and for seven years was employed as
clerk...in a general store owned by Colonel
Hamlin of Orono, Penobscot county. In 1858
he resigned his position and sailed for Pana-
ma en route to California, where for a brief
period he worked in the mines in Placer
County. However, learning of his father's
illness, he decided to return to the Atlantic
coast, hence his first experience of life in the
far west was brief. For a year he had charge
of a lumber camp owned by a brother in
Maine, after which he bought an interest in
the business and continued logging and lum-
bering in the east until 1864, meanwhile meet-
ing with encouraging success in the industry.
On removing from Maine to the newer and
more undeveloped regions of the upper Mis-
sissippi valley, Mr. Bean became a resident of
Stillwater, Minn., in 1864, and managed a
lumber camp for a year. At the expiration of
that time he bought a one-third interest in
the business and in 1880 enlarged his hold-
ings in the concern, where now he owns one-
half interest. The company owns one hun-
dred and sixty thousand acres of timber land
of great value and conducts a large and prof-
itable business in the line of its specialty.
For many years Mr. Bean was one of the
principal partners in the enterprise and gave
it his undivided attention, his attention to
details and executive ability being, in fact,
the principal factors in the rapid growth of
the company’s holdings. After a long per-
sonal identification with the camp and mills
of the company, Mr. Bean reached a position
where he felt justified in relinquishing many
of his activities, and accordingly he began to
spend his winters in California, returning to
Minnesota for the summer months. During
1893 he purchased one hundred and four
acres at Alhambra, eight miles from Los An-
geles, and since 1900 he has made this his
permanent home, meanwhile devoting many
thousands of dollars to the development of
the land. At the time of its purchase the
place was a barley field. Realizing its value
for citrus fruit cultivation, he began to plant
Orange trees and now has ninety acres in
Oranges, of which he has shipped as many as
sixty-four cars in one season. An attractive
modern residence adorns the homestead :
water has been brought to the house and land
by an adequate system of piping; lawns have
been cultivated, and no expense or labor has
been spared in making the property one of
the most beautiful and valuable properties in
Southern California.
662
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
While still making Maine his business head-
quarters Mr. Bean established a home of his
Own in his marriage to Miss Cynthia A. Mc-
Phetres, a refined young lady who was born
and reared in Orono and to whose sympathy
and co-operation not a little of his subse-
quent success may be attributed. The Mc-
Phetres family dates its history in America
back to Archibald McPhetres, who crossed
the ocean about 1716 and settled with a
brother at Portsmouth, N. H. Later he mar-
ried a daughter of the first governor of New
Hampshire. Descended from him was John
McPhetres, a native of Maine and a pioneer
of Orono, that state. In the family of John
was a son, Martin, born and reared at Orono,
and employed as a lumberman and also as
surveyor for lumber firms. The title of Cap-
tain, by which he was familiarly known, came
through his service at the head of a company
in the state militia. Three children were born
of his marriage to Jemima Murch, a native of
Hampden, Penobscot county, Me., and de-
ceased at the age of eighty-five years. In re-
ligion she was a member of the Methodist
Episcopal Church. Among her three children
was a daughter, Cynthia A., who was born
May 21, 1838, and received a fair education
in the schools of Orono, remaining in that
town until after her marriage to Mr. Bean,
which was solemnized October 14, 1860.
Four years later the young couple established
their home in Stillwater, Minn., where they
soon became influential citizens. Of their
union the following-named children were born:
Charles Robie, who resides with his parents;
William H., who manages with keen intelli-
gence the large lumber interests owned by
his father; Estelle, who died at twenty-three
years of age; Ann, who married Albert J.
Lehmicke, cashier of the Lumberman's Bank
at Stillwater, Minn.; Eugene (twin of Ann),
who resides in Los Angeles; and Mary Ella,
who is the wife of Norbert Murray, a real-es-
tate man of Los Angeles.
Though not identified with any denomina-
tion, Mr. Bean has ever been a generous con-
tributor to movements for the upbuilding of
the people. His charities are no less effective
because given without Ostentation. Many
struggling against an adverse sea of fate have
been helped by him at some crisis when hope
became faint. Firm in his belief in the value
of an education, though he himself achieved
success with scarcely the advantage of a
grammar-school education, he has been a
friend of the public-school system and has
favored the most advanced theories of ped-
agogy. The large holdings which give him
a position among the wealthy citizens of the
Southern Coast country have not held him
aloof from his fellowmen or made him less
responsive to their needs and ambitions, but
on the contrary he maintains a fellow-feeling
for all, and especially for young men obliged,
as was he, to carve their own success in the
commercial world without the prestige of in-
fluence or wealth.
JOSEPH AMBROSE WELDT. One of
the most prominent and influential business
men of San Pedro is Joseph Ambrose Weldt,
who was born in Wilmington, April 22, 1868,
and has ever since resided in the vicinity, be-
coming identified with many important enter-
prises in the development of this section of the
State. He is of German-American parentage,
his father having been a native of Germany,
although he came to this country when a small
boy. He landed in New York City, where he
learned the trade of silversmith, later served
in the United States navy on the Frigate Rior-
dan, experienced the earthquake at Valparaiso,
and after his dismissal from the naval service
went to St. Louis, Mo. He did military duty
during the war with Mexico in 1846 and in
the '50s, when the First Regiment of Dragoons
was sent out to guard the companies of emi-
grants on their way to California, he became
first sergeant of Company H. He finally located
at Fort Tejon, where he engaged in ranching,
merchandising and freighting to Los Angeles.
In 1862 he removed to Wilmington, where he
bought a tract of land and devoted himself to
farming, stock-raising and dairying, becoming
the first settler in that section of country. His
marriage to Caroline Malone, who crossed the
plains with the Alexanders, occurred at Santa
Fe, N. Mex. Her death occurred at Wilming-
ton in 1897. Mr. Weldt is still living there,
at the age of eighty-five years, and is still
hale and hearty.
There were five children in the family of
which Joseph Ambrose Weldt is a member,
his oldest brother, David, being a pilot at
San Francisco; the next, Edward, died in San
Pedro ; Frank, who was a justice of the peace,
is also deceased ; and John died at Wilming-
ton. Joseph A. spent his boyhood days on the
farm and received his education through the
medium of the public schools of Wilmington.
In 1886 he went to San Pedro and clerked for
his brother David, who was a ship-chandler
there, then in 1888 established a business of
his own as ship-chandler and grocer. He suc-
ceeded in builing up a fine business and in 1904,
having outgrown his old quarters, he erected
a large new building for the store on Beacon

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
665
and Sixth streets. He is identified with many
of the important business interests of San
Pedro and is a leader in all departments of
public life. He is one of the directors of the
Bank of San Pedro, was the organizer of the
Citizens Savings Bank of San Pedro, of which
he also is a director, and has built a number
of fine residences in the city. He served for
several years as school trustee, and since 1892
has filled the office of city treasurer of San
Pedro.
In his political affiliations Mr. Weldt is a
Democrat, and fraternally he holds member-
ship in a number of lodges, among them being
the Knights of Pythias, Woodmen of the
World, Eagles, and Benevolent Protective
Order of Elks. He also belongs to the San
Pedro Parlor, N. S. G. W. He is a faithful
public servant, a successful private business
man, and a tireless worker for the good of the
community in which he resides and is held i
the highest esteem. -
ARCHIE SMITH. An authority on orange
culture and One of the most successful grow-
ers in this section, Archie Smith is located
in the vicinity of San Gabriel, where he oc-
cupies a high position in the respect and es-
teem of his fellow citizens. He is a native of
California and a lifelong resident of the San
Gabriel valley, his birth having occurred here
November 8, 1864; his father, Alexander
Smith, a native of Wisconsin, came to Cali-
fornia in 1850 and became interested in the
mines of San Gabriel canyon, remaining in
this section until about 1870. In 1859 he
sent east for his family to rejoin him. He at-
tained the age of seventy-seven years, while
his wife, formerly Sarah Silkwood, a native of
Illinois, passed away when sixty-seven. Mr.
Smith was a Democrat on national issues,
but locally was always counted upon to sup-
port the man whom he considered best quali-
fied to discharge official duties. Both himself
and wife were members of the Methodist
Episcopal Church. Their three surviving
children are all located in the vicinity of San
Gabriel.
The preliminary education of Archie Smith
was received in the district school in the vi-
cinity of his home, which country as he saw it
as a boy was grant land and covered with bands
of horses and cattle, and the only building
was the stage station between San Gabriel
and Los Angeles. His school days over he
learned the wine making trade and became
manager of a winery in Puente. Following
this business for about five years, he came to
his present location, where he has since resid-
ed with the exception of one year spent in Los
Angeles, engaged in general contracting.
The Titus ranch, as the place is known, con-
sists of five hundred and fifty acres, of which
One hundred and twenty acres are devoted to
the cultivation of oranges, consisting of
mavels, valencias and seedlings, while the bal-
ance of the land is given over to grain-raising.
For the past eighteen years he has acted as
manager of this fine property and in the mean-
time has brought it to a high state of cultiva-
tion. He also owns a ranch of thirty-one
acres, one and one-half miles north of San
Gabriel, all devoted to oranges in full bear-
ing, and on this property he has erected a
handsome, ten-roomed house, modern in all
its appointments, and has put up fine barns
and outbuildings. In 1882 Mr. Smith was
married to Miss Anna N. Allen, a native of
Butte county, Cal., and born of this union
are three children: Leo S., Nellie M. and
Archie. E. In his political relations Mr.
Smith is a Democrat on all national issues,
but like his father is too good a citizen to let
party affiliations interfere with good local.
government, where he has an opportunity of
knowing the character of the candidate, his
purposes and aims. For the past eighteen
years he has served as school trustee. Fra-
ternally he is identified with the Foresters.
In addition to his interests already mentioned
Mr. Smith is serving as manager of the San
Marino Growers’ Packing Association, which
he was instrumental in organizing in 1905,
composed of the Huntington Land & Improve-
ment Co., George S. Patton, Bradbury Es-
tate Company and John D. Bicknell, all in.
terests of considerable magnitude. They
handle about one hundred and seventy-five
cars of fruit each year.
ERLE GERARD. In a city which is grow-
ing as rapidly as is Long Beach at the pres-
ent time there are large opportunities for the
thoroughly competent mechanic to establish
himself in a thriving business. Erle Ger-
ard, who is engaged in blacksmithing and
is proprietor of the Imperial carriage shop, has
demonstrated his ability as a workman and
his business acumen, and although it is but
a little over a year ago that he established his
business it is now recognized as one of the
largest and most successful of the kind in the
city. His shop, which is located at No. 630
East Fourth street, fills a commodious build-
ing 50x100 feet and is fitted up with all nec-
essary modern machinery and tools enabling
the workmen to turn out all jobs in a first
class manner.
666
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
It was on October 25, 1879, that Mr. Ger-
ard was born in Crawfordsville, Ind., the son
of Abner H. and Mary T. (Stover) Gerard,
the former a native of Dayton, Ohio, and the
latter of Crawfordsville, Ind. Both parents are
now living and the father is engaged in busi-
ness with the son, having charge of the paint-
ing department. Mr. Gerard was reared in
Indiana, where he acquired an education in
the public and high schools, and later grad-
uated from Hall's Business College. After
the completion of his school work he entered
his father's blacksmith and carriage shop in
Crawfordsville and there learned the different
branches of the trade and followed this em-
ployment until the breaking out of the Span-
ish-American war. April 26, 1898, he enlisted
as a member of the One Hundred and Fifty-
eighth Regiment of Indiana Volunteer Infan-
try, Company M, and after six months’ serv-
ice was honorably discharged and mustered out
with the regiment November 4, 1898. He
then became First Sergeant of Company M,
Third Indiana National Guards, serving until
1901, when he retired. It was in 1903 that he
became a resident of Long Beach and in July,
1905, that he established his present business
here.
The first marriage of Mr. Gerard united him
with Miss Imogene Osburn, who was born in
Sullivan county, Ind., and died in Redlands,
Cal. She became the mother of two children,
Mary and Jesse. In Long Beach he was later
married to Miss Beulah Rosenberg, a native of
|Robins, Iowa. Mr. Gerard is a mem-
ber of McKinley Camp of Spanish-Ameri-
can War Veterans at Long Beach and
politically is an advocate of the principles
embraced in the platform of the Republican
party. As an enterprising and progressive
citizen he is actively interested in the upbuild-
ing of the city in which he resides, and where
he is held in the highest esteem by all who
have the pleasure of his acquaintance.
FR. JOSEPH JEREMIAH O'KEEFE, su-
perior of the Mission of San Luis Rey, is de-
voted to the work in which he has for many
years been actively engaged, and by his abil-
ity, quiet persuasion and his earnest enthu-
siasm has improved the material as well as
the spiritual condition of those who have
looked to him for help, comfort and advice.
He is now rebuilding the Mission, which,
when completed, will be a reproduction of the
original structure in outline, but will be much
more substantial and durable, and will prove
a lasting monument to his energy and re-
ligious zeal. He was born November 8, 1842, a
*
ington and Kearney streets.
son of Dennis and Margaret (Smith) O’Keefe,
who became the parents of six children, five
of whom are living. His father, who for sev-
eral years was engaged in business in Boston
as a cooper and as a refiner of whale oil, came
to California in 1853, and after mining for a
while settled in San Francisco and there re-
sided until his death.
In 1854 Joseph J. O’Keefe came with his
mother and her children, of whom he was the
eldest, to California to join the father, sailing
from New York to Greytown on the ship
Northern Light, from there coming direct to
San Francisco. The following two years he
attended what is now the Garfield school, in
his leisure time being employed as a clerk in
a drug store that stood on the corner of Wash-
From 1858 until
1860 he continued his studies at St. Thomas
Seminary, and then entered the Franciscan
Order at Santa Barbara, where he was fitted
for the priesthood. He was subsequently or-
dained deacon in Los Angeles by Bishop
Amat, and in 1868 was ordained priest by the
same bishop at Santa Barbara. The Fran-
ciscan College in that city being opened,
Father O’Keefe had charge of it from 1868
until 1875. Going then to Mexico, he re-
mained there for a time and soon after his
return to Santa Barbara in 1879 was made su-
perior of the Mission, a position which he
ably filled until 1882, when by orders from
Rome in 1885 it was merged into the College
of the Sacred Heart. In 1892 Father O’Keefe,
who had previously made several trips to Mex-
ico, went to El Paso, Tex., to meet Father
Alva, who was on his way to visit the San
JLuis Rey Mission, with a view to accepting
it from Bishop Mora and converting it into a
school.
Father O’Keefe returned to California with
Father Alva, who accepted the Mission, and
he has since served as superior. The Mission
when he assumed its charge was a complete
ruin, but he has continued its improvements
ever since, devoting his entire time and energy
to its completion. The arches are practically
the same as in the old building, and the new
building, the foundation for which was laid
in August, IOO4, will have the same general
appearance. The part being rebuilt is one hun-
dred and eighty-six feet in length from the
side of the church, exclusive of the arches,
with walls three feet thick, the first story
being fourteen feet high, made of adobe, the
second one-half story nine and one-half feet
high. The building will be one of the finest
of its kind in Southern California, and when
completed with new roof, beams and other
needed improvements will be able to with-



HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
669
stand the ravages of time for years. The
church has been repaired with the remaining
good tiles, the balance with corrugated gal-
Vanized iron roofing. In addition to having
charge of the San Luis Rey Mission Father
O'Keefe attends the missions at Oceanside,
Vista, Fallbrook, Calaveras and Riverside
School district and south to San Dieguito.
BRYANT HOWARD. Mental endow-
ments of a Superior character and the influ-
ences which surround the life of the son of a
Southern planter of the ante-bellum type, found
expression in a personality so striking as to
make the late Bryant Howard admired by all
to whom his name was familiar. He was
reared in his native city of Buffalo, N. Y.,
and by various sojourns in other large cities
he gained an intimate knowledge of American
life, to which he added the cosmopolitan in-
formation gained by continental travels. It
was his privilege to enjoy a tour of Europe
with President James A. Garfield and Profes-
Sor Rhodes as companions, together with
other men of fame. Among such companions
he was thoroughly at home, for his mind en-
joyed contact with cultured minds. To the
possession of poetical talent he added a taste
for literature in its other forms, while a re-
tentive memory enabled him to retain the
thoughts and facts gleaned from history, sci-
ence and art.
Mr. Howard was born in Buffalo, N. Y.,
May 17, 1835, the representative of a family
many years established on American soil, in-
heriting characteristics which were afterward
eminent features in his career. His identi-
fication with the city of San Diego began in
1870, directly following a tour of Europe, and
from that time on until his death he was a
prominent figure in the commerce and finan-
cial life of the place, aiding with all the vigor
of a forceful personality to promote its growth
and secure the development of its best inter-
ests. The delightful and unvarying climate
and the sunlit bay with its advantages for the
anchoring of the great ocean steamers he pre-
dicted would be factors in the permanent pros-
perity of the town. With an enthusiastic faith
in the city, in the year of his arrival he or-
ganized the Bank of San Diego, the first insti-
tution of its kind here established, and was
elected cashier. For years the bank stood un-
shaken by decadence of booms and shrinkage
of real estate values, and the institution was
loved by its founder with a devotion akin to
that of father for child. The untarnished rep-
utation of the bank was his pride and joy.
|Under these circumstances the blow came to
him witli unusual force when, during the
stress of the panic of 1893, the directors felt
obliged to suspend business, owing to the
shrinkage in value of their assets. This insti-
tution in 1879 had been combined with the
Commercial Bank of San Diego, under the
name of the Consolidated Bank, a state bank,
and on the first of October, 1883, was reor-
ganized as a national bank, called the Consol-
idated National Bank, whose deposits in 1887
were over two million dollars. The final clos-
ing of the doors in 1893 was proven by sub-
sequent developments wholly unnecessary and
greatly to be deplored. in the final settle-
ments all depositors were paid eighty-five
cents on the dollar, so their loss was slight,
but Mr. Howard himself never recovered from
the shock, and after suffering from failing
health for a considerable period he passed
away October 12, 1901.
In addition to his interest in financial cir-
cles Mr. Howard was active in his efforts to
advance the welfare of the city, and his spirit
of progress and enterprise being quickly rec-
ognized by his ſellow townsmen he was early
iOoked upon as a citizen to whom public honor
or duty was a personal trust. In 1872 he was
appointed one of a committee of San Diego
citizens to welcome Tom Scott and his asso-
ciates, and worked with great energy and en-
thusiasm to secure terminal facilities for the
Texas Pacific Railroad. In 1873, he went to
England in the interests of San Diego, hoping
to be able to open a line of trade between this
port and Liverpool. For a lengthy period, he
served as president of the San Diego Flume
Company, and manager and principal owner
of the San Diego Daily Union, as well as a
number of other large corporations. Until his
health failed he was one of the most energetic
and successful financiers of Southern Califor-
nia, taking a prominent and active part in
every important business undertaking of this
section. He always worked with untiring zeal
for the welfare of San Diego, and the beauti-
ful city of to-day owes much of its present
growth and prosperity to his efforts, as he
was instrumental in inducing many capitalists
to invest here, besides securing loans for va-
rious business enterprises. His faith in San
Diego was unbounded, and during his long
residence here he devoted the best years of his
life and his greatest efforts to the upbuilding
of the city and county. His literary ability
was not the least of his gifts, and when
stricken with illness he was engaged in com-
piling a history of San Diego county, which
was nearing completion.
Surviving him, and the only son of his first
marriage, Mr. Howard left a son, Roscoe, who
670
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
now holds the office of manager of the Puget
Sound Telephone Construction Company, of
Washington. Roy, the son of his second mar-
riage, also survives and resides near his moth-
er's home in San Diego, where he is a manu-
facturer of marine gas engines. Mrs. Howard
was formerly Miss Medora Hereford and is a
native Californian, born, reared and educated
in Los Angeles, where she was well known in
the social circles of her girlhood days.
Throughout his home town and county. Mr.
Howard was well known as a man of most in-
flexible principles of honor, a banker possess-
ing a thorough knowledge of finance, a friend
to the needy and to those in bereavement and
distress, all in all a well-rounded character
whose citizenship was of permanent benefit to
his adopted city. As a member of the Demo-
cratic party he was interested in measures for
the success of that organization, whose prin-
ciples he espoused from boyhood and support-
ed with the fixedness of an unchanging mind.
Though himself of Unitarian belief, all creeds
and faith had the encouragement of his sym-
pathy and assistance, while movements allied
with education and philanthropy also relied
upon his practical helpfulness.
J. J. HOLLOWAY. During the pioneer
period covering the American colonization of
California the Holloway family crossed the
plains with the primitive methods of trans-
portation then in vogue and established a
home in the midst of a frontier environment.
The parents were John and Nancy K. (Foster)
Holloway, natives respectively of Kentucky
and North Carolina, but later residents of Illi-
nois, where they met and married. Subse-
quently they became residents of Benton coun-
ty, Mo., where their son, J. J., was born Jan-
:1ary 26, 1839, and where he received the rudi-
ments of a common-school education. It was
on the 15th of April, 1850, that the family bade
farewell to friends and familiar associations
and began the long journey with wagons and
oxen. As they crossed the plains they suf-
fered considerable annoyance from Indians,
but no lives were lost and no sproperty de-
stroyed. On arriving in California they set-
tled in Sutter county and took up ranching
and stock-raising. Two years later the father
started back to Missouri with the intention of
buying stock, but while on the way back to
California he was drowned in Green river,
June 16, 1853. The mother survived him for
a long period, and passed away in 1890, at the
age of seventy years. Of their seven children
only three are now living, two in California
and one in Mexico.
During the period of the Blackhawk war
John Holloway enlisted in a company and aid-
ed in subduing the Indians, and he also ren-
dered efficient service in the Mormon war. At
One time he officiated as captain of Company
E, Missouri Mounted Volunteers, which com-
pany Was mustered into service at Fort Leav-
enworth for the Mexican war and did not dis-
band for one and one-half years. During the
brief period of his residence in California he
became a man of large influence in his county
and often spoke in public assemblies upon the
slave question, in which he was deeply inter-
ested. Though he did not have educational
advantages in his youth, he possessed a fine
mind and a retentive memory and became a
man of broad learning. Few men of his com-
munity surpassed him in command of language
and Oratorical gifts, and as a speaker he al-
ways won the admiration of his hearers.
At the time of crossing the plains J. J. Hol-
loway was a lad of eleven years, quick to com-
prehend the conditions he saw on every hand
and prompt to make himself useful in every
emergency. After the death of his father he
worked to support himself and assist his moth-
er in the care of the family, and by his un-
wearied labor he succeeded in paying for a
farm in Sutter county, but the floods of 1861-
62 caused him the entire loss of his posses-
Sions, and he sold out for an insignificant sum.
For three years following he worked at Grid-
ley, from which place he crossed the mount-
ains to Clover valley, and in 1864 settled in
Surprise valley in Modoc county. The first
by-laws of the organization of that county
were written by him, and he wielded a large
influence among the pioneers of that region,
where he was extensively engaged in the stock
business. Late in the year 1868 he removed
to the vicinity of Santa Maria, but the ensu-
ing year he moved to the Oakvale district,
where he remained until December, 1891.
During the latter year he sold his land and re-
moved to Los Alamos valley, Santa Barbara
county, where now he owns about eight acres
of oil land and farms two hundred and fifty
acres of grain land and pasture.
The first marriage of Mr. Holloway took
place December 22, 1870, and united him with
Rebecca T. Miller, who was born in Sonoma
county, Cal., and died June 13, 1883, at the
age of twenty-nine years. Afterward he was
united in marriage with a sister of his first
wife, Mrs. Sarah E. Linebaugh, who died
January 31, 1899, at the family residence in
Santa Barbara county. Born of the first mar-
riage were the following children: Lucy E.,
Mrs. W. B. McCroskey, who has four children
and lives at Pomona; Dora B., Mrs. John
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
671
Glines, the mother of four children; Nancy E.,
who died at the age of two years; Albert J.,
who is unmarried and resides in San Luis
Obispo county; Everett P., who died August
24, 1905, at the age of twenty-seven years;
James W., living in Santa Barbara county;
and a child who died in infancy. The chil-
dren of the second marriage were four in num-
ber, but the third, Cornell D., died at the age
of thirteen years. Those now living are Char-
lotte H., Carlyle and Francis. -
Among the organizations with which Mr.
Holloway is identified may be mentioned the
Knights of Labor and the Santa Maria Grange,
together with the State Grange. Interested
in the Democratic party as one of its stanch
adherents, he always has been a voter of the
regular ticket in state and national elections.
In local elections he usually votes the straight
ticket, although he believes the character and
personal reliability of the candidate to be of
greater importance than the opinions he may
possess concerning party issues. For four
years he held office as deputy assessor, but
with that exception he has declined official po-
sitions and has given his attention wholly to
agricultural affairs. He long has been con-
nected with the Christian Church and has con-
tributed to its organizations, as well as to oth-
er movements calculated to advance his com-
munity or to promote the welfare of the race.
ELMER ELLSWORTH IZER. Industry,
wise judgment and energy are marked ele-
ments in the character of Mr. Izer and have
been the principal factors in the attainment of
the success from a business standpoint which
he enjoys to-day. The Pomona Manufactur-
ing Company, of which he is the superintend-
ent, is one of the live industries of the town
and furnishes employment to a number of
skilled mechanics. The plant is located on the
corner of Bertie and Gibbs streets, on a ground
space of 95x170 feet, while the building is
17Ox65 feet, with an addition which is occu-
pied by the blacksmith department. In every
sense of the word this is a modern and up-to-
date machine shop, with facilities for making
their own patterns and castings, both in iron
and brass. While they are in a position to
execute work in their line which may be sub-
mitted to them, their specialty lies in manu-
facturing their own goods, among them the
Pomona deep-well pump, ranging from twenty
to fifty-horse-power, traction engines, and
road-oiling machines, the latter of which are
sent all over the United States.
Of eastern birth, Mr. Izer was born July
22, 1861, near Hagerstown, Md., which state
was also the birthplace of his father, John
Jzer. At the time of the breaking out of the
Civil war the father was in Pennsylvania and
from that state he was mustered into the One
Hundred and Twenty-sixth Pennsylvania In-
fantry. By trade he was a cabinet-maker, and
after the war he removed to Alliance, Ohio,
there following his trade in addition to con-
tracting and building. He was well known in
business and Grand Army circles in that city,
where his entire later life was spent. Before
her marriage his wife was Catherine Nichols,
a native of Maryland, and she now makes her
home in Pomona, and all of her children, five
daughters and One son, are also residents of
this state.
As the family removed from Maryland to
Ohio at the close of the war, Elmer E. Izer
has little personal knowledge of his birthplace,
as he was then only about four years of age.
In Alliance he was reared and educated, at-
tending the public and high schools until he
was about seventeen years old, when he ap-
prenticed himself to the Morgan Engineering
Company, manufacturers of steam hammers
and cranes. His apprenticeship of four years
completed, he worked as a journeyman in
Ohio until 1895, in which year he transferred
his interests to the west and located in Po-
mona, Cal. Opening a small and unpreten-
tious shop on Second street he began as a
bicycle repairer, but soon found it necessary
to remove to larger quarters. In establishing
his business on Garey avenue he equipped the
plant for the manufacture of bicycles as well
as repairing, and from this as a beginning
gradually drifted into machine work of a
heavier character. The organization of the
Pomona Manufacturing Company occurred in
I90I, at which time he associated himself with
S. M. Fulton and G. W. Ogle under the afore-
said name, and in 1905 the business was incor-
porated. The officers are Flmer E. Tzer, presi-
dent : S. M. Fulton, secretary and manager;.
G. W. Ogle, vice-president; and Grant Pitzer,
treasurer, all of the members being practical
mechanics and thorough business men. The
deep-well cylinders and valves manufactured
bv the company are the invention of S. M.
Fulton and have a wide reputation, being in
use all Over the United States. -
In Pomona, Cal., Mr. Izer was married to
Miss Elizabeth McCain, who was born in
Kansas, and they have a pleasant and commo-
dious home at No. 751 East Fourth street.
Politically he is well known in Republican
circles, and is equally prominent in fraternal
organizations. In Alliance, Ohio, he was made
an Old Fellow in Lodge No. 246, and at one
time served as noble grand. Since coming to
672
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
the west he had transferred his membership
and is now affiliated with the order in PO-
mona, belonging to the Encampment, in which
he is serving as past C. P., and is also a mem-
ber of the kindred order of Rebekahs.
SAMUEL ALBERT MIDDAGH. When
Mr. Middagh came to Lemon in 1888 he was
favorably impressed with the appearance of
the locality, this, too, after he had traveled
widely throughout the west, and especially
throughout the middle and southern parts of
California. The fact that he soon afterward
purchased porperty upon which he has re-
sided ever since is ample proof that he has no
cause to regret his choice of location. When
he purchased his present ranch of twenty-five
acres in the Fairview district, one and a half
miles west of Lemon, it was a waving field
of barley, but in place of grain the new own-
er set out an orchard of peaches and apricots,
still later changing to oranges and walnuts,
which are now his staple products.
Of eastern parentage, Samuel A. Middagh
is a native of the middle west, born near Nora,
Jo Daviess county, Ill., October 6, 1852, and
is a son of James and Catherine (Bushey)
Middagh, both natives of Pennsylvania. Born
and reared in Juniata valley, Perry county,
Pa., James Middagh set out for the new west
during young manhood, and as early as 1842
became a pioneer settler in the new common-
wealth of Illinois. Twenty-seven years later
witnessed his removal across the Mississippi
river into the adjoining state of Missouri,
where, in Henry county, he carried on a farm
for sixteen years. At the end of this time, in
1885, he came to California, but survived his
removal to the west only about five years, his
death occurring in Covina in 1890. His wife
had preceded him in death many years, pass-
ing away on the Illinois homestead.
Seven children originally constituted the
parental family, but of the number only two
are now living. Fourth in the family, Samuel
A. Middagh was reared and educated in Jo
Daviess county, Ill., and also attended Clin-
ton Academy after the family removed to Mis-
souri in 1869. With the close of his academic
course he began his business career by accept-
ing a clerkship, which he held for three years,
giving it up in 1874 to look for broader induce-
Iments in the west. The same year he came
as far west as Colorado, and in 1875 completed
bis journey to the coast by coming to Los
Angeles. After two years spent in that city
and some time in the Sacramento valley he re-
turned to Missouri and in 1878 went to Texas,
the following year finding him in Colorado once
more, although in the mean time he had paid
another visit to his friends in Missouri. With
the close of his mining experience in Buena
Vista, Colo., where he had been engaged with
varying degrees of success for two years, he
entered the employ of the Union Pacific Rail-
road (now the Union Pacific, Denver & Gulf
Railroad), advancing in the esteem of his su-
pervisors by his strict attention to duty, until
he was finally made agent of the road. It was
in the spring of 1886 that he again came to
California, remaining in Pomona two years,
when, in 1888, he came to Lemon and for about
two years worked as a farm hand in the em-
ploy of others. After a short time similarly
occupied in Covina he came to Fairview dis-
trict and purchased twenty-five acres of the
Monroe place, transforming it from a barley
field into one of the finest orange and walnut
groves in this part of Los Angeles county.
The ranch is thoroughly piped for irrigation,
and when necessary water can be supplied to
any and all parts of it.
In 1897, in Lemon, Mr. Middagh was mar-
ried to Miss Catherine A. Kepner, and three
children, Lillus, Cecil and Elbert, have blessed
their marriage. Since 1899 Mr. Middagh has
been a member of the Fairview school board,
and has also been clerk of the board for the
same length of time. He is a member of but
one fraternal association, the Modern Wood-
Imen of America, belonging to the lodge at
Lemon. Much credit is due Mr. Middagh for
what he has accomplished since coming to
Lemon, all of which is due to hard and unre-
mitting labor, for he has twice almost entirely
replanted his ranch. He has the 'satisfaction
of knowing that it is now one of the most
productive in this vicinity, as well as in point
of appearance ranking favorable with many
more pretentious estates.
JOHN BENJAMIN STEEN. Since 1894
Mr. Steen has been known as one of the most
enthusiastic citizens of Long Beach, coming
here in that year as a contractor and builder,
a line of endeavor for which he has every qual-
ification, if his success during the past twelve
years can be taken as a basis for this conclu-
sion. On the paternal side he is of English
descent, his father, John J. Steen, having been
born in Nottingham, England, whence he im-
migrated to the United States, locating first
in Brooklyn, N. Y., then in Baltimore, Md.,
and still later in Brookfield, Va. It was in
the latter city that his marriage occurred, unit-
ing him with Martha Brooks, who was a na-
tive of the Old Dominion. From Virginia
Mr. Steen and his wife removed to Missouri,
CAPT. MATTHEW SHERMAN

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
675
from there to Rushville, Ohio, and finally to
Iowa, the death of Mrs. Steen occurring in the
latter state. For a number of years Mr. Steen
was a merchant in that state, but is now in
Alberta, Canada, where he has accumulated
large property holdings.
John B. Steen was born in Paulville, Adair
county, Mo., November 14, 1860, and was well
educated in the common schools of the various
localities in which his parents settled during.
his boyhood years. As a trade upon which to
depend for future years he chose that of car-
penter, although for some time he was well
known as a farmer and stock-raiser in Cham-
bers, Holt county, Neb. Relinquishing his in-
terests in Nebraska in 1894 he that year came
to Long Beach and gave his attention to his
trade, the city at that time being in great need
of competent workmen. At first he made a
specialty of shingling contracts, and he has
the credit of completing more houses with
shingle roofs than any other one person in
Long Beach. Later he built houses on his
own responsibility and sold them, in addition
to executing contracts for complete buildings
for others. He still owns six residences, be-
sides valuable property on Second street and
elsewhere in the city.
In Lewis, Cass county, Iowa, John B. Steen
was united in marriage with Bertha F. Van
Ornam, June 19, 1889. She is a daughter of
Edward C. D. and Ann M. (Doolittle) Van
Ornam, an account of whom will be found
elsewhere in this volume. Three children have
blessed the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Steen,
as follows: Victor V., Verna D. M. and Vera
F. Mrs. Steen is a member of the Plymouth
Congregational Church of Long Beach.
* ====
CAPT. MATTHEW SHERMAN. For
more than thirty-five years the name of Cap-
tain Sherman was indissolubly associated with
the growth and development of San Diego,
which he watched with pride in its growth
from a straggling hamlet into one of the im-
portant cities of Southern California. From
the time he came hither, young in years but a
veteran of two wars, down to the very day of
his death, his vigorous mind was felt as a
factor in the promotion of San Diego's best
interests and permanent growth. In his de-
mise there passed a man of many enviable dis-
tinctions in various departments of human ac-
tivity and a man who tvoified the possibilities
of American citizenship. People who were
born in San Diego and who have now reached
middle life cannot recall a time when his name
was not familiar to them or when it did not
stand for progressive spirit and efficient serv-
ices as a citizen, and it is universally accepted
as a fact that his name is worthy of a very
high place in the annals of local history.
Captain Sherman was born in Charleston, a
Suburb of Boston, Mass., October II, 1827,
and was the third child of a large family,
whose parents, Capt. John and Sarah (Phipps)
Sherman, were natives of Massachusetts. The
father was a captain in the merchant marine
service and was lost at sea off the coast of
Barnegat, N. J. When Matthew was twelve
years of age he enlisted as a sailor and for
three years served on a school ship in the
United States navy, after which he enlisted
in the United States navy during the Mexican
war, and came around the Horn on the United
States flagship Independence, under Commo-
dore Subrick. Among the stirring engage-
ments which he witnessed were the taking of
Monterey and Mazatlan. After the war he
returned east, but the Pacific coast had laid
its spell upon him and he was unable to re-
sist its charm. Accordingly in 1849 he re-
turned around the Horn on a merchant vessel
and in 1850 he marched in the procession in
San Francisco celebrating the admission of
California as a state. After a brief experience
in mining he became proprietor of a hotel at
Auburn, Placer county, and also engaged in
the manufacturing business. On the outbreak
of the Civil war he was commissioned lieu-
tenant of Company F, Fourth California In-
fantry, but soon rose to be captain of the com-
pany, and commanded the same during the
Indian campaigns in Arizona after they had
been stationed in the old barracks at San
Diego in 1862. On their return from Arizona
they were stationed at Wilmington and then
at San Francisco, where he was mustered out
with the regiment.
At the close of the Civil war Captain Sher-
man was appointed collector of the port of
San Diego and removed to this city, where he
filled the office for four years. Meanwhile,
at Wilmington, May 18, 1867, he married Miss
Augusta J. Barrett, who was born at Sumner,
Oxford county, Me., being a daughter of
James S. and Fannie (Young) Barrett, also
inatives of Maine. Her maternal grandfather,
Benjamin Young, was born in Maine and
traced his lineage to the Puritan settlers of
Massachusetts descended from English ances-
tors. The paternal grandfather, Simeon Bar-
rett, was born in Massachusetts, but at the
age of two years was taken to Oxford county,
Me., by his parents, who were descended from
some of the very earliest settlers of Massachu-
setts and traced their lineage to England.
James S. Barrett was a farmer by occupation
and both he and his wife died in Maine. From
676
- HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
that state two of their sons enlisted in the
Civil war and went to the front as defenders
of the Union. In 1863 Miss Barrett came via
Panama to San Francisco, and in 1866 settled
in San Diego, where she secured a position
as principal of a public school at Old Town,
this being the only free school in San Diego
county at that time. To her belongs the dis-
tinction of being the oldest surviving settler
of new San Diego. As a member of the Pio-
neer Society she displays a deep and unchang-
ing interest in the old settlers of the county
and among them all none is more honored
than she ; in addition she is warmly interested
in the San Diego Woman’s Relief Corps, of
which she is a charter member.
About the time of his marriage Captain
Sherman bought one hundred and sixty acres
from the city, and in 1868 he laid out the land
as Sherman’s addition. On the corner of J
and Nineteenth street he built the first resi-
dence of new San Diego, outside of the few
houses at the barracks, and for some years he
owned a flock of sheep that grazed on land
now built up with substantial dwellings.
Gradually he sold off the lots, some vacant
and others improved with cottages. At the
same time he engaged in the commission busi-
ness and built several business houses in the
city, also was interested in the first bank
started in San Diego, of which later he offi-
ciated as a director. As a member of the
Chamber of Commerce he promoted many
measures for the development of the city.
Prominent in local affairs, he served as trustee
for several years and for two years held the
office of mayor. In the former capacity he
was active with the other trustees in saving
to the city the park of fourteen hundred acres
and also obtained for the city Mount Hope
cemetery. In the organization of Heintzel-
man Post, G. A. R., he was prominent, and
always bore a warm interest in its charities.
In addition, he was a leading member of the
California Commandery of the Loyal Legion.
With his wife he held membership in the Epis-
copal Church and contributed generously to
its missionary and charitable enterprises.
Though not a partisan, he was a pronounced
Republican and never swerved in his alle-
giance to the party. He donated the land and
a part of the money to build the Sherman
school, which was the first school in San
Diego.
To the closing days of his active life Mr.
Sherman remained a prominent citizen and
active worker for progressive measures, and
his death occurred of apoplexy, July 5, 1898,
while he was in attendance upon a convention
held in the interests of securing a railroad and
also in the interests of Panama canal legisla-
tion. As early as 1886 he had erected a com-
modious residence on the corner of Twenty-
Second and H streets, and here his widow still
makes her home, extending to her friends the
cordial hospitality which is easily among her
leading characteristics. Their two children,
Mrs. Fannie Sloan and Matthew Barrett Sher-
man, reside in San Diego, so that it is her
privilege, in the afternoon of her eventful ex-
istence, to enjoy the ministrations of her de-
scendants as well as the society of the friends
of earlier days. r
HARRY BARNDOLLAR. Varied enter-
prises having to do with the material develop-
ment of Long Beach and vicinity owe much
of their prosperity to the oversight and ex-
ecutive ability of Mr. Barndollar, who during
the first ten years of his residence in this state
acted as superintendent of the Long Beach
Development Company, the Alamitos Land
Company and the Alamitos Beach Water Com-
pany. The new hotel erected in Long Beach
owes its presence in the city to the energy and
foresight of a member of public-spirited men,
prominent among whom as a promoter he holds
a place. During IQO5 he took part in the
founding of the Wilmington Land Company,
in which he now holds the office of president.
In June of the same year he assisted in estab-
lishing the State Bank of Long Beach, which
has a capital of $100,000 fully paid up ; of this
institution he acts as a director and was chosen
cashier on the opening of the bank, since which
time he has devoted considerable attention
to the financial oversight of the establishment.
Descended from a Holland family and one
early established in America, Mr. Barndollar
was born at Martinsburg, Blair county, Pa.,
April 9, 1853, being a son of George R. and
Amelia Ann (Ashcom) Barndollar, the former
born in Fulton county, Pa., in 1813, and the
later born January 15, 1812, on a Pennsylvania
farm located on the Baltimore and Pittsburg
turnpike. For many years the father engaged
in the general mercantile business at Wood-
bury, Bedford county, Pa., and there he died
in 1868 and his wife in 1889. They were the
parents of eight sons and six daughters, the
youngest of whom were twins, Harry and
Frank. The common schools of Williamsport,
Pa., offered fair advantages to Harry Barn-
dollar, who completed their studies with credit
to himself. In 1870 he entered a drug store at
Everett, Bedford county, where he gained a
considerable knowledge of the drug business
while acting as clerk. March 12, 1874, he
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.,
677
graduated from the Philadelphia College of
Pharmacy but after a period of five years he
turned his labors into other fields of activity.
From the east Mr. Barndollar removed to
Colorado, where he was identified with various
interests in Pueblo, Cripple Creek and Denver,
and for fourteen years remained in that state.
In 1894 he came to California and engaged in
the developing of water interests and in buy-
ing and selling real estate at Long Beach,
where he still makes his home, and where he
has fostered enterprises of the greatest im-
portance to the well-being of the city. May
4, 1903, the Masonic Temple Association was
incorporated in this city, and he has since of—
ficiated as its secretary, besides being one of
the principal stockholders. In politics he sup-
ports Republican principles and on that ticket
was three times elected to the office of city
clerk. The Congregational Church, of which
he has for years been a member, receives his
generous support to its philanthropies and
missionary enterprises. Among the Organiza-
tions of which he is a member in fraternal
circles may be mentioned the blue lodge and
chapter of Masonry at Long Beach, the
Knights of Pythias, Independent Order of For-
esters, Knights of the Maccabees and the COS-
mopolitan Club, of this city.
JESSE J. KNIGHT. One of the progres-
sive and enterprising business men of San
Pedro is Jesse J. Knight, proprietor of the
Pony Livery and Transfer business, a dealer
in horses and mules, and a contractor for street
grading. His family has been one whose mem-
bers have steadily pioneered their way from
the eastern to the western coast of the United
States and left the imprint of their influence
upon the history of those sections of the United
States where they resided from time to time.
The grandfather, Newell Knight, was born in
New York and early settled in Illinois, where
he followed the occupation of miller. His next
move was to cross the plains with his family
to settle in Utah, but his death occurred at
winter quarters on the Platte river. He left
a widow and six children and they later settled
in Salt Lake City. This member of the family
had been a very prominent elder and worker
in the Mormon Church and a history of his
life and work requires one whole volume in
the history of the church. His wife, in maiden-
hood Lydia Goldthwaite, also occupied a
leading position in the church circles through-
out her life. Her death occurred in St. George,
Utah.
The father of Jesse J. Knight was also
named Newell and his birth occurred in Han-
Lodge and Fay, Nev.
cock county, Ill. At the age of three years
he was taken with the family to Utah and
there his boyhood days were spent on the farm.
Although the son of such prominent Morman
believers he has never espoused the cause of
that religious denomination. As a young
man he engaged in blacksmithing for a time,
afterwards farmed, and later was occupied as
a miner at various points in Utah and Nevada,
meeting with splendid success and accumulat-
ing large wealth. He is now conducting a
wagon and agricultural implement business in
Provo City, Utah, and is one of that com-
munity’s leading citizens. He is of Republi-
can political belief and for two terms served
as marshal of Provo City. Fraternally he
affiliates with the Independent Order of Odd
Fellows. His wife, who died in 1898, was be-
fore her marriage Caroline Loveless, a native
of Little Pigeon, Iowa. Her father, Bishop
James W. Loveless, was a prominent Mormon
bishop from Illinois, and her mother, Matilda
McClellan, was connected with the noted Mc-
Clellan family of the south.
A member of a family of seven children,
Jesse J. Knight was born September 12, 1865,
in Provo City, Utah, where he received his
education in the public and high schools. At
eighteen years of age he began his independent
business career as a merchant in his native
city, and at twenty-one was married there to
Miss Lillie Milner, who was born in Provo
City, the daughter of Judge John B. Milner,
a prominent attorney and jurist. Four years
later Mr. Knight retired from the merchandis-
ing business and went to Ann Arbor, Mich.,
entering the University of Michigan in 1893
and graduating with the degree of Bachelor of
Laws. His wife, who took a course in music
in the University, also graduated from her
studies in that year. Returning to Provo City
Mr. Knight began the practice of law and con-
tinued the profession until 1896. He then
came to Randsburg, Cal., and engaged in min-
ing for a year, thereafter continuing mining
throughout the southwest for a time, but finally
centered his interests at State Line, Deer
One of his successful
ventures was the re-organization of the Silver
Park mine in Lincoln county, Nev. He met
with his best success, however, in State Line,
where he still has mining interests, and also
at Provo City, to which place he finally re-
turned. He organized and incorporated the
Knight-Roberts Mining Company and de-
veloped the lead mines of Rock Cañon, where
a tunnel seven hundred feet in length has al-
ready been made and when it is completed it
will be sixteen hundred feet long.
In July, 1905, Mr. Knight came to San Pedro
678
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
and for one month worked by the day, at
the end of that time beginning to contract
Street work. He acquired a large grading out-
fit and secured the contract to grade Front,
Wall, Eighth and Center streets, as well as
Other jobs of excavating, and has ever since
continued the prosecution of this business.
May I, IQ06, he purchased the Pony Livery
& Transfer business and conducts the largest
barn in the city, and one of the largest out-
side of Los Angeles. Fraternally he was made
a Mason in Story Lodge No. 4, F. & A. M.,
at Provo City; he is also a charter member of
Provo City Lodge No. 849, B. P. O. E. Po-
litically he is an advocate of the principles em-
braced in the platform of the Republican party,
and in all matters of social and civic interest
to the community in which he resides he takes
an active and intelligent part. Mr. and Mrs.
Knight are the parents of two children, Irma,
better known as Dolly, and Goodwin J. The
daughter is now singing with Ellen Beach
Yaw and also taking vocal instruction from
her having remarkable vocal talent.
NELSON OLDS. During the long period
of his residence in San Diego county Mr. Olds
has risen to a conspicuous position among its
farmers and dairymen. When he came to the
San Pasqual valley in 1878 he was a young
man, just starting out for himself in the world,
and ambitious to succeed in his chosen calling
of agriculture. Shortly after his arrival he
settled upon the ranch which he now owns
and operates, the property consisting of four
hundred acres of land partly under cultiva-
tion and partly in pasture. All of the improve-
ments, including the neat farm house, have
been made under his personal supervision, and
he has transformed the bare land into one of
the finest homesteads in the valley. Dairying
has been one of his specialties, and at this
writing he milks twenty-eight cows, selling
the cream to the Co-operative creamery, in
which he is a stockholder.
The Olds family became established in
California during the memorable year of
1849, when Nelson H. Olds, father of the
gentleman whose name introduces this
article, left his native place in Ohio
and his occupation as a sailor on the lakes,
and came by way of Cape Horn to San
Francisco. Having served in the Mexican
war from its beginning until the close of the
struggle and having experienced the hard-
ships of army life, exposure to weather and the
fatigue of 10ng marches, he was well adapted
to take up the task of pioneer development in
the far west. San Francisco in those days had
ty, in the Santa Clara valley.
attracted many desperadoes and as a member
of the vigilance committee he did effective
work in ridding the city of many of its most
desperate ruffians. In July of 1850 he began
to mine at the Sierra Diggings and remained
there for two years, after which he opened a
general Store at San Lorenzo, Alameda coun-
Meanwhile he
had met and married Levina E. Martin, who
was born in Michigan and in 1852 settled in
California. In 1856 they removed to a ranch
in Marin county and engaged in dairying and
general farm pursuits, remaining there for a
long period. During 1878 they came to San
Diego and here he died in 1882, at the age of
fifty-eight years. At this writing his widow
makes her home in Petaluma, this state,
and is active notwithstanding her seventy-six
years. -
The parental family consisted of five chil-
dren, all of whom are living in California. Nel-
son, who was second in order of birth among
the five children, received a fair education in
California schools and remained beneath the
home roof until attaining his majority, when
he went to Oakland, and thence in 1878 came
to his present location. Through all his life
he has been loyal to the welfare and devoted
to the progress of his native California. As a
boy he lived in Marin county, but Alameda is
his native county, he having been born there
March 3, 1856, while his father was proprie-
tor of a mercantile store at San Lorenzo. From
the time of attaining the age of voting he has
cast his ballot in favor of Republican princi-
ples and has been interested in the success of
his party. For a long period after coming to
the San Pasqual valley he remained a bach-
elor, but eventually he brought a wife to his
country home, his marriage, September 28,
I896, uniting him with Miss Ada R. Roberts, a
sister of Frederick H. Roberts, mentioned else-
where in this work. The only child of this
union was born February II, 1898, and bears
the name of Carlton Mason Olds.
WILLIAM WALLACE. Noteworthy
among the pioneer agriculturists and mer-
chants of the San Luis Rey valley was the
late William Wallace, who for many years
was actively identified with the industrial
growth and prosperity of this section of South-
ern California. Starting in life with but little
capital aside from an unlimited amount of
energy and perseverance, he met with signal
success in his undertakings, well earning the
title of a self-made man. A native of Ireland, ,
he was born May 12, 1840, and until six years
of age resided in the old country.

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
681
Coming to America with his parents in 1848,
William Wallace was educated in the public
Schools of Cambridge, Mass. Choosing then
the independent occupation to which he was
reared, he worked for a number of seasons on
a farm in Vermont, but was not at all satis-
fied with his financial returns. Thinking to
better his condition, he came to the Pacific
coast in the early '60s, working his way across
the continent, and for several years was en-
gaged in freighting from Los Angeles to Ari-
zona and Nevada. Locating then in San Luis
Rey valley, he brought a ranch of one hun-
dred acres and embarked in stock-raising. He
subsequently engaged in mercantile pursuits,
having a general store in San Luis Rey, where
he built up an extensive and lucrative trade.
At the same time he carried on a substantial
business as a gardener, also paying some at-
tention to stock-raising. He was a man of
unquestioned integrity, possessing excellent
business tact and ability, and his death, which
occurred in 1892, was deeply deplored by the
entire community. He was a stanch Repub-
lican in politics, a member of the Good Tem-
plars in early life, but was not connected with
any church. -
In 1874 Mr. Wallace married Alice Locke,
who was born in 1852 in New Hampshire, and
was educated in the common schools of Penn-
sylvania, where her parents settled when she
was eight years old. Eight years later her
mother died, and very soon afterward the
daughter and her father came to California,
locating in San Luis Rey valley, where Mr.
Locke took up one hundred and sixty acres
of land, one hundred and twenty acres of
which he owned at the time of his death, in
1880. Of the union of Mr. and Mrs. Wallace
eight children were born, namely: William
Lee; Elbridge, of Riverside county, who mar-
ried Kate Baker; Edna J., wife of E. Alvin
Wilbur, of Escondido, San Diego county;
Robert L., who is married and lives in Ore-
gon : Pearl; Alice R.; Hugh G.; and Anna
Rose. Mrs. Wallace is a most estimable
woman, highly respected by all, and since the
death of her husband has served as postmaster
at San Luis Rey. She is a member of the Con-
gregational Church, which she and her family
attend.
CHARLES L., HEARTWELL. No finan-
cier of Long Beach is more familiar with its
resources than the gentleman who holds the
positions of vice-president of the First Nation-
a1 Bank and president of the Citizens Sav-
ings Bank, and who was the chief factor in
the organization of both. The national insti-
tution opened its doors for business June 26,
I900, with a capital stock of $25,000, which has
Since been increased to $500,000, and a sur-
plus of $100,000 has accumulated, the entire
resources of the bank aggregating more than
$2,250,000. The savings bank was opened
February I, IQOI, with a captial stock of $25,-
OOO, and has since been increased to $250,000,
with resources of over $1,000,000. Both banks
are under the same management and their
rapid growth furnishes abundant testimony as
to the conservative spirit guiding their sub-
stantial development.
Charles il. Heartwell was born in Geneva,
N. Y., July I, x869, and received exceptional
advantages in the gaining of an education.
After having completed the studies of the high
school of Hastings, Neb., he took a course in
Hastings College in that city, which was
founded by his father, Hon. J. B. Heartwell.
With the intention of adopting the medical
profession for his life work he entered the
School of Medicine in Paris, France, in 1887,
but circumstances altered his plans and turned
his aspirations into other fields of activity.
For two years he was a student in the Uni-
versity of Switzerland at Zurich. During va-
cation seasons he took bicycle tours through
Europe for the purpose of studying national
and political economy, altogether traveling six
thousand miles, visiting many points of his-
toric interest. The trips were enjoyable and
gave him an insight into the customs and hab-
its of the people in the countries visited. On
his return from Europe in 1889 he settled in
Hastings, Neb., and engaged in the banking
business at that point, but on account of im-
paired health was obliged to give up indoor
work for a time and in 1893 came to Riverside
and engaged in Orange culture. His grove,
which was planted by himself and brother, is
known as the Alta-Mesa grove, planted under
the Wright act, and was one of the first start-
ed in that section of the state. The ranch
comprised thirty acres of navel oranges and
ten acres of lemon trees. In the culture of
oranges and lemons the Heartwell brothers
were very successful and their fruit command-
ed highest prices.
Mr. Heartwell’s connection with the bank-
ing institutions of Long Beach began in 1897,
when he became assistant cashier in the Bank
of Long Beach. With his father he organ-
ized the banks of which he is now respectively
vice-president and president. Besides his con-
nection with these institutions he acts as a
director of the Long Beach Water Company,
capital $750,000; the Masonic Temple Associa-
tion (in the work of which he has been ac-
tively interested and largely through his ef-
40
682
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
forts was built the beautiful Masonic Tem-
ple), the First National Bank of Huntington
Beach, while in 1904 he assisted in organizing
the First National Bank of Compton, in
the town of the same name. He was one of
the organizers and at present a director of the
Long Beach Hotel & Land Co., capitalized
for $1,000,000, and the company is now erect-
ing a six story fireproof hotel on the Ocean
Front. Under Mr. Heartwell's supervision the
First National bank in 1906 completed one
of the largest and most elaborate office build-
ing in Long Beach, being a six story, steel
structure. He assisted in organizing The Nel-
son-Napier Navigation Company, which runs
boats between San Pedro and San Diego, and
is a director and treasurer of the company.
He is also interested in the San Pedro Salt
Works and occupies the office of treasurer in
the company which owns them, and is di-
rector and treasurer of the Long Beach Build-
ing and Loan Association, of which he was
one of the organizers. Since 1898 he has
served as treasurer of the city of Long Beach,
and was a member of the board, that framed
the present city charter.
After coming to Long Beach Mr. Heartwell
met and married Miss LaVerne Lowe, who
was born in Syracuse, Neb. He is a Presby-
terian, and the Young Men's Christian Asso-
ciation of Long Beach has the benefit of his
warm sympathy and active support, not only
by contributions of money and time, but also
through his faithful service in the office of
treasurer. Mr. Heartwell is an enthusiastic
automobilist and in 1904 assisted in the Or-
ganization of the Long Beach Automobile
Club, and has served as its president since its
inception. In this connection it may be men-
tioned that he is greatly interested in the
good-roads movement and lends his influence
to the bettering of the public highways in this
section of the state, and was one to help frame
a 1aw for the construction of boulevards in the
state of California and with others championed
the building of Pacific boulevard, which ex-
tends from the city of Los Angeles without a
curve to Long Beach. He is an active member
of the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce,
and also belongs to the Jonathan and Union
JLeague clubs of Los Angeles. In matters
fraternal he holds membership with the
Knights of Pythias at Long Beach, where for
one term he officiated as commander of the
lodge. The Benevolent Protective Order of
Elks numbers him among its members, and in
additon he is active in Masonry, being asso-
ciated with Long Beach Lodge No. 347, F. &
A. M. : Long Beach Chapter No. 84, R. A. M.,
of which he acts as treasurer; Long Beach
Commandery No. 44, K. T., in which he offi-
ciates as treasurer; Los Angeles Consistory
thirty-second degree, and Al Malaikah Temple,
A. A. O. N. M. S. of Los Angeles.
MATTHEW LEWIS. It is interesting to
chronicle the life history of the pioneer who
has passed through the struggle of the devel-
opment of a new country until it has become
a veritable garden spot. Among such men we
find the subject of this sketch, Matthew Lew-
is, who was born in Seven Oaks, County
Kent, England, October 1, 1838, the son of
Samuel and Eliza (Wheeler) Lewis, born re-
spectively in Shropshire, and Seven Oaks,
Mr. Lewis is the only one living of the
family of eight children. He was educated in
the common schools in his native place. Upon
attaining mature years he followed the hotel
business at Seven Oaks, then spent two years
in Ireland, and afterward located in London,
but he found the climate there so injurious to
his health that he came to America in 1870.
The first year was spent in St. Louis, Mo., the
next in Minnesota and during that winter he
read an article on the wonderful climate of
Southern California which so interested him
that he laid plans to visit this semi-tropical
Southland. Meantime, in 1872, he returned to
St. Louis, in 1873 went to Denver and in the
spring of 1874 with a train of twenty wagons
came overland via Salt Lake City to San Ber-
nardino, arriving in October, 1874. Two
weeks later found him in Bear Valley pros-
pecting and mining. The next year he went
on a fishing trip to the Santa Ana and found
it an ideal place with an abundance of game.
He was so taken with the place that he drove
his stake, because he said, if with his gun and
rod he could not make a living, he ought to
starve. From 1876 to 1880 he engaged in the
sheep business, ranging his flock winters on
what is now the site of Redlands. Since 1880
he has given his time to improving and beau-
tifying his homestead, which he named Seven
Oaks in honor of his old home in Kent. In
1883, when they began building the Bear val-
ley dam, he opened his place as a resort and
stopping place for people seeking the moun-
tain climate in the heat of the summer. The
place began to grow and he continued erect-
ing cabins and houses for the entertainment
of the visitors and Seven Oaks has now be-
come the greatest resort in the San Bernar-
dino mountains, with the most excellent water,
fishing and hunting. Lately he has leased
the whole place to W. H. Glass for a term of
years.
Seven Oaks has an elevation of five thou-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
683
sand feet and is located on the headwaters of
the Santa Ana river, twenty-two miles from
Redlands, and during the season the stage
makes daily trips between Redlands and Har-
veys, in Mill Creek and thence by horses or
burros by trail to Seven Oaks.
Mr. Lewis is also interested in mining in
Lone valley, where he is developing the So-
corro quartz mine that is already showing
good results. He is a Republican in politics,
is a liberal and enterprising man and with his
means has done as much as any other citizen
to develop the natural resources of the coun-
try.
FERDINAND J. GOLDIKAMP. Descend-
ed from an ancient German family, honorably
identified with business affairs in their several
localities of Germany, Ferdinand J. Goldkamp
was born in Osnabruck, Hanover, Germany,
April 15, 1849, and was a son of Frank and
Dina Goldkamp. The father was a millwright
by occupation and remained in Germany until
he died, since which time his wife has contin-
ued at the old home place. All of their nine
children are living and only three of them
came to the United States, while Ferdinand
J., the sixth in order of birth, was the only one
to settle in California. When a youth of four-
teen years he was taken from school and ap-
prenticed as a clerk in a wholesale manufac-
turing house, where he served four years, and
afterward remained in the employ of the same
house until he had attained his majority.
Upon arriving in the United States in 1871
Mr. Goldkamp proceeded direct to St. Louis
and secured employment as a clerk, later act-
ing as foreman in a cigar manufacturing es-
tablishment for nine years. On resigning that
position he began to manufacture cigars, hav-
ing his plant in St. Louis. However, the oc-
cupation proved trying and unhealthful and
he determined to seek another calling and cli-
mate. From 1884 until 1887 he engaged in
raising stock and grain on a ranch near Stan-
ton, Martin county, Tex. At the expiration of
three years he sold the ranch and removed to
the Pacific coast, arriving in San Diego July
30, 1887. After one year's experience in the
fruit business he bought a store building and
several lots on Clay avenue, corner of Twen-
ty-ninth street. Since then he has improved
the building and erected an addition and has
engaged in a general mercantile business with
gratifying success. In addition to the manage-
ment of the store he has devoted six vacant
lots to the fruit business and has circled the
ground with a cypress hedge. The water
plant which he owns is operated by pumping
from deep wells of large capacity and fur-
nishes water of such excellent quality that not
only neighbors use it for the table, but the
Soda works also engage it as needed.
The marriage of Mr. Goldkamp was sol-
emnized at Marine, Madison county, Ill., Feb-
ruary 5, 1873, and united him with Miss Amel-
ia Jahns, who was born and reared in that
town. In early life her father, Christ Jahns,
who was a native of Hildesheim, Hanover,
Germany, came to the United States and set-
tled in St. Louis, where he followed the car-
penter’s trade. From there he removed to
Marine, Ill., and engaged at cabinet-making,
besides taking contracts for the erection of
houses and business establishments. After a
busy career he died in March, 1893, in the
town where for years he had made his home.
By his marriage to Caroline Sechteg, who was
born in Braunschweig, Germany, and now
lives in Illinois, he had nine children, all but
one of whom survive. Mrs. Goldkamp, who
was the eldest of the family, was reared and
educated in Madison county, and resided there
until her marriage. Their union was blessed
with three sons, namely: Fred, who assists his
father in the store; Christ, who is an electri-
cian by Occupation and also possesses ability
as a musician; and Otto. Fraternally Mr. Gold-
kamp holds membership with the Foresters of
America and the Turn Verein and was a mem-
ber of the board of directors in the building of
the new Turner Hall. Always interested in
measures for the benefit of San Diego and so-
licitous for the city’s advancement in every
line of development, he has been ready to aid
local progress in every way praticable, and in
April, 1905, he accepted the position of city
councilman from the ninth ward, since which
time he has been a member of the health and
morals committee, the police committee and
the sewer committee. As a councilman his
work has been aggressive and efficient, and
the position which he holds as an energetic
citizen and public-spirited man is merited by
his able service as an official no less than by
his long and upright career as a merchant.
ALDEN T. DRAKE. Obliged by circum-
stances to contribute to his own support from
boyhood and start out empty handed on his
business career Alden T. Drake has succeed-
ed in acquiring considerable property, although
he is still a young man, and by his honesty,
integrity and proven qualities as a public citi-
zen has won the respect and esteem of all with
whom he has come in contact. He was born
December 23, 1873, in Lawrence county, Pa.,
the son of Joseph and Harriet (Troutman)
684
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Drake, who removed from their farm in
Pennsylvania to California in 1887. They lo-
cated in Menifee valley, or that part of it
known as Antelope valley, on a ranch, and
there the death of the father occurred a year
later, in April, 1888, at the age of forty-seven
years. The death of the mother occurred in
May, 1906, she having attained the age of
Sixty years. There were four children in the
family, only two of whom are now living.
Viola, who became the wife of George Sim-
mons, of this valley, died in October, 1905;
Freeman A. died in June, 1887; Elluard is now
living on the home place; and Alden T. is the
subject of this sketch.
There was little opportunity for Alden T.
Drake to attend school, for after his father's
death the care of the home place and his
mother devolved upon his shoulders.
When nineteen years old he began farm-
ing for himself and has continued in
that Occupation ever since. The land which
he first bought was unimproved and its pres-
ent condition as an attractive and well-culti-
vated ranch with good buildings is entirely
the result of his personal efforts. Besides the
two hundred acres in Leon which he owns
Mr. Drake ranches three hundred acres in
Menifee valley, runs a header, bales hay, and
is a breeder of draft horses, possessing as fine
stock as can be found anywhere. September
6, 1901, Mr. Drake was married here to Miss
Zona, daughter of Samuel Walker, who came
to California about 1850, his father having
been one of the first grain raisers in this state.
Mr. and Mrs. Drake have become the par-
ents of two children, Daryl and Nina. Po-
litically Mr. Drake is an independent Republi-
can. He is interested in the fullest develop-
ment of the section of the state in which he
lives and lends his enthusiastic support to all
enterprises tending toward its upbuilding.
*m-.
GEORGE PARKER McKAY. Conspicu-
ous among the leading citizens of Oceanside
is George Parker McKay, who is distinguished
as the longest-established merchant of the
Tlace, and as one of its most successful and
popular business men. He has the distinction
of being a native-born son of California, his
birth having occurred, September 25, 1860, at
Oakland, where he was reared and educated.
Charles P. McKay, the father of George
Parker McKay, was born and brought up in
New York state. Ambitious and venturesome
as a young man, he came to California in
search of riches in the spring of 1850, jour-
neying by the way of Panama, and soon after-
wards became a pioneer settler of Oakland,
where he built the first wharf seen in that lo-
cality. He gained a place of prominence and
influence in the administration of municipal
affairs, and for nine years served as city mar-
shal and captain of the police. He subsequent-
ly removed to San Jose, where he resided un-
til his death, in 1877. He married Mrs. Mary
(Hunter) Wentworth, who was born in Edin-
burgh, Scotland, and died in Oakland, Cal.
The only child of his parents, George Par-
ker McKay received his early education in the
public schools of Oakland, and at the age of
sixteen years began learning the trade of a
machinist in San Francisco, at the Gold-
en State and Miner's Iron Works. Sub-
sequently going to Los Angeles, he was for
a while with the Baker Iron Works, and later
with the Southern Pacific Railroad shops. Re-
túrning to San Franicsco, he worked for a
time with his first employers, after which he
went to Albion to work in the lumber mills.
Not liking his position there, he again entered
the Golden State and Miner's Works in San
Francisco, and with the exception of nine
months spent in San Diego in 1887, remained
there until 1891. His health failing he came
in that year to Oceanside to recuperate, and
in 1893 opened his present store, at the corner
of Second and Cleveland streets, where he is
carrying on a thriving business as a general
merchant. He carries a complete stock of all
goods found in a department store, his aim be-
ing to please his numerous customers, furnish-
ing them with articles of a desirable quality,
and at reasonable prices. The firm, of which
he is the head, owns the land at the corner of
Cleveland and Third streets, the finest busi-
ness location in the city, and there contem-
plates putting up, in the near future a new
store, a larger building being needed to meet
the demands of their rapidly increasing trade.
October 21, 1883, in San Francisco, Mr. Mc-
Kay married Mary Catherine Mebach, who
was born in Germany, a daughter of the late
Bernard Mebach. Immigrating with his fam-
ily to the United States, Mr. Mebach settled
as a merchant tailor in San Francisco in 1866,
but after living there twenty years came to
Oceanside, where he spent the remainder of
his life, dying in May, 1898. His wife, whose
maiden name was Catherine Schiefer, was
born in Germany, and resided in Oceanside
until her death in December, 1905. Their
family, consisting of two daughters and three
sons, are residents of Oceanside. Mrs. Mc-
Kay was brought up and educated in San
Francisco, and prior to her marriage resided
in Los Angeles, being the first lady employed
as a clerk in the Boston Drygoods Store. She
is a typical business woman, devoting her life

HISTORICAL AND PIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
687
to business pursuits, and since the opening of
their store in Oceanside has been a necessary
assistant to her husband. Mr. McKay is a
member of Golden Gate Parlor No. 29, N. S.
G. W., of San Francisco, and both he and his
wife are consistent members of the Catholic
Church.
HON. JAMES BENJAMIN HEART-
WELL. One of the substantial and promi-
nent men of Long Beach is James Benjamin
Heartwell, president of the Fir t National
Bank and vice president of the Citizens Sav-
ings Bank, and an extensive owner of real es-
tate and other interests. Beginning life at the
bottom of the ladder of attainment he has
steadily pushed his way upward by energetic
industry, perseverence and wise management,
achieving distinguished success in financial
and business circles. His father, Oscar F.
Heartwell, was born in Geneva, N. Y., in 1818.
He was engaged in the building business in
New York state, and now lives a retired life
at Huntington Beach, Cal. His mother, So-
brina Webster, of the same family as the il-
lustrious Daniel Webster, died in New York
State.
J. B. Heartwell was born in Seneca county,
N. Y., July 4, 1843, and was prepared for col-
lege in the Geneva Classical Institute. On ac-
count of illness he did not enter college, but
took a course at Eastman’s Business College
at Poughkeepsie, N. Y., graduating in 1863.
In 1864 he accepted a position as bookkeeper
in the First National Bank of Geneva, N. Y.,
and in 1866 was promoted to the position of
cashier, which place he filled with great credit
until 1870, when he resigned. He then re-
moved to Des Moines, Iowa, where with other
associates he organized the Iowa Loan and
Trust Company, and was its secretary for
eight years. In 1881 on account of his wife’s
health he removed to Hastings, Neb., and in
1882 was one of the organizers of the Ne-
braska Loan and Trust Company of Hastings
and served acceptably as its president. While
residing in Hastings he was city treasurer for
two terms and in 1886 was elected state sen-
ator, where he served his constituents honor-
ably and faithfully; he also served as postmas-
ter at Hastings and at the close of his term in
I894 he came to California on account of his
wife's health. He first located at Riverside
and was there engaged in orange culture until
the spring of 190C, when he located in Long
Beach, where in June, IQOO, with his son, C. L.
|Heartwell, he organized the First National
Bank with a capital stock of $25,000. The first
year he served as vice-president, when he was
chosen president and continues to fill that re-
sponsible position. The bank now has a cap-
ital stock of $500,000 with $100,000 surplus
and assets of two and one-quarter million dol-
lars. With his son, Charles L., he organized
the Citizens Savings Bank of which also he is
serving as president. He is president of the
Mutual Trust Company and is a prominent
factor in the Interstate Dock and Lumber
Company and the Mutual Building and Loan
Association. -
The wife of Mr. Heartwell was in maiden-
hood Sarah Jane Dibble, a native of Connecti-
cut, and is a member of an old prominent Vir-
ginia family, and is numbered among the cul-
tured and refined women of the city. They
have two sons, Charles L., cashier of the First
National Bank of Long Beach, who is repre-
sented elsewhere in this work; and James F.,
late cashier of the Bank of Huntington Beach.
Mr. Heartwell is endowed with exceptional
ability as a financier and organizer. This trait
was displayed in his early business career, or-
ganizing the first Loan and Trust Company in
the middle west.
He is a prominent Mason and organized
Long Beach Commandery No. 40, and was its
first Eminent Commander. He is a member
of Los Angeles Consistory No. 3, and Al Mal-
aikah Temple, N. M. S. He is also an active
member and chairman of the finance commit-
tee of the Chamber of Commerce.
Mr. Heartwell is a life-long Republican and
is a very active member of the Presbyterian
Church, is serving as superintendent of the
Sunday-school and for thirty years has been
very active in Sunday-school work in the mid-
dle west as well as on the Pacific coast. Duri-
ing the years of his residence in this state he
has given frequent evidence of a hearty desire
to accomplish all within his power for the ad-
vancement of community interests and partic-
ularly for the promotion of those movements
intended to elevate the Social, moral, educa-
tional and industrial status of Long Beach.
His strong personal attributes have been
generally recognized and these characteristics
taken in conjunction with his manifest public
spirit, and his generosity of heart have given
him an enviable place in the esteem of
thoughtful and discriminating men.
REV. ALONZO EDSON JONES. As
pastor of the Reorganized Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter Day Saints, located on Fifth
and G streets, San Bernardino, Cal., and
high priest of his denomination, Rev. Alonzo
E. Jones fills an important and influential pO-
sition in the life of that city. On both sides
688
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
of the house he is descended from a strong
and vigorous ancestry, whose names are
prominently connected with the early history
of our country. His mother's grandfather
was originally from Wales, and became an
early pioneer in Pottawattamie county, Iowa.
He died at Gollard Grove, Iowa, at the ad-
vanced age of ninety-six years. Both he and
his wife were members of the Church of Lat-
ter Day Saints. On his father's side the his-
tory of the family in this country dates from
Revolutionary days, his grandfather, Nathan
Jones, having been a soldier in that war.
His parents were Alonzo Edson and Susan
I. (Perry) Jones, the former born August 23,
1815, at Sharon, Vt., the latter in 1820, at
Essex, N. Y. They removed to Pottawat-
tamie county, Iowa, near Council Bluffs, and
there September 18, 1848, was born the son
Alonzo Edson, whose early boyhood was
passed on his father's farm. In 1853 the fam-
ily crossed the plains, coming to San Ber-
nardino county, Cal., and located on Lytle
creek north of Colton, engaging in grain-
growing and stock-raising. The father passed
away in April, 1904, at his home in San Ber-
nardino. *
Until he was sixteen years of age Alonzo
Edson Jones attended the common schools
and from then until he had attained the age
of twenty-one years he stayed on his father's
farm, after which he set about to accomplish
the ambition he had long cherished and pre-
pared for the ministry. In due time he was
ordained into the priesthood of the Church
of Latter Day Saints and so continued until
1869, when he became a constituted preacher.
In 1870 he was married to Elizabeth Catlin,
a native of the same county in Iowa as him-
self, and who came to California with her par-
ents in 1867. Mr. and Mrs. Jones became the
parents of four children: Alonzo O.; Minnie
L., who married Harry Smith; and John Wal-
ter, all of San Bernardino and Sylvia May,
deceased. Mrs. Jones' father was a soldier
in the Mexican war and was afterwards em-
ployed as a government scout and was killed
by the Indians while in the performance of
his duty. Since his residence in California
Rev. Mr. Jones has been located near Colton
and been engaged in farming and the minis-
try with the exception of six years spent in
Los Angeles and Orange counties, during
which time he was assistant pastor of the
Church in Garden Grove. In 1893 he was
elected pastor of the San Pernardino church.
He also holds the position of a general mis-
sionary, receiving his appointment from the
general conference of the church. The Re-
organized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter
Day Saints has no affiliation with the Utah
church, the head of this branch being located
at Decatur county, Iowa, and the doctrine
of plural marriage being ignored by the re-
Organized church. This church has been de-
clared, by the courts of the land, the successor
of the Original church organized in 1830.
The membership of the San Bernardino church
comprises two hundred and eighty names;
there are sixty names on the Sunday-school
roll, and a Zion Religio Literary Society is
maintained. Rev. Mr. Jones is known as a
man of strong principles and broad minded
views, and is beloved and respected not only
by his constituents of the church, but by a
large number of friends and acquaintances
scattered over ail Southern California, where
he has labored so long.
4-º-º-º-º-º-º:
JOHN WILLIAM ROBBINS. Too much
cannot be said in praise of the enterprise and
thrift which have brought success to J. W.
Robbins, who, it is safe to say, has a larger
acreage under his care than any other resi-
dent of Santa Barbara county of the same
years and experience. The tract of fifty-two
hundred acres under his management is rent-
ed property, located in close proximity to Los
Alamos, and is admirably adapted to the uses
to which it is devoted. While eight hundred
acres are in barley and dairying is carried on
to some extent, it is the stock ranch that
claims the most attention and produces the
largest income annually of any of the several
branches of agriculture here maintained, the
ranch being stocked with over four hundred
head of cattle, also mules, horses and hogs.
Not only is Mr. Robbins a native son of the
state, but he claims the distinction of being
the first American boy born in Guadaloupe,
Santa Barbara county, his birth occurring on
the last day of the year 1872. His parents,
M. V. and Louisa Catherine (Baber) Robbins,
were both natives of Missouri, from which
state the former started in 1852 on the long
and perilous journey across the plains. Go-
ing direct to Sonoma county, he settled on a
ranch not far from Santa Rosa, upon which he
made his home for twenty years. In 1872, a
short time prior to the birth of their son, the
parents removed to Guadaloupe, Santa Bar-
bara county. In 1879 they settled on the Sis-
quoc ranch, in the same county, removing
from there in 1883 to Goleta and still later to
Santa Barbara, where the father died in 1896.
Of the five children born to his parents J.
W. Robbins was the third in order of birth.
The first eleven years of his life were associat-
ed with his native village, in whose public
---

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
691
Schools he gained such training as the primi-
tive place afforded. Removing to Goleta in
1883, he completed his education in the Santa
Barbara Business College, and continued to
make his home near that city until 1902. Un-
der his father's training on the home ranch he
learned all of the details for the successful cul-
tivation of land, a training which he put to
further practical test by renting land and
ranching for himself. In 1901 he leased and
ran the Ontario and Eagle Canyon ranches
near Santa Barbara.
In 1902 he assumed control of the El Rob-
lar ranch, consisting of fifty-two hundred
acres near Los Alamos, of which he is the
lessee. With a company of five Mr. Robbins
formed the E1 Roblar. Thrashing Company, of
which he is one of the managers.
In 1899 Mr. Robbins was married to Mabel
F. Hunt, a native of England, and two chil-
dren, Catherine and Lelia, have been born to
them. Mr. Robbins' political sympathies ally
him with the Democratic party, while frater-
mally he belongs to the Elks of Santa Bar-
bara and the Native Sons of the Golden West.
It is said of Mr. Robbins that to know him
is to be his friend, and indeed it could hardly
be otherwise, for he possesses in generous
measure all of the attributes that make for
noble manhood and honest, upright citizen-
ship.
H. BERT ELLIS, A. B., M. D. Univer-
sally recognized as one of the leading physi-
cians of the state, Dr. H. Bert Ellis occupies
a merited position of prominence among his
contemporaries and enjoys the highest con-
fidence of those who have sought his advice
professionally. In Los Angeles, where he has
made his home many years, he is regarded as
a citizen of more than ordinary importance,
for he has so thoroughly interested himself
in questions concerning the physical welfare
of the community that he has brought about
results of incalculable benefit. He is unques-
tionably a man of much native ability and
with this has brought to bear in the prose-
cution of his profession an application and
earnestness and an intense love of the work
which have given to him a merited success.
A descendant of stanch English ancestry,
Dr. Ellis was born in Lincoln, Me., May 17,
1863, a son of James Henry Ellis, who traced
his antecedents to one of the lord mayors of
London. His mother, Annie M. (Bullard)
Ellis, descended in a direct line from William
Bradford, second governor of Massachusetts
and the head of the little colony of Puritans
at Plymouth. J. H. Ellis, who was born in
*.
Middleboro, Mass., April 23, 1836, became one
of the leading dental surgeons of the maritime
provinces and from 1867 to 1883 was located
in Fredericton, New Brunswick. His wife was
also a native of the Bay state, and was born
August 21, 1838. H. Bert Ellis received his
primary instruction in the public school near
his home, and later attended and graduated
from the high school, where he prepared for
more advanced work. Entering Acadia Uni-
versity, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, in 1881, he
was graduated from this institution three years
later, after which he came to California and for
one year was engaged in agricultural pursuits
and business enterprises in Los Angeles and
Pasadena. Following this he became a student
in the medical department of the University of
Southern California, from which institution he
was graduated in April, 1888. Having served
for a portion of this time as interne at the Los
Angeles County Hospital, he was equipped
with both a thorough knowledge of his profes-
sion and some practical experience, and in ad-
dition to this he went at once to Europe,
where he pursued a post-graduate course at
the universities of Gottingen, Germany, and
Vienna, Austria. Returning to his home in
Los Angeles he began a practice of his profes-
sion, which has continued up to the present
time. He has met with unusual success and
has built up a large and constantly increasing
practice. Since 1893 he has devoted himself
exclusively to the treatment of diseases of the
eye, ear, nose and throat, and has won wide
distinction in this important and difficult field
of labor.
Many positions of trust and responsibility
have been filled by Dr. Ellis, among them that
of lecturer on physiology in the College of
Medicine of the University of Southern Cali-
fornia, to which he received appointment in
October, 1889, shortly after establishing his
practice. In October of the following year he
was elected professor of the same department
and continued to act in that capacity until
January, 1896, when he was elected to the
chair of ophthalmotology, and in November,
1898, was further honored by being made
treasurer of the college of medicine. He is
prominently identified with medical organiza-
tions, having served officially in many of them.
As president of the Southern California Med-
ical Society in 1899 and 1900 he took an active
part in its affairs. He was senior vice-presi-
dent of the American Medical College Asso-
ciation, and has served constantly as secretary
or assistant secretary of the Los Angeles
County, Southern California, State and Amer-
ican Associations, the American Medical Ed-
itors Association and of the Doctors Social
692
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Club of Los Angeles. Socially he is prominent
as a member of the California, Jonathan, Uni-
versity and Union League Clubs, and of the
Science Association of Southern California.
In his political affiliations Dr. Ellis adheres
to the principles advocated in the platform of
the Republican party and gives his support to
its men and measures. During the years 1903
and 1904 he was a member and president of the
Board of Education of the city of Los An-
geles. Fraternally he is prominent among the
Masons and Elks. In personal character the
doctor is such a man as one of his profession
should be, possessing the rare qualities of good
cheer and sympathy, a patience born of long
experience in am alleviation of the ills of man-
kind, and confidence which instinctively wins
the trust of those about him. He has many
friends professionally and socially, and is just-
ly considered one of the able men of the city.
DENVER O. LAMB. Noteworthy among
the large landholders and extensive agricult-
urists of Fallbrook is D. O. Lamb, the owner
of as comfortable a homestead as can be found
in this section of San Diego county. A man
of excellent business capacity, thoroughly
versed in the many branches of farming, he
is meeting with good success in his under-
takings, his well-appointed and well-cultivat-
ed ranch of one thousand acres evincing the
thrift, skill and excellent management of the
owner. A son of the late J. O. Lamb, he was
born, March 31, 1859, in Minnesota, where he
lived until three years old.
Born and reared in New York, J. O. Lamb
began his active career as a sailor, and until
thirty years of age was engaged in seafaring
pursuits. Locating then in Wisconsin, he mar-
ried Mary J. Fillmore, who was born in that
state, and began life as a farmer. Moving
from there to the adjoining state of Minnesota,
he continued there as a farmer for several
seasons. About 1863 he started westward,
thinking in a newer country to further ad-
vance his fortunes. Joining an emigrant train
he crossed the mountains, and for four years
was located near Salt Lake, Utah. Coming
with his family to Southern California in the
fall of 1867, he lived for five years in San Ber-
nardino, after which he settled just west of
Los Angeles, where he remained until 1899.
|Retiring then from active pursuits, he came to
Fallbrook, and from that time 11ntil his death,
in 1905, made his home with his son, D. O.
Lamb. He was a stanch Republican in poli-
tics, and while living in Los Angeles served
as road overseer, and for fifteen years was
deputy constable. He was a member of the
Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and in his
religious views was a Materialist. His wife,
who survives him, lives in Fallbrook.
About eight years of age when he came
with his parents to this state, D. O. Lamb re-
ceived limited educational advantages in the
schools of San Bernardino county. While
there he began working at the carpenter's
trade, which he completed in Los Angeles,
subsequently following it as a business for a
number of years, three years of that time be-
ing thus employed in Pasadena. In 1886 he
located in San Diego county, and has since
been employed the greater part of the time in
agricultural pursuits. Investing his money in
land, he has now a fine ranch of one thou-
sand acres in Fallbrook, and as a raiser of cat-
tle and grain is meeting with notable success,
his operations being extensive and lucrative.
A man of keen intelligence and quick percep-
tions, he has made a personal study of many
of the leading questions of the day, and is
largely self-educated.
In 1885 Mr. Lamb married Ella Gird, who
was born in Los Angeles, and they are the
parents of eight children, namely: Nettie,
Katie, Edna, Murray, John, Annie, Denver
and Lucy. In national affairs Mr. Lamb is
an earnest supporter of the principles of the
Republican party, but in local matters he
votes for the best men and measures, inde-
pendent of party prejudices. He has made a
study of Spiritualism, and both he and his
wife are among its strongest advocates.
---sºmeºmºmºmºmº-
RALPH. D. LACOE. Prominent among
the highly esteemed residents of Oceanside,
San Diego county, is Ralph D. Lacoe, a re-
tired business man. As a former dealer in
real estate and coal lands he was very suc-
cessful, by his eminent ability and keen judg-
ment accumulating a handsome property,
which he is enjoying at this beautiful seaside
resort. Although a comparative newcomer,
he is an ardent admirer of Southern California,
appreciating all of its advantages, and taking
great pleasure in its mild and health giving
climate. A son of the late Ralph D. Lacoe,
Sr., he was born, April, 1867, in Pittston, Lu-
zerne county, Pa., of honored French ancestry.
His paternal grandfather, Anthony Lacoe,
1eft France, his native country, about I790, at
the time of the French Revolution, coming to
Philadelphia, Pa., at first, but subsequently
settling near Pittston, where he was employed
as a carpenter and farmer until his death.
A native of Luzerne county, Pa., Ralph D.
Ilacoe, Sr., was brought up near Pittston,
where he began life for himself as a builder


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
695
and lumber manufacturer and dealer. Sub-
sequently settling in Pittston, he was there en-
gaged in the banking business during the
Civil war. He acquired considerable prop-
erty in that vicinity, becoming owner of valu-
able real estate and coal lands, remaining in
active business until his death, at the age of
sixty-seven years. He was a Republican in
politics and a man of much influence. His
wife, whose maiden name was Bridget Clary,
was born near Pittston, Pa., left an orphan
when young, and died in the fall of 1873. She
bore him three children, two of whom are liv-
1ng.
Brought up in Pittston, Ralph D. Lacoe re-
ceived his elementary education in its public
schools, after which he attended the Wilkes-
barre Academy, and the Wyoming Seminary.
Subsequently engaging in business with his
father, he dealt extensively in real estate and
coal properties, also doing surveying in the
coal regions. Continuing thus employed for
a number of years, he carried on a very prof-
itable business, acquiring considerable wealth.
In 1804 he made his first trip to the Pacific
coast, selecting Oceanside as the most desira-
ble place in which to spend the season, and
subsequently he made two other visits to
Southern California. Particularly pleased with
Oceanside and its environments, he brought
his family here in 1905, choosing this for a per-
manent place of residence.
In Pittston, Pa., Mr. Lacoe married Har-
riet Stark, who was born in that city, and was
educated at a college in Baltimore, \ſd. Their
union has been blessed by the birth of one
child, Ralph D. Lacoe, Jr. Politically Mr.
Lacoe, true to the principles in which he was
brought up, is a stanch Republican, and relig-
iously he is a member of the Methodist Epis-
copal Church.
JOHN CHARLES FREMONT. Through-
out American history and story no name is
more familiarly known than that of John C.
Fremont, the Pathfinder of the Rocky Mount-
ains. School children of all ages read and reread
with renewed delight and interest his encoun-
ters with the dusky foe on the plains and ex-
ploits of thrilling adventure throughout his en-
tire career on the western frontier. His fear-
1ess and daring spirit was no doubt an inher-
ited tendency, for it is known that the founder
of the family in America was a man of large
undertakings and indomitable courage. Born
in France at a time when the edict of Nantes
was still in effect, he lived there contented
with his surroundings and privileges until the
revocation by Louis XIV, when he was sent to
Canada as an officer in the troops, and there
he eventually settled with his family. There
the family became well known, the famous Dr.
Charles James Fremont being a member of this
branch of the family. The grandson of this
immigrating ancestor, Louis René, was the
founder of the family in the United States, his
later years being spent in Charleston, S. C.,
his death occurring there in 1818. In Virginia
he married Anne Beverly Whiting, whose
aunt, also a Miss Whiting, became the wife
of John Washington, and held George Wash-
ington in her arms at the time of his christen-
ing.
Born in Savannah, Ga., January 21, 1813,
John Charles Fremont, of this sketch, was a
lad of five years when the death of his father
cast the first shadow over his young life. Re-
maining with his widowed mother in Charles-
ton, he there became a pupil in the public
schools, where he displayed an aptitude and
receptivity which made him a delight to his
teachers. One especially, Professor Robertson
of the University of South Carolina, took a
keen interest in him and gave him outside as-
sistance in his studies that was of untold ad-
vantage to him. Circumstances over which he
had no control, however, put an end to his
school days, and at the age of nineteen the
support of his mother, brother and sister fell
upon his young shoulders. From his earliest
school days he showed a fondness for mathe-
matics, and it was along this line that he bent
his keenest energies. Naturally he sought em-
ployment which would make use of his train-
ing, and this he had no difficulty in finding.
His first practical work was as a surveyor in
the rice lands of South Carolina, a task which
involved considerable risk to life, and was paid
for accordingly. From 1833 to 1835 he was a
teacher of mathematics on the sloop-of-war
Natchez, and later became assistant to Capt.
W. G. Williams of the United States topo-
graphical engineers. Subsequently he was ap-
pointed an assistant to Mr. Nicollet, who un-
der the direction of General Sibley, with head-
quarters at old Fort Snelling, explored the
country north of the Missouri river, at the
same time discovering its source. In May,
1842, he set out on another expedition, his ob-
ject this time being to survey beyond the
Rocky Mountains by the south pass, one of
the members of his party being Kit Carson,
the noted trapper and scout. On this occasion,
on August 15, he scaled the peak that is now
known as Fremont's Peak.
With a band of thirty-nine trusty men Mr.
Fremont set out in May of 1843 for the pur-
pose of finding a path to the Pacific Ocean. In
his equipment he had the first India rubber
696
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
boat ever constructed, and this was also the
first boat that ever floated on Salt Lake, the
explorers sighting this body of water for the
first time September 6, 1843. It is a fact
worthy of note that the maps which Mr. Fre-
mont made of the country at this time were
the same ones which Brigham Young used in
making his way to that garden spot. Proceed-
ing toward the coast, Mr. Fremont reached
California in the middle of the following De-
cember, and in March of 1844 reached Sutter’s
Fort, near Sacramento. Having accomplished
the purpose for which he came he began to re-
trace his steps on the 24th of the same month,
reaching Kansas July 1, 1844. Starting on his
third expedition in 1845 he finally reached
Monterey, the old capital of California, there
raising the first American flag on Gaviota
Peak, when threatened with attack by Cas-
tro's men. From Monterey he went to Klam-
ath lake. Working under the direction of or-
ders reecived from Washington to defend the
interests of the United States in California and
to protect American settlers, with Stockton
and Sloat he soon wrested northern California
from Mexican rule, and July 4, 1846, was elect-
ed governor of California. By the treaty of
Cahuenga, on January 13, 1847, he concluded
articles of capitulation which left the territory
in the possession of the United States. During
the memorable year of 1849 he was elected
United States senator from California, taking
his seat September Io, 1850, the day after the
state was admitted into the Union. He and his
wife, though southerners, were advocates of a
free state and it was largely through his influ-
ence that it was admitted as such.
In September, 1853, Mr. Fremont made his
fifth expedition across the continent, and three
years later became the recognized leader of a
new political party whose slogan was “Free
soil, free speech, freedom and Fremont.” The
Republican convention of June, 1856, wit-
nessed his nomination for president. Return-
ing to California in 1858, a few years later, at
the outbreak of the Civil war, he was made
major-general of the regular army, command-
ing the western department, with headquar-
ters in St. Louis. At the hands of President
Lincoln in March of 1862 he was given com-
mand of the mountain district of Virginia,
Rentucky and Tennessee, and in 1878 was ap-
pointed governor of Arizona. Further promo-
tion and honor awaited him, for by act of con-
gress he was made major-general of the regu-
lar army in 1890, and put on the retired list.
He was not long spared to enjoy his new hon-
ors, however, for death came to him a few
months afterward, July 13, 1890, while on a
temporary visit in New York City.
In Washington, D. C., October 19, 1841, oc-
curred the marriage of John C. Fremont and
Jessie Benton, daughter of Thomas H. Ben-
ton, United States senator from Missouri. Op-
position to the marriage on the part of Mr.
Benton proved no bar to the consummation of
the plans of the young people, for they were
quietly married without his knowledge Or
blessing. Subsequently Mr. Benton became
reconciled to their marriage and in later years
he became Mr. Fremont's stanchest friend.
Five children blessed the marriage of Mr. and
Mrs. Fremont, but of these two died young.
The eldest, Elizabeth McDowell Benton Fre-
mont, was born in Washington, D. C., in 1842,
and as long as her parents lived continued to
imake her home with them. She has been a
resident of California since June, 1849, living
first in San Francisco, later in Los Angeles,
and in IQO4 came to Long Beach, although she
still retains her home in Los Angeles. The
next child, John Charles, named for his illus-
trious father, was born in San Francisco in
April, 1851, one of the first American children
born in the state. As an officer in the United
States navy he participated in the Spanish-
American war and later was made commander
of the U. S. Ship Florida. His marriage was
with Sallie Anderson, who is a daughter of
Gen. Adna Anderson, who laid out the North-
ern Pacific Railroad. Their three children are:
John Charles (who is the third of that name
and the second to serve in the United States
navy); Jessie Benton and Julia Van Wyck.
|Francis Preston Fremont was born in Wash-
ington, D. C., in May, 1855, and is a major in
the United States Army. His marriage united
him with Caroline Townsend, a daughter of
John D. Townsend, a prominent attorney of
New York City, and they have one son, Ben-
ton Fremont.
During the same year in which General Fre-
mont died congress granted a special pension
to his widow, following which the women of
California united in giving her a beautiful res-
idence in Los Angeles. She was born in May,
1824, and died at the home just mentioned De-
cember 27, 1902. General Fremont’s remains
were interred on the beautiful banks of the
Hudson in New York, and at her death her
ashes were taken east and placed beside his re-
mains. A woman of many charming traits of
character, she was an inspiration to all with
whom she came in contact, and though dead
she yet speaks, for she was a writer of consid-
erable note. Not only are her writings enter-
taining, but they claim the greater merit of
truth, and are based on her experiences in this
western frontier. Notable among the produc-
tions from her pen are: “A Year of American
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
697
Travel;” “Souvenirs of My Time;” “A Sketch
of Senator Benton;” “Story of the Guard,” and
“Will and Way Stories.” At the time of her
death she was engaged in the preparation of
her autobiography.
Colonel Frennont was in Paris with his wife
and daughter in 1851 and ’52, during which
time Napoleon declared himself emperor, and
they were honored guests at the last birthday
dinner given in honor of the duke of Welling-
ton. They were also presented at court. In
1869, General Fremont, wife and daughter
again went abroad, this time visiting in Copen-
hagen and Denmark particularly. Mrs. Fre-
mont owned the first carriage that was ever
seen in California, it having been built for her
in the east and brought around the Horn. It
was so arranged that she could use it as a bed
at night, and in this conveyance she and her
eldest daughter made many trips throughout
the state with Colonel Fremont.
WALTER LINDLEY, MI. D. Since his lo-
cation in Los Angeles, a little more than thirty
years ago, Dr. Lindley has been constantly iden-
tified with public enterprises, both in the line of
his profession and the general growth and de-
velopment of Southern California, his name to-
day standing deservedly prominent among the
representative citizens. His ability, however,
has far outgrown the confines of his adopted
State and he is known and honored as a leading
man in the medical fraternity, not only on the
Pacific slope, but wherever the progress of science
holds a place in the lives of men. His life his-
tory, therefore, is not of interest alone to those
who have known him personally during his
work in the west, but to the many who have
hoped for the betterment of humanity and the
upbuilding of conditions which would insure
a permanent moral and physical improvement.
Born in Monrovia, Ind., January 13, 1852,
Walter Lindley was the son of Milton and Mary
E. (Banta) Lindley, natives respectively of
North Carolina and Vevay, Ind. The father,
born on the 7th of October, 1820, inheriting from
early ancestors the pioneer spirit, became in
early life a resident of Indiana, where he en-
gaged in the mercantile and banking business
for Some time. Later he engaged in the real
estate business in Minneapolis, Minn., where he
remained until 1874, which year marks the date
of his arrival in the more remote west. He be-
came the owner of considerable property in Los
Angeles and spent a large portion of his time in
its improvement and management. In the mean-
time he gradually assumed a place of importance
among the citizens of the county and in 1879
was elected to the office of county treasurer,
holding the position with eminent satisfaction
to all for three years; and in 1884 was elected
one of the county supervisors, in which he held
the office of chairman of the finance committee.
His death occurred in May, 1895, at his home
on West Jefferson street, Los Angeles, remov-
ing from the community a man and citizen best
appreciated by those who knew him well—the
highest commendation which can be paid to a
man. He is survived by his wife, who, although
advanced in years, still enjoys good health and
the use of her faculties. She was born October
8, 1829, a descendant of a Holland Dutch fam-
ily, early settlers of Manhattan Island. Later
members located in the middle west and south-
ern states, the name being a prominent one in
Kentucky and Virginia, where members of the
family served as soldiers of the Revolution. The
two brothers of Mrs. Lindley's father, Jacob
and Andrew Banta, served valiantly in the war
of 1812, in the Kentucky Mounted Volunteers
under Col. R. M. Johnson, who was afterward
vice president of the United States. They par-
ticipated in the battle of the Thames, Canada,
October 5, 1813, when the British met with de-
feat. Her immediate family was represented in
the Civil war by four brothers, Quincy, Jephthah,
Samuel and William Banta, all of whom became
officers and won distinction before the close of
the strife. The youngest, William, who re-
sponded to the first call made by President Lin-
coln, was promoted from the ranks step by step,
until toward the close he was commissioned lieu-
tenant-colonel.
The early life of Walter Lindley was passed
in Indiana and Minnesota, his education being
received through the medium of the schools of
the latter place. Desiring to devote his efforts
to the successful study of medicine he became
a student in Keene's School of Anatomy, in
Philadelphia, Pa., from which institution he was
graduated the following year. Two courses of
lectures at Long Island College Hospital, Brook-
lyn, N. Y., completed his medical studies for the
time, a graduation in 1875 giving him a second
diploma. In the meantime he had been appointed
ambulance surgeon by the Brooklyn board of
health in 1874, and also served as resident phy-
sician in the Eastern District Hospital of Brook-
lyn until the day of his graduation. Thoroughly
equipped for the practice of his profession, Dr.
Lindley came to California in 1875 and at once
engaged as a practitioner in Los Angeles, which
city has ever since been the scene of his labors.
Constant association along the lines of his pro-
fession has kept him prominently before the pub-
lic and has also fully demonstrated the unusual
ability which he has brought to bear upon his
work. In 1879 he became health officer and
served until the following year, having prepared
698
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
himself for this position through an association
with the Los Angeles Medical ASSOciation as
Secretary, while he had also in 1877 Organized
a free dispensary on Requena street which de-
veloped later into the free dispensary of the
medical college, which annually treats thousands
of the poor sick without charge. Never con-
tent with the knowledge gained, the doctor con-
tinued his studies in 1882 in New York City,
and again in 1887, taking special courses in the
Post-Graduate Medical School and Hospital. To
the study of surgery he has devoted a large por-
tion of his time and attention, giving every ef-
fort toward research and reading and keeping
thoroughly abreast of all discoveries and modern
methods. While city health officer Dr. Lindley
issued for the first time a health circular of in-
formation for the public, and in other ways
proved his peculiar fitness for a position of the
kind. He takes the keenest interest in the up-
building and promotion of all medical progress,
in the California State Medical Society, serving
as president in 1890, and also being a charter
member of the Southern California Medical So-
ciety. For several years he served as secre-
tary, and in 1882 was president of the Los Ange-
les County Medical Society. Many positions
of trust and responsibility have been accorded
him, among them that of county physician in
1885, at which time no night nurse, no night
watchman, nor female nurse were a part of the
force. In the University of Southern Califor-
nia he was active in the establishment of the
College of Medicine, and from 1885 for several
years served as secretary of the faculty, and
later as professor of obstetrics, and is now Oc-
cupying the chair of gynecology and has for sev-
eral years been dean. With twenty of the lead-
ing physicians and surgeons of Los Angeles he
was instrumental in the organization of the Cal-
ifornia Hospital Association in 1807, since which
time they have erected the California Hospital,
a modern and well-equipped building, represent-
ing an investment of over $250,000, in one of the
best locations in the city. The doctor was asso-
ciated with others in the organization of the
Los Angeles Humane Society and served as its
president in 1895.
In the midst of the busy cares engendered by
his large practice, Dr. Lindley has still found
time to give some thought to the distribution of
ideas through the medium of the pen, establish-
ing as early as 1886 the Southern California
Practitioner, a medical and climatological
monthly magazine, that has never missed an is-
sue and is today one of the best known medical
journals in the United States. He is still its
editor and publisher and through its columns
his trenchant Den has done much toward the
suggestion of ideas and methods which have
by the State Commission of Lunacy.
bettered conditions in the medical and Surgical
world. In conjunction with Dr. J. P. Widney,
he wrote California of the South, a valuable
and comprehensive work, giving a general and
climatic description of this section of the state.
This work is published by D. Appleton & Co.,
New York, and has passed through three large
editions. He has also contributed medical papers
to various journals throughout the United States,
Not the least of the work of Dr. Lindley has
been his association with movements calculated
to better the condition of the youth of our state,
his first labor being in the organization of the
Los Angeles Orphans' Home, of which he be-
came director and attending physician, holding
the latter position for nine years and devoting
his time faithfully to the needs of the little ones,
for which services he received only the reward
of duty cheerfully done, as there was of course
Ino remuneration. It was also through the ef-
forts of the doctor that the State Industrial
School was established at Whittier, Cal., his
first articles on the subject through the public
press being begun as early as 1880. He finally
succeeded in securing legislation for a liberal
appropriation for the establishment and main-
tenance of a school where trades should be taught
and where boys should receive a symmetrical
education morally, mentally and physically. Dr.
Lindley was appointed to supervise the building
of the school and from 1800 to 1894 made his
home in Whittier, giving to the work in hand
the attention and thought which resulted in a
practical demonstration of his ideas which had
only strengthened and broadened with the pas-
sage of the ten years in which he had been
advocating this movement. Although an active
Republican he was appointed by a Democratic
governor of California as one of the trustees of
the Whittier state school, and is now serving as
president of the board. For several years he
was vice president of the National Conference
of Charities and Corrections and still retains an
active membership in the same. An honor which
fell to him came through the appointment by
President Cleveland in 1805 of Pacific coast
delegate to the International Prison Congress
held at Paris. In the same year he was appointed
trustee of the Throop Polytechnic Institute, of
Pasadena, Cal., and two years later received the
appointment to the position of medical examiner
In 1903
he was elected dean of the Medical College of
the University of Southern California, and in
the same year received the honor at the hands of
his fellow citizens of being made one of a com-
Imittee of seven to receive President Roosevelt.
In IOO5 he received the degree of LL. D. from
St. Vincent's College. One of his most widely
known and most extensively republished ad-

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 701
dresses was one delivered in 1905, entitled “The
Evils of Institutional Childhood,” which was
given before the National Conference of Char-
ities at their meeting in Portland, Ore.
The doctor's association with the establish-
ment of Idyllwild, a beautiful resort under the
supervision of the California Health Resort
Company, is well known. On a trip through
the San Jacinto mountains he came upon this
plateau or valley, covered with magnificent pines,
and situated at an altitude of fifty-two hundred
and fifty feet. Struck with the beauty of the lo-
cation as well as its desirability as a health re-
sort, he was instrumental in the organization of
the above-named company, with a capital Stock
of $250,000. The company is composed of forty
of the leading medical men of Southern Califor-
nit, among whom T}r. Lindley holds a prominent
place, and after their purchase of the land they
began the erection of cottages, which have turned
the silent, shadowed valley into a little hamlet
with every convenience at hand, every modern
device for comfort and relaxation physically and
mentally. The resort has proven a great suc-
cess, attracting a large number of people each
year who go away benefited by a short Sojourn
in this ideal spot. It is likewise a financial suc-
cess. He is a director of the Farmers and Mer-
chants National Bank as well as of several other
business corporations.
• Dr. Lindley was first married in 1875 to Miss
Lou C. Puett, daughter of Rev. W. W. Puett,
and by whom he had two children: Flora
Banata, wife of Philip Kitchin, and Myra Jose-
phine, wife of Samuel F. Bothwell, both resid-
ing in Los Angeles. Mrs. L. C. Lindley died
May 8, 1881. November 22, 1882, the doctor
was united in marriage with Miss Lilla Leigh-
ton, her death occurring March 4, 1883. July
18, 1894, Dr. Lindley married Mrs. Florence
Hardie, daughter of James S. Haynes, and sis-
ter of Francis L., John R. and Robert W. Haynes,
the well-known Los Angeles physicians. They
are the parents of two children, Dorothy and
Francis Haynes Lindley. Dr. Lindley's person-
ality is wholesome and kindly, his sympathy
genuine, and all in all inspires the attributes
which are so largely a part of his doctrine of
pervading optimism.
-
HON. ALVAN TYLER CURRIER. For
many years the life of Mr. Currier has been
inseparably associated with the history of the
San Jose valley, of which he was one of the
early settlers. He has lived to see what was
in years gone by a region of almost unsettled
land transformed into a prosperous and beau-
tiful country. . In the midst of all the chang-
ing scenes through which the country has
passed he was ever ready to give assistance to
those in need and to promote enterprises for
the good of the community, and it is not too
great praise to say that no other one citizen has
wielded a greater influence in upbuilding meas-
ures in the community and in developing its
latent resources.
As is true of so many of California's able
citizens, Mr. Currier is of eastern birth and
parentage. Born in Franklin county, Me.,
April 30, 1840, he is a son of Alvan and Nancy
(Clough) Currier, they too being natives of
the same state, and descended respectively
from French and English-Scotch progenitors.
During his early years Alvan Currier taught
school in his home locality, where in later
years he wielded a large influence, represent-
ing his constituents in governmental affairs
both as representative and senator in Maine.
During his younger life Alvan Currier was a
Whig in his political belief, and when that
party was merged into the Republican party
he became a firm adherent of the latter. Both
himself and wife passed their entire lives in
Maine, and at their death were upheld and
strengthened by the Christian’s hope, having
been faithful members of the Baptist Church
for many years. Eight children were born to
this worthy couple, two of whom, Alvan T.
and Samuel Howard, came to California, but
the latter, who was a pioneer of 1851, died in
this state February 8, 1853. Of this family all
are living except Samuel Howard and are lo-
cated in the vicinity of Farmington, Me., ex-
cept A. T. of this review. The oldest, Lydia
Ann, seventy-six years; David E., seventy-
two years; Susan E., seventy years; A. T.,
sixty-seven ; Hannah A., aged sixty-five:
George M., sixty-three; and Mittie F., aged
fifty-seven years. . .
Mr. Currier’s early years were associated
with his birthplace, Farmington, Me., where
he attended the public schools and later was
a pupil in Farmington Academy. For a time
after his own school days were over he en-
gaged in teaching, and later, or until reaching
his majority, he carried on farming in Maine.
It was in the vear 1861 that he bade farewell
to family and friends and started for California
by way of the isthmus. He was not greatly
attracted to the country at that time evidently,
for we learn that he soon left San Francisco
for Idaho, remaining as a gold and silver
miner there for six years. In 1865 his brother,
George M., came to Idaho and in 1867 returned
to Maine, where he is still living. In the year
1867 Mr. Currier came back to California but
soon started east to visit his parents in Maine,
then returned to California in 1868 and deter-
1mined to settle down as a rancher in this state,
702
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
and for the purpose of securing choice cattle
with which to stock his ranch he went to Ore-
gon. The following year he drove his cattle
to Northern California, where he sold them
and with the proceeds came to Los Angeles
county and purchased the ranch of twenty-
five hundred acres in the San Jose valley,
which has been the scene of his labors dur-
ing the years which have intervened. . His
farming is devoted to fruit, the raising of cat-
tle and draft horses, besides which he harvests
large crops of hay and grain. In connection
with his ranch he has an orchard of eighty
acres, set out to oranges and walnuts. The
ranch is very favorably situated about three
miles west of Pomona, not far from the sta-
tions of Spadra and Lemon, on the Southern
Pacific Railroad, and is copiously watered from
several artesian wells. At this writing Mr.
Currier is contemplating subdividing his ranch
into ten-acre tracts and selling as homesteads
to settlers. In addition to this valuable prop-
erty he is also the owner of considerable prop-
erty in Los Angeles.
Ás yet no mention has been made of Mr.
Currier's public life, though it was in this ca:
reer that he wielded the greatest influence and
was best known. As a candidate of the Re-
publican party he was nominated and elected
sheriff of Los Angeles county in 1882, an of-
fice which he filled creditably for two years.
Later honors came to him in 1898, when he
was elected to the state senate from the Thirty-
eighth California district, representing his
constituents in that body for four years with
the greatest satisfaction to those who had been
responsible for his election, and with great
credit to himself. During his life in the state
he has shared in its successes and reverses,
and no matter how depressing the conditions
may have been his hope for the final Supremacy
of the state in the working out and establish-
ment of resources has never been dimmed. It
is the possession of this faith alone that has
been the prime factor in his success, a faith
which others have imbibed from him, thus
spreading a wholesome influence throughout
his community. Besides other positions which
he has held in his community he is a director in
the First National Bank of Pomona, a director
in the San Antonio Fruit Exchange, is presi-
dent of the Mutual Fire Insurance Company
of Los Angeles, president of the San Antonio
Cañon Water Company, president of the Wal-
nut Fruit Growers’ Asociation, of Walnut,
and president of the Odd Fellows' Hall Asso-
ciation, of Pomona, member of Union League
Club and Los Angeles County Pioneers So-
ciety.
Mr. Currier's marriage, March 20, 1881,
united him with Mrs. Susan (Glenn) Rubot-
tom, and both are active members of the Bap-
tist Church of Pomona. Mr. Currier belongs
to but one fraternal organization, the Odd Fel-
lows, with which he has been identified for
the past twenty-five years. The personality of
Mr. Currier is pleasing, his open-hearted, sub-
stantial manner making him a welcome acqui-
sition to any society or gathering.
GEORGE FINLEY BOVARD, D. D. When
the persecution of the Huguenots in France cul-
minated in the massacre of St. Bartholomew
and the members of that sect were forced to flee
for their lives, the Bovard family sought refuge
in the north of Ireland and thus by accident be-
came planted upon Irish soil. From the Emerald
Isle George Bovard, the grandfather of the sub-
ject of this article, came to America a stalwart
young pioneer, well qualified for the arduous
task of hewing a home out of the primeval
wilderness. The family assisted in the agri-
cultural development of the vicinity of Steuben-
ville and there James, a son of George, was born,
reared and educated. While still very young he
removed to Indiana and settled near the hamlet
of Alpha, Scott county, where he labored for
years to transform a dense forest into an im-
proved farm. On the organization of the Re-
publican party he became one of its upholders
and when the Civil war began he was enthusias-
tic in his defense of Union principles. During
1862 he was accepted as a member of Company
K, One Hundred and Twentieth Indiana In-
fantry, assigned to the Twenty-third Army
Corps, and sent to the south, where he partici-
pated in various engagements and the march to
the sea. On the expiration of the war he re-
turned to his home and resumed the cultivation
of his farm and the discharge of the duties fall-
ing upon him as a private citizen. From early
youth until the close of life he was an earnest
believer in Methodist doctrines and a generous
supporter of the church. -
During his early years James Bovard met and
married Sarah Young, who was born on a farm
now included within the city limits of Cincin-
nati, her father, Abner Young, having removed
thither from his native Pennsylvania at an early
day. Both James Bovard and his wife remained
in Indiana from middle age until death and there
they reared a large family, whose brilliant mental
attainments have made them conspicuous in their
various places of residence. Three of their sons
are now deceased, but eight still survive, as well
as their only daughter, Mrs. Maria J. Griffith, of
Abingdon, Ill. Freeman D., who is a graduate
of Depauw University at Greencastle, Ind., of
ficiated as vice-president of the University of
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
703
Southern California from 1880 until 1885, and
now is editor of the California Christian Advo-
cate in San Francisco. Rev. Marion McK. BO-
vard, a graduate of Depauw University, bore an
active part in the founding of the University of
Southern California, and held the office of presi-
dent from that time (1880) until his death ten
years later. William, a graduate of the Univer-
sity of Southern California in 1888, is now dean
of the College of Theology in Grant University,
Chattanooga, Tenn. Rev. Melville Y., who com-
pleted his education at Moores Hill, Ind., holds
the pastorate of the First Methodist Episcopal
Church at Port Chester, N. Y. Rev. Charles L.
Bovard, also a Methodist Episcopal minister, has
a pastorate in Butte, Mont. Abner C. is a news-
paper man in Kansas City, Mo. Ulysses Grant
is engaged in the banking business at Paris, Ind.,
and Morton Ellsworth is a farmer in Illinois near
the town of Abingdon.
While the family were living on their Indiana
homestead George. Finley Bovard was born
August 8, 1856. His education was primarily
obtained in country schools and later he attended
the State Normal School at Paoli, Orange county,
subsequently for three years teaching five months
in the autumn and winter and then spending
three months in the spring at Depauw Univer-
sity, where in that brief period he completed the
work of the entire year. The strain of constant
study told upon his health and he was obliged
to discontinue his untiring application to his
books. In 1879 he joined his brothers in Cal-
ifornia and shortly afterward was licensed to
preach by the quarterly conference at Orange,
Cal., his first sermon being delivered at a camp
meeting near Compton. During the fall of 1879
he was appointed supply pastor in the Methodist
Episcopal Church at San Bernardino, and then
served for one year as a missionary in Arizona,
making his headquarters at Phoenix, which at
the time boasted of only one brick building.
Under his leadership a congregation of Meth-
Odists was established and a house of worship
erected on the corner of Second and Washington
streets, where now stands the Ford hotel. For
this site the church paid $300. When he re-
turned to Arizona later as superintendent of
missions the lot was sold for $15,000 and a tract
three times as large was purchased on Second
and Monroe streets for $7,OOO, where the church
built its present substantial and handsome edi-
fice.
On his return to Los Angeles in 1881 Mr.
Bovard joined his brothers in university instruc-
tion and took charge of the English and history
classes, teaching five hours per day, besides car-
rying on his regular college studies and preach-
ing every Sunday in Los Angeles county. In
1884 he was graduated with the degree of A. B.,
dent.
later receiving the degree of A. M., and in 1896
Willamette University conferred upon him the
degree of Doctor of Divinity. After his gradua-
tion he was called to the pastorate of the Meth-
odist Episcopal Church at Orange, where he re-
mained three years, the limit of pastoral tenure.
At the expiration of that time he was appointed
presiding elder of the Pasadena district and was
ordained an elder the Sunday prior to the ap-
pointment. After two years of service in the of—
fice he was appointed pastor of the Boyle Heights
Church, where he remained one year and was
called for a second year, but within a week after
his re-appointment he was assigned by Bishop
Goodsell as superintendent of Methodist Epis-
copal missions in Arizona, with headquarters in
Phoenix. In order to attend to the work it was
necessary for him to travel by stage much of
the time. Railroads were few and the distances
between congregations great. All in all, the task
was one imposing great hardship and constant
privations upon him, but he remained for seven
years faithfully discharging every duty, building
11p new congregations, assisting struggling
churches and establishing the work upon a firm
basis in the territory. From Arizona he was
transferred to Los Angeles district, Southern
California conference, of which he was appointed
presiding elder by Bishop John P. Newman, and
for six years, the limit of office, he served faith-
fully and with rare tact and zeal. On the oc-
casion of the general conference of the Metho-
dist Episcopal Church held in Chicago in 1900
he was present as a delegate, and was elected
a member of the book committee to represent
the fourteenth general conference district. While
acting in that capacity he did much to promote
the interests of Los Angeles as the seat of the
general conference of 1904, in which ambition
he met with success. This convention he also
attended as a member and was elected to repre-
sent the fourteenth general conference district
for the ensuing quadremium in the University
Senate.
The marriage of Dr. Bovard took place in Los
Angeles October 1, 1884, and united him with
Miss Emma J. Bradley, daughter of Cyrus H.
Bradley, an honored pioneer of Los Angeles
and a furniture dealer here during the early
days. Mrs. Bovard was liberally educated in the
University of Southern California and is a ladv
of culture. Born of their union are three chil-
dren, Warren B., Edna G. and Gladys F. In
politics Dr. Bovard favors Republican principles.
In the work of organizing the Archeological In-
stitute of the Southwest he was a leading par-
ticipant and now holds the office of vice-presi-
Other organizations with which he is
identified include the Los Angeles Academy of
Science, the American Academy of Political and
704
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Social Science, and the International Geographi-
cal ASSOciation.
The University of Southern California, of
which Dr. Bovard has been the president since
1903, includes eight colleges and a preparatory
school. The College of Liberal Arts occupies a
ten-acre tract at Thirty-sixth and Wesley ave-
nues, Los Angeles, convenient to the street rail-
ways. Organized in 1880 with Rev. M. M. Bo-
vard as president, it has since maintained a
steady growth. In 1884 a four-story building
was erected with suitable class-rooms. During
the spring of 1905 two wings were added to the
main Liberal Arts building, more than doubling
its capacity, at an expense of $60,000. The
equipment is modern and the laboratories are
furnished with the very latest improvements.
The medical department of the university was
founded in 1885 by Dr. J. P. Widney and event-
ually was removed from a rented hall to a build-
ing of its own on Buena Vista street. The
theological department was founded at San Fer-
nando in 1885 by Charles Maclay, who donated
land valued at $150,000 and erected the building
originally used for school purposes. However,
the college was eventually closed at San Fer-
nando and in 1894 was opened in Los Angeles
in connection with Liberal Arts. Besides the
departments of liberal arts, medicine, pharmacy
and theology, there are those of dentistry, law,
music and oratory, and the preparatory and in-
termediate departments, in all of which there is
a large corps of instructors, thoroughly qualified
to advance the interests of the students and train
their minds for life’s activities. Indissolubly
associated with the history of the institution is
the name of Bovard, for its inception was largely
due to the untiring efforts of Rev. M. M. and
Freeman D. Bovard, and the former presided
over its early destinies, while more recently the
younger brother, Dr. George Finley Bovard, has
succeeded to the executive management of the
institution, whose growth and permanent pros-
perity he has labored unweariedly to promote.
TELLIE L THOMPSON. A practical, well
educated man of Sound judgment and much
talent, T. L. Thompson has established an
up-to-date livery and feed stable at Oceanside,
and in its management is meeting with eminent
success. Enterprising and accommodating, he
takes especial pains to please his numerous pa-
trons and has already built up a large and re-
munerative business in this section of the country,
and gained an assured position among its lead-
ing liverymen. A son of the late Banner Thomp-
son, he was born, October 17, 1874, at Ada,
Hardin county, Ohio, where he spent his early
manhood. A native of Ohio, Banner Thompson
there married Sarah Jaggers, who survives him,
and is now living in Redlands, Cal.
Going with the family to Kansas in the early
’80’s, T. L. Thompson attended the public Schools
of Douglas, Butler county, for awhile. From
there he came, in 1885, to Fallbrook, San Diego
county, where he completed his early education.
Beginning life for himself at an early age, he
obtained work in a livery barn at first, and after-
wards was employed for a time as a stage driver.
He worked also in a telegraph office for a few
months, but did not like the employment well
enough to continue it. A young man of great
industry and thrift, he resolved to start in busi-
ness on his own account, and with this end in
view judiciously saved his earnings until he had
enough capital on hand to warrant him in So do-
ing. Coming to Oceanside August 19, 1903,
Mr. Thompson bought his present livery estab-
lishment, and has since built up a substantial
business, keeping one of the best stocked and
finest equipped stables in this locality.
Mr. Thompson married, in 1905, Lillian Crane,
who was born in San Diego, where her parents
are well known and highly esteemed residents.
Politically Mr. Thompson is a stanch Republican,
and fraternally he is a member of the Indepen-
dent Order of Odd Fellows, and of the Eagles.
A. V. BRAS. One of the most delightful as
well as fortunate features of Santa Barbara
county is the gathering within its borders of
the son and daughters of many countries
and climes. All bring their contribution of
character and ideals, their hopes, ambitions
and individual requirements, yet eventually
all are harmonized in a common language,
a common home-making and fortune ac-
quiring incentive, and a common pride and
responsibility in the development of their
adopted country. Yet the strangely at
variance element does not exist for all who
cast their lot with this state or county, as is
the case with the colonists from the Azores.
A certain familiarity greets the arrival of the
subjects of King Carlos, for here also are fertile
lands, balmy air, vineyards, oranges and cloud-
piercing mountains, and the close proximity of
these doubtless aids the newcomer in the rap-
id achievement of stable and useful citizen-
ship. The better qualities of his nationality
find expression in A. V. Bras, who owns a
ranch of one hundred and sixty-eight acres,
and whose father, Joe Bras, also is a rancher
in the Santa Maria valley.
Mr. Bras was born on one of the nine islands
comprising the Azores group, eight hundred
miles west of Portugal, May 6, 1867, next to the
youngest of seven children, all of whom are




HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
707
living, and of whom a daughter still lives in
the islands. Mr. Bras' mother died when he
was eighteen months old, and when he was
eighteen years old he came to California, and
for two years worked for a farmer in the Santa
Maria valley. In the early ’90s he rented the
farm upon which he now lives, and of which,
in 1899, ile purchased a hundred acres. A lit-
tle later he added forty-five acres to his farm,
and in 1901 extended his domain by twenty-
three acres. The ranch had profited by the
industry and expenditure of former owners,
and the present proprietor has more than
doubled its value and productiveness. With
the exception of twenty-four acres under hay,
time whole is devoted to beans, a crop which,
while insuring reasonable profit, admits of
more leisure for the enjoyment of life than
does more varied produce.
The public spirit of Mr. Bras has found no
more emphatic expression than during his five
years' service as a member of the school board.
He is a stanch advocate of education, and of
all pleasures and advantages which tend to
stuccly, useful citizenship.
Mr. Bras' marriage to Mary A. Gloria, also
a native of the Azores, was solemnized No-
vember 29, 1888, and of the union there are
seven children : Mary, Mariana, Louise, Carrie,
Antone, Joe' and Ida. Two children died in
infancy. The family are members of the Cath-
olic Church at Guadaloupe. Mr. Bras is a
member of the I. D. E. S., and is otherwise
connected with the social life of the commun-
ity. He is a high minded, intelligent gentle-
man, a popular neighbor, loyal friend, honest
business man and successful rancher.
STEPHEN TOWNSEND. Foremost in
enterprises which have for their end the up-
building of the best interests of the city, Step-
hen Townsend. is named among the represen-
tative citizens of Long Beach, and as such is
held in the highest esteem by all who know
him. He has been a resident of California
since 1876, first locating in Pasadena, where
he proved an important factor in the devel-
opment and upbuilding of its best interests,
securing its first franchise and building its
first railway, and later the Altadena and other
street car lines; establishing the Pasadena
Warehouse and Milling Company and con-
ducting the same successfully ; and as a mem-
ber of the city board of trustees advancing
plans which were acceptable to both the con-
servative and radical element and were acted
upon to the entire satisfaction of the people.
In 1895 he became associated with the inter-
ests of Long Beach, in which city he fore-
saw a future unsurpassed by any other of the
towns of Southern California. His efforts,
since locating here, have resulted in the mate-
rial upbuilding of the city, as well as a financial
gain for himself, and has at the same time built
up a place of prominence in the municipal and
social life of the city. g
Mr. Townsend is the descendant of English
ancestry, the first members of both paternal
and maternal families having located in this
country during its colonial period. Descend-
ants drifted into the middle west, and in the
state of Ohio, David, the father of Stephen
Townsend, was born and reared to manhood
as a farmer’s son. He married Sidney Mada-
lin, also a native of Ohio, and until 1855 they
remained residents of that state and Indiana.
In the last-named year they immigrated to
Iowa and in Cedar county, near Iowa City, en-
gaged in general farming and stock-raising.
He continued in that location until the year
1876, when he brought his family to California
and became a member of the Indiana Colony,
now Pasadena, where he engaged in horti-
culture up to the time of his death. He was
survived twenty years by his wife, who passed
away in 1903, at the age of eighty-three years.
Of their thirteen children four are now liv-
ing, the oldest son, Stephen Townsend, having
been born in Hamilton county, Ind., October
19, 1848. He was but seven years old when
the family located in Iowa, hence the greater
part of his education was received in that
state, first attending the public schools, and
later the Iowa State University. Upon leav-
ing school he began to farm on his own re-
sponsibility upon land purchased in Franklin
county, where he made his home for three
years. Following this he was similarly occu-
pied in Cedar county for two years, when, in
1876, he accompanied the family to California.
The west appealed to him with its broader op-
portunities and responsibilities and he readily
became one of the most prominent men of the
place, developing his latent power of manage-
ment and executive ability. Prior to his lo-
cation in Long Beach he purchased twenty
acres of land on the Anaheim road, adjoining
the city limits and one mile from the beach. The
year following his location here he engaged in
the real-estate business, laying out various
subdivisions, blocks one, ten, fourteen and
twenty-four and twenty-five as well as the
Tutt tract of fifteen acres; Heller & Hays
tract of fifteen acres: Harbor View of forty
acres: Sunny Slope of thirty acres; and is in-
terested in the subdivision of Ocean Pier tract;
West : Riverside tract : and the Mooreland
tract of fifty acres, also Huntington Beach.
Since his location here he has been associated
41
708
FHISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
with various real-estate men, the firm first be-
ing known as Bailey & Townsend; a few
months later as Townsend & Campbell, and
after two years he engaged with his brother,
W. H. Townsend. Following this he was
alone until 1901, when he became associated
with what was known as the Townsend-Robin-
Son Investment Company, now Townsend-
Dayman Investment Company, in which con-
nection he has since remained. This is an in-
corporated company, with capital stock of $50,-
OOO ; they opened a subdivision to the city
of Long Beach of forty acres, this being one
of the largest additions to the city. Mr. Town-
send is one of the organizers and directors of
the Orange County Improvement Association
of Newport, of which he acts as president,
serving in the same capacity for the La Habra
Land & Water Company, and is ex-president
of the The Sunset Beach Land Company.
In addition to the foregoing Mr. Townsend
is vice-president of the First National Bank
of Long Beach and president of the First Na-
tional Bank of Huntington Beach. He or-
ganized and is president of the Land & Navi-
gation Company that purchased eight hundred
acres of the Seaside Water Company, where is
now being dredged the harbor for Long Beach.
He also carries stock in many other com-
panies and takes an active interest in all move-
ments tending to promote the welfare of this
section of Southern California. The real-es-
tate firm which he organized is one of the most
substantial of its kind in this part of Cali-
fornia and carries on an extensive business,
the high character of ability enlisted in the
work making it one of the most successful en-
terprises of Long Beach. In addition to his
engrossing real-estate interests he has been
active in the municipal life of Long Beach,
in 1903 being elected president of the board of
trustees, which office he filled with efficiency.
In Iowa, October 10, 1869, Mr. Townsend was
united in marriage with Anna M. Carroll, a
native of Indiana. Thev became the parents
of five children. two of whom died in early
childhood and Frances Maye died in 1901, aged
twenty-eight years; in 1894 she graduated
from the College of Music of Southern Cali-
fornia University. Ester Belle is the wife of
Dr. A. T. Covert, of Long Beach, and is a
graduate of the Los Angeles State Normal,
class of 1803. Vinton Ray, who graduated
from the University of California at Berkeley
in 1903, is now a junior in the medical depart-
ment of Southern California University; in
TOO5 he married Ada Campbell, the daughter
of W. L. Campbell.
Mr. Townsend is a member of the Method-
ist Episcopal Church, in which he officiates as
a member of the board of trustees and Super-
intendent of the Sunday-school, and is serving
on the building committee of the new Long
Beach Methodist Episcopal Church. He is a
director of the Young Men's Christian As-
Sociation and at the present writing is serving
as president of the Long Beach Hospital As-
Sociation, of which he was one of its organ-
izers, and is also a member of the Chamber of
Commerce. Mrs. Townsend is a prominent
and earnest worker in the Methodist Episco-
pal Church and president of the Ladies Social
Circle, is associated with the Young Men's
Christian Association, and is a member of the
Ebell Club. It can truly be said of Mr. Town-
send that he is representative of the best in
American citizenship, living up to a high
standard in public and private life, making his
influence felt throughout the community for
its betterment and moral uplift.
GEORGE ALBERT BLEWETT. The
earliest records obtainable concerning the ris-
tory of the Blewett family trace it back to the
mother country, the grandfather of George A.
Blewett, Richard Blewett by name, having
been born in England. By trade he was a
wheelwright, having learned and followed the
same in his native country up to the time he
located in the new world with his family. In
Oswego, N. Y., where he first settled, he again
took up work at his trade, continuing it also
in Ontario, where he later moved, and there his
death occurred. His son Thomas was young at
the time the family immigrated to the Unit-
ed States, so the greater part of his life was
spent on this side of the Atlantic. In the
earlier part of his business career he followed
the blacksmith's trade at Napanee, Ontario,
which is a noted port of entry in that part of
the country. This being the case Mr. Blewett
had an excellent opportunity to make obser-
vations regarding water transportation, and
thus it happened that he finally became owner
of a vessel of which he himself was captain.
Starting from New York, he plied the waters
of the St. Lawrence river, doing an extensive
shipping business between different points.
Both himself and wife died in Ontario. The
latter was before her marriage Pauline Din-
geau, who was born in Montreal, Canada, of
French descent.
Of the ten children orignally included in
the parental family all grew to years of ma-
turity, but only seven of the number are now
living. George Albert Blewett was a twin and
the fourth in Order of birth, and was born at
Napanee, Ontario, December 29, 1856. Up
to the time he was fourteen years of age he
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
709
had attended the common schools of Nap-
anee with considerable regularity, so that when
he reached his fifteenth year he felt qualified
to start out in the world independently. Suit-
ing the action to the word he left his Can-
adian home and went to Oswego, N. Y., where
he secured work as driver on the canal, fol-
lowing this for about two and a half years.
Going from there to Michigan, he first became
interested in lumbering in Bay City, later in
Saginaw, and finally included blacksmithing
with his lumber interests. His first introduc-
tion to the west was in 1876, at which time
he went to Nevada, and was so well pleased
with the prospects there that he established
a blacksmith shop at Gold Hill, an undertak-
ing that proved very satisfactory during the
eighteen years that he remained there. Cross-
ing over into the adjoining state of California
in 1894 he came direct to Los Angeles, and
there with the proceeds of the sale of his
Nevada interests he established himself in the
blacksmith business, later adding ranching to
his other interests, both of which he followed
with a fair degree of success.
In Anaheim, Orange county, Cal., October
28, 1894, was celebrated a marriage which
united the destinies of George A. Blewett and
Mrs. Sophia L. (Morris) Cary. Mrs. Blewett
was born in Los Angeles of Irish descent.
Grandfather Morris, who was born in Ireland,
became a pioneer settler in Australia, and there
it was that his son George Frederick was
born. The latter came to California during the
great influx of 1849, but instead of going into
the mines as did the majority he engaged in
the raising of sheep in the southern part of
the state. Turing his entire life in the west
he made his home in Los Angeles, passing
away in this city at the age of fifty-two. His
wife, formerly Mary Smith, was a native of the
Emerald Isle, and her death occurred in Red-
ondo, this state. Of their six children who
reached maturity five are now living, Mrs.
Blewett being next to the youngest. Her
first marriage with Thomas Carey, resulted
in the birth of one child, Thomas S. Carey.
Of her marriage with Mr. Blewett six children
have been born, as follows: George A., Jr.,
James J., John H., Richard E., William F. and
Frances E. In his political affiliations Mr.
Blewett subscribes to Democratic principles,
and fraternally he is a member of the Knights
*…* * * * * *
of the Maccabees.
P. J. DUDLEY. Among the active, ener-
getic and public-spirited residents of Ocean
Park, P. J. Dudley holds a noteworthy posi-
tion. He possesses excellent business tact and
judgment, and as cashier of the Ocean Park
Bank is performing the duties connected with
his office in a most satisfactory manner, be-
ing well fitted for his work by courtesy as
well as capability. A native of Hampshire,
England, he was born November 20, 1868, a
son of William Mason and Ann Vernon Dud-
ley.
Having acquired a practical education in
his native land, P. J. Dudley immigrated to the
United States in 1888, settling first in Cedar
Rapids, Iowa, where he was subsequently en-
gaged in various pursuits, among others be-
ing that of a grain buyer. Going from there
to Chicago, Ill., he was connected with the
firm of Mueller & Young, extensive grain deal-
ers, for several years, being office manager
for them from 1897 to IQoS. Coming in that
year to Los Angeles county, he at Once as-
sumed his present position as cashier of the
Ocean Park Bank, and has since performed
the many duties devolving upon him with
praise-worthy fidelity.
In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, March 22, 1893, Mr.
Dudley married Mary J. Usher, daughter of
Joseph Usher, a prominent farmer, and they
are the parents of three children, namely: Will-
iam U., Arthur V. and Frederick L. Political-
ly Mr. Dudley is a straightforward Republican,
and fraternally he is an Elk and Knight of
Pythias, and belongs to the Royal Arcanum.
Religiously he is a member and a lay read-
er of the Episcopal Church, to which Mrs.
Dudley also belongs. -
DANA BURKS. Very early in the settle-
ment of Virginia the Burks family came from
Berkshire, England, and identified themselves
with the newly established colony, the progenitor
of American descendants bearing the name of
John Burks. Members of the family participated
in the memorable struggle for independence and
shortly after the close of the Revolution they
crossed the mountains into the wilds of Kentucky,
where they still have representatives prominent
in political affairs and in society. Five genera-
tions bore an active part in the affairs of the
state, but eventually a branch of the family be-
came transplanted into Tennessee. Jesse H.
Burks, who was born and educated in Kentucky
and received an excellent medical education in
that state, was for a time a resident of Ten-
nessee, where he married Sabina Dismukes,
daughter of Marcus L. Dismukes, a prominent
planter of Bedford county. Three children were
born to them in that county, namely: Jesse D.,
Paul and Dana, the latter having been born July
21, 1871. The family removed to California in
1876 and settled in Los Angeles, where for a
710
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
time Dr. Burks followed professional practice.
Later he gave up medicine in order to enter the
field of financial activity and became associated
with the banking and industrial interests of Los
Angeles, where he founded the second trust
company to be incorporated in the entire state,
this being the Los Angeles Safe Deposit and
Trust Company. He was during his lifetime one
of the leaders in affairs and in the upbuilding
of the community. While still a man of large
influence and business prominence, he was acci-
dentally killed in Chicago during a visit to the
World's Fair. Since his death his widow has
removed to Ocean Park, where now she makes
her home.
Dana Burks, the subject of this sketch, was
primarily educated in public schools and finished
his education in the Los Angeles high School.
By training he was fitted for the responsibilities
of an active business career. On leaving School
he became an assistant in the banking business
to his father, whom he succeeded in the manage-
ment of the Los Angeles Safe Deposit and Trust
Company. For a time he was identified with
the Citizens Bank of Los Angeles and later be-
came proprietor of the Los Angeles City Di-
rectory Company, and also of a general publish-
ing and printing company, and a real-estate and
building business, all of which he still maintains.
Immediately after removing to Ocean Park in
December of 1901 he became closely identified
with the building up of the town. Not only did
he promote the incorporation of the place, but
he served as the first president of the board of
city trustees and has continued in the position
to the present time. Varied, indeed, have been
the enterprises attracting his attention in this
section of Southern California. When the Bank
of Venice was organized he took a foremost part
in promoting the new institution and was elected
as its vice-president. Aside from the many
other movements which demand his attention he
acts as president and general manager of the
Dana Burks Investment Company, the largest
concern of its kind at Ocean Park, and having
offices both at Venice and Los Angeles. Nor does
this last represent the limit of his activities. An-
other important industry commands a portion of
his time and thought, this being the Los Angeles
Dock and Terminal Company, in which he holds
office as president and general manager. The
company is engaged in the development of harbor
frontage at Long Beach, where it owns eight
hundred acres of tide land tributary to San Pedro
harbor and adjacent to Long Beach.
A resumé of the activities engaging the atten-
tion of Mr. Burks is sufficient to give even a
stranger some knowledge of his versatility of
mind and variety of business connections. To his
home town, to his county and to the state he
y
has proved a helpful citizen, progressive in spirit,
ardent in championing all projects for the up-
lifting of the race. Naturally such a man main-
tains a keen interest in politics, and we find him
Supporting Republican principles and acting as a
member of the county central committee. On
the incorporation of his home town he was elected
mayor and still fills the office, discharging its
duties with efficiency and fidelity. Though prom-
inent in public life, he has been fortunate in in-
curring few enmities and in retaining the con-
fidence of a host of warm friends throughout
all of Southern California. Fond of social
amenities, he finds diversion and recreation
through his membership in the Jonathan, Union
League and other prominent clubs, also in the
Masonic fraternity and the Benevolent Protective
Order of Elks. In his marriage he won a wife
possessing a charming manner and a fine edu-
cation, Miss Carhart, who was educated in New
York City and as a girl resided in Santa Bar-
bara. Their family consists of six children,
Dana, Jr., Jesse, Virginia, Aileen, Andrea and
Dorothy. tº
A LONZO \ſ. FRINK. A native of San
Bernardino county, and one who has resided
all his life on the old parental homestead,
Alonzo M. Frink is one of the best-known and
most successful large ranchers of this county,
he being a son of Horace M. and Polly A.
(DeWitt) Frink. The parents were married
in San Bernardino county in 1857, the mother
coming from her native state of Indiana to
California with the grandfather in 1853. The
father was born in New York in 1832, the son
of Jefferson Frink, an expert drummer, and
came to California in 1852, going first to the
mines of T’lacer county, where he remained
two years, and then settled in San Bernar-
dino. He acted as guide for the United States
troops on a march between San Bernardino
and Fort Yuma in 1862, and discovered Frink
Springs, which later became a favorite water-
ing place for overland travelers. In partner-
ship with his brother he accumulated large
land holdings and engaged extensively in
stock raising, having something like sixteen
hundred head when he sold out in 1866. The
following year he purchased one hundred
acres of land in old San F3ernardino, and lived
there until his death in 1874, and this is the
ranch upon which Alonzo M. now resides.
The birth of Alonzo M. Frink occurred Jan-
tiary 20, 1858, on the ranch which is now his
home, and his education was received in the
common schools in this vicinity. In 1882 he
was married to Miss Lorana, a daughter of
Lewis and Mary P. Van Leuven, the former



HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
713
a native of Canada. Mr. and Mrs. Van Leu-
ven came to California in 1852, settling in San
Bernardino, where their daughter was born,
and where the father passed away at the age
of sixty years. The mother is still living at
the age of seventy-four years. Mr. and Mrs.
Frink became the parents of one daughter,
Lizzie P., who is now the wife of L. R. Bahr,
and the mother of one daughter. Mrs. Bahr
makes her home with her father, her mother
having died June 18, 1905. Fraternally Mr.
Frink is a member of Token Lodge No. 290, I.
O. O. F., at San Bernardino, of Redlands Par-
lor, N. S. G. W., and also of Lodge No. 583,
B. P. O. E., at Redlands. He has accumulated
considerable property, owning jointly with
his brother a ranch of one hundred and thir-
teen acres in San Bernardino county, on
which is a forty-acre orange orchard, the re-
mainder of the land being devoted to the
growing of grain and alfalfa ; also in River-
side county has a ranch of one hundred and
ninety-three acres upon which hay and grain
are grown almost exclusively. Mr. Frink is a
man of enterprise and good business ability
and his success is due to the exercise of these
qualities. Politically he is an advocate of Re-
publican principles and takes an active inter-
est in all matters of import to a public-spirited
citizen.
MARION J. SHAUL. Long and varied ex-
perience in the handling of property, coupled
with a natural conservatism and integrity of
purpose, admirably qualifies Mr. Shaul for the
successful prosecution of the real-estate busi-
ness, and his name stands out pre-eminently
among the leading real-estate dealers of the
Southern Coast. Enthusiastic in regard to the
future of this part of the state, he is particu-
larly optimistic in his views concerning the
future of Long Beach, and his every effort is
to let it be known throughout the United States
that for beauty and safety of beach and surf,
for equable temperature and a climate equally
pleasant at every season of the year, Long
Beach has few equals and no superior. This
Opinion is not based on inexperience, for he has
traversed the western coast from Alaska to
San Diego; remembers the site of Long
Beach when it was a sheep pasture; bought
and sold large holdings during the great boom
of the '80s and stiffered with all citizens the
effects of its collapse; and is thoroughly ac-
quainted with both the northern and the south-
ern parts of the state.
During the year 1846 Amon and Sarah
(George) Shaul, natives of Ohio, migrated to
Iowa and took up land near Ottumwa, where
their son, Marion J., was born March 7, 1849.
The family removed to Kansas in 1873 and
settled on a farm in Pottawatomie county,
where the father died in 1875, at the age of
sixty-six years. The mother continued to re-
side on the Kansas homestead until her death
at seventy-six years. Primarily educated in
public schools, Marion J. Shaul in 1870 was
graduated from the Oskaloosa Commercial
College, and the following year came to Cali-
fornia, then proceeded to Idaho and engaged
in mining for two years. Subsequently he set-
tled in Ventura county and carried on a ranch
of eight hundred and twenty acres near San
Buenaventura, mean while also traveling
throughout the county with a steam thresh-
ing outfit (the first used in California) that
utilized straw as fuel for the engine.
Coming to San Diego county in 1886 Mr.
Shaul engaged 1n farming and horticultural
pursuits at Fallbrook. From 1886 to 1888 he
engaged in the real-estate business and had
the record of selling more land than any one
else in the vicinity. From 1890 until 1894
he made his home on a farm and then spent a
year in Los Angeles as a real-estate agent, aft-
er which he embarked in the same business at
Long Beach. While still residing in that town
he became greatly interested in the Alaska
gold excitement and aided in organizing a
company of twenty-two explorers, among
whom were a Quaker preacher, a physician
(Dr. Henderson) and an undertaker. The
company purchased the sailing yacht Penel-
ope and stocked it with a supply of provis-
ions, clothing and drugs sufficient to last for
three years. Sailing northward they landed at
Cape Blossom on the 9th of July, 1898, and
spent the balance of that summer as well as
the following winter prospecting on the Ku-
huck river about three hundred and twenty
miles inland from Kotzibu sound. The log
cabins the v erected but feebly sheltered them
from the keen Arctic blasts. For six weeks
the thermometer did not rise above sixty-four
degrees below, and four times during the win-
ter it was seventy-two degrees below zero.
Of the eight hundred people who wintered
there, seventy-three died ere spring opened.
Four of the company returned to Cape Nome
by dog-teams and sleds and located several
claims on the beach, also back of Nome City
in the mountains, and these claims they worked
until they started home on the Penelope Sep-
tember 25, 1899, arriving at San Pedro No-
vember 6, same year, with every member of
the party on board and in fair health.
On his return to California Mr. Shaul en-
gaged in the real-estate business with C. J.
Walker under the firm title of C. J. Walker
71.4
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
& Co. In July of 1904 he went to Oceanside
attracted by the natural beauty of the location.
Grasping the opportunity, he purchased resi-
dence and business property, much of which
has quadrupled in value since then. After go-
ing there he aided in the organization of the
Oceanside Electric and Gas Company, of which
he was vice-president and a director. Under
the Supervision of the company an electric
light plant was built and installed on the beach
and a bathhouse was built, arranged with a
large Salt water plunge, heated to the proper
temperature from the boilers of the electric
light plant. The company used wise judg-
ment in its work and is reaping the reward
in the ownership of a profitable plant, while
at the same time the people of the town and
tourists find the lighting facilities satisfactory
in every respect. Upon the re-organization
of the Bank of Oceanside Mr. Shaul took an
active part in the work and became a stock-
holder, director and vice-president in the in-
stitution, besides which he was a member of
the Oceanside Board of Trade, and in many
other ways active in forwarding the interests
of the community. After spending two years
in Oceanside Mr. Shaul returned to Long
Beach and became associated with the Walk-
er Real Estate Company, purchasing the in-
terest of C. J. Walker, and has since met with
pronounced success in his operations.
At the age of eighteen Mr. Shaul was con-
verted and has ever since been active in the
Methodist Church, taking a prominent part in
Sunday-school and congregational work. In
Long Beach he became identified with the Fra-
ternal Aid Association, aid in politics he al-
ways has affiliated with the Republican party.
His marriage took place at Hueneme, this
state, in 1876 and united him with Anna,
daughter of Joseph Smith, originally from Illi-
nois. They are the parents of a son and
daughter, namely: Charles E., residing in Pasa-
dena, where he is a member of the Seley Fruit
Company; and Adda, wife of H. M. Seley, of
Pasadena.
JOSIAH. J. HARSHMAN. A pioneer
settler of Compton, one of its most able busi-
ness men, and a highly esteemed citizen, Jo-
siah J. Harshman has been conspicuously
identified with its development and progress,
and whenever opportunity has occurred he
has aided and encouraged the establishment
of enterprises conducive to the public welfare.
With its industrial and financial prosperity he
has been closely associated, and is now widely
known as proprietor of the Anchor Cheese
factory, and as president of the First National
Bank of Compton. It was organized as a
State bank in July, 1903, known as the Bank
of Compton, and two years later was made a
national institution and the name changed to
the First National Bank of Compton. During
all of this time the directorate has remained
the same, with the exception of Prof. W. L.
Frew, as assistant cashier. A savings depart-
ment was established in 1906, at which time
Mr. Harshman was elected to the presidency.
He was also influential in the formation of the
Compton Water and Lighting Company, and
took an active part in the establishment of the
Compton Telephone and Telegraph Company,
also the Compton Co-operative Association,
which is now incorporated as the Compton
Commercial Association. A son of Matthias
Harshman, he was born August 2, 1840, in
Marion county, W. Va., of Pennsylvania
Stock.
A son of a Pennsylvania pioneer, Matthias
Harshman grew to manhood on the home
farm. In 1838 he moved with his family to
West Virginia, and after living there six years
went to Ohio, locating in Trumbull county
in 1844. Buying land, he was there employed
as a tiller of the soil until his death, in 1878.
He married Rachael Ross, a native of Penn-
sylvania, and she survived him many years,
dying in Ohio in IQOI, at the venerable age of
eighty-six years.
Josiah J. Harshman was educated in Trum-
bull county, Ohio, attending primary, gram-
mar and high school and the village seminary.
At the age of twenty-one years he began life
for himself as a commercial salesman, for five
years traveling through seventeen of the mid-
dle and western states and Canada. Settling
then in Trumbull county, Ohio, he bought a
cheese factory, which he managed successfully
for six years, when he traded it for a farm,
and this he operated a short time. Selling it
in 1876 he came to Los Angeles county, lo-
cating at once in Compton. He intended to
establish a cheese factory at once, but found
that the place was too new and the number of
people too few. Plainly foreseeing, however,
that in the not very distant future such a
plant would be of inestimable value to the
farmers of this section, he remained here, and
in 1880 started a cheese factory, the first es-
tablishment of the kind in Southern California.
He was successful from the start, dairymen
bringing milk from every direction, some of
them coming many miles with it. In 1890 he
established and has since managed the An-
chor Cheese factory, which has grown to be
one of the flourishing industries of Compton.
When he located in Compton, Mr. Harsh-
man purchased forty acres of land, from which
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
717
he improved the homestead which he has since
Occupied. In 1905 he laid out ten acres in
what is known as the Harshman tract, and
likewise two acres in the high school tract,
and an acre and a half in the Motor tract, on
the electric line. In public affairs, Mr. Harsh-
man has been active and influential, having
served as president of the board of trustees
one term, and has been a member of the high
School board since April, 1906, previous to
which he served as a director of the grammar
school for two terms. Politically he has been
identified with the Prohibition party for the
past twenty years, and religiously he belongs
to the Free Methodist Church.
December 24, 1869, in Ohio, Mr. Harsh-
man married Jennie A., daughter of Ambrose
Cross, a native of New York, and into their
household five children have been born, name-
ly: Lula, Nina, Ray (who married a Miss
Quinlan and is living in Compton), Callie and
Clyde.
RICHARD GARVEY. Keen business fore-
sight and the faculty of decision as well as
vision have given to Richard Garvey the com-
petence which the world owes every man, but
which only the persevering and energetic suc-
ceed in winning. He came to California in the
pioneer days of the state, interested himself
in mining for twenty years, and after making
a pronounced success in this work turned his
attention to the real estate of Los Angeles
county, in the buying and selling of which
he has been unusually active. Mr. Garvey is
a native of Ireland, born in County Mayo
September 22, 1838, and in 1849 came to the
United States consigned to a relative in New
York, but landed at Savannah, Ga., instead, as
he says, “not knowing enough to get off there.”
His father, Peter Garvey, was a farmer in his
native country, and died there about 1845. His
mother, formerly Mary Flannagan, was also
a native of Ireland and died in Cleveland,
Ohio, in 1884. They were the parents of seven
children, three of whom are living, Richard,
Delia and Maria, the latter two living in
Cleveland, Ohio, One son, John Garvey, who
served in the Civil war, as an officer in the
Seventh Regiment Virginia United States
Volunteers, died from the effects of a wound
received at Antietam and was buried in Cleve-
land, with military honors. Another son be-
came a priest in the Catholic Church, his death
occurring while engaged in his ministerial du-
ties in Texas.
Upon coming to the United States Richard
Garvey first lived in Savannah, Ga., removing
in 1854 to Ohio, where in Cleveland he re-
ceived his education. In his boyhood he sailed
on the lakes and was wrecked three different
times, once near Chicago, once at Cleveland
and the third time at Mackinaw. In 1858 he
followed the westward trend of civilization
and came to California, arriving in Los An-
geles in due time. Soon after his arrival he
engaged with Capt. W. S. Hancock to carry
the mail and express from Los Angeles to the
military posts of the south in New Mexico and
California, after which, like thousands of oth-
ers who came to the state after the war began,
he engaged in mining. He was located in Cal-
ifornia, Nevada and Arizona during the twen-
ty years in which he was so occupied, meeting
with success in his various enterprises, and in
1872 he sold one mine in San Bernardino coun-
ty for the sum of $2OO,OOO. He has been suc-
cessful in disposing of others for large
amounts, but he still retains the Greenlead
mine in Holcomb valley district, which he in-
tends to reopen and will strive to replace the
fortune he lost. All this time he had made Los
Angeles his headquarters and in the meantime
had become interested in the future of the city
and surrounding country, and in 1872 he began
to purchase real estate, between this date and
1886 owning five thousand acres of land, upon
which he spent all the money he had previously
made as a young man and incurred considerable
indebtedness. Much of this property he re-
tained until 1892, when he began subdividing it
in five and ten acre tracts, disposing of large
portions of it, aſid at an expense of over $1 OO,-
OOO bought water and brought it seven miles
to the property, built a lake comprising nine
and one-half acres with a dam fifty-four feet
high, by which he irrigated one thousand
acres of the land. This was done through
loans from the Farmers and Merchants Bank
of Los Angeles.
In order to pay off the large loans and inter-
est from this bank, sales were made amount-
ing to over $2OO,OOO, and during the thirteen
years over $300,000 was paid, still owing to
them $90,000 in 1905, at which time they fore-
closed, thus bringing the added costs up to a
total of about $1 IO,OOO. Notwithstanding the
fact that they declared in open court that the
property was not worth that amount, in 1905
Mr. Garvey disposed of one thousand acres at
an advance of $25,000 to some of the best busi-
ness men of Los Angeles. Soon afterward he
sold eight acres for $6,000 and in 1906 sold
two hundred and thirty-one acres at $635 per
acre, the sale representing $145,OOO and com-
prised the old homestead, which was among
the first houses built in the old Mission days
of San Gabriel. He is still owner of about
six hundred acres of the Garvalia ranch, and
718
HISTORICAL AND PIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
entirely out of debt, which is about the first
time he has been in that condition since he
owned the land, notwithstanding the fact that
he was nearly ruined by a man he had served
all his life, and that he trusted implicitly.
In 1884 Mr. Garvey was united in marriage
with Miss Tessie B. Mooney, a native of Ohio,
and she died the following year, leaving a son,
Richard, Jr., who was reared by his aunt, Miss
Mary E. Mooney. He is a graduate of St. Vin-
cent's College, and is now a student of Berke-
ley. Mr. Garvey is a member of the Catholic
Church and fraternally belongs to the Knights
of Columbus. He has a comfortable residence
in Los Angeles but prefers a country home,
and upon his ranch in the Garvalia district is
going to build a house, equipped with every
modern convenience and comfort. Mr.
Garvey is independent in his political
views, reserving the right to cast his ballot for
the man he considers best qualified for official
position. He has served as school trustee of
Garvalia district for many years, and takes a
iseen interest in the upbuilding of educational
affairs. In 1875, after the failure of the Temple
& Workman Bank, he was appointed receiver.
FRANKLIN PIERCE WILLARD. An il-
lustration of what it is within the power of a
self-reliant and ambitious young man to accom-
plish may be found in the life of Mr. Willard,
who, though deprived of all educational advan-
tages excepting such as he could provide for
himself, nevertheless gained a superior educa-
tion, both in the classics and the law, in addition
to taking a medical course of one year and ac-
quiring a thorough knowledge of the Occupation
of a mining engineer. A native son of Cali-
fornia, he was born near Madison, Yolo county,
seven miles west of Woodland, December 2,
1853, and is a member of a pioneer family of the
coast. At the time of the famous expedition by
Lewis and Clark for the purpose of exploring
the northwest Alexander H. Willard, Sr., was
engaged by the expedition as their blacksmith,
and in that capacity traveled through the remote
and hitherto inaccessible regions of the north-
west. Returning to Missouri, he followed his
trade there until 1858 and then joined members
of the family in California, where he died about
1860, at a very advanced age. His son, Alex-
ander, H., Jr., was born and reared in Missouri,
from which state he came across the plains with
Ox-teams in 1848 and settled on the Cache creek,
where he bought five hundred acres of the Gor-
don tract. Soon afterward he went back east
and brought his family and household effects
overland in 1849, settling on his ranch, where
he engaged in the stock business until his death.
During his residence there he filled the office of
school trustee. In early manhood he married
Mary Jane Wakefield, who was born in Illinois
and died in Los Angeles in 1903. 2.
There were fourteen children in the family
of Alexander Hamilton Willard, Jr., and of
these four sons and two daughters are now liv-
ing, namely: John, a farmer residing near
Lilac, San Diego county; Henry, a farmer in
Glenn county; Hamilton, who is engaged in
farming in San Bernardino county; Franklin
Pierce, an attorney at Escondido; Emma, Mrs.
Hawkins, of Tulare county, and Mrs. Colista
Scott, of Ocean Park. Until fourteen years of
age Franklin Pierce Willard lived on the home
ranch on Cache creek, but afterward he made
his own way in the world. Through his own
determined and unaided efforts it was made
possible for him to enjoy a complete course of
study in Hesperian College, Woodland, from
which he was graduated in 1871, and during
1872-73 he was a student in the University of
California, class of 1876. With other members
of his class he was present at the laying of the
corner stone of the first building belonging to
the present set of buildings on the university
ground.
During 1873 Mr. Willard was engaged as
mechanical and mining engineer in the Ida El-
more mines in Idaho, after which he became
Superintendent and mining expert at the Cornu-
copia mines in Nevada. Afterward he made his
home for seventeen years at Bodie, Mono county,
Cal., where he was engaged as superintendent
of mines and mining engineer, and while in
that town he completed the study of law, and
in 1883 was admitted to the bar. Besides con-
ducting a general practice in that town he was
employed as deputy district attorney. In 1893
he came to Escondido, where, in addition to his
private practice, he has served continuously as
city attorney and attorney for the First National
Bank. Working in the interests of the tax-
payers, he took an active part in the liquidation
of the Escondido bonds, which amounted to
$350,000 principal and $150,000 interest.
Through his efforts, acting in harmony with
Others intimately connected with the matter, he
had the indebtedness settled for $208,OOO, and
the burning of the bonds was made the interest-
ing feature of a ceremonious occasion and ap-
propriate celebration on the part of the people.
The water system also has received thoughtful
attention on his part, it being his claim that the
water belongs to the land and the two are in-
separable, through which stand he has done
much in behalf of the land-owners.
The Willard homestead in Escondido con-
sists of eight acres, improved with a neat resi-
dence and with an orchard of fruit and a meadow
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PHISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 721
of alfalfa. In 1879 Mr. Willard married
Miss Emma Gregg, who was born on the Sand-
wich Islands while her father, Hon. David L.
Gregg, was officiating as minister at Hawaii
under President Lincoln. Previous to his serv-
ice abroad Mr. Gregg had been a prominent at-
torney and leading Republican, and for a time
acted as superintendent of the United States
mint at Carson, Nev., where he died. The fam-
ily of Mr. and Mrs. Willard comprises five
children, namely: , Dora and Edna, who are
members respectively of the classes of 1906 and
1908, University of California; Frankie, who is
attending Pomona College; Alexander Gregg
and Reba, who are students in the local schools.
The family are identified with the Episcopal
Church and prominent in local society. While
fiving in Nevada Mr. Willard was initiated into
the Independent Order of Odd Fellows in 1874.
Under his enthusiastic leadership Bodie Lodge
No. 279 was established and organized and he
officiated as one of its officers, also on two occa-
sions represented it in the Grand Lodge. At
this writing he is a member of Escondido Lodge
No. 344, I. O. O. F., and holds the office of dis-
trict deputy. With his wife he holds member-
ship in the Order of Rebekahs. Since the or-
ganization of the Woodmen of the World at
Escondido he has served as clerk, and he has
also been past chancellor and past grand repre-
sentative of the Knights of Pythias in Escondido.
At one time he was actively identified with the
San Diego Parlor Native Sons of the Golden
West. Politically he has always been a loyal
adherent of the Republican party and has given
his support to its candidates, both at local elec-
tions and in national campaigns.
GEN. CHARLES FORMAN. The Forman
family descends from Scotch and English an-
cestry and has been identified with the new
world ever since the period of our colonial
history. One of their representatives in the
Revolutionary war was Miles Forman, whose
Son, Sands, engaged in agricultural pursuits
in Tioga county, N. Y., for many years and
until his death. The wife of Sands Forman
was Mary Mathews, a native of Tioga coun-
ty and the daughter of Isaiah S. Mathews, a
Revolutionary soldier. Among their children
was a Son, Edward, who was a member of
an Illinois regiment during the Civil war. An-
Other son, Charles, whose name introduces
this narrative, and who is the only member
of the family on the coast, was born and
reared near Owego, Tioga county, N. Y., and
in 1853 came via Panama to California, arriv-
ing at the Golden Gate with many other east-
erners on board the famous old ship. John L.
Stevens. At that time his uncle, Col. Ferris
Forman, was postmaster at Sacramento and
he was given employment in the postoffice,
Íater, at the close of the term, going to Wash-
ington, D. C., in order to close the accounts
with the government. Not only was Colonel
Forman a veteran of the Mexican war and a
colonel in the Civil war, but he also was hon-
ored with office as secretary of state, and his
nephew on returning from the east became
deputy for one term in the secretary’s office.
From there he went to Nevada and became
connected with the Eclipse Mill and Mining
Company, the Piute Mill and Mining Com-
pany, and other similar enterprises near Vir-
ginia City and at Gold Hill. While there he
served as major-general of the Nevada Vol-
unteers under Governor John H. Kinkead.
As early as 1865 General Forman had made
investments in Los Angeles property and in
1882 he removed his family to this city, al-
though he did not take up his permanent resi-
dence here until five years later. At that time
he became interested in the City and Cen-
tral Railway Company, of which he was gen-
eral manager as well as vice-president. Af-
ter eighteen months the title was changed to
the Los Angeles Cable Railway Company and
in 1890 he disposed of his interest in the plant.
On account of somewhat impaired health he
relinquished active business affairs for a time,
but was still able to superintend his invest-
ments and mining interests. On the recovery
of his health he again took up commercial and
other activities. At this writing he is presi-
dent of the Kern River Company, which be-
gan construction work in 1902 and has built
canals, tunnels and flumes extending over
twelve and one-half miles. The water is taken
from the river at Kernville and at the end of
thé flume at Borel there are five water-wheels
yielding eighteen thousand seven hundred and
fifty horse-power, conveyed to Los Angeles
with but a small loss in transmission. In ad-
dition to the presidency of this company he
aided in organizing and acts as secretary of
the Pacific Light and Power Company, which
is the parent company of eight similar organi-
zations, including the Kern River Company.
Mentone Power Company, San Gabriel Elec-
tric Company, Sierra Power Company and
San Bernardino Gas and Electric Company.
In Los Angeles occurred the marriage of
General Forman to Miss Mary Grav, member
of an old family of Southern California, and
by this union there are two children, Charles
and Eloise. In politics General Forman was
a Democrat until the Silver craze, and since
then supports Republican measures and can-
didates, while socially he holds membership
722
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
with the Jonathan Club. Besides his city
real estate he is the owner of a ranch of three
hundred and twenty acres on the Los Ange-
les river four miles from the city, where he has
one hundred and fifty acres under cultivation
to walnuts.
*m-m-m-m-m-mººn mºmºmºmº-º-º-º-ºsmºs---se
RUSSELL JUDSON WATERS. Abun-
dantly significant of the ability of Mr. Waters is
the record of his rise to prominence, notwith-
standing the necessity of overcoming obstacles
more than ordinarily discouraging. Taking up
the trials and hardships of life at the age of eight
years, when most iads are enjoying the splendid
advantages offered by our public school system, he
has never faltered in his persistent efforts to
establish for himself a place of honor among the
representative men of our fair country, many
times battling against the loss of health and many
times winning a victory that enabled him to con-
tinue his work of personal progress and devel-
opment. -
Mr. Waters had the advantage of inheriting
many of the qualities which have proven such
potent factors in his career, being the descendant
of an old New England family. Born in Ver-
mont June 6, 1843, he was one of the youngest
in a family of thirteen children, left fatherless
when he was only four years old. Shortly after
the death of the father, the mother removed to
Colerain, Franklin county, Mass., where, four
years later, young Russell found employment in
a cotton mill to assist in the support of the fam-
ily. He remained in this occupation for two
years, receiving as compensation $1.25 per week,
but was finally compelled to give up the work on
account of declining health. He was then sent
to Deerfield, Mass., where on a farm he re-
covered the youth and strength so nearly lost.
During the two years which he passed there he
attended the public school for a short time, which
taste of knowledge gave him so keen a desire to
progress further that he allowed nothing after-
ward to come between him and the accomplish-
1ment of this desire. Thereafter his efforts for a
livelihood were always divided with study, every
year finding him nearer the goal until his final
graduation from Franklin Institute. This was ac-
complished by strenuous self-denial and con-
stant economy. After his return to the city
from the farm at Deerfield, he entered the cut-
lery factory, working for two years as operator
on one of the machines, when the family having
in the meantime located in Richville, N. Y., he
also located there. While in that part of the state
he found employment on a farm at fifty cents a
day and in the winter worked at chopping cord
wood at fifty cents a cord. The open air and out-
door life gave to him the underlying strength
which enabled him to devote himself SO persist-
ently to study later on. In Massachusetts, to
which state he returned, he learned the trade
of machinist and by prosecution of this work and
the teaching of two terms of school he secured
means with which to complete his studies at
Franklin Institute. Though only twenty-four
years old, he was offered and accepted a position
as professor of Latin and mathematics in his alma
mater, in which work he remained for One year.
In 1868 Mr. Waters became a resident of Chi-
cago, Ill., where he took up the study of law, which
he mastered after two years, being then admitted
to the bar of the state and the United States.
The same application and energy which had
distinguished him as a student entered largely
into the practice of his profession and it was not
long before he became recognized as one of the
rising young attorneys of Chicago. However,
lis health began to suffer under the strain of
intense application and constant duty which cov-
ered a period of more than sixteen years, and in
1886 he found it necessary to relinquish his ex-
tensive clientele. At the same time he sought a
milder climate and in Southern California es-
tablished his home and interests—both of which
have meant so much in the development of this
section. He became associated with the Califor-
nia-Chicago Colonization Association as chair-
man and commissioner, in which capacity he pur-
chased what has since become one of the most
beautiful tracts of land in Southern California,
where the widely famed city of Redlands is now
situated. Mr. Waters has been called the “fa-
ther of Redlands” and it is but a just tribute to
the man whose efforts, more than any others,
have meant so much to the progress of that city,
and in truth it has been said that no enterprise
calculated to promote its interests have ever been
considered complete without his name and influ-
ence. He promoted the building of the city in the
first place and served for one year as its attorney.
Through his efforts the Santa Fé Railroad Com-
pany extended its lines from San Bernardino to
Redlands, comprising what is now known as the
“kite-shaped track,” one of the attractive features
of Southern California to tourists. At various
times he was a director of the Union bank, the
First National Bank, the Crafton Water Com-
pany, the East Redlands Water Company and
the Redlands Hotel Company, which built the
Windsor hotel. He built and operated the Red-
lands Street Railway Company, of which he was
president. He was also closely identified with the
Bear Valley Irrigation Company, as its manager
bringing to bear his strong business traits which
effectually changed the status of the company, its
stock being almost doubled in value, its indebted-
ness reduced to a minimum and its credit practi-
cally unlimited. His splendid ability and far-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
723
sighted judgment are nowhere more apparent
than in his identification with this company.
In 1894 Mr. Waters located in Los Angeles,
where he has ever since made his home. Need-
less to say he has proven as important a factor
in its growth and progress as in Redlands and
has taken as keen an interest in its upbuilding.
A number of banking institutions, among them
the Citizens' National Bank and Columbia Sav-
ings Bank, and the State Bank of San Jacinto,
receive the support ºf his counsel and director-
ship, while he has served with distinction as a
member of the Los Angeles Chamber of Com-
merce and president of the Los Angeles Directory
Company. As a member of the board of park
commissioners he served efficiently, being forced,
however, to resign on account of the many de-
mands made upon him through his business as-
sociations. Innumerable outside enterprises have
from time to time made demands upon his time
and attention, among them the Pasadena Con-
solidated Gas Company, of which he was presi-
dent; president and principal owner of the San
Jacinto Valley Water Company, which is now
constructing sixteen miles of cement ditches to
distribute the water to the fruit growers and
dairymen of that beautiful valley, the future
prosperity of that section depending largely upon
this water system ; president of the Columbia
Commercial Company, whose operations and
property are in Orange county; president of the
California Cattle Company, whose holdings are
principally in Riverside county; and a director
of the American Savings Bank of Los Angeles.
At the same time that Mr. Waters had been
acquiring a personal success, resulting in financial
returns and a high position of respect among his
fellow citizens, he had also risen prominently
before the public as one who could safely be en-
trusted with public honor. At the earnest solici-
tation of friends he allowed his name to be used
as a candidate for congress from the sixth district
in the year 1898, and scored a victory which was
unprecedented in the district. At the congres-
sional convention in Sacramento he was nom-
inated by acclamation with no dissenting votes.
The nomination speech was made by his old-time
friend, ex-Governor John L. Beveridge, of Illi-
nois, and was the subject of much favorable com-
ment at the time. Mr. Waters carried his district
after a vigorous campaign, by thirty-five hundred
and forty-two votes. His record in the halls of
congress from 1899 to 1903 was distinctively a
history of the progress of Southern California for
that time, as his undivided efforts were given to
advance the measures supported by his constit-
uency. It has been repeatedly said of him that
his methods were very unlike those of the average
politician, the explanation lying in the fact that
he was not a politician, but rather a practical,
business man whose work in congress could only
have been accomplished by that type of man. He
took an active part in the introduction of cer-
tain measures approved by the Southern Cali-
fornia Forestry Commission, thereby making it a
criminal offense to leave camp fires burning and
thus endangering the forests. He introduced a
bill appropriating over half a million dollars for
improvements in San Pedro Harbor, and was
especially active in defending the Nicaragua
Canal bill, a project that is of the utmost im-
portance to Southern Californians. Among the
orders of greatest importance obtained by Mr.
Waters was that of commissioner general of the
land office, Hon. Binger Hermann, suspending
the filing of lien scrip upon land until after a full
and complete investigation by special agents of
the department. This and a bill introduced by
Mr. Waters to authorize the entry and patenting
of lands containing petroleum and other mineral
oils under placer mining laws in the United
States were of material value to oil men of
Southern California. To Mr. Waters is also
due much credit for the establishment of rural
routes in the sixth district, while eleven post-
offices have been added during his term of serv-
ice. Perhaps no stronger feeling exists as to
the value of Mr. Waters’ service than that given
him by the supporters of the pensions for the old
war veterans and their widows, in which work he
was very active and met with gratifying success.
The home of Mr. Waters is located on Adams
street, Los Angeles, where he is surrounded by
every evidence of comfort and refinement. With
all his busy outside interests he is devoted to
his home and family and finds his greatest con-
tentment in their midst. Since his return from
Washington he has continued, however, his for-
mer engrossing pursuits, his wide experience
and sound business principles inducing his asso-
ciates in various enterprises to offer him many
responsible offices. In 1903 he was elected pres-
ident of the Citizens' National Bank, and the fol-
lowing year of the Home Savings Bank. He is
president of the State Bank of San Jacinto, di-
rector in the First National Bank of San Jacinto,
president of the San Jacinto Water Company,
president of the Citizens’ Security Company,
treasurer of the Equitable Security Company,
treasurer of the Las Vegas & Tonopah Railroad,
director of the Citizens' National Bank of Red-
lands, treasurer of the Continental Life Insurance
Company of Salt Lake City, and president of the
Bay Island Club of Newport.
The personal character of Mr. Waters is such
as to give him a place among not only the repre-
sentative business men of Los Angeles and
Southern California, but also among the citizens
whose worth has been proven by their works. Al-
though possessing rare business ability, if the
724
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
other requisites had been wanting he would prob-
ably have missed the position he has attained, for
energy, perseverance and an abounding courage
in the face of all difficulties are worth more to
the possessor and are harder to possess, because
they are largely a matter of training. Mr. Waters
possesses these characteristics and has justly won
the honor to which he is entitled. Neither his
struggle nor his success, however, has had an
ill effect upon his nature; in cheerfulness of
spirit he has retained youth and made each year
one of pleasure in his life. He has delighted in
all that has led up to outward and inner refine-
ment, music being especially held as one of the
highest arts. He possesses strong musical talent
which he developed by thorough training and still
leads his family orchestra of eight pieces. His
busy cares of later years have not prevented him
occasionally contributing articles of fact and fic-
tion to the magazines of the day. Many of his
poems have been published in the past three years
and he is now working on “An Epic Poem’’ and
other verses which will be published in the near
future.
FERD K. RULE, widely known as an upbuild-
ing factor in the interests of Los Angeles, was
born in St. Louis, Mo., December 6, 1853, the
representative of southern ancestry. His father,
Orville G. Rule, also born in St. Louis, was a
son of William Kennett, who, in Kentucky, mar-
ried Nancy Clinton, a native of Virginia.
grandfather became a pioneer merchant of St.
Louis, where he was successful in business and
social affairs and besides a competence won a
place of importance in the citizenship of that
place. His death occurred at an advanced age.
Orville G. Rule entered business life in early
manhood and rose rapidly to a position of im-
portance. For thirty years prior to his death he
held the position of general manager of the St.
Louis Shot & Lead Works and discharged the
duties in a thoroughly capable manner. Like his
father he was esteemed for both business and so-
cial qualities. He married Miss Margaret Eliz-
abeth Ashley, who was born in Bowling Green,
Ky., and died in St. Louis.
Receiving his primary education in the public
schools of his native city, Ferd K. Rule prepared
for and entered the University of St. Louis, from
which institution he was later graduated. Subse-
quently he entered the employ of the Waters-
Pierce Oil Company and remained in this con-
nection for a number of years, looking after their
interests throughout the states of Missouri, Ar-
kansas and Texas and also Old Mexico. Dur-
ing a large portion of his service he was district
auditor, his work being of such a nature that he
was helped materially in the formation of bus-
The
iness methods and habits which have been invalu-
able in his later efforts. Deciding to take up a
business enterprise on his own account he lo-
cated in Kansas City in 1887 and engaged as a
banker and broker. Too close application to his
duties told upon his health and in 1890 he was im–
pelled to dispose of his business interests and seek
recuperation in the milder climate of Southern
(Dalifornia.
Agricultural pursuits occupied the attention of
Mr. Rule for a time after his arrival in the
state, his first interest being the purchase of a
ranch in the vicinity of Pasadena. After two
years spent in this outdoor work he felt eager and
able to enter again upon a business career. It
was in 1891 that he became connected with the
old Los Angeles Terminal Railroad in the capac-
ity of auditor and as such he served until 1899,
in which year he assumed the duties of general
manager. His advancement was the result of
ability accompanied by the absolutely necessary
adjuncts of energy and perseverance. Upon sell-
ing a half interest in the road to Senator W. A.
Clark in 1901 and the construction of the San
Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad he be-
came a director and later treasurer of the entire
system. No one man was more active in the com-
pletion of this enterprise than Mr. Rule and to
no one is more credit due, for it has been a move-
ment of importance to Los Angeles as well as to
all Southern California. In December, 1905,
Mr. Rule resigned his position of treasurer and
finally severed his connection with the Salt Lake
Railroad, after which he organized and incor-
porated what is now known as the Rule-Belford
Company, an investment and real-estate enter-
prise which bids fair to rank with the best that
ILos Angeles affords. In addition to these in-
terests inamed he is identified with others of
equal importance, among them that of the Pro-
tective Mutual Building & Loan Association, in
which he serves as president. He takes an act-
ive interest in all measures for the promotion
of business enterprises and is ever found ready
to respond to the call for the benefit of his ex-
perience and ability.
In San Francisco, in 1877, Mr. Rule was unit-
ed in marriage with Miss Alice M. Cross, a na-
tive of Placer county, Cal., her birth having oc-
curred in the vicinity of Auburn. Her father,
Thomas J. Cross, was one of the early pioneers
of California and is now making his home in
Napa county. Mr. and Mrs. Rule are the parents
of three sons, of whom Frank Kennett is en-
gaged in business in Los Angeles, a member of
the Rule-McDonald Company; Orville Rey is
associated with his father; and Gerald Ashlev is
in the employ of the Salt Lake Railroad. The
home of the Rule family is located on West
Washington street, where the evidences of com-
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
727
fort and elegance both of the exterior and in-
terior reflect the refined and cultured tastes of
its Occupants.
Mr. Rule's association with the different or-
ganizations of the city in all avenues of activity
has been such that he is accounted one of the
most enterprising factors in its development. He
is a devoted friend of education and is unstinted
in his support of all measures to advance such
interests, and as president of the library board for
two years was instrumental in bringing about
many beneficial reforms. A stanch Republican
he has always taken an active part in local af-
fairs and at the time Mr. Eaton was elected
mayor he was Serving as chairman of the Repub-
lican central committee. He has also served for
several years as a member of the Republican
county central committee, and in 1904 he acted
as delegate to the National Republican convention
in Chicago, when Mr. Roosevelt was nominated
for president. As a member of the Union League
Club he is one of the most prominent men of this
locality and indeed of the state, serving as pres-
ident of the California State League of Repub-
lican clubs and acting as representative from
California in the National League. In 1903 Mr.
Rule served as president of the Chamber of Com-
merce and during his administration the new
building was erected, and as has been said of him
he truly rendered this section of the state serv-
ices that cannot be overestimated in their value
to all residents of Southern California. Social-
ly he is identified with a number of the prominent
Organizations of Los Angeles, having assisted in
the organization of the Jonathan Club, in which
he served as first president. After serving eight
years in this capacity he accepted the vice-pres-
idency. He is also a member of the California
and Sunset Clubs of Los Angeles; of the Trans-
portation Club of San Francisco; and the Hamil-
ton Club of Chicago. Fraternally he stands high
in Masonic circles, being a member of Southern
California Lodge No. 278, F. & A. M.; Signet
Chapter No. 57, R. A. M.; Los Angeles Com-
mandery No. 9, K. T.; Los Angeles Consistory;
and Al Malaikah Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S. He
is also a member of the Benevolent Protective
Order of Elks. In addition to these multifold in-
terests he also occupies a prominent position on
the directorate of a number of successful min-
ing, industrial, manufacturing and banking cor-
porations, and is an indefatigable worker in pro-
moting the best interests of Southern California.
The personality of Mr. Rule has been the mo–
tive power in winning for him the many posi-
tions of honor which have fallen to him during
his residence in Los Angeles. Although en-
dowed with business attributes of strongest char-
acter he has not allowed his nature to become
warped to this one line, but throughout his en-
traits of his manhood.
tire career has endeavored to cultivate the best
His popularity has not
been won by catering to public opinion, but by
a strict observance of principle, which has giv-
en him the respect and esteem of all with whom
he has come in contact.
CHESTER R. BARTON. One of the suc-
cessful and enterprising citizens of Los Angeles
county is Chester R. Barton, who is located in .
El Monte, in the surrounding country operating
as an extensive rancher. He is a native Cal-
ifornian, his birth having occurred in Solano
county, July 16, 1855; his father, John W. Bar-
ton, was born in Vermont, the representative of
an Old New England family located in this coun-
try by an English ancestor prior to the Revolu-
tion. He married in Vermont and there en-
gaged as a farmer, later removing to Battle
Creek, Mich., and following a similar occupation.
In 1849 he crossed the plains with ox-teams to
California, and upon his safe arrival established
a general merchandise business in Suisun valley.
In 1853 he returned to his old home in Vermont
via the Isthmus of Panama and the following
year brought his family to California, once more
making the journey across the plains, this time
with horse-teams, under command of Captain
Briggs. During this trip the Indians stole all
but two of their horses, and thus made the re-
mainder of the journey one of great hardship
and trial. Again locating in the state Mr. Bar-
ton continued in the general merchandise busi-
ness in the same place, and also engaged in farm-
ing, and later built what was known as the Bar-
ton hotel in Fairfield, which he conducted for
many years. He died at the age of fifty-six years,
his place as a prominent and helpful citizen left
vacant, for in all things he had maintained the
best interests of the community and assisted
materially in its upbuilding. His wife, formerly
Emeroy Williams, was born in Vermont, a
daughter of Colonel Williams, who served in
the war of 1812, and was a connection of the
famous Adams family. He engaged as a farmer
in Vermont, his native state, until his death. Mrs.
Barton passed away December 19, 1906, when
ninety-one years old at the home of her son in
El Monte. She was a woman of Christian char-
acter, having been a member of the Methodist
Church for many years. She was the mother
of seven children: Guy W., who died in Los
Angeles; Caroline, wife of M. M. Richardson,
who died in Stockton ; Elizabeth, who died in
Solano county; John W., a resident of El Monte;
Royal M., located in the Puente valley; Isabella,
wife of J. C. Carlisle, near El Monte; and Chester
R., of this review.
Reared in Fairfield until he was eleven years
728
|HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
old, Chester R. Barton received his education in
that place and also Chico, where he was then
taken by his parents. His first employment was
as a clerk for Carlisle & Hobart, of Chico, with
whom he remained for two years, after which, in
1868, he went to San Diego county and with his
brother, Royal M., engaged in general farming
and stock-raising at Valley de Los Viejas. They
continued in this enterprise for many years
when Chester R. sold out and located in
, Tehama county, there engaging in the cat-
tle business with his brother Guy. After
two years he returned to Chico and established a
mercantile enterprise in partnership with his
brother, and in 1886 he came to Los Angeles
county. He at once engaged in general con-
tracting and farming, the latter occupation being
carried on in the Puente valley, where he raised
wheat and barley. His home is in El Monte,
where he owns a fine residence, and also owns a
ranch of two hundred acres located three-quar-
ters of a mile north of Puente, which he has
improved and brought to a high state of culti-
vation. For eighteen years he has operated a
part of the Baldwin ranch, which land in 1905
was subdivided, when he rented twenty-five hun-
dred acres near Fallbrook and engaged entensive-
ly in grain-raising, operating with every modern
device and equipment for expeditious work. He
also owns other residences in El Monte, and in
Los Angeles is interested in the Magnet Steam
Laundry, in which he is a director, and which has
its plant at the corner of Twelfth and Crocker
StreetS. -
In Savannah Mr. Barton was united in mar-
riage with Miss Alice Shoemaker, who was born
in Soledad, and they are the parents of four chil-
dren, namely: Charles, Clifford, Gertrude and a
son not named. Mr. Barton has taken a prom-
inent part in all matters of public import and has
shown himself so thoroughly interested in the up-
building and improvement of the section in which
he makes his home that he has been selected as a
citizen worthy to uphold public honor, and as
such has received recognition at the hands of
those in power. Among his appointments of
honor was that in 1898 by O. W. Langdon, as
the road supervisor of the Rowland road district,
which position he has ever since retained, dis-
charging the duties satisfactorily to all concerned.
When he took up the duties of this position there
were no oiled or graveled roads in this section
and it now contains as good roads as Los Angeles
county affords. Mr. Barton owns a fine drove of
forty mules, which he uses in this work. In edu-
cational affairs he is also prominent, having
served for eight years as trustee in the Bassett
school district, in the erection of the schoolhouse
having proven a potent factor. Politically he is a
stanch Republican. Fraternally he was made a
Mason in Lexington Lodge No. IO4, of El Monte,
where he is still identified, and both himself and
wife are members of the Order of Eastern Star.
He was one of the organizers and is the president
of the El Monte Masonic Temple Association.
Personally Mr. Barton is a man of kindly char-
acteristics, making and retaining many friends
by the force of his kindly nature; courteous to
all whom he meets either in a business or social
way; enterprising in both public and private af-
fairs; and all in all is recognized as one of the
helpful citizens of this section of Los Angeles
county.
JOHN FREDERICK PARKER, who es-
tablished his home in San Bernardino in 1886,
was born at Mount Desert, Hancock county,
Me., in 1845. His parents were John How-
ard and Sarah Haskel (Powers) Parker, de-
scendants of early settlers of New England.
After leaving school at the age of eighteen
Mr. Parker took up the seafaring profession
and entered the employ of Iasigi Goddard &
Ço. Of Boston and later sailed for La Foune
& Frothingham and A. B. Perry & Co. to
European and Mediterranean ports, also to
the West Indies and East African coast. In
this line he rose rapidly to the position of cap-
tain. -
On one of his voyages to Smyrna, Asia
Minor, Mr. Parker formed the acquaintance
of Giuditta E. Rebecchini, the daughter of
Serifino Rebecchini, an Italian professor of
music from Ancona, Italy, whom he subse-
quently married, at the age of twenty-four at
Mitylene, a port in the Grecian archipelago,
and brought his bride to the United States in
his own ship. Soon after this event Mr.
Parker retired from the sea and settled in Bos-
ton, engaging in the ship carpenter and join-
er business, which he followed there for ten
years.
In 1882 Mr. Parker decided to go west and
came to National City, Cal., via the Isthmus
of Panama, and entered the service of the Cal-
ifornia Southern Railroad, the western start-
ing of the great Santa Fe Trans-continental
System. As developments proceeded he was
transferred to San Bernardino in 1886 and ap-
pointed general foreman of the bridge and
building department of the division, which is
now known as the Los Angeles division of
the A. T. & S. F. Coast Lines, which respon-
sible position he has held to the present time.
Mr. Parker was one of the organizers of
the Santa Fe Building and Loan Association,
which was incorporated in 1890 with a capi-
tal stock of $500,000, at San Bernardino, and
since increased to $2,OOO,OOO. The large in-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
729
crease of the capital stock shows the success
which has attended this institution which now
ranks as one of the most substantial and best
financial institution in the state. The board
of directors has been composed of Santa Fe
Railroad men and substantial business men
of San Bernardino, Mr. Parker having been
its president since 1898. Mr. Parker has also
served the city as a member of its board of
trustees and during his long residence has
won a position among the substantial and in-
fluential men of the city. By careful and
prudent management of his own affairs he
has accumulated Some valuable real estate in
the city, including his residence on the cor-
ner of H and Second streets, also ranch prop-
erty outside.
WILLIAM J. WASHBURN, president of the
Equitable Savings Bank, and one of the promi-
nent men in financial and educational circles in
Los Angeles, was born in Livingston county, N.
Y., September 30, 1852. His father, William
Washburn, the descendant of an old New York
family, engaged for many years in mercantile
pursuits in his native state, finally removing to
St. Louis, Mo., where he became active in com-
mercial affairs. With a competency the result
of his undivided efforts, he retired from business
life in 1888, and in the same year came to Cali-
fornia and established his home in Pasadena,
in which city his death occurred November 5,
1898. He was a man of strong integrity of
character and a loyal and patriotic citizen; he
enlisted for service in the Civil war and was at
Once promoted to a captaincy, serving under
General Grant and being in the division that
received the surrender of General Lee. Through-
out his entire life he held a position among the
representative men of the section in which he
made his home, his name always being found
among those who were seeking to further the
highest interests of the community at large. He
is survived by his wife, formerly Miss Mary R.
Johnson, a native of New York, whose home is
now in Los Angeles. They became the parents
of three sons and one daughter, of whom Will-
iam J. Washburn is the only survivor. Charles
A. was engaged in the insurance business in
Denver, Colo. ; Frank E. was interested with his
brother, W. J., in the banking business in Los
Angeles until his death; and Jennie B. died in
childhood.
The boyhood of William J. Washburn was
passed in his native state, where he received a
preliminary education in the public schools. He
completed his studies in Lima Seminary, after
which he followed his parents to St. Louis. His
father having become identified with commercial
his career.
affairs in that city, it was but natural that he
should follow the same pursuit. Later he was
recognized as one of the leading merchants of
St. Louis and during the fifteen years of his
business life there he built up an extensive pat-
ronage and wide custom, which brought him
satisfactory financial returns. In 1888 he disposed
of his business interests in St. Louis and came
to California. For the sake of a location in the
west Mr. Washburn sacrificed an established
business in a field where he had ably de-
monstrated his ability in important affairs, bring-
ing with him to the Pacific state the qualities,
ripened by years of experience and contact with
the world, which had proven winning factors in
Shortly after his location in Los
Angeles Mr. Washburn was elected president
of the Bank of Commerce, which had been
founded two years previously under the name
of the East Side Bank. Soon after Mr. Wash-
burn's connection with the bank it was removed
to a more central location at the corner of First
Street and Broadway. Under the conservative
management of its officers business gradually
increased until 1903, when it was consolidated
with the American National Bank, one of the
strongest financial institutions of Los Angeles,
of which he was made vice-president. In the
meantime he had served as Secretary of the
Equitable Loan Society, which was later merged
into the Equitable Savings Bank, and upon its
organization he became president and has
served in that capacity since.
In his identification with the banking institu-
tions of Los Angeles Mr. Washburn has developed
those qualities possessed only by the ablest finan-
cier, and with the passing years has risen to a
commanding position among the representative
men of this class. He is regarded as a leader
in the conservative element of the city, trusted
implicitly for his integrity, and withal is pro-
gressive and public-spirited. In addition to the
positions already mentioned he was appointed re-
ceiver for the City Bank, which failed in 1893,
and also served in like capacity for the Bankers’
Alliance, ably discharging the duties devolving
upon him. As foreman of the grand jury of
Los Angeles county he served with fidelity and
impartiality. Throughout his entire residence
in this city he has taken a lively interest in edu-
cational affairs, and as a member of the board
of education for five years and president of the
same for three years, he sought to advance the
standard of the public schools. Many improve-
ments in point of equipment and excellence were
added largely through Mr. Washburn's influence.
For many years an active member of the Cham-
ber of Commerce, he was chosen in 1906 as
president of this honorable body, and as in the
past will prove a power in the advancement of
730
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
commercial affairs in Los Angeles. Mr. Wash-
burn is identified with the Republican element
in politics, but is in no sense a partisan ; re-
cognized first as a loyal citizén, he is always
to be counted upon in the support of the best
movements for the material prosperity of the
city, county and state. In the midst of his busy
affairs he has found time to ally himself with
fraternal and social bodies, being a Thirty-second
degree, Scottish Rite Mason, and member of
the California, University and Sunset Clubs of
this city.
In St. Louis, Mo., in 1878, Mr. Washburn
was united in marriage with Miss Helen E.
Rowell, who for some years had resided in
Bloomington, Ill., where she had received a liberal
education in the normal school. She is a woman
of rare worth of character, inherent qualities
of heart and mind, unspoiled even in the midst
of her association with the world. She is prom-
inent in social circles and has served as presi-
dent of the Ruskin Art Club for two years. As
a member of the Juvenile Court Commission
she is active in a work whose influence is far-
reaching, while she is also a member of the
Municipal Art Commission.
ASHER HAMBURGER. So closely identi-
fied with the commercial growth of Los Angeles
has been the name of Asher Hamburger that to
old residents it is synonymous with the develop-
ment of the city since his location here in 1881.
At that time he brought to bear in the mercantile
establishment which occupied his time and atten-
tion a broad experience made valuable by his
business judgment and acumen; later he built
up a large custom and won many friends who
honored him for the qualities of character so
evident in his dealings with all. His death on
the 2nd of December, 1897, was a loss to the en-
terprising element of the city, although the busi-
ness has since been continued successfully by
his sons, who have emulated the example of their
father in his unswerving integrity and honor,
as well as the business ability which placed the
family fortunes on a sound basis.
Asher Hamburger was born in a small village
near Wurzburg, in Bavaria, in the year 1821.
After receiving the rudiments of an education
in the village school he was apprenticed to learn
the trade of rope-maker. As he grew toward
years of maturity his sense of justice and love
of freedom became so strong within him that
he resolved to break the fetters that linked him
to the old world and seek a home and fortune
in the far-famed west. He was but eighteen
years old when, with his brother, a weaver
by trade, he set out for the nearest Seaport town
on his way to the United States. At Hamburg
they took passage on a Swedish steamer in the
steerage, turning their backs upon a country
where no patriotism was known and the Sub-
jects were treated like vassals and serfs. The
passage across the Atlantic during those days
was full of danger and hardship, and storms
and contrary winds lengthened the trip to seven-
ty days. Arriving in the United States without
a knowledge of the language, without means or
friends, but with a heart full of hope and hands
willing to work, he immediately secured employ-
ment in a tassel factory in New York City,
where, by perseverance and energy, he soon be-
came one of the first workmen in the establish-
ment. His aim, however, was higher than this
and as soon as he had saved sufficient money he
started out in the more lucrative field of mer-
chandising in Pennsylvania, where he became
known by the sobriquet of “the honest retailer.”
In 1843 he was joined by his remaining brother
and the three then went to Alabama and
established three stores on the Tombigbee
river, where they prosecuted a very success-
ful business. When the news of the great
gold discovery reached the south, Asher Ham-
burger wanted to go to California at once,
but met with some opposition from his
brothers; however, his indomitable spirit could
not be subdued and in January, 1850, he wrote
to his brother, who was in the north buy-
ing merchandise, the following characteristic
letter: “If you don't come home immediately
you will find our store closed and us (the re-
maining brother and himself) off for California.”
Thus, in 1850, by the Isthmus of Panama,
Asher Hamburger and his brother started for
the Golden West. There was no railroad across
the isthmus in those days, so these hardy broth-
ers, like many others, crossed on mule-back, hav-
ing hired a great many of those trusty animals,
on which they loaded their goods. They went
at once to Sacramento, then the most important
place in California, but in the following year
established a wholesale house in San Francisco
under the name of Hamburger Brothers. Asher
Hamburger was identified with the business in
Sacramento and fire and flood on several oc-
casions destroyed the labor of years and reduced
him to a state of poverty; but his undaunted
will and exuberant spirit always rose to the oc-
casion, and being ever willing to put his shoulder
to the wheel in due time he found again the
summit of success. In 1881 his two sons, S.
A. and M. A. Hamburger, who were then in busi-
ness with him in Sacramento, concluded they
wanted larger fields for operation, so they in-
duced their father to come to Los Angeles, and
in November, 1881, the business that is now
A. Hamburger & Sons, Incorporated, and the
largest in Southern California, was inaugurated.
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
733
Mr. Hamburger took an active interest in busi-
ness affairs up to within a year of his death,
which occurred on the 2nd of December, 1897,
he being then seventy-six years of age. Through
his liberality, enterprise and energy he contri-
buted towards many of the improvements and
monuments that have been erected in Southern
California. He had a most pleasant and fatherly
disposition, and through his kindness and good-
heartedness has assisted many men to positions
of affluence in this country.
The sons continue the business of A. Ham-
burger & Sons, and out of this has grown the
Hamburger Realty and Trust Company, which
is now erecting a building in Los Angeles that
is to have three hundred feet front on Broad-
way, one hundred and sixty feet front on Eighth
street, one hundred and twenty-four feet front
on Hill street, and one hundred feet high. The
building when completed will cost $1,000,000
and will be the largest of its kind west of Chicago
and is to be a lasting monument to the memory
and genius of their father.
WESLEY W. BECKETT, M. D. The
medical profession of Los Angeles has in the
above named gentleman a skilled and suc-
cessful practitioner, who has done no little
toward establishing the prestige which the city
enjoys in this particular, Dr. Beckett is a
native of the Pacific slope and although not
born in California has spent all but the first
few years of his life in the state. His father,
Lemuel D. Beckett, who was born in New
Jersey in 1818, became a farmer and merchant
upon attaining years of maturity. In his native
state he married Miss Sarah S. Chew and to-
gether they made the trip across the plains to
Oregon in 1852. Their home remained in that
state for some years, when they located in
California, where Mr. Beckett died April 27,
1885, being survived by his wife until February
22, 1905, when her death occurred at the home
of her son, Dr. Beckett. Benjamin Chew,
who was for many years Chief Justice of
Pennsylvania, was a great uncle of Dr.
Beckett. -
May 31, 1857, in Forest Grove, Washington
county, Ore., occurred the birth of Wesley
Wilber Beckett, whose later boyhood years
were spent principally in California, whither
his parents removed. His elementary educa-
tion was received in the public schools of the
state, after which he became a student in
Cooper Medical College, intent upon following
the line of work which he had mapped out
for himself. Later he , matriculated in the
College of Medicine of the University of South-
ern California, graduating April II, 1888. In
the meantime he went to New York City and
pursued a complete course of special studies
in the New York Post-Graduate School and
Hospital, receiving there the practical ex-
perience which so ably fitted him to take up
the practice of his profession, which he did im-
mediately upon his location in Los Angeles
in February, 1889, following his graduation.
His work as physician and surgeon has won
for him merited fame and financial returns and
brought him a constantly widening circle of
influence and usefulness. As a surgeon he
ranks exceptionally high in Southern Califor-
nia and has successfully performed many diffi-
cult and dangerous operations. In the prime
and vigor of progressive manhood, he takes
the keenest interest in the advancement of his
profession and is accounted one of the most
thorough students in his line of work, devot-
ing much time to the study of various medi-
cal journals which always form a large part
of his library. He has also won a position
of prominence as a contributor of valuable
articles to the Southern California Practitioner
and to eastern publications, while as a mem-
ber of the State Medical Society, in which he
has served as vice-president, the Los Angeles
County Medical Association, and the Southern
California Medical Association, in both of
which he was formerly president, his opinions
are highly esteemed.
Not alone for his work as a professional
man, however, is Dr. Beckett held in high
esteem, but also through his identification with
many of the most important movements in
public affairs. He is associated as director
with various enterprises, among them the
Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company, the
Broadway Bank & Trust Company, the Cali-
fornia Hospital Company, and others of equal
prominence. He holds the chair of gynecology
in the medical department of the University
of Southern California, in which institution he
is also officiating as trustee, and has also
served for one term as a member of the board
of health of the city of Los Angeles. He is
a member of the Los Angeles Chamber of
Commerce. He is specially active along edu-
cational lines, his early training, which was
that of a school teacher for six years in San
Luis Obispo county, Cal., and also as deputy
superintendent of schools in that county for
two years, having served to keep his interest
alive to advancement along this line. As a
Republican in politics he gives his support
to the men and measures of this party, al-
though he is broad-gauged in his views and
always interested in the maintenance of good
municipal government. He is held in high
regard by the Masons, of which organization
42
734
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
he is a member, while in the work of religious
advancement he is just as active. He belongs
to the Westlake Methodist Episcopal Church,
in which he officiates as trustee, and as has
truly been said of him his hand is always
giving support and help to those in need about
him. His genial nature and genuine sym-
pathy have combined to make of him a char-
acteristic physician—successful but never de-
spoiled of the gentler qualities of manhood;
firm but never harsh in the treatment he
gives his patients; honest, liberal and optimi-
stic in the face of much that might have
changed his early views of life.
Dr. Beckett's residence is architecturally one
of the most beautiful in Los Angeles. It is
on Harvard Boulevard, commanding a magni-
ficent view of mountains, valley and city. It
is presided over by his wife, formerly Miss
Iowa Archer, whom he married on New Year's
Day in 1882. She is the daughter of William C.
and Mary M. Archer, early pioneers of Cali-
fornia, who came to the state when their
daughter was but four years old, her birth
having occurred in Iowa. She is a woman of
education and refinement and has impressed
upon her sons, Wilbur Archer and Francis H.,
the qualities of manhood which have given to
this family their place among the representa-
tive citizens of Los Angeles. -
JOSEPH HAMILTON LAPHAM. The
spirit of enterprise which has given to Los An-
geles its phenomenal growth in the last ten
years is well represented by Joseph Hamilton
Lapham, one of the city's foremost business
men and capitalists. He is the descendant of
an old English family, long established in Massa-
chusetts, where the name is identified with af-
fairs of state. The first western emigrant was
Hamilton Lapham, who removed from New York
to Marietta, Ohio, in the early days of that state
and there was one of its pioneer physicians.
Later he located in Indiana and there spent
the remaining years of his life. One of his sons,
Simon, born in New York, became a farmer in
the vicinity of Marietta, where he married Mary
Jett, a native of that locality. She was the daugh-
ter of Owen Jett, whose ancestors came original-
ly from England and settled in Virginia, from
which state he immigrated to Ohio and became
a farmer in the vicinity of Marietta, where his
dèath eventually occurred. Mr. Lapham is still
living, a resident of Beckett, Ohio, in which
state his wife passed away some years ago. They
were the parents of seven children, of whom four
sons and two daughters attained maturity and
are now living. Three of the sons served val-
iantly in the Civil war, Owen and Luther, now
in the fall of the latter year.
residents of Cleveland, Ohio, having enlisted in
the Thirty-sixth Ohio Infantry.
The oldest child in the family of his parents,
Joseph Hamilton Lapham was born in Mariet-
ta, Ohio, March 5, 1844, and in the public and
high schools of the place of his birth received
his educational training. In 1861, in response to
the call for the three hundred thousand men, he
enlisted in Company B, Thirty-ninth Ohio In-
fantry, and was mustered into service in Camp
Dennison and immediately ordered to the front.
Following is a record of danger and hardship
which surely tried the soul of the seventeen-year-
old boy, and but for the purity and strength of
his patriotism could never have been continued
up to the close of the war. After the battles of
Corinth, Iuka and Holly Springs and others in
the year 1862 and the spring and summer of
1863, he became a veteran in Prospect, Tenn.,
In the southwest
campaign he participated in the battles preceding
the surrender of Atlanta—Resaca, Dallas, Dal-
ton, Snake Creek Gap, Buzzard’s Roost, Kenesaw
Mountain, Peach Tree Creek, and afterward the
siege of the city. Lovejoy Station, Jonesboro
and the march to the sea followed the occupation
of the city of Atlanta by the Union troops. Aft-
er the capture of the city of Savannah, Mr. Lap-
ham went northward through the Carolinas, par-
ticipating in the battles of Goldsboro and Ben-
tonville, and in this latter, the last battle of Sher-
man’s army, he received his first wound, a minie
ball passing through his left arm. Upon the
close of the war he was offered the commission
of lieutenant, but refused it, and after partici-
pating in the Grand Review at Washington was
mustered out of service with the rank of ser-
geant at Louisville, Ky., July 9, 1865.
During the years of his service in the army
Mr. Lapham had passed from youth into man-
hood and thus his outlook upon life had material-
ly changed. His participation in the great strug-
gle had prepared him to take a broader and more
comprehensive view of affairs. Upon returning
to Marietta he entered the Cincinnati Commercial
College, from which institution he was later grad-
uated, when, in Cleveland, Ohio, he entered the
employ of Bonsfield & Poole, manufacturers of
wooden ware, and in the capacity of foreman re-
mained with them for ten years. . With the means
thus accumulated he established himself in Cleve-
land as a manufacturer of wooden ware in 1876,
and from a modest beginning the business grew
to remunerative proportions and demanded an
enlargement of his factory. Later he took his
brother, O. T. Lapham, into partnership, after
which the firm was known and incorporated as
Lapham & Co., with himself as president. Un-
til 1893, when they disposed of their interests
to the American Wash-board Company, this en-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
735
terprise remained one of the important industries
of Cleveland. .
In the fall of 1893 Mr. Lapham came to Los
Angeles, Cal., and since that date has acquired an
influential position among the business men of
this city. Upon the incorporation of the Califor-
nia Fish Company he became a stockholder and
was unanimously made president and manager of
the same, which position he has ever since filled.
Through his efforts a large cannery was erected
at San Pedro, where a specialty is made of can-
ning sardines, this being the only factory in
America that puts up the genuine sardines. They
also can lobster, mackeral and tuna, being the
only canners of this last-named fish. They oper-
ate a line of boats, gasoline sloops, etc., and fish
for sardines up and down the coast for a dis-
tance of fifty miles from shore. Their headquar-
ters are in Los Angeles, at No. II.7 Henne build-
ing. Mr. Lapham is also the principal Stock-
holder in the Southern California Supply Com-
pany (being one of its incorporators and its
president), which handles soda fountain fixtures,
bakers’ and confectioners’ supplies, and carries
on an extensive wholesale business. As a direct-
or in the National Bank of Commerce and the
Manhattan Savings Bank of this city, he is iden-
tified with financial affairs, and takes a keen in-
terest in everything pertaining to the advance-
ment of these institutions. He is a member of
the Chamber of Commerce and active in the or—
ganization.
In Marietta, Ohio, Mr. Lapham was united in
marriage with Miss Susan C. Cook, a native of
Newport, that state, and a daughter of Emblem
Cook, a farmer of that vicinity. They are the
parents of four children, of whom Guy is one
of the proprietors of Hotel St. Augustine, in Tuc-
son, Ariz. ; Letetia is the wife of M. M. James, of
Los Angeles; and Elsie and Mildred are at home
with their parents. All are members of the Bap-
tist Church, in the Sunday-school of which Mr.
Lapham officiates as superintendent. Mr. Lap-
ham is identified with the Republican party polit-
ically, and belongs to the Union League Club,
socially, while in memory of the days spent in
his country's service he belongs to Stanton Post,
G. A. R., of Los Angeles.
Since his location in Los Angeles Mr. Lapham
has made both a financial and social success, win-
ning the first by close application to business and
business methods, and the latter by demonstra-
tion of personal characteristics of manhood. His
unusual force of character and strength of pur-
pose have been carried by him into every avenue
of life—financial, social and domestic, and com-
bined with these qualities are a high sense of
honor and thoroughly grounded principles, which
have made it eminently safe to trust his lead.
He enjoys the confidence of the people with whom
he deals and the unbounded esteem of those who
know him best. He is typical of the best in
American citizenship.
PETER ESPIAU. When Mr. Espiau took
up his residence in Pomona in 1890 it was not
without definitely laid plans as to his future
undertakings, for in his native country, France,
he had learned the most minute details con-
cerning the propagation of the grape vine, as
well as the manufacture of wine, and it was
his intention to prosecute the same business
in California. His hopes and expectations
have been fully realized, and besides a winery
and a vineyard of ten acres, he also has a
ranch of ten acres in navel oranges.
Born in Lannepax, department of Gers,
France, January 9, 1861, Peter Espiau is the
third of four sons born to his parents, Jean
and Marie (Bordens) Espiau, both of whom
were born in France and spent their entire
lives there. As his father was a farmer Peter
Espiau had every opportunity of familiariz-
ing himself with all the duties and obligations
connected with farming life. He obtained his
education in the local public schools and also
made a special study of horticulture and wine-
making, which has been of inestimable value
to him, especially since taking up his resi-
dence in California. Until reaching his major-
ity he worked side by side with his father on
the home farm, leaving home at that time to
enlist in the service of his country, becoming
a member of the One Hundred and Twenty-
sixth Infantry, Fourth Company, Fourth Bat-
talion in which he served four years.
It was in 1890 that Peter Espiau set sail
from his native land with the determination
to make his future home in the United States.
Coming direct to California, he located in
Pomona, in which vicinity he has made his
home ever since. For a number of years he
worked in the employ of others, carefully sav-
ing his earnings with the intention of invest-
ing them in a business of his own as soon as
the right opportunity offered itself. He rec-
Ognized his opportunity in the absence of a
winery in this part of the town and in 1896
he established the first plant for the manu-
facture of wine, an undertaking which has
proved remunerative. Some time after the
establishment of the winery he bought five
acres of land adjoining which he set out to
grapes, and still later bought five acres more
which he also set out to grapes. So success—
ful were his efforts in viticulture that he de-
termined to try raising oranges, and for this
purpose purchased another ten acre ranch,
then in fine bearing condition. Both under-
736
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
takings have met with his most ardent ex-
pectations and he is ranked among the suc-
cessful horticulturists and vine growers of
this part of Los Angeles county, his ranch
lying one mile west of Pomona on West First
Street. - -
In Los Angeles Peter Espiau was married
to Miss Julia Serres, who like himself is a
native of France, and four children have been
born to them, Albert, Andrew, Marie and
Gaston. Adhering to the faith in which they
were reared both Mr. and Mrs. Espiau are
communicants of the Catholic Church, attend-
ing St. Joseph's Church in Pomona, and polit-
ically Mr. Espiau casts his vote in favor of
Republican candidates.
OBADIAH TRUAX BARKER. In tracing
the lineage of the Barker family, first represent-
ed in California by Obadiah T. Barker, a pioneer
and one of the prominent business men and up-
builders of Los Angeles, it is found that they are
of Anglo Saxon ancestry, the name having orig-
inated through the Occupation of the progenitor,
which was that of barking trees. The location of
the family on this side of the Atlantic antedates
the Revolutionary war, the emigrating ancestor
settling in North Carolina and the Virginias,
where the name flourished for several genera-
tions. Inheriting the pioneer spirit of his fore-
fathers, Thomas Barker became a resident of Ken-
tucky, during the historic days of the state,
establishing a home, winning a competence, and
proving an important factor in the development
and upbuilding of the western commonwealth.
In his family was a son, Abijah, a native of Ken-
tucky, who, in young manhood, removed to Cin-
cinnati, Ohio, and there learned the trade of
blacksmith. Later he located in the unsettled
portions of Indiana and there engaged in the
prosecution of his trade and at the same time
established a mercantile enterprise, which occu-
pation formed his chief interest throughout his
entire life. He married Miss Mary Stalker, the
daughter of Jonathan Stalker, a native of North
Carolina and also an early Settler of Kentucky
and a prominent and successful man. They
reared a family of twelve children, six sons and
six daughters, all of whom attained maturity,
the only survivor, however, being Obadiah T.
Barker, of this review.
Obadiah T. Barker was born in Scotland, Ind.,
March Io, 1826, in the vicinity of his birthplace
was reared to young manhood, receiving his edu-
cational training in the public schools of Greene
county. He prepared for college and shortly
afterward entered the state university at Bloom-
ington, where he pursued his studies for a time,
an interruption being afforded by the offer of a
clerkship at $1 I per month in a store formerly
Owned by his father. He at once left school and
took up the duties of this position, holding the
same for eighteen months. Finally resigning his
clerkship he formed a partnership with Dr. J.
A. Dagley, each furnishing $250, with which
they purchased and opened a mercantile business.
Both being men of executive ability, good judg-
ment and decision of character, their enterprise
was a success and their interests remained iden-
tical for five years. At the expiration of this
time Mr. Barker purchased the entire interest of
the business and continued the enterprise alone
for Several years. In 1854 he married Miss Nancy
Record, a native of Scotland, Ind., and a daugh-
ter of Joshua Record. Their home remained in
that place for some time after their marriage,
when Mr. Barker sold his stock and moved to
Owensburg, Ind., and there established another
enterprise of a similar nature. He became prom-
inent in public affairs while a resident of that
place, and was elected auditor of Greene coun-
ty on the Republican ticket, serving for a term of
four years. Upon the expiration of his term of
service in 1872 he located with his family in Col-
Orado Springs, Colo., which was then only a
Small place. On Tejon street he established the
first general merchandise business of the town,
and in addition to the patronage received from
the residents of Colorado Springs traded with
the Indians and freighters; he built up a lu-
crative trade and in 1880, when he disposed of
his interests, was recognized as one of the lead-
ing business men of the then thriving city. He
took a prominent part in all public affairs and
gave his best efforts for the advancement of the
general welfare and the development of resources.
Coming to Los Angeles in 1880 Mr. Barker at
once established a furniture and carpet business
in partnership with Mr. Mueller, under the firm
name of Barker & Mueller; they located at No.
II3 North Spring street, but found that they
were too far out of the business district, which
was then north of that section. The enterprise
was then located near the Pico house, at that
time the leading hotel of Los Angeles, and as
Mr. Mueller had in the meantime sold his inter-
est to Mr. Barker the firm became known as O.
T. Barker & Sons. Out of this modest beginning
has grown what is now known as the firm of
Barker Brothers, their enterprise being one of the
most extensive of its kind in Southern Cali-
fornia. In 1887 Mr. Barker practically retired
from business, although his name was still used
in the style of the firm name until 1898, in which
year the title became Barker Brothers. The new
firm moved to the Van Nuys building at Nos.
420-424 South Spring street, which had been
erected for their use, and they are still in this
location engaged in the sale of furniture, car-


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 739
pets, draperies and pictures. Their establishment
is quite extensive, extending from Spring Street
through to Main street, and is several stories in
height. Each department is ingeniously arranged
to exhibit the stock to the best advantage and
is carefully looked after by an expert in his line
of work. Barker Brothers are fully equipped
for the business they carry on and easily hold
rank among the most extensive enterprises of
the kind in Los Angeles.
After his retirement from business Mr. Bar-
ker located in Pasadena, his home at No. 1449
Fair Oaks avenue being presided over by his
wife. Of the six children born of their union
three sons are living, namely: O. J., Charles
H. and William A., all members of the business
firm of Barker Bros. Mr. and Mrs. Barker
are members of the First Baptist Church of Pas-
adena, and are active in all philanthropical work,
many charities, denominational and otherwise,
receiving their liberal support. Very recently
Mr. and Mrs. Barker celebrated their golden wed-
ding, having traveled together the journey of
life for fifty years. That they have seen happy
and in the main prosperous years is evidenced by
visible signs; financial independence has come to
them and in their beautiful home they are sur-
rounded with the comforts and luxuries made pos-
sible by early industry and success, friends have
increased with the passing years and to-day give
honor and companionship to the sturdy pioneers
who have borne the burden in the beginning of
a western civilization and assisted with all the
strength of physical, mental and moral qualities
in the development of all resources. They have
reared a family of sons who have long since tak-
en their rightful place in the commercial world,
to which they were early and successfully trained.
In the management of their enterprise they have
shown business ability, judgment and tact; O. J.
Barker is prominent in commercial activity as pur-
chasing agent for the Pacific Purchasing Com-
pany, and purchases more furniture than any
Other One man in the United States. William A.
Parker is manager of the same company and in
the discharge of duties has exhibited unusual
executive abilitv. Charles A. is manager of
the Barker Brothers Furniture Company.
JOHN J. CHARNOCK. For many years
the home of Mr. Charnock has been four miles
south of Palms, where he owns a portion of
La Ballona (meaning whole), one of the his-
toric ranchos of Los Angeles county. Few of
the pioneers of the county have been more suc-
cessful than he. With shrewd foresight and
sagacious judgment he invested heavily when
lands were low and he now reaps the result
of his sagacity in the remarkable increase in
z
land values. On coming to the coast region in
I875 he was able to secure land at from $10
to $60 an acre, and about that time he pur-
chased eleven hundred and fifty acres, of
which he still owns seven hundred and eighty-
three acres, worth about $500 an acre. Re-
cently he sold seventy-five acres for $400 an
acre; at another time he sold sixty acres laid
out in town lots in the suburbs of Los Ange-
les, and fifty acres where the town of Ocean
Park now stands. In an early day he bought
large tracts in Riverside county and eighty
acres in San Diego county. Besides his other
possessions he still owns about seventeen lots
in Los Angeles, and the Ione building erected
at a cost of $176,000, but sold to him during
the financial depression for about $2O,OOO, on
which amount the investment returns large
dividends.
Near Manchester, England, John J. Char-
nock was born December 6, 1829, and at the
age of fourteen years he accompanied his par-
ents to Canada. In the sketch of his young-
er brother, George, the family record will be
found. The ancestors had been prominent in
England, and the maternal grandfather was a
large owner of lands and slaves in the West
Indies, but misfortune overtook the parents
and they sought better success in the western
continent. For three years John J. assisted
lis father on a Canadian farm, then worked in
a bank for a year and afterward was employed
on a farm. Coming to the States he spent a
few years in Buffalo, then proceeded to Mil-
waukee, Wis., and next went to Rock coun-
ty, same state, where he was employed as a
teamster at $0 per month. In the fall of the
same year he went to the Wisconsin pineries
and in time acquired extensive timber hold-
ings in that region. Of such lands he owned
several thousand acres, and he also owned
sawmills at convenient locations. For twen-
ty-one years he made a specialty of manufac-
turing shingles, which together with lumber
he rafted down the Mississippi river in the
days when the entire surrounding valley was
a rough, undeveloped region. In the interests
of larger enterprises he started lumber yards
at Dubuque, Independence and Parkersburg,
Iowa, and these he conducted for a considera-
ble period, the lumber for the same coming
from his timber lands in Iowa and Wisconsin.
Meanwhile the constant devotion to business
11ndermined Mr. Charnock’s health and he was
obliged to seek another climate, for which
reason in 1871 he relinquished his eastern in-
terests and removed to Nevada. There, as in
the earlier places of his residence, he soon be-
came known as a man of Shrewd acumen and
remarkable sagacity. Though he took up a
740
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
business entirely foreign to that in which pre-
viously he had engaged, he was none the less
successful. From a small beginning in the
sheep industry he increased his flocks until he
had from fifteen thousand to twenty thousand
head, which he kept on his range near Eu-
reka. To furnish pasturage for so large a
flock he had a range one hundred and thirty-
four miles long and thirty miles wide. On
disposing of his stock in Nevada he removed
to California and has since watched the growth
and development of Los Angeles county with
all the pride of a pioneer and property-owner.
He has never married, but lives in content-
ment alone on his ranch, and personally super-
intends all of his property holdings. Though
quite advanced in years, he is well-preserved
and can read and write without the aid of
glasses, nor does he show in mind or body
the effects of his long and strenuous existence.
While he has been an active Republican, at
no time would he accept office. Were he to
be asked the secret of his large success he
would probably attribute it to careful invest-
ments and frugal economy, and certain it is
that both of these qualities have been leading
factors in the attainment of his large holdings.
WILLIAM W. MURPHY, M. D. The men
who make up the professional class of Los An-
geles are of such character and ability that they
have proven a potent factor in the upbuilding
of the city and the advancement of its best in-
terests, whether along their particular line or
along the line of commercialism, and prominent
among them is Dr. William W. Murphy, well
known and widely esteemed as a physician and
surgeon. He has been a resident of this city
for over twenty years and has witnessed its
growth and development, and in the midst of
his busy professional cares has always been
found ready to lend his aid in the furtherance of
any plan tending toward the common welfare.
He holds a high position and is justly accorded
the rank of a representative citizen.
The doctor is a native of Canada, having been
born in Brockville August 19, 1846, a son of
James and Delilah (Slack) Murphy, residents
of that place, where the elder Mr. Murphy en-
gaged for many years in general business. Will-
iam W. Murphy was reared in his native town,
where he received a preliminary education in the
public and high schools. He was an apt pupil
and with an eager desire to acquire knowledge
let no opportunity for mental culture escape him.
He was very young in years when he secured
a position as teacher in a school in his native
countv, where he remained for a time, thence
locating in Missouri, where he took up the study
of medicine. For a time he was associated with
a local physician in this study, but finally entered
and graduated from the Missouri Medical Col-
lege at St. Louis, Mo. This was in the year
I876 and later he became a student in Bellevue
Hospital, New York City, and graduated from
the same in 1884. Subsequently he took a special
course in the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary,
after which he returned to the middle west and
in 1885 opened an office in Kansas City, Mo.
In June of 1886 the doctor located in Los An-
geles, Cal., where he was for a time associated
with Dr. Darling in a practice which soon as-
Sumed lucrative proportions. About ten years
ago he located in the office which he now oc-
cupies at No. 307 South Broadway and has es-
tablished a constantly increasing patronage. His
ability has been widely recognized throughout
the years in which he has been practicing in Los
Angeles, and he has become prominent in medi-
cal circles, being a member of the Los Angeles
Medical Society, the Ophthalmic Society of Los
Angeles, the State Medical Society, the South-
ern District of California and the American
Medical Association.
In 1869 Dr. Murphy was united in marriage
with Miss Martha A. Day, a native of Bradley
county, Tenn., a daughter of I. O. Day, a
prominent physician of that place and an old
and much esteemed citizen. One son was born
of this union, Claire W. Murphy, who is also
One of the successful physicians of Los Angeles.
A resume of his life will be found elsewhere in
this volume. Dr. Murphy is prominent in fra-
ternal circles, being a Mason of high degree.
He is associated with Southern California Lodge
No. 278, F. & A. M., Signet Chapter No. 57,
R. A. M., Los Angeles Commandery No. 9, K.
T., and to the Mystic Shrine A1 Malaikah. The
doctor is one of the oldest practitioners of Los
Angeles in the enjoyment of a good business,
and has the confidence of his patrons and is a
man respected and esteemed by his numerous
friends.
LUTHER C. JANEWAY. A man of decided
energy and ability, ever ready to seize all ad-
vantageous openings for advancing his business,
Luther C. Janeway is prominently identified
with the mercantile interests of Ramona, and Oc-
cupies a good position among its more active and
valued citizens. He is respected and esteemed
throughout the community, and his generous in-
terest in all that concerns its public weal has
exerted a marked influence in advancing the
various enterprises inaugurated to develop its
resources and promote its prosperity. He was
born November 21, 1869, in Jasper county, Iowa,
a son of Seth Janeway.


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
743
Seth Janeway was born and reared in Ten-
nessee, living there until about sixteen years of
age. In Iowa he was married to Susanna Picker-
ing, of Tennessee. He cleared and improved
a farm in Jasper county, Iowa, living there and
in Missouri and Texas until 1893 when he came
with his family to Ramona, where he still re-
sides, being a well-known and prosperous
rancher. He is a Republican in politics, and a
member of the Friends Church. To him and
his wife, five children have been born, namely:
Arwilda Hinshaw, living in this valley; Ada,
living at home; D. O., in business at Whittier,
Cal. ; J. S., in the government employ in the
Philippine Islands, and Luther C., the subject of
this sketch.
Receiving but limited educational advantages
as a boy, Luther C. Janeway spent his childhood
days in different places, spending six years in
Missouri, going when seven years old with his
parents to Kansas, where he lived on year. The
family then returned to Iowa, and there he as-
sisted in the care of the home farm for four
years. Going then with his father, he located in
the Panhandle, Crosby county, Texas, where he
remained nine years, at first being engaged in
farming, and later as clerk in a store. Going
northward, he subsequently spent two years in
Northern Kansas and Colorado engaged in farm-
ing, but not caring to make a permanent loca-
tion there, in 1895 came to Ramona, settling on a
ranch. In 1899 he went to San Diego and en-
tered the employ of F. H. Briggs, for two years
clerking in his grocery. July 19, 1903, he opened
his present establishment in Ramona, and has
Since built up an extensive and remunerative
business as a dealer in general merchandise,
handling dry goods, lumber, hardware, poultry
supplies, etc., his trade being one of the finest
in the place. He is also proprietor of the freight
line between Foster and Ramona and has also
opened up a feed mill.
In 1898 Mr. Janeway married Charlotte Keyes,
a native of Kansas, and they are the parents of
four children, namely: J. Raymond, Robert K.,
Clara M. and Waldo P. Religiously Mr. and
Mrs. Janewav are members of the Friends
Church. Politically Mr. Janeway champions the
principles of the Republican party. Fraternally
he belongs to the Independent Order of Forest.
ers and to the Modern Woodmen of America.
JOHN W. DAVIS. One of the most suc-
cessful financiers of Southern California was
named in the person of John W. Davis, whose
keen foresight and executive ability won him
recognition early in life, for his death occurred
when in his thirty-third year. He was born
December 16, 1860, in Fox Lake, Wis., the
youngest child and only son of his parents.
His father, John W., was born in Montgom-
eryshire, Wales, where he received a good ed-
ucation, thence immigrating to New York at
the age of nineteen years, meeting and marry-
ing, near Utica, Margaret McCollum, a native
of Glasgow, Scotland. Together they went
to Fox Lake, Wis., where he assisted material-
ly in the upbuilding of the town, helping to es-
tablish the Wisconsin Female College now
combined with Milwaukee College. In part-
nership with William E. Smith, who after-
ward became governor of Wisconsin, Mr. Da-
vis engaged in the banking business until ill
health compelled his retirement from active
life. He then traveled over Europe, spending
considerable time in Germany. In 1876, when
the Southern Pacific Railroad had just been
completed to Colton, San Bernardino county,
he located there, as he found the climate bene-
ficial to his health. Locating there perma-
nently, he engaged in business, in December,
1886, assisting in the organization of the First
National Bank of Colton. His death occurred
a year later, removing a practical and helpful
citizen in all the avenues of life. He was a
prominent Mason and had many friends both
in and out of the order.
John W. Davis, Jr., was reared in Fox Lake
and educated in the Fox Lake Academy and
the University of Wisconsin. In 1876 he came
to California for the first time, accompanying
his father to Colton. Subsequently he re-
turned to the University of Wisconsin and in
1880 came again to Southern California, be-
coming bookkeeper in the Farmers' Exchange
Bank of San Bernardino. After a time he went
to Yankton, S. Dak., and there studied law
under Gamble Brothers, and was admitted to
the bar, when, with his savings of $2,000, in
partnership with another he established a bank
at Scotland, S. Dak. This enterprise was short-
ly afterward disposed of at a good profit, when
lie went to Bridgewater and started a similar
enterprise, of which he became president. This
grew to splendid proportions and became one
of the most successful institutions of its kind
in South Dakota. In November, 1885, he lo-
cated in Colton and the following year assist-
ed in the organization of the First National
Bank of Colton, which was opened December
of that year, with his father as its president.
After the death of his father in 1887, he be-
came the head of the institution and made it a
success. In 1889 he arranged his affairs for a
trip to the Paris Exposition, and after his re-
turn he purchased control of the San Bernar-
dino National Bank and enlarged the business
744
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
very materially in the few years following. In
1891 he was asked to organize a bank at River-
side, and it was during his efforts in this line
that his health was so seriously impaired that
he was forced to give up active efforts.
Mr. Davis’ death occurred August 6, 1893,
in New York City, and removed from the com-
munity a citizen of unusual ability and public
spirit. As a Republican in politics he sought
to advance the principles he endorsed, al-
though never caring for personal recognition
along this line because of his multifold busi-
ness interests. He left a widow and four
daughters, namely: Margaret E., a graduate of
Smith College and the wife of Dr. Charles E.
Ide, of Redlands; Marion, Dorothy and Gwen.
Mrs. Davis was in maidenhood Miss Jennie E.
Roberts, of Cambria, Wis., and a daughter of
J. W. Roberts, whose sketch appears else-
where in this volume. She was graduated
from Downer College, at Fox Lake, Wis., and
in Portage, that state, on December 4, 1883,
she was married to Mr. Davis. She resided in
Colton until 1898, when she removed to Red-
lands and located on a ranch of fifty-three
acres on Brookside avenue, one of the attrac-
tive homes of this section, carefully laid out
and wisely cultivated, the property being de-
voted to oranges. Mrs. Davis is a director in
both the First National Bank of Colton and
the San Bernardino National Bank. She is a
member of the Spinnet and officiates as its
president, and is also a member of the Con-
temporary Club. As a member of the First
Presbyterian Church she gives liberally to the
support of its charities.
LOUIS GEORGE VISSCHER, M. D., comes
of a distinguished family who traces its genealogy
back to the time of the Reformation. Its mem-
bers include many illustrious men, scientists,
litterateurs, statesmen and soldiers, with here and
there among them names made famous by deeds of
valor or in some branch of learning and embla-
zoned on the historic pages of the land that gave
them birth. The Hollanders have been patriots
ever, and when as colonists they made for them-
selves homes in the newer lands their blood
gave a sturdy solidity of character to sons and
daughters, and their sterling qualities have
passed to their many descendants as a lasting
heritage to the latest generation.
Of the Visscher family much may be said.
One Roemer Visscher was not only distinguished
in trade, being the owner of a whole fleet of
vessels, but was also one of the first poets of his
native land. And so on down the line to Major
Kraght Visscher, great-grandfather of Dr.
Visscher, who held commission in the royal army.
He was a brave man and met death as a brave
soldier loves to meet death—fronting the foe.
When the combined forces of England and Rus-
sia invaded Holland, Major Visscher, at the head
of his troops, attempted to cross a bridge held
by the enemy and commanded by their artillery.
The color-bearer was shot down, and immedi-
ately the Major seized the colors, advancing with
them through a devastating cross-fire of shot
and shell. When nearly across the bridge he
was struck by a cannon-ball and instantly killed.
Then a Sergeant caught the flag up on his bay-
Onet and with it succeeded in crossing the bridge.
A memorial monument was erected to the vali-
ant Major Visscher in the city of Alkmaar. His
son, Professor Lodewyk Gerard Visscher, held
the chair of history and literature at the Univer-
sity of Utrecht; he was the author of many his-
torical and literary works. The son of the latter,
Jan A. Visscher, the father of Dr. Visscher,
was born at the Hague in 1830. He graduated
from the Military Medical College at Utrecht and
for twelve years following occupied a position
as surgeon in the Royal Navy. When he was
twenty-nine years old he received from his
government the highest decoration awarded to
its citizens—the Royal Dutch Lion. Upon his
retirement from the navy he engaged in the prac-
tice of his profession and continued in it until his
death in IQoI, at the age of seventy-one years.
Dr. Visscher is of equally illustrious descent
on his mother's side of the family. Her maiden
name was Jeanette Antoinette le Ruette. Her
immediate family held responsible civil positions
under the minister of the interior. She died in
1868, leaving two children. Her second son,
Hugo, graduated from the University of Utrecht
and is now a practicing physician in Leusden,
Netherlands.
Dr. Louis George Visscher was born in Sluiss,
Netherlands, December 28, 1864, and his boy-
hood years were passed in Holland. In 1881 he
entered the University of Utrecht, taking up the
study of the classics and medicine. From there
he went to the University of Wurtzburg, where
he graduated in 1891 with the degree of M. D.,
following with a post-graduate course of one
year at the University of Berlin, and two years
at the University of Freiberg. He returned to
Holland and entered the University of Leyden,
which conferred on him the degree of M. D.,
in 1898. For a short period thereafter he prac-
ticed his profession. Suffering an attack of
pneumonia he was compelled to give up his
business, and in order to escape the severity of
the winter in Holland traveled in Italy and the
Riviera.
Dr. Visscher came to Los Angeles in the fall
of 1898. When he decided to make a permanent
residence here he opened an office and engaged
*—cº-z-\

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
747
in the practice of his profession. His present
offices are in the Homer Laughlin building. He
is a specialist in gastro-intestinal diseases and
stands without peer in his line of work in the
profession. He is instructor in gastro-intestinal
diseases in the College of Medicine, University
of Southern California, and professor of gastro-
intestinal diseases in the Post-Graduate School of
the University of Southern California. He is a
member of American Medical Association, State
Medical Association, Southern California Medical
Association, Los Angeles Medical Association,
Clinical Pathological Society, and a member of
the University Club.
Dr. Visscher married Miss Wilhelmina Eliza-
beth Zegers-Veeckens in 1890. They have one
son, Karel Hugo Kraght Visscher, born in Wurtz-
burg, Germany, in February, 1891, and who
attends the Thacher School in the Ojai valley.
It is needless to state herein the high standing of
Dr. Visscher in the community, or to mention
the estimation in which he is held by his col-
leagues in the profession. He devoted seventeen
years to the study of medicine and his success
is simply the reward of honest, persistent effort.
His talents, learning and worth as a physician
and a gentleman are fully appreciated and suf-
ficiently well established to make enumeration
of them necessary.
ARTHUR McKENZIE DODSON. The
record of the Dodson family in California is a
record of persevering industry and untiring
energy. Father and sons unitedly have la-
bored to promote their mutual welfare and
have counted no labor too difficult when by its
successful accomplishment the general pros-
perity might be promoted. The history of the
family in this country dates back to colonial
times, the first representative coming over on
the Mayflower and establishing the name in
New England, where the Fletchers and Mc-
Kenzies, into which families the Dodsons mar-
ried, also became prominent and influential
citizens. In this connection it is worthy of
note that John Fletcher was one of the signers
of the Declaration of Independence.
Arthur McKenzie Dodson was born in Phil-
adelphia, Pa., in 1819, remaining in the east
until the year previous to the finding of gold in
California. The year 1848 found him a miner
in this state, but front the fact that he gave up
this life two years later and was ever after
engaged in commercial pursuits, it is safe to
presume that his efforts in this direction were
not all that he had anticipated. Coming to the
old pueblo of Los Angeles in 1850, he opened
one of the first butcher and grocery establish-
ments in the place and was the pioneer soap
manufacturer here also. A later enterprise was
the establishment of a wood and coal yard at
what is now the corner of Sixth and Spring
streets, in the very heart of the city. This in
fact was the nucleus of a little town to which
he gave the name of Georgetown, in honor of
“round house” George, then a prominent char-
acter in that locality. At a later date Mr.
Dodson removed to the San Fernando valley
and began raising wheat and barley, this be-
ing the first attempt at farming in the valley.
Still later he became superintendent of the
O'Neill ranches in San Diego county, but
meeting with an accident there he was com-
pelled to give up the management. After re-
covering from the injury he went to Tucson,
Ariz., and engaged in the cattle business, and
it was while there that his death occurred
about 1886. -
The marriage of Mr. Dodson united him
with Reyes Dominguez, a member of one of
the oldest families of the state, she being a na-
tive of this county and a daughter of Nazario
Dominguez, well known to all early residents
in this part of the state. He and his brothers,
Pedro and Manuel, owned the Rancho San
Tedro, which extended from Redondo to
Compton and on to Long Beach. Mrs. Dodson
died in Los Angeles in 1885, having become
the mother of twelve children, only three of
whom are now living. James H. and John F.
are in partnership in business and reside in
San Pedro, and Emma, now Mrs. Thompson,
resides in Hobart Mills, Nevada county, Cal.
JAMES H. DODSON. A native of the
state, James H. Dodson was born in Los An-
geles February 26, 1861, and in his home coun-
ty was reared and educated, attending both
public and private schools. A turning point in
his career came at an early age, for while still
a boy he was taken into the home of George
Hinds, a large stockman and butcher of Wil-
mington, this county, he also serving as coun-
ty supervisor. He was the junior member of
the firm of Vickery & Hinds, wholesale butch-
ers, who had stores located in all of the prin-
cipal towns along the coast, and in the man-
agement of these Mr. Dodson assisted for
twenty years. In 1883 they established a store
in San Pedro, it being the pioneer market in
the town, and of this Mr. Dodson had charge
until resigning to take charge of a similar busi-
ness of his own, carrying this on until 1899.
The year last mentioned was the beginning
of an eventful period in the life of Mr. Dodson,
and witnessed his removal to Manila, Philip-
pine Islands, where as a member of the firm of
Simmie, Swanson & Co. he was interested in
748
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
the first sawmill in the town. In addition to
carrying on the mill the firm had the contract
for carrying the mail, and later established the
first American carriage works in Manila. In
1901 Mr. Dodson began traveling throughout
the Philippine Islands, Asia Minor and Arabia.
returning by way of the continent and Eng-
land, and in so doing had circumnavigated the
globe. Locating once more in his native state,
in 1902 he leased of George Porter a part of
the Old Mission ranch, the seven thousand
acres which he rented being devoted entirely
to the raising of wheat. Coming to San Pedro
the following year, he established a partner-
ship with his brother John F. as general con-
tractors for grading and cement work, and in
the meantime the name and fame of the Dod-
son Brothers have become synonyms for all
that honest, straightforward dealings would
suggest. James H. Dodson was one of the Or-
ganizers and is manager of the Pacific Manu-
facturing and Supply Association, manufac-
turers and dealers in ornamental and building
brick and builders’ supplies. -
In 1881, while in Wilmington, Cal., Mr.
Dodson was united in marriage with Rude-
cinda Sepulveda, a union which associated him
with one of the most prominent families in the
state. On the old Palos Verdes rancho Mrs.
Dodson was born, the daughter of Jose Diego
Sepulveda, he being one of the five owners of
this vast estate, which extended along the sea
coast from San Pedro to Redondo Beach, and
for miles back into the foothills. The land was
originally owned by Mrs. Dodson's grand-
father, Dolores Sepulveda, who was killed by
Indians while he was returning from Monte-
rey, where he had gone to obtain a patent to
his ranch. Much of the property was handed
down to his son, Jose Diego, who was born on
the old ranch near San Pedro in 1813. During
the war of the United States with Mexico he
was loyal to the former, contributing generous-
ly of cattle, horses, money and provisions from
his own private store, and materially aided in
extending the dominion of the United States to
the Pacific Ocean.
Six children have blessed the marriage of
Mr. and Mrs. Dodson, those living named in
order of birth as follows: Florence, James H.,
Jr., and Carlos D. All that the term public-
spirited implies is found in the make-up of Mr.
Dodson, who for eight years has been a mem-
ber of the city council, serving as its president
for one term. He has also served in the ca-
pacity of license collector, and for eight years
he was on the board of school trustees. His in-
fluence in the upbuilding of San Pedro has
further been felt through his association with
the Chamber of Commerce, where his opinion
has great weight and consideration. Frater-
nally he is a member of San Pedro Lodge No.
332, F. & A. M., having joined the Order in
Wilmington, where he became master of his
lodge. Mr. and Mrs. Dodson have hosts of
friends in San Pedro, not restricted to the up-
per classes alone, for they have given gener-
ously of their means to sustain those less for-
tunate and in fact no helpful beneficence has
been denied their support.
JOHN FLETCHER DODSON. As a mem-
ber of the firm of Dodson Brothers, John F.
Dodson is well known throughout San Pedro
and vicinity, having established himself in busi-
ness here as a contractor for cement and grading
work about 1898. For about six years he car-
ried on the business alone, during which time
he laid some of the best work to be found in the
city today. With the growth of the city and the
corresponding demand for work in his line his
business grew to such proportions that the as-
sistance and co-operation of some one with an
equal interest in the affairs became essential.
This want was supplied in his brother, James
H., the two uniting their forces in 1904 under
the name of Dodson Brothers, a firm which to-
day stands for all that is best and most depend-
able in their line in this part of the county.
A native of the state, John F. Dodson was
born on the San Pedro ranch near what is now
Compton April 8, 1867, a son of Arthur Mc-
Kenzie and Reyes (Dominguez) Dodson. (For
further details concerning the parental family
the reader is referred to the sketch of the father,
given elsewhere in this volume.) Up to the
age of thirteen years John F. Dodson attended
the public schools of Los Angeles, after which
he went to make his home with his father’s old-
time friend, George Hinds, at Wilmington. Mr.
Hinds’ attachment for the elder Mr. Dodson
was strengthened in the fact that the latter had
rendered him financial assistance when he came
here from the east, a kindness which he never
forgot, and one which he has never been able
to repay to his own satisfaction. The keen in-
terest which he has ever taken in the sons of
his benefactor has been of a substantial character
and of lasting benefit to the recipients. For ten
years Mr. Dodson was superintendent of one of
Mr. Hinds' numerous ranches, this being known
as the Henrietta Stock Farm, located near Comp-
ton, and devoted to breeding and training stand-
ard horses. The knowledge and experience
which Mr. Dodson gained during this time made
him an expert horseman, and in the Southern
California circuit he became especially well
known, as during all of the time he was with
|Mr. Hinds he drove in the races on that track.

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
751
Although Mr. Dodson became identified with
San Pedro in 1893 it was not until about 1898
that he established the nucleus of his present
prosperous business. Beginning in a small, un-
pretentious way, and with only one outfit, the
business grew with steady rapidity from the
very outset, with the result that greater facil-
ities for filling contracts became essential. The
admission of his brother James H. into the busi-
ness in 1904 has enabled him to give his entire
time to the superintendence of the outside work,
which keeps about sixty-five men and sixty
horses busy the greater part of the time. The
firm of Dodson Brothers is conceded by those
best able to judge to be the most reliable con-
tracting firm in their line outside of Los Angeles,
and the fact that its work is appreciated as above
the average is shown in the volume of business
transacted, coming both from old and new cus-
tomers. During 1906 the firm added a new de-
parture to their business by adding a road oiling
outfit and are doing work in that line in North-
ern California.
The home of Mr. and Mrs. Dodson is bright-
ened by the presence of three interesting children,
Ynez Reyes, William Savage and John Fletcher,
Jr., to whom a successful future may be assured
if their parents’ training is adhered to and the
example of their elders’ lives followed as their
pattern. Mr. Dodson's marriage occurred in
1898 and united him with Kate Agnes Savage,
who was born in San Francisco, a daughter of
Hon. W. H. Savage, an account of whose in-
teresting life is given elsewhere in this volume.
Mr. Dodson belongs to the Royal Arcanum, the
Ancient Order of United Workmen and the
Benevolent Protective Order of Elks, and he is
also identified with the Chamber of Commerce
of San Pedro. J. F. Dodson is also interested in
the Pacific Manufacturing and Supply Associa-
tion. -
HON. WILLIAM HI. SAVAGE. A review
of the representative citizens of San Pedro
and of the men who have played an important
part in the history of this city and the state
would be deficient without a sketch of the life
and work of Hon. W. H. Savage, who is too
well known on the Pacific coast to need special
introduction to the public. At the bar he has
been a brilliant advocate; in the halls of legis-
lation a wise and prudent counsellor and able
debater; on the rostrum an impressive and
convincing speaker; and in every field a con-
troller of the minds of men. Fitted by native
courage and intellectual ability to direct af-
fairs and to assume responsibility, he has
steadily pursued his way to higher heights of
achievement and has long been recognized as
nia.
a leader in thought and action, a quality which
has been the keynote of his success in the state
Senate, to which he was elected in 1904.
Born in County Limerick, Ireland, July 12,
1840, W. H. Savage is a son of Michael and
Ellen (Kelley) Savage, both of whom are now
deceased, the mother passing away in Vallejo,
this state. The father was reared principally
in England, there graduating from a military
academy which was the initial step into the
later military life which he followed. He was
a participant in the Crimean war, taking sides
against Russia, and during his many years of
Service won the title of major. Later he
brought his family to the United States, set-
tling in Boston, Mass., and it was in that city
that his earth life came to a close. Seven chil-
dren originally comprised the parental family,
but of this number only three are now living.
W. H. Savage was a lad of about five years
when he accompanied the family to the United
States and settled in Massachusetts. For a
number of years he was a pupil in the public
Schools of that state, and at the time of the
breaking out of the Civil war he lacked two
months of being nineteen years of age. Filled
with the same patriotic spirit which had been
such a strong feature in his father's character,
he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps
in 1861, serving on board the sloop Mississippi,
under Lieutenant Dewey, who later became
the hero of Manila bay. In 1863, while at-
tempting to run the batteries of Port Hudson,
the Mississippi was grounded, and here she
was riddled with shot and set on fire by the en-
emy’s batteries, so that officers and crew had
to abandon her and make their way as best
they could to the other shore before the flames
reached her magazine. Here it was that Mr.
Savage was captured by the enemy and sent
to Libby prison. At the expiration of his term
three months later he was exchanged, and
without unnecessary loss of time he re-enlisted
in Company A, Fourteenth New York Caval-
ry, Serving in Louisiana until the close of the
war, when he was mustered out with the title
of sergeant. The need of able-bodied men in
the frontier service caused him to re-enlist
Once more, this time becoming a member of
the Fourteenth ‘United States Infantry, serv-
ing as quartermaster-sergeant under Col.
Charles S. Lovell throughout his three-year
term of enlistment. He was next a member of
the Twelfth United States Infantry, and as
quartermaster-sergeant under O. B. Wilcox
traversed the frontier of Arizona and Califor-
At his own request he received his hon-
orable discharge from the service in May,
1874, and the same year came to Wilmington,
Los Angeles county, Cal., where in January,
7:52
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
1866, he had been stationed at the drum bar-
racks while serving in the Fourteenth In-
fantry.
For two years, from 1874 to 1876, Mr. Sav-
age was in the employ of the Wilmington
Transportation Company, engaged in packing
lumber, after which he was made foreman of
the plant, a position which he held for some
time. While in the employ of the latter com-
pany he carried on the study of law during his
spare moments, and later took up the study in
earnest under James G. Howard and H. A.
Bartley, both of Los Angeles. Admitted to the
bar in 1879, he at once began to practice in
Los Angeles, giving this office up the follow-
ing year to establish a practice in Tombstone,
Ariz. It was while there in 1883 that he was
made a member of the territorial legislature,
and in 1885 he was made district attorney of
Cochise county, Ariz. Returning to California
in 1887, the same year he came to San Pedro
and engaged in the practice of law, also having
an office in Los Angeles for about two years.
Entering at once into the business life of the
young and growing town he became a mem-
ber of the board of trustees, and in the capacity
of city attorney drew up all of the original
city ordinances. His election to the assembly
from the seventy-second district occurred in
IOO2, and in both houses he served as chair-
man of the committee on municipal corpora-
tions. Two years later he was the Republican
candidate for state senator from the thirty-
fourth senatorial district, his election following
in due time, thus winning a victory over his
opponent. His constituents have every reason
to feel proud of their selection as a representa-
tive in the government of the state, and in his
hands they feel that their interests will not
suffer for lack of attention.
In Westfield, Mass., Hon. W. H. Savage
was married to Miss Mary A. White, a native
of London, England, seven children resulting
from their marriage as follows: Nellie, now
Mrs. Martin ; Josephine; Kate, the wife of
John F. Dodson, of whom a sketch will be
found elsewhere; Margaret, the wife of J. F.
T)ewer : Clara, the wife of George Nicholson ;
Frances, and Robert, all of the children being
residents of San Pedro. In 1873 Mr. Savage
was made a \{ason in Inyo county, this state,
but has since had his membership transferred
to Wilmington and is still identified with the
lodge at that place, while he is a member of
the chapter at San Pedro. His fraternal con-
Inections also extend to the Benevolent Pro-
tective Order of Elks and the Ancient Order
of United Workmen, being a charter member
of the Wilmington lodge of the latter order,
which was organized a quarter of a century
ago, and of which he is a past Officer, and is
now grand master of the order in the state of
California. At present he holds the office of
grand foreman of the Ancient Order of United
Workmen of California. He is also a member
of Bartlett & Logan Post, G. A. R., of Los
Angeles, of which he has been commander Sev-
eral times, and is commander-in-chief of the
Army and Navy Republican League of Cali-
fornia, an organization which has a member-
ship of forty thousand. The Chamber of Com-
Imerce of San Pedro also profits by his mem-
bership, as do all organizations with which he
has to do, his careful and conservative judg-
ment having the same weight in the lesser as
in the heavier matters of state.
*-* *
WILLIAM J. WARNOCK. One of the best
known and most highly esteemed agriculturists
of Ramona valley is William J. Warnock, who
is distinguished both as a native-born Son and
as a representative of an honored pioneer family.
Spending his entire life in San Diego county,
his record as a man and a citizen is creditable
to himself and also to his good parents, who
reared him in the paths of industry and integrity,
instilling into his youthful mind those lessons
of truthfulness, honesty and justice that have
been his guiding principles from youth upward.
A son of the late Willian Warnock, he was
born, October 3, 1859, in San Diego, of Irish
ancestry.
Willian Warnock was born in County Cork,
Ireland, in 1826. Immigrating to America, he
settled first in Philadelphia, Pa., but in that city
found no congenial employment. In 1857, there-
fore, he came by water to California, locating in
San Diego, which was then in its pristine wild-
ness. At that time there were neither railways
nor wagon roads, all freight being packed across
the nountain trails on the backs of mules. He
was a hard working man, and, with his good
wife, passed bravely through all the privations
and trials incident to pioneer life. Clearing and
improving a ranch, he made a specialty of stock
and general produce, which he marketed in San
Diego, besides this carrying on a small dairy. He
was a man of much force of will, and was influ-
ential in public affairs. Politically he was a Dem-
Ocrat, and a member of the Catholic Church.
His death occurred in 1898, at the age of sev-
enty-two years. His wife, whose maiden name
was Ellen Derrig, was born in County Mayo,
Ireland, in 1830, and died in San Diego county
in 1807, aged sixty-seven years. Eight children
blessed their union, five of whom survive.
Educated in Los Angeles principally, William
J. Warnock attended school in all about five
years, a part of that time being spent at St. Vin-
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 75;
º
cent's College. Working with his father, he was
early initiated into the mysteries of general farm-
ing, becoming well acquainted with its many
branches. Profiting by the instruction received
from his father, he started in life for himself
as a farmer at the age of twenty-One years, set-
tling in Ramona valley, then called Santa Maria
valiey, and taking up a government claim of one
hundred and sixty acres. By sturdy, persevering
labor, he cleared and improved a fine ranch,
which he has since managed successfully, carry-
ing on general farming. In addition to raising
grain and fruit, the staple productions of this
locality, he has a large apiary, which yields him
a good annual income without an expensive out-
lay of either time or money.
In 1880 Mr. Warnock married Miriam
Knowles, who was born in Ohio. Although a
Republican in national politics, Mr. Warnock has
the courage of his convictions in local affairs,
voting independent of party relations. He takes
an intelligent interest in town and country, and
has rendered excellent service as school trustee,
and for eight years was constable.
JAMES A. FOSHAY. The services ren-
dered by Prof. James A. Foshay in an educa-
tional line in Los Angeles have been such as
to ineradicably associate his name with this
work, although he has recently resigned his
position as superintendent to enter upon the
responsible duties which are his as president
of the Fraternal Brotherhood. Since 1895 he
has served as superintendent of the schools in
the city of Los Angeles and with each passing
year has contributed more and more to their
improvement, his peculiar fitness for the work
serving to bring out the highest capabilities of
the teachers under his supervision. He is a
native of Cold Spring, N. Y., born November
25, 1856, a son of Andrew Jackson and Eme-
line (Griffin) Foshay. The father was born
January 21, 1830, on a farm in Kent, N. Y.,
where his parents, Lynes and Ruhannah
(Smalley) Foshay, spent their entire lives.
The professor's great-grandfather, John Fo-
shay, served in the Revolutionary war with
distinction, as did also the maternal great-
grandfather, John Smalley.
Reared to young manhood in his native
state, James A. Foshay received a preliminary
education in the district school in the vicinity
of his home, after which, in 1875, he entered
what is now known as the State Normal Col-
lege at Albany, N. Y., from which he was
graduated with honors. For the ensuing three
years he taught in the public schools, at the
close of that time being elected school commis-
sioner of Putnam county, N. Y. Re-elected to
the office, he combined with the discharge of
his duties those of secretary of the New York
State Association of School Commissioners
and Superintendents. He gave to each the at-
tention and characteristic energy which have
distinguished every phase of his career, and in
I885 was re-elected to that important trust.
Mr. Foshay came to California in 1887 and
located in Monrovia, Los Angeles county,
where he secured a position in the grammar
schools, and in the following July was elected
principal. A year later he was appointed a
member of the Board of Education of Los An-
geles county, and in 1891-92 served as presi-
dent. In all public capacities he gave evidence
of his unusual ability and also of the thorough-
ness of his work, gradually assuming a promi-
rience which called him to higher positions
than any he had yet filled. In 1893 he became
deputy superintendent of the schools of the
city of Los Angeles under Professor Brown,
and was re-elected the following year. In 1895
he was chosen Superintendent, entering upon
his important duties before reaching his thirty-
ninth birthday. The marked success of his
first eight years in California was but a pro-
phecy of his future career, for he has in every
way lived up to the promise of his young man-
hood. Eleven years have passed since he as-
sumed the responsibilities of this position and
each term has witnessed his resumption of the
duties incumbent upon him as superintendent,
and to his efforts are due the great progress
and development which have characterized the
public schools of this city. When he took
charge of the work there were only ten thou-
sand, one hundred forty-four pupils, while
there are to-day thirty-four thousand, seven
hundred and ninety-five; the school property
at that time was valued at $740,670 and to-day
at $2,67O,OOO.
The educational work of Dr. Foshay has
been far-reaching, its influence keenly felt
throughout Southern California, and indeed
thoroughly appreciated all over the state. In
I898 he attended the convention of the Nation-
al Educational Association (of which he was
second vice-president), and against considera–
ble opposition secured the next meeting in Los
Angeles, where the following year a most en-
tertaining and successful session was held. He
has proven an upbuilding factor in the South-
ern California Teachers' Association, having
served efficiently as president. He was also
elected a member of the California Council of
Education, the National Council of Education,
and a director of the Southern California Acad-
emy of Sciences. He has also taken an active
part in musical culture and literary societies.
He has made many addresses upon important
756
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
educational topics indicative of his mental at-
tude and thought, and these have proven a
source of study and development of inestimable
value to the teachers under him. The crown-
ing work of Dr. Foshay was his successful ad-
vocacy of the scheme of bonding the city in
I905 for $780,000 for the purpose of raising
funds to add to the public school buildings and
equipment; through some defect in the bonds
this matter was taken to the Supreme court
and in February, IQ06, was approved, when
the bonds sold for $7,000 premium. He also
labored zealously at this time to have the
building power transferred from the council to
the Board of Education, and succeeded in ac-
complishing this end. As advisor of the board
all plans for building and remodeling were
submitted to him for approval before being
carried out. Significant of the high esteem in
which Professor Foshay is held was the con-
ferring upon him of the degree of Doctor of
Pedagogy by his alma mater; this is a degree
that cannot be earned by the passing of exam-
inations, but is given to those only who have
distinguished themselves as educators.
Dr. Foshay’s prominence in fraternal circles
(being a Knight Templar Mason and hav-
ing served as eminent commander of Los
Angeles Commandery No. 9, and also as grand
master of the Grand Lodge of California) has
given him a wide acquaintance throughout the
state and the entire Pacific coast, as well as
the United States, and this was the means of
his being elected to the presidency of the Fra-
ternal Brotherhood at a large salary. Dr. Fo-
shay takes a broad interest in all questions of
the day and a personal stand that leaves no
room for doubt as to his convictions. In poli-
tics he endorses the principles advocated in the
platform of the Republican party and votes
that ticket, although in the smaller sense of
the word he is not a partisan. He is a mem-
ber and director of the University Club.
Dr. Foshay’s home, located at No. 1023
West Sixth street, is presided over by his wife,
formerly Miss Phebe Powell Miller, with
whom he was united in marriage March 18,
1885. She was born in Carmel, Putnam coun-
ty, N. Y., May 2, 1856. a daughter of John
Griffin and Phebe Powell (Carpenter) Miller,
both of whom were natives of Amawalk,
Westchester county, same state. Both Dr. Fo-
shay and his wife are members of the Baptist
church and are prominent in social circles.
A résumé of the salient points in the career
of Dr. Foshay bring out forcibly his natural
traits of character and the ability which is his
both through inheritance and years of study
and training. These have made it possible for
him to grasp the opportunity which his keen
perception recognized, and have brought to
him a thorough understanding of the situation.
The ability, tact and power of decision might
in themselves never have accomplished their
ends, to those who know him these seem but
subordinate qualities, for that which makes
them forceful is the sincerity of the man, his
honesty of purpose, and the fearless manhood
which has stood for the right against every ob-
stacle during the course of his splendid career.
EDWARD R. BRADLEY, M. D. A success-
ful career in his chosen field of labor is accorded
Dr. Bradley by all who know him, his position
being one of exceptional importance in the city
of Los Angeles, where his entire professional
life has been passed. He is a native son of the
state, his birth having occurred at Folsom, Sac-
ramento county, February 24, 1865, his father,
Cyrus H. Bradley, a native of Indiana, having
crossed the plains to California in the year 1852.
He was a man of exceptional ability from his
earliest venture in a business career, and although
much was required of a man in the pioneer
days of the state to warrant success, he easily
assumed and held a place of importance in com-
mercial affairs of Sacramento county. He en-
gaged in the grocery business in Folsom until
1867, when he went to Oakland and continued
in the same line of business until he came to
the city of Los Angeles and established the
business which is now known as the Los An-
geles Furniture Company. He met with suc-
cess both as to financial returns and the position
which he won as a citizen of worth and ability.
He is now retired from the active cares of life
and is enjoying the fruits of his early industry.
His wife, formerly Cordelia A. Rickey, is a
native of Iowa, in which state she was married
and shortly afterward crossed the plains with her
husband to found a new home among the un-
developed resources of the west.
The boyhood of Edward R. Bradley was
passed in the paternal home in Folsom, Oak-
land and Los Angeles, to which latter city the
family removed when he was only a lad in years.
He received a preliminary education in the public
schools of Los Angeles and easily mastered the
studies as they came to him in advancing grades,
graduating in 1885. He was an apt pupil and
eager for knowledge. Not desiring to follow
the commercial pursuits of his father, he early
decided upon a professional career, and accord-
ingly became a student in the medical department
of the University of Southern California, now un-
der the presidency of his intimate friend and
brother-in-law, Dr. George F. Bovard. Complet-
ing the course in 1888 he went at once to New
Yörk City and entered Bellevue Hospital, from
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
757
which he was graduated the following year with
high honors. He remained in the east for a time,
accepting the position of physician and Surgeon
of Bellevue Hospital, where he discharged his
duties efficiently. In 1890 he returned to Los
Angeles well equipped for the practice which he
has since built up, the devotion to his profession
bespeaking a successful career, while his person-
ality has won for him the confidence of all who
have had occasion to require his services. He
is a student in the truest sense of the word,
keeping well abreast of all advance in medicine
or surgery and taking an unflagging interest in
all matters pertaining to his profession, making
a speciality of the diseases of children. He is
a valued member of various medical societies,
among them the Los Angeles County Medical
Society, State Medical Society and the Ameri-
can Medical Association. For the last ten years
he has served as physician and surgeon of the
Los Angeles Orphans Home, and also in other
positions of importance. -
In October, 1893, Dr. Bradley was united in
marriage with Miss Virginia Burton William-
son a native of Iowa and a daughter of Charles
W. Williamson an old and honored resident
of this city, and born of this union is one child,
Gertrude Muriel.
ANDREW W. RYAN. In the vicinity of
Kilkenny, Ireland, Andrew W. Ryan was born
April 14, 1844, a son of Patrick, likewise a native
of that country. The elder man was reared to
manhood in Ireland, receiving a good common
school education. He married Mary Leahey and
in 1852 brought his wife and children to the
United States, after landing in New York City
going direct to Burlington, Iowa, where he con-
tinued to reside until his death. Shortly after his
arrival in that city he secured work as a con-
tractor in the construction of the roadbed for
what is now known as the Chicago, Burlington &
Quincy Railroad. Later he was connected with
many of the public works of Burlington and
through his efforts acquired a competency. The
death of his wife also occurred in their home in
that city. - -
Andrew W. Ryan was eight years old when
he accompanied his parents to his new home in
Burlington, in which city he attended the public
and high schools, and later entered Burlington
University. In 1860 he put aside his studies to
take up the practical duties of life, accepting a
place as clerk in a general store, where he re-
mained for about two years. The training thus
received was of incalculable benefit to him and
gave him a knowledge of the business world
which he found of practical use in the years that
followed. About this time Mr. Ryan with other
young men about his age (only one of the party
being over nineteen years old) decided to seek
their fortunes in the more remote west, and ac-
cordingly after having secured all necessary
equipments set out for the trip across the plains.
Their journey was made with mule teams and
without mishap to Virginia City and there it was
unanimously decided to stop and engage in min-
ing for a time. They were fairly successful and
acquired some means, with which they continued
their journey to California, making their way
on foot to Visalia, this state. There Mr. Ryan
purchased a horse and came on to Los Angeles,
the others of the party Scattering to various
parts of the state. -
Mr. Ryan's first work in this section of Cal-
ifornia was in the capacity of roustabout at Wil-
mington, where he continued until a friend se-
cured him employment as a driver for General
Banning, who was then occupied in freighting
to the mines of Mexico. With the means ac-
cumulated in the ensuing six months Mr. Ryan
purchased a farm in the vicinity of Downey at a
time when land was cheap, and engaged in the
raising of corn and hogs. Until 1867 he re-
mained in this Occupation and while conducting
his agricultural interests was elected to the of
fice of justice of the peace, which position he
retained for six years. With the passing years
he gradually assumed a place of importance in
the affairs of the community and as a stanch
adherent of the principles of the Democratic
party became an important factor in their ad-
vancement. In 1875 he was elected assessor of
Los Angeles county, and having in the mean-
time located in the city of Los Angeles, two
years later became a member of the city council
from the third ward. In September, 1884, he
entered the employ of the Los Angeles City
Water Company and remained with them for
eighteen years, when the plant was sold to the
city. Since that time he has been identified with
the State Bank and Trust Company as a director
and appraiser, at the present time (1906) hold-
ing the Office of vice-president, and is also a
valued member of the finance committee. For
a number of years he remained the owner of two
fine ranches in Los Angeles county, but later
disposed of them, being at the present time,
however, the possessor of considerable valuable
city and county property.
In 1864 Mr. Ryan was united in marriage
with Miss Amanda Johnson, a native of Texas,
but a resident of Los Angeles county since she
was three years old. Her father, Micajah
Johnson, was a pioneer who came to this county
in 1852. Six children were born of this union,
of whom three are now living, namely: William
A., at home; Annie, the wife of N. E. Wilson, a
merchant of Los Angeles; and Ida, wife of R.
7.58
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
R. Sutherland, manager of the Gregory. Dried
Fruit Company, at Colton, Cal. Such men as Mr.
Ryan increase materially the importance of a city
or state and add to its prosperity, for with others
he is named as a man who stands out prom-
inently as a financial factor in its growth and up-
building. The intelligence of such men cannot
fail to be a power for good in local affairs and
their keen intellectual faculties promote not only
their individual success, but that of their fellow
citizens as well. During his residence of Over
forty years in Southern California Mr. Ryan
has been identified with various enterprises and
has always contributed liberally of his means,
time and influence toward the building up and
maintenance of those interests that have made
this part of California what it is today. He is
unostentatious in his manner and never has de-
sired public prominence, satisfied that what he
has done will be a lasting remembrance to those
closely associated with him. In the evening of
his days he can look back upon a work well done,
and while he has retired from active business
life he still keeps in touch with current events.
At his home, No. 433 South Olive street, he ex-
tends a hearty welcome to his friends. He was
made a Mason in Los Angeles county in 1873
and raised to the Royal Arch degree in 1876.
D. WINSLOW HUNT, M. D. Prominent
among the leading physicians and Surgeons of
Southern California is D. Winslow Hunt, M. D.,
who has built up an extensive and remunerative
practice in Glendale, where he is now located. A
man of culture, possessing great business judg-
ment, tact and ability, he has been actively
identified with the higher interests of town and
county since coming here, and is widely and fa-
vorably known in professional, financial and so-
cial circles. A son of Nehemiah Asa Hunt, he
was born, June II, 1845, in Mason, Hillsboro
county, N. H., the descendant of an old, well-
established family. The immigrant ancestor of
that branch of the Hunt family to which he be-
longs came from England to this country in
1635, settling first in Concord, Mass., some of
his descendants subsequently becoming pioneers
of Hillsboro county, N. H. They were men of
stamina and brain, influential in local and na-
tional affairs, several members of the Hunt fam-
ily of New Hampshire serving in the Revolu-
tionary war. One of the members, Major Ed-
ward B. Hunt, was the first husband of Helen
Hunt Jackson, the noted authoress. The sur-
name, Hunt, originated many hundred years ago,
and was spelled Hunti, meaning, in Old Saxon,
wolf.
David Hunt, the doctor's grandfather, was a
life-long resident of the Granite state, and
among its rocks and hills was engaged in tilling
the soil, his farm being situated near Mason, Only
fifty miles from Boston. Five of his children,
three sons and two daughters, grew to years of
maturity. One of these, also named David
Hunt, remained on the old ancestral homestead,
which he converted into a dairy farm. The milk
produced on it he shipped to Boston, where he
received the highest market price. He built up
a substantial business in this industry, and be-
came wealthy for his time. •.
Brought up on the home farm, Nehemiah Asa
Hunt acquired his elementary education in the
common schools of Mason, and after preparatory
study at the academy in New Ipswich, N. H., he
entered Oberlin (Ohio) College, from which he
was graduated in theology and medicine. He
subsequently went to Illinois, and at the Jack-
sonville Medical College took a full course, in-
tending then to enter the missionary field in for-
eign countries, but to this his friends would not
consent. Settling then in southern Illinois, he
served for many years as home missionary in
Bond and Williamson counties, and likewise prac-
ticed medicine and surgery, being very success-
ful in both professions, and performing many
operations of a difficult nature. In many ways
he was a remarkable man, possessing high as-
pirations and lofty ideals. On retiring from ac-
tive pursuits he settled in Orange county, Cal.,
where he resided for some time, although he died
in Minnesota, his death occurring in 1900, at the
age of four score and four years. His body
was brought back to California, however, and
interred in the beautiful cemetery at Riverside,
beside that of his beloved wife, who preceded
him, passing away at the age of seventy-eight
years. Her maiden name was Clarissa A. Con-
rad. She bore him nine children, all of whom
received college educations, and besides these
children of their own they brought up two
adopted children, giving to them the same ten-
der care and love that they did their own.
The oldest child of the parental household, D.
Winslow Hunt, was educated in a private school
conducted by his father, then entered the med-
ical department of the University of Michigan,
from which he was graduated in 1871. Settling
as a physician in Fairmont, Minn., he remained
there several years, meeting with success in his
chosen career. In 1879 he took a course of lec-
tures under Dr. Holmes, of Rush Medical Col-
lege, on the eye and ear, making this a specialty.
In 1887 he came with his family to California,
and has since been a resident of this state, and
an active general practitioner. Active and in-
terested in his professional work, he is constant-
ly studying the newer methods known to the
medical world, and since his graduation has tak-
en two post-graduate courses in medicine and

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 761
Surgery. For two years he was located in Ana-
heim, Orange county, where he built up a good
practice, and also conducted a drug store, and
for two and one-half years, in order that his
children might attend Pomona College, he was
engaged in the practice of his profession at Po-
mona, Los Angeles county. Leaving here after
the death of his wife he returned east and took
a post-graduate course in the Post-Graduate
School of Physicians and Surgeons of Chicago,
then practiced two and one-half years in his
brother's office in Minnesota in his specialty.
Subsequently he returned to California and for
three years gave particular attention to his spec-
ialty in Redlands. In 1901 he settled in Glen-
dale, where he has built up an excellent patron-
age, and is known as one of the most influential
citizens. In the establishment of all improve-
ments he takes deep interest, and was one of the
first and most zealous workers in securing the
present high School building. He was largely
instrumental in getting the right of way for the
Electric Interurban Railway, being one of the
largest donators to the project, and serving as
president of the finance committee. The doctor
also assisted in organizing the Bank of Glendale,
of which he is vice-president, and one of the di-
Tectorate.
Dr. Hunt has been twice married. He mar-
ried first, Alice M. Skinner, a native of Illinois,
who died in Pomona, Cal., and the three chil-
dred that blessed their union, Mabel, Leigh and
Lois, are also deceased. He married for his sec-
ond wife Mrs. Susie Kaler, and they have one
child, a daughter named Dorothy. Politically
Dr. Hunt is a Republican in national affairs, but
in local matters votes without regard to party
lines, being true to the courage of his convic-
tions. Fraternally he is a Mason, and religious-
ly he belongs to the Episcopal church, in which
he has served as warden - for many years. He
is a member of the American Medical Associa-
tion, was a charter member of the Minnesota
State Medical Society, the Southern California
Medical Association and was president of the
Pomona Valley Medical Society. He also held
that position in the first United States Board of
Medical Examiners of Santa Ana, being ap-
pointed in 1871 in Martin county, Minn., and
holding his connection with the United States
Medical Examiners for over twenty years.
JOSEPH M. HOLDEN, M. D. A large and
constantly growing practice is the result of the
efforts of Dr. Joseph M. Holden, one of the suc-
cessful physicians of Long Beach, and one whose
work in the line of his profession has brought
him general commendation. He has been a resi-
dent of California since November, 1892, spend-
ing his first two years in San Francisco, thence
coming to Southern California for a few months,
and later returning to Sacramento for One year.
Following he located in Pasadena, where he
remained until the fall of 1899, and while a
resident of that place attended the medical de-
partment of the University of Southern Califor-
nia, from which he was graduated June 16, 1899,
with the degree of M. D. Locating at once in
Long Beach he was associated for a few months
with Dr. J. W. Wood, but from 1901 practiced
independently until August 1, 1906. Upon the
latter date he formed a partnership with A. C.
Sellery, Ph. B., M. D., a graduate of McGill
University, of Montreal, Canada, and they es-
tablished offices in the National Bank building
in Long Beach. -
Born in Accrington, Lancashire, England,
April 15, 1874, Dr. Holden was reared to the age
of five years in his native land, when he was
brought by his parents to the United States. His
father, James Holden, was a vocalist of some
note, but finally retired from his profession, his
home now being in Providence, R. I., where the
family located when first coming to this coun-
try. His wife, formerly Mary A. Newton, a
daughter of a prominent contractor of England
and granddaughter of the Rev. John Newton, a
clergyman of the Church of England, died in
California in 1902. Longevity is a characteristic
trait in both paternal and maternal families,
nearly all members attaining advanced years.
Joseph M. Holden received his preliminary ed-
ucation in the public schools of Rhode Island
and Massachusetts, but was unable to complete
the course on account of illness. Determining
at the age of fifteen years to make medicine his
study he thenceforth bent every effort to the ac-
complishment of his plans. After his location in
California this desire was consummated and he
at once began the practice of his profession. He
has met with success and is now numbered among
the prominent physicians of this section, being
a member of the Southern California Medical
Society, the Los Angeles County Medical Asso-
ciation, California State Medical Association and
American Medical Association. He was the orig-
inator and incorporator of the Long Beach
Hospital Association, which has a building of
sixty-five rooms. Dr. Holden was its first pres-
ident and is now one of its principal stock-
holders. He acts as examining physician for
eight of the old-line insurance companies, and
for the Woodmen of the World and Modern
Woodmen of America, in both of which he holds
membership. He also belongs to Long Beach
Lodge No. 327, F. & A. M.; Long Beach Lodge
N. 888 B. P. O. E.; Knights of Pythias, belong-
ing to the Uniform Rank; and Independent
Order of Odd Fellows. He is very prominent
43
762
EIISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
in fraternal circles and holds a high place in the
various organizations to which he belongs.
Dr. Holden was married in Long Beach to Lil-
lian A. Caswell, a native of Massachusetts, and
a woman of culture and refinement. He is iden-
tified with the growth and advancement of Long
Beach, in whose future he holds a firm belief
and has invested his means in various pieces of
property. He built the first house on American
avenue near the site of the high School, and is
now erecting a fine residence, which is in castle
architecture and very unique, at No. 915 Amer-
ican avenue; the entire building is of cement,
and contains eight large rooms and hall, two
stories in height. Dr. Holden is a stockholder
in the Odd Fellows’ Building Association and
takes an active interest in the development of
the city. He is a man of scholarly tastes and
has a select library, while his love for travel
has been gratified by three trips to England, the
land of his birth, and extensive tours throughout
the southern states. t
HENRY FULLER. Bryn Mawr is fortu-
nate in the possession of citizens whose efforts
to maintain and develop the best interests of the
place lie parallel with their efforts toward a
personal success, and prominent among such is
Henry Fuller, known, honored and esteemed
throughout this section of Southern California.
The characteristics which have distinguished his
career are an inheritance from an old eastern
family on the paternal side, and a New Eng-
land ancestry on the maternal side. He was born
in Peru, Clinton county, N. Y., January 6, 1846,
a son of James and Elmira (Mills) Fuller, both
natives of Vermont, the father dying in Peru,
N. Y., after a life spent in farming, and the moth-
er in Los Angeles, Cal. They were the parents
of three children, a daughter, Mrs. Nathan
Weaver, living in Peru, N. Y., where a son, Ed-
ward, died.
In the public schools of his native town Henry
Fuller was prepared for higher training, after
which he became a student in the Plattsburg
Academy. At the close of his schooldays he be-
gan farming for a livelihood, and on the IOth
of September, 1867, he married Miss Helen Day.
She was also a native of Peru, N. Y., and a
daughter of Edward and grand-daughter of
Rufus, both farmers of New York, where they
both passed away at advanced ages. The pater-
nal great-grandfather, Ezra, born in Connecti-
cut of English ancestry, served in the Revolu-
tionary war while his son, Rufus, was a patriot
in the war of 1812. The old Day homestead in
New York is still in the family. Edward Day
married Maria Sturtevant, a native of Westport,
N. Y., and a daughter of Elisha Sturtevant, of
Holland-Dutch descent, her mother being before
marriage Miss Wright, a daughter of the General
Wright of Revolutionary fame. Mrs. Day passed
away in Los Angeles, leaving a family of three
children, namely: Mrs. Stafford, of Los Angeles;
Charles E., a merchant of Los Angeles, who died
in 1902; and Helen, Mrs. Fuller, the eldest, who
was educated in the North Granville Seminary.
The year following their marriage Mr. and
Mrs. Fuller located in Vergennes; Vt., where
he engaged in a mercantile enterprise and also
the manufacture of excelsior. June 16, 1875,
they came to the Pacific coast and in Los An-
geles, Cal., Mr. Fuller established a wholesale
manufacturing business on Elmira street, manu-
facturing furniture, and was later located on
North Main street, then engaging in a retail
business at No. 313 South Main street. For
some years the firm had been known as Fuller
& Day, but at the time of the removal to South
Main street it was changed to Henry Fuller
& Co. In 1896 Mr. Fuller sold out this business
interest, and having in the meantime (1890)
made a trip to Redlands he purchased the proper-
ty which has since been made one of the most
beautiful homes in Southern California. It was
then wild, sage-brush land, with no promise of
such magnificent development, but in 1896 he
began its cultivation and improvement, erecting
a fine residence, barns and outbuildings, and finally
adding to the original purchase of twenty acres
a tract of fifty acres. This makes a seventy-
acre ranch, of which thirty acres are in navel
Oranges and forty acres in valencias, one of the
finest groves in Bryn Mawr, lying on a beauti-
ful slope of the foothills, and overlooking the
whole of San Bernardino valley.
The birth of four children blessed the marriage
of Mr. Fuller and his wife: Percy, an attorney-
at-law in San Francisco; Harry, connected with
the Fruit Dispatch Company of Columbus, Ohio,
where he resides; Leslie, a student in Pomona
College, class of 1907; and Charles, a student
in the same institution, class of 1910. Both Mr.
Fuller and his wife are members of the Methodist
Episcopal Church of Redlands, whose chârities
are liberally supported by both their means and
time. They are especially interested in foreign
missions, and are individually maintaining three
missionaries, one in Tokio, Japan, and two in
India, while their Sunday-school class supports
seven others in this noble work. Mr. Fuller
is an enterprising and progressive citizen and
takes an active and helpful interest in matters
of public import. He votes the Republican ticket
and gives his support to the principles he en-
dorses. He has made two trips around the world
and one to the Orient, the first being in 1902,
when with his son Leslie he circumnavigated the
globe: he made the trip to the Orient in 1905;
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
763
*
and in 1906 with his wife he went to England
and over the European continent, his wife re-
turning to the United States and he continuing
around the world and returning home by the
Pacific. He has written many interesting articles
on his journeyings especially as regards missions,
with which he is constantly in touch. The citi-
zenship of Mr. Fuller has been such as to win
for him a high place among the representative
men of Southern California, where he is held
in universal esteem both for his business acumen
and his personal qualities of character.
NELS OTTO TORSTENSON. After a con-
siderable experience in various occupations on
May 1, 1899, Mr. Torstenson accepted an appoint-
ment as ranger, from which May 5, 1902, he was
promoted to be chief of the rangers. In this
capacity he had the oversight of twenty-two men
and a district aggregating seven hundred and
fifty thousand acres, forming what is known as
the San Bernardino forest reserve. The duties
of the position obliged him to spend much of
his time on horseback and to inspect all points
on the mountains where it was possible for a
man to go; hence the Occupation was fatiguing,
yet such was his vitality and such his power of
endurance that he performed the work with ease
and unwearied alacrity. In September 1906,
he was appointed to investigate and report upon
the San Luis Obispo and Monterey forest re-
serves, accomplishing the work during October
and November. In December he was permanent-
ly transferred as ranger in charge of the Monte-
rey reserve and appointed supervisor of it and
the Pinacles reserve on December 31, 1907.
Early in life Mr. Torstenson was qualified
for forestry work through a course of training
in the government forest schools of Sweden,
where also he received an excellent education
in common and high schools. A native of the
southern district of Sweden, he was born at
Helsingborg near the sound, January 13, 1860,
his father, Olaf, having married Elna Mattison,
a native of that region, where they passed many
years and reared their children. At the age of
fifteen years Mr. Torstenson was confirmed in
the Lutheran Church. On starting out to earn
his livelihood he was employed by a prominent
business, man of the town, with whom he re-
mained for two years as private secretary, and
then clerked in a store for three years. During
the next eighteen months he studied in a college
of forestry, after which for five years he acted
as forester on private estates of Swedish gentle-
111611.
On coming to the United States and landing
in New York November 19, 1886, Mr. Torsten-
Son proceeded to Chicago and from there to
Iowa, where he worked on a farm forty miles
east of Sioux City. A year later he came to
California, arriving at San Diego on the day
before Christmas in 1887, and since then he has
resided in the state. After a brief experience
as a carpenter in San Diego, June of 1888 found
him engaged as an employe in a sawmill in the
San Jacinto mountains, where he remained for
two years. Next he went to San Francisco and
took up carpentering but soon left that city for
Duncan Mills, where he was employed at mill
work. Returning from there to San Francisco,
he shortly afterward met the foreman of the
Riverside Box and Tray Company and engaged
to accompany him to Riverside. For nearly
two years he worked in that company’s factory.
During 1891 he located a homestead on the
mountains, and in 1894 began to work as a
carpenter at Squirrel Inn, where he remained
until 1899, meanwhile building many of the most
attractive cottages at the resort. Eventually he
gave up carpentering in order to accept a position
on the forestry reserve, as previously mentioned.
Few men in the west are more thoroughly con-
versant with the forestry business than he, and
his judgment is sought in problems connected
with the care and preservation of the forests.
For some years after coming to California Mr.
Torstenson remained a bachelor, but October 22,
1898, he established domestic ties, being then
united with Dora M. Rasmussen, daughter of
Nels and Siveline Catherine (Benson) Rasmus-
sen; Mrs. Torstenson was born May 9, 1880, in
Kolding, Denmark, a short distance north of
the present German kingdom of Schleswig. Her
death occurred October 17, 1900, in their San
Bernardino home, since which time her only
child, Elna Dora (born July 26, 1899) has been
cared for in the home of Mrs. Hanson, at Sky-
land. The only fraternal organization to which
Mr. Torstenson belongs is the Masons, in which
he was initiated during his sojourn in Iowa, after-
ward transferring his membership to the blue
lodge at San Bernardino, and since coming to
the west he has risen to the Red Cross degree
in the Order.
T. V. DODD. Prominent among the intelli-
gent and progressive men who have been influ-
ential in advancing the educational interests of
San Diego county is T. V. Dodd, of Oceanside.
A pioneer resident of this place, he takes a gen-
uine interest in promoting its welfare, aiding its
growth in all possible ways, heartily endorsing
and supporting all beneficial projects.
A son of Thomas M. Dodd, he was born, Sep-
tember 28, 1842, in Cincinnati, Ohio, where his
earlier years were passed. His father was born
in Pennsylvania, but in early manhood settled as
764
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
a contractor and builder in Cincinnati, Ohio. He
married Adeline McSusan, who was born in
Cincinnati, Ohio., and also died there. The father
died at the advanced age of ninety years. They
had a large family, twelve children being born
of their union.
Brought up in Cincinnati, T. V. Dodd received
his early education in the city schools, after which
he attended the college at Moores Hill, Ind., and
the State Normal School at Terre Haute, that
state. Thus well prepared for a professional
career he taught school at Madison, Ind., meeting
with much success. Going then to Lawrence-
burg, Ind., he served as superintendent of schools
in that place for six years. Feeling then the
need of a change of residence and occupation, he
came to California in 1887, locating in Ocean-
side, which was then a mere hamlet, its present
prosperous condition then being scarcely dreamed
of. The first piece of land which Mr. Dodd
bought after coming here he sold, making some
money in the transaction. He subsequently pur-
chased his present home place, and in its im-
provement has spared neither time nor expense.
A fine horticulturist and florist, he engaged in
the nursury business for two years, and has at
the present time more than one thousand varieties
of plant life on his ranch, and one of the finest
botanical gardens to be found in Southern Cal-
ifornia. Again resuming his former occupa-
tion, Mr. Dodd was employed in teaching near
the old Mission for four years. He afterwards
taught two years in Oceanside, six years at Chul-
avista, two years at South Oceanside, and is
now engaged in his botanical work.
In 1869 Mr. Dodd married Catherine Cope,
who was born in Indiana, of English ancestry,
and they have one son, Rev. Arthur C. Dodd,
who is a post graduate of the divinity school in
San Mateo.
ROBERT HICKS. A half-mile west of El
Monte is located the ranch owned by Robert
Hicks, one of the enterprising citizens of the
community and a man of stanch integrity and
honor. He came to California on Christmas
day, 1886, in the vigor of young manhood, with
nothing but the qualities inherited from sturdy
and enterprising English and Scotch ancestry to
aid him in the pursuit of a livelihood. Locating
in El Monte within a few years he had accum-
ulated sufficient means to enable him to purchase
property, to which he has continued to add until
today he is one of the prosperous citizens of the
community. Mr. Hicks is a native of Franklin
county, Ark., born January 12, 1856, the eldest of
two sons and three daughters born to his parents,
Robert and Abigail (Bourland) Hicks. The
father was born in Preathitt county, Ky., a son
of Robert Hicks, who removed from Virginia to
Kentucky in the early days of its statehood and
engaged as a farmer until his death. In 1854
the younger Robert Hicks removed to Franklin
county, Ark., improved a farm from the timber
lands and died on the home place in 1882. Al-
though of southern birth and lineage he was a
stanch Union man and was made to suffer by the
secessionists in his locality; he served at Fort
Smith in the commissary department, while his
son Isaac was a teamster in the Union army. The
mother, who also died in Arkansas, was a native
of Alabama and a daughter of John Bourland,
a farmer and stockman of that state, who later
removed to Franklin county, Ark.
Robert Hicks was reared on the paternal farm
in Arkansas and educated in the public schools
after the close of the war, during which struggle
the family were harassed by the rebels, who at
one time attempted to frighten him into telling
where the provisions of the farm were secreted
by threats of hanging. He remained at home
until attaining his majority, after which he at-
tended White Oak Academy, of Franklin county,
to complete his academic course. Later he re-
ceived the appointment of deputy sheriff of
Franklin county under Dick Shores, and served
for one term. Coming to California in 1886 he
entered the employ of L. J. Rose, a ranchman in
the vicinity of El Monte located on a nine hun-
dred and seventy-six-acre tract and after twelve
months he became foreman, a position which he
held for nine years. He then resigned to en-
gage in farming for himself, purchasing fourteen
acres of the property he now owns, continuing
to add to it until he now owns thirty acres in
this piece, located on the Los Angeles and San
Bernardino road, all in walnuts, and bringing
him good financial returns each year.
In Ozark, Ark., February 12, 1891, Mr. Hicks
married Miss Serena Jeffers, who was born there
the daughter of Daniel Jeffers. The ancestors of
the Jeffers family were early settlers in Virginia.
where the name flourished for generations. Dan-
iel Jeffers was a native of Kentucky and an early
settler in Arkansas. Both before and after the
war he engaged as a farmer and merchant, but
is now living retired in Franklin county, re-
taining his health and faculties at the age of
seventy-two years. In Masonic circles he is prom-
ment and in religion is a member of the Meth-
odist Episcopal Church. He married Martha
Stanley, who was born in Virginia, a daughter
of Solomon Stanlev, who died in that state many
years ago. Mrs. Jeffers still survives. She be-
came the mother of eleven children, of whom ten
are now living, Mrs. Hicks being the second in
order of birth and the only one in California.
She was educated in White Oak Academy, in
|Franklin county, and after her marriage came to


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 767
California with her husband. They became the
parents of four children, namely: Harry, Stan-
ley, Raymond, who died at the age of three years
and four months, and Mildred.
Mr. Hicks is independent in his views on poli-
tics, reserving the right to cast his ballot for
the man whom he considers best qualified for
official service. He is a strong temperance man,
and stands for law, and order at all times. He
is now serving as deputy sheriff under Mr. White
while he served as trustee of the Savannah School
for one term. Both himself and wife are mem-
bers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in which
he Officiates as elder, trustee and Steward.
HENRY W. MILLS, M. R. C. S. & L.
R. C. P., ILondon. The civilization of the
twentieth century places first-class hospital
service among the necessities of all progres-
sive cities. No era has devoted as much at-
tention to the scientific and sanitary care of
the sick as has the present age, and in this
respect Southern California has not proved
remiss in duty, for her hospitals rank with
the finest in the United States. Marlborough
hospital, which was established at San Ber-
nardino in January, 1904, by Dr. Mills, for-
merly of England, is one of the recent addi-
tion to the hospital equipment of the State,
but already holds a position among the most
popular and efficient. On the corner of
Fourth and F streets stands the building which
has been fitted up for a hospital, with per-
fect ventilation, sanitary appointments, Sub-
stantial furnishings and large rooms equipped
with everything necessary for the purpose in-
tended. Every facility has been supplied for
the most intricate and important Surgical Op-
erations, and treatment by asepticism is strict-
ly followed.
Dr. Mills is a native of England, his birth
having occurred in Herefordshire in 1872;
in King Edward VI grammar school he pre-
pared for higher training and later availed
himself of excellent classical advantages. Hav-
ing early resolved to follow the medical pro-
fession he took a complete course in the Roy-
al College of Physicians and Surgeons of
London, graduating therefrom in 1895, and
having bestowed upon him by his alma mater
the titles of M. R. C. S. and L. R. C. P., of
England. After having completed his studies
in college Dr. Mills practiced in Gloucester-
shire in the vicinity of his early home, and
there he gradually established an important
clientele, rising to a position of local promi-
nence as a skilled practitioner, successful diag-
nostician and especially as a first-class ab-
dominal surgeon. For eight years he re-
mained in the same location, but at the expira-
tion of that period reports concerning the
climate of California led him to seek a home
on the Pacific coast, a decision which his pres-
ent success leaves him no reason to regret.
Since his removal to the new world he has
given his attention so closely to professional
labors that he has had no leisure for participa-
tion in public affairs and fraternal organiza-
tions. However, he is keenly alive to the im-
portance of promoting measures for the gen-
eral welfare and in devotion to his adopted
country he is unsurpassed by none. Move-
ments for the development of local resources
receive his support and no duty devolving up-
On a public-spirited citizen is neglected ; yet
it is as a physician and more especially as a
Surgeon that he is best known and most hon-
ored in Southern California.
Dr. Mills has a large general practice and
in the Anderson building has a suite of rooms
simply yet elegantly furnished. Here he has
his office and during office hours attends to
the professional needs of his patients. Much
of his time, however, is devoted to the Marl-
borough hospital, where he is the dominant
factor in the maintenance of the reputation
which is already attached to this institution,
the success he has achieved placing him in the
foremost rank of physicians and surgeons of
Southern California and indeed of the entire
state. He is identified with several medical
Societies, among them San Bernardino Medi-
cal Society, and the American Medical Asso-
ciation. Dr. Mills also holds the chair of
genito-urinary and venereal diseases in the
College of Physicians and Surgeons of Los
Angeles, and has an office in the Delta build-
ing in that city. Personally the doctor is a
man of winning characteristics, genial and
kindly in disposition, and hospitable to all
who meet him, and by the force of his man-
hood, his sterling integrity and conscientious
discharge of duty he has won a high position
among the representative citizens of South-
ern California.
JAMES McGREGOR FRASER. Widely
known as a prosperous agriculturist of Ramona,
James McG. Fraser has been very successful
1n the work to which he has devoted his time
and attention for thirty or more years, his home
ranch comparing favorably in size, location, fer-
tility and productiveness, with any in the vicinity.
Honest, industrious and capable, he is numbered
among the citizens of good repute and high stand-
ing in the community, and as a man of integ-
rity is held in high respect. He was born, July
2O, 1832, in Nova Scotia, where he obtained a
768
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
practical common school education. His father,
John Fraser, a life-long farmer, spent his sixty-
four years of life in Nova Scotia, there marry-
ing Margaret Fraser, who survived him, dying
at the age of seventy-three years. Eight children
were born of their union, two of whom are living,
namely: James McG., the subject of this sketch,
and Kate Wagner, a resident of Nova Scotia.
The parents were true Christian people, and ac-
tive members of the Presbyterian Church.
On leaving school James McG. Fraser learned
the mason's trade, which he subsequently follow-
ed in his native town for two years. Immigrating
to Massachusetts in 1856, he worked as a plas-
terer in Boston for a few years. Migrating to
California in 1860, he lived for two years in San
Francisco, and the ensuing six years was suc-
cessfully engaged in mining in Oregon, Idaho,
and Montana. Subsequently, after spending an-
other year in San Francisco, he followed his trade
in San Diego for a number of years. In 1874
he located on his present, ranch, which he pur-
chased from the government as a homestead
claim, and on its three hundred and twenty acres
of land has since been busily and successfully
engaged in general farming and stock raising.
In 1877 Mr. Fraser married Emily Aldrich, a
native of Michigan, but a resident of California
since 1874, and one of the pioneer teachers of
San Diego county, being the first teacher in Fall-
brook. They have two children, namely: Guy,
residing in Berkeley, Cal., and Ella Harriett, a
teacher at Spring Hill. Politically Mr. Fraser
stanchly supports the principles of the Republi-
can party. In religious belief he is true to the
doctrine in which he was trained, being a Pres-
byterian, while Mrs. Fraser is a member of the
Methodist Episcopal Church. -
BAKER PERKINS LEE. The Rey
Mr. Lee, who is at present rector of
Christ Episcopal Church, Los Angeles, is
considered one of the most brilliant or-
ators in the church. He is young, elo-
quent, enthusiastic, fearless and liberal. These
qualities have endeared him to the great body
of the church, and those outside of it who care
nothing for litanies and prayer books and have
no reverence for amice and stole, but to whose
hearts geniality and nobility are a passport and
liberality of thought and opinion a sign of in-
vitation and a symbol of fellowship. Gifted by
nature with unusual powers of personal magnet-
ism and by grace with a heart regenerated from
“malice, hatred and all uncharitableness” he has
shown how closely affiliated may be the pulpit
and the pew ; how the Christian may be in the
world and not of it. Faces rarely before seen
inside of a church building look into his with
3.
rapt attention while he tells the “old, old story.’
Men whose boast it is that they needed not the
Divine help have forgotten their avowed skepti-
cism in appreciation of a brother man who showed
them the sweetness of religious faith without the
fetters of religious dogma. Young men whose
wont it was to avoid “the cloth” find in the warm-
hearted preacher the cameraderie of good fellow-
ship and ardent, impulsive affection. Many a
mother has gone to this lover of mankind and
asked him to quietly seek out her wayward boy, to
reclaim him from evil haunts and habits, for his
Special work and influence has been among men,
and he is known as a man’s preacher. In his
sermons he uses no manuscript, but with rapid,
clear delivery and characteristic force presents
One exquisite picture after another with mar-
velously vivid and ornate word painting.
As the name would suggest the Lees are of
Southern Origin, and were among the earliest set-
tlers in Virginia, being direct descendants of
Richard Henry Lee. Through Francis Lee, the
great-grandfather, the line continues through
William Lee to Baker P. Lee, Sr., also a native of
Virginia, whose father owned large estates which
had been in the family for several generations.
His wife was Mary Esther Simpkins. Baker P.
Lee, Jr., was born in Hampton in 1869. He was
provided with exceptional advantages for an ed-
ucation, entering as a student in the State Mili-
tary Academy at Staunton and later the Virginia
Military Institute, which is recognized as the
West Point of the South.
Following his graduation therefrom in 1892
he taught for one year in the Danville Military
Institute, at the expiration of which time he was
to join his father, Judge Baker P. Lee, a noted
politician and lawyer, in his office, as he had been
educated and intended for the law, but it was at
this juncture his thoughts and attentions were
turned towards preparation for the ministry, his
entrance in the Episcopal Theological Seminary
at Alexandria, Va., following. After a course of
three years in this institution he was ordained a
minister in June, 1896, and in August of the
same year was united in marriage to Miss Lulu
Lee Skinner, of Danville, Va., a daughter of The-
Odore Clay Skinner, a representative of one of
the prominent old families of that state. The fol-
lowing children were born to the marriage of
Mr. and Mrs. Lee, Baker P., Jr., Theodore Skin-
ner, Lionel Randolph (deceased), Lulu Cortlandt
(deceased), Alicia Ludwell and Richard Henry.
Mr. Lee's first charge was in Farmville,
Prince Edward county, Va., having four congre-
gations under his care, and as these were quite
scattered his labors were much more fatiguing
as a consequence. It was the rule rather than
the exception that he conducted three services
each Sunday during this time. Leaving Farm-

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
771
ville he accepted a charge at Columbia, Tenn.,
leaving there two and a half years later to be-
come dean of the Cathedral at Lexington. It was
while filling the latter charge that he was called
to Grace Church, Chicago, Ill., which is con-
ceded to be the largest congregation of the
Episcopal faith west of the Allegheny mountains.
A very successful pastorate in the diocese of
Lexington was brought to a close by his call to
and acceptance of the charge of Christ Church,
Los Angeles, which responsible position he has
filled from May 1, 1905, up to the present time.
Since locating in Los Angeles Mr. Lee has
exerted a wide influence for good in the religious
as well as secular circles. The following is taken
from the official organ of the church. “The
growth of this church since the present rector
has been here almost surpasses belief. The
members of the church have some vague ideas
concerning the growth and activities of the par-
ish, but comparatively few realize what has ac-
tually been accomplished. It seems incredible
that one man could do what the rector has done.
“When he came to this church there were a
little more than six hundred members. In the
last year the membership has increased to more
than twelve hundred. This is the first time in the
history of the Episcopal Church that a parish of
any size has doubled its membership in one year.
Christ Church is now the largest Episcopal
Church west of Chicago, nearly all of which
is due to the energy and foresight of one man,
who saw the glorious possibilities that lay before
the parish, and knew how to direct and guide our
movements so as to obtain the best results.
“In exterior the church stands without a peer
in architectural design and beauty, it being con-
structed of stone. The interior arrangements are
of the latest design, appropriateness and harmony
being noticeable even in the smallest details. The
acoustic properties have received special atten-
tion, resulting in an arrangement by which it is
possible for the speaker to be distinctly heard in
the most remote part of the building without
undue effort on the part of either speaker or
hearer. Christ Church claims the distinction of
having the only telephone system in the United
States by means of which those of the congrega-
tion who are unable to attend the services may
receive every word of the service in their homes.
This is a unique plan and one which is original
with the present rector, who had it installed after
he assumed charge of the congregation. The
music is furnished by a vested choir of seventy
voices.
“The rector takes a special interest in the
children and young people of his congregation,
for he realizes that on their spiritual training
depends the future of the church in particular.
and the well being of the nation in general. With
this idea in mind he has made a special effort
to make the Sunday school attractive and thus
hold the interest and keep up the attendance
of the pupils. His inauguration of a military
system in the work of the school has had the
desired effect, a plan which appeals to children
from the fact that each has a part to perform and
each one takes a personal pride and interest in
the success of the whole. There is a physical
culture class for girls, two cadet Corps for boys
and a vested choir for the Sunday school of over
fifty trained children's voices which furnish music
for the Sunday school and the children's serv-
ice held once a month in the church.
“Important missionary work is being done by
competent laymen under the direction of Mr.
Lee, but the work nearest the rector's heart is the
Men's Church Club. Plans for the erection of a
handsome club house in the Westmoreland tract,
are now under way, the estimated cost of the
building to be between $25,000 and $27,000. Here
with every modern convenience and comfort,
legitimate and healthful pleasure may be enjoyed
under refining influences in this church home,
where friend holds fellowship with friend.”
GEORGE D. ROWAN was born in Corfu,
N. Y., in 1844. He was reared in Batavia, N.
Y., where his father, James Rowan, was en-
gaged in mercantile pursuits. At the age of
twenty he went into business in partnership
with his brother-in-law, E. B. Millar, at Lan-
sing, Mich., where they conducted a wholesale
grocery.
In 1873 Mr. Rowan married Miss Fannie
Arnold, a native of Sand Lake, Rensselaer
county, N. Y., where her father, George Ar-
nold, was engaged as a woolen manufacturer.
A few years later the firm of E. B. Millar &
Co. moved to Chicago, where they are still one
of the largest concerns of the kind in that city.
The city interests were looked after by Mr.
Millar while Mr. Rowan went to the Orient,
and in Yokahoma made his home for a little
over a year. *
In 1876, owing to his health, Mr. Rowan
came to Los Angeles and opened a grocery
store on North Main street, which he conduct-
ed until 1884. He then moved to San Francis-
co, and for a short time was engaged as a com-
mission merchant with the firm known as Jen-
nings & Rowan. In 1885 he returned to Los
Angeles, and, went into the real estate busi-
ness, which he conducted until 1888, during
which time he became associated with Col. J.
B. Lankershim and O. H. Churchill in a num-
ber of transactions. In 1889 he retired from
active business and became a resident of Pasa-
dena. In 1893 the partnership with Col. J. B.
772
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Lankershim was dissolved. In 1898 Mr. Row-
an returned to Los Angeles, where he made
his home until his death, which occurred Sep-
tember 7, 1902.
Politically Mr. Rowan was an adherent of
Republican principles. He also was one of the
early members of the Chamber of Commerce.
He left a family of eight children, Robert A.,
Fred S., Earl Bruce, Paul, Philip D., Benja-
min, Fannie F. and Flossie, all of whom are
now living.
ROBERT A. ROWAN was born in Chi-
cago, August 27, 1876. At the age of three
months he came to Los Angeles with his par-
ents, and his education was received in the
public schools of Los Angeles and Pasadena.
His first business experience was in New
York City, where for about a year he was em-
ployed by the firm of Ward & Huntington, ex-
porters of hardware to South America.
In 1897 Mr. Rowan went into the real estate
business, and in 1905 the business was reor-
ganized and incorporated under the name of
R. A. Rowan & Co., real estate brokers, with
R. A. Rowan as president, F. S. Rowan Secre-
tary and P. D. Rowan treasurer, with offices
on the second floor of the Herman W. Hell-
man building. In partnership with A. C. Bil-
icke, the Hotel Alexandria was built during
the years 1905-1906. -
Mr. Rowan was married February 28, 1903,
to Miss Laura Schwarz, of Los Angeles, a
daughter of Louis and Lena Schwarz.
JOHN THOMAS WILSON. A man of en-
ergy and ability, practical and progressive, John
Thomas Wilson, of Fernando, has been identi-
fied with the leading interests of this part of the
county for many years. He has been active in
assisting the development of its agricultural re-
sources, and is now carrying on a substantial
business as a dealer in real estate, in this ca-
pacity bringing to the notice of investors and
rural home seekers its many superior advantages
as a place of residence. A man of Sterling qual-
ities and recognized worth, he has gained a high
standing in the community as a citizen, the es-
teem of a wide circle of friends and the respect of
all with whom he has come in contact. He was
born, January 10, 1861, in Meadville, Pa., a son
of C. M. Wilson, and grandson of John North
Wilson, who was born in Ireland, immigrated to
the United States, and settled in Zanesville, Ohio.
A native of Ohio, C. M. Wilson was fitted for
the legal profession, and after his admission to
the bar began the practice of law at Meadville,
Pa. Establishing an excellent reputation for skill
and ability, he became influential in public life,
and for a time was connected with the United
States Treasury department at Washington, D.
C. Coming with his family to California in 1871,
he located in Los Angeles, then a small city, with
but fifteen thousand inhabitants, and there con-
tinued his law practice, becoming well known
as an attorney, and now, at the age of seventy-
six years, is an honored and respected citizen
of that place. He married Jane Estep, who was
born in Pennsylvania, near Pittsburg, and died
in Fernando, Cal. Six children were born of
their union, and four are living, John T., the
special subject of this sketch, being the third
child in order of birth.
But ten years of age when he came with his
parents to Los Angeles, John T. Wilson continued
his studies in that city, attending first a private
institution and then the public schools. After
spending a few years in his father's law Office he
turned his attention to agriculture, for four years
being engaged in general farming in Los Angeles
county. Locating in Fernando in 1882, he ac-
cepted a position as superintendent of the Ex
Mission Ranch, and in the management of its
twenty thousand acres of land was very success-
ful, making the hitherto wild and barren soil
yield abundantly of the grains and fruits com-
mon to this locality. He developed water for
irrigating purposes, assisted in organizing the Ex
Mission Water Company, becoming one of its
directors; set out one hundred and seventy-five
acres to oranges, ten acres to lemons; divided
the ranch into different posts; and in the
carrying on of the vast estate employed many
Imen and kept at least one hundred and fifty head
of horses in constant use.
Resigning his position in 1899, Mr. Wilson
leased a part of the ranch, and for three years
carried on general farming on his own account,
in the work meeting with great success. Taking
up his residence in Fernando in 1902, he has
since established an extensive and lucrative busi-
ness as a real-estate and insurance agent, becom-
ing widely known and much liked. In 1905 he
was appointed superintendent of the old ranch
by the Fernando Mission Land Company, and
on its sixteen thousand acres is making excellent
improvements, one of the most valuable being
the developing of more water for irrigation. As
an agriculturist and horticulturist he shows
marked ability and wisdom, his ventures in that
line meeting with most satisfactory results.
In Fernando, Cal., Mr. Wilson married Grace
Lopez, a native daughter, and they have two chil-
dren, John and Rowland. Politically Mr. Wil-
son is a Democrat, active in party ranks, and a
member of the Democratic central committee.
He takes great interest in the promotion of edu-
cational facilities, and for many years has served


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
775
as School trustee. He assisted in organizing the
high School district, and is now one of the high
School trustees. In 1902 he was the Democratic
nominee for sheriff of Los Angeles county, which
is a Republican stronghold, with a majority of
eleven thousand, and was defeated by twenty-
eight hundred votes, only, an incident showing
his popularity with both parties. Fraternally he
is a member and past grand of Fernando Lodge
No. 365, I. O. O. F. He is one of the leading
business men of the city, and is now serving as
president of the Fernando Board of Trade, which
was organized largely through his active efforts.
LOUIS ROEDER. The citizens of Los
Angeles whom Destiny has attracted hither
during the recent era of remarkable develop-
ment cannot form an adequate conception of
the environment under which the pioneers
were thrown. Spanish supremacy was at an
end, but American enterprise had not yet be-
come interested in the sleepy little hamlet and
to a man whose habits of observation were
merely superficial the possibilities of the place
seemed meagre and limited. Among the home-
seekers arriving here during the '50s, few re-
main to the present day, and one of the few
is Louis Roeder, who came to Southern Cali-
fornia during the latter part of 1856, only a
few years after he had left his native land, to
carve out a fruitful future in the undeveloped
regions of the new world.
On the farm in Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany,
where he was born January 28, 1832, Louis
Roeder passed the uneventful years of early
youth, and aided his father, Nicolaus, in the
care of the land. He also learned the trade
of wagon maker, at which he served a full
apprenticeship, between fourteen and nineteen
years of age. At the expiration of his time he
decided to settle in the United States and at
Once left the old home to make a livelihood
:1pon the shores of an unknown world. On the
2nd of July, 1851, he landed in New York City,
joining an uncle and soon securing work at his
trade. In the spring of 1856 he took passage on
the steamer Jonathan to Nicaragua, and, land-
ing there, was obliged to wait for three days
before it was possible to continue the journey
to California. May 10, 1856, he landed in the
harbor of the Golden Gate. Work was scarce
in San Francisco. Many men were vainly
seeking for ermployment. While he sought
work he not only had to pay his own board,
lout did the same for a friend, a cabinet-maker,
destitute and out of employment. After a time
he was hired for $28 a month and board, and
continued in the same position for six months,
meanwhile saving his earnings in order to se-
cure the amount necessary to defray his ex-
penses to the southern part of the state. The
steamer from which he debarked at San Pedro
on the 28th of December, 1856, brought the
news of the election of James Buchanan as
president of the United States, and it was thus
Mr. Roeder's privilege to witness the celebra-
tion of an election in true western style. In
Los Angeles he secured employment with the
Only wagon-maker in the town, the owner of
a small shop on Los Angeles street, between
Commercial and Laguna streets. While still
filling this position he made his first invest-
ment in city property, for he had abundant
faith in the future of the place and felt no hesi-
tancy in investing his earnings in real estate.
Buying a lot with sixty-foot frontage on Main
street for $700, he built a shanty of primitive
architecture anti meagre dimensions, and this
he rented, at the same time rooming there.
After having worked as a salaried employe
for a considerable period, Mr. Roeder felt jus-
tified in embarking in business for himself.
Accordingly, in 1863, he rented a site on the
corner of Main and First streets, and in 1865
formed a partnership with Louis Lichtenber-
ger in the wagon-making business, the part-
mers in 1866 purchasing a lot at No. 128 South
Main street and erecting a small shop. Three
years later a two-story wagon shop was erect-
ed at the northwest corner of Second and Main
Street, and this was also utilized as a black-
Smith shop. After a partnership of five years,
Mr. Roeder sold his interest to his partner for
$13,000 cash. Shortly afterward he erected a
building opposite the site of the German Bank,
on the corner of Main and First streets. His
next step was a trip to San Francisco, where he
invested $9,000 in tools and stock, and return-
ing embarked in business on a large scale. Dur-
ing the five years of his connection with the
business at that point he became the owner of a
lot, 15OxIOO feet, on the corner of First and
Spring streets, where now he owns, a two-
story building. After a long and arduous busi-
ness career in 1885 he sold out his equipment
and retired from the wagon-manufacturing
business.
Some years after coming to Los Angeles
Mr. Roeder established domestic ties. During
May of 1863 he was united with Miss Wil-
helmina Hoth, who was born in New York
and in 1856 came to San Francisco, thence ac-
companying her father to Los Angeles in
1861. Six children were born to the union of
Mr. and Mrs. Roeder, namely: Henry, who is
engaged in business in Los Angeles as a dec-
orator and paper hanger: Elizabeth, wife of
Charles Dodge of Ocean Park: Carrie, Mrs.
Frank Johansen, of Los Angeles; Minnie, Mrs.
776
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
John Joughin ; Anna C., at home; and Louis
Jr., who is manager of a drug store in Los An-
geles.
No. II37 West Lake avenue and are surround-
ed by the comforts rendered possible by Mr.
Roeder's long and active business life. As early
as I858 he became connected with Lodge
No. 35, I. O. O. F., in Los Angeles, and he is
also a member of the Turn-Verein. Since be-
coming a citizen of the United States he has
voted both the Democratic and Republican
tickets and maintained a warm interest in the
welfare of his adopted country and the pro-
mulgation of its principles, but always de-
clined office, with the exception of a service of
four years in the city council during an early
period in the city’s history. During his service
the franchise was granted to the Los Angeles
City Water Company, an important movement
in the development of the city, although it was
many years before there was anything like an
adequate supply of this much-needed commod-
ity. Though his life has been one of great ac-
tivity and though he has now reached an age
and position when retirement and total release
from business cares would be expected, such
is his temperament we find him still lingering
in the commercial and civic activities of his
municipality, still keeping in touch with every
phase of local progress, and still lending his
generous assistance to movements for the pub-
lic welfare. -
REV. JOHN MUNRO, L.L. D. This es-
teemed clergyman, pastor of the First Presby-
terian Church of Fernando, is a man of educa-
tion and culture, and bears fitly and well the name
of Christian. He is a deep thinker, an eloquent
preacher, and as broad and liberal in his spirit
as he is sincere and devout in his convictions. A
native of Canada, he was born, November 2,
1874, in the province of Ontario, where he grew
to man's estate. On leaving the public schools
he continued his studies at Queen's College, in
Kingston, Ontario, subsequently taking his theo-
logical course at Manitoba University, in Winni-
peg, from which he was graduated in 1898.
For a year after his graduation Dr. Munro
was located in British Columbia, serving under
the Home Missionary Board. The ensuing three
years he had charge of the Knox Presbyterian
Church at Trail, where he performed meritorious
work in the Master's vineyard. Coming then
to California, the doctor became assistant pastor
of the Olivet Congregational Church in Los
Angeles, remaining there a year. In 1902 he ac-
cepted his present call to Fernando, and has
had a most successful pastorate. Under his ad-
ministration the society has prospered in all of
The family have a pleasant home at
its departments, great interest has been aroused,
and the church edifice, in consequence, has been
remodeled inside and out, and a fine parsonage
has been erected. The membership of church
and Society has been largely increased, and
throughout the community the influence of the
pastor is felt and appreciated.
In 1902 Dr. Munro married Ella Heinzeman,
who was born, reared and educated in California,
and they have one child, a daughter, whom they
have named Antoinette. Politically the doctor is
a Republican. Fraternally he was made a Mason
in British Columbia, and is now a member and
past worthy master of Fernando Lodge No. 343,
F. & A. M., a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite
Mason, and he is also a member and past noble
grand of Fernando Lodge No. 365, I. O. O. F.
GEORGE D. BARRON. As superintendent
of the Lynwood dairy, Compton, George D. Bar-
ron is widely and favorably known throughout
a large territory. A man of push and energy,
possessing business ability, tact and judgment,
he has met with good success as manager of one
of the largest concerns of the kind in Los An-
geles county, giving satisfaction to his employer
and being popular with his patrons. A native
of Illinois, he was born October 2, 1845, in Mc-
Henry county, a son of Francis Barron.
Born and brought up in Canada, Francis
Barron migrated to the United States in early
manhood settling in McHenry county, Ill., on
a farm. In 1850 he came to California on a
prospecting tour, and for four years was here
employed in mining. Going home to his family
in 1854, he carried on general farming in Illi-
nois for eight years. Then, in 1862, he came
again to the coast, bringing his family and locat-
ing in San Joaquin county. Nine years later
he located in Ventura county, making his home
there until 1883, that year coming to Los An-
geles county, where his death occurred at the
advanced age of eighty-six years. His wife,
whose maiden name was Emily Perry, was born
in Canada, and died in Los Angeles at the age
of seventy-nine years. Both she and her husband
came from families noted for their longevity,
many of them living far beyond the allotted
three score years and ten of man’s life. Of the
six children born of their union, five are living,
one daughter, the eldest of the family, having
passed away at the age of seventy-one years.
Sixteen years old when he came with his
parents to California, George D. Barron assisted
his father in improving a good ranch, remain-
ing at home until 1869. The following four-
teen years he was engaged in ranching and dairy-
ing in Ventura county. Coming from there to
Los Angeles county in 1883, he engaged in ranch-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
777
ing and dairy business from that year until 1899,
when he accepted his present responsible position
with Mr. Sessions, of Los Angeles, proprietor
of the Lynwood diary. Under Mr. Barron's
able management during the past six years the
business has been greatly extended and the pat-
romage largely increased.
Mr. Barron has been twice married, his first
marriage uniting him with Phebe Woods, a
native of Illinois, who at her death a few years
later left one child, Clare M. Mr. Barron mar-
ried for his second wife Hannah Smith, also a
native of Illinois, and five children have been born
of this marriage, namely; Eva L.; Elmer LeRoy,
Grace Edith, Alda Viola and Bertha J. Politi-
cally Mr. Barron is an uncomprising Republican,
and for four seasons served acceptably as deputy
assessor of Los Angeles county. He is a believer
in the creed of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
which he and his family attend.
RICHARD HARRISON GARLAND, one of
the first settlers of the colony which formed the
nucleus for the city of Redlands, was born in
Zanesville, Ohio, July 22, 1842. He was a son of
Andrew Garland, a stonemason by trade, who
Superintended the building of Fort Sumter,
which his son helped to retake during the Civil
war after it had fallen into the hands of the
Confederates. The elder, man removed to Ohio
and in Mount Vernon engaged extensively in
Stock-raising and general farming until his death,
which occurred in 1873. Richard H. Garland
was reared in Ohio and at the breaking out of
the Civil war enlisted in Company A, Sixty-fifth
Ohio Infantry, and participated in the battles
of Shiloh, Corinth, Perrysville, Stone River,
Chickamauga, LOOkout Mountain, Missionary
Ridge; at the last named battle his brigade cap-
tured the battery in front of Bragg's headquarters
and turned a part of it upon the enemy. Short-
ly afterward Mr. Garland was assigned to the
eastern army and acted as quartermaster until
the close of the war, having been disabled some
time before.
after the close of hostilities, he took service in
the Freedman’s Bureau, an agency of the war
department for disbursing claims and establish-
ing free schools in the south. Later he was
transferred to the Pacific coast with the staff
of General Thomas and was present at the time
of the latter’s death in San Francisco.
In 1870 Mr. Garland retired to private life
and went to Chicago, Ill., where he engaged in
the manufacture of art furniture and interior
decorations for a number of years. He invented
a motor car that was propelled by a series of
Springs; the patent for this was applied for in
1884 and granted January 27, 1885. In 1886,
On the re-organization of the army.
however, when he became interested with the
famous Chicago colony in founding a town in
Southern California, he gave all his attention to
this scheme and his time to the improvement of
his orange ranch in East Redlands and further-
ing the interests of his new surroundings un-
til the time of his demise. This colony was
formed in Chicago and immediately sent out an
investigating committee to purchase the land,
their selection being what is now East Red-
lands and seventeen acres for a town site, which
is now the business portion of the city, each mem-
ber to have one lot in the town site. Mr. Gar-
land received a lot on West State street, and
this he deeded to his wife. Seven months later
she sold for $1,400 what he had bought for $25.
They located on the property still owned by his
family and here Mr. Garland made many im–
provements, clearing the property, filling arroyos,
building flumes, setting out orange trees, etc.,
on his own and surrounding lands. Mr. Garland
always took a great deal of interest in the af-
fairs of Redlands and was a director of the
Chamber of Commerce and for four years a
member of the board of trustees.
The death of Mr. Garland occurred May 27,
1898, removing from the community one of its
most earnest and helpful citizens. He was a
true-blue Republican in politics and although
never desirous of personal recognition along this
line still gave his attention and influence to the
advancement of the principles he endorsed. He
was a Scottish Rite Thirty-second Degree mason.
A widow and two children still survive him. His
wife was formerly Miss Margaret McGovern,
who was born in New Haven, Conn., but while
still young removed to Chicago, Ill., where she
was married in 1871. She was the fifth in a fam-
ily of nine children, of whom three are now
living, a brother, John, having been killed in the
battle of the Chattahoochie river, in the Sixteenth
Illinois Infantry, during the Civil war. Since
her husband's death Mrs. Garland has continued
to reside on the home place and at the present
time has one of the most remunerative groves
in that section.
JUDGE CHARLES T. GIFFORD. The
official life of Redlands has in Judge Charles
T. Gifford one of its most efficient members,
as justice of the peace and city recorder giving
his attention to his duties with a fidelity which
has won him universal commendation. He is
a native of New York, his birth having occurred
. in Rochester June 24, 1851 ; his father, Thomas
S., was born in Massachusetts of an old New
England family, was a pattern maker by trade,
and after removing to New York engaged as
a baggage man on the New York Central Rail-
778
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
road, from Rochester to Syracuse, and later as
conductor from Syracuse to Buffalo. He was
killed on the railroad near Syracuse in 1859. He
is survived by his wife, formerly Harriet. Sey-
mour Norton, a native of Vermont, and a daugh-
ter of Seymour and Tannie (Stevens) Norton,
both natives of Vermont and early settlers of
Genesee county, N. Y., where the father en-
gaged in farming.
Charles T. Gifford spent the first seven years
of his life in Rochester, two years in Syracuse,
and then removed to Buffalo, where he received a
preliminary education in the public and high
schools, when he entered Cornell University as
a member of the first class after the opening of
the institution. In his senior year he was taken
ill and because of impaired health he gave up
study and accepted a position as clerk in Buffalo
with E. G. Felthousen. In 1888 he came to Cali-
fornia, going from San Francisco to Fresno, and
the following year to Redlands, here entering the
employ of Judson & Brown, of the Bear Valley
Irrigating Company, in the capacity of clerk, and
later represented them in Alessandro Valley in
the inspection of the pipe line. Returning to
Redlands he engaged in the insurance business,
representing the old-line companies, and has
served as notary public for sixteen years. In
the spring of 1902 he was appointed justice of
the peace and elected to that office in the follow-
ing fall, and re-elected in the fall of 1906, which
duties he is now discharging. He was also ap-
pointed city recorder in 1902 and has held the
office ever since. He is also engaged in the in-
surance business, which he has continued since
his return to the city in 1895.
In Redlands Judge Gifford was united in mar-
riage with Mrs. Emma F. (Piper) Hale, a na-
tive of Connecticut, and they are members of the
First Congregational Church of this city. Fra-
ternally he is identified with the Benevolent Pro-
tective Order of Elks and with the Odd Fellows,
having been made a member of this Organization
in Redlands Lodge No. 341, J. O. O. F., where
he is now a member. He is a strong Repub-
lican and was secretary of county central com-
mittee for two terms. He is identified with the
city's advancement as a member of the Board
of Trade and no citizen is more active in his
efforts to promote the general welfare.
CAPT. JOHN HAMILTON. Off the rug-
ged shores of western Scotland where the tem-
pestuous waters of the Atlantic beating against
the rock-bound coast are subdued into a gentle,
murmur as they enter the Firth of Clyde, there
lies the island of Arran, the birthplace of Captain
Hamilton. From its narrow inlet his father,
William, and grandfather also sailed the ships of
which they were masters, and on the same island
still lives his mother, who bore the maiden name
of Elizabeth Mathie, and to whom Destiny has
given an active life of eighty-two years. The
eldest of a family of four children, John Hamil-
ton was born April 10, 1848, and at the age of
thirteen began to accompany his father to the Sea
during the summer voyages. When he was six-
teen he lost his father by death and soon after-
ward his mother sold her interest in the schooners
which obliged him to seek employment of others.
Thereupon he became an apprentice to the ship
carpenter's trade, at which he served for five
years, and then sailed the seas in the West Indies
and Newfoundland trade. After having spent
the summer of 1873 in Toronto during the fall
of the same year he took passage from New
York for Panama and thence to San Francisco,
where he was employed as ship carpenter for
a year. In 1875 he went to sea as carpenter on
the Commodore and later had a similar position
on the Grace Darling. In August of 1876 he
was made mate on the steamer Continental, sail-
ing to the Eel river, and while filling that posi-
tion, December 12, 1877, he was wrecked on
Eel river bar. Later he was employed as mate
on the Thomas H. Whitelaw to the Eel river.
T]uring 1879 he was mate on the Eudora, which
engaged in the seal trade, and the following
year, as captain of the Ariel, he engaged in
hunting seal. -
After having spent the year 1882 in the Mexi-
can and Central American trade as captain of
the schooner John Hancock, in 1883 Captain
Hamilton became master of the Challenge (built
at Eureka), which he ran to San Pedro for four
years. In June of 1887 he went to San Fran-
cisco and superintended the , building of the
steamer Pasadena, which afterward he ran as
master for fifteen years. In 1902 he superin-
tended the building of the San Gabriel at Ala-
meda for the same company that built the Pasa-
dena. When the San Gabriel was completed he
became its master and continued in that capacity
until the spring of 1904, when he accepted his
present position as government pilot at San
Pedro. Besides the vessels already mentioned
he had charge of the building of the Hesper,
dimensions thirty-five feet long, nine feet wide,
four feet deep, operated by a sixteen horse power
standard engine.
The marriage of Captain Hamilton took place
at Ferndale, Humboldt county, and united him
with Miss Lois Augusta Chapin, who was born
and reared at that place. Two sons comprise
their family, namely: Kenneth, a graduate of the
Lick School and University of California, and
now teller of the Berkeley National Bank, and
one of the proprietors of the Marine supply
Manufacturing Company of San Pedro ; and

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 781
Bruce, who remains at home. The family resi-
dence for some years has been at Alameda. In
politics Captain Hamilton supports the Republi-
can party. Fraternally he was made a Mason
before leaving his native land and is now a mem-
ber of Humboldt Lodge No. 79, F. & A. M.;
Humboldt Chapter No. 52, R. A. M.; Eureka
Commandery No. 35, K. T., and Cornelia Lodge
No. 63, Order of the Eastern Star, at Humboldt.
MRS. GEORGE W. SIBLEY. Sidney
Smith once said, “Whatever you are from nature,
keep to it; never desert your own line of talent.
Be what nature intended you for and you will
Succeed; be anything else, and you will be ten
thousand times worse than nothing.” In her pres-
ent active career Mrs. Sibley has shown that
she understands fully the thought of this witty
divine, for she has measured accurately her own
ability, and hewn her way straight to the line
thus marked out. A clear-headed, brainy woman
previously interested to some extent in realty
transactions, she early perceived the great finan-
cial possibilities of the future in the develop-
ment of Venice and Ocean Park property, and,
quick to seize every offered opportunity for en-
larging her scope of action, she began dealing
in local real estate on a modest scale, and has
since established an extensive and lucrative busi-
ness, being now at the head of the Citizens'
State Bank and the Guarantee Realty Company,
the latter one of the most prosperous firms of the
kind along the entire length of the beach. A
native of Cleveland, Ohio, she was born August
25, 1858, a daughter of Alfred and Laura
(Foote) Bright, both natives of Ohio, the former
dying at an early age, while the latter came to
California in 1902 and has since made her home
with her daughter, Mrs. Sibley.
After living in retirement in the east for a few
years, Mrs. Taft came, in June, 1891, to Califor-
nia being accompanied by her daughter, Irene
Taft, who is an own cousin to Secretary William
H. Taft, her father, Henry W. Taft, having been
uncle to the Secretary. Settling in Los Angeles,
she lived quietly for several years, the genial
sunshine and balmy breezes of its wonderful
climate being of great benefit to her. On De-
cember 25, 1891, she married George W. Sib-
ley, then engaged in business as a wholesale
merchant in Los Angeles. In May, 1900, Mrs.
Sibley came to Ocean Park to recuperate and
after a season of perfect relaxation and rest, the
tonic of the sea breezes and the sea baths re-
stored her physical vitality, making her strong
and vigorous. Ambitious to find an opportunity
for making herself useful, she started in the
real estate business in a small way, having about
$50 to invest. Opening an office in Ocean Park,
business grew steadily, her fair and honest deal-
ings and systematic methods meeting the ap-
proval of her customers, and each month saw an
increasing patronage, her sex being a help rather
than an impediment in the way of enlarging her
business opportunities. A woman of Superior
ability, tact and judgment, living up to the Golden
Rule, she has secured a large clientage, and is now
one of the foremost real estate dealers in this part
of Los Angeles county. While looking after her
own interests, she has been of much use in ad-
vancing the prosperity of others, including a
large circle of personal friends, merchants, me-
chanics and professional men. The business
which Mrs. Sibley inaugurated in 190I grew to
Such large proportions that she found it expe-
dient to have it incorporated. Accordingly, March
I5, 1905, the Guarantee Realty Company was
formed, with the following-named officers:
President, Mrs. George W. Sibley; first vice-
president, H. V. Bright; second vice-president,
Dr. E. B. Goodwin; secretary, James F. Barr,
and treasurer, Charles R. Van Tillburg. This
company was first located at No. I4o Pier avenue
Ocean Park, but has recently removed to more
commodious quarters in the handsome building
erected by the company in Venice. In May,
1906, she organized the Citizens' State Bank of
Venice with a capital stock of $25,000, of which
she is president. Mrs. Sibley had one daughter
by her first marriage, Irene, now wife of Howard
S. Lorenge, living near Ocean Park, and by her
second union she has also one daughter, Louella
Maria Sibley. Mrs. Sibley is prominent in social
circles, being a member of the Country Club,
and President of the Ladies' Auxiliary of Ocean
Park and Venice. - -
FREDERICK A. SMILEY. Of recent years
especial attention has been devoted to the de-
velopment of attractive summer resorts. Each
season finds an increasing number of Califor-
nians who lay aside the cares of business and the
round of domestic duties or school work in order
to enjoy for a few weeks an outing in some
favored spot of nature, fanned by the breezes
from the ocean, sheltered by mountains and
watered by springs and rivers. Not the least
conspicuous among these resorts is Fredalba
Park, comprising two hundred and sixty-two
acres of land covered with native oaks and pines,
some of which are eighteen feet and more in
circumference. The park is situated on the
southern slope of the San Bernardino mountains,
fifty-six hundred feet above the level of the sea,
at the head of the City creek toll-Road, eleven
miles from Highland, and sixteen miles from
both San Bernardino and Redlands. The most
direct route from these towns to Bear valley lies
782
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
through the park. Admirable views may be
obtained from the mountains of neighboring
towns, and on especially clear days Catalina
comes within the range of vision.
The sole owner and proprietor of Fredalba
Park is F. A. Smiley, who makes his home here
throughout the entire year and devotes his at-
tention to the care of the grounds and cottages
and to the comfort of the guests. The cottages
are constructed of matched and planed sugar
pine, with interior finishings of natural wood.
Suitably furnished for light housekeeping, they
are rented by the day, week or month, while
for such as prefer to board a central dining hall
affords the best of accommodations. Each cot-
tage is piped with water from mountain springs,
while another spring furnishes pure cold water
in the park, convenient to the houses. The
climate is delightful throughout the summer, a
South wind cooling the air during the daytime.
Guests who are fond of fishing find opportunity
for the use of their tackle in Deep creek, where
mountain trout may be caught in season, while
excursions are also made to Bear creek, the best
fishing place in the mountains. The Brook-
ings Lumber Company has its mill at Fredalba,
with several miles of railroad bringing lumber
there from the woods. In addition to these Ob-
jects of interest, guests may drive to Holcomb
valley and its gold mines, or to Bear valley and
other points. A postoffice is located in the park,
and Mr. Smiley has acted as postmaster ever
since February, 1896, when he received the ap-
pointment under President Cleveland. From the
Ist of April throughout the balance of the year
the mail stage leaves Highland at 7:30 in the
morning and leaves Fredalba at 3:30 in the af-
ternoon of the same day except Sunday. During
the balance of the year the mail is carried only
on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Adequate accom-
modations are provided for the convenience of
guests in meeting the trains at Highland and
making the short overland trip to the park.
The original owner of Fredalba Park was
Alfred H. Smiley, father of the present owner.
The grounds were purchased by him in 1895
from the Highland Lumber and Box Company
and the tourist business was inaugurated the
following year, since which time fifteen cottages
have been erected for the accommodation of sum-
mer visitors. Each season finds an increasing
number of visitors seeking the quiet of the great
trees and the mountain air, and the enterprise
has been placed upon a substantial basis through
the attractions of the resort, supplemented by
the courteous oversight of the proprietor. Alfred
H. Smiley, the former owner, was born at Vas–
salboro, Me., and came to California in 1889, set-
tling at Pasadena, but two months later remov-
ing to Redlands, where he died January 5, 1903,
at the age of seventy-four years. His wife bore
the maiden name of Rachel Mott Swan and was
a native of New Sharon, Me. Their son, Fred-
erick A., was born in Iowa, and has made his
home at Fredalba Park ever since the resort was
first established, hence has acquired a thorough
understanding of the business with its needs and
responsibilities. During boyhood he lived in his
native city of Oskaloosa, Mahaska county, Iowa.
His wife, like himself, is a native of Iowa; she
was born at Cedar Falls, Blackhawk county,
being in maidenhood Eva Wyatt, daughter of
J. Howard and Lizzie (Shepard) Wyatt. Born
of their marriage were five children, namely:
Howard, now at the Herman Free Methodist
School near Los Angeles; William Eugene,
Gertrude, Rachel and Martha. Upon the or-
ganization of the Fredalba public-school system
in Igor Mr. Smiley became a member of the
board of trustees, in which capacity he has since
rendered efficient and indefatigable services. As
a representative of one of the most honored fam-
ilies of Redlands and as the possessor of high
mental endowments, Mr. Smiley occupies a
trusted and prominent position in his county.
*
D. C. McGARVIN. It is worthy of note
that there is a large number of young men
active in the professions, in business circles and
in public affairs in Los Angeles; and certainly
the city's rapid growth is due in no small de-
gree to their enterprise. Among the public of
ficials who are building up enviable reputations,
mention belongs to D. C. McGarvin, at present
filling the position of public administrator. Al-
though a native of Kansas, born March 29,
1870, so much of Mr. McGarvin's life has been
passed in this city that he feels himself to be a
true son of Southern California. His father,
Robert McGarvin, came to California in 1875,
and in the public and high schools of Los An-
geles the son received his education. The knotty
problems of the law proved an attraction to the
mental powers of young McGarvin and after
the completion of his work in the public schools
he took up the study of law in the office of Judge
A. W. Hutton. Later he was associated with
Judge York and Hon. James McLachlan, and in
June, Igos, he was admitted to the bar. In the
meantime, in 1903, he was elected to the office
of public administrator for a term of four years,
and immediately entering upon the work of his
position he has faithfully discharged the duties
incumbent upon him to the present time. He
had previously proved both his ability as a public
official and his loyalty to the principles of the
Republican party, and had become a prominent
man in its councils. As secretary of the Young
Men's Republican League he was active in the
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
783
work of the organization, and also for three years
he served as secretary of the Republican county
central committee. During the campaigns of
1904 and 1905 he acted as chairman of the Repub-
lican city central committee, and wielded a strong
influence in the interests of his party.
Significant of the esteem in which Mr. Mc-
Garvin has always been held was his appointment
in 1893 to the position of assistant manager of
the Los Angeles county exhibit at the Columbian
Exhibition in Chicago, where he discharged the
duties devolving upon him in a peculiarly capa-
ble manner. The following year he acted in a
similar capacity at the Mid-winter Fair in San
Francisco, and has since then held many other
positions of equal responsibility. Fraternally he
is a member of Los Angeles Lodge No. 290, F.
& A. M.; Signet Chapter No. 57, R. A. M.;
Los Angeles Commandery No. 9, K. T.; and
Al Malaikah Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S. Socially
he is a member of the Jonathan Club and Union
League, in both of which he is a popular member
and valued for personal qualities as well as the
ability which has distinguished his entire career.
Mr. McGarvin Owes much of his success to a
happy combination of personal characteristics,
being gifted with a genial nature which knows
nothing but friendship in his intercourse with
those about him. Although stanch in his politi-
cal convictions—no man more SO,-yet he is
never antagonistic nor forces men to the opposi-
tion through this element of character; instead,
his own convictions are so strong, so free from
prejudice, that he invariably makes a friend every
time he makes an acquaintance. He is held in
the highest esteem as a citizen of Los Angeles,
whose interests he can be counted upon to up-
hold. December 19, 1900, he was united in mar-
riage with Miss Una Taylor Adams.
CHARLES KELLY. There are many who
believe that Charles Kelly of San Diego has no
superior throughout Southern California as a
judge of horses and they further assert that his
stable of road horses is the finest in all of this
region. It is his theory that road horses should
be bred so as to secure the very best results for
appearance, build, disposition and endurance.
The fact that he has an exceptionally fine herd
of animals is largely due to their having been in-
bred with the Morgan strain, acknowledged to
possess the greatest intelligence and the best
dispositions of any of the breeds. In his stable
he has a stallion, standard bred, and in color
black, Sagewood by Silkwood, with a record of
2:0734. While this is a fine animal, Mr. Kelly
considers that it is surpassed by his mahogany-
colored stallion Clinton, sired by Ralph, by Her-
cules, by a brother of Lexington; dam of full-
blooded Morgan. Mr. Kelly believes that Clinton
is the finest stallion in Southern California and
he recommends him to horse traders desiring to
secure in their roadsters fine dispositions and
great power of endurance.
A native son of California, Charles Kelly is a
member of a pioneer family of this state. When
gold was discovered in the western mountains,
Matthew Kelly, a blacksmith of Arena, Iowa
county, Wis., determined to seek a livelihood
in the far west, but it was not until 1851 that
he completed the arrangements rendering possi-
ble his removal from the old shop and home.
Coming via the Horn he took up mining pursuits,
but soon resumed work at his trade and opened
a shop at Deadwood, near Auburn, Cal., where
$16 was his regular price for shoeing horses and
often he received as much as $2O for such work.
In 1853 he was joined by his wife, Emily (Por-
ter) Kelly, whom he had married in Arena, Wis.,
and who came west via Panama. While they
were living at Deadwood their son, Charles, was
born August 7, 1862, he being the fifth among
nine children, all of whom are still living. As
early as 1853 Robert, a brother of Matthew Kelly,
came to Old Town, San Diego, and became in-
terested in stock raising. In 1868 Matthew
brought his family to San Diego on the old ship
Orizaba, and among his fellow passengers was
Alonzo E. Horton, the founder of San Diego,
and for years its most distinguished, citizen.
The two brothers, Robert and Matthew Kelly,
Owned an old grant, Agua Hedionda, near Ocean-
side, which they improved, the property still
being known as the Kelly ranch. There Mat-
thew died in 1885 and there his widow yet makes
her home. When the family removed to South-
ern California Charles Kelly was a boy of six
years, hence his education was acquired in San
Diego county. Remaining at home until the
death of his father; he then succeeded in part to
the management of the estate and remained at the
old ranch until 1895, the year of his settlement
in the city cf San Diego. Here he bought a
livery business owned by Wesley Smith, on the
corner of Third and F streets. At that time he
had only three vehicles and eight horses in the
stable, but since then he has increased both
until now he owns next to the largest livery
stable in San Diego, having seventy-five horses
and a suitable equipment of vehicles. On the
ranch, where he still owns fifteen hundred acres,
he is engaged in raising fine driving horses and
cattle and now has one hundred head of horses
in pasture. When they are ready to be sold of
when colts are at an age suitable for breaking,
he brings them into the city stable. His horses
are now to be found all over Southern Califor.
nia, and those who once have purchased from
him do not hesitate to say that the colts raised on
784
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
his ranch are as fine as the region produces. The
ranch is devoted almost wholly to stock raising
and the hay and grain produced each year are
utilized principally for feed.
The Kelly residence at No. 3348 A street, San
Diego, is presided over by Mrs. Kelly, who was
Lovinia Irwin, a native of Illinois, but from 1868
a resident of California. Their three children
are named Herbert, Genevieve and Irwin. While
upholding Republican principles at national elec-
tions, Mr. Kelly is somewhat independent in his
attitude toward local politics, believing the in-
telligence and honesty of the candidate to be
of greater importance than his opinion upon the
national issues. As the representative of the
fourth ward he is now serving his second term
in the city council. During the building of the
schoolhouse on Union and F streets he was offi-
ciating as a trustee of Schools, and gave his
support to the needed improvements, as he does
to all measures for the benefit of the city. At
one time he served as a director of the Cham-
ber of Commerce and that organization, which
has accomplished so much for the advancement
of local interests, has ever been the recipient
of his support and intelligent allegiance.
ALEXANDER ORMSBY LEE. In the line
Of his profession no one is better known in
Pomona than Dr. Lee, who came here in 1897
and established himself as a veterinary surgeon,
and the wisdom of his choice both as to a pro-
fession and also as to location have been more
than gratifying in the years which have passed.
His reputation as a skilled practitioner has
reached far beyond his immediate locality, the
call for his services taking him to all parts of
Los Angeles county, as well as into San Ber-
nardino county. w
The earliest member of the Lee family of
whom we have any definite knowledge was the
grandfather, who was born in Ireland of Eng-
lish antecedents, and who on bringing his fam-
ily to the new world, established his home in
Ontario, Canada. Among the children in his
family was Samuel, who was born in County
Derry, and whose boyhood years were associat-
ed with the pioneer conditions which then ex-
isted in the vicinity of Markham, York county,
where his father settled. Subsequently he him-
self settled on a heavily wooded tract in the
vicinity of St. Marys, Perth county, which he
cleared and made habitable for his family, and
it was there that his earth life came to a close in
1883. Before her marriage his wife was Mar-
jorie Donogh, she too being a native of Ire-
land, born in county Connaught. She survived
her husband fourteen years and passed away on
the Canadian homestead in 1897.
Of the eleven children born to Samuel and
Marjorie (Donogh) Lee all are living with one
exception, and Alexander O. is the eldest son.
He was born on the family homestead in the
vicinity of St. Marys, December 14, 1862, and
was given a fair education in the public Schools
of that locality. Upon attaining his majority in
1883 he went to Toronto and associated himself
with the firm of Gerard Hentzman & Co., piano
manufacturers, under whom he learned the busi-
ness and later became foreman of the sounding-
board department. His association with the firm
in various capacities covered a period of ten years,
during which time he proved himself a capable
and conscientious workman and gained the re-
spect and friendship of his employers. In i893
he resigned his position to enter the Ontario
Veterinary College at Toronto. He graduated
as a veterinary Surgeon two years later and
without loss of time established a practice in
Markham, York county. Later he removed his
office to Toronto, about twenty-two miles south,
and in addition to his practice had a one-half
interest in a livery stable there. Notwithstand-
ing the fact that he was succeeding well in the
east Dr. Lee had become deeply interested in
the Pacific coast country and hither he came in
1897, locating the same year in Pomona, with
which city he has since been closely associated.
As he was the pioneer veterinary Surgeon in
this city it goes without saying that he had no
difficulty in building up a large practice, and
his name is now well known all over Southern
California. g
Before coming to the west, in Toronto, Can-
ada, Dr. Lee was married to Miss Elizabeth
Johnston, who was a native of that city. The
duties of his profession do not exclude Dr. Lee
from outside interests, for he is one of the
town's most enthusiastic citizens, being a mem-
ber of the Board of Trade and also a member of
the volunteer fire department. In his political
sympathies he is a Republican, and fraternally
he belongs to Pomona Lodge, I. O. O. F., the
Independent Order of Foresters and the Fra-
ternal Aid. With his wife he is a member of
the Methodist Episcopal Church, in the work
and support of which both are equally interest-
ed. To keep in touch with the latest ideas and
discoveries along the lines of his profession Dr.
Lee is a constant reader of literature bearing
upon the subject, and is also affiliated with the
southern auxiliary of the California Veterinary
Medical Association. Dr. Lee is an expert with
the rifle, and for six years, dating from 1885, he
was a member of the Queen's Own Rifles, which
throughout the kingdom was known as the crack
regiment, and in which he served as corporal,
as such serving in the rebellion of 1885.


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
787
QUENTIN J. ROWLEY, M. D. A gentle-
man of talent and culture, well educated, and
having a large professional experience, Quentin
J. Rowley, M. D., of Downey and Los Angeles,
is widely and favorably known throughout this
section of Los Angeles county as a skillful phy-
sician and surgeon, and as one of the leading
members of the medical fraternity he enjoys a
large and lucrative practice. A native of Wis-
consin, he was born, November 21, 1852, in Co-
lumbia county, a Son of Asa Rowley.
Born and reared in New York state, Asa Row-
ley followed the march of civilization westward
when young, becoming a pioneer settler of Co-
lumbia county, Wis. Taking up a tract of land
that was still in its primitive wildness, he clear-
ed a homestead on which he resided for many
years. A man of strong individuality, he be-
came influential in local affairs, and for four
terms served as justice of the peace. Moving
with his family to Minnesota in 1863, he located
near Austin, where he followed general farm-
ing for twenty years. In 1883 he came to Los
Angeles county and at Monta Vista was success-
fully engaged in general ranching at his death,
January 9, 1907, leaving a finely improved farm.
He married Elizabeth Smith, who was born in
Scotland, and died in 1904, on the home ranch.
After his graduation from the high school in
Austin, Minn., Quentin J. Rowley entered the
University of Minnesota, where he took the full
course of study, receiving the degree of B. A.
Subsequently, as chemist of the Minnesota state
board of health, he spent two years at Red Wing.
Going from there to New York City, he began
the study of medicine at the College of Physi-
cians and Surgeons, from which he was gradu-
ated with the degree of M. D., in March, 1884.
Deciding to locate in California, Dr. Rowley
came by water, via Galveston, Tex., to the Pa-
cific coast, arriving just as the memorable epi-
demic of smallpox was at its height, and was
in mediately appointed by the California state
board of health as inspector, a position that he
filled with ability and fidelity for three years.
Locating in Downey in 1887, he built up an ex-
tensive and remunerative practice in that vicin-
ity, where he is esteemed and respected as a
citizen of worth and integrity, and is very popul-
lar as a physician and surgeon, his knowledge
and judgment being recognized and appreciated.
He is an able business man, and in the early fall
of 1905 was made vice-president of the Los Nie-
tos Bank of Downey. In August, IOO6, Dr.
Rowley removed his office to the Grosse building,
Los Angeles. *
Dr. Rowley has been twice married, first, in
June, 1887, at San Bernardino, Cal., to Mattie
C. Browning, a native of Alabama. She died
October 30, 1898, leaving three children, namely:
Gladys, aged seventeen years; Earl, a bright
lad of fifteen years, now attending Pomona Col-
lege, and Mattie, aged seven years. June 25,
I903, Dr. Rowley married Lida Ardis Craw-
ford, the descendant of a prominent pioneer
family of Los Angeles county. Fraternally he
is associated with many secret organizations, be-
ing a member of Downey Lodge, No. 22O, F.
& A. M.; Independent Order of Foresters,
Modern Woodmen of America, Knights of the
Maccabees, and of the Fraternal Aid Society.
Religiously he belongs to the Methodist Epis-
copal Church and is a liberal contributor to-
wards its support.
ERNEST S. HOWE. Adjacent to the vil-
lage of Ramona lies the small and well-kept
ranch that is owned and occupied by the
Howe family and that bears an air of orderli-
ness and thrift indicative of the proprietor's
energy and industrious habits. The sixty-five
acres are kept in a high state of cultivation
and are tilled in such a manner as to produce
the greatest possible results in return for the
care bestowed upon them. A specialty is made
of the dairy business, for which industry the
land is well adapted. Ernest S. Howe, who
has made his home upon the tract for some
years and who is responsible for its improved
appearance, came from Iowa at the age of
twelve years, and during much of the time
since then has lived in Southern California.
His parents, James M. and Sarah (Nims)
Howe, were natives respectively of New York
and Illinois and in early life removed to Iowa,
where they met and married. While they were
living at Osage, Mitchell county, that state,
their son was born November 5, 1873, and in
that locality he received his primary educa-
tion.
By reason of the serious physical decline of
the father in 1885 the family removed from
the rigorous climate of northern Iowa and
sought the more favorable environment of
California, although they scarcely dared to
hope that the invalid would be permanently
restored to health. However, they were grat-
ified to see a quick improvement and in a
short time the father had regained his health.
For two years after coming west the home
was at Otay and in 1887 removal was made
to Ramona, where a ranch was purchased and
occupied. Some years ago the property was
sold and the father removed to Montana,
where he died in the spring of IOO6, aged sev-
enty-eight years.
During the years of youth Ernest S. Howe
made his home with his parents, leaving their
home when he established a home of his own.
44
788
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
October 12, 1899, he was united in marriage
with Concepcion Stokes, member of the pio-
neer family of Ramona valley and a sister of
Aristides E. Stokes, in whose sketch appears
the family history. Born of their union are
three children, Dora Ann, Josephine May and
Ernest S., Jr. Shortly after his marriage Mr.
Howe took his wife to Washington and for a
year he worked in the Franklin mines in that
state. From there he removed to Townsend,
Mont., where his father then lived, and for
three years he was employed in that section.
During the residence of the family there the
elder two children were born. Since leaving
Montana they have made their home upon
their farm near Ramona, where they have a
large circle of personal friends. In religious
belief Mrs. Howe was reared in the Catholic
faith and always has been a sincere member
of that church, attending its services and con-
tributing to its maintenance and its charitable
enterprises. While Mr. Howe has never been
partisan in politics, he keeps well posted con-
cerning matters pertaining to the welfare of
our country and the prosperity of the nation,
and in national elections he casts his ballot
for Republican candidates, although in local
matters he votes for the man rather than the
principle involved and maintains an independ-
ent attitude.
IRVING N. McGUIRE. The Argonauts of
'49 for the most part were men of purpose and
well-defined ideas. Located in the shadowy
past, with their trails and successes dimmed by
distance, this class of men take on a dignity
and nobility which pales into insignificance
the efforts of men who have the stimulus of
competition, the encouragement of the multi-
tude, and the help of settled conditons. Rep-
resentative of the makers of this part of
American history is I. N. McGuire, who, while
included among those who wrought variously
and substantially in the pioneer days of the
state, is yet a living force in the present of
Santa Barbara county.
Mr. McGuire was born in Jackson county,
Mo., August 16, 1832, and in 1838 accompanied
his parents to Buchanan county, the same
state, where his early education was acquired
in the subscription schools. His father and
mother, James and Sarah (Wilcox) McGuire,
were natives of Kentucky and North Carolina
respectively, the latter going to Kentucky
when twelve years of age. In 1830 the parents
located in Missouri. In 1849, when I. N. was
seventeen years old, the family outfitted for
the long journey across the plains, which they
accomplished with ox-teams in about six
tice of the peace.
months. Their experiences were of a milder
nature than is recorded of many. The elder
McGuire was the civic father of Vacaville, for
upon pitching their belongings upon the site of
this town, he built the first house within its
limits. He lived to share in the activities of
the community but a few months, his death
occurring in 1851, at the age of fifty-three. His
wife, who lived to be eighty-two years old,
died in Texas. She was the mother of eight
children, of whom one son and three daugh-
ters are living, two daughters being in Cali-
fornia and one in Idaho. The parents were
members of the Baptist Church, and the father
was a supporter of the Democratic party.
Near Vacaville, Solano county, I. N. Mc-
Guire took advantage of the unclaimed ranges
to engage in the cattle business, continuing so
engaged until removing his stock to Sonoma
county in 1853. Purchasing a ranch of four
hundred and eighty acres, he engaged in grain
and stock-raising for twenty years, increas-
ing prosperity following in the wake of his
energy and resourcefulness. In 1873 he re-
thoved to San Luis Obispo county and en-
gaged in the sheep business, having at one
time thirty-five hundred head. The dry sea-
son of 1877, however, resulted in great loss,
and he gradually disposed of the balance of
the sheep. In 1880 he established a mercan-
tile business in the town of San Luis Obispo,
three years later locating in Santa Maria,
where he engaged in the drug business until
1887. Mr. McGuire at this time purchased the
interest of S. Clevenger in the Santa Maria
Times, and ever since has been a factor in
moulding the liberal policy of this paper.
The political activities of Mr. McGuire have
covered a wide range, and have included par-
ticipation in practically all of the local under-
takings of the Democratic party. He was
supervisor of San Luis Obispo county several
terms, also deputy-sheriff, constable and jus-
In Santa Maria he has filled
the office of city recorder, and has been a jus-
tice of the peace for the past four years. The
first marriage of Mr. McGuire occurred in Sac-
ramento in 1854, to Sarah Condit, who was
born in Iowa, and whose death occurred in
1887. Mrs. McGuire left six children, of whom
we mention the following: Oscar married El-
la Bryan, and has a family of seven children;
William C., a resident of Pomona, Los Ange-
!es county, is married and has a family of six
children : Mortimer L., a rancher of the Santa
Maria valley, married Lulu Humbert, and has
two children: Alice M., the widow of George
W. Jenkins, has two children : Nellie O., wife
of F. H. Farmer, of San Francisco, has five
children; and Sarah A., wife of Rev. J. E. Mc-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
789
Cann, of Alabama, has seven children. The
second marriage of Mr. McGuire occurred in
Bloomfield, Cal., uniting him with Ney Hors-
ley, a native of Illinois, whose death occurred
in 1892. In 1904 Mr. McGuire married Mrs M.
E. Clark, who was born in New York State.
He was made a Mason in 1858 in Lafayette
Lodge No. 126, of which he is past master. For
ten years he was master of various lodges and
served about that length of time as district
deputy. He is now a member and past master
of Hesperian Lodge No. 264, F. & A. M., of
Santa Maria, being the oldest Mason in point
of membership in his lodge. In all of his trans-
actions he has been guided by probity, and his
service and judgment invariably have tended
toward the bettering of the conditions by which
he was surrounded, and with the development
of which he has been conspicuously identified.
MAJOR GUSTAVUS F. MERRIAM.
When our country was first attracting per-
manent settlers to the bleak coast of New
England there crossed the ocean in 1637 a
young man bearing the name of Joseph Mer-
riam, whose family accompanied him on the
long voyage and settled with him in the midst
of a cheerless frontier environment. He was
a clothier in Kent, England, in which busi-
ness he accumulated considerable means. He
outfitted a vessel and loaded it to bring to
America. In 1641 he died and his will was
one of the first instruments to be placed in
the public records of Boston, where it appears
in volume I, page 28. Among his descendants
may be mentioned Charles and George Mer-
riam, publishers of Webster's dictionary. Will-
iam Merriam the Third was the father of two
sons, Matthew and Nathaniel. The former
was graduated from Yale and became a Con-
gregational minister, filling various pastorates
in the Burwich colony of Massachusetts
(now the state of Maine). From this promi-
nent preacher descended Nathaniel Merriam,
a soldier in the Revolutionary war. Next in
line of descent was Gen. Ela Merriam, a Sol-
dier in the war of 1812 and afterward a
brigadier general in the state militia. Ex-
tensively engaged in agricultural pursuits, he
not only conducted a large farm and dairy,
but in addition was proprietor of a stage line
carrying mail and passengers between Utica
and Sacket Harbor.
On establishing a home of his own, Gen.
Ela Merriam married Lydia Sheldon, whose
grandmother, Mrs. James Sheldon, was a
daughter of Thomas Lord, a pioneer of 1735,
in Hartford, Conn. General Merriam lived
to be seventy-nine years old, passing away NO-
vember II, 1873, while his wife survived him
until 1886 and died at the age of eighty-six
years. Their son, G. F. Merriam, was born
in Lewis county, N. Y., October 17, 1835,
and received an academic education, in St.
Lawrence and Lewis counties, after which he
entered the Annapolis Naval Academy. Re-
signing from there in 1858 he removed to Kan-
sas and engaged in business at Lawrence un-
til 1861. Upon the opening of the Civil war
he entered the Union service as first lieu-
tenant in the Third Artillery of New York
Volunteers and was stationed in North Caro-
lina, where he drilled and prepared for field
service twelve batteries, he being the or:ly one
there sufficiently familiar with military tactics
to perform the duties of the position. In the
fall of 1862 he was promoted to be major of
the Fifth Artillery of New York Volunteers
and served as such until the close of the war.
During the last eighteen months of service
he was in command of Maryland Heights op-
posite Harper's Ferry.
When the war had ended Major Merriam re-
turned to Kansas and embarked in the mercan-
tile business at Topeka. After ten busy years
he was obliged to remove from Kansas ow-
ing to his wife's health and came to Cali-
fornia in 1875 with the hope that the coast
climate might prove helpful to her. Immedi-
ately after his arrival in San Diego county he
took up land eight miles northwest of what
is now the town of Escondido and became the
earliest settler of Twin Oaks valley. In 1879
he set out a vineyard with the intention of
making a specialty of raisins, but he found the
grapes could not be dried successfully, and so
he established a winery and has since engaged
in the manufacture of wine. In addition he
has six hundred stands of bees and makes a
specialty of the apiary business. For many
years he kept a record of the rainfall for the
government and now continues in the work for
his own pleasure and profit.
The first marriage of Major Merriam took
place in Washington, D. C., in 1863, and unit-
ed him with Mary E. Scott, who died in Jan-
uary, 1888. Six children were born of their
11nion, namely: Edwin, now making his home
in Keyes Cañon ; Helen, wife of F. L. Green,
of Los Angeles; Anna Theresa, who died at
the age of three years; Henry S., who resides
with his father; Wallace W., a mining engi-
ner, who is a graduate of the University of
California, and now opening up a mine in the
state of Chihuahua, Mexico; and Bertha Vir-
ginia, at home. In March of 1892 Major Mer-
riam married Mrs. Augusta M. Koch, a native
of England. By her former marriage Mrs.
Merriam had one son, Frederick W. Koch, a
790
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
graduate of the University of California, and
now instructor of the sciences in the Lowell
high school, San Francisco.
All movements for the benefit of the people
receive careful consideration from Major Mer-
riam. Particularly is he interested in the pub-
lic-school system and for fifteen years or more
he has rendered efficient service as a member
of the school board of his district. During his
long and eventful career he has formed the
acquaintance of many men who have been
prominent in national affairs, chief among
these being Admiral George Dewey, who was
one of his classmates at Annapolis. Talented,
educated and refined, he has attracted the
friendship of men of high character and sub-
stantial worth, and with his cultured wife he
holds a position of prominence locally, being
a distinct addition to the citizenship of the
county. While making his headquarters in
the east during the Civil war he was initiated
into Masonry at Washington, D. C., and was
made a Master Mason, later affiliating with
the Royal Arch Chapter in Topeka, Kans.,
and maintaining a warm interest in the help-
ful charities of the fraternity. Keenly inter-
ested in everything pertaining to the old war
days, it is natural that he should find pleasure
in association with the veterans of that strug-
gle, and for years he has been connected with
the Grand Army Post at Escondido.
WILLIAM ORMOND WELCH. As the
nominee of the Republican party at the elec-
tion of 1902 Mr. Welch was chosen to fill the
office of county tax collector for a term of four
years, receiving at the polls a majority of
about ten thousand votes. Since he took the
oath of office in January of 1903, to the pres-
ent time, having been re-elected to the same
office in 1906, he has given his entire time, and
attention to the details of his official position
and superintends the work of the sixteen men
employed to assist in his department, besides
taking charge of the eighty, extra men secured
during the months of October and November.
Prior to entering upon official life he had been
variously interested and had gained a wide ex-
perience throughout the west while working at
railroading and telegraphy.
A native of Kendallville, Noble county, Ind.,
William Ormond Welch was born January 20,
1863, being a son of David S. and Sarah Buf-
fum (Hayward) Welch, born near Lockport,
N. Y. The father, who was a merchant by Oc-
cupation and a stanch Republican in politics,
settled at Kendallville in early life and there
died about 1871. His widow makes her home
in Pomona, Cal., and one of their sons, Charles
Sumner, resides at Wichita, Kans., where he
lıolds a position as trainmaster with the Mis-
souri Pacific Railroad Company. The only
daughter is now deceased. The other son,
William O., was reared in Indiana until 1878,
when he removed to Paola, Miami county,
Kans., and there attended the high school, lat-
er taking a commercial course in the Paola
Normal. The first work which he secured as
telegraph operator and station agent was in
the employ of the Kansas City, Fort Scott &
Gulf Railroad Company. After two years with
them he entered the Topeka office of the su-
perintendent of the Santa Fe system. In 1882
he went to Tucson, Ariz., as operator for the
Western Union Telegraph Company. Later
he was employed as assistant dispatcher for
the Texas Pacific Railroad at Marshall, Tex.,
and next secured employment as operator and
agent at Deer Lodge and Melrose, Mont., with
the Utah Northern Railroad. Returning to the
employ of the Western Union Telegraph
Company he was with them in Deming, N.
Mex., and during this time occurred the strug-
gle with the Apaches and the capture of Gero-
nimo.
Upon coming to California during the year
1886 Mr. Welch embarked in horticultural pur-
suits at Pomona, where he set out and im-
proved an Orange grove of twenty acres, re-
taining the ranch until 1904, when he sold it at
a fair profit. Meanwhile he had become inter-
ested in the business of buying, drying and
shipping fruit, and for three years had carried
on a growing business with a partner, but at
the expiration of that time he sold his interest.
On coming to Los Angeles in 1894 Mr. Welch
was employed for a year as deputy county re-
corder under Arthur Bray. For four years he
was deputy tax collector under A. H. Merwin
and for a similar period he held the same posi-
tion under John H. Gish, meanwhile acquiring
a thorough knowledge of the work of assessing
and collecting, so that he was well qualified to
fill the position of collector when elected to
the office. Always stanch in his allegiance to
the Republican party, he is one of the influen-
tial members of the Republican League of Los
Angeles and in other ways has aided in local
party affairs. While living in Pomona he was
initiated into Masonry and now holds mem-
bership with South. Gate Lodge in Los An-
geles, also with Signet Chapter of this city,
and is a 32° Scottish Rite Mason. His mar-
riage was solemnized in Los Angeles and unit-
ed him with Miss Eva Dell Roberts, who was
born in Otoe county, Neb., her father, John
Roberts, having migrated from Ohio to Ne-
braska in a very early period of that state's de-
velopment; eventually he closed out his inter-



HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
793
ests there and came to California, becoming
prominent in civic affairs in Long Beach,
where at one time he was honored with the
office of mayor.
In 1887 Mr. Welch became identified with
the National Guard of California, having been
promoted while in Pomona to the captaincy
of Company JD. Upon coming to Los Angeles
he was appointed to the office of assistant ad-
jutant general on the brigade staff with the
rank of lieutenant colonel. During the Span-
ish-American war he served as major of the
Seventh Regiment California Infantry, and af-
ter being mustered out at the close of the war
he resumed the office of assistant adjutant
general. He is now serving as a member of
the examining board for the First Brigade,
having in charge the examining of officers as
to their fitness for Office in the National Guard.
The personal character of Mr. Welch has
been such as to win for him a wide esteem
wherever known, and the manner in which he
has discharged all official duties in the years
of his experience in Southern California has
given him a position of importance among the
citizens of this section. His success to the
present time is an augury of what may be ex-
pected for him in the future, for he is a citizen
of worth and works and can always be count-
ed tipon to uphold public honor in whatever
position he may be placed.
JAMES WATSON WOOD, M. D. One
of the most prominent physicians of Southern
California outside of Los Angeles is Dr. J. W.
Wood, of Long Beach, in which city he has
been located since October, 1887, giving his
best efforts throughout this long residence to
the upbuilding and development of the place.
Born November 17, 1856, he is a native of
Geneva, N. Y., and a son of John M. and Re-
becca (Rupert) Wood, both of whom were na-
tives of the same state. Reared and educated
in his native city, he attended the Geneva high
school and the Canandaigua Academy; with
this preparation he taught two terms of school
in New York during the years 1878 and '79.
In 1880 he went to South Bend, Ind., and there
took up the study of medicine under the in-
struction of Drs. Dunning and Kilmer, and a
year later entered Rush Medical College, of
Chicago, Ill., where he completed the course
in 1883; in the meantime he had taken a
course in the College of Physicians and Sur-
geons of the same city, and graduated in
March, 1883, from that institution. Entering
upon his practice in Palestine, Tex., he spent
a profitable year, but not finding the climate
agreeable he removed to Juniata, Neb. In that
state he was united in marriage, in October,
1884, with Miss May McDonald, a native of
Indiana. They remained residents of Ne-
braska for two years, when they removed to
Indiana and made that state their home until
1887, in which year they sought the delightful
climate and conditions of Southern California,
with a view to making this place their perma-
inent home. Dr. Wood's brother, George A.
Wood, had preceded him to California and had
located in Long Beach, where he had engaged
as a druggist, and it was to this city that the
doctor came immediately following his arrival
in the state.
Establishing an office in Long Beach he be-
gan the practice of his profession independ-
ently, continuing so occupied until July, 1904,
when he became associated with Amos F.
Hamman. He built up a wide patronage
throughout the country surrounding this city,
becoming widely and favorably known. His
evident ability and the practical use he has
always been able to make of his theoretical
Janowledge (which has grown constantly with
the passing years, as he is an indefatigable stu-
dent) have won for him the confidence of the
people; his personal characteristics are also
largely in his favor in the practice of his pro-
fession, for he is cheerful and optimistic in
temperament, and yet thoroughly sympathetic
and genuine in his friendliness. His presence
in the sick room brings with it an air of good
cheer that means as much in the recovery of
his patients as do his medicines. He has made
countless friends during his residence in Long
Beach and has at the same time acquired finan-
cial independence. He is examining physician
for several old-line insurance companies, and
also acts in a like capacity for the Independent
Order of Foresters (having served as lodge
physician since 1890) and in the camp of the
Modern Woodmen of America and is assistant
surgeon of the Pacific Electric Railway and
the Southern Pacific Railway. He has always
had implicit faith in the future of Southern
California and has invested freely in real es-
tate, and is also interested in mining proper-
ties, serving at this writing as president of the
Chickawalla Mining, Milling and Water Com-
pany, and is a director in the National Bank
of Long Beach. -
Dr. Wood has taken a prominent part in
public affairs in Long Beach, as a Republican
giving his best efforts toward the advance-
ment of the principles he endorses. He is,
however, above all things a loyal and patriotic
citizen and can be counted upon to maintain
the best interests of the city. He was an im-
portant factor in the incorporation of Long
Beach and has served yariously since then in
794
HISTORICAI, AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD,
the city government, serving as health officer
from 1890 to 1898; resigning at that time he
accepted the office of councilman, to which he
had just been elected, serving efficiently for
two years. In 1894 he was elected a member
of the board of trustees of the school district,
and was re-elected in 1897, 1900 and 1903, the
last two terms unanimously, and acting for the
greater part of this time as clerk of the board.
The school system of Long Beach is one of
the chief advantages of the city and is one that
affords considerable satisfaction to the citi-
zens; to such men as Dr. Wood is largely due
the credit for having made it what it is.
Dr. Wood is progressive and enterprising,
both in his private and professional life, the
people who know him trusting implicitly in
the broadness of his views, the absence of nar-
row partisanship, and the soundness of his
principles. On several different occasions he
has served as delegate to county conventions
and has ably maintained the tenets of his par-
ty. He takes a prominent part in various
nedical associations, among them the PLOS An-
geles, the Southern California and the Ameri-
can, while he contributes ably to many medi-
cal journals. In the midst of his busy cares he
finds time for social and fraternal pleasures,
holding membership with the Masonic organ-
ization (belonging to the Long Beach chapter
and commandery, and to Al Malaikah Temple,
A. A. O. N. M. S., of Los Angeles) the Elks,
the Knights of Pythias, the Foresters and the
Modern Woodmen of America. Socially he is
held in the highest esteem and accorded a
prominent place among the representative cit-
izens. He is typical of the true American
manhood—independent in his views, fearless
in his expression, progressive in spirit, and
withal a man of integrity, cordial in the friend-
liness of his attitude toward the world, and
firm in his loyalty, patriotism and the kindly
brotherhood of man. He has justly won the
high regard in which he is held by all who
know him.
JOHN A. HINSHAW. The degree of suc-
cess attained by Mr. Hinshaw since his arrival
in San Diego county proves him to be a man
of energy and Sagacity. At the time of settling
in the vicinity of Ramona he had less than
$IOO with which to begin life in a strange
country, in the midst of unfamiliar surround-
ings and an unknown soil and agricultural en-
vironment. Nor was this feature the most dis-
couraging part of his situation, but in addition
he experienced much sickness in his family
and expended a large amount in an effort to
secure the restoration of health for those dear
to him, so that the fact that he has reached a
gratifying degree of prosperity and an excel-
lent standing as a rancher proves him to pos-
sess qualities which misfortune cannot daunt
nor formidable obstacles successfully oppose.
Jasper county, Iowa, is Mr. Hinshaw's na-
tive place and August 14, 1863, the date of his
birth, his parents being David and Elizabeth
(Lewis) Hinshaw, natives of Tennessee. Af-
ter their marriage they removed from the
south and identified themselves with the pio-
neers of Iowa, settling in Jasper county as ear-
ly as 1847 and soon afterward buying a claim
of one hundred and sixty acres of raw land.
From that beginning the father worked his
way forward by dint of unwearied application
and tireless labor until he ranked among the
foremost men of his county and was known
for miles around as an extensive raiser and
breeder of hogs and cattle. At one time he
owned two hundred and eighty acres of well-
improved land. On the homestead which he
had transformed from a raw and unprofitable
acreage into one of the fertile tracts of the
county he continued actively engaged in rais-
ing grain and stock until the time of his death,
which occurred in October, 1870, at the age
of fifty-seven years. About eighteen years
later (in February, 1888) his wife passed
away at the same place.
With the advantage of a course of study in
the Newton (Iowa) Academy supplementary
to the public-school education gained in the
home district, John A. Hinshaw was prepared
to start out in the world for himself; and his
preparation was also thorough in the line of
farm work, for he was familiar from early
boyhood with the routine of agricultural oper-
ations. After leaving school he worked out
by the month until about thirty years of age,
meanwhile spending one year in Kansas.
During 1894 he removed to Colorado and rent-
ed land, which he devoted to farm products.
From that state he came to California, arriv-
ing at Ramona November 8, 1897, and later
securing the title to fifty acres where he now
lives. The land was uninproved and he found
it necessary to put up all the fencing now on
the place, besides erecting a granary for the
storage of his crops. People familiar with the
soil of the locality state that there is no finer
land than this in the entire valley, and much
of its productiveness is due to his wise man-
agement and systematic rotation of crops. Al-
together he has about five hundred acres in
grain, while in addition he has considerable
pasture land. Having given his attention
closely to the care of his land and to domestic
duties, he has had no leisure for participation
in public affairs and has taken no part in poli-


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
797
tics aside from voting the Republican ticket.
The marriage of Mr. Hinshaw occurred in
Newton, Iowa, March 2, 1894, and united him
with Mrs. Arwilda Cox, a widow with one
son, Ernest C. Cox, who still remains with his
mother. The Hinshaw family originally com-
prised six children, but the first two born
were taken from the circle by death, namely:
Huldah Lenore, who was born October 24,
1894, and died January 1, 1906; and Agnes
Susanna, who was born April 23, 1896, and
died in October, 1898. Those now living are
as follows: Leoner A., born February 6, 1898;
Elmer Glenn, October 28, 1901; Ceicle Her-
bert, January 23, 1903; and Birdie Alice, July
9, 1905. The family adhere to the doctrines of
the Society of Friends, and the children are
being reared in that faith.
HON. GEORGE K. PORTER. Wherever
in personal history a man is found whose plan of
life was drawn from within, and whôse course
was mapped out on lines distinctly his own, that
man challenges the attention of the general pub-
lic. Prominent among the number thus desig-
nated was the late Hon. George K. Porter, of
San Fernando, a man of deep individuality, great
abilty and sterling integrity. He descended
from a strong, long-lived race and inherited to a
marked degree the health, geniality, equability of
temper and the keen sense of justice that won
for him the lasting friendship, esteem and re-
spect of men and women of all classes and con-
ditions. His antecedents were substantial New
England stock, and ancestors on both sides held
responsible positions in early colonial life, and
some served in the war for independence. A son
of Dr. John Porter, he was born February 9,
1833, in the historic town of old Duxbury,
Plymouth county, Mass., a direct descendant of
a family that emigrated from England in 1635
and settled in Hingham, Mass. His grandfather,
Rev. Macian Porter, a Congregational minister
of note, served as chaplain in the Revolutionary
W3 1.
A native of Voluntown, Conn., John Porter
was fitted for a professional career, and after his
graduation from the medical department of Dart-
mouth College, with the degree of M. D., settled
in Duxbury, Mass., as a physician and Surgeon.
He purchased for a homestead a part of the old
farm on which John and Priscilla Alden settled,
when, after their marriage, they went up the
creek to locate. He built up a large practice in
Duxbury and adjoining towns, and by the suc-
cessful removal of an abscess from the liver be-
fore the discovery of anesthetics, established a
fine reputation for skill and ability as a surgeon.
He was the physician of Daniel Webster, whose
home was in the neighboring town of Marsh-
field, and from him received many gifts, includ-
ing among others of value a silver water pitcher,
which is in the possession of his son's family.
John Porter, M. D., married Ann Thomas, who
was born in Marshfield, Mass., the daughter of
John Thomas, a typical New England farmer.
The emigrant ancestor of that branch of the
Thomas family from which he sprang came to
Massachusetts from England in colonial days and
settled in Marshfield, where he had been given
by the king of England grant to a large tract of
land. This remained in the family until sold to
Daniel Webster by John Thomas, Mrs. Porter’s
father, who reserved for himself a life interest
in the estate, which was one of the most beautiful
in Plymouth county. The Thomas family were
people of importance in England, active in public
life, Some of them serving as Crown counselors.
Dr. Porter and his wife were life-long resi-
dents of the old Bay state. Their son John T.
Porter came to California in 1851, becoming a
prominent citizen of Watsonville, where he spent
his last years, and for a number of terms was
sheriff of Santa Cruz county.
The second child in a family of seven, only
One of whom is now living, George K. Porter,
was brought up and educated in Duxbury, at-
tending the public schools and Partridge Sem-
inary. A lad of unbounded energy and ambition,
his enthusiasm was aroused by the wonderful
stories concerning the discovery of gold in Cali-
fornia, and he determined to try his luck in
searching for the shining metal. Accordingly,
On February 7, 1849, he sailed from Boston on
the brig Acadian, and two days later celebrated
On board that craft the sixteenth anniversary of
his birth. Capt. Theodore Cunningham, who had
command of the brig, was a skillful navigator,
who safely conducted the vessel through the
Strait of Magellan, sixty-seven days being con-
sumed in passing through one-half of this nar-
row body of water, and but three days in the
other half. After a voyage of two hundred and
sixty-four days the youth arrived in San Fran-
cisco, and the ensuing summer he spent at the
mines. Although the country hereabout was
then without government, the vast population,
consisting of half-naked Indians, Swarthy Span-
ish-Americans, titled Spaniards, gigantic trap-
pers, keen-eyed Yankees, and traders from all
parts of the Union, toiled harmoniously with
pickaxe and shovel, and he met with as much
genuine politeness in the miner's camp as could
be found in the refined and cultured homes of the
far east.
Giving up mining, Mr. Porter was for two
years engaged in farming in the Santa Clara val-
ley, on Dry creek. Going from there to the
Redwoods, above Saratoga, he was for awhile
798
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
employed in the split lumber business in that lo-
cality. Locating at Santa Cruz, he carried on
teaming for a short time, after which he em-
barked in the tanning business, establishing the
second tannery ever operated in that part of the
State. Enterprising and progressive, and pos-
Sessing excellent business tact and judgment, he
was quite successful in his undertakings, and
Soon obtained a position of prominence among
the leading men of the town and county. In 1860
he was elected to the state senate from Santa
Cruz and Monterey counties, being the first Re-
publican of that district to be so honored, and
served on several important committees. In 1863,
with his cousin, B. F. Porter, he obtained a con-
tract with the state to employ convict labor, and
then established the first wholesale boot and shoe
manufactory in California, continuing their tan-
nery in Santa Cruz. Mr. Porter contracted for
one hundred convicts from the San Quentin
prison, and many of these learned the trade, and
after their liberation worked for him in San
Francisco. In his dealings with these men he
had excellent success, invariably finding them
straightforward and trustworthy, readily re-
sponding to his methods of discipline, and truly
appreciating his kindness and generosity. He
treated them with the utmost courtesy, and to
their regular rations often added vegetables,
fruit, fat mutton chops, or melons, which he
bought by the wagon load during the season.
He had a perfect system of book-keeping, and
each man, when his task was completed, was
allowed certain privileges, and on pay day re-
ceived anything he asked for, providing none of
the prison rules were broken. The men early
learned to respect and esteem Mr. Porter, and
never took undue advantage of him. The San
Quentin plant being destroyed by fire in 1870,
Mr. Porter and his partners moved their busi-
ness to San Francisco, and established at the cor-
ner of Sansom and Clay streets a large, modern,
up-to-date factory, which was operated success-
fully for many years. There, as in other places
in which he has resided, Mr. Porter obtained a
position of influence, and soon gained a wide rep-
utation for honest, straightforward, business
management. He became exceedingly popular
in financial, social and political circles, and was
very strongly talked of for mayor of the city.
Disposing of all of his San Francisco interests
in 1896, Mr. Porter then devoted his time and
attention to the care of his San Fernando ranch,
which was formerly a part of the old Mission.
and at the time that he bought it, upwards of .
thirty years ago, contained over one hundred
thousand acres of land. The San Fernando Mis-
sion was the richest in gold of all of the old mis-
sions, the Placeritos cañon being especially rich,
and was dug by the Indians, who were the slaves
of the Superiors of the different missions, being
hewers of 'wood and drawers of water for the
churches, before Marshall's discovery of gold at
Sutter's Mill. Reckoning the wealth of the mis-
Sions by their possession of cattle and sheep, San
Gabriel Mission ranked first, San Jose Second,
and San Fernando, with fifty-four thousand
head of cattle and sixty-five thousand head of
sheep, held third place, but it had money, which
the others oftentimes lacked, having at one time
(in 1826) $90,000 in gold, which was dug from
its soil, in the San Fernando mountains. In
those old mission days the Indians had to have
passports to go from One mission to another, and
some of these papers Mr. Porter found in the
adobe walls of the old mission. When Mr. Por-
ter first visited this place, he was charmed by its
beauty, and in riding over its hills and through
its valleys, said of it, “It is certainly the Valley
Of the Cumberland.”
Laying out the town of San Fernando soon
after purchasing his ranch, Mr. Porter erected
the first buildings and laid the foundations for
this now thriving, busy, little city. He developed
much of the water by the sinking of numerous
wells and putting in pumping plants, establish-
ing irrigation on a large scale, and for many
years was extensively engaged in raising grain
and cattle. He was the pioneer fruit grower of
this section, setting Out Orange and lemon trees.
and having an orchard of two hundred and twen-
ty acres devoted to the culture of citrus fruits.
He incorporated this property under the name
of the Ex-Mission Land and Water Company, in
which he had a large interest. In 1905 he sold a
large part of his remaining land, about seventeen
thousand acres, reserving for himself a tract of
twenty - four hundred acres adjoining San
Fernando. On this he made magnificent
improvements and completed at a cost of
$50,000 a handsome residence, three stories in
height, the first story being of granite. It is ar-
tistically built, and is amply supplied with all the
comforts and conveniences to be found in the
most modern mansion. On this estate there is a
well-stocked nursery, an olive grove and a val-
uable and productive orchard. The ranch is fur-
nished with machinery of the latest approved pat-
tern, including a large traction engine, which, in
addition to horse and mule teams, is used in
farming. He always took great pride in his
handsome herd of horses, keeping some of the
best roadsters and driving horses to be found in
the state, among them being some sired by the
famous running horse Thad Stevens. He had
large herds of cattle, his Durhams, Holsteins
and Jerseys making a fine dairy. He was also
interested to some extent in two large apiaries
on his place. He was a man of broad culture and
liberal thought, and read and spoke Spanish flu-
|×
|×

EIISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
799
ently. Genial, hospitable, and a good conversa-
tionalist, he was a prince of entertainers, and an
invitation to his home was warmly welcomed
and gladly accepted.
In Los Angeles, Cal., Mr. Porter married Kate
Caystile, who was born at Diamond Springs,
Nevada county, Cal., where her father settled as
a pioneer. She is a woman of fine character and
excellent judgment, and is held in high esteem
throughout the community. She is a sister of
Thomas CayStile, one of the original proprietors
of the Los Angeles Times. Three children were
born to Mr. and Mrs. Porter, namely: George
K., Jr., who died at the age of twelve years; Es-
telle C. and Benjamin F. Politically Mr. Porter
was a straightforward Republican, and voted for
Fremont for the first governor of California. He
was a good speaker, and for many years was
very prominent and active in campaign work,
making addresses throughout the state. Frater-
nally he was a member and past master of Santa
Cruz Lodge No. 36, F. & A. M. After a life of
usefulness in every community where he made
his home, Mr. Porter passed from earth No-
vember 16, 1906.
JOSEPH W. WOLFSKILL. The history
of a community is best told in the lives of its
citizens, and when these citizens are men of
forceful character, progressive and public-spir-
ited, giving of the best in their lives not alone
to the upbuilding of their own fortunes and the
furthering of their own personal interests, but
to the establishment and maintenance of en-
terprises calculated to advance the general wel-
fare of those about them, then indeed is such a
career worthy of a place in the highest type of
citizenship. Such qualities and characteristics
have distinguished the Wolfskill family, estab-
lished in Los Angeles county in February,
T831, and since that time proven a dominant
force in the upbuilding of the western com-
monwealth and the development of Southern
California. The pioneer, William Wolfskill,
was a native of Kentucky, his birth having oc-
curred in the vicinity of Richmond, March 20,
I798; his parents were of German and Irish
extraction, inheriting from ancestors the spirit
of sturdy courage and independence which
prompted them to make for themselves and
their children a home in what was then a wil-
derness. While he was still a child in years
the family removed to Howard county, Mo.,
then the center of an Indian country, and dur-
ing the war of 1812 considerable trouble was
experienced from the hostility of the red men.
In 1815 William Wolfskill returned to Ken-
tucky to attend school, and two years later was
again located in the paternal home in Missouri,
where he remained until he was twenty-four
years of age. He received a practical training
along agricultural lines and at the same time
imbibed the spirit of the early day—the cour-
age, independence and progressiveness which
ever distinguished the pioneer. Young man-
hood found him inclined to push farther into
the west and after leaving home in 1822 he
went to New Mexico, spending one year in
Sante Fe. He then went down the Rio
Grande to Paso del Norte, and trapped for
beaver with a native of New Mexico, who gave
proof of his villainy by shooting Mr. Wolf-
skill in an endeavor to secure an insignificant
plunder of hides, blankets and ammunition.
However, the blankets, which were made of
homespun, proved to be a most excellent ar-
mor and checked the bullet, which entered the
flesh near the heart. Returning to Santa Fe,
Mr. Wolfskill remained a brief time, after
which he went to Taos and fitted out an expe-
dition to the Colorado river, where he engaged
in trapping until June of the same year. He
had many adventures with the Indians during
this period in the southwest and many narrow
escapes, but finally returned to his home in
Missouri. His health had been impaired by
the hardships he had undergone during this
time and he found it necessary to remain in
Missouri for a time. Later he engaged in buy-
ing up herds of cattle from the western ranges
and driving them to eastern markets, which Oc-
cupation he found lucrative until the spring
of 1828. At this date, he with others outfitted
with a load of goods for New Mexico, and af-
ter reaching that point and disposing of the
goods he pursued his way to California, arriv-
ing in Los Angeles in February, 1831. -
Henceforth Mr. Wolfskill remained a citi-
zen of California and in the years following he
gave no little toward the highest development
of the state. The first schooner in California—
E1 Refugio—was built by him at San Pedro,
and in it he made one trip to the coast islands
in search of Otter, after which he sold the ves-
sel, which finally went to the Sandwich IS-
lands. He then turned his attention to that
which occupied the greater part of his time
throughout the remainder of his life—the cul-
tivation of citrus fruits and grapes and the
raising of stock. He planted the first orange
grove in this section in 1841 and demonstrated
the fact that Southern California possessed a
climate that would produce the finest fruit in
the world. In 1856 he planted two thousand
trees a little southwest of what is now the Ar-
cade depot, this being the largest orchard at
the time in Southern California. For many
years thereafter this ranch proved one of the
most prolific orange bearers in the state, as
800
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
many as twenty-five thousand boxes of Oranges
and lemons being shipped in a single year.
The growth of the city has long since displaced
the orange grove, but the early pioneers of
Los Angeles remember it as one of the first
fruits of the eastern civilization. In addition
to his efforts along this line, Mr. Wolfskill
also gave considerable time and attention to
the growing of nuts, at one time importing
Sweet almonds from Italy and attempting their
growth. The climate here was evidently not
adapted to their culture and this effort proved
a failure, although in the cultivation of other
nuts he was highly successful. -
With the growth of the city Mr. Wolfskill
found opportunity to improve his property and
this he did, to the material advantage of his
own property and that about him, finally dis-
posing of one tract for the large sum of $2OO,-
OOO. To Mr. Wolfskill is owed much for the
character of his citizenship, for no man exer-
cised his talents and ability more than he to
develop and advance the best interests of
Southern California and particularly of LOS
Angeles. A man of broad mind and natural
culture, he was intensely alive to the educa-
tional needs of the community and for the im-
mediate benefit of his family he established a
private school in his own home, at the corner
of Fourth and Almeda streets, which property
he purchased in 1838, and there his children
received a good education, as did also the sons
and daughters of other pioneers. It has been
truly said of him that his work in the develop-
ment of this region, along every line of activ-
ity, was such as to win for him the esteem of
ſhis associates and the regard of all who have
ever had reason to love Southern California.
Personally he was a man of many friends, for
lie was of a genial, kindly temperament, a fine
conversationalist, and thoroughly alive on all
questions of contemporary interest. He con-
finued to reside at his Los Angeles home until
his death, which occurred October 3, 1866. By
his marriage, in January, 1841, Mr. Wolfskill
allied his fortunes with those of an old and hon-
ored Spanish family. His wife was Dona
Magdalena Lugo, daughter of Don Jose Ygna-
cio Lugo and Dona Rafaela Romero Lugo, of
Santa Barbara. They became the parents of
six children, three of whom are now living,
Joseph W., Mrs. Charles J. Shepherd and Mrs.
Frank Sabichi. The eldest daughter, who mar-
ricó H. D. Barrows, died in 1863; Lewis, who
married Louisa Dalton, a daughter of Henry
Dalton, of Azusa rancho, died in 1884, and
Rafaelita died in childhood in 1855. Mrs.
Wolfskill preceded her husband to the grave
four years.
Joseph W. Wolfskill was born in Los Ange-
les, September 14, 1844, and in this city was
reared to young manhood, receiving his edu-
cation in the private school which his father
had established. Upon the land now occupied
by the Arcade depot and other buildings in
that vicinity he engaged in horticultural pur-
suits until the growth of the city made the
property too valuable to be thus utilized, when
he began the laying out and disposal of large
tracts, the first to be sold being one hundred
acres known as the Wolfskill Orchard tract,
which was owned by Mrs. F. W. Shepherd
and himself. The lots now front on Fourth
and Fifth and Sixth streets, also Third and
Central avenue, all business property, which
has continued to advance in price to the pres–
ent day, and now being held at fabulous prices.
Although he has disposed of a vast amount of
property he still retains considerable city prop-
erty, owning at the present writing the site of
the city market. He owns a ten thousand
acre ranch in the San Jacinto valley, in River-
side county, and also a handsome residence in
Redondo, on Pacific avenue, where he has re-
sided since 1887. For many years he has been
identified with the business interests of Los
Angeles, having a nursery at the corner of
Wabash and Znal streets, on Brooklyn Heights,
and is also engaged as a florist at that
place, his products being handled by a retail
store located at No. 218 West Fourth street,
Los Angeles. He has met with uniform suc-
cess in his work and is justly named among
the men who have attained a high place in the
citizenship of Southern California. He is a
man of strong, unswerving principle, firmly
grounded in all that goes to make the highest
type of manhood, and merits the position of
high esteem in which he is held by all who
know him. He has served efficiently as a
member of the city council of Los Angeles for
two terms, acting on both the land and water
committees. He is a stanch Republican and
has been ever since casting his first vote for
Lincoln, and has given his best efforts toward
the promotion of the principles he endorses.
In San Francisco Mr. Wolfskill was united
in marriage with Ellen de Pedrorena, a native
of San Diego, Cal., and the daughter of the
Hon. Miguel de Pedrorena, who was born in
Spain and became a pioneer of San Diego,
where he engaged as a rancher and stockman.
He was very prominent in public affairs, Serv-
ing as a member of the first constitutional con-
vention of California, and his death, which oc-
curred in San Diego, removed a citizen of
worth and works. Mr. and Mrs. Wolfskill
are the parents of ten children, of whom Joseph
W. Jr., is engaged in stock-raising in Riverside


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
803
County; William F., is a resident of Los An-
geles; and David and John are engaged with
their father in business in Los Angeles.
REYNOLD B. BORDEN. During the long
period of his sojourn in San Diego county Mr.
Borden has owned and operated the same tract
of land, this comprising three hundred and
thirty acres lying five miles northwest of Es-
condido and near the post-town of San Marcos.
At the time of his purchase of and removal to
the property, in 1882, the land was wholly un-
improved, but under his systematic oversight
and persevering energy two hundred and thirty
acres have been brought under cultivation to
grain, and the balance is utilized for pasturage
and meadow. While the raising of grain has
been his specialty ever since he came to this
ranch, he has had other interests, chief among
these being his apiary, which he finds a prof-
itable adjunct of general farming.
Born in Lafayette, Ga., August 3, 1849,
Reynold B. Borden is a son of Archibald and
Sarah Caroline (Rogers) Borden, natives re-
spectively of Tennessee and Georgia, and de-
scendants of colonial families of the southern
States. When he was four years of age, in
1853, he was taken to Arkansas by his parents
and grew to man's estate in Washington coun-
ty, meanwhile attending the schools of Prai-
rie Grove. While still quite young he gained
a thorough knowledge of harness-making and
the saddler's trade under the supervision of his
father, who added these occupations to that of
general farming. After many years in Ar-
kansas the parents removed to California in
1877 and settled in Los Angeles county, where
the mother died in 1880, at the age of sixty-
two years. In May of 1904 the father returned
to Arkansas to spend nis remaining days amid
the scenes familiar to him through much of
his active life.
In 1874, one year after his marriage, Mr.
Borden and his wife came overland to Cali-
fornia, after having followed his trade at Vin-
ey Grove, Washington county, Ark., with
meager financial returns. Upon his removal
to this state he established his headquarters in
Los Angeles county and bought ten acres at
T)owney. With his brother Thomas, now a
resident of Long Beach, he built one of the
first houses on the present site of Long Beach
and tilled the soil where now may be seen
some of the city’s most substantial public
buildings and residences. In 1880 he removed
to Arizona and there engaged in the dairy
business, having ten cows and selling milk to
the amount of $260 per month. On his return
to California in 1882 he bought the property
in central San Diego county where ever since
he has been busily engaged in grain-raising and
general agricultural pursuits. -
The marriage of Mr. Borden took place in
Arkansas September 17, 1873, and united him
with Miss Julia McKendree, by whom he has
three children, Rosa Lee, John A. and Dora
M. The elder daughter is the wife of George
Witty and lives near the old homestead. In
religious connections Mr. Borden and family
belong to the Methodist Episcopal Church
South and he has been a regular contributor
to church and charitable enterprises. The
year before he left Arkansas for the Pacific
coast he became identified with the Masonic
Order, but has not been active in the fraternity
in the west, the only organization with which
he is actively identified at the present writing
being the lodge of Odd Fellows at Escondido.
Reared to a faith in the Democratic party, he
has never swerved in his allegiance to that
organization and always supports its princi-
ples and candidates. For four years he held
the office of constable, but with that excep-
tion he has never been a public official, it be-
ing his preference to devote his attention ex-
clusively to the management of his farm and
to the enjoyment of social intercourse with
neighbors and family and friends.
JOHN A. WORTHEN. A successful engi-
neer, a progressive and enterprising citizen, and
a man of scholarly attainments, John A. Worthen
is held in the highest esteem among the ranchers
of Norwalk, Los Angeles county. He is a native
of Orange county, Vt., where he was born Jan-
uary 15, 1852, a son of Joseph H. and Elizabeth
(Chase) Worthen, also natives of that state,
where the paternal ancestry had flourished for
generations; relatives by the name of Hughes
served in the Revolutionary war and also in the
war of 1812. His parents lived and died in their
native state, leaving a family of six children of
whom five are now living. An uncle, Amos
Worthen, served for years as state geologist and
laid the foundation for the famous state collection
in Illinois.
John A. Worthen received his education
through the medium of the public schools and
later in an academy in Orange county. He com-
pleted his educational training in Dartmouth Col-
lege, at Hanover, N. H., where he took a scien-
tific and civil engineering course and later took
a post-graduate course of two years in the Thayer
Institute. After graduating he followed the work
of civil engineer in the middle west for about
twenty years, serving on the Mississippi river
for about two years, but for the greater part of his
time was identified with the interests of the Union
804
HISTORICAI, ANTD BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Pacific and Missouri Pacific Railroads. He had
his headquarters in Omaha, Neb., for about two
years and during that time practiced civil engi-
neering, was city engineer in Denver for one
year, and for the last ten years prior to coming
to California was in the employ of a railroad
Company as engineer. He came to San Francisco
in 1890 as the chief engineer of a corporation
known as the South San Francisco Land & Im-
provement Company, which purchased large
tracts of land and laid out a city, built harbor,
docks and canals, spending over $2,000,000 in
the enterprise. Mr. Worthen was the chief en-
gineer, but on account of failing health he re-
signed in 1893 and came to Southern California,
locating first in Pasadena, then in Covina, and
finally coming to his present property, where he
purchased forty acres of land, of which twenty
acres are devoted to grapes, principally wine
grapes, about two acres being in table grapes.
He is also engaged in the dairy business, while
the balance of his land is given over to alfalfa.
He planted all the fruit trees, also put up the
greater part of the outbuildings which improve
the place. He is still interested in his chosen
profession, having designed and constructed the
extensive concrete irrigation conduits now around
Downey. He is prominent politically and
socially, voting the Democrat ticket and taking
a prominent part in every movement which has
for its end the upbuilding of this section.
In 1886 Mr. Worthen was united in marriage
with Miss Susie Worthen, a native of Vermont,
and they are the parents of two children, namely:
Mary A., attending Berkeley; and Elizabeth, a
graduate of the Whittier high school.
GEORGE SLACK. The Slack family is of
English ancestry, the western pioneer, William
Slack, now an esteemed citizen of Los Angeles,
having been born in Doncaster, Yorkshire, Eng-
land, December 27, 1823. His father, Richard
Slack, was also born in that location and in man-
hood engaged as a brick layer until his death.
His wife, Ann, was also born and died in the
same place. They had three children, of whom
the only one living is William, the oldest. He
was brought up in England and educated in the
public schools until fourteen years old, when he
was apprenticed to learn the moulder's trade.
He worked at his trade in Lancastershire, where
in 1845 he married Miss Eliza Varlev. He final-
ly brought his family to America and after land-
ing in New Orleans, La., he went on to Cin-
cinnati, Ohio, and there worked at his trade un-
til 1850. He then came to St. Louis and bought
a team of oxen and wagon and for a time teamed
from Churchville to Council Bluffs. During the
same year he started across the plains to Salt
Lake City, and after remaining there two years,
completed the journey to the coast, going first
to San Bernardino, Cal., and thence to El Monte.
As there was nothing in the line of his trade
he began farming and the raising of cattle, pur-
chasing a farm adjoining the city upon which he
remained for some years. He then went to
Ventura and spent two years, thence going to
San Antonio, Tex., where he superintended the
construction and operation of the first gas works
in connection with a Mr. Lyons, of that place.
After two years he returned to El Monte, hav-
ing profited little by his experience in Texas;
he had intended going to Oregon, but was offered
work in running a threshing machine, and after
the close of the season he became engineer in a
distillery. In the mean time he had started in
the cattle business and met with success in the
enterprise and was finally able to purchase a
forty-acre ranch, on which he continued in the
dairy business and the raising of stock and poul-
try. With his accumulated means he purchased
another fortv-acre tract, and now owns a fine
farm of eighty acres just south of El Monte.
He also owns one acre in El Monte, at the cor-
ner of San Bernardino avenue and Mission road,
which is improved with store buildings at the
COrner. +
In 1893 William Slack located in Los Ange-
les and erected a home at No. 523 South Han-
cock Street. His first wife died in F1 Monte,
leaving a family of ten children, namely: Will-
iam, of San Gabriel; Elizabeth, wife of Rich-
ard Quinn, of El Monte; Eliza, Mrs. Smith, of
El Monte: John. of F1 Monte ; George, the sub-
ject of this review ; Albert, a farmer near this
place; Arthur, a butcher of Los Angeles; Mary,
wife of J. E. Peterson, a merchant of Los An-
geles; Richard, a blacksmith, at Puente ; and
Sarah Ann, wife of G. L. Matthews, of Los An-
geles. His second marriage took place in El
Monte and united him with Ann Hewitt, who
was born in England and died in E1 Monte. Aft-
er her death he married again. While a resident
of El Monte Mr. Slack served as deputy post-
master under John T. Haddock. Politically he
is a Democrat.
George Slack was born in El Monte, Cal.,
April Io, 1864, and was reared to young manhood
on the paternal farm, receiving his education in
the public schools. At the age of sixteen years
lie began work with Goodwin & Seward, of Los
Angeles, learning the trade of carpenter. He
remained with them for four years when he be-
gan contracting in El Monte, where he has ever
since been located. He has built residences all
over the San Gabriel valley and put up many
buildings of various kinds in El Monte, and has

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
807
also built in Los Angeles, Santa Ana, Santa
Monica, Highland Park, and other cities of
Southern California. He built the family resi-
dence on San Bernardino Street, which is pre-
sided over by his wife, formerly Miss Lena Kill-
ian, a native of Georgia, and with whom he was
united in marriage in Los Angeles. Fraternally
he is identified with the Independent Order of
Foresters, of which he is a past officer, and polit-
ically is a Democrat. *s
NATHAN D. BURLINGHAMI. Prominent
among the enterprising residents of Los An-
geles county who have been potent factors in
developing and promoting the mineral re-
sources of California is Nathan D. Burlingham,
of West Glendale. Following the tide of in-
migration westward to the Pacific coast in
1850, he located in a district rich with aurifer-
ous deposits, and from that time until the pres–
ent day has been successfully engaged in min-
ing, from the God-given golden treasury draw-
ing great wealth. Industrious, energetic and
far-seeing, he has labored with a zeal and ear-
nestness of purpose worthy of commendation,
and in the accumulation of property of value
has met with a just reward for his many years
of toil and speculation. A native of New York,
he was born, July 4, 1831, in Jamestown.
At the age of six years Nathan D. Burling-
ham accompanied his parents to Battle Creek,
Mich., which was then an almost uninhabited
territory, the only buildings in the place being
three log houses. In this primitive town he
lived for eight years. Going then to Indiana,
he worked for about three years in an iron
foundry, after which he was for a time engaged
in boating, first on Lake Michigan, and subse-
quently on the Mississippi. In 1850, his en-
thusiastic ardor being awakened by the thrill-
ing accounts of the discovery of gold in Cali-
fornia, he joined a party coming overland to the
Pacific coast, and in the tedious journey across
the dreary plains walked the greater part of
the way, during the three months of travel rid-
ing but three days. While crossing the Hum-
boldt river the party had serious trouble with
the Indians, but in spite of that reached Hang-
town in safety. He at once began his career as
a miner, and in the many operations in which
he has been engaged has met with far more
than average success, his prosperous financial
ventures far exceeding his disastrous specula-
tions. He visited many sections of the state
as a young man, in 1859 making his first ap-
pearance in Los Angeles.
Returning to New York state in the fall of
1862, Mr. Burlingham remained there awhile,
and in September, 1863, enlisted in Company
H, as a private in the First New York
Dragoons, in which he served until the close of
the war. He took an active part in twenty-
four important engagements, including the bat-
tle of Five Forks, where he was under the com-
mand of Sheridan, and the surrender of Lee at
Appomattox. After participating in the Grand
Review at Washington he was honorably dis-
charged from the service at Rochester, N. Y.
Since that time he has resided in California the
greater part of the time. He has been an ex-
tensive traveler, having visited along the Pa-
cific coast from British Columbia down to Chili,
and before attaining his majority had been in
seventeen different states and territories, trav-
eling through them before the establishment
of railroads, when means of transportation
were primitive and limited. In 1897 he bought
his present ranch of thirty-four acres at West
Glendale, where he has erected a commodious
and convenient house, and is successfully en-
gaged in caring for his land, raising principally
fruit and grain.
In Decernber, 1862, in New York state, Mr.
Burlingham married Laura Sophia Kidder, a
daughter of Rev. Franklin Kidder, a noted
Baptist preacher, and they became the parents
of four children, namely: Mrs. Augusta H.
Moore, of Eldorado county, Cal. ; Mrs. Bernice
P. Lewis, living in Mexico; Mrs. Lydia S.
Neil of Los Angeles; and Bert F., engaged in
mining in Arizona. Politically, Mr. Burling-
ham is a stanch Republican, but with the ex-
ception of being for a time a member of the
state central council committee years ago has
never held public office. He is a member of
Kenesaw Post, G. A. R., of East Los Angeles.
THOMAS CAREY was one of the early
settlers of Los Angeles county, whose efforts
for the upbuilding of a personal competence
and the general welfare of the community have
made his name one to be remembered when
the roll of honored pioneers is called. He was
a native of Ireland, born in Tipperary in the
year 1823, and was there reared to young man-
hood and trained in the first practical duties of
life. His ambitious spirit, however, could not
find sufficient opportunities in the land of his
birth and after engaging at various occupations
until attaining the age of twenty-nine years he
decided to seek his fortune in the western
world. In 1852 he crossed the Atlantic and in
New York City spent the first few months of
his career on this side of the water. Following
the call of the west which was then drawing
all classes to the far-famed land of California,
he continued his journey and via the Isthmus
of Panama reached the Pacific state. Like the
808
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
great majority of those who sought their for-
tunes in the west at that time he went to the
mines and for one year was occupied thus on
the San Joaquin river; locating in Benicia at
the expiration of that time he made that place
his home for ten years, being employed by the
government.
In the meantime, November 9, 1867, Mr.
Carey married Mary Hinds, also a native of
Tipperary, Ireland, and the following year they
removed to Los Angeles county. Mr. Carey
took up a government tract of one hundred and
sixty-one acres and on this farm spent the re-
mainder of his life. This property he im-
proved and cultivated until his death, dispos-
ing of various parts of it until at the time of
his demise he had left but thirty-five acres. At
the present writing this property is being sub-
divided into town lots, as it lies on Vermont
avenue and in the vicinity of Vernon avenue
and Figueroa street, and in the line of develop-
ment of the city of Los Angeles. Mr. Carey's
death occurred September 21, 1894, on the
home place. As a pioneer, a citizen and a pub-
lic-spirited man he attained prominence and
was held in the highest esteem by all who knew
him. His word was universally held to be as
good as his bond, for his promises were con-
scientiously carried out. He maintained great
faith in his adopted country and was always to
be counted upon to further any plan for the up-
building of community, city, county or state.
After the death of his first wife on the home
place, Mr. Carey was united in marriage with
Sophia L. Morris, in 1892, and born of this
union was one son, Thomas E. Mrs. Carey
survived her husband and is now the wife of
George A. Blewett, a prominent citizen of this
section.
WILLIAM FERGUSON. Perhaps no early
settler of California was better fitted by exper-
ience and physical make-up to cope with the
hardships and privations of a pioneer country
than William Ferguson, who also proved equal
to the opportunities presented by her manifold
resources and in the passing years won for him-
self a position of financial standing as well as
a place of importance in the social circles of the
city of Los Angeles. His father, John C. Fergu-
son, a native of Virginia, located in Tennessee
in young manhood and there married, and in
1831 became a resident of Arkansas, where he
engaged as a farmer. He brought to bear in
his work the sturdy qualities of the Scotch peo-
ple, his father having emigrated from Scotland
during the colonial period of our history and
shortly afterward gave his services in the Revo-
lutionary war. He married into one of the old
families of Pennsylvania, identified with the his-
tory of our country from an early colonial period.
John C. Ferguson married Elizabeth English,
a native of Tennessee, and the death of both
himself and wife occurred in Arkansas.
William Ferguson was born January 21, 1832,
near Fayetteville, Washington county, Ark., up-
On his father's farm, where he spent the early
years of his life. His education was received in
a backwoods country school, primitive in its ad-
Vantages and Surroundings, and was necessarily
limited, and in the present day would not even
be counted a foundation for later knowledge. At
the same time he was trained to system and
habits of industry through the performance of
the duties which were his as the son of a farmer.
He was in his eighteenth year when, with an
uncle and several neighbors, he started by the
Overland route to California, unable to resist
the influence of the glowing reports which had
reached his inland home. The journey was
made in safety despite the perils with which it
was attended, their first stop in the state being
at Mud Springs, which they reached August Io,
I850. But a short time was spent in this loca-
tion, when they journeyed on to Sacramento, and
from there to Nevada City, where Mr. Fergu-
Son and Joel Ragin engaged in the mines of
Auburn, intent upon securing a recompense for
the hardships and trials which they had ex-
perienced in their overland trip to the coast. In
the spring of 1851, when he went to the Salmon
river regions, where he thought he might be able
to work successfully in the gold mines, Mr.
Ferguson passed the worst period of his life
and very narrowly escaped death. His strong
constitution, however, coupled with his indomit-
able will, enabled him to pass successfully
through all trials. After a short stay in these
regions he proceeded to Trinity county, where
he began mining and in the winter of 1852 en-
gaged in freighting into the mines with a fair
remuneration for his labors. Prior to his min-
ing and freighting he served as cook in a mining
camp for $150 per month, willing and eager to
turn to account any ability which he might pos-
sess. His next enterprise was as a blacksmith in
Canyon City, where he was fairly successful. In
1857 he disposed of his business interests in Cal-
ifornia and returned to his home in Arkansas
via the Isthmus of Panama to New York City,
and thence to the southern state.
Mr. Ferguson remained in the patenal home
for six months, when he once more came to
California with his affairs so arranged that he
could make this state his permanent home. Locat-
ing in Trinity county in the summer of 1858,
he engaged in agricultural pursuits and the
manufacture of lumber for three years. Mining
attracted him once more and for a time he fol-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
809
lowed this pursuit in Nevada. In the spring of
1864 he went to Idaho and remained a brief
time, returning in October of the same year to
the Golden state, and locating in his former
place. In the winter of 1864 he removed to the
vicinity of Petaluma, Sonoma county, Cal.,
where he embarked in stock raising, remaining
there until 1868, when he came to Los Angeles
to settle up the estate of his brother. The south-
ern city proved an attractive spot to him and
he has ever since remained a resident, giving his
efforts toward the Support of all upbuilding
movements. He has proved a man of business
ability, establishing a livery stable in 1869 and
successfully conducting the same for nearly ten
years. At the same time he has invested in
real estate holdings, relying entirely upon his
own judgment and foresight, and his ability to
discriminate between inflation and values, and
profiting by his many years of experience in
dealing with men. In 1870 he purchased stock
in the water company of Los Angeles, in which
he later served as a director for many years.
About 1890 he engaged in the manufacture of
brick, water and sewer pipes, terra cotta and
fire brick, and still maintains his interest in this
plant, known as the California Sewer Pipe Com-
pany. He has taken a deep interest in business
enterprises in Los Angeles and has identified
himself with many important movements, now
serving as director in the Union Savings Bank.
In 1886 Mr. Ferguson built a residence at
No. 303 South Hill street, and at that time this
was the only building on the street South of
Third. At the present writing he is completing
a fine residence on the corner of Eighth and
Rampart streets, which is to be the future home
of the family. This consists of his wife, for-
merly Miss Flora Austin, a native of Maine,
and two children, Clarence and Mabel. The Son
and daughter received their education in the
public schools of Los Angeles and are graduates
of the high school. Mr. Ferguson is a member
of the Unitarian Church; to which he gives a
liberal support. In his political affiliations he
is identified with the Republican party, having
cast his first vote for Gen. Winfield Scott. He
is a man of exceptional ability and strong moral
purpose and as such has made his influence felt
in the City of Los Angeles. He is self-made in
the best sense implied by the term ; has met with
misfortune and hardship in the upbuilding of
his fortune; has profited by his contact with
men and his experiences. Perseverance and
energy, and courage in the face of many ob-
stacles, have been the capital upon which he has
done business, and he has won against all Odds
presented. His life history may well be writ-
ten as a lesson to those setting forth in life
under difficulties and fearing defeat.
DANIEL FREEMAN, since 1873 a resident
of Southern California, is the representative of
a family long established on American soil, the
emigrating ancestor, Edward Freeman, an Eng-
lishman, locating in Woodbridge, N. J., as early
as 1658. In that state the name flourished for
many generations and various members of the
family became prominent in public affairs. The
grandfather of Daniel Freeman, also Daniel, be-
came a Methodist minister in manhood and was
sent from New Jersey to Canada in the capacify
of missionary, and while giving of the best of
his life toward the spiritual development of those
about him assisted materially in the growth and
upbuilding of the country then known as the
Northwest. He preached the first Protestant
sermon in the city of Detroit and was active in
the establishment of congregations throughout
the province of Ontario and the state of Mich-
igan. He reared a family of children who were
also loyal Supporters of progress and development
and helpful citizens of the different communities
in which they made their homes. Daniel Free-
man's father was born on a farm in Ontario and
was there reared to a practical manhood, en-
gaging in farming throughout his entire life.
He married a daughter of Scotch-Irish emi-
grants, and the sterling traits of this people were
transmitted in large measure to their son,
Daniel, whose birth occurred in Norfolk county,
June 30, 1837. Although reared on a farm and
far remote from educational advantages, he was
still early imbued with the desire to obtain an
education, and during the years of his young
manhood allowed nothing to divert him from this
purpose. After securing the foundation for
more advanced training he began teaching in a
country school and with the means thus ob-
tained graduated from a private academy, and
later became a student of Osgoode Hall, the law
school of Toronto. Likewise graduating from
this institution he was admitted to the bar in
1865, and immediately returning to his native
town, Simcoe, Ontario, he entered upon the
practice of his profession.
Mr. Freeman was very successful in his work
and rapidly rose to a position of prominence
among the legal fraternity of his city. How-
ever, on account of the health of his wife (for-
merly Miss Christie, whom he had married in
1866) he was induced to seek a milder climate,
and while traveling in the south in February,
1873, was offered the book “Nordhoff's Cali-
fornia” by a newsboy on a train. Purchasing the
book he began a cursory reading of its contents.
Becoming interested in the possibilities of the
state so glowingly described, the family secured
accommodations for the trip to the Pacific coast
the following day, and in due time they arrived
in San Francisco, the metropolis of the west. So
810
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
well pleased was Mr. Freeman with the con-
ditions of the state that he at once began look-
ing about with a view to purchasing property, but
with the thoroughness characteristic of his nature
he spent nine months in an investigation of
various sections before deciding to locate in Los
Angeles county. Here he visited the Centineka
rancho, which with the Sausal Redondo, com-
prised something like twenty-six thousand acres
of land, then devoted to grazing purposes by
the owner, Sir Robert Burnett. In September
he leased the ranch for five years, with the
privilege of buying it within that time, for $6
an acre. . +
The only industry afforded by this vast tract
of land at that time was the raising of sheep,
and of the immense herds owned by Sir Robert
Burnett, Mr. Freeman purchased ten thousand
head. He devoted his time exclusively to this
enterprise and had a very large band in 1876,
when the memorable drought of that year car-
ried off nearly half of them. During the fall
of 1875, however, he had tried the experiment
of raising grain on six hundred and forty acres
of land, and his efforts had resulted in a crop
which averaged twelve sacks to the acre, despite
the fact that the season's rainfall amounted to
only four and a half inches. After his extensive
loss by the drought he sold the balance of his
sheep, consisting of something like sixteen thou-
sand head, to “Lucky” Baldwin, owner of the
Santa Anita ranch. Since his first effort in this
line, Mr. Freeman has never lost a crop, con-
tinuing to develop his land to the highest state
of cultivation.
Besides his grain farming Mr. Freeman has
given every attention to the improvement of
his vast property, one point of its Supremacy
being its splendid natural water supply, which
he has developed by means of artesian wells,
which now yield one hundred and fifty miner's
inches of water. Water can be found at any
point on the ranch at a depth of ninety feet,
and an almost inexhaustible supply at One htin-
dred and fifty feet. A fine seedling orchard has
been budded to Washington navels and Valencias,
and is now a source of considerable revenue.
With the incoming of a large number of eastern
settlers in the year 1885, Mr. Freeman found
it expedient to dispose of a portion of his vast
ranch, the south half being sold and later divided
up into small plots, while the present site of
Inglewood is also a part of the famous old
rancho. The Redondo branch of the Santa Fe
road and the electric lines of the Redondo road
cross the ranch and afford unexcelled facilities
for marketing the immense crops of hay and
grain which Mr. Freeman now raises on his
ten thousand acre property. He also leases a
part of his ranch.
the parents of two sons and one daughter.
Mr. Freeman lost his wife in 1874, the year
following his arrival in the state. They were
The
daughter married Capt. Charles H. Howland,
and they now make their home with Mr. Free-
man in a magnificent residence, undoubtedly one
of the finest in the west. It stands in a parklike
enclosure of about sixty acres, all in a state of
exquisite cultivation to California's most brilliant
flowers and shrubbery, rare plants and superb
trees—a perfect Eden of beauty in the semi-
tropics. Mr. Freeman takes a deep interest in
every movement which has for its end the devel-
opment of the resources of Southern California,
its growth and upbuilding. In Los Angeles he
has been active in the Chamber of Commerce,
having served for two terms as its president.
For the past seventeen years he has been a di-
rector of the Southern California Railway, a
branch of the Santa Fe system.
In his personal characteristics Mr. Freeman is
a man and citizen who stands exceptionally high
among all who have known him in the past
thirty years—the length of his residence in
Southern California. By inheritance he is en-
dowed with strong and forceful attributes of
manhood, capable of assuming a position of
leadership in the business world; at the same time
developing the personal qualities of frank kind-
liness, unswerving integrity and the brother-
hood of man, which have impressed upon his
face with the lines of advancing years, the pur-
pose of a manhood sought and won.
WILLIAM W. YOUNG. A skilful and prac-
tical agriculturist, systematic and thorough,
William W. Young is meeting with noteworthy
success in his operations and has acquired an
assured position among the younger generation
of prosperous farmers. He is a man of liberal
views and of greatest integrity, energetic and pro-
gressive, and is giving his earnest efforts to-
wards the industrial, social and political im-
provement of the valley, and more especially of
Escondido, where he resides. A son of E. H.
Young, he was born September 1, 1873, in Kan-
sas, where he spent the days of his boyhood.
A native of Indiana, E. H. Young settled when
a young man in Stafford county, Kans., and
while living there occupied a leading position
among its men of influence, for several years
serving as county commissioner. Migrating with
his family to California in 1887, he was here
successfully employed in agricultural pursuits
for about ten years. Since 1897 he has been a
resident of Los Angeles, where he is now living.
retired from active business. He served as a
Soldier in the Civil war, taking part in many
of the most important engagements of the con-

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
813
flict. In politics he is a stanch supporter of the
principles of the Republican party. He married
Lizzie Brown, a native of England, and ten
children were born of their union.
Fourteen years of age when he came with his
parents to San Diego county, William W. Young
completed his education in the public Schools of
Escondido, and as a farmer's son was well
trained in the many branches of agriculture.
Choosing for his life work the independent oc-
cupation to which he was reared, he worked for
Mr. Wohlford for five years, obtaining practical
experience in general farming. Subsequently he
was employed for a short time in a fruit packing
house, after which, in 1904, he accepted his
present position as manager of W. L. Power's
fruit ranch, which is devoted to the raising of
citrus fruits. It contains sixty acres of rich land
twenty-five acres devoted to the raising of hav
and grain, while on thirty-five acres are lemon.
orange and walnut groves, there being over two
thousand trees on the place, the larger number
of them being orange and lemon trees. He has
recently purchased a choice little ranch of five
acres, which he will devote entirely to dairying
and chicken raising, two profitable branches of
industry.
In 1806 Mr. Young married Ida M. Burritt, a
native of New York, and a daughter of C. L. Bur-
ritt, of Los Angeles. Of the union of Mr. and
Mrs. Young two children have been born,
namely: Marion, now seven years old, and Theo-
dore, three years younger. Politically Mr.
Young is a sound Republican ; fraternally he is
a member of Escondido Lodge, W. O. W., and
religiously he is a constant member of the Meth-
Odist Episcopal Church.
MRS. MARTHA E. PLATT, of Clarkdale,
Cal., was before her marriage Miss Detwiler,
the youngest of eleven children born to David
and Mary A. (Price) Detwiler, both of whom
were natives of Maryland. Of their large fam-
ily of children two are deceased, the names of
those attaining maturity being as follows: Laura,
Mrs. C. Jones; John, who married Lizzie Gow-
ing; Edward, who married Nellie Turner;
Henry; William, who married Mary Baxter;
Thomas; Mary, Mrs. P. Santee; Annie, Mrs.
F. Santee; and Martha E., Mrs. Platt. David
Detwiler immigrated to Ohio from Maryland
early in the last century and in Ohio his daughter
Martha was born in 1860. At the first call for
able-bodied men in the defense of the Union
David Detwiler responded, becoming a member
of an Ohio regiment, and serving throughout
the entire period of the war. After his discharge
he once more resumed work at the carpenter’s
trade, following this until his death in 1868, at
the age of sixty-two years. Politically he was
a Republican.
While on a visit to the home of her brother,
Henry L., in El Paso, Tex., Martha E. Detwiler
and Harry D. Platt formed an acquaintance
which resulted in their marriage in 1888. Mr.
Platt was born in New York state in 1859, and
in 1880 removed to Texas, when he was travel-
ing freight and passenger agent for the Southern
Pacific Railroad, a position which he held up
to the time of his death in Los Angeles in 1895.
His father, Hosea Platt, was born in New York
state in 1830, and throughout his life had fol-
lowed the butcher's trade in New York. By his
marriage he had three children, named in order
of birth as follows: Harry D., John and Jennie.
Mrs. Platt is the mother of four children, Lucile,
Harry, Howard and Edward, all of whom are
being trained to fill useful positions in life.
REV. DR. C. B. RIDDICK. Throughout
JLos Angeles county no name is better known
or more highly esteemed than that of Rev.
Dr. C. B. Riddick, a retired minister of the
gospel, now living quietly at his home in
Downey. A man of great religious zeal and
enthusiasm, he has spent a useful life, and
whether engaged in educational or pastoral
labor his ministries have been full of good
works and faithful service for his Master, and
all who know him love to think of his deeds
of mercy, of his unfailing charity, and of his
words of cheer, comfort and inspiration. He
has acquired distinction not only for his own
works, but for the honored ancestry from
which he traces his descent, the blood of
some of the most prominent colonial families
flowing through his veins. A native of North
Carolina, he was born in April, 1836, in Gates
county, where his father, Henry Riddick, was
a leading citizen. His mother was a Miss
Mary Brewer, of Suffolk, Va. Mary (Parker)
Riddick, the great-grandmother of Rev. Dr.
Riddick, was a daughter of Col. William
Parker, who, on the battlefield at Trenton, N.
J., was brevetted by General Washington him-
self. His grandmother was descended from
the Alston family, so prominent in the south.
August 7, 1860, in Norfolk, Va., Dr. Red-
dick married Lizzie Corprew, who was born
and reared in Virginia. She is a woman of
rare grace of heart and mind, a sweet-faced
Christian woman, who during the forty-five
years that she has journeyed beside him along
life’s pathway has cheered him with words of
comfort and counsel. She graduated at the
Wesleyan Female College, of which Dr. Rid-
dick afterwards became president. The doc-
tor had the rare advantage of a private tutor
45
814
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
for five years, he being a graduate of both Am-
herst and Yale colleges. He also attended
Randolph Macon College and the University
of Virginia. Besides the ten years spent as
a teacher, he has filled the pulpits of the lead-
ing churches in his denomination, notably in
Denver, Memphis, Louisville, Birmingham
and San Francisco. He counts it as one of
the great distinctions of his eventful life that
he was invited to preach the closing sermon
of the Ecumenical Conference in Washington
City in 1891.
After traveling from Shasta to San Diego
Dr. Riddick is convinced that he lives in the
choicest section of California. He regards his
work at the Preston School of Industry, at
Tone, Cal., as the best and most useful of his
long life. He accepted the position at the re-
quest of Gov. H. T. Gage, almost a life-long
friend of his.
JOHN COOK. Since 1889 John Cook has
conducted a department store in Nipomo,
San Luis Obispo county, in which enterprise
he has met with a success that places him
among the representative men of this section.
In Cambridge, England, where he was born
October 13, 1849, his father, George Cook,
maintained a general store, at the same time
owning and managing an inn. The Elder
Cook married Anna Wells, and they reared a
family of eleven children; he lived to be nine-
ty-four years old, and his wife eighty-six.
Both were members of the Baptist Church.
The example of immigration was set by the
oldest son, who, at the age of fifteen, came to
America in a sailing vessel. John Cook, less
adventurous than his brother, remained in
Cambridge, and during an apprenticeship of
four years to a merchant there he received no
remuneration whatever, his board being paid
by his parents.
But nineteen years old when he arrived in
America in 1868, John Cook soon afterwards
became identified with the merchantile firm
of Gage, Downs & Company, of Chicago, as
a window trimmer, remaining in that capacity
until the great fire of 1871. He then conduct-
ed a general store in Bloomington, Ill., for
five years, and at the same time began the
study of law, in which he graduated in the
first law class of the Illinois State Normal in
1876. While in Bloomington, he was united
in marriage with Elsie A. Crist, daughter of
Dr. Crist, one of the best known pioneers and
medical practitioners of Bloomington, and who
had located in that town when it was in its
infancy. From Bloomington Mr. Cook re-
moved to Kansas, and after practicing law for
a short time established a store dependent up-
on the farmers for its patronage and supply.
This departure proving a failure owing to suc-
cessive failures in crops, he became identified
with a wholesale concern in St. Joseph, Mo.,
whence, owing to the illness of his wife, he
came to Riverside, Cal., in 1882.
After engaging in merchandising in River-
side for seven years, Mr. Cook came to Ni-
pomo in 1889 and started what has developed
into one of the best equipped and most di-
versified general stores in the county, and one
may be sure of full value for money invested
and immunity from misrepresentation. He
makes a special study of the personal pref-
erences of his patrons, is glad to order goods
required that are not on hand and in every
respect conforms to the demands of the day
for modern and up-to-date methods in his busi-
116SS.
In political affiliation Mr. Cook is a Repub-
lican, with a strong leaning toward Prohibi-
tion. Since old enough to form his own con-
clusions he has been identified with the Meth-
odist Episcopal Church, and the local church
profits by his personal co-operation and gen-
erosity. Fraternally he is a charter member
of Nipomo Lodge, K. of P., and is otherwise
connected with the social life of the commun-
ity. His oldest son, George C., who was edu-
cated at the University of Southern California,
married Zelia Toy, and is engaged in ranch-
ing near Modesto, Stanislaus county; Bertha
L., the only daughter in the family, married
Rev. S. S. Sampson, of Arroyo Grande ; and
Carl J., the youngest son, is qualifying as an
electrical engineer at the Oakland Polytech-
111C.
JOSE ADARGA. An old settler of Santa
Catalina Island and a man thoroughly familiar
with the islands surrounding it is Jose Adarga,
who has been the guide of many a party of
hunters in these places, Jeffreys, the noted prize
fighter, having on one occasion secured his serv-
ices in that capacity. Mr. Adarga was born in
the city of Los Angeles, at what is called the
Pepper Trees, on New High street. His father,
Pedro Adarga, was born in Lower California,
Mexico, and early settled in Los Angeles, follow-
ing the cattle business throughout his life. His
mother, Phillepa Redona, in maidenhood, was
also a native of Lower California and after her
marriage came with her husband on horseback
to Los Angeles. After the death of her hus-
band she was married to Joseph Preciado, of
Avalon, who is well known as “Mexican Joe”
throughout this section. He came to California
when but six years old with his foster-parents,
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
815
about the year 1836, they having taken a claim
On the island, where they engaged in raising
sheep and goats. Later on they learned that
Catalina was not government property and in
consequence lost all their possessions there. Mr.
Preciado settled in Avalon and is now engaged
in running a launch here.
Jose Adarga was the youngest in a family of
six children, four of whom are now living. , His
father dying when he was but six years old he
had no opportunities for securing an education in
the Schools, but managed to obtain a large fund
of knowledge through later personal efforts. As
a mere child he went to work to support himself.
Securing employment at San Juan Capistrano
On a sheep ranch he remained there until sixteen
years of age when he ran away from his em-
ployer, who had been very hard on him. Going to
Los Angeles he later went to Wilmington where
his mother had located, and there he peddled
fruit for a time. In 1869 he came to Catalina
in the boat White Horse with Mr. Boschet, who
had mines on the west end of the island. Mr
Adarga here secured work of Mr. Howland on
his farm and learned the sheep-shearing trade,
thereafter coming each year from Wilmington
to the different islands during the shearing
seasons to assist in that work.
In 1883 Mr. Adarga was married to Miss
Dolores Soto, a native of Los Angeles, whose
father, Manuel Soto, was in the cattle and horse
raising business in San Diego and Lower Cali-
fornia, his death occurring in San Diego. Mrs.
Adarga was reared at San Juan Capistrano.
After his marriage Mr. Adarga settled on Cata-
lina at White's landing and commenced to work
for Captain Whitley, a stockholder, remaining
in his employ for many years. In 1895 he re-
moved to Avalon, where he was guide and hunter
for Banning Brothers for a few years, and later
engaged in the boat business, running the glass
bottom boats and a line of row boats. With one
exception all of his seven children are at home.
They are: Reguinaldo, engaged in business with
his father; Paulina, now Mrs. Frates, of Avalon;
Everett, Rosa, Esquia, Catalina and John Peter.
Politically Mr. Adarga is an advocate of the
principles of the Republican party.
GEORGE W. CALDWELL. One of the
most prominent citizen of Dolgeville, Cal., is
George W. Caldwell, who is station agent, post-
master and merchant at this place. He was born
September 29, 1862, in Jo Daviess county, Ill.,
and received his education in the common Schools
of that state. His father, Samuel K. Caldwell,
was born in 1815 in Kentucky, where he farmed
for a time and later engaged in the merchan-
dising business. After his removal to Illinois
with his family he again engaged in farming,
buying one hundred and forty acres of land in
Jo Daviess county upon which he remained until
his death in 1869. The mother was Nancy Albin
in maidenhood and a native of Southern Illi-
nois. She died on the Illinois homestead in 1872,
having become the mother of twelve children,
Seven of whom are now living.
When nineteen years of age Mr. Caldwell
left the farm and took advantage of an oppor-
tunity to learn telegraphy. After he had finished
his apprenticeship of two years he went to
Chicago and entered the employ of the Illinois
Central Railroad. In 1888 he resigned his posi-
tion there and came to California, connecting
himself with the Southern Pacific Company, and
has been in their employ for eighteen years. His
present position is that of station master at Dolge-
ville, where he also has other business interests.
He is a member of the Order of Railway Teleg-
raphers, the Knights of the Maccabees, and polit-
ically affiliates with the Republican party. His
wife, Hattie M. Clark before her marriage, is a
native of Iowa, and they are the parents of four
children, all of whom are living : George W.,
B. H., Albin and Katie M. Mr. Caldwell is a
man of strong principles and in all enterprises
which tend to develop his section of the state is
an enthusiastic promoter.
RALPH. S. COMPTON. Well known as
chief engineer on the boat Empress and a stock-
holder in the Meteor Boat Company of Avalon,
Ralph S. Compton is a man who has made a
success in life and has many friends who esteem
him highly. He is a native of Scotland, having
been born in Stow, October Io, 1863, the son of
James and Margaret (Ingles) Compton, both
of whom were born in Scotland, the latter’s
death occcurring in that country also. The father
was employed as a railway station master in
his native country and when he brought his fam-
ily to America settled in Atchison, Kans., and
became chief clerk to the master mechanic of
the Missouri Pacific, holding that position until
the time of his death. There were nine children
in the parental family, Ralph S. being the third
in Order of birth.
It was in 1871 that he was brought to this
country by his father and given the advantages
of a public-school education in Kansas. At the
age of seventeen he entered the employ of the
Missouri Pacific as a fireman, and at twenty-four
was promoted to engineer and given a run out
of Atchison. In 1887 he severed his connec-
tion with that company, and coming to Los An-
geles secured a situation with the Southern
Pacific, which he soon resigned to accept a place
as fireman on the Santa Fe. He continued to
816
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
follow this occupation until 1893, when he re-
signed on account of a strike and subsequently
became a street-car motorman on the Pasadena
line. He owned a launch at Catalina and had
been in the habit of spending a part of each sum-
mer here, so was familiar with conditions when,
in 1901, he decided to locate at Avalon. He
engaged in the handling of row boats and had
two launches, the Helena and Henrietta, until
1903, when he built the Lady Lou, of which he
was engineer until January, 1906. At that time
he consolidated with the Meteor Boat Company
and became chief engineer of the Empress,
which position he still fills.
The marriage of Mr. Compton occurred in
Los Angeles county, uniting him with Henrietta
Treat, who was born in Atchison, Kans., and
they have one child, Ralph Theodore. Mr. Comp-
ton is interested in the development of his com-
munity and as a citizen is public-spirited and
progressive, identifying himself closely with the
upbuilding enterprises of the city in which he
resides.
HON. ALBERT B. MOFFITT. For many
years a resident of Fernando, the late Hon. Al-
bert B. Moffitt was actively identified with the
early history and growth of its industrial, busi-
ness and political interests, and as a citizen of
prominence and influence his name will ever be
held in grateful remembrance. He was dis-
tinguished as an early settler of this state and as
a soldier in the Civil war, having an excellent
record for brave and gallant conduct on the field
of battle.
Coming to California at an early day, Mr.
Moffitt was for some time in the employ of the
Wells-Fargo Express Company at Oakland. Re-
signing his position in 1874, he located in
Fernando, and as a partner of the late Hon.
Charles Maclay was for a number of years en-
gaged in mercantile pursuits, carrying on an ex-
tensive and lucrative business. Taking an intelli-
gent interest in public matters, he was elected
as a representative to the state legislature from
the Fernando district, and served until his death,
which occurred June 14, 1884.
In October, 1873, Mr. Moffitt married Ara-
bella Maclav, daughter of the late Hon. Charles
Maclay, and of their union three children were
born, namely: Charles M.; Grace L., wife of
Frederick Prince, of San Francisco; and Albert
Hubbard. Mrs. Moffitt is now residing in San
Francisco. Politically Mr. Moffitt was an un-
compromising Democrat, and socially he was a
member of the Grand Army of the Republic.
Fraternally he was prominent in Masonic circles,
being one of the charter members of Fernando
Lodge No. 343, F. & A. M. He was likewise a
charter member of Fernando Lodge No. 214, A.
O. U. W., and did much to promote the good of
the order.
ABRAHAM L. HICKEY. The early set-
tlers of California were brave and sturdy men,
the forerunners and founders of one of the
most, glorious commonwealths the world has
seen, but nevertheless abundant credit is due
to later settlers who continued the work so
nobly begun and brought to fruition projects
which their predecessors had only dreamed
might be accomplished. Among the more re-
cent comers to the state mention belongs to
Abraham L. Hickey, who is the owner and oc-
cupant of a flourishing ranch not far from
Orcutt, Santa Barbara county. -
Mr. Hickey is of southern birth and par-
entage, born in East Tennessee, on Christmas
day of 1863, into the home of John and Martha
(Murdock) Hickey, natives respectively of
Tennessee and South Carolina. Selecting ag-
riculture as his life calling the father settled
on a farm in his native state. At the break-
ing out of the Civil war he enlisted at his
country's call and last year of the war his
life was sacrificed in his country’s cause. Left
a widow when her son Abraham L. was a
child of two years, Mrs. Hickey continued to
make her home in Tennessee until 1869, when,
with a brother, she came across the plains to
Oregon. Abraham L. was then a lad of six
years, and hence the greater part of his life
has been spent on the western coast. His en-
tire school life was passed in Oregon, for he
attained school age during the year he was
brought west. Continuing the work which his
father had followed before him, he too selected
agriculture as his life work, and in Grant
county, Ore., engaged in ranching and stock-
raising, continuing in that location until com-
ing to Santa Barbara county, Cal., in 1897.
During that year he purchased his present
ranch of forty acres, although he did not set-
tle upon it until 1905. Thus while he has
been a resident of the state for about nine
years he has lived on his present property
only about one year, but even in this short time
he has brought about numerous improvements
which enables his ranch to rank with those of
manv older and more experienced ranchers.
He is thoroughly convinced of the possibili-
ties of this part of the country and what he
has accomplished is but the development of
his expectations.
In Oregon, in 1801, Mr. Hickey was mar-
ried to Miss Sally B. Martin, a native of Mis-
sissippi, and while they were living in Oregon
two children, Blanche and Charles, were born
Sºuv'
or
º:

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
819
to them. The other children, Bert and Earl,
have been born since the removal of the family
to this state in 1897. Mrs. Hickey is a mem-
ber of the Christian Church, which all of the
family attend, and toward the support of
which Mr. Hickey contributes freely. Polit-
ically he is a Republican, his fraternal affilia-
tions identifying him with the Odd Fellows'
lodge at Santa Maria and Hesperian Lodge
No. 341, F. & A. M., of the same place. Mr.
Hickey has one brother who is a resident of
Oregon, in which state his mother also makes
her home at the advanced age of seventy-
eight years.
* * *-º-º-º-º-º-º-º-º-º-º:
CHARLES W. LOVING. Distinguished
alike for his own integrity, industry and personal
worth, and for the honored ancestry from which
he traces his lineage, Charles W. Loving is well
deserving of special mention in this volume. He
comes of English, Irish and Scotch stock, and
was born January 17, 1830, in Louisville, Ky.,
a son of George Loving. His great-grandfather,
Joseph Loving, and his son Christopher, the next
in line of descent, came from England to this
country, and settled in Virginia just prior to the
Revolution, in which Joseph Loving took an ac-
tive part, serving in several engagements.
A native of Richmond, Va., George Loving
there grew to manhood, receiving his educa-
tion in the public Schools, and obtaining a good
knowledge of agriculture on the home planta-
tion. Two of his brothers, John and James,
served in the war of 1812. He moved to Illi-
nois, when a young man, locating as a pioneer in
Sangamon county, not far from the old home of
Abraham Lincoln. Soon after the declaration
of the war between Mexico and the United States
he enlisted in an Illinois regiment, and for two
years fought with his comrades, serving under
Colonel Morris and General Zachary Taylor, and
taking part in the battle of Vera Cruz and in
other engagements. At the close of the war he re-
turned to Illinois and after farming there awhile
longer removed with his family to Henry county,
Iowa, where he resided until his death, at the
venerable age of eighty-seven years. He married
Lucy Arthur, who died in early womanhood,
when her son, Charles W., was but four years
old. &
Completing his education after the removal of
the family to Iowa, Charles W. Loving succeed-
ed to the independent occupation to which he
was reared, and in which he was well trained.
In 1849, inspired by the ambitions of youth and
health, he came with the gold seekers to Cali-
fornia, and was engaged in mining and prospect-
ing on the Feather river, and in other regions
known to miners for quite awhile, traveling
about a good deal and at times meeting with en-
couraging success, Returning to Iowa, he en-
gaged in the pork packing business in Henry
county, but in 1857 met with misfortune, losing
heavily. Going then to Colorado, he made and
lost money in mining. The Civil war breaking
out, he enlisted in the Third Colorado Cavalry,
in which he served under Gen. U. S. Grant at
Vicksburg, and in many other battles, his last
engagement being in the battle of Nashville,
under General Thomas. At the close of the con-
flict, he returned to Colorado, and in 1869 came
again to California to mine. He remained here
awhile, after which he returned east, and in 1873
he made a third visit to the Pacific coast, but did
not stay here many months. In 1876 he was for
awhile successfully employed as a miner in the
Black Hills, S. Dak. Subsequently locating at
Bellefourche, that state, he was there successfully
engaged in the stock business for a number of
years, making considerable money. In Novem-
ber, 1901, he settled in Santa Monica, where he
now owns some valuable real estate, having made
wise investments in this part of Los Angeles
county.
At Deadwood, S. Dak., May 20, 1878, Mr.
Loving married Jennie L. Andrea, who was born
in Ohio. Politically he is a stanch Republican,
and religiously he is a consistent member of the
Presbyterian Church.
FERGUS. LIN N TAIRBANKS. One of the
most popular and prominent young business men
of Hueneme is Fergus Linn Fairbanks, cashier
of the Bank of Hueneme and a leading character
in business, political, social and religious circles.
He is a son of one of the old settlers of Ventura
county, his father, Elijah B., having made the
trip west via Oregon, down through California,
locating in this county in 1876. A native of
New York, he was brought up in Wisconsin,
where his father, Theophilus Fairbanks, removed
his family when the section of country near
Waupun was wild and unsettled ; his death oc-
curred there, when he was over ninety years old.
Elijah B. Fairbanks removed to Nebraska when
twenty-four years of age and engaged in farm-
ing and after his removal to California worked
at teaming for five years in Ventura, from there
coming to Hueneme with the Hueneme Wharf
Company to take charge of the wharf. He still
occupies that position and is a man who holds
the highest respect of everv member of the com-
munity. The mother of Mr. Fairbanks was
born in Illinois, and was the daughter of Rev.
Richard Linn, a minister of the Christian Church.
He later went to Iowa, where he was largely
interested in farming and from there took his
family to Pawnee, Neb., where he farmed and
820
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
gave his services as a minister of the church
without compensation. Two of the sons were
in the Civil war, and the daughter, Martha M.,
who became Mrs. Fairbanks, still lives with her
husband at Hueneme. - -
There were seven children in the parental
family, of which Fergus L. Fairbanks is the
Second, his birth having occurred at Table Rock,
Pawnee county, Neb., April 12, 1876. The first
five years of his life were spent at Ventura
and from there he was brought with the family
by his father to Hueneme, where he has since
resided. He was the recipient of a very good
education which began in the Hueneme public
Schools, was continued at the Ventura high
School, from which he graduated in 1894, and
completed by one year of college work at the
Occidental college in Los Angeles, after which
he accepted a position in the Bank of Hueneme
as bookkeeper. At the time of the death of
Major Gregg, cashier of the institution, in Decem-
ber, 1900, Mr. Fairbanks was elected to the
office by the board of directors and has held the
position ever since, being now as well a director
and stockholder of the bank, which was or—
ganized in 1889.
Mr. Fairbanks' first marriage occurred in Los
Angeles, uniting him with Miss Lula Hooper,
who at her death left a daughter, Constance.
Mr. Fairbanks' second marriage was performed
in Los Angeles, Miss Helen Murphey, a native
of Michigan, becoming his wife. To this union
one daughter also has been born, namely, Helen.
The family residence, which is one of the finest
in the city, is situated on the corner of Third
and Clara Streets. Mr. Fairbanks fills a number
of positions of importance in the community
and is the initiative influence in those enterprises
which tend toward the upbuilding of this section.
He is an active worker in the Presbyterian
Church; is president of the board of trustees of
Oxnard Union high school; is a strong Republi-
can and finds opportunity for doing important
work for his party as a member of the Republi-
can county central committee.
B. A. HARASZTHY. The distinguished
family of Haraszthy, which belongs to the an-
cient nobility of Hungary, and first settled in that
country more than eight hundred years ago, has
among its American representatives B. A. Har-
aszthy of Colegrove, Cal. His father was Count
Augustin Haraszthy, who was a stanch friend
of that noted patriot, Kossuth, and led an ex-
citing and adventurous life in his native land.
He and five other nobles engaged in a plot to
arouse Hungary against the Austrian govern-
Iment and when they were warned that the author-
ities had become possessed of a knowledge of
their plans and they were threatened with arrest
and certain death should they be caught, they
fled to America. For a time the Count remained
in New York and then the United States gov-
ernment interceded with that of Austria and
secured permission for him to return to his coun-
try and remove his family to America, although
the property in Hungary was confiscated. At the
time of the Kossuth trouble he held the office
of private secretary to the Viceroy of Hungary
and his grandfather was Viceroy of the kingdom
of Dalmatia. Count Augustin was a man of en-
terprising disposition and, with his adventurous
spirit, life in New York was not satisfying. He
crossed the plains to California, planted a vineyard
in the southern part of the state, remained there
for a number of years and then removed to Nic-
aragua, where he died.
The son, B. A. Haraszthy, was born in Wis-
consin and received his education at the St.
Timothy's hall school, Maryland, and at Santa
Clara college. He followed his father's lead in
engaging in the wine industry in California and
for eight years held the position of superinten-
dent of the Lake Wine and Vineyard Company,
and afterward engaged in mining, all over the
southern part of the state. He also inherited
his father's daring spirit and love of excitement
and became in turn a pioneer of Arizona, Utah,
California and Alaska. While living in Arizona
Mr. Haraszthy took an active part in politics,
and was the recipient of many honors at the
hands of the voters, serving at one time as a
supervisor of Yuma and as school trustee and was
nominated as a candidate for sheriff, but the
Southern Pacific Railway Company took a hand
in the election at that time and defeated him.
The three years which he spent in Alaska were
full of adventure and exciting experiences, and
he succeeded in locating a number of paying
mines. He spent several months in searching the
fields of Kotzebue and then purchased a small
fishing smack and prepared to sail down the coast
to Cape Nome, but the ice was so heavy that
the party were obliged to return a number of
times and start again after discouraging attempts.
On the last trip they encountered a storm which
blew their vessel on the mud flats seven miles
from shore, and it took them five days after the
storm subsided to get the boat afloat again. No
serious mishap befell them afterwards until about
five miles off Port Clarence, when another storm
drove the craft on the rocks and the crew start-
ed for the shore in a small boat, but a breaker up-
set them and they were obliged to swim, reaching
land safely though nearly exhausted and ninety
miles from Nome. The sufferings of the men
before they reached that point were terrible, but
they were glad for their deliverance at any cost.

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 823
In a business way Mr. Haraszthy has large hold-
ings at various points, is interested in mining.
property in Utah, and has charge of the oil bus-
iness owned by his sister, Mrs. Hancock, of Los
Angeles. There are one thousand acres of land
in the LaBrara ranch on which are located one
hundred and five wells, which are now in opera-
tion and are held by an unexpired ten-year lease
by the Salt Lake Oil Company. Mr. Haraszthy’s
brother, Arpad, was a prominent man in viticul-
ture circles in California for many years and had,
at the time of his death, amassed a great for-
tune. His wife was a daughter of Gen. Guada-
lupe Vallejo. -
By his first marriage Mr. Haraszthy has two
children, Charles Ernest, who is married and
lives in San Francisco, and Harriet, who married
George Hunt, and also resides in San Francisco.
By his second wife, who was Isabel King, and a
native of Illinois, he has one daughter, who is
married to James Meadows, of Yuma, Ariz.
Mr. Haraszthy is a successful business man and
politician and to every enterprise of progressive
interest to this section of the state he gives his
enthusiastic support. He has a host of friends
throughout the country who recognize his ability
and worth and accord him the hearty admiration
and respect due a natural leader.
HON. CHARLES FITZ ABNER JOHN-
SON. A man of prominence in Southern Cali-
fornia whose name is inseparably connected
with the development of this section of the
state is the late Hon. C. F. A. Johnson, of
Long Beach, who during the days of busi-
ness depression ten years ago displayed marked
foresight and executive ability in helping to
tide over the discouraging years and make a
solid foundation for building up the country,
when there arrived a succeeding wave of
prosperity which has carried upon its crest the
most remarkable advancement ever witnessed
in any section of the United States at any
period in her history. This branch of the John-
son family dates its records back into the
early history of the thirteen original colonies,
Isaac Johnson being one of the first settlers
in the Maine country. His son, Dr. Abner,
was born at Sullivan, Hancock county, Feb-
ruary 22, 1786, and after graduating in medi-
cine established himself as a practitioner in
Waterford and Sullivan. He was a commis-
sioned surgeon in the war of 1812, and dur-
ing many years of his life devoted himself to
the manufacture of Johnson's liniment, a well-
known household remedy which may still be
purchased, for it has withstood the test of
time and is now being put up in the same
form as originally. In 1812 he married Julia
Sargent, who was born in Boston, Mass., Au-
gust 30, 1786, and died in Wethersfield, Conn.,
June 30, 1878. Both she and her husband
were lifelong adherents of the Congregational
Church.
One of the well-known figures in the colon-
ial history of Massachusetts was Col. Paul
Dudley Sargent, the father of Mrs. Johnson,
especial interest attaching to his history be-
cause he was one of those brave men to whom
the United States owes its independence. He
was born in Salem, Mass., in 1745, and was
but a young man when British tyranny
aroused the colonies to arms. He took part
in the memorable Boston tea party and when
hostilities began, fitted out at his own ex-
pense a regiment which was one of the nine-
teen that constituted General Washington’s
camp at Cambridge in July, 1775. With the
young Marquis de Lafayette he at times
shared the honor of being aide-de-camp to
Washington, and among the engagements in
which he took a part were those of Bunker
Hill, Long Island, New York City, Trenton
and Princeton. In after years he loved to
recall that stirring night when with his illus-
trious general and other brave men he crossed
the Delaware and surprised the British and
IHessians in their revelries. At the close of
the war, finding that the whole of his private
fortune had been 'sacrified to his country he
found it necessary to begin anew. He took
up mercantile pursuits for a time, but finally
retired to a small farm near Sullivan, Me.,
and there his death occurred September 28,
1828. His honorable service for his country
became widely known and many well-known
men, among them Tally rand, came to his mod-
est home in Maine to enjoy his hospitality
and talk over the stirring scenes through
which he had passed. His patriotism and mili-
tary abilities were inherited by him, for his
father, Col. Epes Sargent, was a man of tal-
ent, and his mother was a daughter of Gov-
ernor Winthrop by his marriage to Ann Dud-
ley, a granddaughter of Governor Thomas
Dudley of Connecticut. The marriage of
Paul TJudley Sargent united him with Lucy,
daughter of Thomas and Lucy (Smith) Saun-
ders, the latter a daughter of Rev. Thomas
Smith, of Portland, Me., and the former a
member of the council of Massachusetts dur-
ing the troubles with England that ended in
the war for independence.
In the family of Dr. Abner and Julia (Sar-
gent) Johnson there were three daughters and
four sons, Charles Fitz Abner being the old-
est in the family and the one who survived
all of his brothers and sisters. One son, Dud-
824
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
ley, who had enlisted as a lieutenant in the
Seventeenth Regiment of Maine Volunteer
Infantry, was killed in the battle of Chancel-
lorsville: Thomas, who came to California in
1850, died of cholera on the American river
the following year; and Samuel died at Ban-
gor, Me. Among the daughters was Mrs.
Charlotte McKay, who served throughout the
Civil war as a nurse and later wrote an in-
teresting account of her experiences in the
army, which was published in book form. In
recognition of her faithfulness, the regiment
with which she served presented her with a
diamond Maltese cross.
Charles Fitz Abner Johnson studied classics
in the Bangor (Maine) Theological Seminary
and later attended Gorham Academy. Com-
pleting his studies he spent some time as a
clerk in Bangor, then went to Cincinnati and
learned telegraphy, after which he came to
San Francisco via the Panama route. This
was in 1849 and like all forty-niners he first
tried his luck at mining, locating on the Yuba
river. His operations were only ordinarily
successful, however, and later he engaged in
freighting and took the first mule-train of pro-
visions to Yreka. By 1852 he decided that
his western experiences were sufficient to sat-
isfy him for a time at least and he returned
to the east and engaged in the lumbering busi-
ness on the Aroostook and St. John’s rivers.
A most successful enterprise which he later
engaged in was the manufacture of potato
starch and in this he had at one time the larg—
est business in the world, all of his ten mills
being located in Aroostook county. He re-
tained his interests in the manufacturing plants
until his removal to California in 1889. Be-
sides this enterprise he was extensively en-
gaged in merchandising and had a bank at
Presque Isle. His large business interests
did not prevent him from taking an active
part in public affairs and he was one of the
most prominent and influential Republicans
in the state of Maine, while his acquaintance
included the leaders of his party throughout
the country, and he was more than once vis-
ited by men of national fame, including such
men as Garfield and Blaine. In 1884 he was
a state elector on the Blaine ticket and had
the honor of casting his ballot for that candi-
date at Augusta, Me.
Forty years after his first visit to California
Mr. Johnson resolved to make the state his
home, for he had in these intervening years
acquired a competency amply sufficient to sup-
ply every comfort for his declining years. Se-
lecting Riverside as a desirable location he
purchased twenty acres of land on Palm
avenue and engaged in horticulture for the
succeeding six years. In 1895 he removed
to Long Beach and erected an attractive
home on Cedar avenue. Upon the re-incor-
poration of Long Beach, in the fall of 1897,
he was elected to the board of trustees, by
which body he was chosen president and thus
became the first mayor of the re-organized
town. This was the time when that city was
passing through a season of great business de-
pression and a lack of funds prevented the
making of any improvements; as a result no
settlers were attracted to the place, although
the beach was acknowledged to have no peer
and the climate as near perfect as is to be
found any where. Largely through the ef-
forts of Mr. Johnson a radical change was ef-
fected, a city hall lot was purchased, a city
hall built, the pavilion erected, and the ques-
tion of the establishment of an electric light
plant and a sewerage system was agitated.
These improvements were not then made, al-
though Mr. Johnson strongly advised them,
and had the advice been followed thousands
of dollars would, have been saved to the city,
which was lost by delay. He was made a di-
rector of the Bank of Long Beach and a di-
rector and stockholder in the Savings Bank,
and was active in all departments of business
and social life of the city.
The first marriage of Mr. Johnson united
him with Sarah C. Jewett, who was born in
Gardiner, Me., a daughter of Samuel Jewett,
and a sister of G. K. Jewett, who was presi-
dent of a railroad in Maine. Her father was
born in Massachusetts, as was also her mother,
a Miss Kimball. While visiting at Fallbrook,
Cal., the death of Mrs. Sarah Johnson oc-
curred and her body was taken to Riverside
for interment. Of this marriage five children
were born, three of whom attained maturity:
Mrs. Louise Fremont Gray, of Boston, Mass.;
Mrs. Kate Dudley Wheelock, of Riverside; and
Edward Jewett, who was at one time en-
gaged in the insurance business in Boston,
and brought the first ostriches to this coun-
try from South Africa, where he had spent a
wear in studying the habits of the birds. Mr.
Johnson had also an adopted son, Hon. T. H.
|Phair, who was known as the “Starch King.”
and occupied a leading place in political cir-
cles in Maine, having served at times as a
member of the state central committee, and
for a term as senator in the Maine legisla-
ture. Another adopted son, Percy A. John-
son, is a large rancher of Fallbrook, and a
member of the state assembly of California
from his district.
Tn Riverside occurred the marriage of Mr.
Johnson and Mrs. Harriet (Campbell) Hart,
who was born in Griswold, Conn., a daughter
Gºv.
or
ºncº

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
of E. F. and Mary E. (Burlingame) Camp-
bell, natives of Connecticut. Her paternal
grandfather, Napoleon Bonaparte Campbell,
was born in the Nutmeg state of Scotch de-
scent, and her maternal grandfather was Capt.
Peter Burlingame, also a member of a promi-
nent family of that state. In an early day E.
F. Campbell settled in Janesville, Wis., where
he engaged in merchandising, but later he re-
moved his business to Ashley, Ill., and there
died. His wife died in Janesville. They had
only two children, Mrs. Johnson and Mrs.
Roberts, the latter of Marshfield, Wis. Mrs.
Johnson was a charter member of the Ebell
Society, which she at one time served as presi-
dent, and is a member of the Order of Eastern
Star. Both Mr. and Mrs. Johnson became
members of the Congregational Church, in
which he was a deacon. While living in Maine
he was one of the founders of the church of
that denomination at Presque Isle. He was
made a Mason in Ashland, Me., and after com-
ing to Long Beach became a charter mem-
ber of the blue lodge in that city. The death
of Mr. Johnson occurred May 27, 1902, and
he was buried at Riverside. He was a man
possessing the highest qualities of heart and
mind and exemplified in his life the ideal of
a progressive and public-spirited citizen, who
gained the highest respect and esteem of all
with whom he came in contact, whether in
business, social, political, public or private life.
During his residence in Long Beach he was
intensely interested in reclaiming and devel-
oping the flat lands now being dredged and
advocated as manufacturing and harbor sites.
EDOUARD AMAR. When Edouard Amar
first came to Southern California he could
drive from his home near San Pedro to Los
Angeles and see but one residence on the way.
In the passing years he has witnessed the phe-
nomenal growth of this section ; the building
Of the city of Los Angeles and smaller neigh-
boring cities; the development of the country
lands and progress and improvement of all
methods in farming; and in the midst of it all
he has taken a prominent part as a sheepman
and made for himself a financial success. He
now resides at the corner of Twelfth and Mesa
streets, San Pedro, where he has one of the
finest homes in the city, an entire block being
devoted to the grounds about the house. -
A native of France: Edouard Amar was born
in St. Bonnet, in Hautes-Alpes, March 6,
1852, the youngest child and only one in Amer-
ica in a family of three daughters and two
Sons, of whom two sons and one daughter are
row living. His father, Edouard Amar, was
engaged in the wholesale wine business in that
place, where his wife, formerly Rosin Ollivier,
passed away in 1878. Edouard Amar, the son,
was reared to young manhood in St. Bonnet
and educated in the common schools of the
place. In 1872 he decided to try his fortunes
on this side of the water and accordingly came
to San Francisco, where he remained for one
year. Subsequently, in 1873, he came to South-
ern California, and on the San Pedro rancho,
11ear Wilmington, engaged with Valet, an ex-
tensive rancher and sheepman of this section.
He continued with him for two years, at the
end of which time he purchased a band of
sheep from him and began independent opera-
tions. This proved the nucleus for the fortune
which he has since built up, with the increas-
ing years adding to his flock of sheep until he
had as high as twenty-four thousand at a time.
'He became the most extensive sheepman in
Southern California and one whose success
was . unlimited. His band of sheep ranged
throughout all the country which has since
been built up in the cities of San Pedro and
Others. From the time that San Pedro became
a place of residence (when the old pioneer Tim-
mons first conducted a store here), Mr. Amar
has called this his home, and is still among
the most enterprising and substantial citizens
of the place. In 1887 he laid out blocks four-
teen and ten and sold them off as the Amar
addition to San Pedro, and in many other ways
has manifested his interest in the welfare of
the city which he calls his home.
Mr. Amar has been twice married, his first
wife being Marie Garagnous, a native of
France, whose death occurred in Los Angeles.
She left one daughter, Irma, the wife of Con-
stant Aleman. In 1888, in Los Angeles, he
married Josephine Boisserand of St. Bonnet,
France, and a daughter of Marie Boisseranq
a shoemaker of that place, where his death
occurred. Her mother, Victorine Mauren
(Provensal) Boisseranq, was born in St.
T}onnet, where she now makes her home. Of
lier two sons and two daughters the daughters
and one son are now living, all being in Cali-
fornia. Josephine Boisseranq was reared to
voting womanhood in St. Bonnet, whence she
immigrated in 1887 to California, and there
met and married Mr. Amar. They are the
parents of two children, Eloy, born in 1801,
and Leon, born in 1806; their first child,
Edouard, having died at the age of eleven
months, and the third. Endry, at nine months.
Mr. Amar has served as a member of the board
of trustees of San Pedro for four years, is a
member of the Freeholders of this city and
is a member of the Chamber of Commerce of
Los Angeles. He is a true blue Republican
828
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
and active in his efforts to advance the prin-
ciples which he endorses. Fraternally he is
identified with the Knights of Pythias of Los
Angeles, also of the Uniformed Rank; and
belongs to the French Legion, also of that city,
in which he is a drum major. Mr. Amar holds
a place of importance annong the representive
citizens of this section, and enjoys the con-
fidence and esteem of all who know him.
-*.
WILLIAM T. FULTON. A resident of Cal-
ifornia since 1883 and the owner of his present
ranch near Camarillo since 1897, Mr. Fulton was
born in Crawford county, Pa., July 15, 1856, and
was one of eight children born to his parents,
J. J. C. and Margaret (Graham) Fulton. The
parents were also natives of Pennsylvania, the
birth of the mother occurring in Erie. Illinois
was comparatively wild and unsettled when, in
1857, the parents settled on a farm in Mercer
county, that state, making their home there for
seven years. The end of that time found them
making another westward move, which resulted
in their settling on a farm in Benton county,
Iowa. In all probability they would have re-
1mained in the middle west the remainder of their
days had it not been for a visit paid their son,
William T., in 1892, he having located in Cali-
fornia some years previously. Returning to Iowa
they disposed of the farm and implements and
once more set ourt for the west. Settling on prop-
erty which he had purchased at Montalvo, Ven-
tura county, Mr. Fulton continued the occupa-
tion which he had followed from his earliest
working years, death ending his labors in 1901,
when he was seventy-two years old. His widow
is still living, at the age of seventy-three years,
making her home in Montalvo with her grand-
son, Harry, the eldest son of W. T. Fulton.
Politically Mr. Fulton was a Republican, and
during his more active years and while a resi-
dent of Iowa, was very prominent in the ranks
of his chosen party. A public service of credit
to himself and his constituents followed his elec-
tion to the office of justice of the peace, and
his interest in school matters was demonstrated
by his efficient service on the school board. Mrs.
Fulton is a member of the Presbyterian Church
to which denomination her husband also belonged
and in which he was an elder.
William T. Fulton has no knowledge of Craw-
ford county, Pa., except what has been handed
down to him, for he was a child of only one
year when taken by his parents to Illinois. The
removal to Iowa, however, seven years later, he
remembers distinctly. He attended the common
schools of Benton and Adams counties during
the winter seasons, and at other times he gave
his services to his father, assisting in the duties
of the home farm until coming to California in
1883. He accepted the first work which came to
hand, working on the railroad at Mojave, for
about one year. The next year found him in
Ventura county, where, as before, he accepted the
first honest work that could be obtained, and for
about five years worked as a ranch hand through-
out Ventura county. This experience was of
double advantage to him, not only enabling him
to lay by the means to purchase land of his own,
but giving him an excellent opportunity to make
a suitable choice of location. Before settling
down permanently, however, he farmed on
rented property, first in Pleasant valley, near
Springville, and later in the vicinity of Cama-
rillo, and it was not until 1897 that he purchased
his present ranch of one hundred and sixty acres.
The location was well chosen and the 1and is
well adapted to the raising of beans, walnuts
and apricots, to which it is devoted. To the
two latter commodities he has planted nine acres
each, while the remaining acreage is in beans,
which harvest twelve sacks to the acre.
Mr. Fulton's first marriage united him with
Elizabeth Robbins, who was born in California,
and who at her death, November 26, 1891, left
two children, Ada B. and Harry. In August,
1893, Mr. Fulton married Alice Berry, who died
October 26, 1895, and the only child living of
that marriage is Clifford, who is now eleven
years old. The present Mrs. Fulton, to whom
he was married October 29, 1896, was in maiden-
hood Molly Arnold and was the widow of
Summer Sheppard. By her first marriage she
has three children, Leroy, Bertie and Artie, aged
seventeen, fifteen and thirteen respectively, and
by her marriage with Mr. Fulton there are two
children, Blanche, aged seven years, and Bessie
D., now five. Mrs. Fulton is a member of the
Baptist church, and politically Mr. Fulton gives
his support to the candidates of the Republican
party. During his long residence in Ventura
county he has won and retained the respect of
associates and has a large circle of friends and
well-wishers.
LA TORRE WEBSTER, of Carpinteria,
comes from a pioneer New York family, both his
father and mother being natives of that state.
There were four children born to them, three of
whom are still living : L. T., who resides in the
vicinity of Carpinteria; L. F., who is postmaster
at Ventura, and L. O., of Ottawa county, Ohio.
The father died in Ohio at the age of seventy-
five years, and the mother, who came to California
with her sons, lived to the advanced age of eighty-
three years.

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
829
Born in Lorain county, Ohio, January 24, 1845,
La Torre Webster left the state when still a
young boy and went to Wisconsin, where he re-
ceived a common school education. When the
Civil war broke out he responded to the call of
his country and enlisted in Company E, Second
Iowa Volunteer Infantry, and served three years
and ten months. His campaign was an active
one and with his company he took part in the
battles of Fort Donelson, Shiloh and Corinth.
After the war closed he went to Ohio and for
sixteen years engaged in grape culture. In 1881
he located at Carpinteria, Cal. Taking up unim-
proved land he set out his own orchard and erect-
ed buildings, making of it one of the credita-
ble ranches of the state, and of which he has
every reason to feel proud. He has made a
specialty of walnut raising and is among the best
posted men on that subject in the state. His or-
chard comprises sixty acres, a part of it being
planted to apricots and other kinds of fruits, al-
though the largest acreage is in walnuts.
In 1871 Mr. Webster was married to Sarah E.
Hammond, of Erie county, Ohio, and two child-
ren were born to them, a son and daughter. T.
D. Webster, who married Miss Stella Pike, has
one child, and Mary A., who became the wife of
W. E. Beckstead, has three children. Mr. Web-
ster is a Republican in politics and serves his
district as school trustee.
JOHN W. ROBERTS. In tracing the
causes that have led to the development and
prosperity of California, the student of history
discovers that the citizenship of men from the
states to the east has been a leading factor
in the results now visible. Numbered among
the business men of San Bernardino, who by
excellent business judgment and untiring en-
ergy, contributed to the growth of the city
and county, mention belongs to the late J. W.
Roberts, who came to the Pacific coast from
Pittsburg, Pa. The family which he repre-
sented had long been identified with North
Wales, and there he was born in Bala July
22, 1835. It was during his childhood that
his parents, Richard and Gwen Rob-
erts, immigrated with their family to the
United States, taking up their abode in the
vicinity of Port Leyden, Lewis county, , N.
Y., where the father spent the remainder of
his life as a tiller of the soil. His wife, how-
ever, survived him a number of years, her
earth life closing in Columbus, Wis., at the
home of her daughter. The old family home
in Lewis county, N. Y., is now the prop-
erty of the eldest son, David, and though well
advanced in years he still superintends its
management. ---
The dauntless spirit which led his parents to
seek freedom from the restraints by which
they were surrounded in their native country
had evidently been handed down to their son
J. W., for at the age of nineteen he too gave
vent to the pioneer spirit within him, remov-
ing at that time to Wisconsin. He made his
way across the country by means of Ox-
teams, and settled in Cambria, Columbia
county, where friends of his had preceded him.
As his only training thus far in a business way
had been as a helper on his father’s farm it
was natural that he should seek employment
among the farmers in the neighborhood of
his new home, and as he was a hard-working,
industrious young man his services were al-
ways in demand. Farm work, however, was
only a means to an end, for during all of the
time he was thus engaged he frugally saved
his earnings with the idea of starting in busi-
ness for himself as soon as he had accumulated
the necessary means. This accomplished, he
opened a merchandise store in Cambria, and
in addition to its management he also acted as
express agent. The scope of his business en-
larged from the first, due no doubt to his
pleasing personality and upright business prin-
ciples, a combination which is always an in-
valuable asset to its possessor, and it was not
long before he had added to his other business
a general exchange and banking business, re-
ceiving patronage not only from the citizens
of Cambria, but from the surrounding country
as well. *
Mr. Roberts formed domestic ties by his
marriage in 1860 with Eliza Williams, who
was born near Wrexham, North Wales, the
daughter of Gabriel Williams. During the
childhood of his daughter Mr. Williams immi-
grated to the United States, and in Cambria,
Wis., erected the pioneer flour mill of that lo-
cality. Subsequently Mr. Roberts became asso-
ciated with his father-in-law in the manufacture
of flour in that place, and still later both were
interested in the Danville flour mills, in Dan-
ville, Dodge county, Wis. Some time after
the death of his father-in-law he sold out his
interests in Wisconsin and established his
headquarters in Philadelphia, Pa., where as a
member of the firm of H. H. Mears & Son, he
continued as a flour merchant for many years.
The flour and grain handled by the firm gained
a world-wide reputation and in consequence
they controlled a large and profitable business.
Upon withdrawing from the latter firm in 1873
Mr. Roberts entered into a partnership with
James A. Steele during the same year and for
eighteen years, under the firm name of Roberts
830
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
& Steele, they carried on a large wholesale
flour business in Pittsburg. -
Great as had been his success in the east, it
was perhaps with even larger opportunities
before him that he came to California in 1886
and in 1893 assumed the presidency of the
First National Bank of Colton, an institution
which had been established in 1886 by
Messrs. TXavis and Davis, the latter his
son-in-law. Upon the death of J. W.
Davis, Jr., in August, 1893, he was also
made president of the San Bernardino Na-
tional Bank, and the present stability of both
of these institutions is due in large measure
to the unerring judgment and keen foresight
of Mr. Roberts. His many-sided nature made
him a power and influence wherever he chose
to make his home, and his optimistic nature
was invariably an inspiration to those who
came in contact with him. Besides his in-
terest in various business enterprises in San
Bernardino he was the owner of considerable
real estate and was the largest stockholder in
the company owning the Stewart block. Aside
from his banking interests, however, he was
probably best known as one of the most en-
thusiastic horticulturists in the county, and
at the time of his death he owned large orange
groves in Colton, Highland and San Bernar-
dino, the most of which he had improved from
raw, uncultivated land.
Mr. Roberts’ first wife died in
Wis., in 1867, leaving two children, Jennie E.,
now the widow of J. W. Davis, Jr., and Ed-
ward D., a sketch of the latter being given
elsewhere in this volume. While in the east,
in 1883, Mr. Roberts was married to Winifred
Evans, a descendant of Welsh ancestors and
a native of Lewis county, N. Y. Of this mar-
riage two children were born, John Walter and
Richard Evan, both residing in Redlands, which
is also the home of their mother. Through-
out his life Mr. Roberts had supported the
principles of the Republican party. In his
well-rounded character religion mingled
harmoniously with other lofty attributes of
mind and his membership in the Congrega-
tional Church of San Bernardino was but the
outward symbol of the white light of purity
and truth which actuated him in his high and
noble aims. He passed from earth January
9, 1903, but the memory of his noble life will
ever remain, a priceless heritage to his family
and an inspiration to the rising generation.
DOC WILSON. The association of Doc
Wilson with the largest gem companv of San
Diego gives him prominence as one of the suc-
cessful business men of this city.
Cambria,
high
He has made
his business a special study and is probably the
best posted and most practical gem cutter and
miner in the city. He has not been a resident
of the state many years, having located here in
I900. At Cuyamaca he engaged with Dr.
Schroeder, now of Arizona, who was one of the
Original incorporators of the San Diego Gem
Company, which was incorporated in 1901, and
was one of the five men active in its organization,
and now owns the controlling interest in the busi-
ness. Mr. Wilson was born in Cook, Johnson
county, Neb., July 9, 1880, the only child of his
parents. His father, D. J. Wilson, was born in
East Genoa, N. Y., a son of John Jessop Wilson,
also a farmer of New York, where his death oc-
curred. He was a prominent citizen and faith-
ful to the interests of his country, having served
as a commissioned officer in a New York regi-
ment during the Civil war. D. J. Wilson was
an early settler in Johnson county, Neb., remov-
ing from Ohio, in which state he had enlisted
in the Civil war and served as a non-commis-
sioned officer. After locating in Nebraska he
engaged as a stock man and traveled for five
years among frontier conditions of the middle
west, enduring many dangers and hardships. His
partner was Ed Hargan, with whom he traveled
all over the west. During the years in which
Mr. Wilson was actively engaged in the stock
business he spent his winters in San Diego and
finally, in 1900, located here permanently, being
now retired from the active cares of life. He
retains his interest in former days through his
association with the Grand Army of the Repub-
lic. His wife was formerly Sarah E. Campbell,
a native of Norton, Kans., and a daughter of
Adam Campbell of Kentucky, who was a stock-
man of Kansas and is now a resident of San
Diego. Adam Campbell and his wife migrated
from Kentucky to St. Louis, thence to Iowa,
where he was one of the first settlers, and later
to Nebraska, where he was also a pioneer settler,
then to western Kansas. Mrs. Wilson died in
Nebraska. -
Doc Wilson was reared in Nebraska, receiv-
ing his education in public schools and the
School at Cook, from which he was
graduated. He then entered the University
of Nebraska at Lincoln and graduated in
1899 with the degree of civil engineer. In
I900 he came to San Diego and the following
year the San Diego Gem Company was organized
and incorporated. Of the five men interested
in the enterprise not one could cut a stone and
they owned neither mines nor stock. They
established a small lapidary and hired an expert
stone cutter, Mr. Wilson immediately becoming
an apprentice and continuing until he had
mastered the art. About $2,000 was spent by
the firm in perfecting their machine, which is
*… º 4, 24.
AGE 97 YEARs.

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
833
now a part of the best equipped lapidary in San
Diego, besides which they have an electric motor
and all other modern devices necessary to their
constantly increasing business. At the same time
Mr. Wilson took up the study of mineralogy
with the Scranton school and received his diplo-
ma therefrom. When the company was formed
Mr. Wilson was only a small share-holder, while
he is now president and manager. He has pros-
pected for mines all over this county and has
collected specimens from every mine in the
county, his report in 1904 on gems and jewelry
appearing in bulletin No. 37, edited by Dr. George
F. Kunz. He has operated various gem mines,
among them the California Gem, which produced
a $500 hyacinth, the Little Three, Laurel C.
Hazel Dell, the Chihuahua Gem, and Lythia
Mine, all of which are prolific producers. Some
of Mr. Wilson's gems were sent with county ex-
hibits to the Portland Fair and received medals.
This company owns or controls the output of the
principal producing mines of the county and
continues adding to its mining properities. Mr.
Wilson is a member of the Chamber of Commerce
and is also prominent socially, belonging to the
Cabrello Club of San Diego.
The marriage of Mr. Wilson occurred in Ra-
mona July 22, 1906, uniting him with Hazel
Dell Adams, who was born July 21, 1889, in
Ramona. #
CHARLES CARROLL CLUSIKER. Across
the vista of the fast fleeting years the
thoughts of this prominent pioneer often
revert to the memorable' year of 1848,
with its exciting journey across the plains and
its train of experiences in the mining camps
of the far west. Of the countless thousands
who braved the dangers of the deserts and
mountains in their effort to reach the great
mines of the west, he is one of the compara-
tively few who now survive; by far the larger
majority have gone upon another journey out
into the silent sea of death. Their ears are
dull to the memories that span the voiceless
past; their eyes are blind to the beautiful pic-
tures Nature has painted for the art of man to
emulate; and their lips are forever stilled to
words of praise and honor. Fortunate it is
that some still remain to receive the admiring
affection of a younger generation and to enjoy
the blessings of a twentieth-century civiliza-
tion. The long-distant days of ante-statehood
history seem to be brought nearer when it is
remembered that these men, still active factors
in our development, were witnesses of that re-
mote period of our history.
Charles Carroll Clusker is the oldest pioneer
of San Bernardino county. He is the repre-
Sentative of a family prominent in Madison
county, Ky., where his father, John Clusker,
located in 1800, removing from Virginia,
where he had settled upon his emigration from
Scotland. He engaged as a farmer until his
death, at the age of eighty-six years. His wife,
formerly Ann Hart, a native of Ireland, died in
Kentucky at the age of eighty-four years.
They were the parents of three sons and three
daughters, the youngest of the family being
Charles Carroll Clusker, who is now the sole
survivor. Born March 27, 1810, in Madison
county, Ky., as a child he roamed through the
forests and over the plains of his home local-
ity and by outdoor life gained the robustness
of health which has blessed his entire life. At-
taining years of maturity he followed the
training of his boyhood days and engaged in
farming in Madison county. Inheriting the
spirit which induced the emigration of his
father from the shores of “bonny Scotland,”
he was not content to settle down in any one
place and there pass the years. of his life, but
was rather drawn to the unknown possibilities
that lay beyond his horizon. In 1843 he went
to Cincinnati, Ohio, and in the same year
took a trip on the Little Miami Railroad, the
first built in the state. From Columbus he
journeyed to Cleveland, thence on Lake Erie
to Buffalo and from that city by rail to Al-
bany. He traversed the Hudson river by
steamer to New York City and after One
month spent there went on to Philadelphia,
where he had the pleasure of visiting the old
State House and climbing the belfry to the
old bell which hung just as it did when it rang
out Liberty to all the land. This incident
meant much in the life of Mr. Clusker, for it
stirred to life the patriotism of his manhood
and brought to him a keener realization of all
that the principles of our country mean to its
citizens.
The journey back to Ohio was made over
the inclined plane railway, Over the Alleghany
mountains to Pittsburg, and thence down
the Ohio river to Cincinnati. In that city he
engaged in the jewelry business until the Mex-
ican war, when he enlisted in Company A,
First Regiment, Ohio Infantry, participating
in the battles of Vera Cruz, Chapultepec, Cer-
ro Gordo (where Santa Ana's haste to leave
the field was so great that he left his wooden
legſ), Buena Vista, and the siege of the city
of Mexico. He served under Zack Taylor, as
he was familiarly known among the soldiers,
and after peace was declared in 1848, and he
was mustered out in Texas, he had the pleas-
ure of voting for him for president of the
United States.
In the fall of 1848 Mr. Clusker, with four
834
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
comrades, came overland to California on
horseback, being well armed and provided
with all necessary equipment carried by a
pack-horse. The journey was made via El
Paso and Tucson, the Colorado river being
crossed a short distance below the present site
of Yuma. They had a number of exciting ex-
periences with the Apache Indians, but suc-
ceeded in repulsing them each time, although
two of the five men were wounded. All, how-
ever, reached Los Angeles in safety. Mr.
Clusker remained in that village for three
weeks, but not liking the place (it being then
a pueblo of adobe houses and the inhabitants
consisting of Indians and Mexicans) he with
three of his former companions returned to
Texas over the same route they had taken in
their westward journey. Three months later
the discovery of gold brought them back again,
and from Los Angeles they journeyed up the
coast to Sacramento, where in the northern
mines Mr. Clusker was occupied for several
years. Success accompanied his efforts and he
acquired considerable means. In 1852 he be-
came a resident of San Bernardino county, en-
gaging in mining for a time here, eventually
following a like occupation in Utah, Montana
and Idaho. The breaking out of the Civil war
induced his return to his native state, in com-
pany with Major Harris and Sidney P. Waite,
and there he enlisted in Company A, General
Morgan's cavalry and served until 1864. Re-
turning to the west he made a trip to Arizona
and engaged in mining at Wickenburg. This
was still a wild, uncivilized country and trou-
ble with the Apache Indians was frequent and
at time serious. After remaining six years in
that section, he returned to San Bernardino
county, continuing mining and prospecting in
this southern country and on the desert and
also engaging in merchandising in the valley.
He was eminently successful in all his efforts
and with the passing years acquired a compe-
tence which enables him to enjoy his declining
years in peace and plenty.
Mr. Clusker occupies by right his position
in San Bernardino county, for few of the old
pioneers have passed through all the phases of
the early life of California in just the manner
he has. The first events of our statehood are
vividly impressed upon his memory and make
him a highly entertaining conversationalist.
He is an honored member of the San Bernar-
dino Society of California Pioneers, and on
Old Folks' Day at the pioneer reunion of 1905,
at the pavilion in San Bernardino, a large pic-
ture was taken of the crowd, showing Mr.
Clusker in the center of the group of old set-
tlers and their families. He belongs to the So-
ciety of the Blue and the Gray, where the
“boys” march side by side on Decoration Day
to do honor to their sleeping comrades, re-
gardless of the color they wore in that ever-
memorable event. He is a Democrat political-
ly and is stanch in his advocacy of the princi-
ples advocated in the platform of his party. In
his fraternal relations he is identified with the
Benevolent Protective Order of Elks, being a
charter member of San Bernardino Lodge No.
836; in 1905 he was a delegate to the Elks’ re-
union at Buffalo, N. Y., being the only mem-
ber outside of those of the Grand Lodge that
had a carriage in the parade, and in 1906 was
a delegate to their reunion in Denver. At the
reunion of the Southern California Elks in Los
Angeles in 1905 he was presented with a silver
loving cup in honor of being the oldest Elk on
earth, his sobriquet being the “Baby Elk.” Al-
though advanced in years Mr. Clusker retains
all his faculties, is hale and hearty, and com-
bines with his reminiscences of other years a
youthful spirit and enthusiasm which endears
him to all and adds honor to the name which
shall be associated always with the pioneer
days of California.
3.
LEWIS M. WOOD. There is probably no
one in Long Beach who is better versed in min-
ing and mining properties than Mr. Wood, who
is a practical miner and prospector, having in
the course of his life personally inspected min-
ing properties all over the mountains from Brit-
ish Columbia to Old Mexico. As may be Sur-
mised his claims are scattered and not confined
even to the state, but they are in charge of com-
petent superintendents, so that he is enabled to
transact their management from his home city,
Long Beach. While his mining interests are
large they do not consume his entire attention,
for he is also the owner of large holdings in
real estate in Los Angeles, San Pedro and Ter-
minal Island, all of which he manages himself.
A native of the east, Lewis M. Wood was
born in New York City, February 14, 1865, the
fifth among twelve children born to his parents,
and of whom eight are now living. His father,
William Wood, was also a native of the Empire
state, where, in addition to tilling the soil, he also
practiced law in Burke, Franklin county. He
is still living, as is also his wife, who before
her marriage was Ruth Atwater, she too being
a native of New York state.
Such education as Lewis M. Wood gained
was received in his native state for, while yet a
boy, he went to Norfolk, Va., for the purpose
of learning the machinist's trade, which he ac-
complished in the prescribed time and thereafter
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
835
returned to New York City and engaged as a
manufacturing machinist at No. 12 Cortlandt
street, an enterprise which he conducted with suc-
cess for a number of years. It was about
the year 1890 that his interest in the west
became aroused, and by way of Chicago, Ill.,
he made his way to Colorado in February
of that year. He made a thorough investi-
gation of the mining camps throughout that
rich country, taking claims in the Gunnison
and San Juan country, San Luis valley, and
was one of the first to become interested in
the Cripple Creek country, which today stands
par excellence among mining properties in the
United States. Mr. Wood first came to Califor-
nia on a tour of inspection in 1892, locating
various claims throughout the state and the fol-
lowing year he located in San Francisco, having
in the meantime secured a valuable property near
Kingman, Mohave county, Ariz. For two years
he retained his headquarters in San Francisco,
and then in 1895 settled in Long Beach, which
has ever since been his home.
In Pueblo, Colo., on September 9, 1891, Lewis
M. Wood was united with Miss Letitia E. Brat-
tin, the daughter of James and Jane Brattin, the
father a pioneer merchant of Warren, Ohio. Mrs.
Wood is a graduate of Dana's Musical Institute
of Warren. She is a member of the Presbyterian
Church, while Mr. Wood is a member of the
Episcopal Church. He is identified with but one
fraternal organization, the Knights of Pythias,
of Kingman, Ariz.
JOHN FELL LIGHTBURN, one of the
early settlers of Long Beach, and an enthusias-
tic advocate of its unlimited advantages, is a na-
tive of Westmoreland county, Pa., born February
14, 1837. His father, Benjamin Lightburn, was
also a native of Pennsylvania, and the represen-
tative of sturdy and patriotic stock in manhood;
he removed to the vicinity of the town now known
as Weston, W. Va., there relinquishing his trade
of blacksmith and building an overshot mill. This
being on a creek and not proving the success
he had anticipated he located on the Monongahela
river and there built another mill which he con-
ducted until his death. His wife, formerly Re-
becca Fell, a native of Pennsylvania and a daugh-
ter of Jesse Fell, passed away in West Virginia.
Born of their union were five sons and six daugh-
ters, of whom four sons and three daughters are
now living. Of the sons Joseph A. J. served in
both the Mexican and Civil wars, entering the
Seventh Regiment Ohio Infantry, with the rank
of colonel and being promoted to that of brig-
adier general, and as such continued until the
close of the Civil war, when he returned to the
duties of civic life and eventually passed away
on the old homestead. Another son, C. L., served
on the staff of Gen. Joseph A. J. Lightburn,
and surviving the vicissitudes of warfare, is now
a resident of Denver, Colo. ; Martin V. B., a resi-
dent of Harrison, Boone county,. Ark., served
with the rank of captain in a West Virginia
regiment, and Benjamin F. is a resident of Can-
ton, Stark county, Ohio. The principles of in-
tegrity and honor instilled into the lives of the
children of these pioneer parents have been re-
flected in the acts of their mature years, all
winning and holding a place in the esteem of
those with whom their lot has been cast.
The boyhood years of John Fell Lightburn
were passed in Lewis county, W. Va., where he
received his education through an attendance of
the subscription schools of that section. He
learned the miller's trade in the old burr mill,
and at the age of twenty-one years he went to
Mingo Flats, Randolph county, W. Va., to en-
gage in business with his brother-in-law, Amos
Hevener, a cattleman of that section, and a
strong, devoted southerner. It followed then
that Mr. Lightburn should respond to the call
for volunteers made by Governor Letcher, en-
listing in the Thirty-first Regiment, Virginia In-
fantry, serving faithfully until he was taken
prisoner at the time of the Imboden raid. For
twenty-two months he was held captive, passing
the time at Camp Chase, Johnson Island, and
also at Point Lookout. In February, 1865, he
was paroled, and at the close of the strife he re-
turned to his old home and again engaged in the
occupation of milling. He had received but one
wound during his time of service, at the second
battle of Manassas receiving a shot in his left
31 II1. -
In 1869 Mr. Lighburn came as far west as
Wyoming and there followed placer mining for
three years, when he returned to the middle west
and in Appleton, Wis., established a mercantile
enterprise, which, however, he abandoned in the
fall of the same year (1872). Going to Sumner
county, Kans., he entered land, but was run out
by the grasshoppers, after which he located in
Belleplaine, same county, where he engaged at
the trade of stonemason, contracting for the
erection of various buildings, among them the
county jail. Attracted to California in 1890 he
disposed of his holdings in Sumner county and
in Tustin followed the carpenter's trade for eigh-
teen months; removing to Long Beach in 1892
he has since made this place his home and been
one of the foremost men in its upbuilding and
development. There was a population of but
seven hundred people, property was cheap and
only a person of far-seeing judgment could pre-
dict the wonderful values which would in the
836
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
future be placed upon this locality. At the cor-
ner of Fourth, street and Elm avenue he pur-
chased a lot for $360 which is now in the heart of
the business district and held at an exceptionally
high figure.
Prolific in plans for self occupation Mr.
Lightburn took up gardening upon his location
in Long Beach and this has since called for the
greater part of his time and attention, and to
no man is there more credit due for the beauti-
fying of the city, its parks and private lawns,
being engaged at the present writing in laying
out the park work on Signal Hill. He has also
laid out the finest lawns in Pasadena, Los An-
geles, Monrovia and other cities in Southern Cal-
ifornia. He owns some improved and unim-
proved property in his adopted city.
Mr. Lightburn's wife, formerly Sarah J. Wil-
son, a native of Mingo, W. Va., in which locality
they were united in marriage, died in Belleplaine,
Kans. ; of their union were born seven children,
namely: Lina, wife of E. Vance Hill, engaged
in the furniture business in Long Beach; Lee,
who died in Wyoming; Fell, located in Tonopah,
Nev., engaged in newspaper work; George B., in
Gibbon, Okla.; Ray, Clifton T., and Mary, the
three latter dying in Belleplaine. By a second
marriage Mr. Lightburn was united with Eliz-
abeth P. Hare, of West Virginia, their union tak-
ing place in Riverside, Cal. Mr. Lightburn is
associated fraternally with the Masonic organi-
zation, while politically he is a stanch Prohi-
bitionist and thoroughly alive to the responsi-
bilities of his profession. He is a member of the
Presbyterian Church, in which he officiates as dea-
con. To Mr. Lightburn is due the credit which
belongs to a man thoroughly in touch with the
progress of a place, thoroughly alive to the needs
and uses of a citizen, and whose best efforts have
ever been given to advance all measures for the
upbuilding and promotion of the general welfare.
He has justly won the position he holds among
the citizens of Long Beach, both for his character
of citizenship and the personal attributes which
have won him innumerable friends.
LORENZO ANSON ROCKWELL. The
Rockwells in America are descendants of an old
English family. The first authentic record is
given in history when Sir Ralph de Rocheville,
a Norman, accompanied Empress Maude into
England when she claimed the throne of that
realm during the Norman conquests in IO66.
Subsequently he supported King Henry II, and
was granted three knights’ fees of land. The
property has been entailed from that time, Sir
James Rockwell (anglicized de Rocheville), of
Rockwell Hall, Boroughbridge, county of York,
*
being the representations of the family in Eng-
land. Sir John Rockwell rescued Lord Percy,
the celebrated “Hot-Spur,” from the party of
the Earl Douglas, at the battle of Halidon Hall.
In 1630 Deacon William Rockwell, wife and
Son John, were of a congregation of church mem-
bers who, to escape the persecution of King
James II, sought refuge in the new world, com-
ing over in the ship Mary and John, which
landed at Dorcester, Mass., May 30, 1630. He
was one of the first three selectmen of the town
and signed all the land grants. From this pro-
genitor sprang the Rockwell family in America.
They occupy prominent positions as statesmen,
college professors and preachers. No less than
twenty-three have represented their district in
the lower house of Congress, and eight have oc-
cupied seats in the United States senate. Three
of the descendants of Deacon William Rockwell
were in succession named John. Jonathan, Son
of the succeeding Johns, was father of Timothy,
father of Wildman Niram, father of Anson John,
who was the father of the subject of this sketch.
Anson John Rockwell was born at Stanbridge,
Canada, December 25, 1825. He was educated
in the common schools, and later learned the
millwright's trade, which he followed success-
fully. He was married December 25, 1849, to
Louisa D. Williams, the elder daughter of John
Sylvester Williams, a prosperous farmer and the
scion of another old English family. The only
issue of this marriage was one son, Lorenzo An-
son, who was born January 30, 1852, at Cowans-
ville, Canada. The family removed to the vicin-
ity of Coldwater, Mich., when he was about four
years old, resided there about ten years, thence
went to Galesburg, Ill. ; thence to Muscatine,
Iowa, and in March, 1873, they came to Visalia.
Cal., where they resided about twenty years.
Lorenzo A. Rockwell received his primary ed-
ucation in the public schools, was graduated
from the normal school in 1878, taught six years,
then engaged in the during business at Traver,
Tulare county, Cal., in 1884. He was married
August 25, 1880, to Sarah Ellen Pennebaker,
eldest daughter of William G. Pennebaker, a
wealthy land owner (now retired), whose acts
constitute much of the history making of Tulare
county. She was a classmate of her husband in
the normal school, an accomplished musician and
possessed a beautiful Christian character. They
resided on their beautiful mountain ranch, where
Mr. Rockwell had put out an extensive orchard,
his orange orchard being the first in that sec-
tion. He taught school there several years. Or-
ganized and named the Sulphur Springs School
district, wrote to the postoffice department at
Washington, D. C., enclosing a petition and had
the Three Rivers postoffice, which he also named.
established. One son, Guy Lionel, born July
LOUIS PHILLIPS

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
839
25, 1881, was the only issue of this marriage.
Mrs. Rockwell died soon after their removal to
Traver, August 7, 1884. Mr. Rockwell never
remarried. He prospered in business, having at
one time branch stores at Reedley, Dinuba and
Portersville. He was appointed the first justice
of the peace there, serving nearly four years,
having been re-elected at the expiration of his
term of service. He organized and was one of
the first trustees of the Traver school district
and served as clerk of the board for eight years.
He was the first president of the Traver Im-
provement Company, the first master of Traver
Lodge, F. & A. M., serving four years; the first
Master Workman of the Ancient Order of Unit-
ed Workmen; the first chief ranger of the For-
esters; the first Worthy Patron of the Order of
Eastern Star, and the first Chief Templar, and
was an important factor in the development of
the town and is connected with much of its his-
tory. His health failing, he disposed of a part
of his interests and bought a drug store in San-
ta Monica, where he removed in 1890. There
his father died the following year. After two
years spent there he sold his store and bought
an extensive business in Tombstone, Ariz., and
established a branch store in Nogales. Meeting
with financial reverses during the panic of 1893
he disposed of his Arizona interests and re-
turned to California. .
In July, 1894, Mr. Rockwell opened his pres-
ent drug business in Compton. He was here ap-
pointed justice of the peace, Serving about two
years. It was from articles written by Mr. Rock-
well, which appeared in the local papers from
time to time, that the proposition of establish-
ing a Union high school in Compton took root.
He was one of the first trustees, the first clerk
of the board, and one of the first three members
of the executive committee. He subscribed for
stock in the Bank of Compton when that insti-
tution was organized, and has always taken an .
active part on the side of progress. He was ap:
pointed postmaster March 15, 1901, and is still
holding that position (October 1906). This of:
fice was made a presidential office July 1, 1906,
and through his efforts two rural delivery routes,
of twenty-three and twenty-four and a half miles
respectively, were established, which serve most
of the adjacent country with daily mail. wº
Mr. Rockwell has taken great pride in giving
his son a liberal education, he having finished
his course at Stanford University in 1905. He
is active in fraternal circles, having taken all the
degrees of Masonry, including the Knight Tem-
plar and the Scottish Rite, and has held import-
ant offices in all of the bodies. He also belongs
to all branches of Odd Fellowship. Mr. Rock-
well has pursued a course in the medical col-
lege of Los Angeles, having taken the senior
year at the College of Physicians and Surgeons.
His mother, a sprightly and well-preserved lady
of seventy-three years, still manages his house-
hold.
LOUIS PHILLIPS. Although Mr. Phil-
lips passed from earth in 1896 he is still re-
membered with affectionate regard through-
out Los Angeles county, where so much of his
active life had been passed. As early as 1863
he came to the vicinity of Spadra, and three
years later he purchased the San Jose ranch,
containing twelve thousand acres of the best
land in the San Jose valley. . At that time
neighbors were few and far between, the near-
est ranch to his own being seven miles dis-
tant, but he lived to witness many wonderful
changes in the aspect of the country, not a
few of which he was instrumental in bringing
about. As the country about him became more
thickly settled he disposed of portions of his
large holdings from time to time, and the land
now covered by the town of Pomona was once
a portion of this tract. He sold the land in-
tact to the incorporators of the new town, who
subdivided it into lots for sale to settlers. Be-
sides the large ranch which he owned at the
time of his death he also left valuable prop-
erties in Los Angeles, among which are the
building occupied by the People's store, the
building containing Newmark’s wholesale store,
in addition to a valuable block on Main street,
and choice residence and business property in
Pomona.
Of German birth and parentage, Louis Phil-
lips was born April 22, 1829, one of the six
children of his parents, who were natives and
life-long residents of the Fatherland. They
survived the celebration of their golden wed-
ding for many years, and both passed away
at advanced ages. Three of their sons came
to California and until Mr. Phillips’ death all
were still living in this state. Until he was
thirteen years old Louis Phillips’ life was as-
sociated with his native land, but at that age
he came to the new world with an elder broth-
er, the ship on which they sailed casting anchor
in New Orleans. For about seven years he
devoted his attention to mercantile business in
Louisiana, but the discovery of gold in Cali-
fornia changed the whole aspect before him.
With a party of others of equal daring and de-
termination he bought a sailing vessel and fit-
ted it up for a voyage around the Horn, with
San Franicsco as their destination. Without
any serious adventure they dropped anchor
in that port in the early part of 1850, leaving
there soon afterward, however, for the mines,
46
840
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
where they hoped to make sudden fortunes.
So far as Mr. Phillips was concerned disap-
pointment awaited him, and without further
loss of time and effort he returned to San
Trancisco and opened a general merchandise
store on Long wharf, being associated in this
undertaking with his brother Fitel. Subse-
quently he disposed of his half-interest in the
enterprise to his brother and located in Los
Angeles, then in the earliest days of its in-
fancy, and here he also opened a géneral store.
It was while carrying on this enterprise that
he purchased a ranch east of the village on the
San Gabriel river, this in time demanding so
much of his attention that he was compelled
to dispose of his store. The San Antonio
ranch, for such it was called, contained sev-
eral thousand acres, and here Mr. Phillips en-
gaged in farming and stock-raising for the fol-
lowing ten years, or until 1863, when, as pre-
viously stated, he located in the San Jose val-
ley. In the purchase of the San Jose ranch of
twelve thousand acres his idea was to con-
tinue the lines of agriculture inaugurated up-
on his previous ranch, only on a larger Scale
and along more advanced lines. He was the
pioneer in the breeding of fine stock, and spent
considerable money in the advancement of his
ideas along this line. His faith in the under-
taking was rewarded in the possession of fine
herds of cattle, horses and sheep, which was
proof positive that he thoroughly compre-
hended what he was undertaking. The home-
stead portion of the ranch is located in Spadra,
where he engaged in the fruit and vine cult-
ure, and today much of the land is in English
walnuts, forming one of the most valuable
groves in this part of the state. The family
orchard contains all of the varieties of fruit
grown in Southern California, in fact it is a
typical ranch in a country famed the world
over for its wonderfully productive ranches.’
Water for irrigation is supplied from various
pumping plants scattered throughout the
ranch, and at one time Mr. Phillips had a fine
fish pond, stocked principally with carp and
catfish. The first house occupied by the family
was a large adobe structure, which was re-
placed some years later by a commodious
brick residence, still the home of Mrs. Phil-
lips. Since the death of her husband she has
continued the management of his vast inter-
ests, although she does not carry on stock-
raising as extensively as before, now having
hundreds of head of cattle and horses, where
formerly they were numbered by the thou-
sands. The ranch originally contained twelve
thousand acres, but was reduced from time
to time by the sale of tracts for town sites,
until it now contains five thousand acres, much
of which is now leased to tenants. Mrs. Phil-
lips is conceded to be one of the wealthiest
residents of Los Angeles county, and as well,
one of her best business women. During her
husband's life the San Jose ranch was noted
for its fine appearing and well-kept buildings,
with grounds in keeping, and no deterioration
in this respect has been allowed to mar the
record since the oversight of the place has
fallen into Mrs. Phillips’ hands.
Mrs. Phillips was prior to her marriage
Esther Ann Blake, a native of Illinois, and her
marriage to Mr. Phillips occurred October 18,
1866. Her parents, William and Joyce (Cook)
Hlake, were both natives of New York state,
but were married in Illinois, after which they
settled in Adams county, where Mr. Blake
owned a fine farm. He sold this, however,
when his daughter Esther was a small child
and removed to Missouri, remaining there for
about fifteen years. When she was about six-
teen years old they crossed the plains to Cali-
fornia, settling in the San Jose valley, where
her father purchased land upon which he re-
sided the remainder of his life. He passed
away when in his eighty-fifth year, while his
wife had preceded him by many years, her
death occurring as the result of a runaway
accident when she was fifty-nine years old.
Of their four children all are deceased with the
exception of Mrs. Phillips. Of the four chil-
dren born to Mr. and Mirs. Phillips we men-
tion the following: Bella, born September 8,
1868, is now the wife of A. F. George and
makes her home in Los Angeles; Charles
Blake, born April 26, 1870, grew to young
manhood and passed away in 1899; Louis
Robert, the next in order of birth, married Miss
Esta Way, who died September 28, 1905,
since which time he has made his home with
his mother: George S. married Miss Irene
Dudley, and they with their three children
make their home in Pomona.
Besides the interests already enumerated
Mr. Phillips owned stock in the First Nation-
al Bank of Los Angeles, and also in the First
National Bank of Pomona. Throughout Los
Angeles county Mr. Phillips was known as an
energetic and progressive citizen and a shrewd
business man. his success in the business world
being directly traceable to the possession of
a wonderful foresight. Politically he was a
T}emocrat, and although not an office-seeker
wielded considerable influence in the ranks
of his party. During 1866, three years after
locating in Spadra, he was appointed post-
master of the village. When the Southern Pa-
cific road was built through to Los Angeles
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
841
ſy
county he gave the right of way to the com-
pany to continue the road through his ranch,
and since then the Salt Lake & Los Angeles
road has also been allowed to traverse the
homestead ranch. Fraternally he was a char-
ter member of Pomona Lodge No. 246, I. O.
O. F., and during the early days he was a
members of what was known as the Vigilan-
tees, which consisted of settlers banded to-
gether to suppress the Mexicans, who at that
time were committing depredations which put
the life and property of the white settlers in
jeopardy. Mr. Phillips passed away March
16, 1896, at which time Spadra and Los An-
geles county lost a stanch citizen and a be-
loved friend. Mrs. Phillips shares in the es-
teem in which her husband was held, and by
all she is regarded as an exceptional business
WOITT 3.11. *
JOHN W. BURSON. One of the most en-
terprising men of Ventura county is John W.
Burson, who has for twenty years been interested
in various important business enterprises and
is now engaged in promoting and upbuilding the
Bakersfield & Ventura Railway in the Santa
Clara valley. He was born September 15, 1861,
in Marshall county, Ill., where his parents were
engaged in farming. They afterwards removed
to California and lived in Santa Barbara, where
they both died. They were the parents of eight
children, John W. being the fourth in order of
birth. He was brought up on the farm and
received his education through the medium of
the public schools of Marshall county, Ill. In
1886 he came to California, settled at Santa
Paula, Ventura county, and engaged in the gen-
eral merchandise business, having occupied the
third store erected in that town. He subsequent-
ly sold out and went to Grants Pass, Ore., re-
maining there during the year in which occurred
the big fire, and then returned to Ventura county
and established a merchandising business at Fill-
more. He continued at this for some time, and
when he sold out it was to engage in the oil
business, drilling wells at various points. In two
oil companies he was interested with Chester
Brown and they continued operations together
for a couple of years. Mr. Burson later made
an exceedingly good strike in the Sespe district
and afterward sold his interests to the Union
Consolidated Oil Company, as he desired to en-
gage in railroad promoting. He saw a great
future for the outlet of the Bakersfield oil region
and with H. M. Russell obtained a charter for
the Bakersfield and Ventura Railroad. The com-
pany was incorporated and surveying for the
line was begun in 1902. In May, 1905, con-
struction was commenced and the twenty miles
in the vicinity of Hueneme and Oxnard com-
pleted. It is a broad gauge line and is now in
Operation hauling Sugar beets and pulp for the
Oxnard sugar factory. When finished the road
will run through Sespe canon to Brownstone
and into the San Joaquin valley. Other ex-
tensive business interests are also owned by Mr.
Burson, among them being oil lands in Ven-
tura and Kern county, a fruit ranch containing
ninety acres at Fillmore, a grain ranch of three
hundred and forty-six acres, and an interest in
a two hundred and forty-five acre ranch which
has ninety acres planted to beets, his partner
in this latter holding being Colonel Perkins.
Mr. Burson’s first marriage, in Oregon, united
him with Miss Martha Fowler, a native
of California, and the daughter of Welcome
Fowler, one of the early '49ers in this state. She
became the mother of six children, Clarence,
Ralph, Nettie, Clifford, Roscoe and Martha. Her
death occurred at Fillmore in September, 1897,
depriving Mr. Burson of a faithful wife, and her
children of a devoted mother. His second mar-
riage took place at Hueneme to Miss Dell Bur-
Son, who was born in Illinois, and is an active
worker in the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr.
Burson has six brothers who are Shriners, and
he was made a Mason in the Santa Paula Lodge,
is now a charter member of the lodge at Fill-
more, belongs to Oxnard Chapter, R. A. M., is
a member of the Los Angeles Consistory, being
a thirty-second degree Mason, and belongs to
the Al Malaikah Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S.
In politics he is an earnest advocate of the prin-
ciples embraced in the platform of the Republi-
can party and has served as a member of the
county central committee. He is a progressive
and leading citizen and his ability and worth
receive the recognition of all with whom he
comes in contact. /
ABRAM. C. DENMAN, Jr. The president
and general manager of the San Bernardino
Valley Traction Company is a member of an old
and patriotic family of America, as is evidenced
by his identification with the Sons of the War
of 1812, the Founders and Patriarchs of Ameri-
ca, the Washington Continental Guards of New
York City and the Society of the Colonial Wars.
Born in the City of Newark, N. J., December
26, 1875, he is a son of Abram C. and Sarah
(Hedenburg) Denman, likewise natives of New
Jersey. In Newark the father embarked in the
manufacture of steel upon a large scale, and for
many years he was connected with a large and
flourishing foundry and steel plaht. The social
and financial standing of the family brought
many advantages to Abram C., Jr., who was
given the best educational opportunities the
842
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
country afforded at the time. Primarily edu-
cated in an academy at Newark, N. J., later he
was sent to the New York Military Academy,
and from there was sent to Cornell University
at Ithaca, where he had for three years the best
advantages that splendid institution afforded.
On the completion of his university course he
returned to New York City and for some years
engaged in the steel and iron business with his
father.
While residing in Newark, N. J., Mr. Den-
man, in 1897, was united in marriage with Miss
Grace W. Davis, daughter of Stephen A. Davis,
who was a prominent citizen of Newark, N. J.
Their two children are named Frederick Halsey
and Grace. Since leaving the university Mr.
Denman has retained his association with Chi
Phi, one of the leading orders at Cornell. Com-
ing to California in 1900 he established himself
at Redlands, where he now makes his home, al-
though he has his business headquarters in San
Bernardino. In the comparatively brief period
of his residence here he has acquired many im-
portant and valuable interests, has purchased
stock in various concerns and has gained many
important social connections. At this writing
he acts as first vice-president of the San Ber-
nardino Savings Bank, is president of the San
Bernardino Theatre Company, ex-president of
the University Club of California, and a director
of the Country Club at Redlands.
Notwithstanding the magnitude of other in-
terests there is one enterprise with which the
name of Mr. Denman remains most intimately
associated and in the development of which he
has been an influential factor. This organiza-
tion is the San Bernardino Valley Traction Com-
pany, of which he is president and general man-
ager. From the date of its organization he has
|been a leading factor in its progress and growth,
and its present substantial standing is due large-
ly to his judicious efforts. The inception of the
present concern is traced back to May, 1901,
when Mr. Denman purchased the Urbita Hot
Springs property located south of the city limits
of San Bernardino. The following month he
associated with himself H. H. Sinclair and Hen-
ry Fisher of Redlands, and the three operated
the place until it was sold June 2, 1903, to the
San Bernardino Valley Traction Company.
Meanwhile, in June of 190I, a company had
been incorporated, capitalized at $500,000, under
the name of the San Bernardino Valley Traction
Company, whose stockholders were Messrs.
Fisher, Sinclair and Denman, with J. H. Fisher,
Edward S. Graham and Henry B. Ely, of Red-
lands, and Seth Hartley of Colton. The follow-
ing officers were chosen: Henry Fisher, presi-
dent; A. C. Denman, Jr., vice-president and
general manager; Edward S. Graham, treasur-
er;. and C. W. A. Cartlidge, secretary.
Various franchises were purchased in the
Summer and six months later the company began
the task of building their road, over which the
first car was run February 22, 1902. The first
car between San Bernardino and Redlands was
run March IO, 1903. With a capital stock of
$150,000, the San Bernardino and Highland
Electric Railway Company was incorporated in
February, 1903, with the following officers:
Henry Fisher, president; A. C. Denman, Jr.,
vice-president and general manager; George B.
Ellis, Secretary; and E. D. Roberts, treasurer.
These officers, with George M. Cooley and H.
H. Sinclair composed the board of directors.
The company purchased franchises on Pacific
and Palm avenues, and was about to commence
'Operations when Mr. Kohl, of the San Ber-
nardino, Arrowhead & Waterman Railway Com-
pany began negotiations with Mr. Denman for
the purchase of the old motor line. In April
the board of directors purchased the old road,
and immediately began to remodel the same,
widening the gauge and making other improve-
ments necessary for the operation of electric
cars. July 26, 1903, the first car was run over
the line as far as Harlem Springs, and August
I3 the line was opened to Patton and Highland.
The San Bernardino Valley Traction Com-
pany and the Highland Electric Company oper-
ated separately for a time, but June 2, 1903, they
consolidated with the Redlands Street Railway
Company under the name of the San Bernardino
Valley Traction Company. At the first meeting
the following officers were elected : A. C. Den-
man, Jr., president and general manager;
George M. Cooley, vice-president; J. C. Wood,
secretary and treasurer. The board of directors
is composed of the officers with J. H. Fisher,
E. D. Roberts, W. D. Brookings, O. D. Collins,
Henry Fisher and E. S. Graham. The three
companies, since the consolidation, have been
Operated under one management and their lines
carry from one hundred and ten thousand to
one hundred and thirty-five thousand persons
per month. In the city of Redlands they operate
three cars, two cars run between Redlands and
San Bernardino, two between San Bernardino
and Colton, one between San Bernardino and
Highland, and one to Urbita Springs and within
the city of San Bernardino. There has been a
great increase in travel since the first car was
started, and the company has enjoyed a constant
increase of patronage, which has enabled it to
meet its expenses and make a profit besides.
Since the company was formed it has never run
behind any month, and its property, consisting
of its various lines as well as the Urbita Springs.
and the Cole rack track, represent a large in-

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
845
vestment on which gratifying returns are being
received. An extension is now under way to
the Arrowhead Hot Springs, a distance of six
and one-half miles north of San Bernardino.
WILLIAM M. SNODDY. One of the early
settlers of Southern California, William M.
Snoddy is remembered in the citizenship of the
state and held in high esteem for the qualities of
character he displayed during his residence in
this section. He was born in Boone county, Mo.,
in 1843, a son of John W. and Sarah (Beattie)
Snoddy, both of whom were natives of the same
state. He was reared on the home farm until
thirteen years old, when his mother died, and he
then became dependent upon his own resources.
He finally became a clerk in a store in St. Joseph,
, Mo., and remained in this connection until 1864,
when he crossed the plains to California. He
located in Sacramento for the period of one year,
after which he went to San Jose and began trad-
ing between that city and Almaden. Later he
engaged in agricultural pursuits in Milpitas,
where he remained until 1869, in which year he
disposed of his interests in that section and com-
ing to Southern California located in Los Angeles
county. In 1870 he purchased from the San
Franciscito rancho the farm now owned by his
widow, located a mile and half north of El Monte.
It was then in a wild state, and he at once began
an improvement and cultivation which eventually
placed it among the most valuable ranches in this
section. Much of the ranch was devoted to the
raising of fruit, a part given over to a vineyard,
and an orchard of large fruits. He was very
successful in his work, acquired a competence,
and at the same time built up for himself a posi-
tion of prominence among the citizens of the com-
munity. He was always active in the upbuilding
and advancement of the Section, giving special
aid to educational affairs, assisting in the build-
ing of the Savannah school, in which he served
as director for some years. He was a stanch ad-
herent of Democratic principles and although
never desirous of personal recognition along this
line gave his support toward party advance-
ment. His death occurred January 20, 1905, his
interment being in the El Monte cemetery.
Mr. Snoddy leaves a widow, who still resides
on the old home place. Before marriage she was
Miss Samantha J. Tibbet, a native of Franklin
county, Ohio, her birth having occurred in the
vicinity of Columbus. Her father, Jonathan
Tibbet, was born in Medina county, Ohio, De-
cember 18, 1822, a son of Jonathan and Huldah
(Root) Tibbet, natives respectively of New York
and Vermont, and the former of German an-
cestry. Jonathan Tibbet, Jr., married at the age
of twenty-two years Miss Phoebe Point, who was
born in New York, a daughter of Stephen and
Eleanor (Scofield) Point, who removed to Akron,
Ohio, and there engaged in farming. In 1849
Mr. Tibbet set out for California accompanied
by his family, leaving Missouri July 14 and ar-
riving in Los Angeles February 17 of the fol-
lowing year. He went at once to the mines in
Eldorado county and met with phenomenal suc-
cess, in one day taking out as much as $8,580 in
gold. He soon returned to Ohio with his family
and again in 1853 the journey was made across
the plains, Mr. Tibbet bringing with him a drove
of sheep and cattle, and after a perilous trip over
the Spanish trail they reached Los Angeles
county in safety. He then located in El Monte
and engaged in farming, later removing to Comp-
ton and eventually purchasing a hundred-acre
ranch four miles northeast of Santa Monica,
where his death occurred April 18, 1904, his wife
having passed away in 1892. They were the
parents of four children, James H., who died in
Compton in 1880; Samantha J., Mrs. Snoddy;
Jonathan F., of Riverside; and Phoebe, wife of
Percy A. Arnold, of the Palms.
Mrs. Snoddy was educated in California and
here in 1873 she was married, and coming at
that time to her present home she has ever since
remained a resident of this place and section.
She is a woman of refinement and culture and
held in high esteem by all who know her. She
has been a member of the Degree of Honor and
officiated as its treasurer for eight years. She
is the mother of three children, namely: John
B., a farmer in the vicinity of El Monte; Mary
E., wife of Andrew McClintock, a farmer residing
west of Savannah; and Nina I., Mrs. Ashton, of
El Monte.
GABRIEL GISLE.R. Whatever of success
has been achieved by Mr. Gisler during his resi-
dence in California may be attributed to his own
keen and capable judgment and his industrious
cultivation of the soil in Ventura county. Born
in Switzerland April 8, 1858, he was reared
under the Sunny skies of his native land until he
was nineteen years of age, during which time
he had become proficient in the common-school
branches and had also acquired a working know-
ledge of the painter's trade. With this equip-
ment he severed his connection with his native
land and bought passage to the new world, the
boat in which he crossed the Atlantic casting
anchor in the harbor of New York City. His
interest did not lie in that part of the country,
however, and he lost no time in seeking the
western coast, which he had heard was teeming
with possibilities for young men of push and
determination. For a time after his arrival in
Ventura county he worked at his trade, but gave
846
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
this up to gain practical experience in the man-
agement of a ranch, which observation had
taught him was the most profitable employment
in this part of the country. Eight years in the
employ of others with mature experience had
given him an insight into ranching which quali-
fied him to start out independently, and with the
means which he had laid by in the mean time
he leased ninety acres of land near Oxnard, the
same property which is his home at the present
time. His speciality is the cultivation of beans.
In 1893 Mr. Gisler was united in marriage
with Miss Margaret Reimann, a daughter of
William and Catherine Reimann, an extended
account of whose family will be found else-
where in this volume in the sketch of the father,
William Reimann. Three children have been
born to Mr. and Mrs. Gisler: Ida, William and
Fred, to whom every advantage at the disposal
of their parents is being given to fit them for
the responsibilities of life. The family worship
in the Catholic Church at Oxnard, and politi-
cally Mr. Gisler is a Democrat, although he re-
serves the right to vote for the opposite party
if the candidate in question is better qualified
for the position. Much credit is due Mr. Gisler
for the position which he holds in his com-
munity to-day, for when he came here twenty-
eight years ago he was without means or friends,
and is now recognized as one of the substantial
ranchers of the county, and his friends are as
numerous as his acquaintances.
CLYDE. L. HOOVER. A place of promi-
nence is given to Clyde L. Hoover among the
business men of Long Beach, where he has been
located for the past five years and successfully
engaged in a mercantile enterprise at NO. II5
East Second street. He was born in Greenville,
Darke county, Ohio, September 18, 1871, a son
of N. A. Hoover, a native of the same place,
and the descendant of one of the pioneer families
of that section. At the age of seventeen years
N. A. Hoover enlisted in the Seventy-first Regi-
ment, Ohio Infantry, and served throughout the
Civil war. He was a contractor by occupation
and engaged in this work in Ohio until 1874,
when he removed to Kansas and in Larned fol-
lowed the same occupation. Later he engaged ºn
contracting in Cottonwood Falls, Chase county,
same state, finally returning to Ohio and locat-
ing permanently in Garrettsville. He has always
taken a prominent part in public affairs, frater-
nally is associated with the Odd Fellows and is
a prominent factor in the upbuilding of his sec-
tion. His career has been marked by the sterling
traits of character inherited from his ancestors,
who were members of the Society of Friends.
His wife, formerly Julia Egan, a native of Ohio,
is also living. Besides Clyde L. they have two
sons living, Herbert H., chief dispatcher for the
Denver & Rio Grande Răilroad at Salt Lake City,
and Wallace K., a rancher in Tulare county, Cal.
When three years of age Clyde L. Hoover was
taken to Kansas and reared in that State, re-
ceiving his education in the schools of Cotton-
wood Falls. At the age of eighteen years he
took up the study of telegraphy with the Santa
Fé Railroad Company, being located at Strong
City. He was later employed by this company in
Kansas and also in Texas. In 1888 he made a
trip to California where he remained a short
time, and there after until 1892 remained at
home. Locating again in California at this date
he spent one year in Visalia and one year in Vina
on the Stanford ranch, when he returned to
Texas and engaged with the Santa Fé Railroad
Company. Returning to the vicinity of his old
home he engaged in farming near Cottonwood
Falls for five years. Coming to Southern Cali-
fornia in 1901 he established a hardware busi-
ness in Long Beach, which he has since conduct-
ed with unusual success. At the same time he has
interested himself in mining enterprises in River-
side county. In Cottonwood Falls, Kans., Esther
Moffitt, a native of that state, became his wife.
Her parents, members of the Society of Friends,
came from the vicinity of Richmond, Ind. She
graduated from the high school of Cottonwood
Falls and afterwards engaged as a teacher until
she married. They are the parents of one
daughter, Gertrude. Mr. Hoover was made a
Mason in Zeredetha Lodge No. 80, Cottonwood
Falls, Kans., and has since been raised to the
degree of Royal Arch Mason in Long Beach
Chapter No. 84. He is also identified with the
Knights of Pythias, Modern Woodmen of Amer-
ica and the Eagles, and socially is a member of
the Cosmopolitan club. Politically he is a stanch
adherent of the principles advocated in the plat-
form of the Republican party.
HERBERT PILE. With a practical knowl-
edge of all matters pertaining to the cultivation
of the soil, Herbert Pile of Ramona, has met with
unquestioned success as a grower of fruit, and has
acquired a fine position among the representative
agriculturalists of this section of San Diego
county. His ranch, lying about two and one-
half miles from the village, is well improved,
giving substantial evidence to the passer-by of
the excellent care and skill with which it is man-
aged, presenting a beautiful picture of quiet
country life, the abode of thrift and refinement
as well as of peace and plenty. A son of the
late Henry T. Pile, he was born, October 16,


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
847
I860, in England, where he spent the first five
years of his 11fe.
Born, reared and married in England, Henry
T. Pile immigrated to the United States in 1865,
settling first in New York State, where he was
for many years engaged in business as a commis-
sion merchant, being thus employed until his
death, at a comparatively early age, in 1878. He
was a man of stanch integrity, eminently trust-
worthy in all relations of life, and was a member
of the Episcopal Church. He married Sophia
E. Butler, who was born in England, came to
California Some years after the death of her hus-
band, and until her own death, in 1903, resided
with her son Herbert. She was highly esteemed
for her many virtues, and was a consistent mem-
ber of the Baptist Church. She bore her husband
three children, of whom one, Mrs. Horace Rob-
erts, is deceased. Those living are, Herbert, the
subject of this sketch, and Nellie, living with her
brother, over whose household she gracefully
presides, giving hospitable entertainment to their
many friends and acquaintances.
Five years of age when he crossed the ocean
with his parents, Herbert Pile acquired the rudi-
ments of his early education in the common
schools of Yates county, N. Y., completing
his studies at Starkey Seminary, in Starkey, N.
Y. Subsequently going to Jersey City, N. J., he
worked at the laundry business for seven years,
after which he spent three years in California,
visiting different sections of the state. At the
end of this time he went back to New Jersey and
spent three years at his former occupation. Vis-
ions of the future possibilities of California as a
place of residence and business haunted him,
however, and in 1887 he determined to locate here
permanently. Coming, therefore, to this county
in that year, he purchased his present ranch,
which he has since improved and occupied. Mr.
Pile has here sixty acres of rich and arable land,
which he devotes to the cultivation of fruit of dif-
ferent kinds, each season raising valuable crops
of olives, figs, apricots, peaches and nectarines,
which he sells at the highest market prices. In
his political views Mr. Pile is a firm adherent of
the Republican party, but he has never been an
aspirant for official honors.
'WALTER B. REDBURN. While the state
of Illinois was yet in the frontier period of
colonization John Redburn, a native of Mary-
land and a descendant of an old southern fam-
ily, left the home of his boyhood and identified
himself with the pioneers of the Mississippi
valley, settling in Frankfort, Ill., and grad-
ually building up a profitable business as a
merchant. After his removal to Iowa in 1860
he became prominent in the work of the Mis-
sionary Baptist Church and acted as pastor of
the congregation at Centerville, besides which
he held the office of moderator in the denom-
ination for seventeen consecutive years. Far
beyond the allotted span of man’s existence he
remained vigorous in mind and body, and at
the age of ninety-two years passed away, in
May, 1900, his last years having been spent at
Moulton, Iowa, in retirement from ministerial
or mercantile labors and in the enjoyment of
the esteem of a large circle of acquaintances.
His wife, who bore the maiden name of Rach-
el Sullivan, was born in Pennsylvania and died
in Bedford, Iowa, two years after his demise.
Among thirteen children, of whom three
Sons and six daughters still survive, Walter B.
Redburn was the youngest son and the tenth
in order of birth. It was the ambition of his
parents to give their children the best educa-
tional advantages available and when he had
completed the studies of the common schools
he was sent to Lewis College in Glasgow, Mo.,
where he remained a student for one and one-
half years. On taking up active pursuits he
secured a tract of land near Seymour, in
Wayne county, Iowa, and there engaged in
tilling the soil. The occupation, however, was
not entirely congenial and after a few years
he turned his attention to the mercantile busi-
ness. From youth he had been an earnest be-
iiever in Christianity and, under the inspiring
influence of his father's self-sacrificing minis-
terial labors, he was influenced to become ac-
tive in Christian work, uniting with the Meth-
odist Episcopal denomination. After a time
he was licensed to preach and held pastorates
both in Missouri and Iowa, but owing to ill
health relinquished preaching and removed
to the Pacific coast. -
Since coming to Long Beach in August of
1903 Mr. Redburn has engaged in the real-es-
tate business as senior member of the firm of
W. B. Redburn & Son and has his office at No.
I44 Pine avenue, where he conducts a general
brokerage, real estate and money-loaning busi-
ness. Among the tracts in which he has been
interested are the Huntington Beach tract of
ten acres, the Fairview tract of six acres, the
McCoslyn tract of five acres and the Pride of
Alamitos tract of ten acres. He purchased the
Krosnest, a large apartment house of sixty
rooms located on the corner of Third and Pa-
cific streets, and syndicated the site of the
First Methodist Episcopal Church at the cor-
Iner of Fifth and Pine. He was selected secre-
tary of the building committee of that church,
one of the finest buildings of the kind on the
coast, the site costing $32,OOO, building $107,-
OOO, and the furnishings $25,000. He has also
planned and is the instigator of the $500,000
848
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
hotel to be erected at Monrovia. It will be
known as the Hotel Redburn and will be one
of the finest hotels in Southern California.
Besides the management of his various in-
terests along the line of his chosen business, he
holds stock in the Long Beach buckle factory
and aided in the organization of the Inner
Harbor Gas and Electric Company, incorpor-
ated in 1905, of which he acts as president and
member of the board of directors. His only
son, George W. (born of his marriage to Miss
Margaret John, of Moulton, Iowa), is asso-
ciated with him in business and proves a capa-
ble and resourceful assistant. -
Though no longer connected with the min-
istry, Mr. Redburn retains his deep interest in
religious work and as a trustee and leading
member contributes to the welfare of the First
Methodist Episcopal Church of Long Beach.
As a public-spirited citizen he maintains a
warm interest in affairs relating to his town,
state and nation, and neglects no duty incum-
bent upon a patriot. Whether the work be
that of attending a primary or casting a vote
at elections, he is always to be relied upon to
be present, ready to take an intelligent part in
matters in hand. Before coming to the coast
He was active in Masonic work in Redfield, S.
Dak., where he belonged to the blue lodge and
chapter, and aided in upholding the principles
of philanthropy and brotherhood for which the
order stands; and in addition he has been a
1)rominent worker in the Ancient Order of
United Workmen.
JAMES M. MITCHELL. During his resi-
dence of twenty years on his present ranch near
Pomona Mr. Mitchell has demonstrated the pos-
session of superior knowledge along the line of
orange culture, and is a well-known authority on
that special subject. In all, he has sixty-nine
acres planted to this fruit, valencias and navels
exclusively, and from one tract of seventeen acres
he gathered in 1906 seven thousand boxes of
oranges. In order to utilize the oranges which
are too small to market he has been instrumental
in establishing a marmalade factory in Pomona.
As yet this industry is in its infancy, but if present
plans are developed there is no doubt but that
it will be one of the most important industries
in the town in an incredibly short time.
Of Scotch-Irish descent on the paternal side,
James M. Mitchell was born in Franklin county,
Ohio, October 1, 1835, the eleventh in a family
of twelve children born to his parents, John and
Elizabeth (Brewbaker) Mitchell, the latter a
native of Pennsylvania, while the father was born
in Ireland of Scotch parents. He came to the
United States when only eleven years of age and
settled in Pennsylvania, continuing there until
reaching manhood, or until his marriage with
Miss Brewbaker. With his young wife he re-
moved to the adjoining state of Ohio, in 1818,
and engaged in cutting cordwood on the spot now
occupied by the state house in Columbus. From
that year until 1840 he continued in Ohio, and in
the latter year removed to Illinois, where he took
up land from the government. To this he later
added inore land by purchase, until he finally
owned six hundred acres. It was in 1853 that
he disposed of his holdings in Illinois and re-
turned to Ohio, there purchasing land in Franklin
and Pickaway counties upon which he lived the
remainder of his days. Both parents lived to
reach advanced years, the mother dying when
in her eighty-first year, and the father when
eighty-five years old. During his early years
he was a stanch Whig, and upon the organiza-
tion of its successor, the Republican party, he
transferred his allegiance and never swerved
from his hearty support of the grand old party,
Fraternally he was a Mason, holding member-
ship in the lodge at Columbus, Ohio, and with
his wife was a member of the Universalist
Church. Of the large family of children born
to this worthy couple, only two are now living,
James M. and his brother Thomas J., the latter
a resident of Ohio.
At the time the parents removed from Ohio
to Illinois James M. Mitchell was a lad of about
five years and his education was received in a
subscription school in Cumberland, Ill. Until
he was nineteen years of age he worked on the
farm with his father and then branched out for
himself by purchasing forty acres in the vicinity,
paying for the same $50. To some extent he
carried on general farming, but made a specialty
of handling and raising cattle and hogs. In
I853, with his parents, he returned to Ohio,
where he bought forty acres, to which he added
from time to time until he owned two hundred
acres. He continued farming there until 1869,
when he rented his farm and took a respite from
the routine which he had followed steadily for
SO many years and came to northern California
On a visit. Returning to Ohio he once more
settled down to agriculture, but again in 1874
came to this state, this time with the intention
of remaining longer than when he came five
years before. After carrying on a dairy ranch
near Los Angeles for about nine and one-half
years he returned once more to Ohio to take
charge of the old family homestead. The years he
had spent in California had made him dissatis-
fied with the east, however, and after running
the home place for three years he gave his farm
of two hundred acres to the Weslevan Ohio
College at Delaware, from which he enjoys
an annuity of four per cent, and which is to
JOSEPH SWYCAFFER

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
851
continue throughout life. It was immediately
after the disposition of his Ohio property that
he again came to Los Angeles county, and in the
vicinity of Pomona purchased the property upon
which he resided until April, 1906, when he
built his beautiful residence on the corner of
West Third and Parcell streets. His ranch
consists of sixty-nine acres entirely in oranges,
in the raising of which he is successful far be-
yond the average rancher. Another interest
which has claim upon his time is the Sanitary
laundry of Pomona, a new and thriving industry
which is destined to be a success. Besides own-
ing the building in which the laundry is located,
Mr. Mitchell also owns other city property, in-
cluding many valuable lots and a residence
on Fifth and Parcell Streets.
In 1860 Mr. Mitchell was married to Miss
Annæ Phillips, who was his faithful companion
for many years, or until her death in California
when in her seventy-second year. Mr. Mitchell's
second marriage occurred in 1904 and united him
with Mrs. Anna Linsley, a native of Iowa, who
by her first marriage is the mother of five chil-
dren, all of whom are residents of Pomona. Mr.
Mitchell has been associated with the Method-
ist Episcopal Church throughout his adult years,
having been a class leader for over forty years,
besides filling other offices in the church and
Sunday-school from time to time. His convic-
tions in regard to the traffic in liquor have led
to his joining the Prohibition ranks, and for
over thirty years he has stood by his chosen
party, believing in its ultimate triumph in the
suppression of the manufacture and sale of in-
toxicants.
JOSEPH SWYCAFFER. The biography
of this pioneer of Southern California, with its
record of pioneer experiences and perilous ad-
ventures, resembles a page from the history of
the far-distant past, for there is little in the
civilization and improvements of the twentieth
century to remind one of the dangers which he
encountered and the obstacles which he over-
came. The courage which forms one of his
most remarkable attributes descends to him
from his ancestors, for the family in preceding
generations was conspicuous for personal brav-
ery of its male representatives. His paternal
grandfather, Anthony Swycaffer, was born
on the borders of Switzerland and in boyhood
accompanied his parents to America, settling
in Baltimore county, Md. At the opening of
the first war with England he enlisted as a pa-
triot and served with valor on many a hotly-
contested battlefield, receiving wounds which
forced him to walk with a crutch during the
last thirty years of his life. Notwithstanding
this infirmity he labored industriously on his
farm and earned a livelihood for his wife and
children by his own painstaking diligence.
Among his children was a son, John, who was
born in Maryland and died in Ohio after a
lifetime of activity as a farmer. With charac-
teristic bravery he fought in the war of 1812
and assisted in winning victory for the Amer-
ican arms at Bladensburg, Md., and at the bat-
tle of the Meadows near Baltimore. During
early manhood he married Magdeline Orr, who
was born in Maryland and died in Ohio; her
father, Michael Orr, came from the borders of
Switzerland to Maryland in early life.
Among the five daughters and two sons com-
prising the family of John Swycaffer, the sub-
ject of this narrative was next to the eldest
and is the sole survivor. Born in Anne Arun-
del county, Mo., April 6, 1820, he there attend-
ed the first free school, under the public school
system, taught in the United States. In 1830
he accompanied the family to a farm near Fred-
erick, Md., and at the age of fourteen years
went into that town to learn the confection-
er's trade, but, not liking the occupation, he se-
cured employment on a stage line crossing the
Alleghany mountains to Brownsville, Fayette
county, Pa. Later, however, he served a three
years' apprenticeship and worked at the trade.
At the age of twenty years he began to work
in an Oyster house at Clear Spring, Washing-
ton county, Mol, but soon turned his attention
to farming and operating a stage line. During
the last year of the Mexican war he enlisted
in Company I, First Maryland Light Artillery,
Ringgold's battery, and marched to Fort Mc-
Henry on Orders to proceed to New Orleans.
However, the armistice changed the plans of
the generals and the battery thereupon was or-
dered to California. On January 2, 1850, the
troops left Fort McHenry and took passage on
the Transport, which sailed around the Horn
and landed at San Francisco August 19, thence
by boat to San Diego, landing at this harbor
August 26. The long voyage had been attend-
ed by many hardships. Salt pork was the
principal article of food. Scurvy broke out
among the Soldiers, who endured terrible suf-
ferings. Eighty-four men left New York, but
in six months the number was reduced to for-
ty, and the survivors were almost wrecked in
health by reason of disease and privations.
With their headquarters at the old Mission
of San Diego county, the soldiers were em-
ployed for three years in service against the
hostile Indians of Southern California, and at
the expiration of that time they were honorably
discharged. In recognition of his services as
a soldier Mr. Swycaffer receives a pension of
$8 per month from the government. After
852
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
leaving the army he was employed as a gov-
ernment mail carrier between San Diego and
Fort Yuma across the desert and Over the
mountain. These long lonely rides were ac-
companied by the greatest dangers and he had
many a hair-breadth escape, yet he was a man
of such undaunted courage and fearlessness
that he seemed to enjoy the excitement and
the peril, although often experiencing a feel-
ing of sadness as he passed the bleaching bones
of many who had met death on the desert.
While wild animals proved troublesome, he
found his fellowmen far more dangerous, and
more than once he almost fell into the hands of
desperadoes and cut-throats. Mr. Warnock,
who carried the mail opposite to him, was also
a Mexican veteran and a pioneer of San Di-
ego County.
After three years of steady service as mail
carrier Mr. Swycaffer entered the quartermas-
ter's department at the government quarters
in San Diego and for one year had charge of
the shipment of goods to Benicia. Meanwhile
he had taken up and stocked a ranch in the
Ballena valley above Ramona and in 1856 he
built the necessary farm buildings on the prop-
erty and removed to the ranch, where he en-
gaged in raising cattle and horses. Unfortun-
ately the surveys placed his land within the
Santa Isabel ranch. With Mr. Warnock he
fought the case in the courts for five years.
The grant-holders offered each of them five
hundred acres in settlement, but they resolved
to fight the case, knowing they were in the
right. In answer to the offer they declared
that they would fight the survey as long as they
had a hoof or horn or a dollar. Eventually the
case was decided by the courts in their favor,
but they received only one hundred and sixty
acres each. However, although gaining noth-
ing for themselves, they were of the utmost
service to their county, for they established a
precedent in Southern California and opened
this beautiful valley to settlers much sooner
than otherwise would have happened.
During 1876 Mr. Swycaffer went to Arizona
with one hundred and ten head of cattle, thir-
ty-six head of horses and a sixteen-mule team,
the latter being utilized for freighting at Globe
for two years. Owing to a drought he lost
many of his cattle and eventually sold his team,
which the purchaser took away and forgot to
pay for. Next he engaged in prospecting in the
Dragoon mountains and found silver, but not
in sufficient quantities to justify mining. A
later experience as a miner in the Chirichua
mountains brought him into dangerous con-
tact with the Apaches and in order to save his
life he was forced to leave. During the year
1882 he went back to Arizona with his son,
Jefferson, and Melvin L. Seargent, the first
husband of his daughter, Isabel. Returning
to the Chirichua mountains (where he had a
copper mine), he discovered, at a depth of
one hundred feet, a paying lot of ore and named
the mine Young America.
As president of the first board of trustees in
the first mining district organized in the Chir-
ichua region, Mr. Swycaffer was instrumental
in framing many of the laws by which the dis-
trict was governed, one of these laws providing
for the exclusion of Chinamen. His son-in-
law, Mr. Seargent, who owned an apiary and
had thirty-seven tons of honey, took a car of
ten tons through to Kansas City. The money
received from the honey was intended to
develop the Boss Racket mine, but Mr. Sear-
gent was murdered for the money and his body
was never found. His unfortunate fate changed
the plans for the mine, and Mr. Swycaffer was
finally obliged to give up the property, after
which he returned to California. Politically a
Democrat, he served as public administrator,
Imember of the county board of supervisors and
under three different sheriffs held the Office of
chief deputy. His popularity was great, and
had he desired any office within the gift of oth-
er pioneers, such a position would have been
tendered him promptly, but he declined nom-
inations for judge and representative, pre-
ferring to devote himself to private affairs.
Throughout all of his life he has been inter-
ested in educational work and on the organiza-
tion of the first board of school trustees he was
chosen a member, in which position he did
much to develop the school system to its pres-
ent efficiency. In the days when San Diego
Lodge No. 35, F. & A. M., had its meeting
place in an old adobe building destitute of ev-
ery comfort, he was initiated into the order,
and has since retained his interest in the phil-
anthropic work of the fraternity.
Not only does Mr. Swycaffer have the honor
of being one of the earliest permanent settlers
of San Diego county, but his wife also enjoys
the same distinction, for she came to this re-
gion in 1854. A native of Texas, she bore the
maiden name of Martha Ward and was a young
girl when she settled in San Diego, where she
met and married Mr. Swycaffer. Twelve chil-
dren were born of their union, eight of whom
are still living. One daughter, Mrs. Pauline
Nicholson, died at Foster, San Diego county,
and Annetta died in August, 1906. Those now
living are as follows: Isabella, now the wife
of E. C. Doyle, of La Jolla; Martha, who mar-
ried Joseph Foster, of Foster; Jefferson D., a
stockman engaged in ranching near Julian ;
|Beatrice, who married Alonzo Price and lives
in San Francisco; Frances, Mrs. Angel Corona,

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
855
living at Douglas, Cochise county, Ariz. ; John,
who is engaged in mining at Globe, Ariz. ;
Louis, a stockman living near Foster, San Die-
go county; and James, who follows the butch-
er's trade at San Francisco. Not only did Mr.
and Mrs. Swycaffer rear a large family, but
their acquaintances state that obedience and
respect were given them by their children when
small, and now that all have gone into homes
of their own and have scattered into different
localities, they have proved honorable citizens
and energetic workers, in every respect worthy
of the esteem in which they are held. In the
seaside town of La Jolla, within sight of the
great Ocean to the west and the smiling val-
leys to the east, Mr. Swycaffer is passing the
twilight of his strenuous existence, blessed by
the friendship of the pioneers, the admiration
of the rising generation, and the affection of
those allied with him by the closest ties of re-
lationship. 3.
EDWIN C. SEYMOUR. Through his able
service in official capacities and through his
judicious leadership in the Grand Army of the
Republic, ex-Senator Seymour has won a
prominent position among the progressive men
of California and has wielded a more than
local influence for many years. While taking
an active part in public enterprises he has also
devoted considerable attention to the care of
his orange grove of ten and one-half acres,
which he purchased in 1891 and which is sit-
uated near Highland, adjoining on the west
the state hospital for the insane. Upon the
homestead he has erected an elegant residence,
whose exterior attractions are supplemented
by interior charms, forming one of the places
that have won for Highland and vicinity a
reputation for beauty of homes and pictur-
esqueness of environment.
Of eastern parentage and ancestry, Mr. Sey-
mour was born in. Oneonta, N. Y., October 23,
1845, being a son of Elias Chidsey and Lucy
(Loveland) Seymour. His education, received
in country schools near Troy, Bradford coun-
ty, Pa., was limited to the three R's, but after-
ward was broadened by self-culture and travel.
While still a mere lad he learned the trade of .
cabinet-maker under his father and for a long
period he followed that occupation in connec-
tion with carpentering. During the progress
of the Civil war he enlisted at Pittsburg in
Company C, Seventy-sixth Pennsylvania In-
fantry, assigned to the Tenth Corps, Army of
the Potomac, but later transferred to the
Twenty-fourth Corps. Among the engage-
ments in which he participated were those of
the Wilderness, Charleston Harbor, Fort
skirmishes.
settled at Riverside.
Wagner, two battles at Fort Fisher, and many
After witnessing the surrender of
Johnston at Greensboro he was honorably dis-
charged at Newbern, N. C., at the close of the
war and after he had seen one year of active
service in the field. On his return to the old
home he followed the printer's trade for a time,
but later resumed the carpenter's business.
Coming to California in 1881 Mr. Seymour
Two years later he came
to Highland, San Bernardino county, where
he engaged as manager for the West Coast
Lumber Company. Resigning the position at
the expiration of three years, he entered into
public life. In 1888 he was elected sheriff and
two years later again was chosen to occupy
the Office, which he filled with fearlessness,
justice and impartiality. Especially was he ac-
tive in ridding the country of horse thieves,
twenty-eight of whom he had confined in the
jail at one time. His service as sheriff was so
efficient that his party (the Republican) se-
lected him as their candidate for state senator
in 1894, and he was duly elected to the posi-
tion, which he filled for four years. While
taking an active part in all measures for the
benefit of the people and the welfare of his
constituents, he attained the greatest promi-
nence through his bill for the removal of the
state capital from Sacramento to San Jose, a
measure which was passed by a considerable
majority. However, the people of Sacramen-
to became so excited over the projected change
that they succeeded in retaining their city as
the capital of the state. Prior to removing to
California Mr. Seymour was prominent in lo-
cal politics in New York and for a time offi-
ciated as supervisor from the seventh ward of
Elmira, N. Y., during which time he had
charge of the erection of Fitch's bridge five
miles north of that city.
The marriage of Mr. Seymour was solem-
nized June 2, 1866, and united him with Martha
M., daughter of Levi and Lucinda (Walling)
Goddard, and a native of Bradford county, Pa.
They are the parents of four children, namely:
George G., a merchant at Johannesburg, South
Africa; Ida L., wife of J. W. Curtis, an at-
torney of San Bernardino; Edward L., who
is engaged in the printing business at San Ber-
mardino; and Martha M., Mrs. John Algeo;
of Alhambra, this state.
Becoming a member of the Independent Or-
der of Odd Fellows in 1868, Mr. Seymour was
initiated in Genesee Lodge at Rochester, N.
Y., and later passed all the chairs. Several
times he represented the lodge in the New
York Grand Lodge and afterward was chosen
in the same capacity in California. While
making his home at Elmira, N. Y., he became
856
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
identified with the Royal Arcanum, and since
coming west has become connected with the
Ancient Order of United Workmen at San
Bernardino. From early days he has been in-
terested in the Grand Army of the Republic.
In 1884 he organized the post at San Bernar-
dino, and in addition he enjoys the distinction
of having founded the posts at Riverside, Red-
lands, Colton, San Jacinto, Elsinore, Corona
and Ontario.
ern California Veterans' Encampment As-
sociation in 1888 was largely due to his intel-
ligent efforts, supplementing those of other
enthusiastic Grand Army members. In rec-
ognition of his able services he was honored
with the office of department commander C f
the Grand Army of California, which position
he filled for one year. By veterans all over
the state he is well known and universally
honored as a man who loyally served the coun-
try in times of war and in times of peace and
proved himself in every issue the friend of
progressive measures and a champion of truth
and justice.
THOMAS KNEALE. Prominent among the
foremost citizens of San Diego is Thomas Kneale
who, as an extensive contractor and builder, has
been actively associated with the development and
growth of the city, and as proprietor of Kneale
Park, which he has transformed from a barren
tract of sage-covered land into a beautiful garden
plot, has added greatly to its attractions. A man
of liberal views and of greatest integrity, ener-
getic and progressive, with undoubted business
tact and judgment, he is influential in financial,
civic and social circles. The oldest of a family
of five children, he was born, September 22,
1849, on the Isle of Man, near Ramsay, where,
as a child, he had as a near neighbor and an
acquaintance the well-known author, Hall Caine.
His parents, Thomas and Jane (Clayton) Kneale,
were life-long residents of that place, his father,
a mason by trade, being a general contractor and
builder.
As a boy, even before leaving the district
school, Thomas Kneale began working with his
father, and before attaining his majority was
proficient in the mason's trade. Immigrating to
America in the fall of 1869, he spent six or seven
years in Chicago, Ill., in 1870 starting in business
as a mason for himself, and during the great
fire which practically destroyed the business part
of the city, the building on which he was filling
a contract was burned. With characteristic enter-
prise he continued his work, and was the first to
set a gang of men to rebuilding in the burnt dis-
trict. In 1879 he went to Leadville, Colo., where
he was employed at his trade, and also followed
The organization of the South-
mining for several years. Locating in San Diego
in 1886, he has here built up a very large and
profitable business as a contractor and builder
In brick and stone, doing much of the important
mason work, on many of the prominent build-
ings of the city, including, among others, the
Keating, Marston, Cline, Richelieu and Sefton
buildings.
A standing monument, however, to Mr.
Kneale's good taste and enterprise is Kneale
Park, which is located on Mission Cliff, at the
head of Madison avenue, where he has recently
completed his palatial residence. This tract of
land is advantageously located, overlooking not
only the Mission valley, but affording a fine view
of the Pacific Ocean and Point Loma. At the
time of its purchase by Mr. Kneale it was a
dreary waste, giving no evidence of its present
beauty. Clearing it from sage brush, he began
its improvement, having it laid out as a land-
scape garden, with beautiful walks and drives,
setting out trees of different kinds and from
different countries, some of which he imported,
in 1893, from the Isle of Man. Many flowers
and tropical plants add to the attractions of the
place, making the park one of the loveliest spots
in this part of Southern California. t
In Oakland, Cal., Mr. Kneale married Nettie
Leet, who was born in this state, and was here
reared and educated. In his political affiliations
Mr. Kneale is a Republican, and in his religious
beliefs is an Episcopalian. He is prominently
identified with the Masonic fraternity, and has
done much to promote the good of the order.
He was made a Mason in Chicago; was master of
the Leadville Lodge, A. F. & A. M.; is now a
member of Silver Gate Lodge No. 296, F. & A.
M.; of Leadville Chapter, R. A. M.; of San Diego
Commandery No. 25, K. T.; of San Diego Con-
sistory No. 5, which has conferred upon him the
thirty-second degree; of San Diego Chapter, O.
E. S., and of the Ancient Arabic Order Nobles
of the Mystic Shrine.
JOHN L. JOHNSON. Among the sturdy,
thrifty and industrious farmers of Los Angeles
county is John L. Johnson, whose well-kept and
finely appointed ranch is advantageously located
near Compton. As a general farmer and stock-
raiser he has been 'successful, and his crops of
grain and the products of his dairy bring him in
good profits. Like many other of our prosper-
ous agriculturists he was born across the sea, his
birth having occurred, June 24, 1862, in Sweden,
where his parents have spent their entire lives.
He is a son of John Anderson, but on coming to
this country he changed his name to Johnson,
being John’s son.
During his earlier life John L. Johnson fol-


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
859
lowed the sea, being employed principally on
English vessels. As a seaman he has circum-
navigated the globe and has visited all the im-
portant ports of Europe and Asia, including
those in China and the Philippine Islands.
Coming to California on one of his voyages, he
left his ship at San Pedro, and from there went
to Los Angeles, where he worked at any hon-
orable employment that he could find. He as-
sisted in building a stage road in the mountains,
after which he worked as a hay bailer for five
years, during which time he saved $1,000. With
judicious thrift and sagacity he invested his
money in land, in 1890 purchasing ten acres of
his present ranch. He began farming on a mod-
est scale and was soon enabled to buy another
ten acres of adjacent land, and a few years later
he bought another tract equally as large, and
now has thirty acres of 1and, worth at least
$8oo an acre. In his agricultural labors Mr.
Johnson displays much ability and skill, his ranch
yielding abundant harvests of alfalfa, corn and
fruit, and his improvements are of an excellent
character, including among others the erection
of a commodious and conveniently arranged
residence, and substantial barns and farm build-
ings, all of which greatly enhance the value as
well as the beauty of the property.
In 1890, in Los Angeles, Mr. Johnson mar-
ried Catherine Naeil, who was born in Russia,
and came to California with an aunt during
young womanhood. Three children have been
born to Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, namely: Caro-
lina, aged fourteen years; William, who died in
infancy; and Carl Ludwig, aged seven years.
Politically Mr. Johnson is a straightforward Re-
publican, and religiously he belongs to the Con-
gregational Church.
WALTER P. TEMPLE. An inheritance of
ability, courage and enterprise has served to
make of Walter P. Temple one of the esteemed
citizens of Los Angeles county, where in the vi-
cinity of El Monte he is engaged as a horticultur-
•ist and rancher. The pioneer of the family,
Francis Pliny Fisk Temple, without a mention
of whom no history of Los Angeles county could
well be written, was one of the men who led the
advance guard of the mighty hosts who brought
American civilization to this sunny land. He also
inherited characteristics of high quality from a
long line of New England ancestors, his birth
having occurred in Reading, Middlesex county,
Mass., February I3, 1822, and in that section he
was reared and educated. He was possessed of
that sturdy independence of thought and self-
reliant spirit that led his English ancestors to
leave the well-trodden paths of their native land
and seek among the broad opportunities of the
western world an advancement of both self and
nation, which left the impress of their personality
and kindred spirits upon the land they sought.
His education completed, Mr. Temple set out for
California by way of Cape Horn, arriving in LOS
Angeles in the summer of 1841. Here his broth-
er, Jonathan Temple, with the energy and ability
characteristic of the family, had established him-
self in business as a pioneer merchant as early
as 1827. The brothers were associated in busi-
ness for several years, and upon severing their
connections Francis began to deal in real estate,
purchasing property in both town and county.
He became largely interested in Rancho Potrero
Grande, Potrero de Filipe Lugo rancho, the
Merced ranch, the San Joaquin rancho, San
Emedio rancho, and also being one-half owner
of Rancho Tejon, which contained twenty-two
leagues of land.
September 30, 1845, Francis P. F. Temple was
united in marriage with Antonia Margarita
Workman, only daughter of William and Nicolasa
Workman, the latter born of an old Spanish fam-
ily at Santa Fe, N. Mex., in 1802. Mrs. Temple
was born in Santa Fe in 1831, and after her
1marriage made her home on La Merced ranch, in
the San Gabriel valley, twelve miles east of Los
Angeles. Mr. Temple had built an adobe house
after the old Spanish style and made other im-
provements which increased the value of his prop-
erty. He engaged for a time in breeding stock
and the buying and selling of cattle, in which
enterprise he was uniformly successful. In 1851
he set out a vineyard of fifty thousand vines and
twenty acres of miscellaneous fruits, and count-
less other improvements; a lover of fine horses
he spent a fortune on blooded stock, paying $7,000
for Black Warrior, a large amount for Billy
Blossom, and altogether expending something
like $40,000 in this line. In 1868 he engaged in
the banking business in Los Angeles with I. W. .
Hellman and his father-in-law, the late William .
Workman; three years later the partnership was
dissolved and the firm was thereafter known as
Temple & Workman, their business being car-
ried on in Temple block, which Mr. Temple had
erected. They conducted an extensive business
all over the Pacific coast, as well as at eastern
centers, and by this means were among the most
influential men in the upbuilding and develop-
ment of Los Angeles. In 1875 the firm failed
and the greater part of the vast fortune of Mr.
Temple was voluntarily given up to meet all de-
mands, but the financial disaster made such an
impression upon him that he never recovered his
health and spirits, his entire afterlife saddened
and perhaps shortened by it. His death occurred
April 27, 1880, on the home place and his in-
terment took place in La Puente. He had al-
ways been a potent factor in public enterprises
860
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
of all descriptions, and many a landmark recalls
the worth of his citizenship. Among other val-
uable donations may be mentioned the site for
the Puente schoolhouse. His death was greatly
deplored by all who knew him, and his memory
to-day is held among those of the early pioneers
of Los Angeles county. He was survived by
his wife, who died in 1892. They were the par-
ents of eleven children, of whom eight attained
maturity: Thomas, who died in Los Angeles in
1892; Frank W., who died in Puente in 1888;
William, who resides in Northern California;
John H., a resident of Los Angeles; Charles P.
of Santa Monica; Walter P., of this review ;
Maggie A., wife of Samuel
Puente; and Lucinda, wife of M. M. Zuinga, of
Clifton, Ariz.
Walter P. Temple was born on the Merced
ranch in the region known as the old Mission,
June 7, 1870, and was reared in his native county.
After receiving a preliminary education in the
common schools he attended St. Vincent's Col-
lege, of Los Angeles, and also took a commercial
course in the Woodbury Business College, also
of that city. After completing his education he
returned home and remained with his mother
until her death. The years of 1894-95 were spent
in traveling in old Mexico, after which he re-
turned to California, and locating on the home
property, has ever since remained engaged as a
horticulturist. The old homestead has under-
gone changes since the early days of the state,
the adobe house, characteristic of the early days,
as well as the later built brick residence, are both
gone, but there still stands as a landmark one
of the most magnificent palms in Southern Cal-
ifornia. This was planted by Don Juan Ramirez,
a leading horticulturist of Los Angeles, forty-
five years ago; the seed was brought from Mex-
ico and but two trees were planted in the state,
Don Juan making Mr. Temple a present of this
at the birth of his first daughter about 1865; the
other palm stands on Aliso street in Los Angeles,
before the old Ramirez home. Mr. Temple's
property consists of fifty acres of land located
on the Whittier and Pasadena road, three and a
half miles south of El Monte; forty-five acres are
planted to walnuts and five acres to apples. En-
ergy and ability have resulted in financial returns
which have made Mr. Temple independent. He
takes a keen interest in his work and seeks con-
stantly the advancement of this industry, which
is so important in the growth and development
of Los Angeles county, and indeed of all South-
ern California.
In San Diego Mr. Temple was united in mar-
riage with Miss Laura Gonzales, a native of Los
Angeles county, and they have one child, Thomas
Workman. In his political affiliations Mr. Temple
is a Republican ; he takes a deep interest in edu-
P. Rowland, of
cational development and is now serving as School
trustee of La Puente district and officiating as
clerk of the board. The home of Mr. and Mrs.
Temple is one of the places of hospitality for
which Southern California is noted; friend and
stranger alike are welcomed, entertained and sent
upon their way with the courtesy of a well dis-
ciplined southern home. Both are held in high
esteem throughout the county, appreciated for
the qualities of character displayed during their
long residence here, and numbering their friends
with a liberality which bespeaks their own gen-
erous natureS.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. The substantial
and influential citizens of Valley Center have
no better representative than John Q. Adams, a
prosperous merchant, who stands high among
the keen, progressive business men of his com-
munity. As one of the earlier settlers of this
part of San Diego county, he suffered all the
Eardships and privations of pioneer life, in com-
mon with his neighbors, who were few and far
between, laboring hard to secure a home for
himself and his descendants. Ever loyal to the
home of his adoption, he aided in every possible
way its growth and development, whether re-
lating to its agricultural, manufacturing or mer-
cantile interests, and well deserves the high es-
teem and favor in which he is so universally
held. A son of the late John T. Adams, he was
born, March 20, 1849, in Westchester county,
N. Y., where he received a common school edu-
cation.
A native of Scotland, John T. Adams was
fitted for a professional career, and when a
young man entered the employ of the British
government, and for a few years taught school
in the Bermuda Islands. Settling afterwards
in the United States, he became associated with
railroad life, for a number of years being a
civil engineer. He married . Anna Morton, who
was born in the Bermudas ninety-one years ago,
and is now living in Salem, Marion county, Ill.
Of their union ten children were born, and of
these two are living in San Diego county,
John Quincy, the subject of this sketch, and his
sister, Mrs. Harriet Burnham of San Diego.
After spending a few of his youthful years in
Canada, John Q. Adams, in 1867, went to Illi-
nois to live. He spent but a short time in that
state, however, going westward to Kansas,
where for awhile he was employed in burning
lime for the government. In 1869, on the com-
pletion of the United Pacific Railroad, he was
a passenger on the very first west-bound train,
going to Elko, Nev., where he took the stage
to White Pine. There he met his father, whom
he had not seen for fourteen years, and with
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
861
him went to the mines. Subsequently buying
an outfit, he came overland to Los Angeles,
thence to San Diego, arriving in the latter city
December 14, 1869. A few days later he located
a government claim of one hundred and sixty
acres in Valley Center, and this he afterwards
sold to W. H. H. Dinwiddie, and for eight
years thereafter was in the employ of the govern-
ment. Embarking in mercantile pursuits in 1884,
Mr. Adams has since been successfully engaged
in business in Valley Center, and has here built
up an extensive and lucrative trade, being now
the leading merchant of the place. In his under-
takings he has been very fortunate, accumu-
lating considerable wealth, owning not only
village property, but having a valuable ranch in
this vicinity. -
Mr. Adams has been twice married, his first
union being with Annie E. Hoyt, who was born
in Indiana, and who died in Valley Center, in
1899. At her death she left three children,
namely : B. S., who died in December, 1905;
B. E., a resident of the valley and who married
Annie B. Melhuish; and William H., of San
Diego. Mr. Adams married for his second wife
Mrs. L. J. Coffee. Mr. Adams is a man of strong
convictions, independent in his opinions, and in
politics is a believer in Socialism although for-
merly he was identified with the Republican
party.
county clerk, and has the distinction of having
served as the first postmaster of Valley Center.
Mrs. Adams in her religious belief is a Presby-
terian.
ALFRED E. JOHNSON, one of the well-
known ranchers of Los Angeles county and form-
erly a business man of Pasadena, is located in
the vicinity of San Gabriel and engaged in the
cultivation of a well-improved ranch. He has
done much for the natural development of the
resources of this section, has taken a keen in-
terest in all matters looking toward the upbuild-
ing of the community, and has won for himself
a high position among the best citizens. Mr.
Johnson came to California in 1878. He was
born in Kosciusko county, Ind., February 3,
1857, a son of Henry and Rachel (French) John-
son, both natives of Ohio, the former born
August 19, 1832. The paternal grandfather,
Zenas C. Johnson, was born in Vermont July
4, 18OO, the representative of an old Pilgrim
family. The first to bear the name in America
was Isaac Johnson, a native of England, who
immigrated to the colonies near the close of the
eighteenth century. Zenas C. Johnson studied
medicine in his native state and graduated in his
chosen profession, after which he followed it
for a time in Canada. In 1828 he returned to
He was for a number of terms deputy
the United States and in Port Clinton, Ohio,
was located until his removal to Kosciusko county,
Ind., where he served as a pioneer physician.
His wife, Julietta, also passed her last days in
Indiana. Henry Johnson was twice married,
his first wife, being Rachel French, a daughter
of Aaron French and their marriage occurred
March 13, 1856. They had six children, but
only three are now living: Alfred E.; Laura, wife
of David Thomas, of Alhambra; and Mary, wife
of Charles Smith, of Whittier. After the death
of his wife in 1867 Mr. Johnson married, in
1869, Eliza Scott, a daughter of Jacob and Lydia
(Lamson) Scott, early settlers of Whitley coun-
ty, Ind., and born of this union are six chil-
dren, of whom only one survive, Erman. Mr.
Johnson carried on farming on his farm of one
hundred and ten acres until his death, which
occurred in 1894, which removed from the com-
munity a man of ability and enterprise, foremost
in all movements looking toward the upbuilding
of the community, and prominent in the Masonic
organization and the Republican party.
Alfred E. Johnson received his education in
the public schools of Kosciusko county and re-
mained at home until attaining his majority,
when he came to California. Upon coming to
California in 1878 he located in Los Angeles
county, where he worked out on farms until
1883, when he engaged in independent opera-
tions, leasing land near Boyle Heights upon
which he raised grain. In the fall of 1886 he
went to Pasadena and established a hay, wood
and feed business, which was conducted success-
fully for six years under the firm name of
Johnson & Ford. Mr. Johnson then returned
to agricultural pursuits, leasing five hundred
acres of land which he devoted to grain and
alfalfa. In the meantime he had leased the busi-
ness property in Pasadena, and in 1895 he re-
turned to that place and again took up that
work. He eventually sold out on account of his
health and returned to farming, purchasing his
present ranch, which consists of five acres in the
home place and forty acres of wet land, the
former in orchard and the latter in walnuts. He
put up all the improvements on the place, erect-
ing residence, barns and other necessary build-
1ngs.
In the fall of 1884. Mr. Johnson was united in
marriage with Miss Celia Pollard, a native of
California and a daughter of E. Pollard, a native
of England and an early settler of this state.
Born of this union are the following children:
Henry A., Frank L., Jennie K., William P.,
Richard deceased, Jessie C., Charles O. and
Rachel. In fraternal relations Mr. Johnson is
a member of Pasadena Lodge No. 272, F. &
A. M. Politically he is a Republican and stanch
in his endorsement of the principles of this
862
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
party. He takes a keen interest in all educational
matters and is now serving as director of the
Garvatia school district. He is a man and citi-
zen who can always be counted upon to be on
the right side of a question, regardless of party
interests.
FRED NEWTON BEST. Not alone as a
successful orchardist and farmer is Fred New-
ton Best known in Orange, San Bernardino and
Riverside counties, but as one of the progressive
and enterprising citizens as well, whose best ef-
forts are given wherever possible toward the up-
building and development of Southern Califor-
nia. Mr. Best has the advantage of being a
native son of the state, for that presupposes the
pioneer characteristics of his parents, his father,
Newton W., a native of Nova Scotia, having
come to California in 1868 by way of Cape Horn.
The following year he was joined by his wife
and two sons, she being in maidenhood Annie C.
Holmes, a native of Nova Scotia. He located in
San Benito county, where he was one of the first
settlers and engaged in farming. Later he went
to Guadaloupe, Santa Barbara county, thence to
La Graciosa, Santa Maria valley. In 1877 he
purchased a ranch in the vicinity of Santa Ana
(then in Los Angeles, now in Orange county)
and made that place his home until 1884, when
he located three miles west of Beaumont, pur-
chasing a ranch and following farming until
1898. In that year he located in Redlands, where
he is now living retired at the age of sixty-nine
years. His wife is also living. They became
the parents of nine children, of whom Fred New-
ton Best is the third in order of birth.
Born in San Benito county, Cal., March I2,
1870, Fred N. Best was reared in Southern Cal-
ifornia and educated in the public Schools in the
various places in which his parents made their
home. He was early trained to the practical
duties of a farmer's son, which included the driv-
ing of from two to ten teams of horses. He was
married in Beaumont, October 14, 1890, to Miss
Eva M. Elder, a native of Illinois, after which
he engaged in independent operations as a
rancher. He leased eight hundred acres of land
eight miles north of Beaumont, where he set out
eighty-four acres in apples, pears and cherries,
and there engaged in farming and stock-raising
for ten years. He became the owner of forty-two
acres of orchard and two hundred acres of timber
and pasture lands, where he built a residence
and made other improvements. This remained
the family home until 1900, when he went to
Redlands because of his wife's health, and there
engaged in teaming and the carpenter's trade
for three years. In 1902 he traded his orchard
for the old home ranch at Beaumont, San Gor-
gonia, consisting of four hundred and eighty
acres devoted to general farming and the raising
of stock. After one year he came to Newport
Beach and engaged at the trade of carpenter and
also in fishing. He erected one of the finest res-
idences in this place, but disposed of this in 1905
and moved to Redlands, then to Beaumont in
1906. In March of 1907 he located in Newport
Beach permanently, owning a fine residence
property. He also owns residence and business
property in Redlands. Fraternally he is a mem-
ber of the Modern Woodmen of America and
the Fraternal Brotherhood. Politically he is a
stanch advocate of Prohibition principles.
To Mr. and Mrs. Best have been born the fol-
lowing children: Glenn, Hazel (who died at the
age of two months), Ross, Willard, Warren
Leonard (who died at the age of five months)
and Eva.
--
MARTIN JOSEPH GOLDEN. One of the
successful early settlers of Southern California
is Martin Joseph Golden of Los Angeles, who
was born in Roscommon, Ireland, November 7,
1832. His parents, Patrick and Mary (Graham)
Golden, were both natives of Ireland and im-
migrated to this country in the early days, first
locating at Clinton, Mass., and later removing
to Wyoming county, N. Y., where they died.
They were the parents of five sons and two
daughters. The early education of M. J. Golden
was received in the common schools of Massa-
chusetts and New York, and when sixteen years
of age he went to work in a nursery where he
acquired a thorough knowledge of the business.
In 1862 he went to Colorado and then to Mon-
tana, where he met with considerable success in
the mining and prospecting enterprises in which
he engaged until 1866. He then came to Los
Angeles, the overland trip through Utah and
across the mountains being an uneventful one.
Upon his arrival here he secured a school at
Santa Ana, teaching Spanish for one year, and
following this located on a ranch, which he bought
from a Spaniard, and engaged in farming. He
remained on this place until recently, when he
retired from active work and disposed of the
ranch for $170,000.
Mr. Golden was married to Miss Katherine
McElroy, a native of county Antrim, Ireland,
and they are, the parents of six children, all of
whom are now living under the parental roof.
They are: Mary Elizabeth, James, Winifred M.,
Hugh P., Agnes K. and Margaret T. The en-
tire family belongs to the Roman Catholic Church.
Mr. Golden is a well informed man and in poli-
tics is independent, giving his vote to the men
whom he believes will most honestly and effi-
ciently perform their duties.
-

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
865
JONASS. KILLIAN. Southern California
owes much to such men as Mr. Killian, whose
strongest efforts have been for the upbuilding
and development of the country ever since his
settlement here in 1887. He installed the first
pumping plant of the section, the first gas
engine and centrifugal pump outside of Los
Angeles, and by costly experiments demon-
strated the feasibility of pumping water for
irrigation.
the country, and is now the proprietor of three
hundred and twenty acres of walnut orchard.
He is liberal and hospitable, numbers his
friends widely throughout the country, and is
justly entitled to the high position, he holds
among the representative citizens of this sec-
tion. -
Mr. Killian was born in Pickens county,
Ga., near Jasper, June 3, 1856, the seventh
in a family of ten children, of whom nine at-
tained maturity and six are now living. His
father, Lawson A. Killian, was born in South
Carolina, and was a miner in Dahlonega, Ga.,
and afterward engaged in building and farm-
ing. In 1887 he came to California and passed
his last days in Monrovia. His wife, former-
1y Martha Bedford, was also born in South
Carolina and died in Monrovia. One son,
George, was killed in the Civil war. Jonas
Scott Killian was reared in Georgia and re-
ceived his education in the public schools and
Sonora Academy in Gordon county. In the
fall of 1878 he went to San Marcos, Hays
county, Tex., and engaged in farming, and
later established a mercantile enterprise in
this place. In October, 1887, he came to Cali-
fornia, locating first in Monrovia and shortly
afterward going to El Monte, where he en-
gaged in general farming and horticulture.
In the meantime he purchased three hundred
and twenty acres of land which he began to
cultivate as a grain farm. He instituted im-
provements immediately and one of his first
plans was to put in a pumping plant that
would furnish water for irrigation. He drilled
a well one hundred and sixty feet deep, after
which he instailed a gas engine, and after a
thorough demonstration of the value of the
enterprise, he put down other wells, and put
in more engines, until he now owns five com-
bined wells which yield five hundred inches
of water, and four engines for pumping. His
three hundred and twenty acre ranch is lo-
cated a mile and half northeast of El Monte
and a half mile from the Pacific Electric line.
Of this property he has devoted two hundred
and forty acres to the cultivation of soft shell
walnuts, all of which are now in bearing, this
being the largest individual walnut grove in
He has been a large upbuilder of
the world. The rest of the ranch is in gum
trees, pasture and alfalfa. tº-
The marriage of Mr. Killian occurred in
Gordon county, Ga., November 29, 1881, and
united him with Miss Lucy White, a native of
Madison county, Ga. Her grandfather,
Stephen S. White, was a native of Kentucky,
who removed to Georgia and engaged as a
planter, and there, in Madison county, her
father, William White, was born. He also
engaged as a planter in Gordon county, until
his death. Her mother was Malinda Strick-
land, also a native of Georgia, where her
death occurred. Of the six children born of
this union all are living, Mrs. Killian being
next to the youngest. Mr. and Mrs. Killian
are the parents of four children, namely: Jonas
Edwin, attending the University of Southern
California, class of 1907; Ernest Waldo, at-
tending the same institution, class of IQ09;
and Howard Scott and Oliver Clay, students
in the E1 Monte school.
Mr. Killian was made a Mason in Sonora
Lodge, of Caldwell, Tex., and now belongs to
Lexington Lodge No. 104, F. & A. M., of El
Monte, while both himself and wife are
identified with the Order of Eastern Star at
Pasadena. He also belongs to the Woodmen
of the World, the Ancient Order of United
Workmen and Modern Brotherhood. He is
a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church
South, of Duarte, and liberally supports all of
its charities. He was prominent in the or-
ganization of the Mountain View Walnut
Growers’ Association, and served on its first
board of directors. In his political convic-
tions he adheres to the tenets of the Demo-
cratic party. As a citizen he enjoys a high
place among the representative men of this
section, esteemed for his personal qualities as
demonstrated during his long career as a hor-
ticulturist of Los Angeles county. e
ALEXANDER CAMPBELL SMITHER.
The oldest pastorate of Los Angeles is that
of the above named minister, one of the most
popular and highly esteemed men of Southern
California, where he has been a most important
factor in the upbuilding and advancement of his
denomination. As his name would indicate he
comes of a family identified with the earliest
movements of the religious doctrine advocated
by Alexander Campbell, one of the most coura-
geous pioneers in theological fields. His parents,
L. N. and Keziah (Curry) Smither, were both
natives of Kentucky, where the father engaged
for many years as a successful and prosperous
farmer. He is still a resident of his n-º’ve state
47
866
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
but is now retired from the active cares of life.
The mother died some years since.
Born June Io, 1865, A. C. Smither is also a
native of the Blue Grass state, where upon his
father's farm he was reared to young manhood.
The early days of his life were spent much as
those of any other farmer lad, home duties al-
ternating with an attendance at a subscription
school, where he obtained his rudimentary know-
ledge. Gifted with more ability, however, than
the average youth, he was not satisfied with a
foundation for knowledge but early decided to
devote his life to the highest calling and in the
most earnest spirit of effort and conscious de-
sire sought to prepare himself fully and com-
pletely for the work. In 1882 he matriculated in
Kentucky University, Lexington, Ky., from
which institution he was graduated with honors
in 1886. Later he began to preach the Gospel
in the states of Kentucky and Tennessee and
although he met with the success which is char-
acteristic of all his efforts he was not content
to take up the work permanently without fur-
ther study. Accordingly he became a student
in Butler University, near Indianapolis, Ind., and
devoted the ensuing two years to theology, grad-
uating therefrom in 1890. In the same year he
accepted a call to the First Christian Church of
Los Angeles, and has ever since remained in this
pastorate. The changes which the years have
brought are indicative of the spirit of progress
which has distinguished the Disciples in South-
ern California. The church building at that time
was an Temple street and was known as the
Temple Street Christian Church; the congre-
gation was small and its influence was scarcely
felt even in its immediate neighborhood. Under
the leadership and masterly mind of Rev. Mr.
Smither the First Christian Church was evolved,
the congregation moving in 1894 to the corner of
Hope and Eleventh streets, occupying the Sun-
day-school room, which was the first part of the
new building erected. In 1897 the auditorium
was completed, its seating capacity being eight
hundred, while that of the entire building is
fourteen hundred, a value of $50,000 being
placed upon the property to-day. From the
modest beginning of the old Temple Street
Christian Church has grown up the most ex-
tensive and influential church of its denomination
on the Pacific coast. During Mr. Smither's
pastorate eighteen hundred persons have been
added to the congregation, the present mem-
bership being nine hundred, and in this time this
church has been instrumental in Organizing num-
erous churches. among them the East Eighth
Street Church, the Central Church, the Magno-
lia Avenue Church, the Highland Park Church,
besides giving largely of membership and money
to organize others. Mr. Smither holds an un-
tive epoch in American history.
excelled position among the ministers of his
denomination, honored alike for the qualities of
leadership which have ever distinguished his
career, and for the spirit of earnestness and de-
votion which has impelled him to a useful ac-
tivity. He is an ardent and enthusiastic worker
and has given to every department of the church
an impetus which has brought about most satis-
factory progress. -
Significant of the high place he holds among
the citizens of Southern California was his ap-
pointment to the position of president of the
Board of Trustees of Berkeley Bible Seminary,
at Berkeley, Cal., which position he holds at the
present writing, ably discharging the duties in-
cumbent upon him. He has three times declined
the honor of being made a member of the national
convention, but has served as president of the
Southern California mission convention for five
years. Through his various articles contributed
to eastern religious papers he is well known
throughout the entire country and readily ac-
corded a place among the men who are advanc-
ing the cause of the Disciples of Christ. His in-
fluence is unusually wide in his home city and in
religious circles of Southern California.
The marriage of Mr. Smither occurred in
Los Angeles, July 29, 1891, and united him with
Miss Gertrude Clough, a native of Massachusetts,
though reared and educated in California. She
is a daughter of Frank S. Clough, the descend-
ant of an old New England family. Educated
and accomplished, Mrs. Smither has brought to
bear in her duties as the wife of a minister abili-
ty and culture which have made her peculiarly
successful in all the work she has undertaken.
She has many friends in and out of the church,
who appreciate her for her sterling traits of
character. Mr. and Mrs. Smither are the parents
of one son, Chester Campbell Smither, now a
student in the public schools of Los Angeles.
THOMAS JEFFREYS WILLIAMS. The
ranks of the veterans of civilization on the Pa-
cific coast are fast thinning, and comparatively
few respond to the roll call of those whose ef-
forts have spanned and survived this distinc-
The frontier
and its accompaniments have been pushed
beyond the rim of the ocean, and two kinds of
men stand out from the background of its nev-
er-recurring opportunities—that part of the
rude and shifting population which took only a
gambler's interest in the country, and those
who tarried in the wake of excitement and un-
certainty and participated in the ordinary and
more stable industries which bring prosperity
and lasting growth. To the latter class be-
longs T. J. Williams, a pioneer of both Cali-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
867
fornia and Arizona, a man of many experiences
and the owner of the largest apricot orchard in
Santa Barbara county.
Mr. Williams was born in Luzerne county,
June 16, 1835, and on the paternal side comes
of several generations of iron workers. His
father, Samuel Williams, native of England,
kept the family occupation unbroken, and dur-
ing his entire active life engaged in the foun-
dry business. In his native land he married
Eliza Evans, with whom he immigrated to
America in 1824, settling in Pennsylvania,
where his death occurred at the age of sixty-
eight years. He was a Baptist in religion, and
in politics a Whig, and one of his five children
donned the blue of the Union during the Civil
war. His wife lived to be forty-five years old.
Thomas Jeffreys Williams, after a compara-
tively brief attendance at the schools of Lu-
zerne and Schuylkill counties, Pa., learned the
machinist and foundry business from a rela-
tive, thus insuring himself a career of never
failing usefulness. In the emergency of se-
lecting a desirable future field, his judgment
and foresight sanctioned the region beyond the
Rockies, where, in any emergency, his trade
would lift him above the number destined to
succeed or fail in the quest for gold.
Leaving Philadelphia October 5, 1853, Mr.
Williams came to San Francisco by way of
Panama, and after a brief experience as a
miner established a foundry business in Ne-
vada City, Nevada county, during January,
1856. His was the first foundry above tide
water in California, and he continued to oper-
ate it until removing to San Francisco during
the first year of the Civil war. Here he oper-
ated in mining stocks as a member of the first
board of mining brokers in the state, and in
March, 1862, moved to the promising territory
of Arizona. For a time he was superintendent
of the Lieutenant Mowry mines, and later
prospected throughout Arizona and Mexico, re-
turning to Los Angeles, Cal., by way of Fort
Yuma and the Colorado desert, in 1864. In
Kern county, his next home, he was superin-
tendent of mines for a Boston firm, of which
Col. A. A. Rand was manager and proprietor,
and while thus employed served as clerk of
Kern county on the Democratic ticket from
1872 until his resignation, which occurred
when the county seat was removed from Ha-
vilah to Bakersfield.
Returning to San Francisco, Mr. Williams
was appointed wharfinger for the state of Cali-
fornia by Governor Irwin, and later was en-
gaged to establish a lumber business along the
narrow-gauge railroad in San Luis Obispo
county for Goodall, Perkins & Co., steamship
owners. It was at this time that he purchased
the ranch a mile east of Santa Maria, which,
since 1890, has been his permanent home. Af-
ter varied wanderings and as varied experi-
ences he finds both profit and recreation in the
supervision of his fine apricot orchard, the av-
erage yield of which is five to eight hundred
pounds an acre. His home is charming in its
simplicity, and ideal in its comfort and hos-
pitality. The facilities for a large fruit in-
dustry are modern and adequate, and include
a large drying house and packing shed.
In San Francisco, in 1866, Mr. Williams was
united in marriage to Mary A. Kemp, who was
born and reared in Melbourne, Australia, and
of their marriage three children were born :
Samuel; Mary E., of San Francisco; and Ed-
win R. Mrs. Williams died July 22, 1872, at
the age of twenty-eight, and in 1873 Mr. Will-
iams married Eliza Hurlburt, a native of Mid-
dlebury, Addison county, Vt. Association
with all kinds and conditions of people has de-
veloped in Mr. Williams a rare spirit of kindli-
ness and good-fellowship, qualities thoroughly
appreciated by his friends, and he is known
and honored for his practical services. Fra-
ternally he is a member of the lodge, chapter and
commandery of Masonry.
CAPT. JOHN D. FREDERICKS. That for
Imany generations past the bar has attracted vast
numbers of the foremost men of the age is a fact
well attested by history, and that from its rank
have stepped forth some of the most illustrious
statesmen and leaders of nations no one doubts.
At all periods since law became reduced to a
science its expounders have taken a prominent
place in the affairs of their day, and their in-
fluence often has survived them for generations.
In passing in review the members of the Los
Angeles bar the name of Capt. John D. Fred-
ericks shines forth with the brilliancy of the pos-
sessor's genius, and the following facts in rela-
tion to him will doubtless prove of interest to his
hosts of friends here and elsewhere.
A native of Pennsylvania, John D. Fredericks
was born in Burgettstown, September Io, 1869,
a representative of a sturdy family of that state.
His father, the Rev. J. F. Fredericks, was a
Presbyterian minister, to which calling he de-
voted his entire life. He was a man of many
pleasing qualities and became much beloved by
the people to whom he ministered, holding one
pastorate all his life. His death occurred in 1886,
when well along in years. His wife was for-
merly Mary Patterson, also a native of Burgetts-
town. John D. Fredericks was one of a family of
four children, all of whom were reared to young
manhood and womanhood in Burgettstown. He
868
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
received his primary education in the common
and high schools of that place, after which he
entered Washington and Jefferson College, in
Washington, Pa., from which institution he was
graduated in the class of 1890. He remained in
Pennsylvania for one year following his gradua-
tion, when he came as far west as Utah and
found occupation as a teacher in a School near
Ogden. In the same year (1891) he came to
Los Angeles, Cal., bringing with him no capital
other than his courage and indomitable will,
without which even ability cannot find success.
He had $35 in money and instead of waiting
until this was gone he at once sought employ–
ment, which he found in the Whittier state
school. He remained as teacher in this institu-
tion for three years, and in the meantime devoted
his spare time to the reading of law. This intri-
cate study he finally mastered and in 1895 was
admitted to the bar before the supreme court
of California. Opening an office in Los Angeles
he began the practice of his profession and from
that time to the present has arisen steadily in
the ranks of the legal fraternity. He was also
intimately connected with other important move-
ments of both local and state interests, being a
member of the California National Guard, and
in 1898 accompanied the Seventh Volunteer In-
fantry to San Francisco, having been made ad-
jutant of the battalion. Much to their disap-
pointment the company were never ordered to the
front, but remained in San Francisco, where
Mr. Fredericks was made judge advocate, hold-
ing this position until the return of this company
to Los Angeles. -
Upon his return to the city and the resumption
of his legal duties, Mr. Fredericks was appointed
to the office of deputy district attorney, in which
position he so ably represented the interests of
the people that in 1903 he was nominated and
elected district attorney for a term of four years.
Since taking up the duties of this responsible
position Captain Fredericks (which title has been
won in the National Guard) has proven himself
a man of strong character and ability—firm for
the right in whatever place he has found him-
self; undaunted by political preference or preju-
dice; frank and fearless in the discharge of his
duties. He has been a firm friend and champion
of the best interests of Los Angeles and is held
in the highest respect and appreciation by her
citizens. His career is only just begun, for he
is a young man, with all a young man's energy
and ambition, and with the splendid success al-
ready achieved bids fair to rank among the fore-
most men of our state.
In 1896 Captain Fredericks was united in
marriage with Miss Agnes M. Blakeley, of Los
Angeles, a daughter of James O. Blakeley, a
prominent citizen of Visalia, Cal., and they are
now the parents of three children, two daughters
and One son. In his political affiliations Captain
Fredericks is a stanch adherent of the Repub-
lican principles. Fraternally he is a Mason of
Knight Templar degree and prominent in the
order.
HERBERT G. DOW. To the honor of be.
ing a citizen of the beautiful state of California,
Mr. Dow adds the distinction of being an able
and popular official of Los Angeles county, where
he is widely and favorably known. While wealth
has not come to him in return for his inde-
fatigable labors nor has fame claimed him as
her Own, yet in a quiet, contented and useful
way he has pursued his daily duties and lived
the life of an honorable and upright citizen, en-
joying the esteem always accorded to those of
known integrity and high principles of honor.
In his capacity of auditor he has devoted himself
strenuously to the duties of the position with
an earnest desire to win the commendation not
alone of the party that elected him, but also of
his political opponents.
Herbert G. Dow was born in Portland, Me.,
in 1860, a son of Moses G. and Ellen M. (Lowell)
Dow, both of whom were also natives of the
same locality, the father being born in 1811 and
dying October 31, 1891, while the mother was
born in 1816, and died in 1874. The Dow fam-
ily were among the pioneers of New England,
the emigrating ancestor being a native of Eng-
land and in religion a member of the Society
of Friends. After his location in America he
reared a family whose descendants have been
prominent in the religious and political life of
the community in which they lived. Mrs. Dow
was the daughter of Enoch and Mary Lowell,
a prominent New England family of strong in-
telligence and ability. Herbert G. Dow received
an excellent common-school education which has
enabled him to cope successfully with the pro-
blems which have come into his life. He re-
mained in his native state until twenty years of
age, when he decided to come west and from
July, 1880, until September, 1886, was a resident
of Springfield, Mo. In that city he was em-
ployed as a bookkeeper, secretary and later as
traveling salesman for a farming implement and
agricultural machinery house for a time and
then for one year conducted a hardware store
independently. In September, 1886, he disposed
of his business interests in Springfield, Mo., and
came to California, locating in San Diego, where
for ten years he engaged in the real-estate busi-
ness and ranching, which brought him satis-
factory financial returns. At the expiration of
that time he located in Los Angeles, where he
has ever since remained a resident.
º
or
- º

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
871
It was while conducting the Catalina hotel on
South Broadyway that he became cashier for the
county tax collector, a position which he filled
efficiently for four years.
A Republican in his political convictions and
a man of strong principles, Mr. Dow had gradu-
ally assumed a place of importance in the affairs
of his party, and following his service as cashier
he was nominated by acclamation and elected
county auditor in IQO2, receiving the handsome
majority of eighteen thousand votes, leading his
ticket. In January, 1903, he took up the work
of his position, which extends over the period
of four years, expiring in January, 1907, and
at the county convention in 1906 received the
nomination for the ensuing term. The confi-
dence vested in the ability and integrity of Mr.
Dow have not suffered during his term of service,
the duties of his position being discharged with
efficiency and with all due regard to the respon-
sibilties devolving upon him. He stands high
with all who know him, either of his party or
the opposition, and bids fair to occupy places of
continued prominence.
In 1882, at Springfield, Mo., Mr. Dow was
united in marriage with Mrs. Roxana (Williams)
Dow, a native daughter of Missouri, and born
of their union are twin daughters, Marie Capron
and Nadine Capron. Mrs. Dow is an Episco-
palian and this church and its charities are sup-
ported by Mr. Dow. In his fraternal relations
Mr. Dow is a member of Southern California
Lodge No. 278, F. & A. M., and also is a mem-
ber for life of Lodge No. 99, B. P. O. E. He
takes an active interest in the business life of
Los Angeles, being secretary of the Dow Reality
Company, which has an office in the Union Trust
Building, at the corner of Fourth and Spring
streets, and is also treasurer of Los Angeles
Ice Machine Works.
FRANK BURNS. That a temporary mis-
fortune may prove a permanent blessing in dis-
guise is nowhere better illustrated than in the
life of Mr. Burns. As a result of too close
application to his duties as auditor of the
Peoples Bank of Buffalo, N. Y., his health
became impaired to such an extent that a com-
plete change of Scene and climate became im-
perative. In search of these restoratives he
came to California during the summer of 1899,
having secured a temporary leave of absence,
but his permanent resignation was soon sent
to his employers in the east, this step re-
sulting more directly perhaps from his awak-
ening to better business chances in the west
than from restored health. After looking about
for a suitable location to open a bank he
finally selected San Pedro as the most prom-
ising, and on January 7, 1901, the doors of the
State Bank of San Pedro were opened for bus-
iness. The bank has a capital stock of $25,000
with a surplus of $15,000, while the deposits
average about $300,000.
In Mayville, Chautauqua county, N. Y.,
Frank Burns was born April 2, 1867, the
youngest of three sons born to his parents,
Patrick and Margaret Burns. The father was
a farmer in New York state, but his son Frank
has no personal knowledge of him, as he died
when the latter was an infant. The mother
died in 1890. The eldest son in the parental
family, W. H., is secretary and treasurer of
the Los Angeles Electric and Gas Company,
while Joseph R. is in the real estate business
in that city. The school days of Frank Burns
are associated with the Catholic college at
Niagara Falls, N. Y., which he left when he
was fourteen years of age in order to begin his
independent career. He was no doubt influ-
enced to take this step by the example of his
elder brother, who had become a clerk in one
of the numerous hotels that line the shores of
Lake Chautauqua, and in following in the lat-
ter's footsteps he clerked in the various ho-
tels until a better opportunity offered itself.
Receiving an appointment as assistant post-
master in the office at Mayville he entered
upon his duties, but did not complete his
term, as better inducements and more congen-
ial work were strong points in favor of his.
accepting a position with the firm of Skinner,
Minton & Co., bankers of Mayville. Their
bank later became incorporated as the State
Bank of Mayville, and of this new enter-
prise M' r. Burns was made assistant cashier
and a director. Although he had served as
assistant postmaster but a short time his
qualifications for the position were fully ap-
preciated and in 1893 he was appointed post-
master of Mayville by President Cleveland.
Again he resigned his position before the com-
pletion of his term, this time to assist in the
organization of the Citizens’ National Bank of
Frie, Pa., in 1897, Mr. Minton, formerly of the
firm of Skinner, Minton & Co., being cashier
of the new enterprise. The following year Mr.
Burns accepted the position of auditor of the
Peoples’ Bank of Buffalo, but failing health
soon gave warning that rest and change were
absolutely necessary if he wished to keep up
the pace which he had set. June 19, 1899, he
gave up his position in the bank temporarilly
and came to California in search of health, and
with what results the reader has already been
apprised. Besides the enterprise with which
his name is most closely associated he is con-
nected with a number of other business under-
takings, among them the San Pedro Wholesale
872
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
*
Company and the San Pedro Ice Company, in
both of which organizations he is a director.
While a resident of his home town in the east
Mr. Burns was actively interested in all meas-
ures that had as their object the betterment
of the community and his assistance and influ-
ence were felt in various capacities. He gave
efficient service as city clerk of Mayville, and
his work on the board of education was not
only a credit to himself, but of lasting benefit
to the cause of education in that locality. Mr.
Burns was responsible for the organization of
the Board of Trade of San Pedro, and after it
ceased to exist he took a prominent part in the
organization of the San Pedro Chamber of
Commerce, of which he was made president,
being re-elected to the office after the expira-
tion of his first term. As a member of the
American Bankers’ Association and the State
Bankers’ Association he comes in contact with
men widely scattered over the country, but
with one common interest at heart, gatherings
which are of in estimable value and interest to
1members of the craft. -
In Mayville, Chautauqua county, N. Y.,
Frank Burns and Miss Cora Parkhurst were
united in marriage in 1892, and one child,
Francis Plato, has blessed their union. Mr.
Burns was made a Mason in San Pedro and
belongs to Lodge No. 332. Other fraternal
orders with which he is identified are the
Benevolent Protective Order of Elks, being a
charter member and trustee of the organiza-
tion at San Pedro ; the Eagles, of which he is
president: the Royal Arch Masons and the
Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of which
latter body he has been treasurer for nine
terms. In his methods Mr. Burns is progres-
sive, is upright in his dealings with friends and
associates, and is appreciated because of his
many attributes that contribute to the general
well-being.
SEBASTIAN D. MARTIN. Self-acquired
wealth, liberal ideas, a hospitable home and an
engaging personality, contribute to the stand-
ing of S. D. Martin, one of the best known
men of the Portugese colony in the vicinity of
Guadaloupe. Mr. Martin's home ranch con-
tains one hundred and fifty acres, and yields
a substantial income from grain, beets, hay
and potatoes, and he also owns a one hundred
and sixty acre tract near the oil fields of this
county, devoted to grain and stock. He be-
longs to the student farmer class, and labors
in the ever-widening avenues of his calling
with intelligence and discernment. His im-
plements include many of the costly, and in:
genious labor-saving devices of the day, and
his surroundings show wise regard for detail
and method. --
The youth of Mr. Martin was destitute of
educational or general advantages, due partly
to the straitened circumstances of his parents,
but principally to his objection to restraint and
his craving for adventure. He was born in the
Azores or Western Islands, February 2, 1854,
and his father, John L., was born in the moth-
er country of Portugal, and still retained the
Portugese name of Martinez. The father lived
to be seventy-two years old, while the mother
died at the age of sixty-eight. There were
nine children in the family, and seven live in
California. Sebastian D. was about thirteen
years old when his spirits became too high
for the narrow confines of the islands, so he
sought an outlet in the occupation of whaling,
to which the writers of fiction attach a never-
failing fascination. At the end of three years,
however, he made a landing in Boston, and for
the following two years found employment
along the shore north of the city.
In 1874 Mr. Martin journeyed overland to
California, where he engaged in ranching in
the vicinity of Santa Maria for ten years. He
then located in San Luis Obispo county, and
in 190I invested his savings in his present
home ranch. While living in Boston and work-
ing as a longshoreman, in 1873, he married
Lena Lewis, a native of Portugal, and eight
children have come to share his prosperity:
Mary, wife of John Clock, of Santa Maria;
Maunwell, who married Mary Martinez; An-
tone, Louie, George, Joaquin, Maggie and
Rose. Among the more settled conditions of
his life Mr. Martin has augumented his knowl-
edge of the sea by persistent research along
practical educational lines. The result is he
has a well-trained mind, is well posted on
current events, and thoroughly in sympathy
with scholarly gifts and acquirements. He is
prominent in the social life of the community,
and is a member of the I. D. E. S. and U. P.
C. Politically he is a Republican. Mrs. Mar-
tin is a devout member of the Catholic Church,
and is fraternally connected with Queen Isa-
bella Lodge.
J. FREDERICK HILDEBRAND. Steam-
boating in some phase of the work has been the
occupation of J. Frederick Hildebrand since the
beginning of his independent business career.
He is a fine engineer and mechanic and is now
filling the position of chief engineer on the
Cabrillo for the Wilmington Transportation Com-
pany in San Pedro. He is of German nativity,
born December 25, 1870, in Emden, Hanover,
where his father, Frederick, still resides as a


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
875
pensioner, having been in the government em-
ploy as a custom office inspector. His mother is
deceased. The youngest member of a family of
nine children J. F. Hildebrand was reared in
Hamburg and was there educated in the common
schools. In 1885, at the age of fourteen, he came
to the United States, where he became interested
in steam-boating. After coming to the Pacific
coast he went to the Behring Sea and entered
the employ of the Alaska Packers Association,
remaining with them for eleven years, during
the greater part of this time making his home
in Oakland. Subsequently he accepted a position
as first assistant engineer with the John S. Kim-
ball Steamship Company, and afterwards worked
as chief engineer successively for the Dollar Com-
pany, Sudden & Christensen, and again for the
Dollar Company. In 1903 he located in San Pedro
and for two years worked for the Dollar Com-
pany as chief engineer on the Steamship Robert
Dollar. In 1905 he accepted his present position
on the Cabrillo owned by the Wilmington Trans-
portation Company.
By his marriage in Riverside, Wash., Mr.
Hildebrand was united with Miss Sina Hansen,
and they with their two children, Louis and
Chester, make their home on the corner of Grand
avenue and Eleventh street. Religiously they
are members of the Lutheran Church, support-
ing the various charities and benevolent enter-
prises of that denomination. Mr. Hildebrand
is a member of the Marine Engineers Association
No. 35, in San Francisco. Politically he is an
advocate of the principles of the Republican
party.
S. V. TRIPP. The Tripp family is dis-
tinctively pioneer, S. V. Tripp, the father of the
present generation influential in Riverside
county, having crossed the plains in 1853
and thenceforward gave his allegiance to the
state of California. He was located first in
Trinity and Shasta counties and there conduct-
ed a pack train from the mining camps to
San Francisco. He was a brick mason by
trade and this occupation was later followed
in Los Angeles, where he located in 1855 and
erected the first brick building of the place.
Removing to San Bernardino in 1860 he fol-
lowed the same employment for nine years,
putting up the first jail of that city, which was
located where the court house now stands.
Finally removing to Riverside county he took
up a ranch in the vicinity of San Jacinto,
spending his last days in that place, where his
death occurred in 1892, at the age of sixty-
four years. -
Mr. Tripp was twice married, his first wife
being Rosa Ramsey, a native of Ohio, and
born of this union were six children, four of
whom attained maturity: S. A., a blacksmith
of San Jacinto ; O. C. and William B., sketches
of whom appear elsewhere in this volume;
and Edith R., wife of Q. Reed, of Sage. After
the death of his first wife in San Bernardino
county Mr. Tripp married Caroline Covington,
of Mississippi, and they became the parents
of ten children, nfºe of whom are living. Mr.
Tripp was a citizen of prominence, acquired
by his efforts to be helpful and practical, and
one upon whom public honor might safely
rest. For several years he served as justice of
the peace of San Jacinto township, and Sam
Temple, who murdered Alesandro, of whom men-
tion is made in “Ramona,” was tried before
him. He assisted materially in the upbuilding
of his adopted state, gave liberally of time and
means in the furtherance of any plan for the
advancement of the country’s welfare and was
held in the highest esteem by all who knew
him.
*-** * * *-*.
ERNEST A. BRYANT, M. D. It is cer–
tain that skilled physicians and surgeons are in
great demand wherever they elect to make their
place of abode. Although not a native of the
United States, so much of Dr. Bryant's life has
been passed on this side of the border that his
strongest interests are here and the loyalty of
his citizenship is a part of his life. He was born
in Canada, near Ontario, in 1867, a son of J.
H. Bryant, a successful physician who left his
native state of New York and in Canada prac-
ticed his profession for some years. Later he
practiced in St. Paul, Minn., for a number of .
years, when he came to California and made
Los Angeles his home until his death in 1901.
Ernest A. Bryant passed his boyhood in the
middle west, his parents having located in Minne-
sota, where he received his primary education
in the public schools, this being augmented by
a medical course in Philadelphia, Pa. He was
graduated from the University of Pennsylvania
in 1890, and following this event became in-
terne in St. Agnes Hospital Philadelphia, where
he remained for eighteen months. In 1891 he
came to California and locating in Los Angeles
at once established a general practice of medicine,
which speedily grew to one of remunerative
proportions. For six years he engaged in a
general practice of his profession as police sur-
geon, when he was appointed superintendent of
the Los Angeles County Hospital, serving from
1897 to 1900. During this period he rose to
prominence among the physicians of Southern
California, which resulted in his appointment
in 1902 as chief surgeon of the Pacific Electric
Railway Company, while he also serves in a like
876
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
capacity for the Los Angeles Railway Company,
the Inter-Urban Railway Company, the Los
Angeles & Pacific Railway and the Redondo Rail-
way. He is also consulting surgeon for the
Southern Pacific Railway Company and surgeon
in charge of the Sisters Hospital. The many
responsibilities which have fallen to him in the
various positions he has been called upon to
fill are borne by the doctor in a creditable manner,
with cheeriness born of his confidence in his
own skill and an optimism which invests him
with all the attributes a patient could desire. He
is very popular among those with whom his
duties lie and is esteemed both as a physician and
2 111211. -
In 1904 Dr. Bryant was united in marriage
with Miss Susanna P. Bixby, a daughter of John
Bixby, a prominent citizen of Los Angeles coun-
ty, and born of this union is one daughter, Su-
sanna P. Dr. Bryant is identified with various
medical associations, among them being the LOS
Angeles Physicians and Surgeons Pathological
Society the State Medical Society, Medical So-
ciety of Southern California, American Medical
Association. In the University of Southern Cali-
fornia, he holds the position of professor of Clini-
cal surgery. Through constant research the doc-
tor keeps in touch with modern methods and
discoveries and at all times brings them to bear
in his practice. Socially he is a member of the
California, Jonathan and Country Clubs.
THOMAS JOEL STEELE. The require-
ments necessary for success in business are some-
what different from those needed in the achieve-
ment of prosperity in ranching affairs, yet they
are alike in that both occupations demand energy,
wise judgment, perseverance and decision of pur-
pose. To these qualities may be attributed the
fact that Mr. Steele has gained a wide reputation
for extensive agricultural interests as well as the
name of being a keen and capable business man.
One of the pioneers of Arroyo Grande, he came
to this locality in the fall of 1876 and since then
bas been deeply interested in the agricultural
development of San Luis Obispo county. Mean-
while he has acquired a ranch of twenty-four
hundred acres, a portion of which he has di-
vided into small tracts for sale, but the larger
portion is utilized for the raising of grain and
the grazing of beef cattle and milch cows. At
this writing he has one hundred head of cows and
makes a specialty of the sale of cream. About
I903 he became interested in a livery business at
Arroyo Grande and at the same time opened a
meat market which he still conducts under the
title of Steele & Co., his attention being given
to the management of these two lines of business
and to the supervision of his ranch and dairy
interests. He is also interested in a wholesale
slaughtering and cold storage plant at Pomona.
Page county, Iowa, is Mr. Steele's native lo-
cality, and February 2, 1855, the date of his
birth. His parents, J. B. and Nancy (Reece)
Steele were natives respectively of Kentucky
and North Carolina, and in 1856 removed to
Kansas, where their son was educated in the
common Schools of Atchison county. The autumn
of 1875 found the family removing to Califor-
nia, where they spent one year at Hollister, thence
coming to San Louis Obispo county in the fall of
I876. Later the parents established their home
at Paso Robles, but eventually settled in Pomona,
where the mother died at the age of fifty-nine,
and the father in 1906, aged seventy-nine years.
During the Civil war he had served as a member
of the Kansas state militia. Nine children com-
prised his family and of these all but one are liv-
ing in California.
The marriage of Thomas J. Steele occurred in
1892 and united him with Miss Susie M. Jewett,
who was born in San Francisco. Four children
were born of their union, namely: Eva: Ches-
ter; Stanley, who died at seven years of age;
and Albert. For a number of years Mr. Steele
has been identified with the Fraternal Brother-
hood, also with the Independent Order of Odd
Fellows and the Order of Rebekahs at Arroyo
Grande. Ever since casting his first ballot he has
been a stanch supporter of Democratic princi-
ples. Movements for the unbuilding of Arroyo
Grande receive his enthusiastic support, and he
shows a permanent interest in everything tending
toward the advancement of the place, being in-
deed a leader among his fellow-citizens in all
plans for local progress.
F. E. BENNETT. The prosperity of a town
depends upon the progressive spirit of its citi-
zens. Were it possible to give to every village
a citizenship composed of men as energetic and
resourceful as is Mr. Bennett, that hamlet would
Soon develop into a growing city with modern
improvements and substantial business enter-
prises. The town of Arroyo Grande owes much
to the substantial citizenship of Mr. Bennett,
who ever since coming to the place has been a
leader in civic progress and a contributor to
local enterprises of undoubted worth. Ever since
he entered into business here in 1897 he has
ranked among the leading men of the place and
meanwhile has established a business of substan-
tial proportions and increasing dimensions.
While Mr. Bennett came to the Pacific coast
from Kansas he is a native of a state still further
eastward. His parents, Joseph and Mary
(Houser) Bennett, were born in Michigan and
Connecticut respectively and were married in
º/,


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
879
Michigan, where all of their seven children were
born. From Michigan they moved to Kansas
and engaged in farm pursuits, the mother dying
on the Kansas homestead at the age of fifty
years, while the father, now retired, still makes
his home in that state. During the Civil war he
gave faithful Service to the Union cause as a
member of a Michigan regiment and ever since
the organization of the Grand Army of the
Republic he has been warmly interested in its
work. Of his five children now living two are
in California, one in King City, Monterey county,
and the other at Arroyo Grande.
During the residence of the family in Michi-
gan F. E. Bennett was born August 17, 1861.
Primarily educated in the common schools of
that state, he completed his grammar-school
studies after moving to Kansas at thirteen years
of age. Upon leaving school he gave his at-
tention to farm work and continued in agricult-
ural pursuits in Kansas for a brief period. No-
vember 6, 1883, he arrived in Arroyo Grande,
and for a number of years afterward he engaged
in ranching in this vicinity. On the organization
of the Farmers Co-operative store he was ap-
pointed a member of the first board of directors
and afterward was chosen manager of the store,
which he conducted with noteworthy success for
five years. When the building was burned to
the ground and the business closed out, he opened
a grocery and feed store, and has met with grati-
fying success in the management of the same.
To an unusual degree he possesses the confidence
of people throughout this section of country and
this confidence is shown in the fact that those
who began to trade in his store years ago are
still his best customers and warmest friends.
His pleasant home in the town is presided over
by the lady whom he married in 1887 and who
was Miss Effie Stevenson, a native of Illinois.
In his family there are three children, Cora,
Ralph and Esther. Though not a partisan in
politics, he has the courage of his convictions
and never fails to give stanch allegiance to Re-
publican principles. The only political office
which he has held, that of constable, he filled
for eight years in Arroyo Grande. Fraternally
he has been identified with the Knights of
Pythias at Arroyo Grande since 1890 and also
belongs to the Woodmen of the World in his
lome town.
---
GEORGE W. BATTLES was born in
Chautauqua county, N. Y., June 15, 1816. In
1824 he removed to Pennsylvania and in 1846
located in the middle west, in Ipava, Fulton
county, Ill. During the early part of his resi-
dence there he conducted a wagon manufac-
tory, later establishing a mercantile business
in which he was equally successful from a
financial standpoint. A deep interest in the
west, however, had been occuping his thoughts,
and in 1852 he crossed the plains to California
and engaged in gold mining in Placer and
Tuolumne counties. Returning in 1853 he dis-
posed of his interests in Fulton county, and
1n the spring of 1864 went to Iowa en route
to California. Starting from Lewis, Cass
county, Iowa, in 1865 with his family, he again
made the overland journey behind slow-plodd-
ing oxen, finally locating in Sacramento coun-
ty about eighteen miles from the city of that
name. After carrying on agricultural pursuits
in that locality for some time, in 1868 he re-
moved to the southern part of the state
and in Santa Barbara county, not far from
Santa Maria, took up a homestead claim. On
this ranch, which had been his home for nearly
thirty-five years, his earth life came to a close
January 3, 1905, when he had reached the
advanced age of eighty-eight years, six months
and nineteen days. -
Both in Illinois and in this state Mr. Battles
was well known for his public spirit and enter-
prise, and in the former state was a member
of the Home Guard. During his early days
in California he realized the advantage which
would accrue to the county by settling the
early land grants, and a great deal of his time
and thought was expended to bring about this
condition. Educational matters also had a
stanch ally in him, and the establishment of
the school district in his home locality was
brought about as a result of his untiring
efforts. Politically he was a stanch Republican
and always gave his support and influence for
the good of the party.
&
JOSEPH GREGORY. The pioneers of the
west were not exempt from hardships and vicis-
situdes ; indeed, their lives were one continued
round of privations nobly endured and sacrifices
cheerfully made. The spirit of optimism which
they displayed has come down as an inheritance
to their descendants, so that now no state in the
Union can present to the world nobler instances
of courage and patient endurance than does this
commonwealth by the shores of the western Sea.
Noteworthy among the pioneers of the state, who
braved many misfortunes and rose above many
obstacles, may be mentioned the name of Joseph
Gregory, who for years has owned and Operated
a farm in San Luis Obispo county. The tract
comprises eighty-three and one-half acres, much
of which is in fruit, while the balance is in on-
ions, potatoes, sugar beets and other truck prod-
11ctS. -
880
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
A native of Upper Canada, born February 15,
1831, Joseph Gregory was one of thirteen chil-
dren, two of whom emigrated to New Zealand
and two (himself included) settled in California,
while the others remained in the east. The
brother who came to the west spent his last days
in the home of Joseph, and the latter now is the
sole representative of the family in the state.
The parents, Daniel and Annie (Tinlin) Greg-
ory, were natives of Canada and New York
respectively, and remained on their Canadian
homestead during all of their lives, the father
living to be eighty-two years of age, while the
mother died at sixty. The quiet country home
of the family was the place where Joseph Greg-
Ory passed the uneventful years of youth and
the neighboring schools afforded him educational
advantages meagre in comparison with those of
the present day, yet sufficient to furnish him
with the foundation of his present wide fund of
information. -
On leaving home in 1854, Mr. Gregory came
to California via the Isthmus of Panama, which
he crossed on mule-back, and then sailed by boat
to San Francisco. For a time he worked in the
mines of Eldorado county, but mining brought
him no returns and he forthwith engaged in
other activities. For three years he carried on a
saw-mill, but a flood destroyed the plant and
caused him a heavy loss. Forced to start anew,
he went to the valley near San Jose and em-
barked in the raising of sheep, but there again
misfortune met his diligent labors, for the dry
years came on and the lack of water and pas-
turage caused the animals to die in large num-
bers. Undaunted by this new catastrophe, he
started out once more to make a livelihood for
himself, and this time he took up ranch land and
embarked in general agricultural pursuits. About
1882 he came to San Luis Obispo county and
settled near Arroyo Grande, where he has since
labored perseveringly and with a fair degree of
success. In all of his plans and enterprises he
has had the counsel and cheerful companionship
of his wife, whom he married in 1862 and who
was Miss Mary Ann Miller, a native of Indiana.
Of their union six children were born, namely:
Annie L., Jessie, Joseph, Daniel, Nellie (who
died at the age of twenty-two years) and Mag-
162.
The family are identified with the Cumber-
land Presbyterian Church and have many friends
in their part of San Luis Obispo county, for
they possess the sterling attributes of character
that win and retain friends. Interested in edu-
cational affairs, Mr. Gregory served for many
years as school trustee and filled the position ac-
ceptably to the patrons of the school and the tax-
payers of the district. Ever since becoming a
voting citizen of the United States he has given
to Cincinnati and stayed ten months.
his allegience to the Republican party and has
championed its men and measures by ballot and
influence. In addition to his ranch interests he
has bought stock in an oil company that owns
a productive well in the valley near his home.
Among the people of his acquaintance he is hon-
ored as a man who has seen and overcome many
hardships and won his way to success after ex-
periencing the vicissitudes of life in a frontier
environment.
BERTRAND PEYREGN.E. As may be
judged from his name, Mr. Peyregne is a
Frenchman, and all of the refinement and gra-
ciousness of that nationality are his in large
measure. Born in the ancient town of Tou-
louse, France, in 1828 he received a careful
training in the schools of that city and at an
early age he began to be self-supporting.
Farming was his choice of vocation, and this
he followed in his native country for a num-
ber of years, or until he came to the United
States in 1851. The vessel in which he set
sail from France anchored its cargo in New
Orleans, and in that southern city he re-
mained for three years, finding employment
there as peddler of goods. From there he went
Dur-
ing all of this time the news from the gold
fields of California was the common topic of
conversation and was described in detail and
at considerable length in the newspapers of
the city where he was then living, so that his
interest in and final removal to the scene of
the excitement was a most natural conse-
quence. Debarking at San Francisco March
3, 1855, he at once made his way to the mines
of Sonora, Tuoiumne county, the rush to that
part of the country then being at high tide.
In his venture as a miner it is safe to conclude
that he was fairly successful at least, for it is
known that he followed the business success-
ively for twelve years. Leaving Tuolumne
county in 1867 ine went direct to Los Angeles,
where for a number of years he engaged in
buying and selling cattle.
It was during the year 1874 that Mr. Pey-
regne came to Riverside county and took up
land from the government for the purpose of
making a home for his family. As may be in-
ferred the land was entirely uncultivated and
of improvements there were none; however,
he spared neither labor nor such means as he
could command to put it in a habitable condi-
tion, and the adobe house which he erected at
that time is still the family residence. During
the early days of his experience in the Menifee
valley he engaged quite extensively in the
raising of sheep, an industry which netted him


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
883
an excellent income. Since 1885, however, he
has given his attention more exclusively to
ranching, and though well advanced in years
is still active and takes the same interest in
his affairs that prompted and brought suc-
cess in the efforts of early years. The ranch
comprises one hundred and eighty-five acres,
and lies in close proximity to Leon, which is
his postoffice and market town.
At Newhall, Los Angeles county, in 1871,
Mr. Peyregne was married to Miss Vervanua
Morell, who was born in Ventura, June Io,
1856. All of the six children born of their
marriage are living and are named in order of
birth as follows: Clara, who is married, and
with her husband, Jesse C. Mitchell, makes her
home in Stockton; Joseph, a resident of San
Pedro ; Louise, at home ; Alexander, also in
San Pedro ; and Henry and Alice, both of
whom are also at home with their parents.
Mr. Peyregne was early in life made familiar
with the teachings of the Catholic faith, and
his own children have also had a similiar
training, the family worshipping in the church
of that denomination at Leon. There is prob-
ably no one in the Menifee valley who is not
familiar with the name of Bertrand Peyregne,
which is a synonym for all that is just and up-
right, this being the universal verdict of those
who have been in close touch with his life and
habits for the past thirty-two years, or ever
since he became a pioneer settler in the val-
lev. -
NATHANIEL F. COE. Now living re-
tired in Palms, Los Angeles county, N. F. Coe
is of eastern birth and parentage and is a son
of Cyrus and Elsie (Fenton) Coe, born in
Massachusetts and New York state respect-
ively. While still a young boy the father was
taken to New York state, growing up on a
farm in the vicinity of Jamestown, Chautau-
qua county, and it was there also that his mar-
riage with Elsie Fenton occurred. Their en-
tire married life was spent in that locality, the
mother dying in Jamestown in 1836, and the
death of the father occurring in 1840. In or—
der of birth the names of their nine children
are as follows: Cornelius, Horace, Sidney,
Richard, Miles, Franklin, Emily J., Minerva
J. and Nathaniel F.
Born in Jamestown, N. Y., October 1, 1835,
Nathaniel F. Coe was only one year old at
the time of his mother's death, and his fath-
er's death four years later left him an orphan
at five years of age. Thus early bereft of his
parents he was taken into the home, of an
uncle, by whom he was cared for until strik-
ing out for himself when twelve years old.
he was taken as a spy.
Going to Pittsburg, Pa., he worked as sº able
boy for a friend of his uncle for two years,
during which time his wages were necessarily
Small, owing to youth and inexperience. His
next position, while no less menial, gave him
an opportunity to see and learn more of what
was going on in the world, and he looks back
upon the three years as chore boy on an Ohio
river boat as one of his most valuable experi-
ences. The year following, when seventeen
years of age, he engaged in the milling busi-
ness, but from the fact that he gave it up one
year later it is safe to presume that he was
not altogether successful in the undertaking.
He next resumed river boating, this time on
the Mississippi river, giving this up three
years later to become foreman in a sawmill
for I. Staples at Stillwater, Minn. This fur-
nished him employment during the winter
season alone, however, and during the sum-
mers he rafted logs to the mill on contract.
After he had been in Mr. Staples' employ for
three years he was seized with a desire to see
more of the world, and started out intending
to remain six months in each state which he
visited. After remaining the allotted time in
Whiteside county, Ill., he started out for an-
other location, and was attracted to the lead
mines around Galena, Jo Daviess county, and
thus it happened that he remained in the state
one and a half years. From there he visited
the southern states, and the year 1861 found
him in Iowa. At the first call to arms in the
Civil war he responded, becoming a member
of the Thirty-first Iowa Infantry, Company I,
under command of General Sherman. During
the three years which he spent in scout and
forage duty he escaped capture until within
four months of the end of his enlistment, when
He was fortunate in
escaping the fate of many of his comrades
who were shot down in cold blood, but
lie nevertheless suffered incarceration in An-
dersonville prison for three months. After
his release he returned to his place of enlist-
ment and was honorably discharged from the
service in 1865.
It was at this point in his career, in 1865,
that Mr. Coe formed domestic ties by his mar-
riage with Mrs. Emma (Stinton) Curtis, who
was born in England, but came to America
when eight years of age. After their marriage
they settled on a quarter section of govern-
ment land in Plymouth county, Iowa. The
years spent on this farm were fairly success-
ful ones, but the far west had become more
attractive to him on account of the even
climate and rich harvests which the longer
seasons made possible, and hither Mr. Coe
884
HISTORICAI. ANT) BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
came in 1886. The forty acre ranch which he
then purchased in La Ballona district was the
scene of his active labors for many years, and
Since selling the ranch to his son Clarence he
and his wife have been living retired in
Palms, where he owns considerable property.
They became the parents of eight children,
two of whom, Estella and Minerva, died in
early childhood. Those living are Cyrus R.,
Eugene L., Edward A., Clarence E., Elsie E.
(wife of R. W. Nesbitt) and Franklin L. Mr.
Coe is a member of Fort Fisher Post, G. A.
R., of Santa Monica. Left an orphan at five
years of age, and thrown upon his own re-
Sources at an age when most boys are enjoy-
ing the greatest freedom, much credit is due
Mr. Coe for the straightforward course which
he then planned, and by strictly adhering to
it throughout life, has not only experienced
the contentment which goes hand in hand
with right doing, but has also accumulated
a competence for his old age.
FRED BROWN. Since his arrival in San
Luis Obispo county in 1874, Fred Brown has
been a zealous promoter of its agricultural ad-
vancement and has attached to himself those
material and general compensations necessary
to the happiness and well being of intelligent,
refined and capable people. He is one of the
best known men of the community whose
residence in Southern California has strength-
ened the prevailing regard for the thrifty
qualities of the French nation.
In an humble home in Lorraine, situated
along the German border in France, Mr.
Brown was born May 24, 1833. At the time
comparative peace existed throughout the
provinces. In Lorraine, John Brown,
father of Fred, pursued the occupation of
farming, but he had mastered the trade of
baker, and for years manufactured and sold
in a little shop, the bread and delicacies in
the making of which his countrymen excel.
His wife, Margaretta (Ohlehan) Brown, as-
sisted with the management of both farm and
shop, and at the same time reared her eleven
children with due regard for thrift. She lived
to be eighty years old, but her husband died
at the age of sixty-five. Two of her sons
came to America. -
Fred Brown received a common school edu-
cation in his native land, and at the age of
eighteen arrived in America, where, in Penn-
sylvania, he worked at the blacksmith trade
for two years. He came to Santa Clara coun-
ty, Cal., in 1858, and after farming for three
years moved to Salinas county, where he
worked on two different farms and gained
the
quite a start as a wage earner. In 1874 he be-
gan to work on a dairy ranch in San Luis
Obispo county, and five years later came to
his present ranch, of which he soon after pur-
chased a small part. He now owns four hun-
dred and eighty acres of larid, one hundred
acres of which is grazing land, upon which
he engages chiefly in the raising of barley,
beans, cattle and horses. He has always main-
tained a progressive farming policy, and has
availed himself of the innovations and meth-
ods approved by individual thinkers and the
experimental colleges of the country. His
ranch is a typical one for this part of the state,
and its improvements are in keeping with the
extensive acreage and a variety of resources.
The family of Mr. Brown consists of him-
self, his wife, formerly Margaret Donovan,
and three children, John, Dan and Josephine.
Mr. Brown is liberal in politics, but has a
strong leaning towards the Democratic party.
Mrs. Brown is a member of , the Catholic
Church, and he is generous, in his contribu-
tions to charitable and other organizations
throughout the county. At the age of sev-
enty-three his interest in life has lost none of
its vigor, his mind none of its alertness, and
his heart none of its sympathy or kindliness.
He remains a genial, well-balanced and use-
ful citizen, and a man whom all delight to
known and honor.
CARL O. LANT Z. A native of Sweden,
Carl O. Lantz is ably sustaining the reputa-
tion which his countrymen hold for grit, en-
ergy and determination, and although during
the first years of his residence here he met
with misfortune in the loss of his residence by
fire, his courage was undaunted and immedi-
ately he set about to acquire a new one. It
is not necessary to say that he succeeded, for
where there is a will there is a way, and upon
his present ranch he is most comfortably lo-
cated in a fine home, his land comprising five
acres in orange grove and sixty acres planted
to grain crops, a part of the latter acreage be-
ing rented ground. He was born July 29,
1867, in Imoland, Sweden, the son of An-
drew and Hannah Lantz. His mother died
in that country in 1885, at the age of fifty-
eight years, and the father later came to the
United States. His death occurred in 1902,
when he was seventy-nine years old, while on
a visit in Iowa.
After acquiring a common-school education
in Sweden Carl O. Lantz, at the age of eigh-
teen years, immigrated to America and located
in Montgomery county, Iowa, where for five
years he was variously employed. Becoming

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
887
&
interested in the opportunities said to be
awaiting the ambitious young man in South-
ern California, in 1890, he decided to investi-
gate, and for one year was located in River-
side. Convinced that he could make a suc-
cess of ranching in this state he purchased a
ten-acre tract in Alessandro valley and from
that time on added to his possessions until
he now owns thirty acres. There were no
Orange groves in this location when he set-
tled here and the trees which are now yield-
ing him a handsome income were planted by
himself. It was on this place that his first
house was burned, but he built another and
better residence and now has as well up-to-
date barns and outbuildings.
In 1895 Mr. Lantz was married in Iowa to
Miss Hilma Axellina Isakson, a native of
Sweden, and this union has been blessed by
the birth of three children, of whom Carl
Walfrid and Alice Axellina are the only ones
living, the oldest child being deceased. The
family are religiously connected with the Luth-
eran Church, and exercise an elevating influ-
ence upon the community in which they re-
side. Politically Mr. Lantz is an advocate of
the principles embraced in the platform of the
Republican party and is actively interested in
all enterprises which are of a progressive na-
ture. He is a man of admirable personal
qualities, is well liked and has many friends.
MARK T, BERRY. From the bleak and
snow-clad woods of Maine to the sunny val-
leys of Southern California, over plains and
mountains, represents the interval between
Mr. Berry's youth and his advancing years.
As a boy he lived on a farm in Maine and at
eighteen years of age he began to work in the
forests and lumber mills, following the indus-
try then and yet one of the most profitable
avocations in that region. The family of
which he is a member settled in Maine during
an early period in American history and his
parents, John and Hannah (Bunker) Berry,
were natives of that state. For years the
father engaged at the trade of ship-carpenter,
but in 1852 he followed the tide of emigration
that was steadily drifting toward the undevel-
oped west. Settling in Minnesota, he took up
a raw tract of land, began to till the soil, and
afterward followed farming during his remain-
ing years of activity. When he died, in April
of 1881, he had reached four-score years of
age, and his wife was seventy when she died
four years prior to his demise.
In the village of Burnham, Waldo county,
Me., Mark T. Berry was born September 3,
1830, and near that town he passed the years
of boyhood. On taking up active work in 1848
he followed lumbering in Maine. During No-
vember of 1851, he removed to Minnesota and
carried on lumbering in that state until 1854,
when he took up surveying. During 1859-60
he was surveyor-general of the Second Minne-
Sota district, and in 1862 received an appoint-
Iment as deputy provost-marshal and recruit-
ing officer for the state militia. July 18, 1863,
he was commissioned captain of a company in
the Twenty-ninth Minnesota Infantry, Home
Guards, and served in the troubles with the
Indians, while in August of 1864 he helped to
raise a company for the Union army. On the
3Oth of that month he was commissioned first
lieutenant of Company E, Hatch Independent
Minnesota Cavalry, and remained in active
service until some time after peace had been
declared, being mustered out with the com-
pany May 6, 1866, after an honorable war rec-
ord.
Immediately after his return from the war
Mr. Berry resumed work as a surveyor, and
continued engaged in that and kindred occu-
pations in Minnesota until 1881, when he re-
moved to the west, coming via St. Paul, Sioux
City, and the Union and Central Pacific Rail-
roads. On the last day of the year 1881 he ar-
rived at Vernondale, a suburb of Los Angeles,
and there he purchased property and engaged
in raising fruit. During the eighteen years of
his residence in that place he served two terms
by appointment as school trustee, in addition
to two full terms of three years each. May 9,
1889, he was appointed postmaster at Vernon-
dale and continued in that position until Sep-
tember 15, 1897, when the office was discon-
tinued by reason of annexation to the city of
Los Angeles. In August of 1899 he came to
Long Beach, where he now lives retired from
business cares, surrounded by the comforts
previous exertions render possible and enjoy-
ing the companionship of a circle of warm per-
sonal friends.
In fraternal relations Mr. Berry is a mem-
ber of the Sons of the American Revolution
and Stanton Post, G. A. R., No. 55, also the
Vilitary Order of the Loyal Legion of Cali-
fornia. In Masonry he has won high rank.
April 2, 1860, he was entered an apprentice
Mason, and on the 16th of the same month
passed the degree of fellow-craft. May Io,
1860, he was made a Master Mason in Cata-
ract Lodge No. 2, A. F. & A. M., at Minneap-
olis, Minn., in which he was appointed senior
deacon in 1861, advanced to the honorary de-
gree of master and inducted into the Oriental
Chair as past master February 17, 1862, and
acknowledged Most Excellent Master Febru-
ary 22, 1862. Three days later, in St. An-
888
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
thony’s Falls Chapter No. 3, R. A. M., he was
exalted to the sublime degree of Royal Arch
Mason. During that year and the two follow-
ing years he served as a guard in the chapter,
of which he is still a member. January 8,
I900, he was elected an active member of the
Masonic Veteran’s Association of the Pacific
Coast. -
While living in Minnesota Mr. Berry was
married at Minneapolis, August 20, 1866, to
Helen Godfrey, who was born in Maine and
died at Long Beach March 27, 1902. Their
only son, David M., residing in Alameda, is
married and has one child. The only daugh-
ter, Vida H., is one of the popular school
teachers of Long Beach.
WILLIAM H. POSTON. No resident of
Pomona is more keenly alive to its best inter-
est than William H. Poston, who for the past
fifteen years has conducted one of the town's
most thriving enterprises. He is president of
the firm of W. H. Poston & Co., one of the
largest grocery concerns in the west, and
which has branch stores at Lordsburg, Clare-
mont and San Dimas. The business was orig-
inally started and owned by B. B. Nesbit, of
whom Mr. Poston bought the stock and good
will in 1881. For a time the new owner ran
the business alone, but later had the com-
pany incorporated, capital stock $50,000, and
branched out in business in the towns afore-
mentioned. Almost all of the stock is owned
by Mr. Poston and his wife, the latter being
secretary of the corporation. No effort has
been made on the part of the owners to sell
stock outside of the employes, and at this
writing (1906) about fifteen have availed them-
selves of the opportunity and are sharehold-
ers in the concern, each share selling for $500.
A native of Illinois, William H. Poston was
born in Hamilton, Rock Island county, June
2, 1856, and is a son of Vance and Ann (Don-
aldson) Poston, born respectively in Virginia
and New York state. Their marriage was
celebrated in Iowa, and for a number of years
thereafter they made their home in the mid-
dle west. The western tide of immigration
which crossed the plains in the year 1860
found Mr. Poston with his family among the
number, going direct to Napa county, where
he again took up farming, the calling which
he had followed during his residence in the
middle states. He died on his ranch in Napa
county when in his sixty-sixth year. Polit-
ically he was a believer in Democratic princi-
ples. The wife and mother is still living and
now makes her home in Pomona.
Of the six children comprising the parental
family William H. and one sister reside in
Pomona, while the others are residents of
Napa county. Mr. Poston was a lad of only
four years when his parents brought the fam-
ily across the plains and settled in Napa coun-
ty. At first he attended the common Schools
in the neighborhood of his father's ranch, but
was later given the benefit of a course in Napa
Çollege. Returing home he gave his father
the benefit of his services in assisting with the
work of the home ranch, but finally deter-
mined to start out in the world on his own acs
count. Going to Butte county, he settled
down to the business with which he was most
familiar, for as yet he had had no experience
aside from work on his father’s ranch. He
started in an 11npretentious way as a grain
raiser, increasing his facilities and acreage as
his means would permit, until at the time he
disposed of his ranch seven years later he was
one of the largest grain growers in that part of
the state. It was at this point in his career
that Mr. Poston came to Pomona and estab-
lished the business with which his name has
since been connected.
In 1883, in Napa county, William H. Pos-
ton was united in marriage with Miss Ella
V. Dunn, a native of Wisconsin, in which
state her parents had settled during its pio-
neer days. Later years found them in Pomo-
na, Cal., where Dr. Dunn practiced dentistry
until 1896. Later he removed to Los An-
geles, where he died in April, 1906. Mr. and
Mrs. Poston are the parents of two children,
Ruby and Florence, aged respectively sev-
enteen and fifteen (1906). As was his father
before him Mr. Poston is a Democrat and it
was on the ticket of this party that he was
elected to the position of mayor of Pomona,
an office for which he was well qualified, as
the work which he accomplished during his
term well testifies. He is now the chief of the
fire department of Pomona. Fraternally he is
a Mason, belonging to Pomona Lodge No.
249, and to Pomona Lodge No. 789, B. P. O.
E. Much praise is due Mr. Poston for what
he has accomplished in the upbuilding of his
adopted city. Quick to recognize the possibili-
ties which lay before it, he was no less ready
to make the most of them, with the result that
both town and citizen have been benefited.
-
LEE R. MATTHEWS. Among the re-
spected and highly esteemed citizens of
Pomoma valley Lee R. Matthews holds an
assured position, his industry, uprightness and
neighborly dealing having gained for him the
confidence and good will of the whole com-
munity. The ranch on which he now resides
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
889
has been his home since 1893, in which year
he bought thirty-six acres on the corner of
Crow and Rebecca streets, which he set out to
fruit and alfalfa. With the passing of years
he has been enabled to enlarge his holdings
and now has forty-five acres, eight acres be-
ing in walnuts and thirty-six in alfalfa.
In a family of seven children born to his
parents Lee R. Matthews is the fifth in or—
der of birth, born in Tremont, Tazewell coun-
ty, Ill., August 5, 1870. His father, Levi R.
Matthews, was descended from a long line of
Vermont ancestors, his own birth occurring
in that state February 9, 1830. He died of
apoplexy July 2, 1902, but the mother is still
living and a resident of Pomona. (A more ex-
tended history of the parents will be found
in the biography of Levi R. Matthews, given
elsewhere in this volume). Until he was a lad of
fifteen years Lee R. Matthews was reared and
educated in the vicinity of his birthplace, Tre-
mont, Ill., and then, 1n 1885, removed with
the family to Colorado Springs, Colo. After
completing his high-school term in the latter
place he accepted a position with Wells-Far-
go & Company, remaining with them about
one year, when, in the fall of 1890, the family
came to California, he also accompanying
them. The same year he bought a portion of
the Kingsley tract on the cornor of Olive and
Washington avenues, a portion of which was
in oranges; he set out the entire five acres to
this fruit, making of it a fine property. Three
years later, in 1893, he sold this ranch and re-
invested in a thirty-six acre ranch at the cor-
ner of Crow and Rebecca streets, which was
the nucleus of his present fine property, now
owning forty-five acres in all. A fine well of
two hundred and fifty feet furnishes water
for the pumping plant located on the ranch,
the engine which furnishes the power for dis-
tribution being a thirty-eight horse power gas
engine of the White and Middleton make.
Not only does the plant supply his own ranch,
but all of the adjoining ranches are supplied
from Mr. Matthews' irrigating plant, which
has a capacity of seventy miners inches. He
also has among his holdings residential prop-
erty interests in Colorado Springs.
Jn Pomona Mr. Matthews was married to
Miss Nora E. Laughery, who was born in
Tremont, Ill., and one son, Wayne D., has
been born to them. Mrs. Matthews is a mem-
ber of the Christian Church, to the support
of which both she and her husband are lib-
eral supporters. Politically he is a Republican,
and fraternally he is a member of the Odd
Fellows lodge at Pomona and also of the
Encampment. In addition to the management
of his large property interests in this vicinity
he has mining property in the Mojave dis-
trict, and with F. H. Osler is agent for the
Cadillac automobile. The younger element
of business men of Pomona has no better rep-
resentative than Mr. Matthews, whose fitness
for offices of a public nature has led to his
election to the chairmanship of the lighting,
Streets and sewers committees, and he is also
one of the city fathers, he being elected a
nember of the board of trustees from the third
ward in 1904. -
ROGER LEANDER CHOATE. A citi-
zen well known throughout Southern Cali-
fornia and esteemed for his qualities of char-
acter, Roger Leander Choate is located in the
vicinity of El Monte and now engaged in the
management and improvement of a five-acre
ranch, where he has permanently established
his home. He was born June 18, 1854, in
Nashua, N. H., a son of Charles Choate, a na-
tive of the same state, who in the same place
married Mary Cogswell, also a native of New
Hampshire. He became the owner of a fine
farm of forty acres in Derry, N. H., where
he spent his entire life, passing away at the
ripe age of seventy-seven years, while his
wife lived to be but sixty-three. They were
both active members of the Presbyterian
Church, and Mr. Choate took an active inter-
est in the politics of his day, although he
never cared for official recognition. He had
seven children, of whom four are still sur-
viving, two daughters residing in the old
homestead (which is located in the home town
of Horace Greeley), and another in South Da-
kota; while Roger L. is the only one in Cali-
fornia.
Roger L. Choate was taken by his parents
to Derry when a small child, and it was there
that he grew to manhood, receiving his educa-
tion in the public schools and in the same
town was prepared for college. After com-
pleting his education he worked for four years
in a general merchandise store conducted in
conjunction with the postoffice and telegraph
office of the place, thus securing a general
knowledge of business which meant no little
to him in future enterprises. Removing to
Illinois in 1879 he there entered the Methodist
Episcopal Conference and began his minis-
terial work. His first charge was at Arcola,
and he was later sent to South Champaign,
where he filled a pulpit for two years. Sent
to Colorado in 1884 he filled a pulpit in Sil-
ver Cliff for four months, was then located in
Breckenridge for one year, then in Salida for
four months, and finally moved to New Mex-
ico because of impaired health. Gºoming to
890
HISTORICAI, AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
California in 1886 he spent a brief time in San
Francisco, soon coming to the southern por-
tion of the state and in Sierra Madre engag-
ing in the raising of fruit. Three years later,
in 1890, he located in El Monte. His first
purchase was a ranch of twelve acres, which
he sold at a handsome profit, and in 1905 he
bought the five acres which forms his present
ranch, and this he intends to devote to the
raising of strawberries.
In 1892 Mr. Choate was united in marriage
with Miss Effie Kallmeyer, a native of Mis-
souri and daughter of Garrett Kallmeyer. Mr.
and Mrs. Choate have become the parents of two
children, ILois and Rufus. In national and local
politics Mr. Choate is a stanch advocate of the
Prohibition ticket, and is always to be found
on the side of right, regardless of might, work-
ing for good government and clean adminis-
tration. Fraternally he is associated with the
Foresters at El Monte. Although not now ac-
tive in his work of the ministry Mr. Choate
has on many occasions filled the pulpit since
coming to California.
ROSSEAU J. WILMOT. Numbered
among the successful ranchmen of San Diego
county is R. J. Wilmot, who has been a resi-
dent of De Luz for twenty-five years, during
which time he has been prominently, identified
with its development and progress; and, as
opportunity has occurred, has given his influ-
ence to encourage the establishment of enter-
prises conducive to the public welfare. The
descendant of a substantial New England fam-
ily, he was born in Bangor, Me., December 7,
1858, a son of John Wilmot.
Born and reared in Hillsboro, N. H., John
Wilmot grew to sturdy manhood among the
rugged hills of his native county, was subse-
quently for many years engaged in business
in Bangor, Me. Removing from there to
Southern California, he purchased land in On-
tario, San Bernardino county, where for many
years he has been successfully employed in the
growing of fruit of various kinds. He is a
Republican in politics, and a citizen of worth.
He married Sophronia Parsons, who was born
in Bangor, Me., and they became the parents
of five children, all of whom are residing in
Ualifornia, one son and two daughters being
in San Diego county, and one daughter in
Santa Barbara county.
Completing his early education in the grad-
ed schools of Bangor, R. J. Wilmot remained
an inmate of the parental household until
after attaining his majority. Coming to Cali-
fornia in 1879, he located first in San Luis
Rey, San Diego county, where he conducted
a dairy in partnership with his brother. From
here he came to De Luz, taking up one hun-
dred and sixty acres of government land upon
which he began the improvement of a home-
stead. Energetic and progressive, he made
additional improvements each season, and
having purchased an adjoining tract of forty
acres has now two hundred acres in his home
estate, beside which he has the management
of an eighty-acre ranch belonging to his wife.
As a general agriculturist he has met with
eminent success, in addition to raising stock
and grain, keeping bees and chickens,
branches of industry which have proved very
profitable, considering the amount of work re-
quired in caring for them. He also has the
contract for carrying the mail between De
Luz and Fallbrook, making three trips each
week. r
In 1883 Mr. Wilmot married Lena B. Leigh-
ton, who was born in Bangor, Me., and they
are the parents of five children, namely: Ar-
thur, living in Ontario, San Bernardino coun-
ty; Oscar, at home; John, engaged in ranch-
ing near Eltoro, but living at home; Maurice,
at home; and Grace, a pupil in the home
school. Politically Mr. Wilmot is identified
with the Republican party, the principles of
which he firmly supports. Fraternally he be-
longs to Ontario Camp, W. of W. Religiously
both Mr. and Mrs. Wilmot are members of
the Congregational Church.
JOHN J. DONOVAN. A practical demon-
stration of the results obtainable by a union
of singleness of purpose, good judgment and
large capacity for industry, is found in the
home surroundings of John J. Donovan, the
Owner, through the right of unassisted per-
severance, of a ranch of three hundred and
eighty acres near Nipomo, San Luis Obispo
county. Mr. Donovan came empty handed
to the United States, but he was abundantly
supplied with adaptiveness, optimism and re-
source. He was eighteen years old at this
important turning point in his life, having
been born in Ireland April 4, 1860. His par-
ents, Cornelius and Nora (Donovan) Dono-
van, were the proprietors of a small farm, the
resources of which were all too inadequate for
the support of their large family. John J.,
the youngest of nine children, was three weeks
old when his father died, but his mother sur-
vived until eighty-five years old. One daugh-
ter died in infancy, and three of the Sons are
residents of California.
John J. Donovan's idea in coming to this

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
893
*
Country was embodied in a determination to
becºme a prosperous and useful citizen of the
state of California. He earned his first Ameri-
can mºney as a farm hand in San Luis Obispo
cou.ity, and in 1882 rented a farm which he
operated until purchasing his present ranch in
1897. He makes a specialty of grain raising
and a large part of his three hundred and
eighty acres are under this product, the bal-
ance being under beans, corn and devoted to
stock-raising. He also farms two hundred ad-
joining acres of grain, and has a half inter-
est in a' thousand-acre tract devoted to grain
and general produce. His appointments are
modern in construction, and his environment
has taken on the character of a thoughtful,
exceedingly thrifty and shrewd business man,
alert to every passing opportunity, and in
touch with all that science has evolved to
lighten his burdens and facilitate his advance-
Iment.
The marriage of Mr. Donovan and Margaret
Brown, occurred in 1890, and of the union
there were two children, Genevieve and Mar-
garet. Mrs. Margaret Donovan died in 1896,
at the age of twenty-three years six months
and twelve days, and in November, 1904, Mr.
Donovan married Winifred Kane, a native of
New Zealand. Mr. Donovan subscribes to the
principles of the Democratic party, and for
many years has served the best interests of
the community as a member of the School
board. In religion he is a Catholic. Per-
sonally Mr. Donovan is popular in the com-
munity which his labor and character have
helped to upbuild. He is the friend of educa-
tion and progress, and his sojourn in the coun-
ty has tended to the widening of its prosperity
and opportunity.
C. R. CALLENDER, a present resident of
Los Berros, San Luis Obispo county, Cal., was
born in Great Barrington, Berkshire county,
Mass., December 24, 1830, his parents, Julia
Goodrich and Archibald Callender, being ear-
ly pioneers of the same state. The mother
died when her son C. R. was only ten years
old. The family being large and of limited
means he was obliged to paddle his own canoe
at an early age. He filled a year's engage-
ment with a Henry Smith of Malden Bridge,
Columbia county, N. Y., receiving two months
in a district school, his board and clothes for
his services. He spent the next eleven years
in various localities and occupations—as clerk
in a grocery store for W. C. Barker in Pitts-
field, Mass.; in the woolen mills at the Asha-
willot factory in Dalton and Green River,
Mass. ; for the Hemenways in East Nassau,
Columbia county, N. Y.; for the Kilbourn
Brothers in Norfolk, Litchfield county, Conn.;
and as a boy of fourteen years, a season as
dairyman and milk peddler for David Church
at Great Barrington, Mass., where he supplied
the “Hopkins household” with the dairy's best
production. In after years, as he read of the
successful exploits of the “Big Four,” Hop-
kins, Stanford, Huntington and Crocker, he
would catch himself dreaming as to whether
or no the sips from the cream can in the milk
cart given slyly to the then boy, Mark Hop-
kins, was not a factor, a straw, in the physic-
al, hence mental development that so mani-
fested itself in the push and ability so essen-
tial in the great enterprise of pushing the over-
land railroad across the continent.
Mr. Callender's facilities for schooling were
very meagre; he attended only the common
district Schools, with an academic term at
Great Barrington, Mass. In May, 1852, he left
the employment of Kilbourn Brothers of Nor-
folk, Litchfield county, Conn., with whom he
had been employed for three years previously,
and started for California, sailing May 5, 1852,
on the steamer Northern Light, Captain Tin-
klepaugh commanding, via the Nicaragua
route, and arriving at Runnels Ferry on the
Stanislaus river, where he found his brother
Stephen. After putting in a year at mining,
he returned to San Francisco and purchased
a horse and dray, which he successfully manip-
ulated until August, 1883, when he sailed on
the steamer Sierra Nevada for home, in com-
pany with Dyer Stanton and Mr. Garām of
Fall River, Mass. After a visit with friends in
Norfolk, Sheffield, and Chatham, N. Y., a sea-
Son of roaming in his old native Berkshire
hills, he spent the winter in Canada, where
he had a brother, Dr. F. G. Callender, then re-
siding. In 1854, obeying the injunction of
Horace Greeley to “go west,” he went to Dix-
on, Lee county, Ill., engaging in the photo-
graphic business at Dixon, Polo, Amboy and
Sterling for some four years, when he moved
to St. Joseph county, Mich., following the
same occupation for three years in White Pig-
eon. Centreville, Constantine and Sturgis.
On May 1, 1860, Mr. Callender, in company
with C. E. Clays, a present resident of San
Francisco and for some twenty years an em-
ploye in the custom house, and O. A. Persing,
now of Berros, San Luis Obispo county, came
across the plains on his second trip to Califor-
nia, this time locating about ten miles from
Sonora, Tuolumne county, where he spent
seven years, principally in quartz mining, and
where he still retains a one-half interest in the
48
894
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Old Comstock mine, now known as the O. P.
mine, located ten miles above Sonora. Leav-
ing the mines in the fall of 1867, he moved to
near the old town of Langworth, Stanislaus
county, where he took up government land
and became one of the pioneer ranchmen of
that section. Stockton, thirty miles away, be-
ing then their only market, did not make grain
raising a lucrative business, but this was some-
what relieved in later years by the advent of
the railroads, Oakdale being five and Modesto
nine miles from his place. Acquiring a pre-
emption and homestead and adding to same
by purchase from time to time, he by push and
economy during a period of sixteen years ac-
quired some seventeen hundred acres of land,
which he disposed of in 1883 and moved to
San Luis Obispo county, purchasing of J. M.
Jones the Eureka ranch on the upper Salinas
river, consisting of nineteen thousand acres.
In 1881 Mr. Callender, in company with
James Cummings, Col. J. S. Byington of San
Francisco and W. B. Wallthal of Modesto be-
came interested by purchase and location in
the Omega and other mines in Sonora, Mex-
ico; on investigation, while satisfied that the
locality contained many mining inducements,
the handicap of the American in many ways,
especially the barring by Mexico of sixty
miles bf her border line, and her then forty to
sixty per cent duty on machinery imported, he
concluded that Uncle Sam offered an ample
field for enterprise and capital. In 1882, with
Joseph Warner, then of Warner Brothers of
Stanislaus county, he visited Texas, and to-
gether they bought a tract of sixty-four thou-
sand acres. This tract is now in Sutton and
Schleicher counties, the flourishing town of
Eldorado being the latter's county seat; they
still are interested in the land. Mr. Callender
also invested quite extensively in Texas state
school lands in Haskell, Runnels, Taylor and
Zavalla counties. -
About 1885 Mr. Callender disposed of the
Eureka ranch and moved to the town of San
Luis Obispo, and soon after bought some nine
thousand acres of the Nipomo rancho. He
also, in company with J. W. Smith, purchased
the William Dana tract of eight hundred acres
at Los Berros ; subdividing and selling some of
this, he still retains an interest in town and
acreage property. It was on this ranch and
its vicinity that he for a period of six years ex-
perimented with the raising of sugar beets, ex-
pending considerable money and time in en-
deavoring to attract capital to this locality,
finally attracting the attention of the Eldorado
Sugar Company of San Francisco, who sent
Mr. Atkinson and Mr. Burr, the present su-
perintendent and general manager of the Un-
ion Sugar Company at Betteravia, to prospect
the locality. Mr. Callender, with the present
Judge, E. P. Unangat of San Luis Obispo,
drove the parties from San Luis Obispo
through the valleys of Arroyo Grande, Oso
Flaco and Guadalupe, up the Santa Maria to
the Sisquas. It was due to their favorable re-
port that the present factory at Betteravia was
located, which vast enterprise speaks for
itself. -
After disposing of some of his Los Berros.
land, in 1889, Mr. Callender bought eight hun-
dred acres near Oceano, of which the now
famous Oceano Beach was a part. This he
sold in IQ03, and still owns some acreage prop-
erty and town lots in and near the town of
Oceano, and a ranch of two hundred and
twelve acres in the oil belt adjacent to Arroyo
Grande.
In 1872 Mr. Callender was married to Miss
Maria Persing, a native of Michigan, and to
them have been born a family of four children:
Carrie M., for the past two years a teacher in
the San Mateo high school ; Georgia, wife of
W. O. Smith, head of the science department
in the Mission high school, San Francisco,
whose residence is in Berkeley; Roy, who re-
sides in San Luis Obispo ; and Edna, a student
at the University of California, in Berkeley.
Fraternaily Mr. Callender affiliates with the
Independent Order of Odd Fellows, having
been initiated in 1854, in Dixon, Ill., and being
now by card a member of Oakdale Lodge No.
228, I. O. O. F. He is an advocate of the prin-
ciples embraced in the platform of the Repub-
lican party, casting his maiden presidential
vote for Frennont and so down the line for
every Republican nominee to Roosevelt.
Mr. Callender is now subdividing some
twelve hundred acres of his Berros property
to put on the market this coming season with
his Oceano town property. He takes active
interest in the development of his locality, is a
hard worker and quite active for a man of
seventy-seven years.
*-*-*-- --
DELOSS POTTER THAYER. Among the
earliest settlers of Long Beach, Deloss Potter
Thayer has been an interested witness as well as
a participant in the remarkable development that
has changed this town of twenty years ago into
the active city of today. Mr. Thayer has inher-
ited his most salient points of character from
a long line of American ancestors prominent in
public affairs. His paternal great-grandfather
was a Frenchman, who immigrated to America
in the colonial days of our country and located
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
895
in Massachusetts. His son, Amos Thayer, par-
ticipated in the war of 1812, during which service
he was severely wounded. Later in life he re-
moved to Cortland county, N. Y., where he pass-
ed the remainder of his days as a farmer.
reared a family of children among whom was
a son, Alonzo, who was born in Cortland county,
N. Y.. there reared to young manhood when in
1848 he became a pioneer of Kalamazoo county,
Mich., and engaged as a farmer in the vicinity of
Galesburg. Seven years later he removed to
Dane county, Wis., and near the city of Colum-
bus, improved a farm. Inheriting the spirit of
his forefathers, he enlisted in 1861 in Company
A, Twenty-ninth Regiment Wisconsin Infantry,
in response to the call for men for service in the
Civil war, participating in the historic struggle
which followed until the close of hostilities in
1865. Returning to civic pursuits he engaged in
farming near Reedsburg, Sauk county, Wis.,
where his death eventually occurred. His wife,
formerly Mary Macomber, a native of New
York, born of English and German ancestry, also
died in Reedsburg.
In a family of six children all of whom are
now living, Deloss Potter Thayer is the eldest
and the only one in California. He was born in
Cortland county, N. Y., in the town of Solon,
June 24, 1847, and taken by his parents the
following year to the middle west there at-
tained manhood's estate. He attended the pub-
lic schools in pursuit of an education and at the
same time received a practical training along
agricultural lines which proved of advantage to
him on taking up an independent career. He
followed farming in Dane and Sauk counties, in
Wisconsin, and also lumbering, rafting lumber
down the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers. He
followed this occupation for ten or twelve years.
Having been trained to the work from
the age of fourteen years. In 1871 he
removed to Woodbury county, Iowa, and
in the vicinity of Oto purchased a farm. In the
meantime, in Portage, Wis., he had married
Mary McGann, a native of that state, and after
her, death in Iowa in 1885 he disposed of his
farming interests and returned to Wisconsin. For
the ensuing two years he was engaged in sawmill-
ing in the last-named state, when, November 3,
1887, he decided to seek a milder climate and ac-
cordingly came to Southern California. In El
Modena he engaged in teaming for three weeks,
when he came to Long Beach and permanently
established his home in this city. After one
year occupied in teaming here he entered the
employ of the Crocker estate of San Francisco,
known as the Long Beach Development Company,
engaging as foreman of the construction and
later as collector for the firm, remaining so
occupied for thirteen years. The organization
He
sold their interests to the Seaside Water Com-
pany, after which Mr. Thayer resigned his posi-
tion and accepted employment as foreman for a
cement contractor. Shortly afterward he en-
gaged as foreman of the construction for the
Citizens' Water Company, just then organized,
and later occupied a similar position with the
Inner Harbor Gas Company, retaining his con-
nection with this firm since February, IQO6. Mr.
Thayer has also taken a keen interest in real
estate operations in this city, having purchased lots
and erected four houses during the past few years.
He has been a successful business man in all his
connections here, is highly esteemed both for his
business qualities and the stanch integrity of his
character, and justly occupies a position among
the representative citizens.
Mr. Thayer had five children by his first wife:
Guy, a farmer in Iowa; Edgar, a merchant in
Oto, Iowa; Cora May, wife of J. H. Morgan, of
Long Beach; Lydia Ellen, wife of Charles
Saunders, of Long Beach, and Charles Barnard,
who was accidentally killed. In Long Beach,
February 27, 1905, Mr. Thayer was united in
marriage with Mrs. Hattie (Cushing) Gifford.
She is a native of Middleboro, Mass., and a
daughter of Perez Lincoln Cushing, the latter
born in Boston of an old New England ancestry.
He was educated for the ministry and during the
years of his maturity established the Cushing
Family School, of Middleboro (now known as
the Eaton Family School). He brought his
family to California in 1876 and in Santa Bar-
bara spent the remaining years of his life. By
marriage he allied himself with another old New
England family, Lavinia M. Parker, of Caven-
(lish, Vt., becoming his wife. Her father was
Joseph Parker, a prominent farmer of that sec-
tion of Vermont. One of her brothers, Rev.
H. I. Parker, came to California in an early day
and in Visalia, Santa Barbara, Santa Ana and
Riverside organized the first Baptist churches.
Mrs. Thayer was the only child born to her par-
ents. Until she was sixteen years old she re-
ceived her education in her native state, after
which she came to California with her parents and
completed her education in Point Loma Sem-
inary, in San Diego, and the Santa Barbara Col-
lege. In Santa Barbara she married Nelson D.
Gifford, a native of Owego, N. Y., a jeweler
by trade, who had come to California in an
early day. Ilater they removed to Santa Ana
and in 1886 came to Long Beach, where Mr. Gif-
ford engaged in the livery business for some
time. His death occurred in Monrovia Septem-
ber Io. 1889. She had two children by this mar-
riage, Lavina L., wife of Hugh C. Wilson, and
Maud M., at home. By her second marriage she
has two children, Robert Deloss and Juanita
Edris. Mr. Thayer is associated with the Frater-
896
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
nal Aid, Independent Order of Foresters, and
was made a Mason in Long Beach Lodge, with
which he still affiliates. With his wife he is a
member of the First Methodist Episcopal Church
of this city. In his political affiliations he is and
has always been a stanch adherent of the princi-
ples embraced in the platform of the Republi-
can party.
JACOB LUDY. In no state of the Union,
since the redemption of waste lands, and the es-
tablishment of quick means of transportation, is
general farming carried on in such magnificent
proportions, and with so much profit, as in Cali-
fornia. Here are to be found some of the most
active, intelligent and progressive agriculturists
of the country, men whose forethought, wisdom
and good judgment have been instrumental in
bringing about this condition of affairs. Promi-
nent among this number are men of foreign birth
and breeding, one of whom is Jacob Ludy of this
review, formerly a prosperous ranchman of
Rainbow, San Diego county, but now a retired
resident of Los Angeles. He was born Decem-
ber 15, 1848, in Wurtemberg, Germany, being
one of the five children of Christian and Cath-
erine (Roecker) Ludy, who spent their entire
lives in the Fatherland, and the only one of the
family that ever crossed the Atlantic Ocean.
Receiving a practical common school educa-
tion in his native country, Jacob Ludy there be-
gan life for himself as a teamster. At the age
of twenty years he left home, determined to try
Inis fortunes in America, and on January II,
1869, landed in New York City, a stranger in a
strange land. Going directly to Ohio, he was
there employed in teaming until 1878, when he
went to Pennsylvania, where he lived for ten
years, being engaged either in teaming or rail-
roading. In 1888, having in the meantime ac-
cumulated some capital, he came across the con-
tinent to California, and for six months was a
resident of Los Angeles. Locating then in San
Diego county, he took up one hundred and
twenty acres of government 1and, from which he
improved a good ranch. In 1892 he removed
to the Temecula valley, where he was engaged
in his chosen calling for three years. The en-
suing three years he was engaged in general
farming on the Wolf tract, which he then pur-
chased, obtaining title to thirteen hundred and
seventy-seven acres of land. Adding to the im-
provements previously inaugurated, he embarked
in general farming on an extensive scale, and
meeting with excellent success as a raiser of
grain, alfalfa and stock bought additional land,
increasing the size of his farm to seventeen hun-
dred acres. This large estate he sold in July,
1905, for the sum of $28,500, but he still owns
considerable land. He bought a ranch of three
hundred and twenty acres in Rainbow district
where he was engaged in agricultural pursuits,
raising grain and hay, and feeding stock, until
his retirement in the fall of 1906. This property
he has deeded to his wife. In 1905 he purchased
thirteen acres on Central avenue which is stead-
ily increasing in value.
In 1869 Mr. Ludy married Christiana Schu-
man, a native of Germany, who has ever been an
able assistant in all his farming operations. Of
the eleven children born of their union three
died in infancy, and eight are living, namely:
Christian, John, Jacob Frederick, George, Will-
iam, Adam, Katie and Lizzie. Politically Mr.
Ludy supports the principles of the Democratic
party, and religiously he and his wife are mem-
bers of the German Lutheran Church.
RICHARD QUINN. A pioneer of Southern
California, Richard Quinn is located in the
vicinity of El Monte and engaged in the manage-
ment of a small ranch of eighteen acres, de-
voted to the raising of walnuts. He was born
in Ireland, June 12, 1829, a son of Daniel and
Jane (Lomasney) Quinn, both natives of Ire-
land, where they both died, the father at the age
of sixty years and the mother at seventy-five;
they were the parents of seven children, of whom
but two are living, Richard, of this review, and
Mrs. Kate Towne, of Oakland. -
Richard Quinn was reared on his father's
farm and educated in the common schools, after
which, at the age of nineteen years, he came to
America and in New York city and on Long
Island did general work for a brief time. He
finally enlisted in the regular army in Rochester,
N. Y., becoming a soldier in Company K., Eighth
United States Infantry, and his regiment was
immediately sent to Texas against the Indian
uprising. He served during the ensuing five
years in El Paso and Fort Bliss, doing scout
duty, having been in the southwest about a
year when Captain Stanton was killed. After
five years he was honorably discharged at Fort
Stanton because of disability, having been wound-
ed severly. From that point he went to San
Antonio, Tex., and engaged in teaming for the
ensuing three years, and in 1860 he set out for
California, where he arrived in June after a
series of mishaps because of the Indians. In
Los Angeles he teamed for a time and finally
went to Wilmington and did a similar work for
the Banning Company. After a time spent in
El Monte he went to Santa Clara and engaged
in well boring, having learned this work in
Texas. Returning to El Monte later he pur-
chased a ranch of thirty-four acres; he has since
sold sixteen acres of this, and upon the remain-
III/III.
T
º
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
899
ing eighteen acres is engaged in raising walnuts.
In February, 1862, Mr. Quinn was united in
marriage with Miss Elizabeth Slack, a native
of England, and born of this union were twelve
children, one of whom is deceased: Those liv-
ing are as follows: Eliza J.; Clotildis, wife of
Albert Kerns, of Savannah; Mary, wife of John
Lightfoot, of San Bernardino; Richard, who
married Catherine Sullivan ; Lillie, wife of Rowan
Thorpe, of Los Angeles; William, who married
Maud Hazard, of San Diego; Herbert; Edith,
wife of Edmund Nicholson, of Los Angeles;
Mabel; Nita ; and Gladys. Mr. Quinn is a
Republican in politics, and in religion is a mem-
ber of the Catholic Church at San Gabriel, the
oldest church in the state. He is a man of fine
personality, interesting in his reminiscences of
the pioneer days, and proud of the development
which has taken place during the last fifty years
in California. He is specially interested on all
educational affairs, having given the best ad-
vantages possible to his own children and con-
stantly advocating the establishment and main-
tenance of good schools throughout the country.
WILLIAM H. BUTTERS. Thorough
business training under the supervision of his
father and the advantages of educational facil-
ities in institutions of high merit, supplement-
ing natural abilities of a superior order, en-
abled Mr. Butters to take rank among the
most influential men of Long Beach, where at
the time of his death, March 16, 1907, he was
senior member of the Butters & Paul Invest-
ment Company, Inc. Doubtless he inherited
his ability in a large degree from his father,
Horace U. Butters, who was an extensive lum-
ber merchant, and a man of prominence in the
lumber circles of Michigan, known and hon-
ored for his long identification with the lum-
ber interests of the state and for the high
principles of honor displayed in his every bus-
iness transaction. To any community, the
passing of such a man is a calamity, and there
were many who mourned, with a sense of per-
sonal loss, the death of this successful lumber-
man, which occurred in May, 1905, when he
was seventy-three years of age.
At the family homestead in Michigan Will-
iam H. Butters was born November 23, 1866,
and in the neighboring schools he received his
primary education. It was his good fortune
to later attend the Morgan Park Military
Academy, Northwestern University at Evans-
ton, and the Spencerian Business College at
Milwaukee, Wis., -in all of which institutions
he availed himself of the excellent opportuni-
ties offered. For ten years he remained near
Wilmington, N. C., where he had the super-
vision of a branch of his father's business, and
there he met with more than ordinary success
in managing the diverse interests under his
care. On the closing out of that place he re-
turned north and then went to the mines of
the northwest, where for five years he tried
his luck at mining in Washington and Idaho.
At the expiration of the period named he
came to Southern California, settled in Los
Angeles, and took up the real estate business
as an avenue of employment, remaining there
until his removal to Long Beach. After his
location here he organized the Butters &
Paul Investment Company, Inc., with a capi-
tal stock of $100,000, the Strand Investment
Company, with a capital stock of $50,000, be-
ing president of both companies, while he was
vice-president of the Inner Harbor Land Com-
pany, Inc., capital stock $100,000, also director
of the State Bank of Long Beach. In addi-
tion to his other interests Mr. Butters owned
and managed the Strand apartment building
on the beach, where he was living at the time
of his death. Mrs. Butters was in maiden-
hood Miss Ada Edwards, and was born in
Louisiana, but during girlhood went to Vir-
ginia, her marriage occurring in Alexandria,
that state. -
The Republican party received the support
of Mr. Butters in local and general elections,
but aside from voting he took little part in
political activities and could not be called a
partisan in any sense of that word. As a
member of the Union League Club he was
identified with one of the leading social Or-
ganizations of the place. During his resi-
dence in Michigan he was prominent in Ma-
sonry, holding membership in Pere Mar-
quette Lodge No. 299, F. & A. M., at Lud-
ington; Ludington Chapter No. 92, R. A. M.;
Apollo Commandery No. 31, K. T., at Lud-
ington; and Oasis Temple, at Charlotte, N.
C., while after going to the northwest he
was raised to the consistory degree in
Oriental Consistory No. 2, at Spokane,
Wash. Widely traveled, a man of keen Ob-
servation and logical faculties of reasoning, he
had utilized every advantage and in this way
acquired a breadth of information surpassed
by few men of his locality.
EDWARD GRANVILLE. Facilities for
travel by railroad between San Diego, and ES-
condido are lacking to such an extent that many
travelers prefer to avail themselves of the ad-
vantages offered by the stage line running be-
tween the two cities by way of Poway. The
future development of the railroad system in
San Diego county will witness many improve-
900
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
ments; towns will be brought into closer con-
tact through the ramifications of railroads yet
to be constructed, and land value will be in-
creased by reason of the advantages offered for
the marketing of produce. However, at the
present time, pending such development as the
twentieth century may bring, the excellent equip-
ment of the stage line brings to the people ad-
vantages of great desirability. The success of the
line is due to the efforts of the president, John
Granville, Jr., who resides in San Diego, and the
Secretary and general manager, Edward Gran-
ville, who attends to the Escondido end of the
line. The entire distance of thirty-five miles is
easily covered in one day without weariness of
'body to the passengers. In addition to, and in
connection with, the stage line, Mr. Granville
conducts a livery barn at Escondido, having
opened the same November 1, 1904, since which
time he has slowly but steadily increased his
equipment of horses and vehicles suited to the
wants of the public.
Born in Orange county, N. Y., October 7,
1870, Edward Granville is a son of John and
Catherine (Gillmartin) Granville, natives respect-
ively of England and Ireland, but residents of
the United States from early childhood. After
their marriage in New York they engaged in
the nursery business in Orange county, but about
1872 removed west as far as Kansas and began
to grow nursery stock at Topeka. After a res-
idence of fourteen years in Kansas they came to
California in 1886 and settled in San Diego,
where they still make their home. The earliest
recollections of Edward Granville are associ-
ated with Kansas, where he received his edu-
cation in grammar and high Schools. On com-
ing to California in 1887 he secured employ-
ment in San Diego and in 1901 he became in-
terested in the stage line, which two years later
was incorporated with his brother as president
and himself as secretary. Outside of the man-
agement of the stage line and the livery barn, he
finds leisure for participation in social affairs
and fraternal organizations, is a welcomed guest
in the most select circles of Escondido, and is an
active worker in the Knights of Pythias and the
American Order of Foresters. All movements
for the upbuilding of Escondido receive his stanch
support and his co-operation is always relied up-
on in matters for the public welfare. September
15, 1906, he was united in marriage with Bessie
May Bevington, a native of San Diego county.
FRANK G. THOMPSON. The business in-
terests of Escondido have a representative in Mr.
Thompson, who for a considerable period has
been a resident of the town and a leading factor
in its commercial development. During the early
years of his residence here he confined his atten-
tion to the livery business, but more recently he
has also became the properietor of an under-
taking establishment, has established and main-
tained the transfer business of the town, and
also maintains a sample room for the conven-
ience of commercial travelers. In addition to
his possessions in his home town he retains land
in Minnesota, is interested in the oil wells of
Kern county, Cal., and also owns interests in
San Bernardino county.
Born in Leroy, Mower county, Minn., July 8,
1866, Mr. Thompson is of New England ancestry.
His parents, Isaac and Hattie (Bray) Thomp-
son, were natives of Maine and Vermont re-
spectively and the father was a miller by trade.
Attracted to the west by the discovery of gold,
he came from his eastern home by way of the
Horn to San Francisco in 1850 and proceeded
from that city to the mines at Marysville. For
ten years he engaged in the dairy business and
in the butcher's trade, selling meat and butter to
the miners. On his return to Maine about 1860
he married Miss Bray and removed with his
young wife to Minnesota, where he became pro-
prietor of a mill at Kingston, Meeker county.
Later he removed to Leroy, Mower county, and
... there his death occurred in November of 1904,
at seventy-three years of age. His wife had
passed away in July, 1898, when sixty-five years
of age. -
The schools of Leroy afforded Frank G.
Thompson fair educational advantages, but his
loroad knowledge of mankind has been gained
through habits of close observation rather than
from the study of text-books. At the age of
nineteen years he left home and started out to
earn his own livelihood, first going to the Da-
kotas, where he remained for four months. Not
satisfied with prospects there, he decided to come
to the coast. During August, 1886, he arrived
at Oleander, Fresno county, Cal., and soon Se-
cured employment in horticultural pursuits. Af-
ter a time, in recognition of his efficiency, he
was made manager of the Newhall vineyard and
orchard, which position he held until he resigned
in November, 1890, on the occasion of his re-
moval to San Diego county. Since coming to
Escondido he has built up a livery of about
twenty-five head of horses, with every kind of
vehicle needed by those who travel on the pleasent
roads of San Diego county. In July, 1904, he
purchased the J. H. Sampson undertaking busi-
ness, which he runs in conection with the livery
business.
In Leroy, Minn., the marriage of Mr. Thomp-
son occurred December 21, 1898, to Louise C.
Hambrecht, who was a native of that place, born
December 18, 1866. Personally he is a man of
pleasant address and genial manner, one whose

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
903
good fortune it is to be liked and respected by
the people, and one whose standing in business
circles is as substantial as his uprightness is
unquestioned.
ROBERT RANSON CHRISTIE. Among
the most successful real-estate dealers in
Long Beach is Robert Ranson Christie, who
has been engaged in business in this city since
August, 1904. His family is of original Scotch
extraction, although his ancestors came to
America in an early day, the grandfather, Is-
rael, who was born in Virginia, having fought
in the war of 1812. That the race is an unus-
11ally strong and vigorous one is evidenced by
the fact that this man became the father of
fifteen children, all of whom grew to maturity
and married. Rev. Jeffrey B. Christie, the
father of Robert Ranson, was a native of Ken-
tucky, who later removed to Daviess county,
Mo., and settled on a farm from which he made
his living, while he gave his services as a Bap-
tist minister to the church of that denomination
gratis. He died in Missouri at the age of sev-
enty-nine years, survived by his wife, who re-
sides in Bagdad, Ky., at the present time. She
was in maidenhood Miss Bohannon, daughter
of Henry Bohannon, who was secretary
of Georgetown (Ky.) College at the
time of his death; he served in the legislature
of that state many times. The great-grand-
father on the maternal side, Rev. Abram
Cook, was a Baptist minister, and a member
of a pioneer family of Kentucky which fought
the Indians and assisted in making the coun-
try a safe one in which to make a home. Four
generations ago the family removed to Mis-
souri. -
The oldest of a family of ten children, five
of whom are now living, Robert R. Christie
was born August 23, 1846, in Bagdad, Shelby
county, Ky., and from the age of seven years
was reared on his father's farm in Missouri.
He attended the public schools and remained
at home until twenty years old, then engaged
in independent farming operations for three
years, after which he conducted a general mer-
chandise business in Newcastle, then in Pat-
tonsburg (both in Missouri), disposing of his
business in the latter place in 1876 to engage
in the manufacture and sale of black walnut
lumber. Removing to Tacoma, Wash., in
1883 he established himself in the real-estate
business there and also became interested in
property and mines in British Columbia. The
year 1902 found him in San Francisco en-
gaged in dealing in real estate, and in August
1904, he came to Long Beach and continued in
the same business here. He has platted sev-
eral divisions, among them being the Junc-
tion Park tract, and has interests in a number
of Syndicate corporations and acreage tracts;
is president of the Seaview Land and Water
Company, the Farm Lot Improvement Com-
pany and the Commercial Land Company. He
was an organizer and is treasurer of the Long
Beach Asbestos Company, owning asbestos
mines on a mountain of four thousand feet ele-
vation in Placer county, from which samples
of the best asbestos in America have been
taken. The location is but a short distance
from Towle Station on the Central Pacific
Railroad and the company will build a fac-
tory in Sacramento at no distant date.
Fraternally Mr. Christie was made a Mason
in Pattonsburg Lodge No. 65, F. & A. M., and
is now a member of Tacoma Lodge No. 68.
While in Missouri he was elected tax collector
of his district, serving two terms, and refused
a third nomination. He was active in church
circles, being president of the board of trus-
tees of the Baptist Church, and a teacher in
the Sunday-school, and a leader in the for-
warding of all branches of work in his de-
nomination. His first marriage occurred in
February, 1867, in Daviess county, Mo., unit-
ing him with Miss Lucy M. Stewart, who
died in Tacoma. By his second marriage, in
the latter city, Miss Mary H. Hynds, a native
of Nova Scotia, became his wife. A man of
liberal ideas, straightforward, conscientious
and enterprising, he is held in high esteem by
all who have the pleasure of his acquaintance.
-º-
MORITZ REIMANN. Ventura county can
lay claim to no more enterprising citizen than is
found in Mr. Reimann, as all will agree who
are familiar with the transformation which his
ranch has undergone during the past eleven
years. His first purchase of land consisted of
seventy-five acres near Oxnard, devoid of any
improvement whatever, but the location was an
exceptional one and he began its improvement
and cultivation with such determination that in
a comparatively short time he was ready to in-
clude more land in his ranch in order to carry
out the plans which he had formulated. This
necessity resulted in the purchase of one hun-
dred and twenty-five acres of adjoining land,
the whole uniting to form one of the finest es-
tates in Ventura county. The entire acreage
is in cultivation, one hundred and eighty acres
being in lima beans, while the remainder is in
beets and barley.
A native of Germany, Moritz Reimann was
born in Hanover February 24, 1867, a son of
Joseph and Elizabeth (Schneider) Reimann, the
904
HISTORICAI, AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
parents also being natives of Hanover. Leaving
the Fatherland in 1881 Joseph Reimann was
among the passengers who landed in San Fran-
cisco 1n May of that year, he having started for
the new world in advance of his family in order
to select a location in which to bring up his
children. In the latter part of the same year
the mother and the children left Germany on a
vessel bound for New York City, and were an-
chored in the port of the latter city November
19, 1881. They went by rail from New York to
Los Angeles, there taking the stage route to the
Santa Clara valley, where the father awaited
them. Nearly a quarter of a century after his
location in the new world his earth life came
to a close on his ranch in Ventura county, his
(leath occurring, when he was in his sixty-sev-
enth year. His widow is still living at the age
of seventy-six, and she now makes her home in
the family of Jacob Seckinger, her son-in-law.
Moritz Reimann was a lad of fourteen years
when with his mother and the other children
he came to the United States. Prior to leav-
ing his native land he had received a good edu-
cation in the common schools of Hanover, SO
that upon taking up his residence in this coun-
try he was in a position to give his services to
his father in the work connected with establish-
ing a home in a new country. For ten years
he shared the labor and respensibilities of main-
taining the homestead, and at the age of twenty-
four struck out in the world on his own behalf
by renting a ranch of two hundred acres in Ven-
tura county. Four years in the capacity of a
renter made him ambitious to expend his labors
on a ranch of his own, and led to the purchase
of the nucleus of his present ranch in Ventura
county. As has been stated previously the ranch
comprises two hundred acres, which with the
well-tilled fields, necessary ranch buildings and
modern ten-room house recently erected combine
to form one of the most attractive and up-to-
date ranches in Ventura county.
November 19, 1891, was the date of the mar-
riage of Moritz Reimann and Anna Scholle, a
sister of John Scholle, in whose sketch, found
elsewhere in this volume, an account of the fam-
ily history is given. Two children have blessed
the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Reimann, Anna
and Emma, to whom the parents are giving ev-
ery advantage within their means to bestow.
The family are communicants of the Catholic
Church, and politically, Mr. Reimann is a Demo-
Crat.
STEPHEN DECATUR THURMAN. No
resident of El Monte is better known than Mr.
Thurman, and this fact is but the natural Se-
quence to his close connection with various im-
portant local enterprises and Organizations. Since
he came here in childhood this place has been
his home with the exception of eleven years
spent in Tehachapi in the cattle business, and
in his years of manhood he has proven himself
an important factor in the development of the
rich resources of this region. His father, John
Thurman, was the pioneer; the elder man was a
native of Scotland, whence he immigrated to
America and became a farmer in Tennessee. He
also engaged in a mercantile enterprise in Pike-
ville, Bledsoe county, in connection with his
farming and stock raising. Removing to Ar-
kansas in 1849 he was located near Little Rock
for three years, when, in 1852, he crossed the
plains with ox-teams and after seven months
and ten days arrived in California. Their jour-
ney was fraught with trouble, Mr. Thurman's
wife dying at Copper Mines, on the Verde river,
while they had several skirmishes with the In-
dians, one at Oatman Flat, where the party,
(which included various men prominent today
in Los Angeles, among them Dr. Mayes, Jack
King and others), discovered the charred re-
mains of the Oatman family which had been
burned by the Apaches. On the 15th of Septem-
ber, 1852, Mr. Thurman's party arrived at the
Puente ranch, where he sold his cattle, and from
this location they went to Tuolumne county, Cal.,
where Mr. Thurman worked in the mines. While
there the entire family suffered with the small-
pox. Finally returning to Los Angeles county,
Mr. Thurman bought a squatter's right to one
hundred and sixty acres of land for $175, and
this he farmed for one year then sold for $3,500.
Purchasing land on the San Bernardino road just
across from the present site of the creamery, he
remained in that location until 1868, when he
bought the Willow Grove ranch and improved it,
expending about $15,000 for the fifty-eight acres,
the building of a hotel known as the Willow
Grove hotel, the equipment of an overland stage
route, etc. His death occurred in 1876, at the age
of sixty-eight years. He was a member of the
Methodist Episcopal Church South, a prominent
man in all public affairs, and a citizen who
sought zealously to uphold the common weal of
the community. His wife was formerly Miss
Lettie Lamb, a native of Tennessee. They be-
came the parents of six sons and two daughters:
Nellie, Mrs. Hicks, who died in Fresno; Mar-
garet, Mrs. Swagert, who died in El Monte in
1864; Frank, who died in El Monte; Ephraim,
who died in Tuolumne county in 1852; Monroe,
a resident of Pomona; Stephen D.; Alexander,
a resident of Burnett, Los Angeles county, and
John, a resident of Downey, same county.
Stephen Decatur Thurman was born in Bled-
soe county, Tenn., December 25, 1843, was taken
by his parents in childhood to Arkansas, thence

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
907
in 1852 crossing the plains to California, during
most of which trip he walked. They were three
days and nights crossing the desert, a portion
of their journey which Mr. Thurman will never
forget because of its hardships. Following their
arrival in Los Angeles county was the trip to
Tuolumne county, where the father mined, while
there they were all ill with smallpox, and a visit
from a physician just across the street cost them
$50. After their return to El Monte Mr. Thur-
man attended the public schools and alternated
this with his home studies as the son of a farmer.
His first employment in young manhood was on
the old Briggs ranch, where he put in twenty-one
years, engaged in general farming and dairying,
receiving a commission on his work during the
entire time he was thus employed. With his em-
ployer he planted the first orchard ever set out in
El Monte, one tree of which is still standing. In
1868 he purchased a ranch of eighty acres for
$500 just south of El Monte, farmed it for one
year when he sold it for $1,500, with which he
bought one hundred and fifty fine cows, and then
went to Tehachapi to engage in the cattle busi-
ness. He continued this occupation for eleven
years, but not meeting with the success antici-
pated he finally gave it up and returning to El
Monte in 1876 bought forty acres of land near
town for $1,500, which property he has since con-
ducted satisfactorily. It is set out in walnuts
and alfalfa.
In Kern county, Cal., Mr. Thurman was united
in marriage with Miss Nancy M. Beck, January
I, I866. She was born in Willows Creek, Collin
county, Texas, a daughter of John Beck, who
brought his family across the plains in 1854 and
engaged in farming, now living retired in San
Jose, at the advanced age of eighty-three years.
She died in 1891, leaving the following children:
Allie, Mrs. Crowder, of Fresno; John R., a
miner of Searchlight, Nev.; Annie, wife of
Alexander Elliott, of El Monte; Ephraim, of
Searchlight, Nev.; Jefferson, at home; Neal and
William, of San Diego; Katie, of Los Angeles;
Mattie, of El Monte; Lettie, Mrs. McCoy, of
El Monte, and Stephen, of San Diego. Mr.
Thurman’s second union occurred in Pomona
September 15, 1896, and united him with Miss
Electa Dickinson, a native of Virginia, and the
descendant of an old colonial family of that sec-
tion. She is a member of the United Daugh-
ters of the Confederacy, and the F. F. V. She is
also descended from Revolutionary stock.
Mr. Thurman is a strong Democrat politi-
cally and seeks to advance the principles he en-
dorses. He is prominent on all matters of public
import, was elected in 1894 school trustee of Fl
Monte, and has been re-elected every year since
with the exception of one term. Fraternally he
is identified with the Ancient Order of United
Workmen, of which he is past master; by reason
of his early residence in the state he is prom-
inent in the Society of Los Angeles County
Pioneers.
*m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m---->
BEN DAVIES was known throughout the
Pacific coast country as a man of Superior
judgment in the breeding and care of horses,
which occupation, combined with ranching,
claimed his attention for a number of years.
Born in Utah, March 3, 1853, he was brought
to California when six months old, and there-
after made his home in this state, with the ex-
ception of two years while interested in a trad-
ing post in Arizona. The parents, William
and Mary (Rabol) Davies, both natives of
England, came to America, and for a number
of years made their home in Utah, coming to
California in 1853 with the customary ox-
teams. With his father Ben Davies built the
first flour mill in San Bernardino, the former
finally giving up the business to serve as sher-
iff of San Bernardino county, and thereafter
the son conducted the business for thirty
years. The father's death in 1901 removed from
the community a man of forceful character,
energetic in private and public life, and active
in the maintenance and upbuilding of the coun-
try’s best interests. He served in the Indian
war while a resident of Utah. His wife passed
away some years prior to his death at the age
of fifty-six years. -
One of a family of five children, Ben Davies
was reared to young manhood in San Bernar-
dino county, receiving his education in public
and private schools, after which, in young man-
hood, he engaged with his father in the flour
mill. Removing to Arizona, he was for two
years associated with the interests of a trading
post at both Phoenix and Camp McDowell,
and while in that state he also conducted a
hotel. Returning to California he engaged in
a grocery business in San Bernardino for two
years, when he disposed of these interests and
for the ensuing ten years was occupied as a
clerk in a like concern. In the meantime, and
even before going to Arizona, he had become
interested in the breeding of fine horses. Upon
withdrawing from mercantile pursuits he lo-
cated upon a ranch of fifty-six acres, given
over entirely to hay and pasture land, and
thereafter devoted his attention to the raising
of horses. He owned some magnificent
samples of equine flesh, having refused $5,000
for his stud, Zolock, who has a record of 2:05%,
while he also owned the filly, Delilah, who has
a record of a quarter mile in twenty-eight Sec-
onds in harness, in 1904 holding the fastest
record as a two-year-old in the world. Besides
908
HISTORICAI, AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Exchange and Izalco, four and three years old,
he also owned four fine mares. Mr. Davies ac-
quired a high reputation for his unerring judg-
ment in the matter of an animal's fine points,
and was regarded as a leader in this line of
work.
Mr. Davies established domestic ties through
his marriage in 1873 with Miss Arabelle Whit-
low, a native of Louisville, Ky., and they be-
came the parents of five children, two of whom
died in infancy. Those now living are: Mabel,
Mrs. N. A. Richardson, and Lelah, Mrs. Will-
iam Whitlow, both daughters residing in San
Bernardino ; and Violet, at home. Mr. Davies
was associated fraternally with the Foresters
of San Bernardino, and politically adhered to
the principles of the Democratic party, as did
his father also. The charities of the Christian
Church are supported by the family, of which
denomination Mrs. Davies is a member. Mr.
Davies passed away at his home near San
Bernardino January II, 1907.
HENSON POLAND. No name in the vil-
lage of Lompoc is more familiar to its residents
and to the people of the surrounding country
than that of Henson Poland, who was a member
of the company that bought and platted the vil-
lage of Lompoc and ever since has held a prom-
inent position as public-spirited citizen, popular
local official, business man and rancher. In the
improving of city real estate he has been active
and now owns five town blocks covering twenty-
five acres, in addition to which he owns fifty
acres of ranch property. The land is leased to
parties who engage in raising beans and mus-
tard, while the work of caring for his thirty
acres of apple trees is also put into the hands of
others, although he gives the property his care-
ful oversight and capable supervision.
The Poland family is of Virginian ancestry
and Henson was born in Randolph county in
what is now West Virginia, December 13, 1838,
being a son of Henry C. and Ann (Vansky)
Poland, natives of West Virginia. His grand-
mother was a Miss Grimes, member of a family
that became prominent in the pioneer history
of Missouri. During 1844 Henry C. Poland took
his family to Missouri, where he followed the
same lines of activity as in the Old Dominion,
viz.: the raising of tobacco and of stock. His
wife passed away when thirty-eight years of age,
but he survived her for many years and lived
to be seventy-two. They were the parents of
ten children, of whom Henson was the third in
order of birth. When a small child he was taken
to Chariton county, Mo., in 1844, and there
passed his boyhood days on the home farm of
two hundred and ninety-two acres, on which
were raised tobacco and general farm products.
When not assisting in the cultivation of the land
he was sent to a subscription school in the neigh-
borhood and later he was given special advan-
tages at Brunswick Academy and Bluff high
School. The latter institution was founded by
Thomas M. Crowder, a graduate of the Univer-
sity of Virginia. t
On the completion of his education Mr. Poland
began to teach school in Prairie township at what
is now Salisbury, Chariton county, Mo., but the
breaking Out of the Civil war caused the closing
of the school. Stanch in his allegiance to the
Union cause, it was his desire to enlist in the
northern army, but his parents, who were de-
voted Southern sympathizers, opposed him in the
matter with such earnestness that he relinquished
his ambition in deference to their entreaties.
However, he paid the way of a substitute whom
he sent into the Union army. Not wishing to
remain longer in a neighborhood where the war
was arousing such bitterness of feeling, he de-
parted for New York and there boarded a ves-
sel for California via the Isthmus of Panama,
arriving in San Francisco April 28, 1863. A
brief experience on a ranch in San Joaquin
county was followed by four months in the mines
at Soledad, Ariz., and in 1864 he returned to
California, settling in Santa Cruz county, where
for six years he engaged in furnishing lime kilns
and the California Powder Company with tim-
ber for fuel. The last-named organization em-
ployed him as manager in 1870 and on his re-
tirement from that position he received the high-
est tributes of praise from his employers for his
excellent work in their behalf.
After coming to Lompoc in the fall of 1874
Mr. Poland was a member of the syndicate that
bought the Lompoc ranch of forty-six thousand
five hundred acres, and he was foremost in the
founding of the village, whose growth was aided
by his influence and liberality. In 1888 he leased
two hundred acres of grain land and set out one
thousand trees of deciduous fruit, mainly apples,
pears and plums. After having served for one
year as town clerk, in April of 1880 he was ap-
pointed postmaster by President Harrison and
entered upon his duties the Ist of July, fitting
out an office at his own expense and receiving
only $400 in salary. At the expiration of eight-
een months the salary was raised to $1,200, and
the office was changed from fourth-class to
third-class. At the expiration of an efficient
service of five years he resigned the office.
Always stanch in his advocacy of Republican
principles, Mr. Poland has been a 1eading local
worker in politics, and is now a member of the
town trustees. Appointed to fill an unexpired
term as member of the board of trustees, he
served for two years as president. April 9,
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
909
I906, he was elected to the board and again was
chosen to serve as its executive head. For some
years he has been a member of the grammar-
School board at Lompoc and in addition he has
officiated as a trustee of the park and cemetery.
During the Lewis and Clark Exposition he rep-
resented his district as commissioner at Port-
land, and meanwhile was a delegate to the Irri-
gation Congress in the same city in that year,
while the following year he was chosen to attend
the congress at Boise City, Idaho, as a delegate.
The first marriage of Mr. Poland was solem–
nized at Santa Cruz August 4, 1868, and united
him with Mrs. D. W. Scoville, who was born in
New York and crossed the plains in 1863, set-
tling in California, where she continued to re-
side until her death, April 6, 1893. The second
wife of Mr. Poland, with whom he was united
February IO, 1895, was Miss M. B. Heacock, a
native of this state, and a daughter of E. H.
Heacock, who served for fourteen years in the
state senate, also held the offices of United
States court commissioner and master in chan-
cery. Mrs. Poland passed away March 4, 1905.
The present wife of Mr. Poland, with whom
he was united December 16, 1906, was Sarah
O. Hudson, who was born in Maine and has
made her home in California since 1874. Active
in Masonry, Mr. Poland has been chosen master
of Lompoc Lodge No. 262, F. & A. M., eight
separate times. During 1867, when the Grand
Lodge had charge of the laying of the corner-
stone of the Mercantile Library at San Fran-
cisco, he attended as representative of Santa
Cruz Lodge No. 38, F. & A. M. On the or-
ganization of San Luis Obispo Chapter No. 62.
R. A. M., he became one of its charter members
and still retains his association with that chap-
ter. His Masonic relations are further extended
by membership in St. Omer Commandery No.
30, K. T., at Santa Barbara. On the founding
of a lodge of Independent Order of Odd Fellows
at Lompoc he became interested in the new fra-
ternity and enrolled his name as a charter mem-
ber, since which time he has been a leader in its
work and for two terms has officiated as its
presiding officer. In 1867 he joined the Odd
Fellows Lodge at Santa Cruz. In religious as-
sociations he belongs to the Episcopal Church
at Lompoc and officiates as a warden in the con-
gregation. With a mind too liberal and a spirit
too broad to allow him the restrictions of nar-
row denominationalism, he exhibits an interest
in all Christian work and in the early days his
home was an abiding place for ministers of any
denomination who might wish to remain in the
vicinity for the purpose of preaching. Every
movement, whether religious, educational or
commercial, that has for its purpose the upbuild-
ing of Lompoc, receives his warm sympathy and
practical assistance, and when a history of the
town shall have been written his name will be
given a permanent place of honor in recognition
of his beneficial labors and ideal citizenship.
JOHN S. DUNN. So intimately is the life
of Mr. Dunn associated with the San Pedro
Salt Company that the history of one would
be impossible without an account of the other.
The plant is located at the head of San Pedro
bay, where the company controls fourteen hun-
dred and seventy-three acres of land. During
high tide the water pours in upon the land
through an automatic headgate, which closes
when the tide changes and the water begins
to recede. There are about thirteen ponds in
the tract, varying in size from thirty-five acres
to two hundred and eighty acres, and in these
ponds the water is allowed to remain until it
shows twenty-five per cent salt, when it is
pumped into crystallizing vats partitioned off
by dykes. Some idea of the pumping capacity
of the plant can be gathered from the fact that
sixteen thousand gallons of water per minute
can be transferred from the ponds to the vats,
tising a stream fourteen inches in diameter.
When scraped from the basins the salt is in
the form of large crystals, and constitutes the
rock salt of commerce. The preparation of
the commodity for table use is as varied as it
is complicated. From the basins just men-
tioned the salt is carried to the mill and placed
in an immense bin, where it is washed and
thoroughly purified. In the drying machine,
to which it is next carried, it is subjected to
a temperature of three hundred and sixty-five
degrees and thus put in proper condition for
grinding. The entire process of evaporation,
milling and packing requires ninety days, dur-
ing which time the .crystals have not come in
contact with human hands. It is estimated
that the company will ship about thirty
thousand tons of table and rock salt during
the present year. The chief factor in the suc-
cess of the salt-making industry in this Sec-
tion is the clay foundation, which prevents
any possibility of seepage.
John S. Dunn was born in Pennsville, Mor-
gan county, Ohio, March 2, 1842, a son of
Tohn H. and Rebecca (Harry) Dunn. Dur-
ing young manilood he entered the service of
his country, on June 18, 1861, being mustered
in Company H, Twenty-fifth Ohio Infantry,
as a private, and on June 22, 1866, he was
mustered out of the same regiment as adju-
tant. Thereafter he returned to his home in
Pennsville, Ohio, where the greater part of his
life was passed, and where for four years he
910
FHISTORICAL AND F3IOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
served as sheriff of Morgan county. During
his long residence in that community he be-
came well known through his connection with
the John S. Dunn Oil and Gas Company. The
offices of the company were located at Dexter.
City, Noble county, while it owned plants in
a number of the surrounding towns. Dispos-
ing of his interests in Ohio in 1903, the fol-
lowing year Mr. Dunn came to California and
purchased the bulk of the stock of the San
Pedro Salt Company. When he assumed con-
trol the plant was in a run-down condition,
but during the years which it has been under
his control he has installed new machinery
and improved conditions generally. The dry-
ing machine used in the works is the inven-
tion of the Dunn brothers and is a marvel
of dispatch and economy.
With his wife, formerly Lucette Worrall,
Mr. Dunn resides in the capacious residence
on the corner of Tenth and Main streets, Long
Beach, which he purchased upon coming to
the state in 1904. Two sons, Irvin L. and Or-
ton C., have blessed their marriage, born in
Chesterhill, Ohio, November 13, 1869, and Feb-
ruary 1, 1875, respectively. Both were grad-
tiated from the Case School of Applied
Sciences in 1895, and thereafter were associat-
ed with their father in business in the east.
They came to California with their parents in
IQO4 and have since been identified with the
San Pedro Salt Company, Irvin L. being presi-
dent, and Orton C. secretary and treasurer.
Both sons are married and are residents of
Long Beach. In Macksburg, Ohio, they were
initiated into the Masonic order and still hold
membership there, also belonging to the chap-
fer of Caldwell, Ohio, where their father is
also a member. Orton C. belongs to the con-
sistory at Cincinnati. The names of both of
the sons are on the roster of the Knights of
|Pvthias order in Dexter City, as well as the
Order of the Eastern Star, besides which they
are members of the college fraternity Phi
IDelta Theta.
OLIVER O'BRIEN. As president of the
Lumber Surveyors’ Association of Southern Cali-
fornia Oliver O’Brien is best known in the city
of San Pedro, where he has resided since May,
1904. Although he is a native of Ireland, his
earliest recollections are of life in San Francisco,
to which city he was brought hv his mother when
scarcely two years old, his father having died
during the same vear in which the son was born.
The family had been identified with New York
City for several generations, that having been
the birthplace of the father, Tohn T., who was
a graduate physician and who came to San
Francisco in 1850 or 1851. He engaged in the
practice of medicine and also conducted a drug
business there when there were but two drug
stores in the city—his own and one owned by
Reddington & Co. Dr. O’Brien was one of the
citizens of San Francisco who in the early days
saw the necessity of compelling the enforcement
of law and order and as a member of the old
vigilance committee did his part in redeeming
the community from riot and lawlessness. After
some years he went to Coleraine, Ireland, and
established a drug store, which he conducted un-
til the time of his death, in November, 1868.
His wife, who was Rose, daughter of John Jor-
dan, a merchant in Londonderry, where the
daughter was born, returned to America with
her family of six children in 1870 and has ever
since made her home in California, now residing
in Burlingame.
The youngest of the family, the birth of Oli-
ver O’Brien occurred July 18, 1868, in Coleraine,
Londonderry, Ireland. He was reared in San
Francisco and received his education through
the medium of the public and high schools of
that city, at the age of sixteen years beginning
his business career. For ten successive years he
was employed by the Simpson Lumber Company
and became a lumber surveyor, subsequently re-
signing this position to become manage of the
Pay Shore Lumber Company in Oakland. While
there he built a residence in Alameda, which he
later sold and now owns property in Burlingame.
It was in May, IQO4, that he came to San Pedro
and began lumber surveying and has continued to
follow the business ever since. During the year
of 1906 he was elected to the presidency of the
Lumber Surveyors’ Association of Southern Cali-
fornia, and is filling the office with credit to him-
self and to the satisfaction of all the members.
Mr. O’Brien’s marriage occurred in San Fran-
cisco, uniting him with Minnie Glueck, a native
of that city, and they have become the parents of
three children, Justin, Russell and Vivian. Mr.
O’Brien is a member of the Benevolent Protective
Order of Elks at Oakland, and the National
Union in San Francisco. Politically he is an
advocate of the principles embraced in the plat-
form of the Republican party and takes an active
interest in all matters of public import to the
community in which he lives and where he is
held in the highest esteem by all who have the
pleasure of his acquaintance.
CHARLES FREMONT CASEBEER. In
1896 Mr. Casebeer made his first trip to Cali-
fornia, but did not make this state his permanent
home until 1902, when he located in Long Beach,
where he has since resided. He was born in
Cedar county, Iowa, June 5, 1856, the youngest


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 913
in a family of seven children of whom four are
now living. His father, David Casebeer, was
born in Ohio and became a pioneer of Iowa in
the territorial days of that section. He was a
machinist, blacksmith and bell maker by trade.
In 1859 he removed to Anderson county, Kans.,
and the following year to Allen county, that
state, where he engaged as a pioneer farmer and
was also one of the founders of the town of
Humboldt. He engaged in various occupations,
among them blackSmithing and machine work
and also the building and operating of flour
mills. His death occurred in 1861. His wife,
formerly Harriet T. Coffee, a native of Ohio,
also died in Kansas.
Charles F. Casebeer was reared on the Kan-
sas frontier among the Indians, and amid all the
conditions characteristic of that day. The death
of his father occurring when he was only five
years old he was reared by his mother on the
home farm, remaining with her until her death,
which occurred in 1871, after which he became
dependent upon his own resources. He worked
on various farms in Kansas until he was seven-
teen years old, when he went to Oregon in the
vicinity of Roseburg, then the terminus of the
Oregon Central, now the Southern Pacific Rail-
road. Working as a farm hand until 1875, he
subsequently engaged in mining in Siskiyou
county, Cal., for two years, when he returned
to Oregon and in Baker City engaged in mining
and stock-raising, his mine (which he owned in
conjunction with his brother, Eli Casebeer) be-
ing on the Powder and Burnt rivers. Their
brand for horses was a half circle with a cross
(+, and the cattle brand was a bar under the
letter C. They were very successful in their
undertakings, and remained in that location
until 1896, when C. F. Casebeer disposed of
his interests and came to Southern California,
locating in Redlands. Later he returned to Ore-
gon and engaged in mining until 1902, when he
once more located in Southern California, this
time establishing his home and business in Long
Beach, where, on east Anaheim Road, he en-
gages in the hay and grain business. He has
purchased property on the corner of Anaheim
Road and Lime street, 130x2OO feet, where he
has put up sheds, office, etc., and conducts a suc-
cessful enterprise. He runs his own teams, has
a hay press, wood saw, etc., and is well equipped
for the conduct of his business.
Mr. Casebeer has also built a home on Lime
street, which is presided over by his wife, for-
merly Mrs. Minnie A. (Lindsay) Henion, whom
he married in Los Angeles. She was born in
Cedar county, Iowa, a daughter of Calvin Lind-
say, who has been a resident of Long Beach
since 1901. Her first marriage was with Frank
Henion, who was accidentally killed on a rail-
road in Nebraska. Mr. and Mrs. Casebeer are
the parents of three children, Lloyd, Frank and
Raymond. Mr. Casebeer has been a member of
the Redmen since 1877, and is also associated
with the Modern Woodmen of America. He is
a Republican in his political affiliations.
JESSE GILLMORE. The first representa-
tives of the Gillmore family in America were
Robert Gillmore, his wife and four sons, who
were natives of Coleraine on the rugged shores
of Ireland and from there crossed the ocean
to Boston, August 14, 1718. The fact that
they settled at Londonderry, N. H., was per-
haps due to their having come from the coun-
ty of the same name in Ireland. Among the
four sons was James, whose son, Jonathan, a
native of New Hampshire, became a faithful
and brave soldier during the exciting period
of the Revolutionary struggle. Next in line
of descent from the Revolutionary soldier was
a son, Jonathan, Jr., who was born at Ira,
Vt., in 1779, was graduated from the Dart-
Imouth College in 1800, and later went south,
teaching school at Milledgeville, Ga., until the
outbreak of the second war with England.
During that conflict he served in the American
army and participated in the memorable bat-
tle of New Orleans under General Jackson.
At the close of the war he engaged in the
manufacture of brick at Covington, La., mak-
ing shipments to New Orleans in schoon-
ers. During 1828 he disposed of his interests
to his partner, J. R. Jones, and then settled in
New Orleans, but later removed to Vicks-
burg, Miss. The trip of twenty-one days be-
tween those two cities was made on the “Walk
in the Water,” which was the second steam
boat that plied on the Mississippi river and
was commanded by Capt. Henry S. Buckner.
Eventually he became one of the wealthiest
men of Vicksburg and remained a leading
citizen of that place until his death, in March,
1830. On the occasion of General Jackson's
visit to Vicksburg in 1837 it was his privi-
lege to meet and converse with the sturdy
soldier under whom he had fought at New
Orleans, and it was also the privilege of his
son, Jesse, then a boy of ten years, to shake
hands with the General. In March of 1841
the family removed to New Orleans, where
the following year the boy enjoyed seeing
Vſ artin Van Buren ; later he met Generals
Tavlor and Bragg, as well as other noted men
of days now gone by.
The marriage of Jonathan Gillmore, Jr.,
united him with Sarah McCay, who was born
in Dromore, Ireland, and died at New Or-
914
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
leans, La., in February of 1865. Her father,
Alexander McCay, was a linen manufacturer
of Dromore, and died there in 1838. The fam-
ily were Presbyterians in religious views and
she always remained faithful to the doctrines
of that denomination. Of her seven children
Jesse, who was fourth in order of birth, is the
sole survivor, and he was born in Covington,
La., June 9, 1827. At two years of age he
was taken to Vicksburg and in 184I accom-
panied the family to New Orleans, where he
became a clerk at No. 42 Royal street, with
McCay & Mossy, notaries. Later he entered
the office of a money broker, Joseph Grant,
with whom he remained two years, and then
returned to his former employers, later work-
ing for Lucien Hermann, a notary, after which
he acted as deputy sheriff of Jefferson parish.
In 1851 he was a member of the board of as-
sistant aldermen of New Orleans and one
year later he became a member of the board
of aſdermen, continuing as such for four years,
or until his removal from the city.
Removing to Texas in 1856 Mr. Gillmore
settled in Gonzales county, where he became
the owner of three ranches embracing a large
acreage. One of these tracts he devoted to
cattle, another was used for sheep, and the
third had a large herd of horses. He was op-
posed to the secession of the southern states,
but he did not leave the south until shortly
before the close of the struggle, and mean
while, from January, 1864, until October,
same year, he served as quartermaster at
Laredo, Tex., handling cotton for the govern-
ment. October 8, 1864, he sold his ranches
and later moved via New Orleans to the north,
arriving at New York City February 14, 1865.
From there he went to Philadelphia, where
he viewed the body of President Lincoln as it
lay in state. For two years he was a mem-
ber of the grain firm of Gillmore & McCay at
Philadelphia and afterwards entered the grain
business in Baltimore, where he remained
from 1869 to 1878. His next location was at
!daho Springs, Colo., where he engaged in
mining until the failure of his health neces-
sitated a change of climate. However, he
still retains various of his mining interests in
that locality.
On coming to San Diego in 1885, Mr. Gill-
more became interested in the real-estate busi-
ness and is still a member of the firm of Gill-
: more & Co., his partners being his two sons,
Collins and James. Since settling in San
Eiego he has acquired valuable property, both
business and residence, and has gained a repu-
tation for accurate knowledge of local prop-
erty values. Inmediately after his arrival in
San Diego he became a member of the Cham-
ber of Commerce and still retains identifica-
tion with that progressive organization. Dur-
ing his early manhood he was active in Ma-
sonry and the Independent Order of Odd Fel-
lows at New Orleans, but is now demitted
from both lodges. He has been twice married,
his first wife being Miss Virginia Ivy, who
was born in Norfolk, Va., and died in 1853 in
St. Martin parish, La., leaving an only child,
Ella V., now Mrs. Hulse, of San Diego. His
Second marriage was also solemnized in Lou-
isiana and united him with Miss Mary P. Col-
lins, who was born in that state and died in
San Diego August 1, 1901, 1eaving two sons,
now their father’s partners in the real-estate
lousiness. Though now advanced in years Mr.
Gillmore retains much of the energy and enter-
prise of youth. With a keen judgment rip-
ened by wide and varied experiences he unites
the progressive spirit and optimistic tempera-
ment of the successful man, while at the same
time by tact, genial disposition and unfailing
cheerfulness he has won the friendship of ac-
quaintances throughout the length and breadth
of the country. Many of his old friends have
now passed out of life’s activities, but he re-
mains a link between the past and the pres-
ent, between the old and the new, reminding
11s of the intelligent, capable and resourceful
men to whom our country is indebted for its
rise and progress.
&
EDMUND WESCOTT. One of the oldest
residents of Southern California and a man who
has done much to further the development of the
city of San Diego is Edmund Wescott, who has
made this city his home continuously since 1869.
The family dates its history in America back
to Colonial days “Post” Wescott having been a
messenger under General Washington during the
Revolutionary war, engaged in carrying com-
munications to and from the state department.
Edmund Wescott was born December 20, 1835,
in Gorham, Cumberland county, Me., the son
of Clement and Mary (Webb) Wescott, both of
whom were natives of Maine and spent all of
their days in that state, the father following the
occupation of farmer at Gorham. Mrs. Wescott
was the daughter of Seth Webb, a man of much
learning and a prominent judge. Of their fam-
ily of six sons, Edmund is the second in order
of birth; he learned the trade of bridge and wharf
building in Boston.
Stories of the wonderful opportunities of ac-
quiring wealth in the mines of California hav-
ing fired the imagination and ambition of Mr.
Wescott, in 1855 he started for this state, tak-
ing passage on the steamer Northern Light and
traveling via Nicaragua. Reaching San Fran-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
915
cisco February of the same year he at once en-
gaged in extensive mining operations in Califor-
nia, Nevada and British Columbia, continuing for
eleven years. During that time he carried on the
work by quartz, placer and hydraulic methods
as his mine required, and made and lost large
amounts of money as the leads proved rich or
poor. In 1866 he resolved to abandon mining
and again take up the trade of wharf and bridge
building. For the next three years he followed
this occupation in San Francisco, then came to
San Diego and filled the contract for building
the Jorris wharf. Later he repaired the Hor-
ton wharf and subsequently, when work in this
line became slack, established himself in the
trucking business, organizing the firm of Hobbs
& Wescott. Although he had various partners
at different times, he always remained at the
head of the business, and when on May 15, 1889,
he organized the Pioneer Truck Company of San
Diego, he became its president. He was at the
same time also manager of the Julian and Stone-
wall stage line.
On Christmas Day, 1869, Mr. Wescott was
united in marriage with Susanna Gillam, a native
of Arkansas, and they became the parents of five
children: Clement H. is a resident of San Diego;
Leona W., who is a graduate of the American
Medical Missionary College, became the wife of
G. R. Myers and resides in Mexico; Laura is a
graduate of the Normal school and a teacher
in Oakland; and Ella and Mary, who complete
the family, live at home. Mr. Wescott was made
a Mason in San Diego Lodge No. 35, F. & A. M.,
is also a member of San Diego Chapter, R.
A. M.; the Independent Order of Odd Fellows
and the Encampment; and is a member of the
Society of San Diego Pioneers. Politically he is
an adherent of the principles embraced in the
platform of the Republican party, and in all
matters of social and civic interest he lends his
Support.
FRANK O. POTTER. Only a very few of
the men now prominent in the agricultural activ-
ities of the Spencer valley can claim this vicinity
as the place of their birth, and one of these few
is Mr. Potter, who was born at Julian in 1871;
however, although a native of this locality, he
has not passed his life within the same environ-
ment, but on the other hand has traveled ex-
tensively and been employed in different local-
ities. At this writing he is the owner of two
hundred acres of land, of which one hundred and
sixty acres are in hay and forty acres recently
have been planted in an orchard of the different
varieties of apples. The farm is well adapted to
apple raising and it is the owner's intention to
make a specialty of that industry.
The father of Mr. Potter was a pioneer of the
southwest. Stephen L. Potter (such was his
name) was born in New York state and while
still quite young engaged in driving stage coaches
through Illinois, Iowa, Arizona, Montana, Utah
and New Mexico, in the course of which work
he had many encounters with the Indians and
numerous narrow escapes. During those days
of frontier existence he was accustomed to carry
both passengers and the government mail, and
he performed his responsible duties in the face
of many hardships, yet with unflinching courage
and the utmost fearlessness. As early as 1856
he came to San Diego county and here married
Mary E. Bush, a native of Iowa. Her father, I.
H. Bush, at One time owned and operated a store
at the Cascades in Oregon, but during the In-
dian troubles the store was burned to the ground
by the red men, and at the same time a large
hotel that he owned was entirely destroyed.
Seven children comprised the family of
Stephen L. and Mary Potter, but only three now
survive, namely: Frank O. and Charles W.,
living near Julian; and Hattie M., wife of J. W.
Smith, of Paso Robles, this state. Mr. Potter
engaged in raising Stock in San Diego county
and also owned various mining interests. In
addition he drove the first stage between San
Diego and Julian. During 1868 he established
his home at Julian and took up a tract of raw
land near the village. After many years on the
ranch in 1883 he removed to Florida and re-
mained there until 1899, when he returned to
San Diego county an invalid, suffering from a
stroke of paralysis. From that time he was
practically unable to engage in work of any kind
but lived in retirement until his death, which
occurred in Spencer valley March 15, 1903, at
the age of Seventy-four years. His wife survives
him and is physically and mentally active, not-
withstanding her sixty-one years of useful activ-
1tv.
Their son, Frank O., was eighteen years of
age when he left Julian and secured employment
with a contractor and builder in Los Angeles,
where he remained for two years. Next he went
to Florida and became a clerk in a general store
at Leroy, Marion county. A year later he se-
cured work on the railroad, starting in as brake-
man and working his way, in the course of nine
months, to the charge of a mail and passenger
train. For five years he continued on the rail-
road and then resigned to return to San Diego
county, where he took up agricultural pursuits.
In 1906 he purchased a mercantile business in
Julian and intends carrying a full line of general
merchandise. During President Roosevelt's ad-
ministration, in August, 1906, he was appointed
postmaster.
On Christmas day of 1892 Mr. Potter was
916
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
united in marriage with Miss Fannie Proctor, a
native of Florida and a member of the Baptist
Church. Four children were born of their union
but two, Dorothy and Charles, died in infancy.
Hazel Mary, born January 20, 1898, is a pupil
in the local schools; and the only Son, Kenneth
Frank, was born in April, 1906. Fraternally Mr.
Potter holds membership with Court Julian-Ban-
ner No. 8522, Ancient Order of Foresters, at
Julian, in the work of which he has been warmly
interested. Though not prominent in local pol-
itics, he holds stanchly to Republican views and
always supports that party with his ballot.
GEORGE A. BLAKESLEE. A pioneer of
California, George A. Blakeslee has experienced
the hardships and privations incident to life in
a new country, which have brought out the
salient points of his character, and through it all
he has retained a spirit of youth and enthusiasm
that makes him an interesting and entertaining
companion. Although eighty-five years old he can
read readily without the use of glasses and can
still write a good hand. He is well read and
posted upon the present day topics and takes
the keenest interest in the affairs of his adopted
State. *
Born in Delaware county, N. Y., in the town
of Franklin, September 8, 1821, Mr. Blakeslee
was a son of Orator Blakeslee, a native of
Connecticut, and Harsey (Kingsley) Blakeslee,
a native of New York. They were married in
Delaware county, N. Y., and later in life removed
to Cleveland, Ohio, the death of the father Oc-
curring in Hudson at the age of seventy-eight
years, while the mother died at the age of sixty-
nine years. The elder Mr. Blakeslee engaged in
farming throughout his entire life. He was a
Whig in politics and later espoused the principles
of the Republican party. In religion he was a
member of the Presbyterian Church. George A.
Blakeslee was thirteen years old when he was
taken by his parents to Ohio, the journey being
made by the Erie canal to Buffalo and thence
by steamer to Detroit, near which city his father
owned two hundred acres of land. After re-
maining in that city for a short time they went.
to Cleveland, Ohio, where, adjoining the city
the father purchased fifty acres of land. Later
they located in Claridon, Geauge county, (thirty
miles east of Cleveland) for the educational ad-
vantages, and in the schools of that place George
A. Blakeslee received his education. May 2,
1843, he married Diana Howell, who was born
in Huntsburg, that county, the daughter of John
Howell, a pioneer of Ohio, who came from his
native state of New York on an ox sled. He
was a patriot in the war of 1812 and later re-
ceived a pension.
After his marriage Mr. Blakeslee made his
home in Ohio until 1850, when he removed to
Illinois and in the town of Henry, Marshall
county, established his interests as a nurseryman.
At the same time he was also engaged in a mer-
cantile enterprise. Going to Texas in 1857, he
spent one year there, after which he came to
California via the Isthmus of Panama, landing in
San Francisco in March, 1858. The diary busi-
ness in the vicinity of Sacramento engaged his
attention for about a year, when he went to the
mines in Placer county and spent a like period.
Returning to Sacramento at the end of that time
he engaged in the raising of vegetables, even-
tually disposing of these interests and following
ranching in San Luis Obispo county for three
years. He next lived in Ventura county for
about three years engaging in grain raising on
the Lagoona ranch. In June, 1875, he came to
Los Angeles county, and after spending one year
in that city he rented a ranch near Graham,
where he made his home for six years. In 1882
he purchased his present ranch, which consisted
then of five acres, although he owns but two and
one half at the present time.
Mr. Blakeslee's wife died May 4, 1892, at the
age of eighty-one years and ten days, after forty-
nine years and two days of married life. She
was a member of the Christian Church, a woman
of rare worth and character, a devoted mother,
wife and friend. They were the parents of two
children, namely: Carey M., who married Liz-
zie Russell and had two children, his death.
occurring in 1889, at the age of forty-three
years; and Julia, who married Thomas Dick-
erson and has three sons living and one deceased.
One of her sons is in the employ of the quarter-
master of the station of Manila, Philippine
Islands. Mr. Blakeslee is a Republican in roºi-
tics, having cast his first vote for Henry Clay,
in 1844. He served as justice of the peace of
Solano county, Cal. Fraternally he is a mem-
ber of a Masonic Lodge of Los Angeles and has
been a Master Mason for fifty-seven years.
THOMAS F. CURTIS. As proprietor of
the Oxnard foundry Thomas F. Curtis is demon-
strating the fact that the man who is thoroughly
experienced in the practical work of a business
in which he is engaged makes the best manager.
Mr. Curtis is a native of England, his birth
having occurred March 16, 1867, in London.
His father Thomas, was born at Cornwall, where
he engaged in the blacksmith business for many
year, his death taking place in London when
the son, Thomas F., was but six years of age.
His mother is a native of London, where she
is still living. Of the family of four children
Mr. Curtis was the oldest and the only son. He
Gºv.
or
ºncº:

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
919
attended the common schools of Sutton, Surrey,
England, for seven years after his father's death,
and when thirteen became an apprentice at the
moulder's trade under his uncle, John Curtis, at
St. Agnes, Cornwall. After working there for
Seven and a half years Mr. Curtis decided to
come to America and upon his arrival at Trenton,
N. J., accepted a position with the Trenton Lock
and Hardware Company, holding it for two
years. In the Spring of 1900 he crossed the con-
tinent and entered the employ of the Union Iron
Works at San Francisco as a moulder. His
splendid workmanship was soon recognized and
his employers made him foreman of the core
department, which position he occupied eight
years out of the ten he spent with that company.
He handled many important assignments and
worked on all the big battleships built during
that time. From San Francisco he went to
Santa Barbara, where he had charge of the L.
D. Gates foundry for a term of four years. In
I905 he came to Oxnard and became superin-
tendent of the foundry for the Oxnard Foundry
and Iron Works Company, and in June, 1906,
leased the plant and has since been engaged in the
manufacture of agricultural machinery, meeting
with flattering success.
Mr. Curtis was married in San Francisco to
Miss Maggie M. Hand, a native of Carrickma-
cross, Monaghan county, Ireland, and they have
become the parents of three children, Marie,
Alice and Bessie, Fraternally Mr. Curtis is
affiliated with the Woodmen of the World and in
national politics he is an ardent supporter of
the Republican party. He enjoys a reputation
as a man of exceptional ability in his work and
strict honesty and integrity and has a large num-
ber of friends throughout the state, who hold
him in the highest esteem.
JOHN HOHLBAUCH. The foundation of
the civilization of the west has been laid for the
greater part by men who have come here poor
in worldly goods, but who were rich in such
Old-time possessions as perseverance, honesty and
well-defined ambition. Such in brief is the his-
tory of Mr. Hohlbauch, an early settler in the
State, who has weathered many discouragements
and has reached a high goal of success, becom-
ing not only highly honored in his community,
but is the owner of a productive ranch in close
proximity to Wilmington. Mr. Hohlbauch is of
German birth and parentage, born in Wittenberg
April 23, 1847, a Son of Frederick and Margaret
(Griner) Hohlbauch. Both of the parents pass-
ed their entire lives in their native land, the
father dying there in February, 1901, when in
his eighty-ninth year, and the mother in 1857,
at which time her son John was a lad of ten
years.
Until fourteen years old John Hohlbauch was
a pupil in the public Schools of Wittenberg, and
from then until sixteen years of age he worked
as a farm hand. The two years following were
spent in learning and working at the weaver's
trade, but he later resumed farming and fol-
lowed this for four years, or until embarking for
the United States in 1868. The ship on which
he sailed cast anchor in the New York harbor
August I of that year, and instead of lingering
in the east he went at once to Illinois, where he
was fortunate in securing work on a farm. Dur-
ing the five years which he spent in that state .
he made rapid strides in mastering the English
language and also laid by enough of his earnings
to enable him to make the trip to California in
the fall of 1873. Instead of locating permanently
until he had had an opportunity to look about
the country he worked as a laborer in Ventura
county for three years, during which time he
had become deeply interested in Los Angeles
county as a place of residence. Suiting the ac-
tion to the word he came here in 1876 and pur-
chased forty acres of land in close proximity to
Wilmington, a tract which at that time was de-
voted to a sheep pasture. Comparing its former
condition with the up-to-date ranch which now
greets the eye of the passerby speaks more elo-
quently than can words of the indomitable energy
and perseverence of the owner. All of the im-
provements are his handiwork, from the fine res-
idence which the family now occupies to the
orange grove and fruit orchard which are a
source of considerable profit to the owner. About
1887 he set out a grape vine on his ranch which
has since grown to such luxuriance that it is
considered one of the wonders of this part of
the country. Under the arbor of this spreading
vine Mr. and Mrs. Hohlbauch celebrated their
twenty-fifth wedding anniversary May 30, 1905,
at which time friends and relatives united in
wishing them many years of health and pros-
perity, closing the festivities by sitting down
to a sumptuous dinner under the spreading vine.
The lady who became the wife of Mr. Hohl-
bauch May 30, 1880, was known in maiden-
hood as Mary Younghaus, a native of Michigan
and a daughter of Carl and Minnie (Polles)
Younghaus. Upon coming from Germany to
the United States Mr. and Mrs. Younghaus first
located in St. Clair county, Mich., but finally, in
1877, came to Los Angeles county, Cal., and lo-
cated on a ranch directly adjoining Mr. Hohl-
bauch. It was on this ranch that Mr. Young-
haus died October 28, 1899, when seventy-seven
vears of age. His widow is still living, making
her home in Los Angeles, at the age of seventy-
three years. The family of Mr. and Mrs. Hohl-
49
920
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
bauch originally comprised eight children, but
the two eldest, Samuel and Rose, are both de-
ceased. The former died at the age of thir-
teen years and ten months, meeting an accidental
death while hunting; the latter, who was the
wife of Leslie Scrivens, died February 5, 1900,
when nineteen years of age. Those still living
are named in order of birth as follows: George,
Sadie, (the wife of Clarence Mowers, of San
Pedro), Mabel, Freda, John H. and Wilfred C.
E. The family are members of the German
Methodist Episcopal Church, of which Mr. Hohl-
bach has been a trustee for the past twenty years.
He is also a trustee of the Lincoln high school.
Ever since becoming a voter he has been a be-
liever in and supporter of Republican principles,
but has never been a seeker after office or the
emoluments of party favors. Mr. Hohlbauch is
jovial and companionable, approachable when
his financial support is desired for charitable or
other worthy causes, and throughout the town
and county counts his friends by the score.
JOHN WILKINSON BUCKLEY. Fore-
man of the yards of the San Pedro Lumber Com-
pany and a man of exceptional business ability,
John Wilkinson Buckley has made for himself
a place in both the industrial and municipal life
of this city, where he has been located since
1887. He is a native son of California, his birth
having occurred in Martinez, Contra Costa
county, November 1, 1864. His father, W. H.
Buckley, was a native of Rochester, N. Y., and
as early as 1847 he became interested in the
prospects held out by the new Pacific country
and accordingly he came to California by way of
the Isthmus of Panama. In San Francisco he
established a hotel, which was conducted in a
shack, the only buildings the city then afforded.
Later he went to Martinez and conducted the
Union hotel until 1865, when he was burned out.
He then became wharfinger, a position which
he held until his death, which occurred in 1903.
His wife, formerly Mary Wilkinson, was born
in County Wexford, Ireland, and still survives,
making her home in Martinez. Of the nine
children born to them five are now living, the
third in order of birth being John Wilkinson
Buckley.
Reared in Martinez, John Wilkinson Buckley
received his education in the public Schools of
that place, after which he began ranch work in
Contra Costa county. After four or five years
he went to San Francisco and engaged as con-
ductor on the Sutter street cable line, where he
remained for four years. In March, 1887, he
entered the employ of the San Pedro Lumber
Company, of San Pedro, under the management
of Mr. Reynolds, beginning at the foot of the
ladder in that line, and by energy, ability and
perseverance winning promotion. He held the
various positions which lay between him and
the foremanship, in 1895 attaining the latter,
a position which he has since filled with ef-
ficiency. Since his location here he married
Anna Ott, a native daughter of Antioch, Contra
Costa county, whose father was an early pioneer
of that section, and their home at No. 125 Ori-
zaba street is now brightened by the presence
of two children, Lillian and Henry. Mr. Buck-
ley has taken a keen interest in the growth and
development of his adopted city and in his ef-
forts has displayed an intelligence and devotion
to the general welfare which have led to his
election as a member of the board of trustees in
1896, during the term of nearly four years
which followed serving as president. He is a
stanch Republican politically and has served as
a member of the county central committee. Fra-
ternally he is a member of San Pedro Lodge No.
332, F. & A. M., where he was initiated into
the order; the Independent Order of Odd Fel-
lows, the Knights of Pythias, and Royal Ar-
canum, being a past officer in the three latter, and
both himself and wife are associated with the
Rebekahs.
OR AMEL WILCOX. In spite of the fact
that his service in the cause of the Union ren-
dered him more or less of an invalid, Oramel Wil-
cox has still made the best of his life, retaining
an active and practical interest in affairs, Opti-
mistic in his outlook upon the world, always
hoping for the best and working for it to the
best of his ability. That he has made a success
is not a matter of wonder to those who know
him, for the influence of his high character, his
strong personality, invariably impresses itself up-
on even a casual acquaintance.
Mr. Wilcox has inherited through a long line
of New England ancestors those qualities which
have distinguished him in his career. The im-
migrating ancestor of the family located in Con-
necticut, the succeeding generation remaining in
that state, where was born Silas, the paternal
grandfather of Mr. Wilcox. He engaged in farm-
ing for the greater part of his life, being located,
however in various states, removing from Con-
1necticult to Vermont, Massachusetts, thence to
New Hampshire, and finally to Wisconsin, where
his death occurred. In addition to his farm-
ing interests he was engaged as a shoe mer-
chant, He married Elizabeth Stevens, whose
paternal grandfather served in both the French
and Indian and Revolutionary wars; Mr. Wil-
cox was himself a participant in the war of 1812.
The father of Mr. Wilcox, Manley M., was born
in Vermont in 1812 and in young manhood en-
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
92I
gaged in farming in New Hampshire. He mar-
ried Mabel Norton, a native of Connecticut and
a daughter of Daniel Norton, who was a miller
by trade, as was also his father. In 1844 Mr.
Wilcox and his wife started for Wisconsin, then
the remote west in the eyes of New England
folk, and after one year of journeying they lo-
cated in Rock county, five miles from Janesville.
There their united efforts resulted in the im–
provement and development of a farm, upon
which they spent the remainder of their lives,
the death of both occurring in 1894, just one
year short of the half century spent in the state
of their adoption. Mr. Wilcox was a man of
deep principle, progressive in mind and method,
and to him is owed much of the development
along educational lines in his community. He
reared a family of two children, both of whom.
inherited the patriotic principles of their fore-
fathers, Henry, who died in Wisconsin in ma-
ture manhood, having enlisted twice for service
in the Civil war, first in the Thirteenth Regiment
Wisconsin Infantry, and later in the Forty-sec-
ond Regiment Wisconsin Infantry.
Oramel Wilcox was born August 31, 1842, in
Orford, Grafton county, N. H. At about two
years of age he was brought by his parents to
Wisconsin, where he grew to manhood's estate.
Although a boy in years, the first tap of the drum
was followed by his enlistment in Company D,
Second Regiment Wisconsin Infantry, being
mustered in at Madison. The close of the three
months' service for which the first enlistments
were made found a call for three hundred thou-
sand volunteers, and with the exception of a com-
pany of students from Beloit every member of the
regiment responded again to the demand for
men. The disbanded company was filled by the
Wisconsin Rifles from Milwaukee under Capt.
Jack Langworthy, the regiment then being or-
dered to Washington—the first three-year regi-
ment to arrive in that city and march to the
front. The exciting events of the war followed
fast upon this order, and during the first battle
of Bull R11n Mr. Wilcox was wounded in the
head by a musket ball, and was left on the battle-
field for dead. He recovered, however, and was
taken prisoner by the Confederate forces, being
in prison for three hundred and seventeen days
in the cities of Richmond, Tuscaloosa, Ala., and
Salisbury, N. C., suffering all the horrors of a
southern incarceration. June 2, 1862, he was re-
leased on parole and immediately returned to
Wisconsin via New York. A few days after his
return home he suffered a paralytic stroke and
was later honorably discharged from service be-
cause of physical disability. Although an in-
valid for the greater part of the time he located
in Janesville and engaged as a tobacconist, soon
afterward removing to Eau Claire. Returning to
Janesville in 1884 he passed the ensuing two
years in that city and came to Southern Cali-
fornia, where he engaged in buying and Selling
property, establishing his home in Pomona. In
1903 he came to Long Beach and has since speeu-
1ated in real estate in this city, aiding materially
in the development by the erection of a number
of houses. -
In Harmony, Wis., Mr. Wilcox married Miss
Louisa Cary, a native of New York; her father,
Rev. Richard M. Cary, was a native of Massa-
chusetts and a soldier in the war of 1812, be-
coming a pioneer in Harmony, Wis., where he
engaged in the Baptist ministry. His wife, for-
merly Susan Rice, was also the representative of
a New England family. Mrs. Wilcox is a Bap-
tist in religion and a member of the Woman's
Relief Corps. Mr. Wilcox joined the Grand
Army of the Republic in Janesville, Wis., be-
came a member of Vicksburg Post No. 61, of
Pomona, and now belongs to Long Beach Post
No. 181. Ever since casting his first vote for
Abraham Lincoln, he has adhered strictly to the
principles embraced in the platform of the Re-
publican party. The sterling traits of character
as evidenced throughout the life of Mr. Wilcox,
have won for him a high regard among the citi-
zens of whatever community he has made his
home. He is broadly informed on all topics of
the day, can be counted upon to further any en-
terprise calculated to advance the general inter-
ests, and taken all in all is a citizen worthy the
1121]] (e.
EDWARD WINEMAN. Too much cannot
be said in praise of the energy and resource
which have accompanied the honored name and
wise intent of Edward Wineman from his early
home on the Rhine through various stages of
progress, to his present position as one of the
most prosperous, sturdy, honored and public-
spirited German-American ranchers of San Luis
Obispo county. Though for several years past
Mr. Wineman has devoted his five thousand acre
ranch to grain and cattle, he formerly promoted
One of the chief specialties of the state, that
of sheep raising, to which he devoted twenty-
nine years, and which netted him the bulk of his
present substantial fortune.
In Bavaria, the second largest and most
southerly independent principality of Germany,
Mr. Wineman was born on a farm August 20,
I842. His parents were Ernest and Catherine
(Tiefle) Wineman, both of whom died in their
native land in 1865, and one of whose three sons
still lives in Germany. A break in the family
circle occurred when Edward Wineman de-
parted for American shores, the possessor of
slight means beyond his transportation expenses,
922 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
but rich in strength of character, determination
and common sense. In New York state he
found employment which taxed his physical
rather than mental powers, but though his wages
were small, he saved sufficient money to satisfy
the craving for a home of his own which visits
the heart of every loyal son of the Fatherland.
His wife, formerly was Catherine Bingold,
a daughter of George and Margaret (Walfel)
Bingold, who were the parents of seven children,
and who lived respectively to the ages of seventy-
six and fifty-one.
During the latter '60s Mr. Wineman came to
California with his wife, and after various ex-
periences covering three years, embarked in the
sheep business, for which the vast stretches of
unobstructed and unclaimed range offered un-
paralleled opportunity. In 1879 he guided his
band of sheep to San Luis Obispo county, where
he rented the old Nipomo ranch, of which, two
years later, he purchased a small part. To sheep
raising he gave the best thought of his brain, as
well as the best years of his life and succeeded
in circumventing many of the hindrances to the
uniform success of the business which have agi-
tated breeders for years. A steady increase of his
flocks necessitated frequent additions to his ter-
ritory until his visible assets included five thous-
and acres of land and many hundred sheep. In
connection with sheep raising he necessarily in-
vested some time and money in supplementary
agriculture, raising those dry sod crops which
himself and others had thoroughly tested for
feeding purposes in times of drought. The ab-
sorption of the ranges into private ranches for
years has limited the possibilities of extensive
sheep raising.
sessions and knowledge of how to care econom-
ically for his herds, enabled him to remain in-
definitely in the business. The year 1899, how-
ever, witnessed the sale of the last of his sheep,
and the adoption of more varied agricultural pur-
suits. In the season, acres of yellow grain
stretch into the distance and upon the mesas
roam the finest breeds of cattle in the state,
Residence, barns, outhouses and general improve-
ments bespeak the manager of intelligence, fore-
thought and practical ideas, the generous pro-
vider, yet withal the economist.
Mr. Wineman subscribes to the principles of the
Republican party, but limits his active interest
to the casting of his vote. He is a member of
the Catholic Church. Mr. and Mrs. Wineman
are the parents of nine children: John, a
rancher in this valley, who married Mary
Schlege1, and has four children: Julia, the wife
of Louis Bell, of Portland, Ore. : Hannah :
George: Edward: Mary; Ernest; Erhart, and
Benjamin. Mr. Wineman presents an encour-
aging example of what may be accomplished by
Mr. Wineman's large landed pos-
making the best of practical abilities and oppor-
tunities. He is one of the foremost ranchers in
a community where competition is keen and
wealth by no means unusual, to which he came
empty-handed, yet in whose noblest citizenship
and unexampled prosperity he has become a lib-
eral participant.
HARVEY FARRINGTON ANDREWS.
Probably no name was better known in the
New England and other eastern states during
the early history of this country than that of
Andrews, for it is known beyond a doubt that
at least eight generations lived and flourished
in that locality. The first ancestor of whom
we have authoritative knowledge was Richard
Andrews, who immigrated to the new world
and made settlement in Massachusetts. His
son, William, established the first of the name
in Connecticut, and from him the family is
traced in direct line down to our subject
through Thomas, Samuel, Zephaniah, Phile-
1non and Wilson. The grandfather, Philemon,
was born in East Haddam, Conn., June 30,
1761, and during young manhood was married
to Phylinda Wilson. Among the children who
comprised their family was Wilson, who was
born in Lamston, Vt., December 30, 1788, and
throughout his life he followed the peaceful
calling of the agriculturist, first in Vermont,
later in Canada, and finally in New York state,
where his death occurred. Of his first mar-
riage five children were born, and of his mar-
riage with Malinda Hulburt two children were
added to the family, of whom Harvey F. was
the youngest. Mrs. Andrews was born in Pom-
pey, N. Y., a daughter of Jabez Hulburt, a
farmer, and passed away in Iowa, having Sur-
vived her husband a number of years.
On his father's farm in Chautauqua county,
N. Y., Harvey F. Andrews was born March 9,
1840, and all of his boyhood and school life
was associated with that part of the east. The
opening of the Civil war found him a stalwart
young man of twenty-one years, who entered
heart and soul into the service of his country,
being mustered in at Albany in 1861 as a mem-
ber of Company I, Ninth New York Cavalry.
He was under orders from General McClellan
for three years or the term of his enlistment,
and at the end of that time was mustered out at
Washington, in 1863. His military service over,
he went to Westfield, Chautauqua county, and
learned the woolen mill business, and some
time later became part owner in a mill in War-
ren, Pa., retaining his interest therein for six
years. Severing his connections with the east
which had been the home of his forefathers for
so many generations, in 1871 he removed to In-
JOSE A. MACHADO

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 925
dependence, Buchanan county, Iowa, and for
about eleven years was identified with the com-
mercial life of that city, owning a general mer-
chandise store there and also carrying on a
farm. In 1882 he transferred his interests to
the adjoining State on the north, purchasing a
farm near Dodge Center, Dodge county, Minn.,
upon which he made a specialty of raising grain
and stock-raising for twelve years. As will be
noted, each change of residence brought him
further west, and the year 1894 found him in
Pomona, Cal., where he still continues his in-
terest in agriculture, modifying his specialty in
this line, however, to suit the climate and con-
ditions. In addition to the fine walnut grove
which he set out on South Ellen street he also
has a thirty-five acre ranch devoted to the rais-
ing of alfalfa.
The family home at the corner of Fifth and
Gordon streets is presided over by Mrs. An-
drews, who like himself was born in Chautau-
qua county, N. Y. Before her marriage she
was Calista Arnold, a daughter of Thomas Ar-
nold, who throughout his life was a farmer,
first in New York state, and later near Dodge
Center, Minn., where he died. Mrs. Andrew’s
mother, formerly Roxey Barnes, was also born
in Chautauqua county, the daughter of James
Barnes, a farmer in that county, and a partici-
pant in the war of 1812. Grandfather Arnold
was also a soldier in that conflict with the
mother country, and he it was who first repre-
sented the family in the Empire state, remov-
ing thither from Massachusetts, where the
name had been established for many years.
Three children wete born to Mr. and Mrs. An-
drews. Maude, who is now the wife of Herbert
Howeth, of Los Angeles, and two children who
died in early childhood. In memory of the days
spent on the field of battle Mr. Andrews is a
member of Vicksburg Post, G. A. R., at Po-
mona. In national politics he is a Republican.
He is an own cousin to Rufus Andrews, who
was surveyor of the port of New York under
President Lincoln. Mrs. Andrews is a woman
of many excellent qualities of both mind and
heart, and shares with her husband the esteem
and good-will of innumerable friends.
JOSE ANTONIO MACHADO. The family
of Machado was identified with the early history
of Los Angeles county, where two brothers,
Ygnacio and Augustin, selected ranch lands dur-
ing the era of Mexican supremacy. The capi-
tal of the state was then located at Monterey,
and thither the brothers proceeded in order to
secure the necessary papers entitling them to the
ownership of the land. However, not having
attained their majority as yet, it was impossible
for the grant to be made directly to them, and the
governor advised them to enlist the aid of some
trusted friend, by whom the grant might be
held until they attained the legal age. Acting
upon this suggestion they secured an ally in a
warm friend, Felipe Falamantes, to whom the
governor gave a grant to fifteen thousand acres
known as La Ballona rancho, bounded on the
north by Rincon de los Buey, on the east by
La Centinela rancho (now Inglewood), on the
South by the Ocean, and the west by San Vicen-
tes and Buenos Ayres ranchos. These tracts
were and still are very fertile and the grant
given to them commands $500 and upward per
acre at the present day. When the brothers
arrived at their majority the grant was divided
into three parts, they and their friend each re-
ceiving one-third of the rancho.
The brothers were partners in their ranch en-
terprises and in their real-estate investments
in Los Angeles. On the present site of the
Grand Opera house they owned two acres en-
closed by an adobe wall and containing the adobe
buildings common to that day and locality. At
this place Ygnacio's son, Jose Antonio, was born
June 13, 1839. After a time the two-acre home-
stead was sold and one hundred acres were pur-
chased to be utilized in the raising of berries.
All of the later tract is now within the city
limits and includes the site of the Arcade depot.
In addition to their lands, the brothers owned
large herds of cattle and were among the most
influential and prosperous of the Spanish-Ameri-
can citizens. However, at different times they
were forced to face misfortunes. With the
accommodating spirit characteristic of him,
Ygnacio endorsed a friend's note and later was
forced to pay the amount; in order to raise the
funds he sold large tracts of his ranch land.
Similar experiences befell his son, Jose Antonio,
who in later years had to pay $30,000 or more,
endorsed for friends and relatives, with the same
spirit of practical helpfulness and self-sacrifice
characteristic of his father, and with the same
forgetfulness of personal needs.
In the city of Los Angeles occurred the death
of Augustin Machado at the age of about eighty
years. Ygnacio died on the ranch at the age
of eighty-four years and ten months, leaving
to his son, Jose Antonio, who had cared for him
in his last years, the home place of nine hundred
acres, together with seven thousand head of
sheep, fifty head of horses and one hundred cattle.
There were seven other children in the family,
namely: Andres, Maria, Francisco, Rafael, Luisa,
Cristobal and Birsabe, to each of whom a ranch
was given by their father. The mother, Este-
fana Palomares de Machado, was born in Los
Angeles, the daughter of a Spaniard who early
settled here and became an influential factor
926
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
among others of the same race. All through
her life she was a devout Roman Catholic and in
that faith she passed from earth at the age of
Seventy-nine years.
When the family came from Los Angeles to
their ranch Jose Antonio, the youngest of the
children, was seventeen years of age. The older
children established homes of their own, but
he remained at home, caring for his parents
until they died. In 1880 he was united in mar-
riage with Miss Manula Valenzuela, daughter of
Ramon Valenzuela of Los Angeles, where she
was born and reared. At her death in 1895,
when fifty-two years of age, she left six children,
three sons and three daughters, named as fol-
lows: Antonio, Cristobal, Ygnacio,
Adela and Estefana, all residing with their
father on the homestead near Palms. While Mr.
Machado always prefers the use of the Spanish
language, he understands English, and all of his
children have been well educated and have a
ready command of both languages. The city
of his birth and the county where all of his
years have been passed hold a high place in his
affection, and no other section of country could
long entice him from their charms. His landed
possessions have greatly increased in value dur-
ing the past decade. Recently he sold one hun-
dred acres of the high land for $300 per acre, but
he still has six hundred acres in the vicinity of
Palms, Venice and Santa Monica. An offer of
$1500 per acre for sixty-seven acres adjoining
Venice he refused, believing that the land
merited an amount double that of the offer.
Industrious, resourceful and energetic he abun-
dantly merits the high position which he
holds among his associates. Though his life
has been one of strenuous activity, he is well-
preserved mentally and physically, and im-
presses a stranger as being scarcely more than
fifty years of age. Time has not left its imprints
of care upon his brow nor dulled the generous
instincts of his heart. Now, as in the years of
youth, he has ready response for the worthy ap-
peal and a word of encouragement for the toil-
ing struggler along life's rough pathway.
M. L. MONTGOMERY. Occupying a con-
spicuous position among the foremost business
men of Simi is M. L. Montgomery, who is car-
rying on a large and substantial mercantile trade,
and is also actively identified with the agricult-
ural and industrial interests of this section of
the state. A man of energy and enterprise,
practical and progressive, he is well fitted by
iirth, education and natural talents for the hon-
ored place which he has attained among his fel-
low-men, while his faithfulness in all his duties
and his excellent good sense in all matters of
Manula,
business have caused him to be highly respected
in this and surrounding towns. A son of Will-
iam Montgomery, he was born, January 19, 1854,
in Cedar county, Mo.
Born and reared in Tennessee, William Mont-
gomery left there in 1844, going to Cedar coun-
ty, Mo., where he cleared and improved a home-
stead, on which he was profitably employed in
general farming, fruit growing and stock-rais-
ing until his death, June II, 1887, at the age
of seventy-five years. Public-spirited, capable
and influential, he was very active in town and
county, Serving as county sheriff and tax col-
lector for a number of terms, and filling various
offices of minor importance. In his earlier life
he was a Whig, but later was identified with
the Democratic party, and was a stanch Union
man, during the Civil war having four sons in
the Union army. Three of his sons are now liv-
ing in California, one being engaged in ranch-
ing in the northern part of the state; M. L., the
subject of this sketch, residing in Simi; and
W. C. Montgomery being employed in the United
States mint at San Francisco. The latter as
captain of a United States battery during the
Civil war took part in many severe engagements,
and at Pilot Knob, with but six hundred men
under his command, repulsed Price, who with
twenty thousand Confederate soldiers left in the
night, being pursued for several days. William
Montgomery married Elizabeth Mitchell, who
was born in Tennessee, and died in Missouri
in 1880, aged seventy-seven years. She bore
him thirteen children, all but one of whom grew
to years of maturity and were married.
Inclined from his earliest years to scholarly
pursuits, M. L. Montgomery was given excel-
lent advantages, after leaving the public schools
attending Morrisville College, in Polk county,
and Pritchett's Institute, making a special study
of the natural sciences. Subsequently, after
taking a post-graduate course in astronomy and
the higher mathematics, he entered upon a pro-
fessional career, teaching two years in the pub-
lic schools of Greene county, six years in Neosho,
and two years in Stockton, Mo. Leaving his
native state in 1889, he located near Ventura,
Cal., on December 6, and immediately embarked
in agricultural pursuits, for two years being
employed in bean raising and dairying. Moving
to Simi in 1891, he bought eighty acres of land,
and has since continued his free and indepen-
dent occupation, carrying on general farming
scientifically and successfully. In addition to
managing his own ranch for thirteen years he
leased from Senator Bard thirteen hundred acres
of land which he devoted to grain-raising, be-
sides which he devoted other land to the raising
and breeding of stock, a line of industry in
which he became especially noted. In 1894 he
2%. 2%zoº M%ac/ad

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
929
established himself as a general merchant, car-
rying on a large variety store as well as his
ranch, and in mercantile pursuits and agricult-
ural labors has been equally successful. He has
acquired some means and distinction, and is a
leading and influential citizen. On December I,
I904, he opened his present store in Simi, and
the management of this in connection with the
care of his two hundred and twenty-five acres
of grain land, vineyard and orchard, keeps him
busily employed. He has likewise other prop-
erty of value, Owning a nice residence in Los
Angeles, on Jefferson street.
June 12, 1883, Mr. Montgomery married Lo-
rena V. Lloyd, a native of Nebraska City, Neb.,
and of their union six children have been born,
the eldest of whom died in childhood, while
five are living, namely: Eugenia, aged twenty
years; Wayne, nineteen years; Lorena, fifteen
years old ; Laurance, aged ten years; and Ber-
enice, eight years old. Politically Mr. Mont-
gomery is one of the leading members of the
Democratic party, which nominated him for as-
semblyman recently. At one time he affiliated
with Oxnard Lodge No. 341, F. & A. M. Re-
ligiously he is a member of the Methodist Epis-
copal Church South.
JOSE JUAN MACHADO. One of the old
and honored Spanish families of Los Angeles
county is represented by Jose Juan Machado, who
owns and occupies a small ranch near Palms.
Mention of the family history appears more fully
in the sketch of his brother, Dolores, presented
on another page of this volume; also in the
sketches of other members of the family repre-
sented herein, and to these articles the reader
is referred for facts in connection with the early
history of the family in California. Suffice it
to say in this connection that two brothers,
Augustin and Ygnacio Machado, at One time
owned fifteen thousand acres embracing what
was known as La Ballona grant, and on these
broad acres they ranged their stock at will. The
children of the former received equal shares of
his part of the estate and a small part of the
original grant still remains in possession of
descendants.
In the city of Los Angeles Jose Juan Machado
was born July 24, 1848, and during boyhood he
removed with his father, Augustin, to the ranch
where the years of his youth were uneventfully
passed. On attaining his majority he received
from his father a portion of the land and at
once began the improvement and cultivation of
the property, which remains in his possession
to the present day. Included in his holdings
may be mentioned his homestead of nine acres
of valuable land, also sixty-two and one-half
acres situated two miles from Santa Monica
(the same being valuable property) and thirty-
six acres in the vicinity of his home place. Of
quiet, unostentatious tastes, he finds his greatest
pleasure in his home, for the activities of politi-
cal affairs do not appeal to him and, aside from
voting the Democratic ticket, he takes no part
whatever in politics. January 28, 1878, he was
united in marriage with Miss Manwilla Cota,
who was born in Los Angeles in 1848 and by
whom he has one son, Ernest, now at home.
The family are respected wherever known and
hold a high position, not only among the repre-
sentatives of the Spanish race, but also among
the American citizens of the county.
JAMES N. ANGEL. Continued residence
of more than one-quarter of a century in the
same locality gives to a man a thorough knowl-
edge of its possibilities from an agricultural
standpoint; hence, as would be expected, Mr.
Angel during his long identification with the
ranching interests of San Diego county has ac-
quired a complete and accurate idea of its pos-
Sibilities, and especially is he well informed in
regard to the land adjacent to Mesa Grande.
Near this village he has his ranch comprising
One thousand acres, the larger portion of which
is grazing land, adapted for the stock business,
and the latter industry he makes his specialty.
Few men in the locality are better posted than
he concerning the values of stock and the partic-
ular methods to be employed in securing the
greatest profits from their care.
In Jasper county, Mo., James N. Angel was
born February I, 1841, being a son of Wood-
Son and Jane (Stites) Angel, natives respectively
of Kentucky and Ohio, and for years residents
of Missouri. During 1847 the family crossed
the plains with wagons and oxen and settled in
Santa Clara county, Cal., the father operating
a mill in San Jose. Two years later he took up a
tract of wild land near Santa Clara, but in 1855
he sold the property and removed to the vicinity
of Gilroy, there securing another large tract.
For Some years he devoted his attention to the
cultivation of the land, but in 1875 he disposed
Of the place and removed to Texas. Soon, how-
ever, he returned to California, this time settling
in Los Angeles, where he made his home for
three years. From there he came to Mesa
Grande in 1880 and bought land, which he im-
proved with the necessary buildings. Here he
passed away July 6, 1893, at the age of seventy-
seven ; many years before (in 1872) his wife
had died at Gilroy.
Accompanying his parents in their various re-
movals, James N. Angel gradually became the
manager of their affairs, for as the father grew
930
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
older he depended more and more upon the son,
and the latter cared for both parents until they
were taken from the home by death. On Christ-
mas day of 1869 Mr. Angel was united in mar-
riage with Miss Henrietta Haun, whose parents
came from Missouri in 1849 and settled near
Gilroy at a time when that section of California
contained but few American residents. The
family of Mr. and Mrs. Angel consists of the
following-named children: Mariamme, whose
husband, George Pringle, is a member of the
San Diego police force; Colonel H., who is en-
gaged in farming near Mesa Grande ; Vance \'.,
now superintending a mine near his father's
ranch ; Mandeville V. at home; Frederick M., who
lives on a ranch near the old homestead ; Fannie
H., wife of Herbert Hill, of San Diego; Philip,
Henry N., Lester A., and Jesse R., who are
with their parents on the ranch; and Marcus P.,
who died July 13, 1890, at the age of twelve
years.
Possessing deep religious convictions, Mr.
Angel for years has given earnest support to the
Christian Church and has been identified with
its missionary and charitable organizations. As
in religion so in education he is deeply interested
and the free-school system finds in him one of
its most stanch supporters, his service for several
terms as school trustee having been conducive
to the development of the educational interests
of his district. All of his life he has supported
the Democratic party and the passing years have
not changed his convictions concerning politi-
cal problems. Not only measures for the growth
of the stock industry, but all movements for the
good of his district and county, find in him a
warm champion and wise advocate.
THOMAS LEONARD WORKS. The fam-
ily of which Thomas Leonard Works is a member
belonged to the pioneer settlers of Indiana, and
left an indelible imprint upon the history of that
section of our country, the grandfather, James
A. Works, a native Kentuckian, having been a
practicing attorney in Vevay throughout his life.
He married Phoebe Downey, of Scotch descent, a
native of Ohio county, and the daughter of John
Downey, a farmer and justice of the peace in
Rising Sun. The death of both Mr. and Mrs.
Works occurred in Vevay. Of their family of
seven children four are now living, One Son,
Lewis F., who was a member of an Indiana
regiment during the Civil war, residing in Rising
Sun. Another son, Judge John Downey Works,
the father of Thomas Leonard, was born March
29, 1847, in Ohio county, and reared on a farm
near Vevay, acquiring an education in the public
schools. In 1863, when just past sixteen, he
patriotically offered his services to his country
and enlisted as a member of Company D, Tenth
regiment of Indiana Volunteer Cavalry, which
was mustered into service the following Septem-
ber, at Columbus, Ind. Their first engagement
was at Pulaski, Tenn., and the regiment remained
in that state until after the battle of Nashua,
when it was sent south to New Orleans and as-
sisted in the taking of Mobile, Spanish Fort,
Blakely, etc. They then rode back to Memphis
and were finally mustered out of service in In-
dianapolis.
Returning to Vevay in 1865 Judge Works en-
tered the high school there, at the same time
taking up special studies under a private teacher,
later studying law under Judge Alexander C.
Downey, who was for many years on the su-
preme bench and judge of the circuit court, being
also dean of the law school at Asbury, now De-
pauw. After his admission to the bar in 1868 he
began the practice of his profession with his
father in Vevay, continuing there until April,
1883, when he came to San Diego. He had at-
tained much prominence in Indiana during those
years and was elected to the state legislature in
I879, Serving one term. He engaged in the prac-
tice of law in this city until 1886, when he was
elected judge of the superior court of San Diego,
but after serving one year, resigned to resume
private practice, forming a partnership with Mr.
Wellborn. A year later he was appointed jus-
tice of the supreme court of California, to fill a
vacancy, the position requiring his residence in
San Francisco. He declined to be a candidate
for re-election, and returning to San Diego again
took up legal work, for a time connecting himself
with the firm of Works, Gibson & Titus. Later
he withdrew from this firm and entered into part-
nership with his son. In 1896 he located in Los
Angeles, carrying on the practice of law with
Mr. Lee, under the firm name of Works & Lee.
Subsequently Mr. Works’ eldest son joined the
firm, which became Works, Lee & Works, who
handle many cases of water litigation and civil
law. Judge Works is president of the Magnetic
Traction Company and has acquired considerable
property of various kinds. His marriage in
Vevay, Ind., united him with Miss Alice Banta,
a native of that city, and they are the parents of
six children: Lewis R., is the attorney in the firm
with his father ; Thomas Leonard is engaged in
ranching in this county ; Ida E., became Mrs. H.
S. Darling and lives in Los Angeles ; Laura,
married Charles P. Ensign, of Los Angeles:
Ethel, became Mrs. Griffing Bancroft, of this
city, and Isabelle is Mrs. Richard H. Burrit, of
Los Angeles. Both Judge and Mrs. Works are
members of the Second Christian Science Church
of Los Angeles, the former having been the first
reader there. He is a member of Stanton Post,
G. A. R., in Los Angeles, and belongs to the


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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
933
State Bar Association, holding membership as
well in the Chamber of Commerce. Politically
he is prominent in Republican circles, and while
in Indiana was a member of the state central com-
mittee.
Thomas Leonard Works was born November
21, 1871, in Vevay, Ind., and in 1882 came to
San Diego, where he received a preliminary ed-
ucation in the public Schools, later graduating
from the San Diego Business College. After
finishing his studies he began ranching on the
place he now occupies, which is known as “The
Briers”; comprising twenty-one acres, it com-
mands one of the finest views in San Diego. For
a time Mr. Works was engaged in dairying, but
now devotes his time principally to teaming, and
is also in the employ of the Ralston Realty Com-
pany. In January, 1906, he platted his land into
one hundred and sixty lots, forming the Thomas
Works Addition to University Heights.
Mr. Works was married in San Diego to Miss
Lottie J. Levi, a native of Toledo, Ohio, and
the union has been blessed by the birth of five
children: Roderick L., Leonard T. (deceased),
John D., Jr., Clara and Alice. Fraternally he is
a member of the Benevolent Protective Order
of Elks and politically is an advocate of the prin-
ciples embraced in the platform of the Republi-
can party.
VICTOR M. MIAGEi. The rich and fertile
section of country in the San Luis Rey valley
is being rapidly developed by some of the
most energetic and stirring men of this enter-
prising country and age, no spot on the globe
having been more quickly transformed from
its native condition into a magnificent agri-
cultural and horticultural region than South-
ern California. One of the leading spirits in
this notable work is V. M. Magee, a young
man of high ambitions, quick decisions and
sound judgment. He is extensively engaged
in general ranching and dairying, at the pres-
ent time, renting over five thousand acres of
land, a part of which he owned until recently,
when he sold it to a syndicate, which owns
much of the land in this locality. He is dis-
tinguished as a native-born son, his birth hav-
ing occurred, September 13, 1866, at San Ja-
cinto, which was then a part of San Diego
county, but is now included within the limits
of Riverside county.
Henry Magee, the father of V. M. Magee,
was born and reared in New York state, and
died, in 1896, in California. Joining the army
when a young man, he was made lieutenant
of his company, and, under the command of
Gen. John C. Fremont, came in 1848 to Cali-
fornia, where he was first stationed at Mon-
terey. He was subsequently promoted to the
office of paymaster, with headquarters at the
Yuma fortifications, and in this capacity made
many trips across the desert to San Diego to
draw the pay for the soldiers, which amounted
to sums ranging from $25,000 to $40,000. He
llad a wonderful memory, and until the close
of his life could minutely describe the trials
of army life and the tribulations and priva-
tions of the early pioneers. He married Vic-
toria Pederino, who was born in San Diego,
and died in this county in 1886. Her father,
Miguel Pederino, was one of the earliest set-
tlers of Southern California and a very large
landholder, at one time owning over four
hundred thousand acres, a vast tract, the last
of which was sold for twelve ancſ one-half
cents an acre in 1884. She bore her husband
nine children, all of whom are living, and are
residents of this state.
Having finished the course of study in the
common schools, Victor M. Magee completed
his early education at a military school in
Benicia. Turning his attention then to agri-
culture, he was for five years engaged in
ranching at Condor's Nest, on the north end
of Smith Mountain. From there he went to
Las Flores, on the O’Neil ranch, and in 1889
located in the San Luis Rey valley, where he
continued general farming and dairying until
1894. Going then to Fallbrook, he was there
successfully employed in tilling the soil for a
few seasons, and then located on his present
ranch, of which he was at that time a part
owner. He has recently disposed of his in-
terests in this land to the syndicate which has
purchased so heavily of real estate in this sec-
tion of the state, and from its present owners
has leased not only this ranch, which contains
twenty-seven hundred and thirty acres, but
also an adjoining ranch of twenty-eight hun-
dred acres. In the management of this im-
mense tract of land he is meeting with great
success. In addition to general farming, he
now milks about one hundred cows, and in-
tends very soon to have three hundred milch
cows in his dairy, which is one of the largest
and best in San Diego county. This ranch is
equipped with the best pumping plant in the
state, and in fact, here may be found every-
thing in the liric of modern machinery and ap-
pliances for successfully carrying on the va-
rious branches of agriculture in a scientific
manner. To Mr. Magee the credit is due for
developing water in this section.
In 1899 Mr. Magee married Ora Tomlins,
who was born in Kansas, and they have one
child, Donald Magee. Mrs. Magee's father is
deceased, but her mother is living and makes
her home in California. Politically Mr. Ma-
934
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
gee is identified with the Democratic party,
and fraternally he is a member of Olive Lodge,
F. & A. M., of Los Angeles.
GUDMUND JOHNSON. In a business way
Gudmund Johnson is known as an expert builder
and cabinet-maker, while his many years resi-
dence in San Bernardino has proven him to be a
man of high principles and Sterling worth who
does well his duty as a citizen. He is of Swedish
birth, and first saw the light of day October 27,
1854, in Unnaryd, Sweden, being the son of John
Nelson and Karin (Bengtsen) Johnson, both of
whom were born in that country. His father was
an ingenious mechanic and could fashion almost
anything he chose to make in wood or iron, and
it was from him that the son inherited his ability
with tools. The elder Johnson was also a farmer
and the owner of two sawmills and one flour mill,
all run by water power, these properties making
him a well-to-do man in Sweden. His death oc-
curred in that country at the age of seventy-
eight years, Mrs. Johnson, whose father served
in the war, living to be eighty-two. They were
members of the Lutheran Church and people of
strong moral principles, their influence in the
community in which they resided having been an
elevating one. There were five children born in
the family, four of whom are now living, Gud-
mund, who was the youngest, being the only
member of the family in America.
Trained as a farmer and mechanic, Mr. John-
son was employed as a blacksmith, in sawmills
and at cabinet work until twenty-two years of
age, when he went to Johannesburg and entered
the agricultural schoo!, having obtained his pre-
liminary education in the common schools of his
lione community. After three years he passed
the examinations for agricultural inspector, ac-
cepting and retaining a position in that capacity
in Orraryd for one year, after which he followed
farming at Rysby for two years. At that time he
resolved to immigrate to America, and on July
16, 1884, arrived at Worcester, Mass., where he
was employed for a time as a machinist, but
becoming convinced that the carpenter's trade
would prove more remunerative he turned his
attention to that line of endeavor.
Mr. Johnson was unfortunate in being afflicted
with rheumatism and in 1886 he decided to conne
to California in the hope of receiving benefit
from the climate. It took him but a short time to
discover that he was not improving in San Fran-
cisco, the first point at which he stopped, and
November 9, 1886, found him in San Bernar-
dino countv. In the meantime, however, he had
settled in Riverside, but the extensive irrigation
waters there made the air too damp and he came
to San Bernardino. He sought relief from his
malady in Arrowhead Springs, the treatment
there greatly benefiting him, for in six weeks
he was able to resume work, and in all followed
his trade there for three years. At the end of
that time he came to San Bernardino and estab-
lished himself at his trade, and later added job-
bing and contract building. His shop is located
at No. 479 Court street, where he has installed
an adjustable saw of his own invention, for cut-
ting ornamental trimmings, etc., the machinery
being propelled by electricity.
Many years ago Mr. Johnson built his resi-
dence at No. 1506 E street, where he owns over
two acres of land, being also the possessor of
Other properties in the city. His marriage, which
occurred October 27, 1887, united him with Miss
Adelia Gustofson, born in Beckefos, Sweden, and
of their union four children have been born :
Charles, who died at the age of nineteen months;
Carrie, in the high School class of 1908, and
Charles and William. Mr. Johnson is a member
of the Carpenters' and Joiners’ Union, attends
the Presbyterian Church, is fraternally affiliated
with the Woodmen of the World, and politically
is an advocate of the principles embraced in the
Republican platform.
NICHOLAS I. MASSEY. Preceded by
years of valuable experience as a sawmill expert
in various localities in Colorado, Mr. Massey
came to California in December, 1903, coming
direct to San Bernardino, although he finally set-
tled in the vicinity of Squirrel Inn. The im-
pression of his first stopping place in the state,
however, had been a favorable one, for he re-
turned to San Bernardino two years later and
bought his present milling outfit, which has a
capacity of ten cords a day. While he does a
general milling business, he gives special at-
tention to sawing wood for the markets, fur-
nishing employment to seven men. The mill is
iocated near Skyland, a mountain resort on the
Arrowhead road.
A native of Illinois, born in Jersey county
February 9, 1845, Nicholas I. Massey is a son of
Benjamin Franklin and Maria (Coonce) Mas-
sey, the parents dying in Illinois many years ago.
After finishing his education in the schools of
Jersey county Nicholas Massey turned his atten-
tion to tilling the soil, having in the mean time
gained much practical experience on the home
farm under the direction of his father. The open-
ing of the Civil war when he was only sixteen
years of age fired the martial spirit within him
and made life on the farm dull and irksome. Be-
fore the close of hostilities, however, February
I, 1865, he enlisted in the service, becoming a
member of Company B, Ninety-first Illinois in-
fantry. With his command he served in the army
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
935
of the Tennessee until the following July, when
they were transferred to the Twenty-eighth Illi-
nois regiment. Going first to Brownsville, Tex.,
he later participated in the engagement at Span-
ish Fort, Ala., still later was assigned to picket
duty, and finally was given fatigue duty, his
brother taking his place as picket.
Receiving his discharge from the service of his
country February I, 1866, Mr. Massey returned
to his home in Illinois, having been furnished with
free transportation as far as New Orleans, and
from there paying his own expenses up the Miss-
issippi. Soon after his return, May 30, 1866,
he formed domestic ties by his marriage with
Miss Mary Spangle, who, like himself, is a na-
tive of Illinois. Their only child, M. Etta, is a
resident of Illinois. Up to the age of forty years
Mr. Massey had been a continuous resident of his
native state, but the year 1885 brought a change
in his life, both regarding his occupation and lo-
cation. Upon relinquishing his farm in Illinois
during the year last mentioned he went to Colo-
rado and engaged in the Sawmill business, erect-
ing for the purpose a portable mill, which he
operated there for fifteen years. Although he
has been in California only a few years and in his
present location only one year, indications point
towards a successful and steadily increasing bus-
iness. In his religious views Mr. Massey is a
Seventh Day Adventist.
CASTANOS PAINE. An acquaintance with
this rugged pioneer of the west, who now re-
sides on his little homestead near Mesa Grande,
brings out many interesting stories connected
with his early settlement on the Pacific coast
and enkindles our admiration for the men to
whose judgment and energv the prosperity of
Our State today may be attributed. Now in the
twilight of a very active life, he can look back
Over a past that brings recollections of the early
settlement of California, the dark days of the
Civil war, the later period of reconstruction, and
the many thrilling events that have occurred
within our country during the past half-
century or more. The place where he now lives
is remote from the scenes familiar to boyhood
years, for he is of New England birth and was
born at Charleston, Me., October 27, 1830, be-
ing a son of Abner and Comfort (Winslow)
Paine. The parents were lifelong residents of
that section of country and made their home up-
on a farm in Maine, where the father died in
1884 and the mother in 1880, at the age of
eighty-nine.
The village of Charleston not only possessed
ordinary schools, but in addition boasted an acad-
emy conducted under private auspices, and
Castanos Paine enjoyed the privilege of attend-
ing this institution for a time. After, leaving
school he followed the sea for one year and
arrived in San Francisco August 19, 1851, after
which he engaged in mining in Tuolumne county
and on the Yuba river. A year later he turned
his attention to the raising of stock near Fort
Redding, Shasta county, but after three years
he disposed of his ranch interests and resumed
mining in Tuolumne county. From that time
until 1859 he met with considerable success in
the mines. During the latter year he removed
to San Jose and remained there until 1863, when
he returned to Maine with the intention of en-
listing in the Union army; however, circum-
stances altered his plans and he saw no active
service. Two of his brothers were volunteers,
Albert W. being a private in a Wisconsin regi-
ment, while J. O. W. was captain of a company
of Maine volunteers.
Returning to California in 1869 Mr. Paine
made a brief sojourn in San Jose, but in the
Same year established himself in San Diego coun-
ty and SOOn afterward became proprietor of a
hotel in the Poway valley, also carrying on a
Stock business in addition to managing the
hotel. In 1881 he gave up hotel-keeping, but
he continued to raise and sell stock until 1905,
when he sold out his ranch interests and his
herds, desiring to retire from arduous ranching
responsibilities. On removing from the ranch
he came to his newly purchased tract of twenty-
five acres in the suburbs of Mesa Grande, where
he has a neat garden and a well-kept orchard.
Ever since attaining his majority he has voted
the Republican ticket at all elections. In
Masonry he has been an active figure in Maine,
having there identified himself with the blue
lodge, chapter and commandery, and for a time
holding official rank with the Knights Templar
Organization in the Maine village where he made
his home.
The marriage of Mr. Paine was solemnized in
San Jose in June, 1862, and united him with
Theresa McKean, a native of Illinois. They be-
came the parents of eight children: Millie, who
died November 20, 1906, was the wife of W. S.
Flint, represented elsewhere in this volume;
Frederick W. lives in San Diego county; Walter
M. is engaged in raising stock and occupies a
ranch near Julian; Jennie became the wife of
Charles Morretti, of Mesa Grande ; Ivy died
in 1892; Lottie is the wife of E. M. Stall, of
Ensenada; Ethel is engaged in teaching school
at Santa Ana; and Polly remains with her
parents at Mesa Grande.
JEAN FAGES. As a workman who under-
stands every detail of the business which he
follows mention should be made of Jean Fages,
936
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
evidences of whose ability and handiwork may
be seen in the numerous substantial cement side-
walks and other cement structures throughout
Pomona and vicinity. When he entered the em-
ploy of L. Fleming he began at the foundation
of the business, but good workmanship in the
minor capacity of mixer led to his advancement
until he finally became finisher, his present posi-
tion. He is the oldest employe connected with
the firm, and his painstaking and conscientious
Services are thoroughly appreciated by his superi-
OTS.
Mr. Fages is a Frenchman by birth, born in the
town of Monein, Basses-Pyrenees, March 16,
1872, and is a son of Victor Fages, who was born
in Hautes-Pyrenees. Throughout his entire life
the father made his home in his native
country, following farming as means of
livelihood, and his death occurred in Ar-
bus. His wife, formerly Lucy Tuheil, comes
of a family whose ancestors have been
identified with France for Over five hundred
years. She was born near Monein, Basses-
Pyrenees, and is now living in Arbus. Of the
four children born to these parents three are liv-
ing, and Jean, the eldest, is the only one in the
United States. Born and reared in Monein, he
attended the publc schools of that city and be-
came fairly well educated. Reports of the favor-
able opportunities awaiting young ambitious men
led to his immigration to the new world in 1891,
and the same year he made his way direct to
Pomona, Cal., where for the past fifteen years
his excellent qualities of citizenship and work-
manship have made him a desirable and much
esteemed resident. Without loss of time he
was fortunate in securing a position in Mirande's
winery in Pomona, remaining with this employer
for seven years, when he gave this up, to accept
a position with the Southern Pacific Railroad,
with whom he remained for about fifteen months.
Upon giving up his position with the Southern
Pacific road he entered the employ of L. Flem-
ing, a cement contractor of this city, and from
the position of mixer he has advanced to the
highest position in the gift of his employer, hav-
ing charge of all contracts undertaken by the
firm. -
The family home at No. 538 West Tenth street,
Pomona, is efficiently presided over by Mr.
Fages' wife, who before her marriage was Miss
Eliza Mirande, a native of Pomona. Her father,
Grat Mirande, who was born in Basses-Pyrenees,
France, came to America in 1862 by way of Pa-
inama, at which time he was eighteen years of
age. Coming direct to California he engaged
in the sheep business in Pomona valley for some
time, and later set out a vineyard on North
Garey and Alvarado streets. This latter en-
terprise finally led to the establishment of a
winery, which he supplied with grapes from his
forty-three acre vineyard. His marriage united
him with Sarah Martinez, who was born in Po-
mona valley, the daughter of Nerde Martinez,
an old settler and well-known cattleman in this
part of the state. Mrs. Fages grandmother was
born in Los Angeles, coming from one of the
pioneer Spanish families of Southern California.
Of her parents’ thirteen children nine are living
and Mrs. Fages is the eldest of the family. In 1901
Mr. Mirande closed out his interests in Cali-
fornia and returned to France, where with his
wife he is spending the evening of his life in the
enjoyment of the competence gained in former
years. Two children have blessed the marriage
of Mr. and Mrs. Fages, Grace and Alphonso,
who are being reared in the faith of their parents,
who are communicants of St. Joseph's Catholic
Church. Politically Mr. Fages is a believer in
Republican principles.
P. W. DOYLE. The earliest recollections
Of this progressive horticulturist of Pomona are
associated with the Emerald Isle, where he was
reared and educated until he was a lad of thir-
teen years, when, in 1849, the father came to
America with his nine children, the wife and
mother having died in Ireland. Continuing in
the new world the life to which he had been
accustomed in his native land, Patrick Doyle
Settled down to agricultural pursuits in the vici-
nity of Auburn, N. Y., his death occurring there
Some years later. Before her marriage his wife
was Catherine Wall, a native of Kildare, Ire-
land. Nine children were born of their marriage,
but of the number four are now living.
The youngest child in his parents’ family, P.
W. Doyle was born in county Kildare, Leinster,
Ireland, in 1836, and until he was thirteen years
of age received a fairly good education in the
private schools of his native country. When
almost too young to realize his loss a void was
left in the home by the death of the mother,
and in 1849 the father brought his children to
America. Not wishing to be a burden to others
of the family, boy though he was, P. W. Doyle
immediately sought employment, which he as
readily found. Later he went to Rochester, N.
Y., and learned the carpenter’s trade, and when
only sixteen years old was competent to work
at his trade independently, following the same
in the east until 1864, when he removed to Cleve-
land, Ohio. There in addition to work at the
carpenter's trade he branched out into contract-
ing and building, which he followed with ex-
cellent success for twenty-one years, or until
coming to California in 1885. The same year
marks his advent into Pomona, at which time he
purchased nine acres of the Kingsley tract, on the
-v.
or
--- º

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
939
corner of Olive and San Antonio avenue. The
land was thoroughly piped for irrigation and
also with water for domestic use, a feature which
made it especially desirable, and one which Mr.
Doyle keenly appreciated at the time of purchase.
More water has since been secured by boring,
and a pumping plant has also been established
on the ranch. Mr. Doyle set out both oranges
and prunes on his ranch, the latter proving an
excellent and remunerative crop during the earlier
days, bringing as high as $500 per acre, but when
the prune market became overstocked he re-
placed his prune trees with navel oranges and
now has his entire acreage in this fruit. In
addition to the care of his Orchard he has fol-
lowed contracting and building ever since com-
ing to Pomona, and many fine residences, stores
and churches are visible evidences of his superior
knowledge and ability in this line, he being the
oldest contractor in the city. He is a stock-
holder in the Kingsley Tract Water Company,
Limited, this being only one of the many enter-
prises in this locality which he has fostered and
encouraged. •
In Cleveland, Ohio, Mr. Doyle was married
to Miss Helena Max, a native of Germany, and
eight children were born to them, but one, James,
died in Redlands, Cal. The others are Ed-
ward in the laundry business in Redlands;
Thomas, a resident of Pomona; Alice, at
home; Anna, Mrs. McGary, of Los An-
geles; George, in the employ of the Southern
Pacific Railroad and a resident of Pomona :
Mary, who is a bookkeeper for the Claremont
Citrus Union, also of Pomona ; and William,
who is in the employ of the Santa Fe Railroad,
with headquarters in Claremont. In national
politics Mr. Doyle is a Republican, but in his
choice of local candidates he give greater weight
to the character of the man than to his party
11311162.
CAPT. LEONARD BUCKINGHAM PFCK.
The title by which this pioneer of Elsinore is
known, not alone to the people of his home town,
but also to the wide circle of his acquaintances,
comes to him through his official service in the
Union Army during the period of the Civil war.
At the time of the secession of the southern
states he was teaching in Kentucky and already
had made himself familiar with the question
of slavery in all of its aspects, not only by
reading, but more especially by observation.
Fired with a spirit of zeal in behalf of the free-
dom of the slaves and the preservation of the
Union, he offered his services as a private, and
September 20, 1861, was accepted as a mem-
ber of a company of Kentucky cavalry. At the
expiration of his term of service he returned
to his home state, Ohio, and there recruited a
company of volunteers, becoming captain of Com-
pany F, One hundred and Seventieth Ohio Vol-
unteer Infantry. With his regiment he went to
the front and served through the period of en-
listment, after which he was honorably dis-
charged. Immediately afterward he went to Illi-
nois, recruited another company, enlisted the third
time, and was chosen captain of Company H,
Fourteenth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, later be-
ing placed in command of a battalion of eight
hundred men at Springfield, Ill. When the war
had come to an end and there was no longer
need of volunteers in the army, he was honorably
discharged in September of 1865, leaving the
army with a record of which he and his might
well be proud.
Jefferson county, Ohio, is Captain Peck's na-
tive place, and May 17, 1839, the date of his
birth, his parents being Robert and Sarah (Hart)
Peck, both of whom are deceased. The grand-
father, Capt. David Clinton Peck, served in the
war of 1812 and participated in the memorable
struggle of Tippecanoe. On the completion of
common-school studies Captain Peck attended
York Academy and then took up the profession
of teaching school, which he followed for twen-
ty-two years. The record for continuous work
which he won as a school teacher was broken by
the period of his army service. During his con-
nection with the army he formed the acquaint-
ance of William McKinley, for whom afterward
he entertained the strongest admiration, and con-
cerning whom he later gave this tribute:
“Scarch the record of the ages; trace it through all
past time;
It will disclose no character more beautiful or sublime;
The synonym of true greatness, his name will ever be
Enshrined in the hearts of freemen and lovers of liberty.
“His lofty and gentle nature, adorned with Christian
grace,
By kind deeds was exemplified, at all times, in every
place.
His devotion, true and tonder, to an invalid wife,
Emphasized both love and virtue, which lessen the
storms of life.
“Upon fame's commanding summit, triumphantly he
stood,
Still contending for man's birthright and the greatest
public good :
And when by the dread assassin the fatal ball was
hurled, •
His bright star had reached the zenith and its glory
filled the world.”
In addition to the memorial encomium from
which the foregoing verses were taken, Captain
Peck has written other poems that breathe a
spirit of patriotism and an admiration for the
true and the good. When a search for a more
equable climate than the east afforded brought
940
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
him to the shores of the Pacific ocean, he ar-
rived in Elsinore July 19, 1884, and since then
has been identified prominently with the material
interests of the town. Always a local leader
in the Republican party, he has served as a
member of the county central committee, for
more than twenty years has been a member of
the board of education, served about ten years
as a justice of the peace and city recorder, for
nine years or more filled the office of postmaster
at Elsinore, has also served as deputy county
clerk, deputy county assessor, city clerk, ex
Officio city assessor of Elsinore and notary public,
all of which positions he filled with character-
istic intelligence and fidelity. In the suburbs
of Elsinore he has a beautiful home, where in the
twilight of a useful existence he is surrounded
by the comforts accumulated in former years
and blessed by the confidence and deep regard
of friends. In the quiet of his peaceful days his
mind reverts often to the stirring scenes of the .
past and to the memorable epoch of the Civil
war, “all of which he saw and part of which he
was.” Among his recollections is that of a
trip by boat on the James river. In a conver-
sation with the captain the latter told him that
he witnessed the capture of John Wilkes Booth
after the murder of President Lincoln and him-
self carried the dead body from the place where
it fell back to the city of Washington. As the
captain knew Booth personally, he was quite
positive concerning his identity. At the time
some believed Booth to have escaped and insisted
that the dead body was that of another man,
which assertion the captain, from his personal
acquaintance with Booth, was able to refute.
During one of his furloughs from the army
Captain Peck formed domestic ties. His mar-
riage was solemnized in Ohio September 14,
1864, and united him with Amanda Atkinson,
who passed away at Elsinore April 20, 1898.
Nine children were born of their union, eight of
whom attained mature years. In the order of
birth they are named as follows: George A.,
born July 6, 1866, now residing at Pasadena;
Leonard S., born March 18, 1868, now engaged
in mining at Bodie, this state; Frank W., born
January 22, 1870, who died in early manhood;
Junius C., born January 30, 1872, now engaged
in mining in Nevada; Clarence E., born Novem-
ber 23, 1873, now connected with the Green hotel
at Pasadena; Carver C., born April 5, 1876, resid-
ing at Elsinore; John E., born May 1, 1878, now
a medical student in the University of Southern
California; Vernon L., who was born March 26,
1880, and died at the age of four months; and
Reullura A., who was born November 19, 1882,
and is the wife of Clyde Thompson, of Los An-
geles. The family are identified with the Method-
ist Episcopal Church, while in fraternal re-
lations the captain holds membership with Elsi-
nore Post No. 103, and for years has been in-
terested in the activities of the Grand Army
of the Republic.
WILLIAM JEPHTHA FUQUA. The fam-
ily represented by this prominent rancher and
citizen of Lemon is of French origin, and became
established in the new world by two brothers,
who left France and settled in Virginia. From
one of these brothers Rev. Isham Fuqua was
directly descended, and his birth occurred in
old Virginia, not far from the place where his
ancestors settled. The trend of western immigra-
tion in the period following closely upon the
finding of gold in California witnessed the re-
moval of Isham Fuqua to the west, his course
lying along the southern route. Going direct
to Julian, San Diego county, Cal., he put in
a crop of wheat, and this proving a success he
repeated his efforts the following season, having
as his associates in this undertaking his two
brothers-in-law, Hale and J. M. Hathaway. Sub-
sequently Mr. Fuqua farmed in the vicinity of
El Monte, Los Angeles county, later went to
San Bernardino county, after which he came
once more to Los Angeles county and purchased
land in La Ballona district. The dry season of
1863–1864 caused him to remove with his stock
into the Tehachapi district, in Kern county, two
years later returning to his ranch at El Monte.
Trouble of another kind was here awaiting, how-
ever, for his ranch proved to be grant land and
he lost it. Going back to San Bernardino county
he bought land near Rincon, in Riverside county,
making it his home until 1886, when he sold
out his possessions and lived retired in Pomona
until his death. He was an ordained minister.
of the Baptist denomination and filled pulpits
in the various localities in which he resided,
among them El Monte, Downey, Azusa and Rin-
con, some of which churches he himself or-
ganized. Politically he has been a stanch Demo-
crat. He enlisted his services in the Mexican
war, serving throughout the war as a member
of a Texas regiment. His wife, formerly Joan
Hathaway, was also a native of old Virginia, as
was her father, William Hathaway, who was of
English descent. Mrs. Fuqua also died in Po-
Imona, having become the mother of seven chil-
dren, as follows: Dora, Mrs. R. M. Thurman,
of Pomona; John M., also in Pomona; Mary,
Mrs. Vines, of Los Angeles; B. F., of Fresno;
William J., our subject; Serene D., Mrs. Hidden,
of Berkeley; and Tennie, Mrs. Bowers, of
Lemon.
Near what is now Palms, Los Angeles county,
William J. Fuqua was born March 18, 1861.
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
941
When he was two years of age he was taken to
the Tehachapi district and subsequently he fol-
lowed his father’s migrations for Some years,
having very limited educational advantages dur-
ing his boyhood. Leaving the home farm in
1884 he struck out independently, his first work
being as a farm hand on the old Puente ranch
rented by Bob Taylor, with whom he remained
one year. Later he hired out in the same capac-
ity to Rhoades & Baker, owners of the Sentous
ranch, of which two years later he was made
foreman, a position which he filled efficiently for
six years, giving it up at the end of this time to
take charge of his own land. This purchase
consisted of forty-five acres in the vicinity of
Lemon, upon which he raised alfalfa exclusively,
later selling this and reinvesting the proceeds
in another ranch which he devoted to the same
crop. Upon disposing of the last-mentioned
ranch he again invested the proceeds in land,
buying his present ranch of seventeen acres on
Currier street, in Lemon. The entire acreage is
in walnuts. One of the prime essentials to suc-
cess in the raising of walnuts in an abundance of
water, which is no doubt a large factor in Mr.
Fuqua’s success, his supply coming from the
Swan Ranch Water Company, one of the largest
pumping plants in this part of the county, he
himself being a director and the president of the
company. O. W. Longdon demonstrated his
appreciation of Mr. Fuqua's capabilities as a
public official by appointing him road overseer
of the Spadra road district in 1898, a position
which he held ever since, and judging from
indications he is not liable to be released from
duty. During his incumbency of this position
he has built the roads from Pomona to Puente,
graveled and oiled them, until they are now in
fine condition and rank with any other country
road in Southern California. The Lemon School
district is another evidence of Mr. Fuqua’s in-
terest in the affairs of his home locality, he be-
ing one of the most active factors in its organi-
zation, and from the first had been a director
and clerk of the board.
At Highland, San Bernardino county, October
17, 1888, Mr. Fuqua married Miss Lula Hidden,
who was born in Kansas, the daughter of
Charles Hidden. Mr. Fuqua and his wife are
both members of the Christian Church of Po-
mona, supporting with a liberal hand its various
charitable and benevolent organizations. In his
political sympathies Mr. Fuqua is a Democrat
in national politics, although in local elections
he is guided by the candidate's qualifications re-
gardless of party name. The only fraternal or-
ganization of which he is a member is the Modern
Woodmen of America, holding membership in
the camp at Lemon, in which he at one time
was an officer.
HERBERT JOHN WALLIS. Though
One of the comparatively late comers to Clare-
mont Mr. Wallis has made such rapid strides
from a business standpoint as to place him
On record as one of the town's substantial citi-
zens and thoroughgoing business men. In
September of 1905 he came to the town and
purchased the site of his present livery stable,
and erected thereon a barn 36x80 feet, which
gives ample room for his livery and sales
stables and also for the handling of feed. The
Claremont Livery stable has taken its place
among the other live enterprises of the town.
The proprietor caters to the traveling public,
meeting all trains, and for those who ride or
drive for pleasure he has a fine equipment of
horses and up-to-date vehicles.
The Wallis family is of English origin, and
it was the grandfather, John Wallis, who es-
tablished the family on this continent, settling
as a farmer in Huntingdon county, Quebec.
On this farm his son, Frederick Wallis, was
born, but later years found him a resident of
Vermont, his death occurring in Waitsfield,
that state, in 1903. His marriage united him
with Martha Ann Cooper, who like himself
was born in Huntingdon county, Quebec, the
daughter of Merrill Cooper, the latter a na-
tive of Vermont and the descendant of a long
line of New England ancestors. Mrs. Martha
Ann Wallis is now living in Morden, Mani-
toba.
Four children gathered around the family
fireside in Huntingdon county, all of whom
are still living, and Herbert J. is the eldest.
He was born March 13, 1858, and after attend-
ing the public schools in the vicinity of his
home assisted in the care of the home farm
until he was twenty-five years of age. Going
to Manitoba in 1883 he bought a quarter sec-
tion of new land, which he improved, devot-
ing it to the raising of wheat and to stock-
raising. The virgin soil was exceedingly pro-
ductive and during the seventeen years that
he remained there he reaped rich harvests of
grain and raised large herds of cattle. In
IOOO he rented his farm near Morden and
came to California, and for several years was
interested in horticulture at Upland, San Ber-
nardino county, having in the mean time, in
I902, sold his farm in Manitoba. September
of IOO5 witnessed Mr. Wallis' removal to
Claremont, and if the success which the past
year has brought to him still continues it is
safe to say that Claremont will retain him as
a citizen permanently.
In Ormstown, Quebec, Mr. Wallis was mar-
ried to Miss Jennie Armstrong, who is a na-
tive of that city. While living in Upland
both became members of the Presbyterian
942
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Church of that place, and were active in the
work connected there with, Mr. Wallis serv-
ing as secretary of the Sunday-school, but as
yet they have not transferred their member-
ship to any church organization in Claremont.
Mr. Wallis was made an Odd Fellow while
in Manitoba, joining Nelson Lodge No. 9, in
Morden, and in Upland, Cal., affiliated with
Euclid Lodge No. 68, of which he is still a
member, and is also a member of the en-
campment of Upland.
tº-a-
ALLEN J. TAYLOR. Far back into the early
history of the United States the name of Taylor
was connected with the colony of North Caro-
lina, and genealogical records trace the relation-
ship of the family to Lord Wellington, also to
Charles Wesley, whose name has been handed
down to fame with that of his brother John.
Allen, a son of Joseph Taylor, was born in
Edgecombe county, N. C., in 1789, and removed
at an early age to Kentucky, settling in Warren
county, where his son, Alfred was born in
January of 1818. The latter was a man of ex-
ceptional ability and sterling integrity, an active
worker in the Christian Church, and often chosen
to settle up estates, the choice being based upon
the universal confidence in his judgment and
probity. Though he began life with little means,
through his energy and persistence he accumu-
lated three hundred and seventy acres of land,
and at the time of his demise was among the
well-to-do planters of his county. In 1843 he
married Caroline M., daughter of E. P. Daven-
port, and four children were born of their union,
one of these being the gentleman whose name
introduces this article, and who was formerly
One of the progressive dairymen of Los An-
geles county.
The common schools offered Allen J. Taylor
only a desultory education, but early in boyhood
he developed a taste for reading and soon be-
came conversant with the best authors and stored
his mind with much useful information. From
early years his life was one of unceasing activ-
ity, for his temperament did not permit of idle-
ness. At the age of twenty-eight he purchased
two hundred and thirty acres and this tract he
developed into one of the best-improved planta-
tions in the entire county, his crops of tobacco
and grain being the equal of any raised for miles
around. September 17, 1874, he married Miss
Nannie Alexander, whose counsel and co-opera-
tion were helpful in the attainment of success.
Their only son, Charles A., who was born June
27, 1875, was associated with his father in dairy-
ing and ranching until the death of the father
June 2, 1906, since which time he has carried on
the work of the ranch.
On coming to California Mr. Taylor rented
a ranch, thinking it might prove wiser to rent
for a time, until familiar with conditions and
soils. In the fall of 1897 he settled near Comp-
ton, where for six years he rented land. For
two years he sold milk to the Anchorage cream-
ery and then purchased an interest in the Eureka
creamery, where he served as a member of the
board of directors. Through his efforts, as-
Sociated with other interested parties, the price
of milk was raised to a considerable degree, and
he was thus helpful to the dairymen of the vi-
cinity. As a representative of the creamery he
became a delegate to the Los Angeles Board of
Trade and during the last year of his service
was honored with the chairmanship of the board.
Experience taught him that diversified farming
was more profitable than specialties, this being
especially true on a dairy ranch, as milk cows,
to be profitable, must be given a variety of feed.
After conning to the state he became a close
student of the lands, soils, conditions, etc., and
he found that a high state of cultivation was
absolutely necessary in securing the best results.
After a visit of four months in the east and
South he returned to Compton and resumed the
dairy business, from then until his death furnish-
ing milk from thirty cows directly to the milk-
men of Los Angeles. With his son he owned
a ranch of twenty-five acres and operated forty-
five acres of rented land in the interests of the
dairy industry. During the last six years of his
residence in Kentucky he was interested in
breeding saddle horses and Jersey cattle, and up-
on the organization of the American Saddle
Horsemen’s Association he became one of its
charter members, but discontinued his member-
ship after retiring from the business. A Repub-
lican in views, he took a warm interest in the
political contest of the day and kept thoroughly
posted concerning the problems affecting the
prosperity of our country.
*
GRATIAN BIDART. France has contribu-
ted her share to the citizenship of Southern Cali-
fornia and among the number is Gratian Bidard,
well known in the vicinity of Puente, where with
his brother, Bertrand, he owns a ranch of thirty-
two and a half acres, formerly a part of the
Thomas Rowland estate. Born in Basses-Pyre-
nees, France, March 6, 1877, he is a son of Jean
and Marie (Falsa) Bidart, both born in the same
part of France as was their son. Leaving his
wife and children in their native land Jean Bidart
came to California in 1888 and established him-
self in the sheep business at Newport, a busi-
ness which prospered under his careful handling,
and later he removed to the Chino rancho, where
he branched out on a larger scale. In the mean
SMILEY
ALBERT K.
Y
SMILE
ALFRED. H.


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
945
time, in 1891, he had been joined by his wife
and children, and for nine years they made their
home on the ranch just mentioned. At the end
of this time, however, the parents and several
of the children returned to their native land,
where Mr. Bidart has large property holdings,
and where he carries on a farm and stock ranch.
Of their eight children, four are in France with
their parents, Maria, Mariana, Jennie M. and
Martin, while the others, Gratian, Bertrand,
Marie and Jean, are residents of California.
Gratian Bidart was a lad of about fourteen
years when with his mother and the other chil-
dren he came to America to join his father. He
was of an age to be useful on the ranch which
his father had established in California and so
thoroughly had he learned the details of the busi-
ness that when his father retired from business
and returned to France in 1900 he purchased the
business in partnership with his brother Bert-
rand, their brother Marie also being interested
in the business. For one year the brothers con-
tinued on the Chino rancho, and in taking an
inventory of their stock at that time found they
had six thousand sheep. In order to secure more
commodious range land for their rapidly increas-
ing herds in 1901 they removed to the vicinity
of Lemon and ranged their sheep on the Wright
ranch. Five years later, however, they sold out
their sheep industry and have since been inter-
ested in raising alfalfa, for which purpose they
purchased thirty-two and a half acres of the
Thomas Rowland tract, all but seven acres of the
entire acreage being in alfalfa. The ranch is
well watered from the San José ditch. The
four brothers who are in California, Gratian,
Bertrand and Marie in Puente, and Jean in Red-
lands, are maintaining with dignity the reputa-
tion of a family name well known on the other
side of the Atlantic, the ancestors having flour-
ished in lower France for many generations.
Gratian Bidart is a Republican in his political
affiliations, belongs to the Society of Druids, in
which he finds a pleasant relaxation from busi-
ness cares, and is also a member of the French
Hospital Society of Los Angeles.
ALBERT KEITH SMILEY. So similar in
experiences were the boyhood days of the twin
brothers, Albert K. and Alfred H. Smiley, SO
closely associated their manhood years, so united
their tastes, so harmonious their temperaments,
that it seemed as if one life only were being
lived; yet the two-fold energy thrown into every
pursuit brought the larger results of such effort,
hence their lives, so united in aims and purposes,
were unusually lasting in benefits wrought and
improvements made. Both were college grad-
uates, having completed the course after study-
ing side by side during the entire term. Both
took up teaching in the same institution and later
founded an academy, whose upbuilding was ac-
complished through their self-sacrificing and wise
management. As both were talented educators,
so both proved to be successful business men, and
as landlords they were courteous, hospitable and
genial, indeed proving ideal hosts to men and
women of culture and broad education.
The Smiley family was originally from Scot-
land, emigrating ancestors locating in London-
derry, Ireland, and thence transplanting the name
to the New England states, where descendants
changed from the Presbyterian to the Quaker
faith. David Smiley removed from New Hamp-
shire to Maine, where he reared his family, a son,
Daniel, being the father of the twin brothers.
Their mother was Phoebe Howland, a native of
Maine and a daughter of Joseph Howland, whose
ancestry can be traced to the Puritans, John How-
land being a passenger on the Mayflower and a
prominent character, his brother being his busi-
ness partner, in England and the Colonies was
the progenitor of the family of which the Smiley
brothers are descendants. The birth of the
brothers occurred at Vassalboro, Me., March 17,
1828, their parents rearing a large family of chil-
dren, of whom the survivors are besides Albert
K., Joseph H., of Vassalboro, Me. ; Sarah F., of
Washington, a prominent lecturer of international
reputation on religious topics and the founder
of a correspondence school on the Bible and
Church history, of the Episcopalian denomination;
Daniel and Rebecca. After a course of academic
training the brothers were graduated from Haver-
ford College in 1849 and later received the de-
gree of A. M., while the degree of LL. D. was
conferred upon Albert K. in June, 1906. In 1875
he received the honorary degree of A. M. at
Brown University. After leaving college they
engaged in teaching and for three years had
charge of the department of English at Haver-
ford, at the expiration of that time founding an
academy at Philadelphia. Alfred H. severed his
connection with this institution after two years,
and removed to Oskaloosa, Iowa, while Albert
K. continued his educational work there two years
longer, and then joined his brother in Iowa for
One year. In 1858 he was called to take charge
of a boarding school at his old home, which he
did for two years. They were again identified
in the educational work when in 1860 they as-
sumed charge of a Semi-Collegiate Friends’
School at Providence, R. I., Albert K. remaining
with the school as its principal and superintendent
until 1879, a period of nineteen years.
During his connection with this school Albert
K. established a hotel at Lake Mohonk which was
managed by his brother for some time and as it
proved profitable, additions were erected to ac-
50
946
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
commodate the increasing number of guests.
Eventually he acquired a beautiful structure with
a capacity for four hundred, and fifty guests. In
1875 Alfred H. bought twenty-five hundred acres
at Lake Minnewaska, seven miles from Lake
Mohonk, and added by purchase until Seven thou-
sand acres were acquired for the hotel grounds.
On this tract a hotel was erected and opened in
1879 under his management, with every conven-
ience for the comfort of guests. The improve-
ment of their grounds was one of the favorite
pursuits of the brothers, drives to the extent of
many miles being laid out upon them, while the
landscape gardening surrounding the hotels rep-
resented the highest ideals of art. Hotel MO-
honk has entertained more than four thousand
guests during the season, and those who once
visit the resort leave with delightful memories
of the refined and attractive life centered there.
From the first the hotels have been maintained as
on strictly temperance plans. When it was ad-
vertised at the opening of Mohonk that liquor
would not be sold at the bar or served at the
table many were the predictions of failure and
financial ruin. However, it soon appeared that
many wished to be free from the presence of
liquor, and families felt it safe to bring their
children here, so that from the first the enterprise
prospered.
One of the features of both Mohonk and Min-
newaska is the daily morning prayer Service at-
tended voluntarily by the guests. The Service is
simple and occupies only a few minutes, but the
guests go to their daily pleasures with a spiritual
unlift. The Lord's Day has been observed and
guests are asked neither to arrive nor depart at
that time, yet there is no constraint about the
day and no parade of Sabbath-keeping. The
spirit of the Quaker training of the brothers was
apparent and pervaded the place, and the guests
felt its uplifting influence in their own hearts
and lives.
Coming to California during 1889, the brothers
toured the entire state in Search of a desirable
location and selected Redlands as their future
home. In making this decision they were in-
fluenced by the climate and the Scenery. Shortly
after their arrival they purchased two hundred
acres on the northern crest of the San Timoteo
cañon, which they immediately named Cañon
Crest Park, but which is more familiarly known
to-day as Smiley Heights. In the park they
erected two residences for their winter homes.
At their own expense they beautified the crest
and maintained it for the public. The results of
their efforts need no words to tell, for they speak
for themselves in the beauty of a spot that stands
alone and unique among California's attractions.
With its splendid natural beauty, its magnificent
views of the surrounding country, its untold
treasures of trees and flowers, it proves the fact
that no land can boast of greater Scenic attrac-
tions than California. Besides in proving the
park and making of it one of the beauty spots
of the west, the brothers did much to promote
the material development of Redlands and were
ever alert to aid any important movement. The
cause of good roads had in them intelligent cham-
pions. They encouraged the citrus-fruit industry
and rejoiced to see the sage-brush replaced by
fine orange groves. Especially were they in-
terested in the A. K. Smiley public library, Alfred
H. being president of the board of trustees from
its organization until his death. The building,
costing $41,000, and an eight-acre park surround-
ing, costing $30,000, were gifts of A. K. Smiley.
In November, 1893, Alfred H. raised the first
fund of $2,000 for the establishment of a library
and for the purchase of books, but having no
building a room was rented for that purpose and
maintained until the present building was erected
which was opened in April, 1898. Appropriations
were carefully husbanded. Lists of books to be
purchased were studied with care. Trips were
Imade to other cities for the purpose of inspecting
libraries. One of the last letters written by Mr.
Smiley before his death referred to the library.
dwelling at length upon its needs for the year
and expressing gratitude to the city trustees for
their generous support of the public-spirited
project. The library stands as a monument to
the progressive spirit of Albert K. Smiley and
the devotion to the city where he makes his winter
home. The architecture is peculiarly adapted to
the picturesque environment of the beautiful city.
Tourists from other parts of the country and
from abroad invariably comment upon the sym-
metry of the building architecturally and the
beauty of the classic design. But not alone as an
aid to the architectural completeness of the city
has the library proved a valuable gift. Beyond
and above any benefit from exterior elegance
and interior beauty is the benefit derived from
the perusal by the people of the choice gems of
literature contained within the walls of the build-
ing and selected with the greatest care by the
trustees. When the movement was first planned
a few believed a public library to be little needed
in a city of well-to-do people with choice and
numerous private libraries, but the outcome
proved the wise judgment of the founder, for
the library has been well patronized from the
first and has proved of invaluable assistance in
the intellectual development of the people. The
number of volumes has increased from fourteen
Jhundred to more than twelve thousand. Another
valuable incentive to the beautifying of the city
of Redlands was his offering of prizes for the
best kept grounds in the city, which resulted in
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
947
making of the place one of the most beautiful in
Southern California.
Not the least prominent in the career of Albert
K. Smiley was his identification with the Indian
affairs of the country for a period of something
like twenty-four years, having received this ap-
pointment in 1879. In the fall of each year he
would invite all interested in Indian affairs to
a conference at Lake Mohonk, entertaining them
as his guests for four days, the duration of each
meeting. He served as chairman of the Com-
mission that gave the Mission Indians their
reservation in Southern California Some years
ago. He is the founder of the International Arbi-
tration conference, which meets in the Spring of
each year as his guests at the hotel at Lake Mo-
honk, composed of more than three hundred and
twenty-five, the most intellectual citizens of the
world, and justly declared to be one of the most
distinguished bodies that meets in the country.
This was called three years prior to the Czar's
rescript, calling for the conference of the nations
for the Peace tribunal. In recognition of his
services in this conference and his interest in
Indian affairs, he received the degree of LL. D.
from his Alma Mater in June, 1906. He has
always taken the keenest interest in educational
affairs. He has been a trustee of Brown Uni-
versity since 1875, is one of the original trustees
of Bryn Mawr College, president of the New
York State Normal and is now serving as trustee
of Pomona College. Politically he is a Republi-
can and stanch in his advºcacy of these principles
as concerning the national government, although
locally he can be counted upon to support the
best interests of the community regardless of po-
litical affiliations. Mr. Smiley enjoys a wide
friendship among those who have known him in
his residence east and west, appreciated for the
quiet, unostentatious qualities of his character,
the uprightness of his manhood, and the kindly
courtesy which has influenced his entire career.
ALFRED HOWLAND SMILEY. Although
identified with the development and history of
Redlands for a period of only fourteen years, the
name and memory of Alfred H. Smiley are in-
dissolubly associated with the annals of the city,
and the place has never boasted of citizens more
public-spirited and progressive than himself and
his twin brother, Albert K. To write a history
of the town is to make frequent mention of their
names and their services. Strangers coming to
Southern California are invariably invited to
drive to Smiley Heights (known as Cañon Crest
Park), and en route to that charming spot they
usually hear much concerning the personalities
of the men whose originality and love of the beau-
tiful caused the development of the tract. Men
who had the privilege of meeting the twin broth-
ers found them even more interesting than their
home. So alike were they in form, features, ex-
pression and voice, that few except intimate
friends could distinguish one from the other, and
it is also significant that they were singularly
alike in temperament and tastes. -
Descended from Quaker parentage, the broth-
ers were born in Vassalboro, Me., March 17, 1828,
receiving their preliminary education in the pub-
lic schools after which they attended and grad-
uated from Haverford College in 1849. While
at school they studied from the same book and
shared every article in common. After leaving
college they began educational work together,
teaching English at Haverford and later estab-
lishing an academy at Philadelphia. They then
parted for a time, Alfred H. removing to Oska-
loosa, Iowa, where he was principal of the high
school and superintendent of the county Schools.
On his return east he joined his brother in edu-
cational work, the two having charge of the
Friends’ School, at Providence, R. I., from 1860
to 1868. While his brother retained his position
as principal of this school Alfred H. entered the
hotel business, taking charge of a hotel at Lake
Mohonk, owned by his brother, where he con-
tinued ten years, and then assuming the manage-
ment of his own hotel at Lake Minnewaska.
In search of a suitable location for a winter
home the brothers came to California in 1889 and
shortly afterward purchased two hundred acres
on the northern crest of the San Timoteo Cañon,
where afterward they improved one of the most
beautiful parks in Southern California. The park
was adorned with rare flowers and beautiful
trees, and contained the residences of the broth-
ers, modeled in a style of architecture appropriate
to the place and the picturesque environment.
Together with his brother he gave every effort
toward the material development and improve-
ment of the place, interested in every movement
to advance the general welfare. Particularly was
he interested in the establishment and maintain-
ence of the A. K. Smiley public library, which
together with the park adjoining were gifts from
Albert K., and in this connection as well as others
his name will long be remembered.
Surviving Alfred H. Smiley are his widow
and six children, namely: Edward A., of Minne-
waska; Frederick A., of Fredalba Park; George
H., of Minnewaska; Mrs. Susan S. Underhill, of
Redlands; Mrs. Fannie S. Baldwin, of East
Orange, N. J.; and Mrs. Abbie S. Lathrop, of
Summit, N. J. The death of Mr. Smiley occurred
at his winter home near Redlands January 23,
I903, after a long illness. While engaged in sur-
veying operations at his summer hotel at Lake
Minnewaska he met with an accidental fall, and
948
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
from that time his strength began to decline.
Against the advice of his physicians in November
he came to Redlands. Passionately devoted to
his winter home, he had yearned for it and had
made the trip hither in spite of weakened phy-
sical condition. From the time of his arrival it
was found that his condition was critical, and,
feeling that the end was near, he prepared his
business affairs for the change. With a calm
and tranquil resignation he faced death and forti-
fied with a Christian's hope he passed into
eternity.
A man of simple tastes, averse to display, noth-
ing could be further from the wishes of Mr.
Smiley than to have fulsome flattery bestowed
upon his life-achievements; hence his funeral was
simple. However, the admiration of the people
for his character found expression in many ways.
The words of the funeral address voiced the senti-
ment of all: “We had a feeling toward him
deeper than respect, though we thoroughly re-
spected him. We had a feeling deeper
than honor, though we highly honored
him. We loved him. He had won our
hearts. The old proverb reads: ‘He that hath
friends must show himself friendly.” He him-
self loved the town of his adoption. He loved
Redlands. He loved its scenery, he loved its
people. That was a touching proof of his real
feeling when, in the opinion of physicians and
friends he was too sick to take a journey of three
thousand miles, he had so set his heart upon
coming that everything had to give way to that
one great desire. Better than rest, better than
medicine or careful nursing, in his feeling was
to be back again in the Sunshine of his Redlands
home, back within sight of the mountains and the
orange groves so conspicuous from his house.
And I love to think that the mountains and the
groves, and his home nestled in the hillside, wel-
comed their friend and lover, who had come back
to end his life among them. And I as sure the
people of Redlands felt a welcome they have not
been permitted to speak. I hope he realized in
some small degree at least the wealth of interest
and sympathy and affection which centered about
that house on the hill during his sickness. It is
a grand thing when people give money to pro-
mote public happiness and advancement; but Mr.
Smiley's greatest gift has been himself, and this
has won the hearts of the people as nothing else
could. His life has been a benediction to this
town. It is a picture to look back upon. His
face mirrored his soul. He has left an impress
upon the town, an impress of beauty added to
the landscape, an impress upon the moral char-
acter, giving tone and strength to every good
cause.”
RAPHAEL HOWARD DINSMOOR,
Prior to the war of the Revolution members
of the Dinsmoor family came to America and
settled in New England, where several genera-
tions labored as tillers of the soil. Daniel,
who was a native of New Hampshire, married
Huldah Stone of New York, and six children
were born of their union, among these being
R. H., whose birth occurred on the home farm
in Athens county, Ohio, March 22, 1836. The
family had little of this world’s goods and the
children were forced to enter upon the strug-
gle for a livelihood, foregoing all or nearly all
the educational advantages they desired. How-
ever, they usually attended country school for
three months of the year, being spared from
farm work during the leisure months of win-
te1".
Being solicitous to acquire a better educa-
tion than his limited advantages rendered pos-
sible, R. H. Dinsmoor at the age of eighteen
years entered the Free Soil academy, where
white and colored students worked side by
side. To aid in the expenses of his education
he worked two hours each day for six cents
per hour, his task being to get out oak timber
to be used by a broom-corn house. Later,
when he secured the work by the job, his earn-
ings were increased. The institution which he
attended was conducted upon a basis of self-
help and many of the students defrayed their
expenses by working in the farm, brush and
broom factory or the tailor shop connected
with the School. -
When the parents of Mr. Dinsmoor removed
from Ohio to Wisconsin he accompanied them
to their new location and traveled by wagon
ten miles beyond the terminus of the most
westerly railroad. By accident their horses
got loose and started back along the road they
had come. Father and son hastened after them
and traveled along different roads. When
sixty-five miles from home the son found the
team and returned riding one horse and lead-
ing the other. The family took up the difficult
task of converting raw prairie soil into culti-
vated farm land and worked together in har-
mony for their mutual interests. When the
Civil war began the father was too old to en-
list, but two of the sons went to the front and
another, whose name introduces this article,
being unable to leave home, helped the cause
by collecting money from those who were un-
able to enlist, but wished to contribute to the
financial support of the movement.
The marriage of Mr Dinsmoor occurred in
T859 and united him with Miss Caroline Hull.
who was born in New York, being a daughter
of Aaron Hull, for vears a deacon in the Pres-
byterian Church. In 1865 Mr. and Mrs. Dins-

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
951
moor removed to the wilds of Minnesota and
Settled upon an unimproved tract of land near
Austin, Mower county, in a region where
neighbors were few. For twenty years they
remained on that place, which increased in
size under the owner's energetic management
until there were sixteen hundred acres in one
body and under his shrewd financial oversight
an indebtedness of $20,000 was eventually en-
tirely defrayed. Crops varied on the farm in
their productiveness, as in every region where
wheat is the main product. In 1877 he raised
sixteen thousand bushels of grain, of which
ten thousand were wheat, but the following
year the tide of fortune changed and he lost
the entire crop of wheat, comprising seven
hundred acres. -
The first visit made by \ſr. Dinsmoor to
California was during the winter of 1875–76.
Again he came west in 1887, and then on New
Year's day of 1895 he arrived to remain as a
permanent settler. For a year he rented a
farm and then bought fifteen acres near Comp-
ton, where he now resides. Eleven acres of
the place are in alfalfa and corn and four acres
in fruit, the whole forming a well-improved
tract and a desirable home. With his wife he
belongs to the Methodist Church and takes an
interest in religious, educational and charita-
ble plans. Of their two children the younger,
a daughter, is at home with them, while the
older, Adelbert, who is a graduate of the Min-
nesota State University, superintends their
large landed estate and makes Minnesota his
home.
E. L. PLANTICO. To a large degree the
prosperity which has rewarded the efforts of
Mr. Plantico may be attributed to the thor-
ough education which he received in the
schools of his native land and also in a large
degree to his wisdom in selecting a location
where favorable results might be gained from
his painstaking efforts. Of German birth and
ancestry, he was born near the city of Star-
gard, in the province of Pomerania, October
I, I857, and received a grammar-school educa-
tion, after which he prepared for the univers-
ity by studying in the gymnasium at Star-
gard, also at Dramburg. It had been the in-
tention of the ſamily to educate him for the
ministry and his earlier studies were conduct-
ed with that object in view, but the death of
his father changed all of his plans, for, being
the eldest son, it became necessary for him
to return to the family home in order to set-
tle up the estate.
Hearing much
openings offered
favorable
States to
concerning the
by the United
young men of energy and intelligence, Mr.
Plantico decided to emigrate, and in 1886 he
crossed the ocean to New York and thence
proceeded to Nebraska, where he not only
worked by day, but of evenings studied the
English language in order to familiarize him-
self with the, to him, unfamiliar tongue. From
Nebraska he soon came to California, where
he remained in South Riverside four years
and then went to Los Angeles. In his native
land he had acquired familiarity with civil
engineering and had also gained considerable
experience in the laying of drain tile, so he
was qualified to study irrigation from a sci-
entific standpoint. For eight years he had
charge of the laying of irrigation lines for the
sewer pipe association, after which he em-
barked in business for himself as a contractor
of irrigation, sewers and all cement work. In
the line of his specialties he has established
an enviable reputation through all of South-
ern California. Upon the opening up of sew-
erage in Long Beach he installed districts
Nos. I, 2 and 5, and in the sewerage work
gave employment to about one hundred and
fifty men, besides which he now employs
many men in the work of cement contracting
in Long Beach. Two steam mixers are used
in the manufacture of the cement work, and
in addition he utilizes other modern appli-
ances. Since January of 1904 he has made
his home in Long Beach, also owns various
building sites in Alamitos, and is a stockhold-
er in hotel, mining and oil enterprises. His
office is at Nos. 208-209 Bixby building in
Los Angeles.
From the original period of his identifica-
tion with Long Beach its possibilities have
been upheld by Mr. Plantico and all of its
progressive movements have been supported
by personal contributions of time and means.
Schools, churches and charities alike have had
the benefit of his co-operation and sympathy,
and in every instance he has proved himself
to be a man of broad philanthropic spirit and
generous sympathies, one to whom the hand
of want is never stretched in vain and from
whom the appeal for aid never lacks ready re-
sponse. Reared in the faith of the Lutheran
Church, he has always been a member of its
communion and a contributor to its mainte-
nance. In fraternal relations he holds mem-
bership with Temescal Lodge No. 314, F. &
A. M., of Corona, and Long Beach Chapter
No. 384, R. A. M.J., besides which he is asso-
ciated with the Independent Order of Odd
Fellows, being a member of Circle Lodge No.
317, of Corona. Since becoming a citizen of
the United States he has affiliated with the
Republican party, but displays no partisan-
952
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
ship in his opinions, it being rather his aim
to support for office those whom he deems
best qualified to represent the people.
JAMES P. GRANT. A well-known and pros-
perous agriculturist of Hynes, James P. Grant is
successfully employed in the prosecution of a
calling upon which the wealth and material prog-
ress of the nation largely depend. A man of
energy and resolution, industrious and persever-
ing, he is continually adding to the improvements
of his ranch, and although a comparatively new-
comer here is contributing his part toward the
industrial development and growth of this part of
the county. A son of John M. Grant, he was
born, October 30, 1862, in Missouri, where he
was reared and educated, attending the district
schools.
Born in Kentucky, John M. Grant was reared
to agricultural pursuits, and during his entire
life was a tiller of the soil, living first in his
native state, and afterwards in Missouri, where
he held an honored position among the pioneer
settlers. He was a man of strong character, a
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church South
and an uncompromising Democrat in his politi-
cal relations. He married Sarah Knight, a na-
tive of old Virginia, and they became the parents
of thirteen children, of whom seven sons and one
daughter are now living.
Brought up on the parental homestead, James
P. Grant was early initiated into the various
duties that fall upon a farmer's son, his help
being needed, when out of school, by his father.
On attaining his majority he began working with
his father, later being in company with one of
his brothers for some time. Desiring a change,
he came to California, but after remaining here
looking about for nearly two years he returned
to his old home in Missouri and resumed ranch-
ing. In 1894 he again came to the Pacific coast,
this time to make for himself a permanent home
in Los Angeles county, attracted by its genial
climate and fertile soil. Locating immediately
in Hynes, he bought his present home ranch and
has since devoted its twenty acres to the rais-
ing of alfalfa and stock. He has made many im-
provements, having a pumping plant, and as a
chicken raiser and dairyman is meeting with
marked success, keeping about fifteen cows, and
a large amount of poultry.
In 1893, in Los Angeles, Mr. Grant married
Emma Mount, who was born in Suffolk, En-
gland, and came to this country with one of her
sisters. Her parents, Mr. and Mrs. George
Mount, were born in England, and there her
father, now seventy-five years of age, is still liv-
ing. Her mother died in her native country, on
May 16, 1902. Politically Mr. Grant, true to the
faith in which he was reared, is a stanch Demo-
crat. Fraternally he belongs to the Independent
Order of Foresters. As neighbors and friends
Mr. and Mrs. Grant are held in high regard
throughout the community in which they dwell,
and are valued members of the Methodist Epis-
copal Church South.
GEORGE WILLIAM HOOVER. To no
one more than to Mr. Hoover is credit due for the
existence of Hollywood, which came into being
as an incorporated village in November of 1903.
The Pacific Boulevard and Development Com-
pany, in which he was a stockholder, purchased
four hundred acres of land which they subdi-
vided and sold in lots, and after securing the
requisite number of signers to entitle them to
articles of incorporation the electors granted a
franchise to the new town. It has since had a
Steady and substantial growth, and in every way
has lived up to the claims made for it by its
sponsors. Such was Mr. Hoover's faith in the
village, that before its incorporation, in Febru-
ary, 1902, he with others started what was then
known as the Bank of Hollywood, with a capital
stock of $25,000, under the banking laws of
California. For three years, or until 1905, this
was conducted as a state institution, but in the
latter year it was dis-incorporated and was im-
1mediately re-incorporated under the United
States laws and was thereafter known as the
First National Bank of Hollywood. The of-
ficers of the present institution are: G. W.
Hoover, president; J. C. Kays, first vice-presi-
dent; John Law, second vice-president; and J.
Eugene Law, cashier. The following figures,
taken from the bank report of June, 1906, will
serve to show the strength of the organization :
Capital stock paid in, $25,000; surplus and undi-
vided profits, $6,071.87; circulation, $24,095;
and deposits, $165,330.64.
The Hoover family is of eastern origin, and
George W. Hoover was born in Lancaster, Pa.,
December 19, 1840, his father being a carriage-
maker in the latter city. When he had com-
pleted his education in the schools of Lancaster
he served an apprenticeship under his father and
for Some years worked as a journeyman. Going
to York, Pa., in 1886, he there established a
carriage and wagon manufactory which he con-
ducted until 1899, selling out in that year
to a company which has since conducted
the business under the name of the Hoover
Wagon Company. After selling out his
business in the east Mr. Hoover came to Cal-
ifornia as a tourist and with no intention of re-
maining permanently. However, he was So fa-
vorably impressed with the surroundings that he
determined to make his liome in the west. Feb-

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
955
ruary of 1900 found him established in Los
Angeles, and the following month he purchased
five acres of lemon orchard, in addition to buy-
ing a home in the city for his family. With
keen perception he realized the possibilities
awaiting the man who had the courage and abil-
ity to push the Settlement of the district lying
adjacent to Los Angeles. It was with this
prompting that he came to Hollywood during
the same year and erected two houses, later
building the Hotel Hollywood, which is con-
ceded to be one of the finest hostelries in South-
ern California. In April, I904, it was merged
into a stock company, capitalized at $100,000. A
Inumber of substantial residences and other struc-
tures Stand as monuments to his enterprise. The
foregoing does not represent the limit of Mr.
Hoover's abilities, varied and important as they
are, for many business enterprises, both in Holly-
wood and elsewhere, receive the stimulation and
benefit which his judgment can give. Besides
operating quite extensively in real estate with
others he has recently bought ten acres of land.
In Lancaster, Pa., George W. Hoover was
united in marriage with Mary C. Schauer, the
daughter of Samuel and Charlotte (Hain)
Schauer, the ceremony being celebrated May
24, 1863. Of the children born to the marriage
of Mr. and Mrs. Hoover, William J. was taken
from them by death in March, IQO2, at the age
of thirty-one years. He was interested in the
Santa Ana Tin Mining Company, of which Mr.
Hoover is vice-president. The children still liv-
ing are Caroline Margaret, now the wife of Harry
C. Rodenhouse, and Mary A., the wife of John
S. Walker, both families residents of Hollywood;
and George, of Canton, Ohio. Politically Mr.
Hoover is an active Republican, taking the same
interest in party affairs that he does in his own
private undertakings.
FRANK W. STEARN.S. One of the en-
thusiastic advocates of Long Beach and the
surrounding country is Frank W. Stearns,
who has here found a field for his activities
as promoter and presiden' of several of the
largest investment companies which have done
so much toward the material upbuilding of
Southern California. Among them are the
Inner Harbor Gas and Electric Company,
Stearns-Counts Investment Company, Alfalfa
Land and Water Company, Compton Land and
Water Company and the Industrial Land
Company of Los Angeles. He was one of the
organizers of the Stearns-Counts Bay tract,
Stearns-Counts Park tract, American Heights
tract, and was also heavily interested
in both the Mira Mar tract and in
sand acres near Pomona,
Belmont Heights. He is now developing the
property belonging to the Alfalfa Land and
Water Company, a tract of about one thou-
As one of the lead-
ing industries of Long Beach special men-
tion should be made of the Inner Harbor Gas
and Electric Company, which was Organized
in 1905 for the purpose of supplying gas and
electricity to Long Beach, an undertaking
which is proving a success and is meeting with
universal favor. Mr. Stearns has been a resi-
dent of California and of this city for only
fours years, yet he has ably demonstrated his
ability in his chosen occupation, which has
proven a source of financial betterment for
himself, as well as a potent force in its influ-
ence upon the best interests of the community.
Mr. Stearns was born in Webster county,
Iowa, October 20, 1862, upon the farm owned
by his father, T. P. Stearns, an early pioneer
settler of that section. During the winter
thnonths he attended the district school in the
vicinity of his home, while in the summers he
worked on the farm, thus being trained in
both the theoretical and practical duties of
life. At the age of eighteen years he began
teaching school in Iowa and continued for
ten years in this occupation, for a part of the
time combining a general merchandise busi-
ness in Hancock county. Following this he
located in California on account of impaired
health. In 1888 he married Ida Woodard, and
five children were born of this union, namely:
Cameron, Newell, Ethel, Vere and Clay.
Upon locating in Southern California Mr.
Stearns purchased a ranch which he ran for
eight months, when he established a real-es-
tate business in Long Beach, his faith in its
future development' and upbuilding leading
him to invest his means liberally in lands. In
1905 he organized the present real-estate con-
cern, known as F. W. Stearns & Company,
which does business in Los Angeles and San
Diego counties, and which has already ac-
quired a prominency in the affairs of many of
the cities throughout this section. His home
is located on the corner of Anaheim and Chest-
nut streets, having been built in 1904.
Mr. Stearns is prominent fraternally, being
a member of Corwith Lodge No. 883, I. O. O.
F., of Corwith, Iowa; the Benevolent Protec-
tive Order of Elks ; and the Modern Woodmen
of America. He is a member of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, and in politics is a stanch
adherent of the principles advocated in the
platform of the Republican party. He is a man
of energy and ability, self-made in that he be-
gan life entirely on his own merits, and has ac-
quired a gratifying success, and with many
956
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Qualities of citizenship, one of which is his loy-
alty to the city of his adoption, for the ad-
Vancement of which he gives his best efforts.
PROF. WILL. L. FREW. A man of talent,
culture and scholarly attainments, public-
Spirited and enterprising, Prof. Will L. Frew,
principal of the Compton high school, has ac-
quired distinction as an instructor, and a place
of prominence and influence among the foremost
citizens of the place. Broad and progressive
in his views, he has done much within the past
four years to advance the educational status of
this part of the county, and has, likewise, been
a recognized force in promoting its material and
moral growth. A native of Iowa, he was born,
September 2, 1862, in the eastern part of the
state, and there received his rudimentary educa-
tion. His parents, John and Eliza (Gregg)
Frew, were both born and brought up in Penn-
Sylvania, but subsequently settled in the west.
His father has passed to the life beyond, but
his mother is still living, and spends a part of
her time in Southern California, the remainder
being passed at her old home in the east.
Having finished the course of study in the
public schools, Will L. Frew was graduated
from the Nebraska Wesleyan University, and
from the Bryant Normal University. In the lat-
ter institution, he afterwards filled the chair of
mathematics for four consecutive years, as a
teacher, being very successful. Coming then to
California, he taught in the public schools of Los
Angeles for five years, the following three years
having charge of the high school at Long Beach.
Winning an excellent reputation in these places,
his services were in demand in different cities.
Accepting his present position in Compton, he
has since had charge of the high school, which,
under his efficient management, has grown and
prospered. In 1903, two years after the pro-
fessor came here, the present high school
building was erected at a cost of $20,000. It is
a fine, handsomely equipped edifice, with ample
accommodations, and is devoted entirely to high
school work, for the successful carrying on of
which eight teachers are employed. Under the
special guidance of Professor Frew the number
of pupils of the school has greatly increased, the
enrollment when he came here having been but
fifty, while now one hundred and thirty-five
names are enrolled. The work of the classes is
of a much higher grade than formerly, ranking
with that of the best high schools of the state,
and this school is now fully accredited with the
State University. During the past year the pro-
fessor has introduced a commercial department
into the school, and in this are forty students
who are taking a thorough business course, this
being one of the most practical and popular de-
partments of the institution.
December 25, 1893, Professor Frew married
Mamie Wilde, a native of Iowa, and they are
the parents of three children, namely: Donald,
Helen and Harold. Active in establishing pub-
lic enterprises conducive to the benefit of the
community in which he resides, Professor Frew
was one of the Organizers of the Home Tele-
phone Company of Compton, and is now serv-
ing as its president, and he is also one of the
stockholders and the assistant cashier of the
First National Bank of Compton. In national
politics he is a stanch Republican, but in local
matters he votes for the best men and measures,
regardless of party restrictions. Fraternally he
belongs to Anchor Lodge, No. 273, F. & A.
M., and religiously he is an active and valued
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
DONLICK McGRATH. Quite a number of
the leading and prominent citizens of Ventura
county are of alien birth, and have transported
to this land of fertility and plenty the thrifty ha-
bits of their native country. Among these there
is none better known or more highly respected
than Donlick McGrath, an extensive and well-
to-do agriculturist of the town of Oxnard. He
is what may be termed a self-made man, as he
had but little capital when he crossed the breast
of the stormy Atlantic and landed on American
shores. His excellent business tact, coupled with
his industry and frugality, have, however, won
for him a fine property, placing him among the
men of wealth and influence. He was born Feb-
ruary 16, 1835, in the Emerald Isle, where his
parents were born, lived and died, passing away
at a ripe Old age. He and a brother who died
in San Francisco were the only members of the
parental household to immigrate to the United
States.
Leaving home at the age of eighteen years
to seek his fortune in a new country, Donlick
McGrath came to New York City, and the en-
suing three years was employed as a foundry-
man, working either in that city or in Brook-
lyn. In 1858 he made an entire change of resi-
dence and Occupation. Coming to Alameda
county, Cal., he worked as a ranchman in Liver-
more for two years, and having accumulated
some money he invested it wisely, buying one
thousand head of sheep, and for four years car-
ried on a substantial business as a breeder and
raiser of sheep. Selling his stock at an advant-
ageous price, he settled in the Santa Clara val-
ley, becoming a pioneer of Oxnard, and from
that day until this he has been intimately asso-
ciated with its agricultural, industrial and social
growth and prosperity. A man of unbounded

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
959
energy and enterprise, he has been very fortun-
ate in all of his undertakings, exercising good
judgment and wise forethought in his labors and
investments, and becoming one of the largest
landholders of this section. He owns one ranch
of six hundred and forty acres, another of three
hundred and twenty acres, and very recently he
gave to one of his sons a valuable farm. In the
care and management of his agricultural inter-
ests Mr. McGrath receives satisfactory results,
raising large quantities of hay and beans, the
latter averaging twenty sacks to the acre, which
is a large and profitable crop.
In 1856 Mr. McGrath married Bridget Don-
lan, a native of Ireland, and of their union ten
children have been born, namely: Mary M.,
wife of Bernard Hawley, of Oakland ; Maggie:
Millie, wife of James Leonard ; Lizzie, wife of
Thomas Cormick; Josephine, wife of James
Dowd; Nellie; James H.; Joseph D.; Frank,
and Robert. Mrs. McGrath, who was a woman
of fine character, and an exemplary wife and
mother, died on the home ranch in 1878. Polit-
ically Mr. McGrath is independent in his views,
voting for the best men and measures, and re-
ligiously he and his family are consistent mem-
bers of the Catholic Church.
*
JACINTO ANTONIO ROCHA. De-
scended from an ancient and aristocratic Cas-
tilian family, whose representatives were hon-
ored alike at the court of Spain and in the
empire of Mexico, Jacinto Antonio Rocha has
an ancestry of which he may well be proud.
It was his great-grandfather who founded the
name in the new world. Among the children
of the original immigrant were Capt. John
Rocha, Gen. Sostenes Rocha and Gen. Pablo
Rocha, all of whom gained their titles through
efficient services in the Mexican army. The
sole survivor of the three brothers is Pablo,
now a very aged man, who still makes his
home in Mexico amid the scenes where long
years ago he won his epaulets by gallantry on
the battlefield.
At the close of his war service Capt. John
Rocha came to California and settled in Los
Angeles county, where he and his brothers
had a grant of land. He married a sister of
Manuel Doming 1ez and became interested in
the Dominguez rancho, where he remained
until death. In his family was a son, Man-
tle1, who was born in the state of Zacatecas,
Mexico, and lived for some years on the Do-
minguez rancho in Los Angeles county, but
afterward settled in Old San Diego and there
died at the early age of twenty-seven years.
A few years before his death he had married
Maria Machado, who was born near Wilming-
ton and died in the same town. Antonio
Machado, her father, was a stockman by oc-
cupation and belonged to a very old family of
Spanish lineage. At the time of his death he
had reached the age of more than four score
years.
The only child of Manuel Rocha was a son,
Jacinto Antonio, who was born near Wil-
mington, Cal., June 15, 1853. While he was
still quite young his father died and his moth-
er married a second time, becoming the wife
of George W. Oden, a native of West Vir-
ginia. For a time Mr. Oden had a carpenter
and wheelwright's shop in Wilmington, but
later worked at his trades in Los Angeles,
and Mr. Rocha learned the two trades under
the supervision of his step-father, while at
the same time he was also given a common-
school education. Before he was twenty-one
years of age he began to take contracts in
Wilmington and Los Angeles and has since
continued in the same business, having in the
mean time erected many substantial resi-
dences in Los Angeles, San Pedro, Wilming-
ton, Long Beach, Ocean Park, Santa Monica,
and in San Bernardino county. In addition
to private residences he erected the Carnegie
library at San Pedro, the San Pedro, high
school building, the Fraternal hall, and the
R. D. Sepulveda block, besides a number of
Other public buildings in the county, being
recognized as the leading contractor of San
Pedro. His home is in Los Angeles, where he
erected a comfortable residence at No. 234
West Fifteenth street. At one time he owned
fifteen hundred and fifty acres of the old Do-
minguez grant near Wilmington, but this he
sold some years ago and it has since been
known as the German settlement. Besides his
interests in contracting, he has purchased min-
ing Stock and now holds shares in mines at
Hull Frog, Goldfield and other noted fields.
In politics, though not active, he is a stanch
Democrat and always votes the party ticket.
The lady who became his wife in Los Ange-
les in 1874 bore the maiden name of Magda-
lena Higuera and was born in LaPaz, in the
peninsula of Lower California, but came from
there to Los Angeles during her girlhood
years. They are the parents of three children
now living, Magdelena, Jesse and Hubert.
4-º-º-º-º-º-mº
O. HOOVER. The presence of large tracts
of range and pasture land in Santa Barbara
county renders possible the profitable manage-
ment of stock farms, and \ſr. Hoover is among
the number who have followed this line of
work with a gratifying degree of success. For
some years he has owned and occupied a ranch
960
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
of four hundred and twenty-nine acres, of
which one hundred and fifty acres are under
cultivation to barley, beans and mustard. In
addition to the homestead he has leased one
tract of two thousand acres and another of six
hundred acres, thus securing an abundance of
pasture for his herds of stock, including two
hundred head of cattle, fifty head of horses and
mules and a dairy of seventy-five cows. The
breeding of fine horses is one of his specialties,
and on his farm he has a Percheron stallion
of excellent pedigree and fine qualities.
Mr. Hoover is a member of an old southern
family, being a son of B. B. Hoover, who was
born in Hardin county, Ky., became a farmer
near Bedford, Iowa, served for many years as
a member of the county board of supervisors,
maintained an active interest in local politics
as a member of the Republican party, and after
a useful and prosperous life passed from earth
in February, 1906, at the age of seventy-nine
years. His wife, who was Mary A. Hinkle, a
native of Lee county, I11., is now living at Bed-
ford, Iowa. In religious views both were in
sympathy with the doctrines of the Unitarian
Church. Their family comprised ten children,
of whom one daughter lives in Lake county,
Cal., another in Washington, D. C., and four in
Bedford, Iowa, while one son is engaged in the
stove manufacturing business at Quincy, Ill.,
and holds an influential position among th
business men of that city. -
The common schools of Bedford, Iowa, in
which town he was born January 9, 1860, af-
forded Mr. Hoover fair educational opportuni-
ties, and after having finished his schooling he
taught for three terms. Later he engaged in
farming and became the owner of a farm near
Redford, but sold out in April, 1890, and came
to California, settling in Antelope valley, Los
Angeles county. Two years later he removed
to Santa Barbara and for two years carried on
a grocery business. On selling out his stock
of groceries he removed to Santa Rita, where
he purchased forty acres. Two years after-
ward he sold the land and bought the property
near Lompoc, Santa Barbara county, which he
now owns and superintends. While giving his
attention closely to the management of his
ranch he neglects no duty that falls upon a
public-spirited citizen, but is progressive, en-
ergetic and aids in measures for the general
good. Politically he votes the Democratic
ticket. For some years he has officiated on
the Santa Rita school board, while his wife is
a member of the high school board at Lompoc.
Both have beer earnest Christians and con-
tributors to religious movements, and while
formerly identified with the Presbyterian de-
nomination, in their present location are iden-
tified with the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Fraternally he holds membership with the
Woodmen of the World and Knights of Pyth-
ias, while with his wife he is identified with
the Rathbone Sisters at Lompoc. She also be-
iongs to the Eastern Star and Rebekah orders.
In the family of Mr. Hoover there were
three sons. The eldest, Buford, married Miss
Rose Burbridge of Santa Rita. The second
son, Francis O., is now a senior in the State
University at Berkeley, and the youngest son,
Hubert Don, is a sophomore in the same in-
stitution. Mrs. Hoover, prior to her marriage
in 1882, was Miss Keturah Hardenbrook, and
is a descendant of Revolutionary ancestry, also
the granddaughter of pioneers of Morrow
county, Ohio. Her parents, Francis and Nan-
cy (Kelly) Hardenbrook, were natives of Rich-
land county, Ohio, and Northumberland coun-
ty, Pa., respectively, and made their home on
a farm in Ohio until 1850, when they removed
to Illinois and settled at Monmouth, the na-
tive city of Mrs. Hoover. In that place the
death of the mother occurred when she was
fifty-five years of age. Eventually the father
removed to Iowa, where he spent his last days
with his daughter, Mrs. Hoover, at Bedford,
and died there at the age of eighty-six years.
In his family there were thirteen children, of
whom one son lives in the Santa Rita valley,
Santa Barbara county, Cal., another son at
Bedford, Iowa, one in Idaho, one in Nebraska,
and one in Montana, while one of the daugh-
ters makes her home in Iowa. The family were
members of the Presbyterian denomination
and Mrs. HOOver was reared in that faith. Dur-
ing young womanhood she attended Mon-
mouth (Ill.) College. Possessing a gentle
Christian character, amiable traits and a kind
heart, supplementing an excellent education,
she has a high social standing in the vicinity
of Lompoc, and numbers many friends among
the best people of Santa Rita valley.
SAMUEL C. WILHITE. Among the na-
tive-born citizens of California conspicuous for
their intelligence, ability and superior business
tact is Samuel C. Wilhite, of San Pedro. Asso-
ciated with the lumber interests of this part of
the state since a young man, he has been an ac-
tive factor in developing and promoting its trade,
and as a lumber inspector has few equals; being
quick of apprehension and very accurate in his
measurements and calculations. A son of W. L.
Wilhite, he was born, April 26, 1863, in Ukiah,
Mendocino county. -
Born and reared in Mississippi, W. L. Wilhite
engaged in agricultural pursuits when young, and
in 1857 came across the plains with ox-teams to

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
96.3
California, hoping in this region to find the veri-
table garden spot necessary for successfully car-
rying on his chosen occupation. Purchasing land
near Ukiah, he lived there until 1872, when he
removed to Orange county, where he was for a
number of years prosperously employed as a
horticulturist. He now resides in Santa Ana, his
home being on Hickey street. His wife, whose
maiden name was Sarah Short, was born and
reared in Missouri. Ten children blessed their
union, and of these eight are living : Samuel
C., the subject of this sketch, being the fourth
child.
Brought up on a ranch in Orange county,
Samuel C. Wilhite was educated in Santa Ana,
attending first the public schools, and completing
his studies in the private school of Prof. T. N.
Wells. Entering the employ of J. M. Griffiths in
1883, he worked as a common laborer in the lum-
ber yards for six months, in this position showing
such adaptability and intelligence that he was
promoted to foremanship of the yard, remaining
as such for three years. He was subsequently
shipping clerk for the San Diego Lumber Com-
pany two years, and on resigning the place came
to San Pedro, and for a year thereafter was em-
ployed at the United States custom house. The
ensuing eighteen months he served as lumber in-
spector for the San Pedro Lumber Company,
after which he returned to Orange county, and
for four years occupied a similar position with the
Newport Wharf and Lumber Company. Coming
again to San Pedro in 1893, he established him-
self as an independent inspector and has since
carried on a substantial and remunerative busi-
ess in this line, his ability and accuracy being
recognized and appreciated, and his services in
constant demand.
In 1902 Mr. Wilhite, with Messrs. Coleman
and Mahar, the latter of whom is now president
of the San Francisco Lumber Association, or—
ganized the Lumber Surveyors' Association of
Southern California, which started with ten mem-
bers, and has now a Imembership of twenty-two
men, and has eight apprentices outside of the
association. Of this organization, which has
done much to improve the lumber business, and
to assist the manufacturers and dealers in get-
ting competent help, Mr. Wilhite was secretary
from its incorporation until June, 1905, when he
resigned the position. Politically Mr. Wilhite
is a zealous adherent of the Democratic party.
SIG. STEINER. Prominent among the
most highly esteemed and influential citizens
of Escondido is Sig. Steiner, who has materially
assisted in the building up of the city, the growth
of which has been rapid and sure. He has been
one of the most interested witnesses of its prog-
ress and development, and no unimportant fac-
tor in bringing it to its present proud position.
A man of great financial and executive ability,
he has been actively identified with the estab-
lishment of beneficial projects of whatever na-
ture, liberally supporting all enterprises condu-
cive to the higher interests of the general public.
As one of the leading merchants of this city,
he is carrying on a substantial business, by his
courtesy, integrity and honest dealings with all
having won a lucrative patronage. Affable,
genial and kind-hearted, with a cheerful and
hearty greeting for everybody, he is especially
popular with the traveling men, who invariably
speak of him in the highest terms, even though
he may buy no goods of them. For more than
twelve years Mr. Steiner, as mayor of the city,
was at the head of the municipal government,
during which time he was active in Securing
enough money to liquidate the city's indebtedness,
and in his official capacity was master of cere-
monies at the memorable time of “bond burn-
ing,” and wiping out the indebtedness of the ES-
condido irrigation district. A son of Leopold
Steiner, he was born, April 3, 1869, in Auburn,
Placer county, Cal., is a “native son” and of
pioneer parentage, a fact in which he takes justi-
fiable pride. -
A native of Austria, Leopold Steiner was born
and reared in Schultzenrich, coming from Ger-
man stock. Immigrating to the United States in
1850, he came by way of New York City and the
Isthmus of Panama to San Francisco. Going
immediately to the mining regions, he was for
some time engaged in mercantile business at Rat-
tlesnake Bar. From there he went to Placer
county, and located in the old town of Auburn,
where he soon became very influential in busi-
ness affairs, running the hotel now known as the
American house, engaging in the manufacture of
flour, and establishing a general mercantile busi-
ness. Removing from Auburn to San Francisco
he became the pioneer seller of water for do-
mestic purposes, buying a wagon and estab-
lishing a route, a venture that proved lucrative,
and was the forerunner of the city’s present
system of water works. He subsequently en-
gaged in the transfer business, being a pioneer in
that line also, and built up an extensive and
profitable industry that grew with the city, as-
suming large proportions in a comparatively few
years. Selling out his interest as a transfer
agent in 1900, he has since lived retired from ac-
tive pursuits in San Francisco, being now in the
seventy-third year of his age. He is a man of
prominence in fraternal circles and for more
than fortv years has belonged to the Independent
Order of Odd Fellows. His younger brother.
Samuel Steiner, came with him to California, and
for many years was one of the leading merchants
964
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
of San Diego, being head of the firm of Steiner,
Klauber & Co., until his death, in 1892. Leopold
Steiner married Julia Popper, who was born in
Bohemia, near Prague, came with her brothers
to San Francisco in early times, and died in
that city December 29, 1904.
The second child in a family consisting of
three daughters and one son, Sig. Steiner was
brought up in San Francisco, where he attended
the public Schools, completing his early educa-
tion at an academy. Going to San Diego when a
boy of thirteen years, he entered the employ of
the then well-known firm of Steiner, Klauber &
Co., and under Simon Levi, junior partner and
manager, became familiar with the details of
mercantile business, remaining in the store as a
clerk for about five years. In 1886, forming a
partnership with P. A. Graham, under the firm
name of Graham & Steiner, he established him-
Self as a merchant in Escondido, opening a store
in a small frame building, one of the first in the
town. Mr. Steiner had previously had but lit-
tle experience in buying goods, but Mr. Graham
had formerly been proprietor of a small store in
Bernardo. At the time this firm started in Es-
condido there were only thirty-two houses in the
valley, but it prospered, its business increasing
every year. In 1895 more commodious quarters
being required to meet the demands of the trade,
Messrs. Graham & Steiner erected a large, two-
story brick building, the material for which, with
the exception of the pressed brick shipped from
the east, was burned here. This building, in the
heart of the city, is the finest business block in
the county outside of the city of San Diego.
When the firm started in business here there were
no railroads in this vicinity, and all of their goods
were brought here by wagon, either from San
Diego, thirty-five miles away, or from Stewart's
Station, on the California Southern & Santa Fé
Railroad, fourteen miles distant. On October
I4, 1903, Mr. Steiner purchased Mr. Graham's
interest, and has since conducted the business
alone, under the present firm name of Steiner &
Co. He is a man of much ability and wisdom,
and has accumulated considerable wealth, owning
valuable residence and business property in Es-
condido, and being one of the stockholders of the
First National Bank, which he assisted in organ-
izing. -
Politically Mr. Steiner is a true-blue Republi-
can, and is ever mindful of the interests of the
city, which he has served wisely and acceptably
in many positions of importance. For several
years he was mayor, and since his election as city
trustee in 1894 has served in that capacity con-
tinuously, being re-elected in 1898 and in 1902,
and during the entire time has been president of
the board. Fraternally Mr. Steiner is a thirty-
second degree Mason, joining the Order June IO,
I90O, and is now a member of Consuelo Lodge
No. 325, F. & A. M., of Escondido; he also be-
longs to San Diego Chapter, R. A. M., to San
Diego Consistory No. 6; to Al Malaikah Temple
A. A. O. N. M. S., of Los Angeles; to Themis
Lodge No. 146, K. of P., of Escondido, of which
he is a past chancellor, and which he has repre-
Sented nine times at the Grand Lodge, and to the
Dramatic Order, Knights of Khorassan, of Zerin
Kapi Temple No. 52, of San Francisco, also is
past patron of the Eastern Star Chapter No. I54.
Mr. Steiner was one of the organizers of the
Escondido Chamber of Commerce, and has al-
ways been actively identified with the advance-
ment of the city’s prosperity, either in a business
or Social way.
NAT E. HEACOCK. As manager of the
Barbour ranch of thirty acres located in the vicin-
ity of San Gabriel, Nat E. Heacock is associated
with the fruit men of this section and has proven
himself a well posted and enterprising worker
in this line. He is a native of California, al-
though not of this section, his birth having Oc-
curred in Lompoc, Santa Barbara county, April
8, 1885. His parents, Horace and Mary (Mc-
Clure) Heacock, were born respectively in Sacra-
mento, Cal., and Vermont; the mother died
leaving a family of three children, and by a
second marriage his father has six children. He
resides in Goleta, Santa Barbara county. The
paternal grandfather, Edwin H. Heacock is now
acting as United States commissioner at San
Francisco.
Nat E. Heacock received a preliminary edu-
cation in the common schools of Lompoc, and
also attended at Carpinteria, after which he
took the Scranton Correspondence course in
mechanical drawing. He was first employed as
a fireman on the Southern Pacific Railroad, but
shortly afterward gave this up and returning
to Carpinteria became interested in the culture
of strawberries. He was located in that vicinity
for about five years and engaged in this work,
experimenting and learning much that has since
proved valuable information for others in a sim-
ilar occupation as well as for himself. He was
located for a time in Lompoc and engaged in
mustard growing in partnership with his brother,
but being offered the position which he now
holds, he came to Los Angeles county and im-
mediately assumed charge of the Barbour ranch.
This consists of thirtv-five acres of land, about
seven acres being devoted to strawberries, and the
remainder in other berries and fruits, one acre in
pears and table grapes, one-half acre in Catawba
grapes, one-half acre in blackberries, and eight
acres devoted to vegetables. Eighteen acres
have been set to walnuts. In the busy season
–e4Zzeczº-


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
967
Mr. Heacock employes eighteen men, while the
year around he keeps five busily at work. He
thoroughly understands his business and through
the science which he brings to bear in his labors
he secures results where many others fail. His
splendid energy and constant activity have con-
tributed very materially toward his success, with-
out which ability. alone would not count much in
achievements.
November 24, 1906, Mr. Heacock was united
in marriage with Miss Annie Lowry, a native
of Whittier, and daughter of Mr. and Mrs.
William L. Lowry, who are now residing in
that place. Mr. Heacock is a member of the
Foresters of America; politically he reserves
the right to cast his ballot for the man he con-
siders best qualified to discharge official duties.
STEPHEN HARRIS TAFT. The geneal-
ogy of the Taft family in America is traced
back to the year 1675, when Robert Taft crossed
the ocean from England and became a pioneer
of Massachusetts. From the Indians he pur-
chased a large tract of land at Mendon and
this purchase was afterward recognized as
valid by the colonial government. On the
Black Stone river near Oxbridge he built the
first gristmill along that stream and in return
for his service in so doing he was exempt from
taxation for a number of years. Five Sons
comprised his family, these being Robert,
Thomas, Daniel, Joseph and Benjamin, the last-
named of whom, a member of the Society of
Friends, being the progenitor of Stephen Har-
ris Taft of Sawtelle. The Ohio family of this
name descend from the same ancestry, their
most distinguished representative in the pres-
ent generation being Hon. William H. Taft,
member of President Roosevelt’s cabinet and
formerly identified with the American occu-
pancy of the Philippines. He is a son of Judge
Alphonso Taft, who was secretary of war un-
der President Grant.
From Massachusetts Nathaniel Taft trans-
ferred one branch of the family to New Hamp-
shire and settled at Richmond, Reared in the
Quaker faith, he was devoted to that branch
of the society which embraced Unitarian
views, being the same that were held later by
James Greenleaf Whittier, the popular Quaker
poet of the nineteenth century. Among the
children of Nathaniel Taft was a son, Stephen,
born and reared at Richmond, N. H., and
throughout active life a farmer. During the
early '20s he removed to New York and for
three years lived in Otsego county, thence re-
moved to Oswego county. While making his
home in Fulton, N. Y., he died in 1861, and in
the same town occurred the death of his wife,
who was Vienna Harris, a native of Rich-
mond, N. H. Ten children comprised their
family, three of whom died young. Three sons
and four daughters attained mature years,
namely: Miranda, deceased; Elizabeth, resid-
ing in Oswego county, N. Y.; Vienna and
Susanna, both deceased ; Stephen Harris, the
eldest son who attained maturity; Lorenzo P.,
formerly a minister of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, but now deceased ; and Jerome B.,
who was a Unitarian minister and bore a
prominent part with James Lane and others in
the settlement of Kansas, but is now deceased.
The first-born son, Stephen, died in infancy,
and the seventh child, Electa, also died an in-
fant.
Near the city of Oswego, in New York, on
the 14th of September, 1825, occurred the birth
of the gentleman whose name introduces this
sketch. As a boy he attended the common
Schools and later was a student in an anti-
slavery Baptist institution, known as New
York Central College. In 1850 he entered the
ministry and at different periods established
two Christian Union congregations at Mar-
tinsburg, N. Y., and Humboldt, Iowa. Dur-
ing 1862 he removed to Iowa and bought ten
sections of land in Humboldt county, return-
ing east the following year and bringing back
with him a colony of twelve families. To each
family he conveyed eighty acres at $1.50 per
acre, which was the cost to him. While de-
veloping the land, and erecting flour and saw-
mills, he also laid out the town of Springvale
(now Humboldt) and there established a con-
gregation now known as Uniity Church, of
which he remained pastor for several years.
While it might be difficult to name the
greatest work of Mr. Taft's busy life, many of
his friends deem it to be the establishment of
Humboldt College at Springvale (now Hum-
bolt), Iowa, founded in 1869, by men whose
views were expressed in the articles of incor-
poration :
“We, whose names are hereto subscribed,
recognizing the fatherhood of God and the
brotherhood of man, associate ourselves for
the purpose of encouraging liberal education
by the establishment and maintenance at
Springvale, Humboldt county, Iowa, of an in-
stitution for the education of youth in litera-
ture, science and enlightened Christian moral-
ity, without regard to sex, race or religious
sect. The fundamental object of this associa-
tion is to establish and maintain an education-
al institution which shall be forever free from
sectarian control, and no change shall ever be
made in its character in this respect without
the expressed consent of all its donors and the
return to all contributors, their heirs, execu-
*
968
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
tors or assigns, who shall request the same, of
all funds by them contributed, together with
iegal interest on the same.” The original Of-
ficers of the association were Stephen H. Taft,
president; Ira L. Welch, vice-president; John
Dickey, treasurer; and J. N. Prouty, Secretary.
The illustrious Wendell Phillips once stated:
“I feel a deep interest in Humboldt College,
believing that it sustains an important rela-
tion to the political, moral and religious wel-
fare of a large section of our common coun-
try,” and Rev. Edward Everett Hale gave as
his testimony that he thoroughly endorsed
“the educational enterprise represented by my
friend, the Rev. S. H. Taft.” Under the ju-
dicious financial management of Mr. Taft a
stone building was erected on the campus at
a cost of $40,000, and on the Occasion of its
dedication in the fall of 1870 the principal ad-
dress was delivered by Hon. C. C. Cole, chief
justice of Iowa. Since then the college has
become a thriving institution and has been a
power for good in the educational and relig-
ious development of the youth placed under
the care of its professors. Years after Mr.
Taft had resigned as president the gentleman
then occupying the position invited him to
present to the college a life-size portrait of its
founder. When the presentation was made
President Peterson asked him to write be-
neath the picture some sentiment as a me-
mento. After some conversation Mr. Taft
wrote, “I would like to be remembered for the
good I sought to do.” The portrait and the
accompanying sentiment may still be seen on
the walls of the college library.
Mr. Taft's views on the power of the ballot
are fitly expressed in his address delivered be-
fore the graduating class of Humboldt Col-
lege, July 13, 1906, from which we quote as
follows:
“There is today no other work half as im-
portant to the welfare of our country or of
mankind, as the redemption of our govern-
ment from the control of the representatives
of commercial brigandage and murderous
greed, and bringing it back into harmony with
the purpose for which it was founded, viz.:
to establish justice, promote the public wel-
fare, and secure the blessings of liberty to all.
The present dangerous state of moral con-
fusion and commercial and political corrup-
tion would never have obtained, but for the
thoughtless and corrupt use of the ballot, and
by no other instrumentality can this nation be
saved from certain destruction but by the bal-
lot, thoughtfully, conscientiously cast. In this
work of saving the nation with the ballot we
need woman’s help, and but for the malign
influence of the saloon she would have been
enfranchised long ago.
“The ballot is the one distinguishing insig-
nia of American citizenship which gives added
value to all other privileges. It is the pal-
ladium of American liberty. It is the X in
the equation, equalling the sum of all other
forces making for righteousness and Safe-
guarding human rights. The intelligent, con-
scientious ballot is to the state what the Holy
Spirit is to the church, its cementing, ener-
gizing power; while the ignorant, vicious bal-
lot is to the state what a contentious, selfish
Spirit is to the church, a disintegrating, de-
structive force. Washington said that if the
Republic ever perished, it would be at the
hand of its own citizens. If our nation goes
down to destruction the cotemporaneous his-
torian will probably say that its ruin was
wrought by avarice, drunkenness and licen-
tiousness, but the later historian, looking from
a higher vantage ground of observation, will
say that the Great American Republic was
slain by ignorant and vicious ballots, by which
were created environments fostering avarice,
drunkenness and licentiousness, so that social
order and justice were overborne by injustice
and anarchy.”
“We very properly honor the soldier who
defends the country with his gun, but the gun
is a negative force. It can kill the enemy
but cannot build up the state. The ballot is a
constructive force. By it the foundations of
the state were iaid, and by it the temple of
liberty builded. The thoughtless vicious citi-
zen with his ballot is a hundred fold more dan-
gerous to his country, than a thoughtless vi-
cious soldier with his gun, for the worst the
latter can do is to slay some of his comrades,
but the traitorous voter undermines the foun-
dations of the state, and despoils the temple of
liberty.”
The marriage of Mr. Taft in Madison coun-
ty, N. Y., in 1853 united him with Mary A.
Burnham, who was born and reared in that
county, and died in 1897 at Santa Monica, Cal.
Mrs. Taft was a woman of superior ability,
marked personal force of character and whose
influence for good was felt by all with whom
she came in contact, and was an inspiration
to her husband in all his work. Six children
were born of their union, namely: George, de-
ceased ; William J., who for four terms has
held the office of district attorney of Humboldt
county, Iowa; Fred H., who is city attorney of
Santa Monica; Sydney A., of Minneapolis,
Minn. : Mary V. and Elwin S., both deceased.
From early manhood Mr. Taft was an eager
advocate of every worthy reform, and fre-
quently delivered lectures throughout the east
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
969
in the interests of some worthy movement.
Always firm in his devotion to the cause of
temperance, he long has been identified with
the Good Templars and in 1888 he left the Re-
publican party in order to give his support
wholly to the Prohibition movement. His in-
telligent advocacy of anti-slavery made him
prominent in the days when Abolitionists in-
curred the risk of public censure and dislike,
yet so convincing was he in argument, so
agreeable in conversation and so logical in
reasoning that he escaped the personal peril
into which others of the same belief were con-
stantly thrown. Julia Ward Howe, also a
champion of anti-slavery, visited at his home,
as did others scarcely less prominent in the
movement. At the same time he met many
prominent in other walks of life, distinguished
statesmen, gifted teachers and popular poets,
and among them all he recalls with especial
delight many conversations with Henry Wads-
worth Longfellow. While the excitement that
culminated in the Civil war had reached a
critical point after the death of John Brown,
lie delivered a discourse on the character of
that noted man, in his church at Martinsburg,
December 12, 1859. In compliance with the
wishes of a very few radical Abolitionists the
discourse was published immediately after its
delivery. It was favorably noticed by the
New York Independent and some other pub-
lic journals, by reason of which notices the
author received numerous orders for copies
from all parts of the north. In the summer
of I86O Hon. Gerrit Smith and Rev. Dr.
Cheever wrote to the author expressing hearty
approval of the sermon. After the close of the
war a second edition was published in com-
pliance with numerous requests for copies.
One of the letters relating to the discourse
follows:
“Metropolitan National Bank,
New York, February 12th, 1872.
“Rev. S. H. Taft :
“My Dear Sir:
“I send here with the John Brown sermon.
Accept our thanks for the privilege of Seeing
what you said in those troublous times, of the
scenes of deep interest then transpiring.
“A friend seeing it on my desk wished very
much to have it to send abroad, to a friend
of Lord Byron. I told him it was your only
copy. He said his friend, Mr. J. E. T., of
England, had a portrait of John Brown and
was a great admirer of his, for which reason
he wished to send him the sermon, which my
friend has read and likes very much.
“He has given me a check for $100 (which
I enclose) and in return wishes a copy of the
sermon, if it can be obtained.
(Signed) J. E. Williams.”
The following letter came from Rev. J. H.
Morison, D. D., of Massachusetts:
“Milton, Mass., March 18th, 1872.
“Rev. S. H. Taft:
“My Dear Sir:
“I am glad that you are to have a new
edition of your John Brown sermon published.
I can easily understand the feelings of the
New York gentleman who sent you $100 for
the last copy you had of the old edition. It
seems to me, considering the times and cir-
cumstances under which it was delivered, a
remarkable production, one of the mysterious
prophetic utterances made under the impulse
of a higher spirit than man's, which preceded
the downfall of slavery. The way in which
John Brown's name and acts, apparently so
insignificant in themselves, connected them-
selves with the uprising of a great nation
against a terrible wrong, his soul ‘marching on’
the animating spirit in more than a million
armed men, would be thought fabulous and
incredible, if such an event had been narrated
as belonging to the early history of Palestine
and Rome.
>!. >k :k >{< sk >{< >k >}:
“I thank you for doing something to re-
fresh our memories by bringing before us
again SO vividly the image of one whose name
has been identified with the greatest move-
ment of our age.
“Very truly yours,
(Signed) John H. Morison.”
After many useful years in Iowa Mr. Taft
in 1895 removed to California in the hope that
the change of climate might prove of bene-
fit to his wife, but only a temporary improve-
ment in health resulted and in 1897 she died
at Santa Monica. As the agent and general
manager for the Pacific Land Company in
1897 Mr. Taft undertook the building up of
Barrettville, now known as Sawtelle. Here
he erected the first cottage, planted the first
trees, developed the streets and laid water
pipes. Almost the first work which he at-
tempted was the setting off of the school dis-
trict, but he was able to secure the names of
only thirteen pupils, and as fifteen were nec-
essary, was held off for two weeks from set-
ting off the district. Fortunately, he found
four other children in a cañon that lay within
the district limits, and so the work was begun
which formed the nucleus of the present ex-
cellent town school. While building up the
town he never lost sight of the necessity of
970
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
making it beautiful and neat, so streets
were filled in and leveled, the schoolgrounds
were beautified, and Fourth street was opened
to the boulevard leading from Los Angeles
to Santa Monica, after which the governor
of the Home opened a new avenue, as a con-
tinuation of Fourth street to the Soldiers’
Home. Somewhat later he laid out Taft’s
subdivision, also the Burnham and Central
subdivisions to Sawtelle. In 1901 he resigned
as general manager for the land company and
afterward spent one year in lecturing under
the auspices of the Anti-Saloon League.
At this writing Mr. Taft devotes much of
his attention to his nurseries at Sawtelle,
where recently he erected one of the beautiful
modern and comfortable residences of that
city. His specialties are soft shell walnuts,
figs and grapes, shipments of which are made
throughout the country. In addition he is
prepared to fill orders for citrus and deciduous
fruits. To him belongs the credit of propagat-
ing the Californina Concord grape and the
Kadota fig, which have attracted wide and
favorable notice. As an arbor and table grape
the California Concord has no superior. Its
flavor resembles the eastern Concord, but the
fruit is larger and there are but one or two
seeds in a grape, while the leaves are much
larger and the vine more vigorous than the
vine from which it takes its name. For some
years Mr. Taft has devoted especial attention
to its propagation, and in all that time he
has seen no sign of blight or mildew on leaf,
fruit or vine. The grape was given its name
by Frank Wiggins, the secretary of the Los
Angeles Chamber of Commerce and one of the
most distinguished horticulturists of the world.
After eating of the fruit in the autumn of 1903
Mr. Wiggins suggested that as it resembled
the eastern Concord, it might appropriately
be called the California Concord, a suggestion
which Mr. Taft immediately adopted. The
Kadota fig, propagated by Mr. Taft, resembles
the White Pacific, but is larger and sweeter,
also the tree is more productive and of more
vigorous growth. While making a specialty
of the grape and fig which he propagated Mr.
Taft also sells large numbers of soft-shells
walnut trees, the several varieties of citrus
and deciduous’ trees, and many flowering
shrubs, the most beautiful of which is Cali-
fornia’s favorite flower, the Poincettia.
At the opening of the Lewis and Clark
Exposition in Portland Mr. Taft made an
exhibit of his specialties, and the California
commissioners’ superior jury of awards tender-
ed him the bronze medal for his Kadota figs
and California Concord grapes, as witnessed
by the following communication :
“San Francisco, Cal., Jan. 5th, 1906.
“Dear Sir :
“We take pleasure in handing you here-
with the diploma and medal awarded you on
your exhibit at the Lewis and Clark Exposi-
tion and kindly ask you to acknowledge the
S21116.
“We congratulate you on this testimonal
of the merit of your display, and again thank
you for your part, in helping us maintain the
credit and prestige of California at this ex-
position.
“With best wishes for success during the
new year, we remain,
“Very respectfully,
(Signed) “The California Commission,
“by J. A. Filcher, Frank Wiggins,
“Deputy Commissioners.”
The grounds of the Taft nurseries at Saw-
telle are supplied with four thousand feet of
pipe, more than fifty hydrants and three tanks,
an exhaustless well and two pumps, one of
them run by a windmill and the other by a
gasoline engine. An abundance of water
greatly facilitates the task of caring for the
nursery stock. The modern conveniences, sup-
plementing the keen oversight of the proprie-
tor, enable him to fill orders with promptness
and in a satisfactory manner, for which reason
his nurseries have gained a high place among
similar enterprises in this part of the state.
The diversified abilities of the owner are
abundantly indicated by the fact that in many
diversified lines of activity he has been suc-
cessful. Whether as a preacher, uplifting men
and women from the human toward the divine :
whether as a lecturer, discussing topics of in-
tense importance to the welfare of the country;
whether as the founder of an educational in-
stitution, implanting in the young principles of
truth, justice and morality; whether as the up-
builder of a town, working for the happiness
of future generations, or whether as a nursery-
man, giving to the little seedling the same care
which in former years he gave to the growing
youth ; in all of these varied lines of human ac-
tivity he has made a name for himself, and
even now, though past the age which we al-
lude to as “young,” he is still young in spirit,
young in hope, young in optimistic enthusi-
asm, and young in his sympathy with all that
is uplifting and true and brave.
In 1902 Mr. Taft married Mrs. Etta (Burn-
ham) Barber, a native of Madison county,
N. Y., and a lady well qualified as a helpmate
to him ; a leading member of the W. C. T. U.,
of California and in 1906 a delegate to the
National Convention at Hartford, Conn. She
only
--

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
973
is a member of the Congregational Church,
and active in her work for all enterprises seek-
ing for the betternment of Society.
E. A. ROGERS. Directly descended from
John Rogers, the martyr whose name is il-
lustrious in the annals of the church and de-
scended also from ancestors honorably and in-
timately associated with the early develop-
ment of America, Mr. Rogers is a member of
a colonial family of Maine, where his par-
ents, Francis S. and Rhoda T. (Rowe) Rog-
ers, were born, reared and married, and where
they remained upon a farm until death ter-
minated their usefulness. In that state he
was born March 23, 1849, and there he had
the advantages of study in grammar Schools,
high schools and the Maine State Normal
School. In order to secure the means neces-
sary for entrance upon a business career he
took up teaching and cngaged in public-school
work for five terms. The savings of these
months were invested in business pursuits and
in time he built up a business of considerable
importance, one which rewarded his pains-
taking industry with ever increasing profits.
All of his early life up to eighteen years was
devoted to farming, yet he had no special in-
clination toward the occupation, the bent of
his mind being toward commercial affairs.
As his success gave him an increas-
ing prestige among his fellow-citizens
he wielded among them an increasing influ-
ence and more than once was chosen to rep-
resent them in positions of local trust. For
a time he acted as assistant postmaster in the
town of Rangeley and also officiated as town
treasurer, in addition to which he held various
educational offices during a period of fifteen
years. In his home county he was an active
worker in the lodge of Odd Fellows and other
fraternities, and also a 1eading worker in the
Republican party.
A visit made to the Pacific coast in the fall
of 1886 impressed Mr. Rogers favorably con-
cerning the prospects of the west, and in all
he made seven trips across the continent to
the Sunset state in the interests of his health
and business. During his various trips he
made Los Angeles his headquarters and trav-
eled throughout the state from north to south
in search of a desirable location. In 1887,
when the property was first put upon the mar-
ket, he bought a ranch of one hundred acres
at Clearwater and in 1898 he came to this
place. On the ranch he usually keeps one
hundred head of cattle, among them being
forty or more milch cows, and he successfully
conducts the Lakeside Sanitary dairy, which
makes a specialty of good milk. In addition
to the supervision of the large dairy he is
proprietor of the Lakeside hotel at Clear-
water, and is well and favorably known to
the traveling public who have enjoyed the hos-
pitality of his house.
The first marriage of Mr. Rogers was sol-
emnized in 1873 and united him with Miss
May M. Henkley, a native of Maine. Four
children were born of that union, one of whom
died in infancy. Those now living are as fol-
lows: Clarence A., who makes his home at
Portland, Me. ; Harry E. and Ray E., both of
whom reside in California. Mrs. May Rogers
passed away in May, 1893. The second mar-
riage of Mr. Rogers took place July II, 1900,
and united him with Emma M. Hall, who was
born in Indiana and came to California in
early childhood. Two children, Orrville A.
and Thelma May, have been born of this
union. In religion Mr. Rogers was reared in
the Baptist faith, his parents and grandpar-
ents having been identified with that denomi-
nation, and in boyhood he served as clerk of
the Free Baptist Church to which his parents
helonged. Since then his views have changed
concerning spiritual matters and he has em-
braced the doctrines of theosophy. While liv-
ing in the east he read and studied much upon
this subject and investigation convinced him
of the realities of theosophical views, which
were so alien to the common sentiment of the
people that only he and one other in all of
the state of Maine accepted that religion as
their own, at that time, but since then several
societies have been inaugurated in that state.
O. A. WADLEIGH. A career worthy of
emulation from many standpoints, strong and
discerning in its recognition and acceptance of
opportunity, is that of O. A. Wadleigh, an
entensive rancher and promoter of the well-
being of Newbury Park and vicinity. The
ranch of fourteen thousand acres which he
has under his control and supervision repre-
sents but one of the numerous interests with
which he is connected, and it is safe to say
that the threshing outfit which he owns has
no equal in point of equipment and excellence
of work accomplished in this part of the coun-
ty. His services are in great demand among
the owners of grain and bean ranches espe-
cially and as the latter commodities form the
principal products of this locality, it can read-
ily be seen why he is a very busy man.
Mr. Wadleigh is of Canadian birth and par-
entage, born January 6, 1852, a son of Henry
51
974.
HISTORE CAL AND BIOGRAPHICAI, RECORD.
L. and Annis (Austin) Wadleigh. The father
died in East Bolton in 1882, at the age of
sixty-six, while the mother lived to attain her
eightieth year, her death occurring in Cali-
fornia. Both were members of the Methodist
Episcopal Church at Bolton. Of the four
children comprised in the parental family O.
A. was the second in order of birth. The
push and perseverance which have proved
such marked characteristics in his later years
were not wanting in his boyhood, but were
simply directed toward different channels,
and were especially noticeable in his studies.
While still quite young he had mastered the
common branches and had entered the high
school, and was graduated from the latter
when twenty years old. His plans for the
future had been carefully laid in the mean time,
and as soon as he left school he took the first
step in carrying them out by coming to Cali-
fornia. Going to Santa Barbara county he
engaged as a rancher there for some time, or
until coming to Ventura county in 1889. An
experience of eighteen years in this county
satisfied him that the combined conditions of
soil and climate could be duplicated in no
other locality, and the property which he had
in the mean time occupied as a renter became
his own. This consists of fourteen thousand
acres not far from Newbury Park, all of which
is devoted to grain and the raising of stock,
the cattle and hogs being raised and fattened
for the market.
The marriage of O. A. Wadleigh and Ger-
trude Kleckner, the latter a native of Pennsyl-
vania, occurred November 26, 1882, and has
resulted in the birth of three children, Frank
O., Fred H. and Dacy G. The same anima-
tion and enthusiasm noticeable in his private
enterprises is no less apparent in his endorse-
ment of Republican principles, and in him
his party has a stanch adherent. Mr. Wad-
1eigh finds relaxation from business cares by
association with friends and comrades in the
Masonic body, his membership being in Ox-
hard Lodge No. 34.I., F. & A. M.
THOMAS P. CONVERSE. The establish-
ment of Ramona Tent Village, consummated in
1902 by Mr. Converse, provides for the people
of Southern California and eastern tourists a de-
lightful place for recreation. A visitor bound
for this unique spot travels via the Cuyamaca
railroad to Foster and from the railroad term-
inus proceeds via stage seventeen miles to the
tent village, Mr. Converse's two-horse and four-
horse teams covering the entire distance in three
hours. Arriving at the destination one finds,
at an altitude of fifteen hundred feet, a village
of tents spread tranquilly beneath the shade
of the giant oak trees, while on every side in
the distance the hills rise into massive moun-
tains. Situated three miles from the town of
Ramona, the village of tents stands upon a large
tract, where every facility for amusement has
been provided by the proprietor. A bowling alley
built after the latest plans; a shooting gallery,
equipped with the highest-grade repeating rifles:
a dancing pavilion in the center of which is a
live-Oak with its branches spread on every side;
lawn tennis grounds, croquet grounds, a ladies'
tent with reading room and social parlor; a tel-
ephone service, daily mail, and indeed all the
equipments that add to the pleasure and comfort
of existence may be found here, while in ad-
dition the visitor enjoys the comradeship of peo-
ple of the highest refinement and culture. Dur-
ing the day the guests follow their varied in-
clinations for amusement, but at night they come
together before the campfire, where stories are
told, games played, and the evening hours quickly
pass. It is the proprietor's aim to make the vil-
lage less a sanitarium than a pleasure resort,
hence those afflicted with tuberculosis of the
lungs are not admitted, but such are accommo-
dated in the town of Ramona, if so desired.
In the neighborhood of the tract of one hun-
dred acres comprising the resort, Mr. Converse
owns one thousand acres of land, a portion of
which is under irrigation. Various wells have
been drilled, the deepest of which, at a depth
of three hundred feet, furnishes an inexhausti-
ble supply of water for irrigation and other pur-
poses. By means of pipes the fresh and pure
mountain water is conducted to the tents. The
waters of Ramona valley are famed for medic-
inal qualities, being slightly purgative in their
effect, and thus possess the healthful benefit of
the best tonics. No liquor is allowed to be sold
upon the grounds and boisterous conduct is pro-
hibited, so that an air of quiet refinement per-
vades the campers. For the convenience of those
who do not desire to engage in housekeeping a
restaurant is conducted, while for those who pre-
fer to eat beneath their own “vine and fig-tree”
there is a store stocked with staple and fancy
groceries and fresh milk, butter and eggs are
to be obtained as desired.
The proprietor of the village is of southern
birth but of northern lineage. His paternal
grandfather, James Converse, Sr., was a native
of Northampton, Mass., but spent much of his
active life as a merchant in Ohio; eventually re-
turning to Massachusetts, where he died. James
Converse, Jr., was born in Maumee, Ohio, and
like his father, was an Indian fighter of local
note. When sixteen years of age he became a
chainman on the Erie railroad and for years he
was engaged in railroad construction, although
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
975
for a time he abandoned that occupation to en-
gage in the steamship business. In the building
of the New York Central and Illinois Central
railroads he, for a time, was employed as en-
gineer. In 1872 he took the first train into San
Antonio, Texas, over the line of the Galveston,
Houston & San Antonio Railroad, of which he
and T. W. Pierce were the builders. The char-
ter, which they had secured, expired three and a
half hours after their first train entered the San
Antonio station, their work having been delayed
by the failure to receive the steel for bridges,
which forced them to build bridges of wood across
the Guadalupe and Colorado rivers. In addition
he built the railroad from New Orleans to Pe-
cos, Texas, a short distance east of El Paso, and
surveyed for the building of a trestle bridge over
the Pecos river, but instead of carrying out the
original design two tunnels were constructed and
twenty-two miles of heavy rock work built.
Since then a trestle bridge has been erected;
had it been done in the first place, as suggested
by him, more than one million dollars would have
been saved. In 1889 he resigned as chief engin-
eer of construction and afterwards was consult-
ing engineer for the Southern Pacific Railroad,
with his residence in San Antonio, where he died
in 1900, at the age of seventy-six years. During
the Civil war he was a member of the engineer-
ing corps.
After going to Texas, James Converse, Jr.,
married Elizabeth Allen, who was the first white
child born in Houston and who died at San An-
tonio in 1885. Her father, A. C. Allen, was a pion-
eer of Baldwinsville, N. Y., and engaged in the
mahogany trade, having several vessels between
New York and the ports of Mexico. In an early
day he removed to Texas and bought land now
occupied by the cities of Houston and Harris-
burg, being himself the earliest settler of Hous-
ton. At the time of his death, which occurred in
Mexico, lie was a man of considerable means.
Among three children forming the family of
James and Elizabeth Converse the only survivor
is the gentleman whose name introduces this
article. Born in Houston, Texas, July 14, 1876,
has was a lad of nine years when the family re-
moved to San Antonio and there he attended the
grammar and high schools, later being sent to
Austin College at Sherman, Texas, and Hiram
College in Hiram, Ohio. On his return to Texas
he was employed as agent for the railroad at
Ganahl. In September, Igor, he came to San
Diego, Cal., where he owns and occupies a com-
fortable residence at No. 323 I D street. For a
time he engaged in speculating in lands and
gold mines, but in 1903 he became interested in
the project for the building up of the tent village
and has since given his attention largely to this
work. In addition he is interested, with Dr.
Goff, in the leasing of the Buckham mineral
springs, located near Pine valley, midway be-
tween DescansO and Campo. Before the earth-
quake the natural gas in the Spring water was so
Strong that it would burst the quart bottles and
was therefore put in pint copper drums; since
then, however, it has been possible to handle the
water in quart, pint and half-pint bottles. The
water is now on the market and widely known as
one of California’s natural remedies, for which
the state is so noted.
The marriage of Mr. Converse took place July
I4, 1896, and united him with Miss Verdi Thayer
member of a family of educators and composers,
descended from French-Huguenot ancestors, who
spelled the name Thair. Her grandfather,
Hiram Thayer, was a native of Massachusetts
and became a pioneer of Ohio, where he acquired
large landed interests. Among the children of
Hiram Thayer was a son, I. A. Thayer, D. D.,
who was a soldier in the Civil war and a promi-
nent educator and preacher. Another son, Rev.
D. P. Thayer, who was the father of Mrs. Con-
verse, was born in Trumbull county, Ohio, be-
came a minister in the Christian Church and
died in Ohio when forty-six years of age. Fra-
ternally he was identified with the Masons. At
an early age he had married Dora Collins, who
was born in Portage county, Ohio, and who re-
sided in Virginia until June 14, 1906, when she
came to San Diego to visit her daughter and to
regain her health. She died in San Diego July
30, 1906, at the age of fifty-five. Descended
from English ancestors, she was a daughter of
Orson and Emilia Collins, the former a lumber
manufacturer in Portage county; the latter was a
member of the Norton family, originally known
as Norville, of French lineage, prominent as
teachers and attorneys. In the family of Rev.
D. P. Thayer there were two children, of whom
the Son, C. D., is a graduate of Hiram College
and now a planter in Virginia. The daughter,
Mrs. Converse, was born in Warren, Trumbull
county, Ohio, and received her education in
Hiram College: Born of her marriage to Mr.
Converse there are two sons, James Pierce and
Carleton Thayer.
While business duties necessarily take Mr.
Converse from San Diego during a part of each
year, he nevertheless, maintains a deep interest in
all enterprises for the development of the city,
is an active member of the Chamber of Com-
merce, and favors all projects for the permanent
well-being of his town and county. Among the
organizations with which he is identified may
be mentioned the Knights of Pythias and the
Corinthian Yacht Club, of which he holds the
office of commodore at the present writing. Mrs.
Converse belongs to the Amphion Musical Club
and the Wednesday Club.
976
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
WILLIAM D. MOFFATT. A goodly
Inumber of the prosperous families of Southern
California have come hither from more northerly
regions and not a few are from Canada, their
removal having been made for the purpose of
escaping the long winters and severe blizzards
characteristic of northerly latitudes. In this list
belongs Mr. Moffatt of San Diego county, who
came to the Pacific coast in 1891 and the follow-
ing year arrived at Ramona, his present home
town. The family of which he is a member set-
tled in Canada from Europe many generations
gone by and afterward they were prominent in
local development along agricultural lines. His
paternal grandfather, James Moffatt, was a man
of unusually progressive spirit, ever reaching out
to find needed improvements for farm activities,
To such an extent was he a progressive pioneer
that he had the distinction of bringing into the
district, around Riceville, Ontario, the first thresh-
ing machine, the first harvester and the first
S
honey separator brought into all of that region.
The locality near Riceville, so long the home of
the family, has profited immeasurably by the cit-
izenship of John Moffat, who still resides there.
His faithful life companion, before her marriage,
Sarah Westwood, died on the old homestead
November 29, 1906. Their son, William D., was
born there July 29, 1868, and received his edu-
cation in the neighboring schools. While still
a mere boy he assisted in caring for bees and
gained a thorough knowledge of the Occupation
of an apiarist. Upon starting out to seek his
livelihood he secured employment in the lumber
regions of Canada and remained in the logging
camps for three years, after which, in 1889, he
went to the lumber districts of Michigan and
worked for one and one-half years in the same
occupation. After coming to California in 1891
he settled in San Bernardino county and for one
year engaged in the fruit business. From that
county he removed to Ramona, San Diego coun-
ty, and here he has since remained, with the
exception of a brief period in Fresno and a short
experience in railroading in Arizona. In 1895
he bought ten acres adjacent to Ramona, where
he now has his home, and he leases one hundred
and fifty acres of grain land in the same local-
ity. Besides raising grain he devotes much at-
tention to the bee business and has seventy col-
onies in his apiary, besides which he owns a
one-half interest in four hundred and twenty-
five colonies located at Witch Creek.
The marriage of Mr. Moffatt was solemnized
at San Pasqual November 14, 1900, and united
lim with Miss Catleen Settle, whose parents now
reside in the San Pasqual valley, but were liv-
ing in Los Angeles at the time of her birth. The
only child of her marriage is a daughter, Martha
Irene. Mr. Moffatt is identified with Court No.
852O, Ancient Order of Foresters, and his wife
with the ladies' auxiliary of the same. For a time
he filled the position of deputy county bee in-
Spector, for which work his long and success-
ful experience as an apiarist admirably qualified
him. To the people of the valley he is known
as a citizen of progressive spirit, an agriculturist
of untiring industry, an apiarist of unflagging
enthusiasm and a man of generous disposition
and kind heart, ever willing to help the distressed
and unfortunate. -
FREDERICK JOHN ESLER. About the
middle of the nineteenth century there came to
the United States from Great Britain a sturdy
emigrant of Scotch nativity, who had been or-
dained to the ministry of the Methodist Epis-
copal Church. Early in life he had removed
from Scotland to county Donegal, Ireland, where
to his union with an English lady there was born
a son, Benjamin T. When the latter was a small
child the family crossed the ocean to America
and settled on the then frontier of Michigan,
where they took up the arduous task of trans-
forming a raw tract of land into an improved
and profitable farm. Upon starting out from the
old home to make his own way in the world,
the son took up mercantile pursuits in Grand
Ledge, Eaton county, Mich., and there he re-
mained for many busy and useful years, but
eventually he retired from merchandising, re-
moved to California and purchased an orange
grove of twenty acres at Redlands, where he
since has made his home. In spite of his sev-
enty years of life he is still hearty and energetic,
and bears a share in the activities of his town.
During young manhood he married Minerva A.
Holmes, who was born in Ohio and in childhood
accompanied her parents to Michigan, remaining
for a time at Farmington, over the line from
Oakland county in the adjoining county of
Wayne. Later, however, the family removed
to Grand Ledge, Eaton county, where occurred
the death of her father, J. S. Holmes, a native
of Massachusetts and a member of an old east-
ern family. In religious belief Mrs. Minerva
Esler adheres to the doctrines of the Congrega-
tional denomination and from girlhood has been
warmly interested in missionary and charitable
movementS. -
In the family of Benjamin T. and Minerva
Esler there were three sons and two daughters.
The eldest of the number, Frederick John, was
born at Grand Ledge, Mich., August 28, 1863.
and attended the grammar and high schools of
his native town, where later he assisted his
father in the general mercantile business. Com-
ing to California in 1884 he secured employment
with the Brookside Winery Company, in which
-
-

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
979
later he became a stockholder. The original
Owners of the winery were the Vaché Brothers,
to whose energy the start of the plant was due.
In 1891 Messrs. Ingersoll and Esler opened a
wholesale business in San Bernardino on Third
Street and later removed across the street to
their present location, where they occupy a
building 50x IOO feet in dimensions. Besides
managing their own plant they are directors in
the Brookside winery with E. Vaché & Co.,
and have become leading representatives of their
industry in the State. The business was incor-
porated in July, IQ05, under the title of the In-
gersoll & Esler Company, with Mr. Esler as
vice-president. In addition to handling their
Own product the firm act as representatives of
Anheuser-Busch, also of Maier-Zobelin of Los
Angeles and the San Diego Brewing Company.
After coming to California Mr. Esler was
married in Los Angeles to Mrs. Camile (Mich-
eaux) Reitz, a native of Calaveras county,
this state, and daughter of Lewis Micheaux, one
of the pioneers of the west. The family residence
is at No. 456 G Street, San Bernardino. Though
riot a partisan in politics, Mr. Esler has decided
Opinions upon matters pertaining to the welfare
of the nation and always votes the Republican
ticket. Through membership on the board of
trade he has been helpful in promoting the ma-
terial and commercial development of his home
city. His identification with Masonry began in
San Bernardino Lodge No. 348, F. & A. M., of
which he now is an active member. Other or-
ders with which he holds membership are the
Eagles and Lodge No. 146, I. O. O. F., in which
he is past grand, and he is further identified
with the Encampment.
JOHN RUOPP. As far back into past cen-
turies as the Ruopp genealogical records can
be traced, it is found that the ancestors re-
sided in the southern provinces of the German
Empire and from the time of the Reformation
they were followers of Martin Luther. John
Ruopp, Sr., was for many years an industri-
ous farmer and stock-raiser in Wurtemberg
and remained there until his death in 1896,
many years after the demise of his wife, Cath-
erine (Lamparter) Ruopp, who died when her
son, John, Jr., was a boy of fourteen years.
The five children in the family are still living,
and of these John, who was third in order of
birth, was the only one to settle in the United
States. Born on the home farm near Mun-
singen, Wurtemberg, Germany, November
20, 1858, he attended the National schools of
the home locality and later was a student in
the Ruetlingen and Hoenheim academies. Up-
on leaving school he secured employment as
foreman on a large farm.
Following the general custom in his native
land Mr. Ruopp served a term of three years
in the German army. During November of
1878 he was assigned to the First Troop of
Cavalry Regiment and remained at the front
11ntil 1881, when he received an honorable dis-
charge. Meanwhile he had held the rank of
Corporal. Before leaving the army he decided
to emigrate to America, but on his return
home he found his father strongly opposed to
such a move and so he consented to remain
in the fatherland. For one year he was a
student in a business college. However, the
desire was still strong with him to seek a
home in the new world, and in 1883 he crossed
the Ocean to New York, thence traveled to
Fort Atkinson, Iowa, and from there to
Beatrice, Gage county, Neb., where resided a
cousin who was employed as a civil engineer
On the Union Pacific Railroad. While he
was pleased with Nebraska he had read so
much concerning California that he was un-
willing to settle elsewhere. During the sum-
mer of I884 he arrived on the Pacific coast
and Soon found employment near Santa Ana,
where he assisted a horticulturist for a year
and conducted an orchard for W. T. Brown of
Fullerton for three years.
Not long after his arrival in California Mr.
Ruopp became a land-owner, having acquired
in 1887 eight hundred acres of land forming
a part of the Aliso grant in Santiago cañon,
and after leaving Mr. Brown's employ he set-
tled on his own ranch, where he engaged in
stock-raising. During 1802 he sold the ranch
to Madame Modjeska, who owned an adjoin-
ing estate, and for two years afterward he re-
mained on the place as foreman of the prop-
erty. During 1804 he was engaged as fore-
man in the Chino plant of the American Beet
Sugar Company, but after six months was
transferred to a position as agriculturist for
the company, and in IOOI came to Oxnard as
manager of the Patterson ranch of fifty-eight
hundred acres, mainly devoted to lima beans
and beet culture. While living in Santa Ana
he married Miss Priscilla M. Harding, who
was born at Pawpaw, Lee county, Ill., but
has resided on the coast since girlhood. Since
becoming a citizen of the United States he
has voted the Republican ticket and has kept
posted concerning the problems confronting
our nation, but has not sought political prom-
inence or official honors. The only fraternity
with which he affiliates is the Knights of
Pythias. Splendidly educated in the schools
of his native land, with the further advantage
of a cosmopolitan knowledge acquired by trav-
els through much of the old and the new
world, he forms a valuable addition to the
980
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
citizenship of Ventura county, and is univer-
sally honored as a man of refinement, a close
student of agriculture (particularly that de-
partment bearing upon beet culture) and the
possessor of excellent business ability which
enables him to fill his present responsible po-
sition with skill and success.
HENRY LOWE. During the period of
about twenty-four years, representing the dura-
tion of Mr. Lowe's occupancy of a ranch two
miles Southwest of Palms, Los Angeles county,
he witnessed the constant development of the
county and personally contributed thereto by his
painstaking care and intelligent management as
a rancher. The tract of seventy-five acres which
he purchased soon after his arrival in the county
in the fall of 1882 continued to be his home and
the Scene of his activities until the winter of
1905-06, when, desiring to retire from agricult-
ural cares, he disposed of the property for $285
an acre, an amount much greater than the origi-
nal purchase price of the land, and erected his
modern residence in Palms on Third street and
Eucalyptus avenue.
Born in England, May 23, 1836, Mr. Lowe
is a member of an old English family and spent
the years of his boyhood in his native country,
but at the age of sixteen years came to the
United States. Taking passage on a sailing ves-
sel September Io, 1852, he arrived in New York
after a trip of six weeks and three days out
from London. For three years he remained
near the Atlantic coast, working as a farm hand.
Next he removed to Iowa and settled at Lyons,
Clinton county, where, for several years, he was
interested in the manufacture of brick, and later
took up general farming. At the outbreak of
the war his sympathy was given at once to the
cause of the Union. In 1862 he enlisted as a
private in Company K, Twenty-sixth Iowa In-
fantry, to serve for three years or until the close
of the war. With his regiment he marched to
the south, where he took part in the battle of
Arkansas Post, the noted siege of Vicksburg,
and the engagements at Atlanta, Missionary
Ridge and Lookout Mountain, after which he
marched with Sherman to the sea.
Though his long and active service took him
into the midst of the enemy's country and into
sanguinary battles, he was never wounded nor
taken prisoner.
Receiving an honorable discharge from the
army in 1865 at Washington, D. C., Mr. Lowe
returned to Iowa, but soon afterward moved to
Minnesota and took up a homestead in McLeod
county, where he remained for eight years,
Upon selling that farm he returned to Iowa
and settled in Plymouth county, where he car-
ried on general farming, and met with alter-
nating hardships and successes. In order to
obtain the advantages of a more desirable cli-
mate, in the fall of 1882 he came to California
and has since made Los Angeles county his
home. While living in Iowa he was married at
Lyons, March 12, 1860, to Miss Anna Stinton,
a native of England, and like himself, a sincere
member of the United Brethren denomination.
Coming to the coast in 1882, she remained in
Los Angeles county until her death, which oc-
curred February 26, 1891. Seven children were
born of their union, namely: S. J., who is en-
gaged in ranching and the dairy business near
the old homestead; Sarah, who has charge of
the home and has ministered to the comfort of
the family since her mother's death ; William,
a farmer living near Sawtelle; Emma, who
married Charles Kiggins, of Ocean Park; Robert,
of Palms: Louise and Arthur, who are with
their father. In younger years Mr. Lowe was
an active worker in the Prohibition cause and,
while now less active, he is no less earnest and
pronounced in his opposition to the indiscrimi-
nate sale of intoxicating liquors. As a citizen
he commands the esteem of associates, to whom
he is known as a patriotic pioneer, a man of high
character and a generous friend.
ANDREW COMSTOCK. One of the Solid
ranchers of Los Angeles county and a man who
has made friends wherever he is known, Andrew
Comstock is rounding out the years of a well-
spent life in the management and improvement
of a ranch of fifty acres in the vicinity of El
Monte. He was born in Lenawee county, Mich.,
January 1, 1847, a Son of Eseck and Mary
(Allen) Comstock, natives of New York and
Vermont respectively. The parents were mar-
ried in Ohio, where the father engaged as a
farmer, but at an early date in the history of
Michigan he removed to that state and bought
timber land which he cleared for a farm, and
there passed the remainder of his days, dying
at the age of sixty-two years, while his wife
iived to be seventy. Mr. Comstock belonged
to the state militia while a resident of New
York, and in politics was always a stanch Re-
publican. He took a prominent part in the pub-
lic affairs of whatever community he made his
home, having served as a school officer for many
terms. They were the parents of seven children,
only two of whom are living, Alfred still making
his home in Michigan.
Educated in his native county, Andrew Com-
stock attained years of discretion on his father's
farm, and at the age of nineteen started out in
life for himself, working on neighboring farms
for seven years. He then purchased a timber
/3/3/0, …
--
ºncº.


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
983
farm in Michigan and began its improvement,
clearing the land and erecting a residence, barns
and outbuildings, having a farm of ninety-five
acres. In Michigan, November 7, 1876, he was
united in marriage with Miss Nancy Waffle,
a native of Ohio, and a daughter of Andrew
Waffle, her death occurring December 6, 1892.
She left the following children: Elna, wife of
Ward E. Corwin, engaged in the grocery busi-
ness in Pomona, Cal.; Delphia; and Olin. In
February, 1894, Mr. Comstock was united in
marriage with Miss Mary E. McComb, a native
of Michigan and daughter of William McComb,
who died in Michigan in 1906. Soon after his
marriage Mr. Comstock came to California and
located in Santa Monica, his first employment
after reaching the state being with the first
electric road to Santa Monica from Los Angeles.
He then purchased a ranch and engaged in farm-
ing pursuits and also leased land, continuing
so occupied for Seven years, when, in 1903, he
came to the vicinity of El Monte and bought
fifty-eight acres, which now forms his present
property. He has made his own improvements
and brought the land to a high State of cultiva-
tion, while he also owns forty per cent of a pump-
ing plant. He still owns his property in Santa
Monica, which by reason of the rapid rise in
real estate is increasing rapidly in value. Mr.
Comstock has two children by his second mar-
riage, Laurin and Gailen. In his political con-
victions he was a Republican in early life, but
lie is now an advocate of the principles of the
Prohibitionists. While a resident of Michigan
he served as school trustee and has also held a
like position here. Both himself and wife are
members of the United Brethren Church.
13 ERNARD BRADLEY ROCKWOOD.
The life which this narrative depicts began
in Randolph, Vt., in July, 1831, and closed in
San Diego county, Cal., August 26, 1901. Be-
tween the two dates and the two localities SO
remote from each other there were struggles,
hardships, joys and successes of which the
Imerest epitome can be recorded in this vol-
unne, for the limits of the work preclude ex-
tended mention, nor was it the nature of the
man himself to dwell upon his past. Its pri-
vations and toil were soon forgotten, and its
successes with characteristic modesty he re-
frained from mentioning to others. During
the later years of his life he allowed himself
to relax from many of his former activities,
yet to the last he maintained a deep interest in
the management of his ranch and showed a
constant devotion to the prosperity of his ac-
quaintances and neighbors in the San Pasqual
vallev.
The early childhood of Mr. Rockwood was
darkened by the death of his mother, Lucinda
(Kimball) Rockwood. When twelve years of
age he accompanied his father, John, to Il-
linois and settled near Ringwood, McHenry
county, where the father in due time brought
under cultivation a large and valuable farm
and in early days also followed the trade of
a wheelwright, remaining at Ringwood until
death. During the year 1851 B. B. Rockwood
left the paternal roof and traveled overland
to California, the journey with oxen consum-
ing many monotonous months. Following
his arrival he mined in northern districts. In
1857 he returned via Panama to Illinois, but
in 1859 again started for the further west,
this time settling near Neodesha, Kans., where
he engaged in farming and stock-raising. His
second removal to California occurred in 1876,
when he established his home in the Sweet-
water valley. From there in 1881 he came to
San Pasqual valley and settled on land which
he had purchased two years before. On this
place he engaged in raising general farm prod-
ucts and stock, and after some time he began
to be interested in the dairy industry, which
he found a profitable adjunct of general farm-
ing. In addition he was interested in horses
and brought the first registered standard-bred
stallion ever in San Pasqual valley, this ani-
mal being Prince Hinsdale, which he pur-
chased at a cost of $1,2OO, and he also had
other fine horses on his ranch.
For many years Mr. Rockwood served as
clerk of the school board of his district and
in other ways he promoted the local educa-
...tional interests. Liberal in views, broad in
spirit, generous to those in need, a promoter
of worthy movements and a contributor to
projects for the upbuilding of the county, he
held a high place in the regard of the people,
and when death terminated his busy career
there were many to testify that a true friend
had been lost and a man of fine character had
passed from the valley so long his home.
While living in Kansas he had married Ange-
line Doran, who died in 1876. Four children
were born of that union, namely: Clara, who is
married and lives in Dixon, Cai. ; Mrs. Nettie
Bishop, of San Francisco; Emma, who died
at the age of three years; and George, who
died in San Pasqual valley at the age of twen-
ty years. In May of 1878 Mr. Rockwood mar-
ried Rachel Haynes, who was born in Mas-
sachusetts, and now resides on the old home-
stead in San Pasqual valley. Three children
blessed their union, namely: Mary, Mrs. Peet,
who iives on the home ranch ; Lester, who
was born in 188! and with his brother-in-law,
984
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
under the title of Rockwood & Peet, conducts
the home ranch ; and Lucy, also at home.
As mentioned, the management of the home-
stead is now in the charge of Rockwood &
Peet. The latter, Everett Peet, was born in
Linn county, Iowa, in 1871, being a son of
Rudolphus and Martha E. (Hewett) Peet, na-
tives respectively of New York and Pennsyl-
vania, but residents of Iowa from 1845 until
1886. During the latter year they came to the
coast and settled on a farm near Escondido,
where he died in July, 1903, at the age of six-
ty-six years. Since his death Mrs. Peet has
made her home in Escondido. When fifteen
years of age Everett Peet accompanied his
parents to California and settled with them
near Escondido, where he attended School.
In June of 1899 he married Miss Mary Rock-
wood, by whom he has three children, Ver-
non, Vernard and Clifford.
JOHN C. BARGAR. Standing prominent
among the keen, wide-awake, quick-witted young
business men of Ramona is John C. Bargar, an
expert mechanic and plumber, who is widely and
favorably known throughout this section of San
Diego county, having charge, practically, of all
of the plumbing and pumping business within a
radius of twenty miles. Industrious and enter-
prising, noted for his honesty and uprightness of
character, he has won the esteem and confidence
of the community, and holds high rank among its
valued and trusted citizens. A son of Henry C.
Bargar, he was born, August 7, 1870, in Mead-
ville, Mo., where he grew to manhood's estate.
A native of Ohio, Henry C. Bargar spent his
early life in the place of his birth.
tocsin of war resounded through the land he was
one of the first to respond to its call, enlisting
in Company C, Fifty-first Ohio Volunteer Infan-
try, in which he served for upwards of four
years. Under command of General Thomas he
participated in the battle of Shiloh, where he
was severely wounded. At the close of the war
he located in Linn county, Mo., taking up wild
land, from which he improved a valuable farm,
and on which he is still living, an honored and
influential citizen. For ten years he was presi-
dent of the Linn County Mutual Insurance Com-
pany, and for a long time was also president of
the Anti Horse Thief Society of Missouri. He
is an active member of the Grand Army of the
Republic, and of the Ancient Order of United
Workmen. He married Mary A. Loffer, who
bore him eleven children, ten of whom are living,
all, with the exception of John C., being settled
near the parental homestead in Meadville, Mo.
The mother is a true Christian woman, and a
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
When the
In 1891, having attained his majority, John
C. Bargar left the home farm, coming to Cali-
fornia in search of a broader field of action.
Locating in Ramona, he engaged in ranching,
continuing thus employed for four years. In
1895 he purchased an interest in a blacksmith's
shop, but at the end of two years disposed of his
share of the smithy and embarked in his present
business. As a plumber and an installer of pumps
and windmills he has no rival in this section of
Southern California, his business in this line being
extensive and lucrative. He does the most of the
plumbing in this section, and has here erected
Over three hundred windmills, evidences of his
work being seen in every direction. In his store
he also carries a line of hardware and paints.
Aside from his other work, he operated a feed
mill, carrying on a thriving business in grinding
feed. Progressive and enterprising, he was one
of the organizers of the San Diego and Back
Country Telephone Line, and in other ways has
done much to advance the welfare of the town
and country.
In 1896 Mr. Bargar married Ida M. Telford,
who was born in Meadville, Mo., and came to
Ramona with her father, George A. Telford,
when Mr. Bargar came here. Mr. and Mrs. Bar-
gar have one child, Florence, now six years old.
Politically Mr. Bargar is a stanch Republican
and for one term served as deputy assessor.
Fraternally he belongs to San Diego Lodge No.
153, I. O. O. F.
MARIANO J. DUARTE. Descended from
an old Spanish family, Mariano J. Duarte was
was born in San Gabriel, Los Angeles county,
March 8, 1872. His father, Mariano Duarte, a
native of Spain, came to California in an early
day and established the family fortunes in this
section ; he was educated in San Gabriel Mission
and there also married Conception Bustamente,
who was born in Mexico. He had a family of
nine children, of whom six are still living in
California. He followed various occupations in
the vicinity of his home until his death, which
Occurred in 1903, at the age of sixty-three years,
his wife having passed away at the early age of
thirty-nine years. Mariano J. Duarte received
his education in the public school in the vicinity
of his home, and after the close of his boyhood
years he engaged as an apprentice to learn the
blacksmith’s trade. He was then located in Ana-
heim. After about four years spent in that
location he came to San Gabriel and followed
his trade for three and a half years, when he
established a similar enterprise in Savannah. He
met with success in that location and with the ac-
cumulated savings of two years returned to San
Gabriel and established a blacksmith shop, which
he has now conducted for about ten years.


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
987
In 1893 Mr. Duarte married Mrs. Maria Selma
(Byre) Rogers, who was born in Leipsic, Ger–
many, and educated in its schools. At the age
of nine years she was brought to America by
her sister, Mrs. Augusta Wagner, her mother
having died when she was one year old. Her
father was a man of magnificent stature, six
and a half feet tall, and was a soldier in the
Franco-Prussian war. Maria Byre attended a
convent in Canada and at the age of twenty years
left school and came to the southwest, where in
Arizona she met and married James Rogers. He
was born in Vicksburg, Miss., and educated in
the schools of that section, after which he en-
gaged as an engineer in Arizona. They became
the parents of the following children: Charles, of
Shorb, Cal.; Fannie, wife of Joaquin Poyoreno;
Amelia; Cora, who died in' infancy; and
Leola, a graduate of Zeulenroda, Reuss
principality, Germany, and now a student in the
public school of San Gabriel. Mr. Rogers died
October 16, 1889, in Pasadena. He was as-
sociated fraternally with the Ancient Order of
United Workmen and the Select Knights. Mr.
and Mrs. Duarte have one son living, Alberto,
now twelve years old. Mr. Duarte is a member
of the Modern Woodmen of America, and in
religion belongs to the Catholic Church. He is
a Republican in politics.
MRS, ELIZA. P. ROBBINS-CRAFTS.
No name is better known or held in higher
appreciation in Southern California than that
which heads this review—one of the few, earn-
est and devoted Christian women who gave to
the upbuilding of the western commonwealth
that impetus without which California could
never have become the state it is today. For
more than a half century she has claimed Cali-
fornia for her home, having made the long
and wearisome journey to the Pacific coast in
1854, the wife of a sturdy pioneer, with him
braving the dangers and hardships of a primi-
tive civilization, without him later facing
them alone and courageously bearing her part
in the burden of the years. Surviving the
perils of those early days she has come to the
evening of her life amid the grandeur of an
accomplished civilization, has witnessed the
passing away of the shadows and mists of un-
certainties, the development of the unequaled
resources of this magnificent state, and is con-
tented that she should have helped in the up-
building of her adopted home.
Mrs. Crafts was in maidenhood Eliza P.
Russell, the youngest in a family of six chil-
dren, two sons and four daughters, born to
her parents. Her father, John Russell, was
a son of Joel and Mary (Foster) Russell (the
latter of English descent), and was born De-
cember 14, 1789, in Hillsboro, N. H. His ed-
ucation was obtained through the medium of
the public schools and later through a well
used power of observation, his general infor-
mation and knowledge placing him high among
his fellow citizens. He was a Bible student,
and in young manhood became a member of
the Methodist Episcopal Church, serving for
years as superintendent of its Sunday-school
and in many different avenues proving his
ability and usefulness. He was a musician of
unusual ability, one of the instruments he
played being a bass viol, which he made him-
self. In politics he was a Whig and an Aboli-
tionist. His death occurred at the home of
his son in 1875, at the age of eighty-six years.
He was twice married, his first wife being
Betsy C. Bucknam, who was born in Ipswich,
N. H., in May, 1795.
They were married in the town of her birth,
after which they removed to Unadilla Center,
N. Y., in 1816, three years later. Mrs. Rus-
sell was a near relative of Thomas Reid, the
well known statesman. Her death occurred
in 1828, when thirty-three years of age. Their
eldest son, Ambrose Baxter, was educated at
Geneva College and the New York Theologi-
cal Seminary, although he was a man of such
versatility of character and talents that he re-
ceived much more benefit from his natural
powers of observation than by the time spent
over his studies. He became an Episcopal
clergyman, his pastorates being in the south
until after the Civil war, in which he lost much
of his property, which was in Louisiana, after
which he came north to Pekin, I11., and there
made his home until his death, which oc-
curred at the age of seventy-five years.
|He was twice married. By his second
marriage to Augustine Vallondeves, four
children were born : John, of San Fran-
cisco; Mrs. Justine Millard, of Peoria, Ill; and
Mrs. G. S. Slayden, of Clarksville, Tenn.
Mary Foster Russell married Carlton Wads-
worth in Newport, N. H., their home being
in Henniker, that state, for some years; his
death occurred in Norwich, Vt., in 1868, his
wife surviving him many years and dying in
the home of her son Edwin, in Grinnell, Iowa,
at the advanced age of eighty-six years. One
son, William, was killed at the battle of Wil-
mington; Edwin’s widow lives in Chickasha,
I. T. Aurelia Maria was educated at the Troy
Female Seminary. She never married but
taught in an academy in North Carolina sev-
eral years, and also taught a young ladies’
school in Maryland, near Harper's Ferry, and
also a select school in New York; she died in
her sister's home in 1852 at the age of thirty-
988
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
two years. Fannie W. Russell married Rich-
ard Blore, a farmer in Rookdale, Chenango
County, N. Y., where she made her home until
her death, which occurred in 1902 at the age
of seventy-two years; she has two sons, Will-
iam and Russell, and a daughter, Mrs. Sarah
Odell, living. George Washington married
Caroline Austin when twenty years old and
went west to Woodstock, Ill., thence to In-
dianola, Neb., where for many years he was
business manager and collector for the Mc-
Cormick Threshing Machine Company; he
he died at the age of eighty-three years, sur-
vived by a son, Charles, and three daughters,
Ellen, Eva and Belle. Eliza P. was the young-
est child, her birth occurring November 29,
1825, in Unadilla Center, Otsego county, N.
Y. Her father married the second time, Eliza-
beth Gilbert becoming his wife, and born of
this 11nion was one son, Lewis Legrande, who
is now living in New York and engaged in the
conduct of a dairy farm.
The childhood of Eliza P. Russell was
passed upon the farm of her parents, where
she attended the public schools in pursuit of a
preliminary education, and at the same time
received the deep Christian training which
Imade its most lasting impression upon her
character as a woman. She was an imagina-
tive child, fond of the silent dreams that only
thoughtful children indulge in, loving books,
the woods and fields and birds, and taking a
pleasure in life unsurpassed. At thirteen years
she became a member of the Methodist Epis-
copal Church and throughout the long years
that followed has proven faithful to the vows
taken at that time. She early resolved to be-
come a teacher and accordingly all her plans
and preparation were for this end. After leav-
ing the public schools she attended an acad-
emy at Herkimer, N. Y., for one term, after
which she took up the study of French and
the piano music being one of the noticeable
talents of this family. The following summer
she taught a country school and the following
winter again attended school. In September,
1846, she entered the Troy Female Seminary,
the pioneer ladies’ school of the United States,
founded by Mrs. Emma Willard, in 1819, in
Waterford, N. Y., and removed to Troy in
1821. Leaving the institution in January,
1848, she secured a position as vice-principal
of a seminary in Hillsboro, Loudon county,
Va., and there spent the four ensuing years,
enjoying the work and the pleasures which
were hers in a hospitable southern state.
While there she made many interesting trips
through the country, visiting the Capitol, the
White House, and other points of interest as
well as brief journeys over the Shenandoah
valley. In December, 1852, she accepted a po-
sition on a plantation in Louisiana, where her
brother was then engaged as an Episcopal
clergyman, and there she passed about two
uneventful years.
Here, too, Miss Russell became the wife
of one of California's pioneers, Ellison Rob-
bins, the ceremony being performed by her
brother on June 6, 1854. Mr. Robbins was the
Son of Ephraim and Elizabeth (Howland)
Robbins, and was born near Unadilla Center,
N. Y., October 8, 182O. His father was born
in Plymouth, Mass., in 1793, his education be-
ing received in the public schools of that place,
after which he married and with his wife lo-
cated on a farm in New York. They became
the parents of three sons, Ebenezer, Eli and El-
lison, and two daughters, Elizabeth and Emily.
Ebenezer and his family were fine musicians
On the piano, organ and guitar, as well as
leaders in singing. The father was active in,
the moral reform work of that time and a
strong Abolitionist. He died in 1842 at the
age of forty-nine years while his wife passed
away in 1869 at the age of seventy-five years.
The boyhood days of Ellison Robbins were
passed on his father's farm with no educa-
tional advantages but the public school until
he had attained his majority. At his father's
death he received $100 with which to start in
the world, and with this he entered Gilberts-
ville Academy in preparation for his life work.
He was graduated from Hamilton College in
1849 and the following year started for Cali-
fornia by way of the Isthmus of Panama. He
worked in the mines for a time but was de-
frauded of $1,000 by his partner, after which
he engaged in carrying provisions to the im-
migrants crossing the plains. Soon after-
ward Mr. Robbins secured the position of pro-
fessor in the Methodist College at Santa Clara,
and he remained so occupied until May, 1854,
when he went east to meet his affianced wife,
then in Louisiana, and there they were mar-
ried June 6 of that year. Together they then
went north to visit their old homes, remain-
ing there until the last of October, when they
again took passage for California, which was
to be their future home. The cost of the pas-
sage by steamer was $300 each, via the Nica-
ragua route, twelve miles being made by mule-
back, after which they again took passage on
a steamer bound for San Francisco, being
carried to the sides of the boat on the backs
of the natives. Many and interesting were
the events of this journey, and these now form
an entertaining topic of conversation with Mrs.
Crafts (after the death of her husband Mrs.
Robbins was married to another pioneer, My-
ron H. Crafts).
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
989
The home of Mr. and Mrs. Robbins re-
mained in Santa Clara until 1857, when he
was induced to go to Los Angeles by Rev.
A. L. Bateman to start a high school, but the
town was in no condition for such an enter-
prise. He delivered lectures in Santa Clara
and San Bernardino on the important topics
of the day, as he was a member of the Sons
of Temperance. In January, 1858, they first
came to San Bernardino, making the trip by
stage, the town then having but three small
stores and a few adobe dwellings. Both hus-
band and wife taught in the public school
there, and at the same time they established
a union Sunday-school, the professor teaching
them music and the wife accompanying them
on the melodeon, which was a gift of Mr. Rob-
bins to his bride and which was sent to Cali-
fornia by way of the Horn. Because of ill-
ness Mrs. Robbins and her husband gave up
the public schools for some time, and then
again in 1860 Mr. Robbins became the first
county superintendent and was also deputy
county clerk for a time and afterward taught
in the Mill district. Regarding Mr. Robbins'
work in these various positions too much could
not be said, but space will not admit of a de-
tailed account of the important reforms that
were made, the work that was accomplished,
the great progress that was made in the first
few years of educational and moral effort in
San Bernardino county. It was in February,
1864, that Mr. Robbins was taken ill with
pneumonia and twelve days later passed away,
the second day of March finding San Ber-
nardino in mourning for the leader taken
from them. I-oving tributes were paid to his
memory, which today holds a place in the lives
of those who worked with him in those far
gone days of the pioneers, and even in the
hearts of those who have only heard of his
courageous efforts from the remaining pio-
neers themselves. Mrs. Robbins had two
children, Ambrose, who was born in May,
1855, and died in December, 1858, and Rosa
Pelle, who was born July 29, 1861. The
daughter was ill at the time of her father's
death but recovered, grew to a beautiful and
gracious womanhood, when she married L.
Abbott Canterbury. He was a native of Mis-
souri, and a son of Dr. Milton Canterbury,
the father bringing his family across the plains
to Corvallis, Ore., in 1865, thence in 1870 to
the Sacramento valley, in California. Ten
years later they came to San Bernardino coun-
ty and in San Timoteo cañon homesteaded
land. Finally locating in Redlands, the fath-
er and son were about to engage in the drug
business, when Mr. Canterbury came to his
death by drowning September II, 1890, while
bathing at Long Beach. By his marriage with
Rosa Belle Robbins he had four children:
Harry H., attending Leland Stanford Univer-
sity; Charles M., attending Pomona College;
Ellison R. and Laura A. attending the Red-
lands high school. &
Bravely facing the life ahead of her, Mrs.
Robbins took up the work her husband had
laid down, completing the school year inter-
rupted by his death. Later she became the
wife of Myron H. Crafts, who had been asso-
ciated with the good work in the upbuilding
and development of this section of Southern
California. He was a descendant in the sixth
generation of Elihu Crafts, who was one of
the Pilgrims brought over by the Mayflower,
and was born at Whately, Mass., in August,
1816. He became dependent upon his own re-
Sources at the age of thirteen years, and for
a time was located in New York City, where
he engaged as a clerk in a dry goods store,
but eventually went into business on his own
account in partnership with his brother,
George Crafts. While in New York City, as
a young man, he assisted in founding the Five
Points Mission. Later he was located in busi-
ness in Enfield, Mass., where, in 1843, he mar-
ried Miss Miranda Capen, and of their chil-
dren, three are now living : Mrs. Ellen Woods
Meachem, Harry G. and George H. Subse-
quent years found Mr. Crafts in Michigan,
where he was engaged in mercantile enter-
prises until 1861, when he resigned from the
position he held of cashier in a Detroit bank,
and in that year came to California. His wife
had previously passed away in Michigan, Sep-
tember 14, 1856.
In San Bernardino Mr. Crafts found an
opening for his energies and ability, and was
soon one of the foremost citizens in the devel-
opment of that section. Especially was he ac-
tive in religious upbuilding, through his ef-
forts much of the early religious activity of
the community being due. He was a mem-
ber of the Congregatonal Church. There he-
ing no denomination of that church in South-
ern California, he induced the mission board
to send representatives to San Bernardino
and Los Angeles; later he taught in its Sun-
day-school and was superintendent after the
death of Mr. Robbins, donated land for the
erection of its buildings, and in every possible
manner advanced its interests. He engaged in
agricultural pursuits for a livelihood, purchas-
ing the Altoona ranch then owned by his
brother George, and there raised grain, set out
orchards and vineyards, and marketed large
quantities of ham, bacon and lard. Later he
established a sort of sanitarium on his ranch,
enlarging his house from time to time, and in
990
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
fact eventually turning it into a hotel, where
many distinguished people Sojourned because
of the climate and healthy conditions. This
place became known and celebrated as the
Crafton retreat. From his earliest settlement
here Mr. Crafts had dreamed of colonization
for the beautiful valley in which he lived, and
after perfecting the water system he began to
advertise the possibilities of the section. His
first sale of land was to Judge Larabee for the
use of his daughter, and following this were
others, and finally the laying out of forty acres
in town lots; his enterprise was interrupted by
the call of death, and September 12, 1866, he
entered into the higher life. He was laid to
rest beside his son, Charles Lincoln, who was
born to Mr. and Mrs. Crafts and died in child-
hood. Mr. Crafts was a man of more than or—
dinary ability, more than ordinary Christian
character and in the years of his pioneer resi-
dence here he wielded an influence which will
never fade away. He was the promoter of
Pomona College and donated forty acres for
a site at Crafton, and had he lived the college
would have been located there. His wife,
again widowed, is now a resident of the home
of her daughter, Mrs. Canterbury, of Redlands,
at No. 708 Palm avenue. Looking back with-
out regret to the days gone by and forward
without fear to that which lies beyond, pa-
tient and cheerful, earnest and faithful, be-
loved by all who have ever known her in the
pioneer times and the present fulfillment of
that far distant time, Mrs. Crafts, at eighty-
one years of age, has completed a history of
Pioneer Days of San Bernardino Valley, which
she has put on the market to describe the early
life of the pioneer.
-
NUMA A. STRAIN. A public officer who
has the respect of his fellow citizens is Numa
A. Strain, the present roadmaster of the San
Gabriel district, and man in every particular fit-
ted for the faithful discharge of official duties,
his upright character, honesty and integrity
lending advantages which few citizens of this
section could equal. Like a large majority of
the citizens of Southern California he is a na-
tive of the middle west, his birth having occurred
in Monroe county, Ind., February Io, 1856. His
parents, John and Katharine (Finley) Strain,
were both natives of Tennessee, the father en-
gaging as a farmer in Indiana for Some years,
shortly after the birth of the son mentioned above
removing to Mahaska county, Iowa, where he
purchased a thonsand-acre grain and stock farm.
His death occurred in this locality at the early
age of forty-seven years. He was a citizen of
prominence, a patriot inheriting from ancestors
the spirit which sent him forth in the Mexican
war to Serve with distinction as a lieutenant in
an Indiana regiment. He was a stanch Repub-
lican in his political views; in religion both
himself and wife were members of the Methodist
Episcopal Church. The mother died at the age
of seventy-seven years, leaving a family of ten
children, of whom seven are still surviving,
Numa A., of this review, and a sister, wife of Dr.
Hallowell, being the only two in California.
In Iowa Numa A. Strain received his education
in the common schools and at the same time re-
ceived a practical training on his father's large
stock farm. This led to his becoming a cowboy in
New Mexico and Texas during young manhood,
his expertness in throwing the lariat and round-
ing up the cattle winning him the universal com-
mendation of his fellows. After seven years of
this employment, in 1882 he came to California,
still the Mecca for youthful adventurers as in
the “days of old, the days of gold, the days of
forty-nine.” Mining, however, was not the
chief Occupation of that time, and in Los Angeles
county he found employment on the Short ranch,
and afterward became the manager of the place,
which position he held uninterruptedly for seven-
teen years. This ranch contained seven hundred
and seven acres devoted to Oranges, lemons and
grapes, and during Mr. Strain's management
great improvements and developments were made.
This occupation was interrupted when he re-
ceived from the board of supervisors the ap-
pointment to his present position, that of road-
master of the San Gabriel district, and during
the past eight years he has retained the place
with constantly increasing benefit to the com-
munity. With the comparatively limited amount
of money devoted to road improvement Mr. Strain
has still accomplished wonderful results, the pres-
ent condition of the roads speaking eloquently
of his management and the conscientious ful-
fillment of his duty. He is intensely interested in
the present agitation in Los Angeles county re-
garding the building and improvement of roads
and no officer will take more action than he in
promoting the influence in this direction.
Mr. Strain is a landowner of Los Angeles
county, his home consisting of four acres, be-
ing located in San Gabriel, while he also owns an
acre and a half in the Ramona tract. He has
just disposed of a tract of seven and a half
acres, for which he received a handsome profit.
He was married in 1893 to Miss Georgia Chap-
pel, a native of Missouri, and daughter of John
Chappel, a pioneer of California, but now a
resident of Texas. They are the parents of
three children, Numa, John and Catherine. In
his political affiliations Mr. Strain is a life-long
Republican, having the honor of being one of
the first three Republicans in this district. He has

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
993
always been active in his efforts to advance the
principles he endorses, attending county conven-
tions, etc., but has never cared for personal re-
cognition. He is a member of Alhambra Lodge
No. 127, K. of P. He gives his support to the
Baptist Church, of which his wife is a mem-
ber.
DR. JOSEPH E. STEERS. Varied as were
the experiences falling to the lot of Dr. Steers,
even more eventful was the life of his father,
Thomas Steers, to whom Destiny brought the
doubtful fortune of prominence during the Civil
War and more than once placed him in imminent
peril of his life. Intimately associated with the
early development of the iron industry in the
United States, he removed from Pennsylvania to
Virginia early in the '40s and associated himself
with Henry M. Bayard in the manufacturing
business. It happened that he owned the only
mine in the country turning out iron capa-
ble of being utilized for canon and during the
war the output of the mine was therefore of es-
pecial importance. In 1862 he took part in a
blockade which resulted in his capture and impris-
onment for one year at Fort Lafayette in New
York. Through the influence of friends his re-
lease was secured from the government, but it
was with the understanding that he would re-
main north of Mason's and Dixon's line until the
expiration of the war. However, in 1864, at the
instigation of these friends, he violated the pro-
vision and traveled through the south, buying the
cotton crop at Charleston, Wilmington and Sa-
vannah for twenty cents a pound, and selling in
London for $2.50 per pound. At the very outset
the scheme was discovered by Gen. B. F. Butler,
who, not being taken into their confidence,
promptly nipped it in the bud and frustrated the
plans of its originators. A further misfortune
befell the leader in the burning of his vessel,
Huntress, off the shores of Charleston.
Seeking a less hazardous Occupation, Thomas
Steers returned to Pennsylvania and took up
railroad building, constructing a road for Thomas
Scott and later having charge of similar work
in the Carolinas and Tennessee. In 1873 he went
to New York and took charge of the building
of the New York, Housatonic & Northern Rail-
road from White Plains, N. Y., to Danbury,
Conn., in the interests of the Vanderbilt system,
the subsequent purchasers of the road. The
next enterprise in which he became interested
was the building of the South Park Railroad in
Colorado and while filling that contract he died
in November, 1881. More than twenty years be-
fore, in 1858, his wife, Elizabeth Eshleman, had
been accidentally drowned at Red Sweet Springs
in Virginia.
At the time of his mother's death Joseph E.
Steers was a boy of ten years of age. He was born
in Lewis county, W. Va., July II, 1848, and re-
ceived a public School education at Lancaster,
Pa., after which he attended the Pennsylvania
State Normal and completed his education by
two years of study in Princeton College. Upon
starting out into the world of business activity
he became an assistant to his father in railroad
work, his specialty being the tunneling through
elevations. In 1870 he rounded the Horn on
a vessel loaded with railroad supplies bound
for Chile where he remained one year. This
was followed by a trip to the South Sea
islands, where he engaged in the jute busi-
ness. Next he went to Alaska and traded
with the Indians for ivory and whalebone.
During the year 1874 he came to California
and settled at San Francisco, but in little more
than twelve months he left for Washington,
spending one year at Seattle, and then return-,
ing to San Francisco. After a brief experience in
the real estate business at Oakland, in 1881 he
became interested in Arizona mines and went to
that territory to develop his claims. Soon, how-
ever, he became ill with lead poisoning and for
five years was disabled for physical labors, mean-
while taking every form of treatment that prom-
ised even temporary relief. During that period
he finally heard of vitapathic treatment and fol-
lowing the same he enjoyed a complete restora-
tion to health. So gratified was he by the re-
sults of the treatment that he determined to de-
vote his remaining years to the principle. With
that idea in view he took a course of study in the
American Health College and was graduated from
the same, thereafter practicing yitapathy. In
addition to his practice he mined in Mariposa
county, Cal., from 1895 to 1897, and with his
wife had extensive mining interests in Nevada.
In April of 1899 Dr. Steers made his home
in Long Beach, where he passed away July 30,
1906, aged fifty-eight years..
February 7, 1899 he was united in marriage
with Mrs. Sarah Elizabeth (Roberts) Coffman,
at Salt Lake City, and one son, Thomas Hallelea,
was born to them September 3, 1900. Mrs. Steers
is a daughter of John Roberts, represented on an-
other page of this volume, and by her first mar-
riage has one son, Harold R. Coffman, now a
prominent newspaper cartoonist of Philadel-
phia, Pa., and well known in journalistic circles
of the east.
FRIEDERICH OTTE. Prominent among the
representative agriculturists of Oxnard is Fried-
erich Otte, who came from a foreign land to
Ventura county, and during the years that he
has resided in this locality has pursued the tenor
994. - HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Of his way as an honest man and a good citizen.
Having by persistent industry and wise manage-
ment accumulated a fair share of this world's
goods, he is now living retired from active labor,
enjoying a well-deserved reward. Straightfor-
ward and upright in all of his dealings, he has
gained in a marked degree the confidence and
good will of his neighbors and associates, and
throughout the community is highly respected.
He was born May 7, 1835, in Germany, where
his parents spent their entire lives, the father
dying at the age of sixty-three years, and the
mother when seventy-three years old. He is one
of a family of four children, and the Only one
that ever left the Fatherland.
Brought up in Germany Friederich Otte re-
ceived an excellent education, attending first the
public schools, and afterwards completing his
studies at a college. He then took up farming
on the parental homestead, remaining with his
parents until thirty-five years old. When ready
to establish himself as a householder, he pur-
chased land, and for a number of years was suc-
cessfully employed in tilling the soil in his native
country. In 1886, disposing of his farm, he im-
migrated with his family to the United States,
coming directly to Ventura county, where he
has since resided. Locating in the Santa Clara
valley of Southern California he purchased land,
and at once began its improvement. Practical
and enterprising, and not in the least afraid of
hard work, he and his sons have since improved
one of the best and most attractive ranches in
this section of the county. He has two hundred
and fifty acres of fertile land, and as a raiser of
beans and beets has met with great success, his
harvests being large and remunerative. In ad-
dition to his ranch, on which he is living retired,
having relegated its management to two of his
sons, he owns a fine new residence in Oxnard.
In Germany, in 1865, Mr. Otte married Tennie
Carstans, and they are the parents of six chil-
dren, namely: Frederick, who married Augusta
Volkert: Mary, wife of John Geltz: William :
Lena, wife of Peter Boefine; Louis, who married
Mary Benecke; and Herman, living at home.
Politically Mr. Otte invariably casts his vote in
favor of the Republican party, and religiously
he and his wife are members of the Lutheran
Church at Oxnard.
CHARLES W. PAINE.
Among the active
and enterprising business men of Fernando who
have attained success from a financial point of
view is Charles W. Paine, a well-known harness
manufacturer and dealer and hardware merchant.
A native of Illinois, he was born May 6, 1860,
in McHenry county, where the first ten years of
his life were spent. Moving then with his par-
ents to Nebraska, he there received a practical
common-school education, after which he began
his career as an employe of the Burlington Rail-
road Company.
Entering the service of the company in a minor
capacity, Mr. Paine gradually worked his way
upward, becoming conductor on a freight train.
Coming to California in 1892, he was for Seven
years employed as brakeman on a freight train
for the Southern Pacific Railway Company, hav-
ing his headquarters at Los Angeles. Going to
Mexico in 1899 he was for six months a conduc-
tor on the Mexican Central Railroad, when, pre-
ferring life in the States, he returned to Los
Angeles, where he resided until 1902. Locating
then in Fernando, he assumed the management
of the Hope hotel, a temperance house, and as
“mine host” met with excellent results, becoming
widely and favorably known to the traveling pub-
lic. In the spring of 1903 he established a har-
ness store, the first establishment of the kind in
Fernando, and ran both his shop and hotel until
the fall of 1905, when he disposed of the hotel.
Mr. Paine has a finely equipped, up-to-date har-
ness shop and hardware store, where he is carry-
ing on an extensive and remunerative business.
By shrewd foresight and wise management he
has accumulated a fair share of this world’s
goods, owning considerable village property, in-
cluding the business block in which he is located
and the fine two-story house in which he resides.
His wife is also a property owner, having title to
two cottages which she rents.
Mr. Paine has been twice married. He mar-
ried first, in Nebraska, Jennie Taylor, by whom
he had five children, the oldest of whom is dead,
those living being as follows: Delmer, of
Fernando ; Carrie, wife of Frederick Candelot,
of Fernando; Mary E., wife of Earl Fullington,
of Los Angeles; and Kinsley. Mr. Paine mar-
ried for his second wife Mrs. Laura Nixon, and
they have one child, Faith Paine. Politically Mr.
Paine is a strong Prohibitionist, and religiously
both he and his wife are members of the Meth-
Odist Episcopal Church.
ENOCH F. BYN G. Although but a brief
time has elapsed since Mr. Byng came to Cali-
fornia he has already established himself on a
firm basis in the esteem of his fellow-citizens,
being held in high appreciation for the sterling
traits of character he has exhibited. He was
born in England March 14, 1839, a son of John
Byng, a native of the same place; the father
brought his family to America in 1850 and be-
came a pioneer of Iowa, there carrying on a
farm of one hundred and sixty acres, although
in England he had been a sawmill operator. In
Iowa his wife, formerly Elizabeth Bird, a na-
§
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
995
tive of England, passed away. He later re-
moved to Kentucky, where he again married,
his death eventually occurring in that state.
Both were members of the Baptist Church.
Brought to America when only eleven years
old E. F. Byng received the greater part of his
education in the public schools of Iowa. He
remained at home until attaining his majority,
when he began ranching for himself, this occu-
pation being interrupted by his enlistment in
1862 in Company C, Twenty-sixth Iowa In-
fantry, and serving until December, 1864. He
enlisted as a private and was mustered out as
first lieutenant. During his service he partici-
pated in various important engagements,
among them the siege of Atlanta, where he was
wounded, Arkansas Post, siege of Vicksburg,
Jackson, and marched with Sherman to the sea.
. Upon returning to civic life he again engaged
in farming and later became interested in the
sawmill business in Iowa, Missouri and Ken-
tucky, following this industry continuously un-
til 1903. In February of that year he came to
California and located in the Altadena district,
where he owned a lemon and orange grove for
three years. In April, 1906, he disposed of this
interest and coming to his present location pur-
chased a ranch of thirty-five and a half acres,
of which eight acres are devoted to alfalfa,
twenty acres to cultivation and pasture, and is
also interested in fine poultry, hog raising and
the cultivation of fruit. In addition to the
various industries mentioned he has a dairy
herd of ten cows. His property is irrigated by
six artesian wells.
In 1860 Mr. Byng was united in marriage
with Miss Emma Walls, a native of England,
her death occurring in Kentucky in 1906, at the
age of sixty-four years. She was a member of
the Baptist Church. They became the parents
of the following children: Alice H.; Helen M.,
wife of Rev. Loyd Wilson, of Louisville, Ky. ;
Louisa, wife of J. H. Wilcox, of Kentucky:
Benjamin F., who married Margaret Itten ; and
John W., located in Sedalia, Mo. Politically
Mr. Byng is a stanch Republican.
JOSEPH W. MONTGOMIERY. The sub-
stantial and progressive citizens of Compton have
no better representative than Joseph W. Mont-
gomery, who holds high rank among the keen.
enterprising and business-like agriculturists who
are so ably conducting the farming interests of
this part of Los Angeles county. In company
with his brother, J. B. Montgomery, he is ex-
tensively engaged in general farming, owning
and occupying one of the finest ranches in central
California, its buildings, furnishings and equip-
ments being of the highest order and invariably
attracting the attention of the passer-by. Sons
of John Montgomery, both of these brothers were
born in Troy, N. Y., the birth of Joseph W.
Montgomery occurring January 26, 1856, and
that of his brother, J. B. Montgomery, Novem-
ber 16, 1849.
John Montgomery was born in New York,
and there married Mary Hallowell, a native of
England. Five children were born of their union,
namely: Alice, Isabelle, Hester, J. B. and Joseph
W. Neither of the parents is now living, the
mother having died in early womanhood, and
the father in 1902. The father was a Republican
in politics, and for many years was a member
and treasurer of the Independent Order of For-
esters, and both he and his wife attended the
Episcopal Church.
Having completed his early education in the
public schools of his native town, Joseph W.
Montgomery was for four years employed in
the drug store of David Magill, after which he
served an apprenticeship of five years at the
candy-maker's trade. Establishing himself in St.
Louis, Mo., in 1879, he went into business for
himself, opening an oyster house and restaurant,
which he managed for eight years. In 1887 he
came to California, locating in San Francisco,
where he was similarly engaged for many years,
being proprietor of a large and well-kept res-
taurant. Selling out in 1904, he bought his
present ranch, which is situated two and one-
half miles northeast of Compton, and, with his
brother, is managing it with pleasure and profit.
He raises good crops of alfalfa, has a fine bear-
ing orchard of choice fruits, and pays much at-
tention to the raising of poultry. Following in
the footsteps of his father, he is a stanch Repub-
lican, and true to the faith in which he was
reared is an Episcopalian.
JOHN A. ANDERSON. The Anderson
family, represented in Los Angeles county by
J. A. Anderson, came from Norway, in which
country his father, Balser Anderson, was born,
and where he learned the trade of pulp maker.
He immigrated to America and located in Chi-
cago, Ill., in which city his wife, formerly
Maria Peterson, also of Norway, passed away.
They were the parents of six children, all of
whom are in America, four being residents of
California. Mr. Anderson continued his work
in Chicago until his retirement, when he came
to California and now makes his home with his
son in Long Beach, at the advanced age of sev-
enty-five years.
J. A. Anderson was born in Christiania, Nor-
way, February 22, 1859, the oldest in the parent:
al family, and in his native city he was reared
to young manhood and educated in her public
996
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Schools. At the age of fifteen years he entered
the Naval Academy, or Corps of Sea Militia in
Horten, and upon the completion of the course
went to Sea on a merchant marine, his first voy-
age being on the Baltic sea. Following this he
became a sailor on the Atlantic, and made a
trip to China by the Cape of Good Hope, the
vessel upon which he was located being engaged
in the West India trade. In 1880 he came to
America and from Chicago sailed on the Great
Lakes until 1882. In the fall of the last named
year he came as far west as Flagstaff, Ariz.
(where there was but one log cabin used for a
store), and was there engaged as foreman of
the lumber yard of the Ayer Lumber Company,
of Chicago. Continuing with the company un-
til 1885, he then went to San Francisco, remain-
ing there for a time, and following this located
in San Pedro, where he entered the employ of
the San Pedro Lunnber Company in the capacity
of outside man. Later he engaged with the Ker-
choff & Cozner Lumber Company until 1895,
when he became interested in the real-estate
business, which he established in partnership
with George H. Peck, the firm being known as
George H. Peck & Co. for the period of five
years. Mr. Peck then sold out to John H. F.
Peck, since which time the style of the firm
Iname has been Peck & Anderson. The part-
ners are men of ability and energy and have
been largely instrumental in the opening up of
many of the tracts about the city, being inter-
ested in the Palos Verdes tract, the Caroline
tract, and Grand View tract, as well as others
of equal note. In 1904 they established a
branch office in Long Beach, where Mr. Peck
is now acting as manager. They were largely
interested in the opening of Seaside Park tract,
their company alone having laid out forty acres
of ocean front. Mr. Anderson is widely esteemed
as a man of business and energy, and is looked
upon as one of the progressive lights of the
town, an upbuilder and promoter of the city’s
best interests.
In Chicago Mr. Anderson was married to
Ingeborg Anderson, a native of Telemarken,
Norway, and they are the parents of the follow-
ing children: Ralph, Lorraine, Leonardo and
Armand J. Fraternally Mr. Anderson is asso-
ciated with the Red Men. In religion he is a
Lutheran, while his wife belongs to the Meth-
odist Episcopal Church.
HENRY W. WITMAN. Though not ac-
counted pioneers of California, the Witman
family has been identified with the history of
the coast regions for many years, the first of
the name in the state having been C. G. Wit-
man, a native of Pottstown, Pa., and a man of
large experience in the oil industry. During
early manhood he lived for some years in Ken-
tucky and then removed to Parkersburg, W.
Va., where in addition to carrying on a hard-
ware and plumbing establishment he became
interested in oil wells and gradually increased
his holdings until he was identified with the
operating of about one hundred wells. After
a time the industry declined and he then
sought another location. During 1883 he
came to California, where he remained at Dan-
ville for eighteen months, and in 1885 came
to Hueneme, Ventura county. For a time he
was a member of the firm of Smith & Wit-
man, dealers in hardware and plumbers’ sup-
plies, but later he conducted the business alone.
Eventually he turned the store over to his son
and removed to Jamestown, Tuolumne county,
where he conducted a hardware business. On
his return to the southern part of the state he
joined his son, J. M., in the hardware busi-
ness at Imperial, in April of IOO4, and from
there went to Los Angeles, where he died De-
cember 14, 1905, at the age of more than
eighty years. His wife, who was a member
of the AſcMillan family and was of eastern
birth, now resides in Los Angeles. Two of
their three children are living, the younger be-
ing J. M., of Imperial, while the elder is Henry
W., of Oxnard.
During the residence of the family in Ken-
tucky Henry W. Witman was born at Cat-
lettsburg, Boyd county, July 13, 1860. Dur-
ing boyhood he attended the public schools of
Parkersburg, W. Va., and there he became
familiar with the hardware business while
clerking in his father's store. His education
was completed by a course in Eastman’s Busi-
ness College in Poughkeepsie, N. Y., after
which he engaged as bookkeeper in lumber
mills in West Virginia. In 1887 he joined his
father in California and succeeded to the man-
agement of the hardware business at Hueneme,
where he also built up a small trade as a
plumber. While in that town he rendered ef-
ficient service as a member of the board of
school trustees.
On his removal to Oxnard in 1898 Mr. Wit-
man erected a building in the new town and
embarked in business as a hardware merchant
and plumber, in which capacity he continues
at the present time. Soon the demands of the
trade necessitated the erection of a larger
building. In 1902 he erected a substantial
brick structure, 30x00 feet in dimensions. The
first floor gives him abundant space for the
display of hardware and plumbers' supplies,
and the upper story is rented to the city for
office purposes. During April of 1903 he
moved his stock of goods into the new build-
cº-
--
\

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
999
ing and has since conducted business under
the most favorable surroundings. All kinds
of hardware are carried in stock, as well as
plumbing material of the best assortments, and
in addition he does tinwork upon order. For
twelve years he was a member of the firm of
Chambers & Witman and engaged in putting
down artesian wells, for which purpose he and
his partner owned three sets of well tools,
viz.: hydraulic rig, Steam outfit and hand tools,
the same being used in boring hundreds of
wells still flowing.
Stanch in his allegiance to the Republican
party, Mr. Witman has been an active worker
in the same ever since he came to Ventura
county and at One time served on the county
central committee. His activity and efficiency
in politics were recognized by his appointment
as postmaster at Oxnard, in July, 1900, under
the administration of President McKinley,
and he was re-appointed during the Roose-
velt administration. As postmaster he has
proved faithful to every duty, prompt and en-
ergetic, Sagacious and resourceful, and under
his supervision the town office and the two
rural routes are giving entire satisfaction to
the people. Since coming to Oxnard he has
served as clerk of the board of trustees of the
Oxnard Union high School, and has accom-
plished much toward making this institution
one of the most thorough of its kind in the
entire coast country.
After coming to Oxnard Mr. Witman erect-
ed on C street the residence he now occupies,
the cozy home being presided over by Mrs.
Witman, formerly Emma C. Mudge, a na-
tive of Philadelphia, but reared and married
in West Virginia. They are the parents of
five children, namely: Roy B., who is engaged
as teller in the bank of A. Levy; Mary M.,
Ellen B., Henry William, Jr., and Daniel Phil-
lip. Tn religious connections Mrs. Witman is
identified with the Episcopal Church and the
other members of the family are in sympathy
with the work of that denomination. The Citi-
zens’ Club of Oxnard numbers Mr. Witman
among its members, as does the Benevolent
Protective Order of Elks at Santa Barbara.
His association with Masonry dates back to
the year 1883, when he was made a Mason
in the blue lodge at Volcano, Wood county,
W. Va., and later became identified with the
lodge at Hueneme, afterward becoming a
charter member of Oxnard Lodge No. 341, F.
& A. M., of which he is past master. Be-
sides being active in the lodge, he affiliates
with the Oxnard Chapter, R. A. M., the Ven-
tura Commandery, K. T., and Al Malaikah
Temple, N. M. S., and is quick to respond to
appeals for aid from the fraternity, in behalf
of those of its members who are in need or
suffering. Among the citizens of Oxnard he
ranks as a capable business man, leading Re-
publican, efficient office-holder and compan-
ionable friend, and his substantial qualities of
head and heart have given him a permanent
place in the esteem of the people.
CHARLES RUSSELL PAINE. In Crafton
Charles R. Paine is engaged as a horticulturist
and has made a brilliant success of the work
through the application of intelligent and pains-
taking effort. He is well known in this section
and held in high appreciation for the part he
has taken in its upbuilding and development, edu-
cational interests having found him a most earn-
est and helpful advocate. He is the representa-
tive of an old and prominent family of Massa-
chusetts, his birth having occurred in Barnstable
in 1839; his father, John, was born in Maine,
the descendant of an English emigrant who lo-
cated in Cape Cod. In young manhood he lo-
cated in Barnstable, Mass., and engaged as a
Saddler and harness maker, his death occurring
in that section in 1850. His wife, formerly Lucy
Ann Crowell, was a native of West Yarmouth,
Mass., a daughter of Esquire Crowell, engaged
in the East Indian trade and one of the prom-
inent business men of that state. She also
passed away in Massachusetts, leaving a family
of seven children.
Charles Russell Paine was the eldest in the
large family of children born to his parents. He
received a preliminary education in the common
Schools of his native state and began the study
of classics under the instruction of Albert K.
Smiley, at Vasselboro, Me., and when the
Smileys took charge of the Friends' Boarding
School at Providence, R. I., he was asked to
come with them as a teacher. He accepted the
position and the following two years he was thus
Occupied, when he entered Amherst College,
graduating therefrom with the degree of A. B.
in 1866. In the same year he went to Ohio and
began educational work in Dayton, and later
acted as principal in the schools of Muncie, Ind.,
in which section he first met the lady who after-
ward became his wife. He then went to Co-
lumbus, Ohio, and became principal of the high
School, and while in that city he became in-
terested in California and decided to go west and
engage in horticulture.
Accordingly in 1870 he came to San Francisco
by the Union Pacific Railroad the year following
its completion, and while en route by steamer to
San Diego he met D. C. Twogood, of Riverside,
who at once interested him in that city, then
known as Newtown. He came at once to that
part of Southern California and after thoroughly
52
1000
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
investigating the country” decided to invest in
land, and also had his household goods stopped
at San Pedro and thence brought to Riverside
county. The country was entirely new, the
hardships incident to a primitive civilization were
the larger part of the life, and conditions such
as to bring out the most dominant characteristics
of the settlers. Mr. Paine set out a raisin and
grape vineyard as a business project and a small
deciduous orchard, but met with an endless
amount of trouble for the first few years from
grasshoppers and lack of water and cattle de-
predations. He sold his place in 1874 and com-
ing to San Bernardino established a private
School known as Paine's Academy, and because
of the magnificent success with which he met,
he was elected principal of the San Bernardino
schools. He held this position for several years
and was then elected county superintendent of
schools, of San Bernardino county, which Sec-
tion then embraced the greater part of Riverside
county. He continued teaching in San Ber-
nardino county and finally purchased a ranch of
one hundred and six acres at Crafton, this being
a portion of the old Carpenter ranch, where his
father-in-law had first bought.
fourteen acres were in Mission grapes, and after
locating on the place in the spring of 1877 he set
out an Orange orchard of seedlings. This ranch
had most valuable water rights, in the days of
the first occupation of the country by the Suc-
cessors of the old Mission fathers, a connection
having been made about 1820 between Mill creek
and the natural water course at the foot of the
northern slopes of Crafton and Redland Heights,
thus forming the Mill creek zanja. Mr. Paine
now holds eighty-eight acres, of which eighty
acres are in oranges, while he has also conducted
a nursery for his own orchard plantings. In
1906 he built a handsome residence in mission
style and calls his beautiful home Alderbrook.
He was one of the organizers and has always
been an officer of the Crafton Water Company,
which supplies Crafton, East Redlands, Redlands
Heights and Smiley Heights, in connection with
the Bear Valley Water Company, which sup-
plies water by means of the Greenspot pipe line.
Mr. Paine takes the keenest interest in the hor-
ticultural success of the country, being one of
the original members of the Redlands Orange
Growers’ Association, which operates a packing
house in Redlands and a branch house in Craf-
ton, serving now as director and was its first
president. -
In Muncie, Ind., in 1868, Mr. Paine was
united in marriage with Miss Mary Elizabeth
Craig, a native of Ohio, and a daughter of Dr.
William Craig, also a pioneer of Riverside and
Redlands. She received her education in the
schools, of Indiana, completing the course in the
Of this property
high School. Mr. and Mrs. Paine are the parents
of eight children, who have benefited by the best
educational advantages the country affords. Mr.
Paine assisted in the establishment of the high
School district, and served on its first board of
trustees as president. In religion he is a mem-
ber of the First Presbyterian Church of Red-
lands; politically he casts his ballot for Repub-
lican principles. Mr. Paine has witnessed the
great growth of Southern California and ably
participated in its development. When he first
came to this section there were no advantages
possible, Only the hardships and privations in-
cident to pioneer life. He bravely faced the dis-
advantages, helped to upbuild the country as it
is now known to the visitor, and is enjoying the
evening of his days in the quietude and com-
petence won by his earlier years of effort. He is
highly esteemed wherever known, and held in
truest appreciation for his qualities of citizen-
ship.
J. R. THURMOND is a son of Thomas J.
and Sarah (Franklin) Thurmond, natives of
North Carolina, who moved to Tennessee while
still young, reared their family of seven children.
and there spent their last days, each having at-
tained the age, of forty-five years. Two of the
sons of this family were killed in the Civil war
while fighting in the Confederate cause, and two
sons now reside in California, G. E. and J. R.,
the latter the subject of this sketch. He was
born January 15, 1848, in Tennessee, there re-
ceiving a common school education. As a result
of the Civil war he was compelled to assist in
the support of that portion of the family which
remained at home, his father having died before
the opening of hostilities and his older brothers
offering themselves in the service of the cause
which they believed to be right. He clerked in
a store for about four years at Lagrange, Tenn.,
and when the war was over and he was at liberty
to devote himself to acquiring his own independ-
ence he decided to come to California and in 1869
arrived at Carpinteria, in the vicinity of which
he has ever since resided. By the exercise of
careful business methods he has been enabled to
acquire much valuable property and is now con-
sidered one of the successful men in the county,
where he has many friends who esteem him
highly. Ambitious and energetic he has made
his home ranch one of the best improved and
most attractive of this section, cultivating one
of the finest walnut groves in the vicinity.
Other orchard fruits in bearing enhance further
the value of this particular forty acres. This
is only one of his many tracts of land, others
being fifty acres of fine bean land near Serena,
Marin county, a sixty-acre tract of pasture land
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
1001
and seven acres fronting on the beach; another
piece with fifteen hundred feet of beach frontage;
and one of twenty acres a mile west of Serena
wharf also bordering on the beach. Of mountain
land with oil prospects he has nine hundred
acres, all of it well watered and timbered, and
a splendid tract in Riverside county comprises one
hundred and sixty acres and has on it three
artesian wells; in Cuyama his holdings consists
of eighty acres of fine bottom land.
In 1870 Mr. Thurmond was married to Miss
Lua R. Dickinson of Tennessee, whose sisters
married members of the noted Gwyn family. Of
the seven children born to them all except
Thomas are now living and are filling important
positions or are still in school preparing them-
Selves to occupy places to which their own tal-
ents and the family’s prominence justly entitle
them : Frank married Miss Alice Sprague
and has a home in Carpinteria valley; Thomas,
who married Cora Robinson, a native of Mis-
Souri, was accidentally killed in 1905; Julia is a
teacher; Edna is the wife of R. M. Clark, a
prominent attorney of Ventura, and the mother
of one child; William lives in Chowchilla, where
he owns one hundred and sixty acres of fine
land; Blanche is a graduate of the Ventura high
school, class of 1906; Hugh is a student of the
Ventura high school.
In political matters Mr. Thurmond is an in-
dependent voter and thinker who believes that
strict adherence to party lines does not secure to
the public the best men for its servants. He is a
public spirited man, has always been active in
forwarding measures which tend to the upbuild-
ing and advancement of his community, and
holds the highest esteem of his fellow citizens.
GEORGE M. CLARK, a rancher located in
the vicinity of Norwalk, Los Angeles county,
was born in Cooper county, Mo., December 27,
1853, a son of Jesse M. and Nancy J. (Fray)
Clark, natives respectively of Kentucky and
Virginia. They were the parents of ten chil-
dren, of whom two died in infancy, those re-
maining being as follows: W. T., a rancher
of Orange county; Lucy F., now Mrs. Belvel,
of San Francisco; John S., of Los Angeles;
George M., of this review; Robert E., in charge
of the peat baths in Orange county; Charles E.,
engaged in the manufacture of mattresses in
Los Angeles; Annie L., the wife of J. A.
Wooley, of Monterey county; and Mattie P., a
teacher in Los Angeles. The parents were
married in Missouri, where the father was ex-
tensively engaged in farming. In later life
they came to California, where both passed
away, the father at the age of sixty years, and
the mother when seventy-two years old.
cific Methodist College at that place.
The early education of Mr. Clark was re-
ceived in Missouri, where he remained until at-
taining manhood. In 1873 he came to Califor-
nia, and in Yuba, Sutter county, attended the
high school for a time. After the close of his
schooldays he worked in a general merchandise
establishment for one year, and then went to
Santa Rosa and for two years attended the Pa-
He then
returned home (his parents in the meantime
having located in California) and with his elder
brother farmed the three hundred and twenty
acres owned by his father, besides leasing four
hundred acres more and devoting it to wheat
and barley. In 1878 the family came to Azusa,
Los Angeles county, where the father and sons
invested a large sum of money in a company,
buying about thirteen thousand acres of land.
They remained here about two years, when, on
account of a misunderstanding, the company
gave up the claim. After his marriage Mr.
Clark leased a ranch in this vicinity for two
years and then purchased his present ranch,
consisting of sixty acres, which with the excep-
tion of ten acres in table grapes, is devoted to
alfalfa and sweet potatoes. He is also interest-
ed in a dairy, which is supplied by ten cows,
although he has had as many as twenty milch
COWS.
January 9, 1881, Mr. Clark was united in
marriage with Miss Nannie Elliott, a native of
Texas, whose parents died when she was a
small child. Her death occurred November I,
1901, at the age of forty-two years. They were
the parents of six children, namely: Mary S.;
Alma L., attending the University of Califor-
nia at Berkeley; Jessie H.; Annie E., a student
in the Covina high school; Paul E.; and Carrie.
Mr. Clark is a member of the Fraternal Aid,
and politically is a stanch advocate of Prohi-
bition principles. He is a member of the
Methodist Episcopal Church South, to which
his wife also belonged.
---
B. L. FORTNEY. While many of the
ranches of San Luis Obispo county cover a large
acreage, there are not wanting in the pretty valleys
a number of small farms adapted to the raising
of fruit and vegetables and these places, if wisely
managed, are no less profitable than the larger
estates. Such a homestead is owned and . Oc-
cupied by B. L. Fortney and consists of fifteen
and one-half acres in the vicinity of Arroyo
Grande. With the exception of the ground taken
by the residence and lawns, the land is devoted
to market garden and fruit purposes. . As an
instance of the success he is meeting with in his
undertaking it may be stated that during the
1002
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD,
year IQO5 he shipped to Los Angeles thirteen
car loads of apples that were produced in the
Arroyo Grande valley. He makes a specialty of
Strawberries, Logan berries and blackberries, all
of which are of such fine quality as to command
an excellent price in the city markets.
Born in Grant county, Wis., October 4, 1860,
B. L. Fortney is one of the five children form-
ing the family of John and Theresa (Altizer)
Fortney, natives of Pennsylvania, but reared and
married in Wisconsin. After having engaged in
general farming and stock-raising in Wisconsin
for a number of years in 1874 the father brought
his family to California and settled in San Luis
Obispo county, where he died at the age of forty-
six years. He was long survived by his wife,
who lived to be seventy years of age. Both were
earnest members of the Methodist Episcopal
Church and aided in the upbuilding of that de-
nomination in their home county. When the
family came to the West B. L. was a boy of four-
teen years, the recipient previously of common-
School advantages which he supplemented later
by habits of close observation and thoughtful
reading. After one year in San Joaquin county
he came to San Luis Obispo county and later
became interested in the mercantile business at
Estrella, where he remained until he lost his
store by fire in 1900. Afterward he removed to
the valley near Arroyo Grande and rented a
tract of farm land, but later purchased the
valuable little tract he now cultivates.
The family of Mr. Fortney consists of three
children, Dora, Josie, and William, born of his
marriage in 1886 to Miss Ettie Teachout, a
native of Illinois. The older daughter, Dora,
possesses musical talent and has been given ex-
ceptional advantages in the art, which she
studied under private instruction and also in
the University of Southern California. While
voting the Republican ticket in national elections
Mr. Fortney has not allied himself with any
party in local matters, but prefers to support
the best man irrespective of party ties. Frater-
nally he has been actively identified with the
Independent Order of Odd Fellows at Arroyo
Grande and at San Obispo, also has been warmly
interested in the Modern Woodmen of America,
pelonging to the camp at San Luis Obispo. With
this wife he has membership in the Methodist
Episcopal Church, in which faith he was reared
by his parents in childhood and to which de-
nomination he ever has been a liberal contributor,
aiding its philanthropic work and missionary en-
terprises to the extent of his ability.
JAMES TWEEDY. There are few people
now living in the vicinity of Compton whose
identification with this locality antedates that
of Mr. Tweedy, a pioneer of 1852, and the
Owner of a valuable ranch near town. In com-
pany with his parents he came to Southern
California in 1852 and first settled on the El
Monte rancho and later on the old Lugo ranch
near Compton, his father having purchased the
two thousand acres comprising the estate, and
in the cultivation of the property he bore a
large share of the responsibilities. On the
death of his father he inherited two hundred
and thirty-four acres of the homestead, and
here he has a neat house, substantial outbuild-
ings, and all the facilities necessary for one
making a specialty of raising cattle and hogs.
The Tweedy family is of colonial lineage.
Robert, father of James Tweedy, was born in
Missouri, November 18, 1812, and at an early
age removed to Arkansas, where in 1836 he
married Mary Elizabeth Holyfield, who was
born in South Carolina May 26, 1820, and is
still living, enjoying fair health for one so ad-
vanced in years. While they were living in
Arkansas their son, James, was born February
1, 1844. In 1852 the family sought a new
home in the far west. In making the trip they
followed the southern overland route and used
oxen to draw their wagon. For a year they re-
mained at El Monte, Cal., thence removed to
San Francisco, and later spent six months at
Visalia, Tulare county, but eventually re-
turned to El Monte, and in 1862 came to the
ranch in Los Angeles county that remains in
the family to the present day. -
After having remained at the old homestead
until he was forty-five years of age, James
Tweedy thereupon set up domestic ties, being
united in marriage with Mrs. Laura (Prater)
Tweedy, the widow of one of his brothers. The
Prater family is of German extraction, and
John B. Prater, father of Mrs. Tweedy, was
born and reared in Tennessee, whence he im-
migrated to California in young manhood,
about 1854, settling in the northern part of the
state. Both he and his wife were sincere
members of the Christian Church. Of their
eight children all but two are still living, and
the six survivors make California their home.
In religious affiliations Mrs. Tweedy holds
membership in the Baptist Church, to the
work of which she is a contributor. By her
former marriage she had three children, name-
ly: Fay W., who is married and resides in this
locality; Inez M., who married J. P. Carse;
and Mabel, who died at the age of three years
and nine months. To the union of James
Tweedy and wife there were born four daugh-
ters, of whom Delillah J. and Marie E. Sur-
vive. Mildred B. died at the age of three
years and nine months, and Alice May was tak-
en by death at the age of seventeen months.
When at leisure from the cares of his ranch


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
1005
Mr. Tweedy finds recreation in the society of
his family and the perusal of current literature
which enables him to keep in touch with the
world of modern thought. In fraternal organ-
izations he takes no part whatever, and the
only part which he takes in politics is in the
casting of a Democratic ticket at all elections.
WILLIAM DAVIS WATKINS. The ear-
ly history of the Watkins family is associated
with the little country of Wales, where Thom-
as Watkins was born and reared, and where
he married Mary Davis, like himself a de-
scendant of Welsh forefathers. Later he
crossed the channel to France, but soon re-
turned to Wales by way of England, and in
I846 crossed the Atlantic to the United States,
settling at Youngstown, Ohio, and securing
employment as a miner and later as foreman of
mines. Removing to Iowa in 1857, he settled
at Albia, Monroe county, where he soon ac-
quired various interests. For some time he
was foreman of mines in Iowa. During the
last twenty years of his life he lived in retire-
ment and at eighty-seven years he died at Al-
bia in August of 1902. His wife had passed
away in the same city twelve years prior to his
demise.
In a family comprising eight sons and three
daughters William Davis Watkins was fourth
in order of birth, and was born at Youngs-
town, Ohio, September 12, 1850, during the
residence of his parents in that place. In 1857
he accompanied his parents to Iowa and there
received common-school advantages. After
having worked in coal mines for a time, in
1872 he went to Colorado and began prospect-
ing and mining at Sunshine and Gold Hill. In
the spring of 1877 he became interested in
mining in the Black Hills and engaged in
freighting to those mines from the Missouri
river. For seven years he was employed as
wagon master for Pratt and Ferris in freight-
ing to government posts and the mines of the
Black Hills. $
During 1884, at O’Neill, Holt county, Neb.,
Mr. Watkins married Elizabeth Hayes, who
was born near Dubuque, Iowa, of Irish de-
scent. Her parents were pioneer settlers of
Iowa and Nebraska. After his marriage Mr.
Watkins settled in Cheyenne county, Neb.,
and became interested in the stock industry,
raising cattle, sheep and horses, and operating
four thousand acres of land, besides which he
had large tracts of government land for range.
At one time he had two thousand head of cat-
tle and four hundred head of horses on the
ranch. While the business proved profitable,
it demanded exposure to much inclement
weather and entailed constant labor and mani-
fold annoyances, hence he finally resolved to
dispose of his stock and landed interests and
seek a more favorable climate. In this way he
was led to establish his home in California,
where since May, 1900, he has resided in Long
Beach and has been interested in the buying
and selling of real estate. Since coming here
he has laid out the Watkins tract of twelve
acres on the corner of Tenth and Alamitos
streets, and at this writing owns the Bruns-
wick pool hall. In politics he always votes the
Republican ticket. Fraternally he holds mem-
bership with the Modern Woodmen of Amer-
ica and Long Beach Lodge No. 888, B. P. O.
E. In his family there were six children, but
one son, Willie, died at eleven years. Those
now living are Mamie, Bessie, Frederick,
Madge and Eva, all of whom are at home.
JOSEPH C. STONE. America was a favor-
ite place of refuge for the Huguenots when they
were compelled to flee from France by the revo-
cation of the Edict of Nantes. Among the num-
ber that sought the freedom of this country was
John de Stone who was the grandfather of our
subject and in the true American spirit dropped
the “de” and became plain John Stone. He
served during the Revolutionary war under Gen-
eral Lafayette and after the war he located in
Genesee county, N. Y., where he spent the re-
mainder of his days.
Mr. Stone's father was Elias Stone, born in
Genesee county, N. Y. He responded to his
country’s call for the War of 1812 and was hon-
orably discharged at the close of the war, after
which he engaged in farming in Attica, Genesee
county, N. Y., until 1836 when he removed with
his family to Kalamazoo county, Mich., where
he purchased government land in the Oak open-
ings" which he cleared and brought to a high
state of cultivation. In 1856 he came to Califor-
nia and spent his last days with his son Joseph
in Contra Costa county. His wife was Caroline
Chamberlain, born in New York and died in
Michigan. She was the daughter of Captain
Joseph Chamberlain who was a master in the
merchant marine service in the transatlantic
trade, his death occurring in New York state.
Joseph C. Stone was born in Attica, Genesee
county, N. Y., May 18, 1822, and was brought
up in New York state until he was fourteen
years of age, when his parents removed to Kal-
amazoo county, Mich., where he made himself
generally useful in helping clear the farm and
making the improvements of the pioneer in a
new country where the farms had to be carved
from the forest. He attended the log school-
house with its slab benches and distinctly re-
1006
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
members mastering the “rule of three and double
rule of three” and learning to write with a quill
pen. On reaching his majority he located on a
farm adjoining his father's place engaging in
agricultural pursuit until 1852, when the gold
excitement reached such an acute stage that he
concluded to cast his lot with the gold seekers
and joined a company of thirty-two outfitted
with horse-teams and started across the plains
entering California by the Humboldt and Carson
route, making the trip from St. Joseph to Cal-
ifornia in sixty-seven days. For some time he
followed mining in Coloma and vicinity, where
he purchased teams and wagons and freighted
from Sacramento and Stockton to the mines until
I854, when he disposed of his outfit and returned
via Panama to his farm in Michigan. Two years
later he brought his wife and two children, his
father, three sisters and a brother to California,
coming via the Nicaragua route and locating in
Walnut Creek, Contra Costa county, where he
engaged in farming and stock raising for five
years. Selling his place he purchased land near
Petaluma and aside from his farming operations
he set out a deciduous orchard. In 1868 he lo-
cated in San Diego county, purchasing a part of
the Old Mission grant in Mission valley where
he was largely engaged in farming and stock
raising.
ing a general contracting and teaming business
which he continued until 1889, when he located
in Poway, returning again to San Diego in 1893,
where he now resides an invalid, his health hav-
ing been shattered by rheumatism. In Kalama-
zoo county, Mich., January 12, 1848, Mr. Stone
was married to Amanda Hall who was born in
the town of Stafford, Genesee county, N. Y., a
daughter of Hiram and Charlotte (Trumbull)
Hall, both natives of Vermont. The mother
died in New York and the father, who followed
farming in Genesee county, N. Y., and later in
Michigan, came to California spending his last
days in Mendocino county.
Mrs. Stone is a woman of rare attainments
and much, ability, her time of late years is much
taken up with nursing her husband, to whom
she is greatly devoted." She is the mother of six
children, namely: Frances, who became the
wife of Clarence Shepherd and died in San
Diego in 1902; Ed, a miner in San Diego county;
Elias, a horticulturist at Fullerton; Lottie, wife
of Allen DeFrate of San Diego; Wm. L., pro-
prietor of the Jersey Dairy in San Diego; and
Nettie, wife of Fred J. Rickey, who is also en-
gaged in dairying. Mrs. Stone is a member of
the Pioneer Society of San Diego county and is
much interested in perpetuating the history of
the old timers who have so noblv put their
shoulder to the wheel in bringing California to
a front rank in the sisterhood of States.
1885 found him in San Diego conduct-
Mr. Stone is a stanch advocate of the prin-
ciples embraced in the platform of the Repub-
lican party, has always taken a special interest
in educational matters and as a man of sterling
worth and upright principles has always been
interested in the upbuilding of the community
where he resides and is held in the highest es-
teem by all who know him.
J. N. JATTA. Not alone as an early settler,
but also as a capable farmer and stockman, Mr.
Jatta has won recognition among the citizens of
San Luis Obispo county and especially in that
portion of the county lying near Arroyo Grande.
The title of pioneer belongs to him by right of
early settlement, for he has lived on his present
ranch since 1871, coming here when the county
was in the incipient stages of its development
and at Once taking up the arduous task of trans-
forming a barren acreage into a fertile tract. The
farm which he purchased during the year of his
arrival now ranks among the best in the locality
and contains five hundred and fifty acres, of
which one hundred and twenty acres are under
cultivation to grain, while the balance is utilized
for pasture. Stock cattle are kept to some ex-
tent and there are also forty milch cows, the
dairy business being one of the owner's most
profitable specialties.
The eastern part of Canada is Mr. Jatta's na-
tive region, and August 6, 1841, the date of his
birth. His parents, Alex and Delayed (Lumne)
Jatta, were natives of Canada, and had a family
of eleven children, all of those now living being
still in the east with the exception of J. N., of
California. The father lived to be sixty and the
mother survived him, passing away when sev-
enty years of age. When J. N. was nine years
of age he accompanied the family to Rochester,
N. Y., and there attended the public schools, ac-
quiring a fair education. At the age of twenty-
one years he left New York for the Pacific coast,
arriving in 1863 in San Francisco, from which
point he proceeded to Marin county and at Point
Reyes worked at the dairy business. From Ma-
rin county he came to San Luis Obispo county,
where he has become known and honored as a
resourceful rancher and Sagacious dairyman.
The marriage of Mr. Jatta in 1869 united him
with Miss Mary Hall, a native of Illinois. They
are the parents of the following children: Ar-
thur, who married Mary Ryne, and has two chil-
dren; Edith, Mrs. Frank Cushion, who has one
child; Bertha, Mrs. Frederick Harperster; Le
Roy, who married Mary Lathrop; Clara, Mrs.
E. C. C. Loomis, who is the mother of five chil-
dren; Ira, Elmer, Ethel and Marion, of whom
the last-named is a student in the Polytechnic
School at San Luis Obispo. Aside from serv-


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
1009
ing as clerk of the board of school trustees, Mr.
Jatta has held no official positions, nor has he
taken any part in politics other than the cast-
ing of a Republican vote at elections, yet he is
a progressive, public-spirited citizen, solicitous
to do his part in every forward movement, and
accustomed to give his support to all measures
for the benefit of the county. Fraternally he
holds membership with the Knights of Pythias
at Arroyo Grande.
ROBERT BELL. Occupying a conspic-
uous position among the substantial and rep-
resentative agriculturists of Ventura county is
Robert Bell, whose large and well-appointed
ranch is one of the productive estates near
Somis. During his residence of thirty-five
years in this vicinity, he has witnessed many
changes of importance in the face of the coun-
try, the extensive tracts of waste land giving
place to the broad expanse of cultivated fields
and productive orchards; the small hamlets
have grown into thriving villages and populous
cities; long trains of steam or electric cars
are used in transporting instead of the wagon
trains drawn by oxen or mules; and the small
cabins of the brave pioneers have long since
been replaced by houses of modern construction
and finish.
Bell has taken an active part, performing his
full share in advancing the prosperity and wel-
fare of the immediate country hereabout, and
as an active, loyal and true-hearted citizen is
held in high respect and esteem. A son of the
late William S. Bell, he was born, May 27,
I842, in Richland county, Ohio, where he re-
ceived such educational advantages as were
given by the common schools. His father was
born and reared in Pennsylvania, but in early
life settled as a farmer in Ohio, and was there
Successfully employed in agricultural pursuits
during the larger part of his active career.
He was a stanch supporter of the principles
of the Republican party, and both he and his
wife belonged to the Presbyterian Church. He
married Polly Turbett, a native of Pennsyl-
vania, who was indeed a worthy helpmate.
They became the parents of four children,
two of whom, Robert, the subject of this
sketch, and a brother, Thomas, reside in Ven-
tura county, the latter living near Oxnard.
When well advanced in years the parents came
to California, and thereafter made their home
with their sons, living in Ventura county until
their deaths, which occurred within a period
of forty-eight hours, in 1901, the father passing
away at the age of eighty-six years, and the
mother at the age of eighty-one years.
Soon after attaining his majority Robert Bell
In these varied improvements Mr.
left his Ohio home, coming to Yuba county,
Cal., in 1864, and there working as a ranchman
for a number of seasons, earning good wages
and gaining a valuable experience in the Cali-
fornia methods of farming. Coming from there
to Ventura county in 1871, he purchased three
hundred acres of wild land, and with true pio-
neer grit and energy began the improvement
of a ranch. Laboring with a will, he reduced
his land to a tillable condition, and as a general
farmer has met with unquestioned success, his
large crops of beans, beets and hay, bringing
him in a large annual income. His homestead
is advantageously located, and his products
are all shipped from Somis.
In 1877 Mr. Bell married Lucretia Rice, a
native of Ohio, and they are the parents of
three children, Polly, Bertha and Walter. Po-
litically Mr. Bell, true to the faith in which
he was reared, is a steadfast Republican, and
fraternally he is a member of Somis Camp
No. I IOOO, M. W. A.
ANDREW JACKSON MYERS. During
the progress of the second war with England
John Myers, a young Virginian, served in de-
fense of his native land and participated in the
memorable engagement at New Orleans.
Years later, when a son was born of his mar-
riage to Ellen Hayes, he gave the child the
name of the sturdy and illustrious general un-
der whom he had fought the British troops.
While the Mississippi valley was still an un-
settled wilderness he became a pioneer and
frontiersman of Illinois and aided in subdu-
ing the Indians at the time of the Blackhawk
war. The savages were hostile throughout the
early period of his residence in Illinois and
on one occasion, while pursuing some of them,
he was attacked and almost killed by a fierce
panther. In memory of the narrow escape
from death which he experienced he was there-
after known as “Panther” Myers. His father-
in-law, Jonathan Hayes, also endured all the
hardships incident to life on the frontier and
at one time built a fort at Peru, Ill., in order
to protect his family and neighbors from the
Indians. Notwithstanding all of his precau-
tions, one of his daughters with her husband
and son and several neighbors were killed by
the savages. Mrs. Ellen Myers was born in
Illinois, while John Myers was a native of
Virginia of German ancestry. Both died in
LaSalle county, Ill., and were buried in the
Cedar Point Cemetery, four miles from the
town of LaSalle.
At the home place near LaSalle, Ill., An-
drew Jackson Myers was born April Io, 1840.
His education was carried on in the schools
1010
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
of Cedar Point and LaSalle, but at the age of
twelve years he left school and accompanied
an aunt to California, it being his duty to drive
and care for the ox-team. After a journey of
four months he arrived at Hangtown in the
fall of 1852 and at once secured work in the
mines. In 1855 he removed to the vicinity of
Fresno, later was in Mariposa county for two
years, next worked in the vicinity of Stockton,
and later went to Tulare county and entered
government land, which he utilized for the
stock business. For some time prior to the
opening of the Civil war he was engaged in
hunting and trapping on the plains with Rob-
ert Carson, a brother of Kit Carson.
During the year 1861 Mr. Myers went to
Texas, where he enlisted in the Confederate
army and served through the entire period of
the Civil war under Capt. James H. Tibbets of
the Arizona Scouts. At the end of the war he
settled in Bell county, Tex., and there, August
8, 1865, he was united in marriage with So-
phia C. Scott, who was born in Missouri, but
removed to Texas at an early age. Nine chil-
dren were born of their union and the heaviest
misfortune of their otherwise happy married
life was the loss of all but two of their once
large family. John and Frank M. died re-
spectively at eleven and six years. May was
only one year old when she was taken from the
family circle. Maggie died at the age of one
year and nine months, and Andrew passed
away at one year. Alfred lived to be a manly
boy of seventeen, while the youngest of the
family, Mariette, died at the age of fifteen
years. The third and fourth in order of birth
were James Edward and Joseph E., both now
residing in Oceanside, the latter of whom was
formerly chief of police and deputy sheriff.
After having made his home in Texas for a
long period Mr. Myers came to California in
I877 and embarked in the dairy business. Four
years later he came to the present site of
Oceanside, of which town he enjoys the dis-
tinction of being the founder. May 12–13, 1883,
he laid out the village, platting lots on what
was then a sheep range. For a year or two
little progress was made, but in 1885 people
began to buy and build and from that time on-
ward the growth of the place was steady. The
first water works were established by Mr. My-
ers, and it was his boast that no town on the
coast had finer water than Oceanside. After a
few years he sold the water system to the city.
For some time he owned one hundred and fif-
ty-five acres and later he bought one hundred
and sixty acres, a portion of which remains in
his possession, as do also some of the town
lots. Among his many philanthropies was the
gift of the land on which stands the Christian
Church. His wife was one of the leading mem-
bers of that congregation and a trustee of the
church, and it was from this building that she
was buried, her death occurring November 8,
1906, at the age of sixty-three years. Politi-
cally a Democrat, Mr. Myers has been inter-
ested in political affairs and often has served
as a delegate to party conventions. Through-
out San Diego county he is known and hon-
ored for his active encouragement of all move-
ments for the benefit of the people and the ma-
terial development of the county’s resources.
GEORGE E. BAHRENBURG, M. D.
Prominent among the younger generation of
practitioners of Los Angeles county is Dr.
Bahrenburg, who has brought to bear in his
work the progressive ideas and enterprise which
have formed so important a factor in the devel-
opment of this section. A native of Illinois, he
was born in Staunton, Macoupin county, Octo-
ber 30, 1880. His father, John E. Bahrenburg,
M. D., was a native of Indiana, where his early
life was passed. While he was still quite young
the medical profession had been chosen as his
future calling, and upon receiving his diploma
he opened an office in St. Louis, Mo., remaining
there for sixteen years. From St. Louis he came
direct to Los Angeles, and during the five years
which he has practiced here has won the re-
spect and confidence of all who have come in
contact with him, either in a professional or so-
cial way. Politically he is a Republican, and
fraternally he is a member of the Royal Arcanum.
It was in St. Louis, Mo., that Dr. Bahrenburg
met and married Miss Alice Georgia Dorff, who
was a native of that place, and of their marriage
two children have been born, George E., the sub-
ject of this sketch, and Charles N., who is now
studying medicine in the University of Southern
California. Mrs. Bahrenburg is a woman of
many fine qualities, and is an active worker in
the Presbyterian Church of Los Angeles, of
which she is a member.
The boyhood years of George E. Bahrenburg
were passed in St. Louis, Mo., receiving a com-
mon school education in that city. The medical
profession from his earliest years had been at-
tractive to him, and indeed it may be said with
truth that it was an inherited inclination, for as
has been said his father is a practicing physi-
cian. His initial medical training was received
in Chicago, Ill., and in Los Angeles, Cal., he
was granted the diploma which entitled him to
practice medicine in that state. . His first prac:
tical experience was received in the Soldiers'
Home hospital at Sawtelle, Cal., and two years
later he inaugurated his present private practice
in this place. Although he is one of the young-

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
1013
est practitioners here, his years have been no
bar to his advancement, but from the fact that
he is familiar with the latest discoveries in the
medical world by his recent training and experi-
ence he has become a necessary adjunct to many
of the first families in Sawtelle and vicinity.
Personally he is of a social nature and makes
friends with all whom he meets. Fraternally he
is identified with the Benevolent and Protective
Order of Elks.
WILLARD R. CHENEY. One of the es-
teemed residents of Redlands is Willard R.
Cheney. He came to the Rocky Mountain
country as early as 1866, beginning his career
with empty hands but courageous heart, and
in the intervening time has acquired a finan-
cial position which places him among the
prominent and representative men of this sec-
tion of Southern California. He was born in
Defiance, Ohio, August 14, 1844, a son of
James Cheney, a native of Vermont, whence
the paternal grandfather, Roswell, emigrated
to Ohio and engaged as a merchant in Toledo.
James Cheney also became a merchant in that
city, and later was located in Adrian, Defiance,
then Logansport and Fort Wayne, in Indiana,
in the last named place being classed among
the financiers as a banker of no small promi-
nence. He was instrumental in the upbuilding
of the middle west, and built a division of the
Wabash and Erie canal. He served his fel-
low citizens as a member of the state legisla-
ture. His wife, formerly Miss Nancy Evans,
was born in Ohio, one of the first white chil-
dren born on the Maumee ; both herself and
husband died in Fort Wayne, Ind. They were
the parents of four children, all of whom are
living, Willard R. being a resident of Red-
lands and a daughter, Mrs. Kimberly, has a
winter home here.
Reared in Fort Wayne and Logansport,
Willard R. Cheney received a preliminary ed-
ucation in the public schools, after which he
entered the Asbury University, now known as
the De Pauw University, New Albany, Ind.
He then entered the service of the Wabash
Railroad Company and worked as conductor
in the south during the Civil war. He spent
One season in Texas, whence he drove through
to Nevada and established the Bar ranch, in
Clover valley. Coming on to California he as-
sociated himself with Dumphrey & Hildreth of
San Francisco, and from 1870 on for many
years represented them as collector in that
city. In 1885 he returned to the middle west
and in St. Louis, Mo., engaged in the laundry
business, after which in Jeffersonville, Ind., he
followed a similar enterprise. Later he estab-
conducted the Phelps hotel.
opened what was the first temperance hotel in all
lished a laundry in Mexico, Mo., and is still
interested in that enterprise. In the spring of
I904 he located in Redlands and purchased
what was known as the Morey place, and since
that time he has remodeled it and improved it,
until today he has one of the finest homes in
this city. There are nine acres in the prop-
erty, of which six are devoted to the cultiva-
tion of Oranges. In November, 1905, in part-
nership with H. J. Pratt, he purchased the
Frink ranch of five hundred and forty acres in
the San Timoteo cañon, where they are now
engaged in the management of a dairy and
creamery, and the raising of alfalfa. He is also
a director in the Home Gas & Electric Com-
pany.
In Jeffersonville, Ind., Mr. Cheney was
united in marriage with Miss Nancy McMa-
hon, a native of that state, and a woman of
rare worth and character, a distinct addition
to the society of Redlands. Fraternally Mr.
Cheney is a member of Jeffersonville Lodge
No. 362, B. P. O. E. Politically he is a stanch
advocate of the principles of the Democratic
party.
IRA WARNER PHELPS. The lineage of
the Phelps family in America is traced back to
a period antedating the first war with England.
Prior to that struggle five sons of Rebecca S.
Phelps of Deerfield, Conn., accompanied Gen-
eral Schuyler on an expedition against the Six
Nations and served throughout that entire cam-
paign. When the colonies rebelled against the
mother country he took up arms to assist the for-
lorn cause and served as a corporal, remaining
at the front, participating in innumerable hard-
ships, countless privations and many engage-
ments, until finally peace was declared and the
army was disbanded. Later he removed from
Connecticut to New York and settled upon a
raw tract of land near Canandaigua, where he
died at ninety-three years of age. A few years
after he settled on that farm his son, Baruch B.,
was born in 1787, and in that then frontier en-
vironment the boy grew into a robust manhood,
possessing the stalwart constitution and daunt-
less courage characteristic of frontiersmen. Dur-
ing the war of 1812 he served in the American
armv. After leaving the army he turned his at-
tention to the hotel business and, on the site of
Erie canal, erected the Phelps house, the first
hotel built in Buffalo after it was destroyed by
fire in 1814. Subsequently he became one of
the founders of the village of Silver Creek, in
Chautauqua county, N. Y., where he built and
In that town he
of western New York. At the start the outlook
1014
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
was discouraging and the business unprofitable,
but eventually he proved that such a plan could
be carried into successful consummation.
In addition to keeping a hotel Baruch Phelps
engaged in farming and stock raising. Event-
ually he left New York for the growing west
and settled in Illinois, first making his home in
Elgin and later at St. Charles, but his last days
were passed in the home of his eldest son in
Dekalb county, that state, and there he passed
from earth at the age of eighty-seven years.
Through all of his active life he was a believer
in Presbyterian doctrines and a sincere member
of that denomination. While living in the east
he married Betsey Warner, who was born in Ben-
nington, Vt., and was a grand-niece of Seth
Warner, of Revolutionary fame. Her death oc-
curred in Dekalb county, Ill., when she was
seventy-two years of age. They were the par-
ents of six children, namely: Louisa, who died
at Malta, Dekalb county, Ill. ; William, who died
at Elgin, Ill.; Walter, who was a member of
the Fifty-sixth Illinois Infantry and died in De-
kalb county, Ill. ; Forbes, now a resident of De-
kalb county; Ira W. and Albert, who came to
the Pacific coast and established homes in Los
Angeles county, the latter being a resident of
Highland Park.
The village of Silver Creek, in Chautauqua
county, N. Y., is the native home of Ira Warner
Phelps, and July 26, 1835, the date of his birth.
In addition to attending public schools he had
the advantage of a course of study in Nunda
Academy. During 1849 he came west as far as
Chicago, where he clerked for about three years
in the employ of an uncle, Ira P. Warner. Later
he clerked for a year in Elgin, after which he
returned to Chicago and learned the trade of a
harness-maker, which he followed for a time.
Afterward he worked on his father's farm in
Kane county near Elgin and on Judge Baker's
farm near Joliet. In search of cheap land in a
favorable location he went to Minnesota in 1855
and from there went to Wisconsin, where he
bought farm property. For four years he was
employed in a lumber business at Eau Galle,
Dunn county, and when his employer rented the
lumber plant and the sawmill he started for the
Rocky mountains, this being the time of the
Pike's Peak excitement of 1859. With a party
of emigrants he traveled via mule-team to what
is now the city of Denver. During the fall and
winter he was employed at Tarryall Diggings,
and in the spring of 1860 he followed other
miners to California Gulch, near the present site
of Leadville, where he remained during the sum-
Iner.
After a year's experience in the mines of Col-
orado Mr. Phelps started back east in the spring
of 1860, but an attack of mountain fever forced
him to stop at Cañon City. That now flourish-
ing town had only one house and it was of Sod.
For a long time he was too ill to travel, but
eventually he recovered sufficiently to start for
home. With two comrades named James Ramage
and Peter Shell during the middle of December
he took up the homeward journey with pack-
horses. The trip was rendered lonely by reason
of the fact that they were the only white men on
the plains and the further fact that they were
forced to travel at night on account of the hos-
tility of the Indians. As they proceeded along
the Arkansas route they camped on the islands
of the river by day, then took up travel after
darkness protected them from observation by
the Indians. Their tracks were obliterated by
the herds of buffaloes which filled the country
for a distance of four hundred miles. Indeed,
at no time were they out of sight of large herds
until they landed at Council Grove, Kans. Dur-
ing the year there had been a great drouth and
the Platte, Republican, Smoky and Solomon
rivers were dry, so that the buffaloes were
obliged to come to the Arkansas for water.
While stopping at Council Grove, the outpost
station of the government, Mr. Phelps became
interested in the raising of a company known
as the Frontier Rifles, of which he was a mem-
ber until it disbanded. From Council Grove he
traveled eastward to the Missouri river, intend-
ing to enlist in the Union army, but he found
the quota filled for the present, so he changed his
plans and joined a government train en route to
Fort Union. The journey was made without spe-
cial incident until shortly before their arrival at
Fort Union, when Indians and Spaniards fell
upon them and captured all of their supplies,
leaving them their cattle, however, with which
they got through to the fort. Soon afterward
word was received of the battle of Bull Run, the
defeat of the north, and the call for three hun-
dred thousand soldiers. In order to enlist he
and sixteen of his associates started at Once for
the east, and in 1861 he was accepted as a pri-
vate in Company H, First Kansas Cavalry,
which by ruling of the war department became
Company H, Seventh Kansas Cavalry. In the
spring of 1864 he veteranized and re-enlisted in
the same regiment as saddler sergeant, from
which office he was mustered out November 29,
1865, and honorably discharged at Fort Leaven-
worth. The regiment of which he was a mem-
ber had to its credit a record of one hundred and
forty-nine engagements, including Corinth, Holly
Springs and Iuka. In the battle of Corinth he
lost the sight of his right eye. At Coffeyville
they fought all of one day in the year 1863
against Price's army and held their own in the
midst of desperate odds.
At the close of the war Mr. Phelps returned
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
1015
to the life of a plainsman and visited Colorado
in order to ascertain the condition of his three
claims at Leadville, but found that the water
had failed completely, so he abandoned the claims
as well as the life of a frontiersman. Returning
to Kansas he clerked at Junction City one year
for Captain Wright and William Lockstone. In
the interests of these gentlemen he then opened
a branch store at Ellsworth and three years later
he purchased the business by giving his notes for
the indebtedness. Soon the trailing of cattle
began from Texas and Ellsworth became a ship-
ping point for stock, so that trade increased
rapidly and profits were large. For nineteen
years he continued in the mercantile business in
the same town and meanwhile held the office of
county supervisor, also in early days took a lead-
ing part in all local activities.
On retiring from the mercantile business in
Kansas Mr. Phelps came to Los Angeles in 1885
and shortly afterward embarked in the citrus-
growing business at Ontario, where he purchased
two groves of twenty acres each. However, not
making his home on the land, he met with dis-
aster, for the groves were near the mule-cars
running from the city and tourists often stopped
there and entertained themselves by breaking off
limbs loaded with fruit. Their depredations con-
tinued to such an extent as to render the busi-
ness unprofitable for the owner and he sold out.
Since then he has engaged in buying and selling
real estate and since 1898 he also has bought and
developed oil lands, putting down twenty-nine
wells on twenty-two acres of land. At this writ-
ing he has royalty interests in eight wells on
nineteen lots in the Knob Hill tract and he owns
other valuable oil property. Besides being finan-
cially interested in the Los Angeles Realty and
Trust Company he serves as a member of its
board of directors.
The commodious residence erected by Mr.
Phelps in 1894 stands at No. 1542 Ingraham
street, Los Angeles, and since its erection it has
been the home of the family. While living in
Bllsworth, Kans., he married Miss Rose Stern-
berg, a member of an old and honored family of
New York state. Her father, Rev. Levi Stern-
berg, was a minister in the Lutheran denomina-
tion and at one time held office as president of
the Hardwick Seminary near Cooperstown, N.
Y., where Mrs. Phelps was born. One of her
brothers, George M. Sternberg, M. D., was for-
merly surgeon-general of the United States army.
Of her marriage there are four children, namely:
Bertha, who married Louis R. Garrett, an at-
torney of Los Angeles; Frank, who has charge
of the Inglewood Water Company; Mary, who
resides with her parents; and George, who is
employed in the office of Garrett & Bixby, archi-
tects, of Los Angeles. The old war days are kept
in mind by Mr. Phelps through his association
with Bartlett Logan Post, G. A. R., of Los An-
geles, in the work of which he has been interested
for a long period, and in addition he has borne
a constant interest in every movement affecting
the boys who wore the blue in that historic strug-
gle. Ever since casting his first ballot he has
been a supporter of the Republican party and
has accomplished much to promote its local suc-
CCSSCS.
JOHN GRIFFIN. From boyhood identi-
fied with the history of San Diego county,
John Griffin, member of the county board of
Supervisors and a prominent dealer in real-es-
tate at Oceanside, deservedly ranks among the
pioneers of this part of the state. A man of
broad information and faculties of close ob-
servation, genial and companionable in dispo-
sition, he often entertains others with narra-
tives of pioneer life and many of his tales of
those times might worthily be preserved in the
annals of the county, in order that future gen-
erations might better understand the trials
and hardships which the early settlers endured.
In securing the present development he has
contributed his quota, and meanwhile has
gained the respect of all as a citizen of un-
blemished character, high principles of honor
and strong mental endowments.
Near Austin, Tex., in the county of Milan,
John Griffin was born July 21, 1854, being a
son of James M. and Sarah (Black) Griffin,
natives of Alabama and pioneer farmers of
Texas. The family came overland to Cali-
fornia in 1869 and settled at Campo, San Diego
county, but a year later they moved to San
Luis Rey, where the father conducted farm
pursuits until his death in October, 1901, at
seventy-seven years. The mother is still liv-
ing and is now (1906) seventy-six years of
age. John Griffin was educated in the public
schools of Texas and was a lad of fifteen
years when he came to California, stalwart,
robust and energetic, well fitted to aid his
father in the development of unimproved farm
land. At the age of twenty-one he began to
farm independently and as the seasons passed
he became increasingly interested in the rais-
ing of fine stock. His specialty was the pure-
blooded Shire horse and at the head of his
stables he had pedigreed stallions which he
imported from Europe. Today the descendants
of his imported stock are among the finest
horses in the whole county and due credit be-
longs to him for his work in raising the qual-
ity of the breeds on the farms.
Renting his land in the San Luis Rey valley
(which he still owns), Mr. Griffin came to
1016
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Oceanside in 1897 and since then has engaged
in the real-estate business, having handled as
much property as any man in the town. As
a judge of values he has few superiors. Dur-
ing his long residence in the county he has
formed an accurate idea of all land values and
his judgment is based upon experience, as well
as upon faculties of careful observation. Since
attaining his majority he has voted the Demo-
cratic ticket and has been active in the work of
the party. Elected to the county board of super-
visors in 1894, he has since served continu-
ously as a member of that board and in the
capacity of supervisor has aided movements
for the development of the county's resources.
His election to the office bespeaks his popu-
larity, for he was elected on the Democratic
ticket in a district usually giving a strong Re-
publican majority, but which has given him
a majority of as much as one hundred and fifty.
For three terms he has officiated as chairman
of the board and the welfare of his constitu-
ents has been safe in his hands. That his
services are appreciated has been shown by
his long retention as a member of the board;
and indeed, too much praise cannot be given
him for his self-sacrificing devotion to the up-
building of the county. In city affairs, too, he
has been warmly interested, served with energy
as city trustee, and was one of the leaders in
the establishment of the present water sys-
tem of Oceanside, one of the best systems in
the entire county.
The marriage of Mr. Griffin took place in
San Diego in September of 1892 and united
him with Miss Ida Rooker, who was born in
this state and is the daughter of a pioneer of
northern California. Three children have
been born of their union, Lucile, Lloyd and
Lura, all of whom are receiving the advantages
of the excellent schools of Oceanside. In fra-
ternal relations Mr. Griffin is actively identi-
fied with the Independent Order of Odd Fel-
lows, the Fraternal Brotherhood, the Benevo-
lent Protective Order of Elks of San Diego
and Oceanside Lodge No. 381, F. & A. M.
The family residence is an attractive and com-
modious structure, standing on Second street.
People who have settled in Southern Cali-
fornia of recent years would find it difficult to
appreciate the conditions as they existed in
the past, when the cattlemen claimed the broad
ranges and the farmers were obliged to con-
test for their rights. Years ago the San Luis
valley was claimed by the Pico family of Los
Angeles as being part of a large grant given
to them, and under the rights of ownership
given them by the grant they leased the lands
to Col. K. J. Couts and Don Juan Foster, who
had thousands of head of cattle on the range.
In the spring of 1870 seven families settled in
the valley, namely: B. F. Libby, D. R. Foss,
John Adams, P. A. Graham, Herbert Crouch,
Major Lee Utt and J. M. Griffin. Their claims
to the land were contested by the grant own-
ers and it was only after an expensive battle
in the courts lasting five years that the farm-
ers won their titles beyond fear of dispute.
During the five years they were annoyed in
many ways and the Indians were incited
against them. On one occasion word came to
the settlers that the Indians would raid their
farms that night. To prepare for the emer-
gency John Griffin (who was then a lad in his
teens) and six others, all well armed, stationed
themselves in a narrow gap between the moun-
tains through which the Indians would be
obliged to pass in the approach. However,
though they laid in wait during all the night,
ready to fire at an instant’s notice, the Indians
did not come, and the threatened raid did not
take place. In order to protect their grain
fields, the farmers built a fence around the en-
tire valley, and beyond the fence dug a ditch
three feet deep, in order to keep the native
cattle from trespassing upon their crops; yet,
in spite of their extreme care, at times their
fences were broken down and their crops
ruined. Before the final settlements had been
made in the courts all of the parties on both
sides had become friends and in recognition
of the end of the contest the cattlemen invited
the settlers to a barbecue on the Joma, where
all enjoyed a delightful day and not only
buried their past animosity, but formed friend-
ships that have lasted to the present day.
JOHN W. ALLEN. In the development of
the fruit-growing industry of Southern California
no man has taken a more intelligent interest than
John W. Allen of Fernando. During the twelve
or more years that he has resided in Los Angeles
county he has been actively employed in horti-
cultural pursuits and has established a wide repu-
tation as a successful orchardist, the fruits of his
raising surpassing in excellence, it is said, those
of any other fruit-grower along the coast. A
native of Indiana, he was born, July 23, 1843,
in Montgomery county, where he was brought up
and educated. Trained to agricultural pursuits,
he chose farming for an occupation, and carried
it on successfully for many years in his native
State. -
Coming to Los Angeles county in 1800, Mr.
Allen worked as a wage-earner in Pacoima for
a year, after which he was for two years a resi-
dent of Santa Clara county, where, as a laborer,
he made a study of the best methods of fruit
growing. Returning then to Pacoima, he bought
--
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
1019
ten acres of wild land and at once began its im-
provement, placing it in a tillable condition and
setting out fruit trees. Succeeding well in his
venture, he subsequently purchased another near-
by tract of ten acres, five acres of which he im-
mediately set out in fruit and Olives, while the
remaining five acres he devoted to grapes, set-
ting out vines in 1904. In 1897, having made
money as an orchardist, he invested in additional
land, buying twenty acres adjoining his previous
purchases, and to this he added by purchase ten
acres more in 1905, increasing the size of his
ranch to fifty acres. Twenty acres of his land
is set out to fruit and is very productive, bring-
ing him in a good annual income. Purchasing
a house and three lots in Fernando on McNeil
street, he improved the place, and in IQO2 removed
here with his family, and has since been num-
bered among the more highly esteemed and
valued residents of the place.
In Indiana, December 30, 1869, Mr. Allen
married Theresa Adelaide Sims, and into their
home four children were born, namely: Robert,
of Los Angeles; Florence, wife of M. E. Shelly,
of Los Angeles; Laura Estella, wife of V. T.
Edwards, of Fernando; and Ethel L., living at
home. Mrs. Allen died June 22, 1895. Polit-
ically Mr. Allen votes the straight Republican
ticket, and in 1901 was appointed overseer for
the Fernando road, a position which he filled
acceptably for two and one-half years. He was
a charter member of Fernando Lodge No. 324,
F. & A. M., and religiously he is a consistent
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, as
is also his daughter, Ethel L.
ROBERT ARMISTRONG, M. D. The Arm-
strongs, in common with many other old fam-
ilies of South Scotland and North England, are
of Norman blood, and even after more than a
thousand years of contact with other races,
branches of the family, the wide world Over, still
show something of the well-known physical and
mental characteristics of their Norse ancestors.
Robert Armstrong, the eldest son of William
and Margaret (Henderson) Armstrong, was
born November 15, 1841, at Jedburgh, Scotland.
In 1844 the family migrated to America and
settled on a new farm in Queens county, New
Brunswick. There Robert, being in years the
only boy big enough for farm work, had rather
more than his share of the advantages of the
industrial education of pioneer farming, with
just enough desultory schooling to , make him
hungry for more. At eighteen “Roby,” as his
mother called him, was pronounced too little, too
discontented and too much of a bookworm for
farming. Then there followed half a dozen hap-
py years of study at the best schools within reach,
and of teaching. In 1865 he began the study of
medicine, taking the medical course at Harvard
and Jefferson, graduating at the latter college in
I868. Returning to Canada he practiced medicine
sixteen years in Queens county and in St. John,
New Brunswick.
In 1886 he moved west, registering in each
of the states of California, Washington and Col-
Orado. In 1902 he returned to California and is
now located at Ramona, San Diego county. Here
as elsewhere he has had little reason to complain
of a profession which has secured him freedom
and opportunity for research in many fields, and
a fair share of the public and professional con-
fidence. In this connection it may be noted that
Dr. Armstrong assisted in organizing the San
Diego County Medical Society and served as its
first secretary and its first delegate to the State
Medical Society. He is also a member of the
United States Medical Association and an active
member of the National Educational Associa-
tion. .*
Of the ex-professional studies that have occu-
pied most of the available leisure of Dr. Arm-
strong's professional life, the most important
have been in connection with a new departure
in phonetics. In 1885 he suggested the idea of
making each spoken element the model for its
own written alphabetic representative. This
principle, glossO-graphic analogy has, so far as
known, had the unanimous endorsement of pro-
gressive educators as supplying a thoroughly
natural and Scientific basis of graphics. Dr. Arm-
Strong’s “Glossography,” published in 1901, is
based on this principle and secures in writing the
closest possible approach to spoken utterance in
character, and hence in fulness, continuity and
economy of expression. This glossal stenography
writes the elements of words as fully as they are
spoken about four times as fast as long-hand
and can be used in ordinary amanuensis work
without any contractions or word-signs, so that
any one who has learned the method can tran-
scribe its notes as accurately as the writer him-
self.
His glossal typography (Glossotypy) now
being published, proposes a series of alphabetical
(phonetic) characters modeled on a somewhat
freer application of the principle of glosso-graphic
analogy, intended to take the place of the many
diverse phonetic alphabets that are now being
used in teaching common reading. Its printed
page occupies one-third less page space than
common type of the same size. It is clearer and
less straining to the eyes in reading and can be
learned by anyone in a single week, so as to read
any new word at sight with absolute accuracy of
pronunciation and accent. The general adoption
of the glossal alphabet for this purpose would be
equivalent to paralleling the old river of English
1020
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Orthography with a railway which, while facili-
tating the teaching of its difficult navigation,
would give the busy millions a means of reaching
a perfect graphic expression in English in fewer
weeks than are now required of years in attain-
ing a very imperfect common spelling.
At his home, Rock Park, Dr. Armstrong is
cultivating a patch of landscape to suggest the
scenery of his native Scottish border of “Jed
Water and Geviot-dale.” Here among the rocks
and live Oaks of an Old Indian camping ground
he spends the early mornings and leisure hours
in “Planting the olive where the wild-briar grew.”
Here, “sixty-five years young,” he proposes do-
ing what he may in finishing up studies which
have occupied the available leisure of his many
busy years of “chances and changes, mistakes,
losses, successes and failures.” Here, in “the
afternoon,” he is directing a few simple scientific
principles towards the practical goal of “the best
attainable,” as cheerfully confident of final re-
Sults as was the first of the name in pointing his
“cloth yard” Norman arrows at the retiring Celt
or Saxons at Otterburn or Falkirk.
HENRY CATEY. Noteworthy among the
industrious and thriving agriculturists of Comp-
ton is Henry Catey, who has been following his
independent occupation in this locality for up-
wards of twenty years, owning and Occupying
a finely cultivated ranch, to the improvement of
which he is constantly adding, year by year in-
creasing its value. He was born July 21, 1834,
in Indiana, where he resided until after attain-
ing his majority. His father, Stacey B. Catey,
born in New Jersey in 1806, removed to Indiana
in 1816, then a boy of ten years, and died there
in 1887. He married Sarah Ferguson, who was
born in New Jersey, and died in Indiana in 1850,
aged thirty-eight years. Their ten children all
grew to years of maturity, and eight are still
living. Four of the sons served in the Civil
war, and one of these died from disease con-
tracted while in the army. The father was iden-
tified with the Whigs until the formation of the
Republican party and cast his first presidential
vote for John Quincy Adams. The mother was
a consistent mémber of the Baptist Church, and
reared her children in that faith.
Leaving his Indiana home in 1857, Henry Catey
came across the plains to California, in com-
pany with three of his schoolmates, of whom one,
Henry Larkins, was killed while en route at
Carson valley. From there Mr. Catey went on
to Sacramento, going from there to Marysville,
and from there to Shasta county, where he re-
mained for four years, being engaged in mining.
He was fairly successful, and continued as a
miner and prospector for a number of years, pros-
lier history of the state. -
is Rufus K. McCreery, who came to Califor-
pecting in Northern California until 1862, and
from that time until 1869 in Oregon and Mon-
tana mining fields. Returning then to Indiana,
Mr. Catey married, settled on a farm, and re-
mained in that state for ten years thereafter. In
the fall of 1882 he came with his family to Los
Angeles county, and in the spring of 1883 pur-
chased the ranch on which he has since lived.
He has twenty-five acres of land, on which he
raises some fruit, although he devotes a large
part of it to alfalfa, one of the most profitable
crops that can be raised in this section. In the
pursuit of his chosen occupation, he has labored
diligently and effectively, and has met with
deserved prosperity, his farm comparing favora-
bly in its appointments and equipments with any
in the vicinity.
In Indiana, in 1870, Mr. Catey married Mary
A. Keefer, a native of New York, and they are
the parents of four children, namely: S. F. Catey,
in business in Los Angeles; G. W. Catey, re-
siding in Los Angeles; Minnie L., a teacher in
the public schools of Compton; and Emma E.
In his political affiliations Mr. Catey is a sound
Republican, sustaining the principles of his party
by voice and vote. He is identified with the
establishment of beneficial enterprises, and holds
stock in the Compton Co-operative store. Both
Mr. and Mrs. Catey are valued members of the
Baptist Church at Compton, in which he is serv-
ing as deacon and also as a trustee.
RUFUS K. McCREERY. Los Angeles is
the home of many who have laid aside the
active duties of business life and are enjoying
in their declining years the competency ac-
cumulated during several decades in the ear-
Among this number
nia in 1852, and is now living retired in the
handsome residence which he erected at No.
911 Hope street, Los Angeles. On both sides
of the family Mr. McCreery is of Irish ances-
try, his parents claiming County Down, as
their birthplace. Robert and Ann (Blocke)
McCreery were reared and married in their
native country, and about 1814 or 1815 came
to the United States and settled in Hagers-
town, Md. There the father opened a mer-
cantile establishment which he carried on suc-
cessfully until his death, December 27, 1833,
while he was still a young man. His widow
was left with six small children, the youngest
being less than two days old. As soon as cir-
cumstances would permit she located near
Sharpsburg, that state, but two years later she
removed with her family to Mount Morris,
Ogle county, Ill., her death occurring in the
latter place August 22, 1868, at the age of
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
102.É.
Seventy-two years, six months and twenty
days. She was a firm adherent of the Ger-
man Reformed Church, and reared her chil-
dren in an atmosphere of right living and
Sound principles.
The ninth in order of birth in a family of
eleven children, Rufus K. McCreery, was
born in Hagerstown, Md., October 1, 1825, six
Other children having previously died in in-
fancy. The eldest child, Jane, was born in Ire-
land, September 4, 1813, and was therefore
only about one year old when the parents im-
migrated to the United States; she became the
wife of John Meyers, and died February 10,
I874, when sixty years of age. Samuel is now
living retired at the age of eighty-seven years
in Hagerstown, Md., where he formerly con-
ducted a prosperous banking business. Ann,
who became the wife of James Hayes, died
when in her seventy-third year, and Margaret,
the wife of William Bull, also died at the same
age. . At the time his mother located in Illi-
nois Rufus was a child of fifteen years, and he
distinctly recalls the crude conditions by
which they were surrounded. Circumstances
made it necessary for him to aid in the sup-
port of his mother and younger children, and
for some time he worked as a farm hand for
neighboring farmers, later, however, carrying
on a farm independently on rented land. The
prospects of the middle west paled percepti-
bly before the alluring accounts of opportuni-
ties in the far west, and the year 1852 found
him on his way to California. He, his brother
Samuel and a friend, each provided with an
outfit and yoke of cattle, set out from Illinois
in March. They crossed the Missouri river at
Council Bluffs May 8, and by way of Sublett's
cutoff finally reached Hangtown August 8.
The train with which they crossed the plains
was a large one and was led by Capt. F. P.
Fuller, who brought them through a perilous
journey in safety.
In partnership with his brother Samuel Mr.
McCreery engaged in selling stock in Hang-
town for a time and later the brothers were
interested in mining at Diamond Springs for
about two years, during which time they av-
eraged $12 per day. Leaving the mines at the
end of this time Rufus K. McCreery went to
San Francisco and near that city was em-
ployed in a dairy until the spring of 1855. In
company with his brother he returned east by
the Nicaragua route, and for two years Rufus
carried on a farm which he had purchased in
Illinois, having in the meantime established
domestic ties. With his brother-in-law,
George Parker, in 1859 he again set out for the
west, intending to go to Pike's Peak, but
when they reached Fort Laramie encountered
geles, there conducting a small dairy.
So many returning from that locality they
changed their course and went to Salt Lake
instead, continuing on from there to Harney
Lake, in Lassen county, Cal., where they
worked in the mines until the spring of 1860.
They then went to Laporte, Plumas county,
where with five others they bought interests
in seven claims on Rabbit creek. For five or
six years their mining venture proved exceed-
ingly profitable, employing as many as one
hundred men at one time, but complications
arose between them and the owner of the ad-
joining claim, Tom Powers, and the partners.
lost nearly all that they had accumulated.
In 1866, in partnership with George Mc-
Math, Mr. McCreery began teaming to the
mines, hauling supplies from Marysville to
Laporte with six and eight horse teams. Dis-
solving partnership in 1869, Mr. McCreery
brought his family to Southern California in
one wagon drawn by four horses, landing in
Los Angeles November 3 of the same year,
and for two weeks camped on the corner of
Seventh and Flower streets. Thereafter for a
short time he rented a ranch of forty acres on
Pico street at Alvarado Heights, subsequently
settling on a quarter section near Los An-
Al-
though he had proved up and paid for the land
and obtained his patent therefor from the gov-
ernment, he became involved in a law-suit
over the land and finally lost it, together with
the improvements which he had placed upon
it. He next purchased ten acres at the corner
of Adams and Vermont streets, for which he
paid $450, and after erecting a house for his
family established a dairy business and en-
gaged in making butter. To such an extent
was he prospered in his efforts that it became
necessary to secure more land, and by renting
one thousand acres along the river (for which
he paid $1,000 annually) he was enabled to in-
crease his herd to sixty cows. In the mean-
time his little plot of ten acres had been in-
creasing in value, for in 1886 he sold the same
for $11,000. The same year he purchased a
lot at the corner of Seventh and Hill streets,
paying $1,300 for it, and the next year sold it
for $8,000. With the proceeds of this sale he
bought a ranch of one hundred and sixty
acres at what is now the corner of Vermont
and Florence streets, and also purchased his
present residence property on Hope street.
These purchases and the erection of his home
left him in debt about $8,000, but in a year's
time he was enabled to cancel the obligation.
Stocking his ranch with one hundred cows,
he carried on a very successful dairy business
with his son for a number of years, the latter
subsequently carrying it on alone for a time.
1022
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Finally Mr. McCreery divided the ranch with
his son, giving the latter eighty acres, while
he himself sold his share and invested the pro-
ceeds in city property.
The marriage of Rufus K. McCreery was
celebrated May 6, 1856, and united him with
Miss Mary B. Bull, a native of New York
City, born January 8, 1836. Her father, John
R. Bull, was born March I, I795, in Tring,
Hertfordshire, England, and was there reared
and fitted to follow the saddler's trade. Dur-
ing young manhood, July IO, 1824, he came
to the United States, locating in New York
City, where his first wife died leaving no chil-
dren. His second marriage occurred in that
city and united him with Jeanette P. Young,
who was born in Perth, Scotland, September
12, 1803. In 1838 Mr. and Mrs. Bull left the
east and settled on a farm in the vicinity of
Rockford, Ill., Mr. Bull taking entire charge
of its management until retiring in 1855. He
lived to attain the ripe age of ninety-eight
years, while his wife was in her eighty-eighth
year at the time of her death. Besides Mrs.
McCreery, who was next to the youngest in
the family, the children born to Mr. and Mrs.
Bull were as follows: Jeanette, the wife of
George T. Parker and a resident of Riverside,
Cal.; John, deceased; William, who makes his
home in Kansas; Israel, of Rockford, Ill. ; and
Sarah, the widow of John Redline, who makes
her home in Illinois. Three children blessed
the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. McCreery, of
whom we make the following mention : Nettie
became the wife of Nelson C. Bledsoe, an at-
torney at law in Arizona; the sketch of the
only son, Samuel Robert, will be found else-
where in this volume; Mary Frances is the
wife of George Simpson, a contractor and
builder. Both father and son are Republicans
in political belief, and with his wife Mr. Mc-
Creery is a member of the Methodist Episco-
pal Church, which at the time they became
identified with the community had a mem-
bership of only thirty-six. In his fraternal as-
sociations Mr. McCreery is an Odd Fellow,
holding membership in Los Angeles Lodge
No. 35, and both himself and wife are affil-
iated with the Rebekahs.
ELMER ELLSWORTH MOSES. Self-
made in the best sense implied by the term, El-
mer E. Moses has won for himself a place among
the representative citizens of Bassett and sur-
rounding country, being appreciated for the
qualities of character he has exhibited during his
residence in this section.
California, his birth having occurred in Phila-
delphia, Pa., March 4, 1863, his parents, Abra-
He is not a native of .
ham and Rebecca Moses, both being natives of
Cumberland county, Pa., in which state they both
passed away. He was their only child and as
they were farmers he alternated home duties
with an attendance of the public schools. Thrown
upon his own resources at the age of fifteen
years, he engaged as a farm hand for three years,
when he accepted a position as flagman with the
Pennsylvania Central Railroad and ran between
Philadelphia and Harrisburg. In 1884 he re-
moved to Nebraska and in Adams county fol-
Iowed farming for eleven years, when, in 1895,
he married Miss Laura Rants, of Illinois, and
with her came to the Pacific coast and located in
Garvanza, Los Angeles county. He was first
employed in the building of the electric rail-
road between Los Angeles and Pasadena, and
after its completion he entered the employ of the
Santa Fé Railroad Company, remaining about
two years. In 1898 he engaged in farming in
the vicinity of El Monte, and in 1905 purchased
his present property, which consists of twenty-
six acres in Bassett and all devoted to the raising
of walnuts and alfalfa. He has improved his
property by the erection of a comfortable resi-
dence and other necessary buildings, and while
engaged in the management of his own ranch also
engages in the raising of grain on leased land.
Mr. and Mrs. Moses are the parents of five
children, namely: Maude Ella, Clara Neva,
Louis, Sadie and Eva. One daughter, Elma, died
at the age of fourteen months. Both himself
and wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal
Church in El Monte, in which Mr. Moses has
officiated as trustee and class leader. Politically
he votes the Republican ticket. As a citizen he
can always be counted upon to uphold the best
interests of county, state and nation.
A. C. WHITTEMORE. Although A. C.
Whittemore has been a resident of Lompoc for
a short time only, he is now looked upon as
one of the leading citizens and in business has
gained the entire confidence of his many pa-
trons. Mr. Whittemore is of New England
parentage, his father, John G. Whittemore,
having been born in Massachusetts, and his
mother, Ruth A. Jacobs before her marriage,
being a native of Vermont. They were mar-
ried in Michigan and from there removed to
Missouri in 1867, where the elder Whittemore
engaged in farming. Eight children were born
to them, three of whom are now living in Cali-
fornia, A. C. and his two brothers, one residing
at Santa Maria and the other at Mountain
View. A. C. Whittemore was born in Kent
county, Mich., July 12, 1864, was taken with
the family to Missouri when three years old,
and received his education through the medium


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
1025
of the common schools of Henry county, in
that state. When a young man he learned
steam engineering and followed this calling
for about fifteen years, at various times having
charge of stationary and portable engines. He
also worked in saw mills in Missouri for five
years.
Mr. Whittemore's California career began
in 1886 and with the exception of two years
when he conducted a dray and express busi-
ness in Arroyo Grande, he worked with a
threshing outfit, having charge of a portable
engine. In 1902 he entered the employ of the
Southern Pacific Milling Company at Santa
Maria and now has charge of the business in-
terests of the firm at Lompoc, also being the
representative of the Salinas Valley Lumber
Company.
ness interests of these two enterprises he has,
by persistent effort, been instrumental in in-
creasing the volume of business transacted by
them at Lompoc more than four-fold.
In 1891 Mr. Whittemore was united in mar-
riage with Miss Frances Wear, a native of
Mountain View, Cal., and a daughter of JO-
seph A. Wear. They have one child, a daugh-
ter named Ada.
liever in the principles advocated by the Dem-
ocratic party. Religiously his belief is repre-
sented by the Presbyterian denomination,
whose charitable and benevolent interests he
aids with his support, personal and financial.
He is an enthusiastic lodge man and holds
membership in all of the leading fraternal so-
cieties. These include Arrovo Lodge No. 274,
F. & A. M., of Arroyo Grande (of which he is
a past master, having been installed W. M. of
that lodge for three terms); Chapter, R. A. M.,
San Luis Obispo ; Lompoc Lodge No. 248, I.
O. O. F. : Arroyo Grande Camp, M. W. A.;
Ramona Chapter No. 06, Eastern Star, and is
now a member of the auxiliary at Arroyo
Grande.
SILAS EDWARDS GASKILL. It is in-
teresting to chronicle a history of such a man
as Silas Edwards Gaskill, who in his pioneer
life has passed through untold dangers and
privations and through it all has maintained
the courage and self reliance which from boy-
hood were dominant traits in his character.
It may be said that every year of his life has
been passed on the frontier, for he was but
a child in years when his father removed from
their New York home to the then wilderness
of Indiana, whence they continued their west-
ward march, finally locating in the extreme
southwest of the United States and taking a
prominent part as pioneer settlers in the up-
Since assuming charge of the busi-
Mr. Whittemore is a firm be-,
building of the city of San Diego. Thrown
thus into a pioneer life he early mastered pio-
neer ways, becoming proficient in the use of
the gun and in time acquired fame as the best
shot in the community. Perhaps no man in
California may be more properly styled a
hunter than Mr. Gaskill, for it is doubtful if
any man has killed so large a quantity of
game, great and small. His success in this
line has been achieved through his absolute
fearlessness and presence of mind in the midst
of danger. All in all he represents one of
the best types of pioneer citizens whose efforts
for a personal success have always lain par-
allel with those given for the development and
upbuilding of whatever community he has
made his home.
Mr. Gaskill was born in Rochester, N. Y.,
February 16, 1829; his father, Cortland Gas-
kill, was a native of New Jersey and a de-
scendant of an old Scotland family, from
whom he inherited the sterling traits of char-
acter so ably maintained in the lives of his
sons. In young manhood he located in New
York and engaged as a stage driver until 1835,
when he migrated to Steuben county, Ind.,
and located upon an entirely unimproved tract
of land. A little clearing was soon made and
a home built and with the aid of his children
he improved and cultivated his farm. With
the passing years that section became an im-
portant one in the agricultural life of the mid-
dle-west state. Here Silas Edwards Gaskill
was reared to manhood, his chief duties being
to assist in the work on the paternal farm. At
the time the family located in Indiana there
were no public schools in that section, but
at a little later period a log school house was
built and the rudiments of an education given
to the children of the pioneer settlers. The
Gaskill family finally removed to another sec-
tion of Steuben county, and later to the vicin-
ity of Battle Creek, Mich. While residing in
this last-named section (where he learned the
* machinist and gunsmith's trade) the news of
the great gold discovery in California came to
him and so enthused him to seek his fortune
in the Golden state that with three others he
planned to make the overland trip to Cali-
fornia. When the time came, in the spring
of 1850, his comrades changed their minds,
but nothing daunted by the probability of hav-
ing to make the journey alone, Mr. Gaskill
set out with all his worldly possessions (con-
sisting of $16 which his father gave him) and
finally reached western Missouri, having made
the trip thus far via Chicago, St. Louis and
St. Joseph. Upon his arrival in western Mis-
souri he found he was too early to start out
on the plains and took a job cutting cord
53
1026
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
wood. When the weather made it possible
for him to start upon his journey he went to
Council Bluffs and although there was a large
Inumber of emigrants ready to make the trip
he failed to secure a place with the train.
Again exhibiting his undaunted courage he
Set out alone with a knapsack containing
crackers and venison, sturdily following the
setting Sun, fording streams and enduring the
loneliness and dangers bravely. It was not
long, however, before he overtook an Ohio
train and asked permission to camp with them.
It was readily granted and he further made
himself welcome by replacing a broken wagon
pole with a new one which he cut out of
white oak. With perfect confidence in the
future which California held for him, he made
an agreement with the train to pay them $200
of the first money he earned in the Golden
state for the privilege of traveling with them.
However, he was fortunate in being able to
settle this debt before he arrived in California,
through his being such an excellent shot, as
this enabled him to supply the twenty-one
wagons in the train with quantities of meat;
besides exempting him from guard duty, he
was also able to sell the surplus to other trains,
an enterprise which netted him $205. On
Bear river the train split up and Mr. Gas-
kill with a party of five. one wagon and three
yoke of oxen set out for California. At the
head of the Humboldt river the Indians
stampeded all the cattle of the camp and they
were compelled to go on foot to the coast, a
distance of five hundred miles, carrying their
blankets, guns and knapsacks. They made an
average of forty miles a day, a sixty-five mile
desert taking them from 3 P. M. until To A.
M. of the following day.
Upon his arrival in the state Mr. Gaskill
engaged in mining on Hangtown Creek, later
he returned to the summit and entered into
partnership with Bob Weeks, who was con-
ducting a restaurant, Mr. Gaskill's duty be-
ing to hunt for the camp. His first game was
a bear which he sold for $1 per pound and
which brought him $600. He killed all the
deer he wanted and brought in twenty-five to
Hangtown which he sold for $25 each. At
one time the miners decided to have a bear
and bull fight, the only difficulty being to se-
cure the live bear; to insure someone attempt-
ing the capture $500 was offered as an in-
ducement. Mr. Gaskill being thoroughly fa-
miliar with the country discovered a place
where a bear fed, and secured three kegs of
Syrup and brandy and placed them in his as-
customed haunt. The bear came to his meal
and ate enough of it to make him drunk and
while in this condition Mr. Gaskill secured
him with ropes, loaded him into a wagon and
hauled him into camp. He was paid the $500
and given two free tickets to three perform-
ances worth $100 each. Three bulls were
pitted against the bear at separate times, the
latter killing two of the bulls, while the third
bull killed the bear. To further make his hunt-
ing successful Mr. Gaskill had a three-barrel
gun made to order. Having lost considerable
game because he had no dog he bought a six-
months-old pup which he called “Ring.” This
pup was trained so he would hamstring any
bear and many a time has saved Mr. Gaskill’s
life. At one time he killed a large bear in the
Redwoods and taking it to San Francisco, sold
the liver, lights and gall for $75 and received
twenty cents a pound for the meat. This in-
duced him to begin a traffic for the San Fran-
cisco markets which he followed for a period
of ten years. In the course of his life Mr.
Gaskill has killed three hundred and two bears.
A considerable share of the attention of Mr.
Gaskill was given to mining, first at Hang-
town, then Colonia and later at the middle
fork of the American river. He flumed it
successfully, one pan netting him $33. He
was in partnership with Pegleg Smith, each
of them taking out $10,000 in a month. In
September, 1851, Mr. Gaskill returned east
via the Nicaragua route and in Michigan pur-
chased a farm near Kalamazoo. He married
Miss Sarah Cox, who was born in Michigan.
He engaged in farming for a time, but did
not like the monotony after the exciting life
he had led in California. Upon deciding to
return to California he gave his farm and
teams to his father and in 1853 made the trip
west via Panama, his wife joining him two
years later. In the mean time he engaged in
mining in the Yuba river and was one of the
flumers of the Yuba dam. He took out $125,-
OOO, but the freshet came and took the flume,
leaving him nothing for his labor. The sec-
ond year they flumed it again and had taken
out about $100,000, when the freshet again
carried it away. The third year they flumed
it and took out $67,000, but the freshet this
year left them $60 in debt. However, Mr.
Gaskill had no difficulty in securing a stake
and following this mined all over the Sierra
region. For a time he resided in Sonoma
county, but finally decided to locate in Ari-
zona and accordingly started southward. On
the way he killed deer and bear and sold them
in Ventura until he had enough money to buy
a team. In Santa Ynez he spent three months
and there discovered the first wild bees he
had seen in California. He obtained the honey,
which eventually cured him of dyspepsia. He
continued to travel southward through San
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
1027
Bernardino, where he located on a ranch and
engaged in vegetable growing, after having
irrigated the land. He also hunted and finally
captured some wild bees with which he start-
ed an apiary. This was a little black bee
brought in by the Mormons. Later Mr. Gas-
kill sold this property and located at San
Jacinto and engaged in farming and stock-
raising. Here he had a colony of two hun-
dred bees with which he was very successful.
He manifested his faith in the future of South-
ern California by investing in landed prop-
erty, becoming a one-tenth owner of the San
Jacinto grant which he later sold at a good
profit.
It was in 1868 that San Diego county first
claimed the attention of the Gaskill brothers,
the two purchasing land and founding the
town of Campo, originally called Milquatay
Valley. They built the first store, wagon and
blacksmith shop, the first grist mill which
was operated by water power, and for many
years were the principal upbuilding factors of
the town. Campo is located near the Mexi-
can border and, for many years the inhab-
itants of the town were besieged at times by
the Mexican desperadoes. At one time there
was a preconcerted arrangement to attack and
rob the store of the Gaskill brothers and this
led to one of the most terrible fights ever en-
gaged in Campo. The leader of the Mexi-
can desperadoes was killed, while several oth-
ers were captured and hanged. The Gas-
kills exhibited rare courage and bravery in
this encounter, as well as excellent marksman-
ship, which turned the tide of the battle in
their favor. A full account of this attack by
the Mexicans is given in the biographical
sketch of Luman H. Gaskill, which appears
upon another page of this volume.
Mr. Gaskill and his brother continued to
add other purchases of land until they owned
fourteen hundred acres and upon this prop-
erty for a period of twenty-eight years en-
gaged in the raising of stock. In 1894 Mr.
Gaskill, located in San Diego, building and
furnishing a comfortable residence on the cor-
ner of Sixteenth and F streets. He has mani-
fested his faith in the future of the city by
dealing extensively in real estate and now
owns Several residences, among them the old
Shoate house on the Plaza. His wife died in
Michigan, leaving three children, namely:
Charles J., chief clerk in a railroad office in
South Bend, Ind. ; Henry, yardmaster for a
railroad in the same city; and May, wife of
William Byce of Willows, Cal. In Campo,
May 1, 1881, Mr. Gaskill married Mrs. Cath-
erine Mary (Sloan) Scott, who was born in
Boston, Mass., a daughter of Joseph Sloan,
of Vermont, a farmer by occupation. Later
he located in the south, where his death oc-
curred. Her mother was formerly Catherine
Pratt, who was born in Massachusetts and
died in Vermont. Of the three children born
to her parents Mrs. Gaskill is the only one
living. She was first married in Cambridge-
port to James Scott of Glasgow, Scotland, who
was brought to America at the age of five
years and here reared to manhood. He be-
came superintendent of a woolen mill in
Southbridge, Mass., his death occurring in
Kansas while on a business trip. Born to Mr.
and Mrs. Gaskill were two children; Mary
J., of San Diego; and Andrew, who died in
Marysville. Mrs. Gaskill is a member of the
Ladies of the Grand Army of the Republic.
In his political convictions Mr. Gaskill ad-
heres to the principles in the platform of the
Republican party, and although he has never
sought official position he has always given a
hearty support to the candidates for office on
this ticket.
MACEDONIO MACHADO. The name
above given calls to mind one of the earliest
Spanish families represented in Los Angeles coun-
ty, and the first member of whom we have any
definite knowledge was the grandfather, Augus-
tin Machado. The birthplace of the latter is
not definitely known, but it is certain that his
son, Juan Machado, was born on the family es-
tate in the latter county. At the time of the
disruption brought about by the annexation of
Texas to the Union, known in history as the
Mexican war, Juan Machado was just twenty
years of age, but notwithstanding his youth he
passed the scrutiny of the mustering officer and
was admitted to the service. After peace was
declared he resumed private life and made his
home in Los Angeles county for a number of
vears, in later life, however, taking up his resi-
dence in Elsinore, Riverside county. During his
young manhood he formed domestic ties by his
marriage with Manuela Altamirano, who like
himself was of Spanish origin and also a native of
Los Angeles county. Both parents are now de-
ceased, the mother passing away in Los Angeles
in 1903, at the age of sixty-five years, and the
father in Temecula, Riverside county, in 1904,
when in his seventy-eight year. -
On the old Machado homestead in Los An-
geles county Macedonio Machado was born in
1857. Upon reaching school age he was placed
in school nearest his home and for a number of
years conned his lessons in the temple of learn-
ing in La Ballona. Later he attended Santa
Clara College and finally took a course in Heald's
Business College in Los Angeles, this latter train-
1028
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
ing being his initiation, so to speak, into the com-
mercial life which has formed so large a part of
his career. From Los Angeles he came to Teme-
cula in 1887 and accepted a position as clerk in
the old government store then in charge of Louis
Wolf, a Frenchman, who had come to San Fran-
cisco in the days of mining fever, and for five
years, from 1852 until 1857, had followed the
uncertain though fascinating life of a miner. In
the last year mentioned he came to Temecula and
established himself in the general merchandise
business, following it in this location for eight
years. It was during this time that he formed
an intimate acquaintance with Helen Hunt Jack-
son, who was one of his patrons. About 1865
Mr. Wolf bought out the store of Simon Mund,
also in Temecula, and of this enterprise Mr.
Machado had charge for one year, severing his
connection with Mr. Wolf at the end of that time
and removing to San Bernardino, where for
twelve months he was bookkeeper in the office
of M. Burne. Terminating his service with Mr.
Burne at the end of this time he returned to
Los Angeles and for one year clerked in the store
of Eugene Meyer & Co. His old employer in
Temecula again offering him a favorable induce-
ment he returned hither and clerked for Mr. Wolf
for two years, at the end of that time being taken
into partnership with him, an association which
was mutually agreeable and profitable, but which
was terminated five years later by the death of
Mr. Wolf. With his father as his partner Mr.
Machado purchased the stock and carried on
business under the name of Machado & Co., until
1889, when the store and contents were utterly
destroyed, entailing a loss of $12,OOO to the Son
alone. Undaunted by this disaster, however, he
removed to the Welty hotel building and Once
more opened up for business with a complete
assortment of goods. Two years later, in 1891,
he was again visited by the fire fiend, and as
before his stock was completely ruined. This
was surely a severe test for one possessing even
his courageous spirit, but he proved equal to it
and Phoenix-like rose from the ashes and re-
established himself once more in business. The
struggle was long and strenuous, but in ten years
he had cleared off all of his old debts and was on
the high road to success which is his today.
In 1886 Macedonio Machado was united in
marriage with Alice Vaughn, a native of Iowa.
The ups and downs which have formed so prom-
inent a feature in the life of Mr. Machado would
have embittered many men, but not so with him,
on the other hand he has taken a keen and heart-
felt interest in the affairs of his fellow-citizens
and in turn has been honored by them by election
to many offices of public trust, and in each and
every case has served with satisfaction to his con-
stituents. For two terms he was chief ranger,
four years served as deputy assessor, one year
as game warden, and for one and a half years
served as postmaster in Temecula, all of which
positions have been held under Republican rule.
In addition to his mercantile business he has
been interested in the real-estate business since
I889, Owning four hundred acres of land in
Riverside county, besides which he owns an in-
terest in twenty-five hundred acres of farming
land also in Riverside county. He also owns
large interests in the tourmaline and beryl mines
at Rincon and, Smith mountain. In this resumé
of the life of Mr. Machado it will be seen that
he possesses personal qualifications of a high
Order and that he has made good use of them
and made them count on the credit side of the
page is best told in the story of his life.
EDWARD L. CLANCY. A man of resolu-
tion and much force of character, E. L. Clancy
of San Luis Rey is a fine representative of the
progressive agriculturists whose shrewd fore-
sight and determined energy have opened the
way for the settlement of the San Luis Rey val-
ley, and are now active in developing its varied
resources. A son of the late Thomas M. Clancy,
he was born, February 13, 1855, in Jo Daviess
county, Ill., when the metropolis of Chicago was
only a straggling hamlet, with small indications
of its present proud position as one of the lead-
ing cities of the world.
A native of Ireland, Thomas M. Clancy was
there reared to man's estate. In 1849 he came
with his bride, whose maiden name was Cather-
ine McManus, to the United States, locating
first in Jo Daviess county, Ill. He afterwards
moved to Kansas, where he resided until his
death. His widow survived him, dying in South
Dakota. . He served for three years in the Civil
war, belonging to the Ninetieth Illinois Volun-
teer Infantry, and for two years was employed
in the Signal Service department. He was a
man of much force of character, possessing
strong convictions, and in his political affiliations
was a sound Democrat.
In Jo Daviess county, Ill., E. L. Clancy re-
ceived a common school education, after which
he assisted for a few years in the care of the
home ranch. He was subsequently engaged in
agricultural pursuits on his own account, re-
maining in Illinois until 1883. Going then to
South Dakota, he took up One hundred and sixty
acres of government land, and having begun its
improvement there followed his independent
calling for seven years. Selling his estate in
1891, he lived for thirteen years in Arizona, be-
ing there employed as a machine hand in a plan-
ing mill. Coming to San Diego county in 1994,
he bought his present ranch of forty acres, near
WILLIAM L. SIDWELL


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
1031
Bonsall, and has since been profitably engaged
in grain-raising and dairying. He keeps ten
cows, and in addition to caring for his dairy
makes a specialty to a certain extent of raising
poultry, an industry in which he is quite suc-
cessful. -
In 1897, in Kansas, Mr. Clancy married Mary
E. Verschelden, a native of Belgium, and of
their union two children have been born, namely:
Joseph, six years old; and August, two years of
age. In national affairs Mr. Clancy supports
the principles of the Democratic party, but in
local matters he votes for the best men and
measures, regardless of party affiliations. Fra-
ternally he united with the Independent Order
of Foresters at Flagstaff, Ariz. He is a mem-
ber of the Mission Catholic Church, towards the
support of which he contributes generously.
WILLIAM L. SIDWELL. Until September
27, 1902, William L. Sidwell was numbered
among the progressive and public-spirited citi-
zens of Los Angeles county, where he had made
his home for more than twenty years. He was a
native of Ohio, his birth having occurred in
Pennsville, Morgan county, July 7, 1842, his
parents being Jesse and Hannah (Sutliff) Sid-
well; both father and mother were also natives
of Ohio, where ancestors of the family (English
on the paternal side) had established the name.
When twelve years old his parents removed to
Texas, settling in Collin county, where he began
to learn the trade of blacksmith three years later,
working with his father, who followed this pur-
suit throughout his entire active life. The elder
man located in Arkansas after the close of the
Civil war, in which state his death eventually Oc-
curred.
William L. Sidwell was only twenty years old
when he enlisted in the cause of the “Sunny
south”, becoming a member of what was known
as the Gano squadron of cavalry, and with them
participated in a number of skirmishes with Union
troops, principally in Tennessee and Kentucky,
and also did considerable Scouting and cavalry
work of a general nature. He was honorably dis-
charged after one year's service, and later enlist-
ed in a troop of cavalry in the Trans-Mississippi
army, remaining in this survice until the Sur-
render of Lee ended the civil strife. The cavalry
disbanded at Marshall, Tex., and Mr. Sidwell
returned to civic pursuits in his home in Texas.
The devastating influence of the Civil war was
such as to induce many of the Old Settlers to
seek homes elsewhere, and Mr. Sidwell was no
exception to the rule, and in 1867 he removed
to Missouri and followed his trade in that state
for the ensuing two years. Deciding to try his
fortunes in the west, then made accessible by the
opening of the great trans-continental railway,
he came to California in 1869 and in San Diego
established a blackSmithing business, which he
continued for several years. He met with suc-
cess in his line of work, and accumulated consid-
erable means. Subsequently going to Orange
county, he engaged in business in the village of
Orange, and later was established in Anaheim,
same county. In 1880 he settled permanently in
the Ranchito district, Los Angeles county, and on
the present site of Rivera engaged in blackSmith-
ing and mercantile pursuits, and at the same time
followed farming to some extent. He was very
successful in his operations and acquired consid-
erable means, which he later invested in walnut
groves, owning three at the time of his demise.
He became one of the prominent citizens of this
section, participating in all movements for the
development and upbuilding of the country and
its best interests; as a member of the Los Nietos
and Ranchito Walnut Growers’ Association, in-
corporated, he was active in the advancement
of these interests and was one of the foremost
walnut growers in this part of the state. In
lmis political affiliations he was a Democrat and
although too busy to ever care for official recog-
nition for himself, yet he exercised an influence
in political affairs. Frugal and thrifty by in-
heritance and training, of good, Sound business
principles and unswerving honor, he not only ac-
quired a financial success, but became known as
well as one of the substantial and reliable citizens
of Southern California.
Mr. Sidwell is survived by his widow, for-
merly Miss Belle Frances Gallaspy, a native of
Texas, and daughter of William Gallaspy, who
brought his family to California in an early day
and located with them in San Diego county. She
is a woman of rare worth and character, possess-
ing many admirable qualities, which have won her
universal esteem. For many years she performed
the duties of postmaster of Ranchito and thus
became widely known. She is the mother of three
children, namely: Estella, wife of Henry Jud-
son, of Rivera; Lester L., who resides on one of
the ranches owned by the Sidwell estate; and
Chester C., who resides in the Ranchito district.
The two sons were educated at the Throop Poly-
technic Institute, at Pasadena, and are adding to
their inheritance of an honorable name strong,
earnest and upright living, which gives them a
place among the representative men of Southern
California.
A. W. WOHLFORD. Intimately associated
with the financial history and the commercial
development of San Diego county is the name of
A. W. Wohlford, president of the Bank of Fs-
condido, president of the Escondido Savings Bank
1032
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
and a director and stockholder in the Escondido
Lumber, Hay & Grain Company, all of which
organizations owe their present progress and
their sound moneyed basis to his able efforts,
co-laboring with William L. Ramey and assisted
by a number of the progressive men of his home
town. A man of strong character, with the
advantages of a university education, it would
be impossible for Mr. Wohlford to identify
himself with any town without impressing his
vigorous personality and his fine mental endow-
ments upon the industries of the place to their
upbuilding and progress. Those intimately ac-
quainted with him state that, aside from his broad
intelligence, his prominent and leading trait of
character is his strict integrity and the care he
exercises in living up to the very letter of his
obligations and promises; and this same honesty
and care he demands of those doing business with
him.
Near the city of Freeport in Illinois A. W.
Wohlford was born January I5, 1858. His
father, John, was a native of Pennsylvania and
in 1836 removed to Illinois, where he took up a
tract of government land and remained until his
death in 1868, at the age of sixty years. He
had married a member of the Heckman family of
Pennsylvania, and his wife, like himself, was
born in that state and died in Illinois. After
having completed the studies of the common
schools A. W. Wohlford was sent to the Uni-
versity of Wisconsin, where he took a complete
course of study and was graduated in 1880 with
a high standing as a student. Returning home
he engaged in the drug business for five years
and then removed to Nebraska, where he or-
ganized the First National Bank of Madison and
became the president and principal stockholder
in the organization. Since his removal , from
Nebraska he has still retained an interest in the
bank. In 1890 he came to California and after a
brief stay in San Diego he settled at Escondido,
where he has since owned the controlling in-
terest in the Bank of Escondido and has been
instrumental in the recent transformation of the
institution into a national bank. In addition he
acts as president of the Escondido Savings Bank
and has been the leading factor in the develop-
ment of the latter concern. In common with
many other residents of the locality he is in-
terested in the raising of citrus fruits and from
his three 1emon groves he ships an average of
twenty-five carloads of lemons each year. , Horti-
culture presents to him an agreeable relaxation
from the cares of business and the management
of his large financial interests, and he has found
it not only a pleasant occupation, but the source
of a goodly income as well. e
When Mr. Wohlford came to California he
was still unmarried, but in 1893 he established
domestic ties through his marriage to Miss
Lillie Burnet, of Cincinnati, Ohio, and they are
now the parents of two children, Mary and
Burnet. In fraternal affiliations Mr. Wohlford
belongs to the blue lodge of Masonry at Es-
condido and still retains his membership in Free-
port Chapter No. 23, R. A. M., besides which
he is identified with the Knights of Pythias and
the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
JOSEPH V. SPROUSE. None of the quiet
dignity and refinement which form so large an ele-
ment in the make-up of the typical Southern gen-
tleman is found wanting in Mr. Sprouse, whose
hospitality and generosity are proverbial to the
residents of Julian and the surrounding country
for many miles. He is descended from a long
line of southern ancestors, and is a son of Thomas
and Margaret (Evans) Sprouse, natives of Miss-
issppi and Arkansas respectively. Later years,
however, found them residents of California,
and in this state both passed away, the father
in 1891, at the age of seventy-five, and the
mother in August, 1905, when in her seventy-
fifth year. She was a faithful member of the
Baptist Church, and exemplified throughout her
life the teachings of the Christian religion. Poli-
tically Mr. Sprouse was a Democrat. Of the
seven children who originally comprised the
parental family only four are now living, as fol-
lows: John T., a resident of San Bernardino
county; Mrs. Arthur Miller, of San Diego coun-
ty; Mrs. Beccka M. Robert, of Texas; and
Joseph V. the subject of this sketch.
Born in Van Buren county, Ark., October 6,
1849, Joseph V. Sprouse was only about three
years old at the time the family took up their
abode in Texas, and all of his boyhood and early
manhood were associated with scenes and acti-
vities in the latter state. The time and place
were not especially favorable for gaining more
than the rudiments of an education, but such
as were afforded were made the most of and
furnished the foundation for the broad know-
ledge of men and affairs which Mr. Sprouse en-
joys today. Then as now, Texas was parti-
cularly well suited to the cattle business, broad,
unlimited fields and an abundance of luscious
grass being the chief requirements, and for a
number of years Mr. Sprouse was very success-
ful as a stock-raiser. In addition to carrying
on his extensive ranch he also did considerable
teaming. When about twenty-six years old, June
14, 1875, he left the Lone Star state with Califor-
nia as his destination, the slow but sturdy horse
teams with which he made the trip overland
reaching Los Angeles January 17, 1876, after
a journey of seven months and fifteen days. His
first settlement in the state was at Downey, Los



HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
1035
Angeles county, but he soon afterward purchased
a ranch near New River. The four years which
he spent in that vicinity proved unprofitable,
however, and he lost the ranch as a result. This
experience did not in the least tend to dampen
his ardor, but rather spurred him on and in-
creased his determination to find a location suited
to his needs. Foster, San Juan, Ellsa cañon and
Santa Ana in turn knew him for a short time,
but it was not until the spring of I892 that he
settled on his present ranch in the vicinity of
Julian. The family home is a comfortable cot-
tage which was erected by Mr. Sprouse on a
tract of seven acres, and in addition to the land
which he owns he leases adjoining land for ranch-
ing purposes. Besides raising stock he does con-
siderable teaming, both industries contributing
to make a very satisfactory income.
In 1872 Mr. Sprouse was married to Miss
Mary T. Collins,
to Mr. and Mrs. Sprouse are still living and are
named as follows: Margaret, the wife of Charles
Potter; Emma A., who became the wife Ed
Martin; Artie M., Mrs. Will Grigsby, of San
Diego; Thomas A. and Joseph W. Politically
Mr. Sprouse is a Democrat, and on that party's
ticket has been elected school trustee a number
of times. Mr. Sprouse is universally esteemed
and respected, a fact which is attested by his
large circle of friends and acquaintances.
ALBERT G. SEPULVEDA. In financial
circles in the city of San Pedro Albert G. Sepul-
veda is one of the most prominent and well-post-
ed men. He is a member of one of the oldest
pioneer families of Southern California and One
that has been identified with its development
and upbuilding for more than two generations,
both his father, Roman D., and grandfather,
Jose Diego, having been born in San Pedro, the
latter being one of five brothers who owned the
Palos Verdes grant of land comprising thirty-
nine thousand acres. The grandfather, Jose
Diego Sepulveda, was born in San Pedro in 1813
and died here in 1872, when fifty-nine years of
age. His marriage with Marie E. Desolde, who
was born in San Diego, allied him with a family
well known for many years in that locality. All
of the three children born to Jose Diego and
Marie E. Sepulveda are still living in San Pedro,
as follows: Aurelio W., Roman D. and Rude-
cinda F., the latter the wife of James H. Dodson.
Born in San Pedro August 9, 1854, Roman D.
Sepulveda was there reared, and after gaining a
preliminary education in the public schools there
attended St. Vincent's College at Los Angeles.
Upon the completion of his studies he returned
to San Pedro, where he has ever since been one
of the most prominent and enterprising citizens,
All of the five children born
being closely identified with numerous important
development enterprises. He was county super-
intendent of roads for a time, then engaged in
real estate dealing and laid out the Caroline tract
and Grand View addition, the two comprising
three hundred acres of land, all of which has
been disposed of at good prices. He has large
interests in the old town of San Pedro and still
owns land in the western part of the city and ad-
jacent to it. Many of the residences and busi-
ness blocks here were built by him, among the
latter being three brick blocks, the Sepulveda
building on Beacon street, where the First Na-
tional Bank is located, the Sailors Union Home,
also on Beacon street, and the Harbor City Sav-
ings Bank building, the two latter named being
two stories in height. He established the Sepul-
Veda water works, the headwaters of which are
a mile and a half distant, the water being pumped
from Springs into the reservoir. The develop-
ment of water works is one of his special inter-
ests, in which he utilizes both springs and wells.
He was also one of the organizers of the First
National Bank of San Pedro and is now vice-
president of that institution. In the official life
of the city he has been active and served as a
member of the city board of trustees for two
terms. Politically he is an advocate of the prin-
ciples embraced in the platform of the Republican
party, and fraternally he affiliates with the Eagles.
All of these business, political and social connec-
tions give him a well-rounded interest in the
whole life of the city and make him naturally
a leading and highly respected citizen. The fam-
ily home is a comfortable and attractive one,
located on Fifth street, and is presided over by
his wife, formerly Caroline Oden, a native of
Wilmington, and the daughter of George W.
Oden, a pioneer builder of that locality.
Of the eight children comprising the parental
family Albert G. is the eldest, born in Wilming-
ton November 21, 1880; William, who came next,
is engaged in farming near San Pedro; Philip
is a teamster in San Pedro; Benjamin is private
secretary to George H. Peck; Louis is at home;
Carrie is the wife of Frank Shearer, and Maud
and Ella are living at home with their parents.
Reared in San Pedro, Albert G. Sepulveda at-
tended the public schools there, later taking a
course in the Los Angeles Business College, from
which he graduated in 1899. His first business
position was with the German-American Savings
Bank in Los Angeles, and during the five years
that he was with that institution he rose steadily
from stenographer to teller, which latter position
he resigned in 1904 to assist in the organization
of the First National Bank of San Pedro. When
this bank was opened he was elected assistant
cashier and has held the position ever since. The
institution does a general banking business, and
1036
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
with a capital stock of $25,000 and a surplus of
$IO,OOO holds a strong and stable position in
banking circles. • *
In 1906 Mr. Sepulveda assisted in the organ-
ization of the Harbor City Savings Bank and
has been its cashier from the time of its opening.
This bank has a paid-up capital Stock of $25,000,
transacts a general Savings bank business, pay-
ing three and four per cent on time deposits.
It is located in the Harbor City Savings Bank
building, 50x75 feet in dimensions, on the cor-
ner of Palos Verdes and Sixth streets, is up-to-
date in its fixtures and provided with safety
deposit vaults. In national politics Mr. Sepulveda
is a believer in the principles of the Republican
party. Fraternally he has a number of prominent
connections, being a member of the Red Men,
the Order of Pocahontas, was made a Mason in
San Pedro Lodge No. 332, F. & A. M.; belongs
to San Pedro Chapter No. 89, R. A. M.; and also
belongs to the Order of the Eastern Star. As a
young and successful business man and a pub-
lic-spirited citizen prominent in the upbuilding
of the community in which he resides he is held
in the highest esteem by a host of friends, who
admire him as well for his many excellent per-
Sonal qualities.
BYRON CLARK. The raising of walnuts is
One of the most satisfactory ranching industries
in Southern California, and among those who
are engaged in this profitable employment men-
tion belongs to Byron Clark, whose ranch of
eleven acres lies a short distance from Palms,
Los Angeles county. A native of Kansas, he
was born in 1860, a son of Samuel L. Clark, who
was born on the Wabash river, in Indiana, in
1831. As a farmer the father started out early
in life to make his own way, and in 1855 took
up government land in Kansas. Besides the
quarter section which he homesteaded he also
bought ten acres more, making his home on this
property until 1877, when he sold out his hold-
ings in that state and removed to Kansas City,
Mo. A change of location brought about a
change of occupation as well, and for twenty
years he carried on a very satisfactory fuel and
feed business in the latter city. Disposing of
his mercantile interests at the end of this time
he once more took up farming On a tract of ten
acres near Baldwin, Kans., but of late years has
given up active work altogether and still makes
his home there. Before her marriage Mrs. Clark
was Leonora J. Market. She was born in Ind-
iana in 1841, and passed away in Baldwin, Kans.,
in 1905.
In a family of seven children born to his par-
ents Byron Clark was next to the oldest. His
school days over, he entered into a partnership
with his father in the feed business in Kansas.
City, but four years later he withdrew from the
firm and began making preparations to come to
California. The year 1887 witnessed his arrival
in San Diego, and one month later he came to
Los Angeles county. His first purchase of land
in this county he sold after residing on it one
year, investing the proceeds in the eleven acres.
which comprise his present ranch near Palms.
Of this tract eight acres are in walnuts.
In 1885 Mr. Clark was married to Margaret
Proebstel, who was born in Missouri on Christ-
mas day of 1858, and was the second in order
of birth in the family of five children born to
her parents, Andrew and Matilda J. (Matney)
Proebstel. The home of Mr. and Mrs. Clark
has been blessed by the birth of five interesting
children, as , follows: Abbie E., Leonora J.
Samuel G., Anna May and Emma Louisa. The
family are members of the Union Church.
HARRY C. AIKEN. Among the men of
prominence in Glendale is Harry C. Aiken,
who is well known as the former chief officer
of the Los Angeles Humane Society. A man
of quick perceptions, warm-hearted and broad-
minded, with a keen sense of justice, he was
especially adapted to the position which he
so ably filled, and performed the various du-
ties devolving upon him with credit to himself
and to the Satisfaction of all concerned. He
was born March 31, 1862, in Colorado, but
was brought up and educated in Michigan,
where he lived until sixteen years old.
Returning then to Colorado, Mr. Aiken re-
sided in that state a number of years, and also
spent ten years in Iowa engaged in the hard-
ware business. In early manhood he became
associated with the Pinkerton Detective As-
sociation, continuing for about ten years in
their employ. Coming to Los Angeles in 1903,
he here established a branch office of the
agency, of which he was superintendent for
about four months. Then, his health giving
out, owing to the severe strain to which he
had so long been subjected, he resigned his
position. On June 1, 1905, after several
months of recuperation, he was appointed to
the responsible position as chief officer of the
Humane Society, which looks after children,
and under the new law he was a county of—
ficer, with legal authority throughout the city
and county. This office he held one year.
In Seattle, Wash., Mr. Aiken married Eliza-
beth Creamer, who was born in Ohio, and
prior to her marriage was a teacher in the pub-
lic schools. One child has blessed their union,
Horace P.
In 1904 Mr. and Mrs. Aiken purchased their


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
1039
present residence property at Glendale, on
Ninth street, where they have a beautiful
home. They have five acres of land, upon
which they have high-grade dogs and cats,
and on which they also raised chickens for
the market, making a Specialty of broilers.
Mrs. Aiken has the finest Angora cats to be
found in the west, and at the cat show, held
in Los Angeles in January, 1906, she took
three first premiums on Angora cats, and one
first premium on Japanese cats. She and
her husband had at one time six hundred pet
pigeons, but they disposed of all their birds
and now devote their time to raising dogs,
making a specialty of bulldogs, Collies and
Pomeranians, their kennels being known as
the Persian Kennels. In 1906 Mr. Aiken es-
tablished a boarding place for the cats of tour-
ists and residents, where they are given the
best of care. In the raising of pets thus far
Mr. and Mrs. Aiken have been very success-
ful, and their stock farm, when completed,
will be by far the largest and best of the kind
west of the Mississippi. Politically Mr. Aiken
ber of the Royal Arcanum of Los Angeles.
HON. HENRY MONTAGUE WILLIS,
San Bernardino, was born in Baltimore, Mary-
land, September 21, 1831. His ancestors were
among the first English settlers of the Colony
of Virginia and Maryland prior to the Revolu-
tion. His father, Mr. Henry H. Willis, was a
captain in the merchant marine, with whom
the subject of this memoir made a number of
voyages before he was twelve years of age, al-
ternating between school and the sea. At the
age of twelve he adopted a seafaring life, and
during six years’ sailing the briny deep he vis-
ited the ports of the Mediterranean, England,
France, Ireland, Rio Janeiro, Montevideo,
Buenos Ayres, Pernambuco and Valparaiso,
and rose by successive steps to full seaman,
and finally to officer of the vessel. While in
|Rio Janeiro in 1848 as second mate of the bark
Helen M. Fiedler, a fleet of clippers arrived
with the first passengers for the gold fields of
California. This was the first intelligence re-
ceived of the discovery of gold. One of the
ships of this fleet being disabled, his vessel was
chartered to carry a portion of her passengers
to California; and loading with such a cargo
as was most appropriate for the market of
San Francisco, the bark started on her voyage.
June 28, 1849, the vessel anchored in San
Francisco harbor, having touched only at Val-
paraiso for supplies. Soon after his arrival the
young mariner purchased an interest in the
pilot boat Eclipse, and with his associates ran
her up the Sacramento river with a cargo of
freight and passengers; but being attacked by
chills and fever Mr. Willis abandoned that en-
terprise and took a position of first mate on
the bark which had borne him to this coast,
and which was then chartered for Oregon.
They reached Portland in about twenty days
and took on a load of lumber. On the return
trip the captain, Mr. Willis' father, falling ill,
the whole command devolved upon him, but
he anchored the vessel safely in the bay and
discharged her cargo in San Francisco in Feb-
ruary, 1850. His father died in San Francisco
in the month of May of that year.
Being seized with the gold fever young Wil-
lis started for the Mokelumne hill mines, via
Stockton. The rainy season came on and the
floods carried away his dams and filled up his
diggings; he returned to Stockton, where he
engaged in painting until prostrated with ty-
phoid fever, from which he was restored
through the tender nursing of his mother. To
recover his somewhat depleted exchequer Mr.
e © Willis invested all his means in the town of
is a Republican, and fraternally he is a mem-
Pacific City, on Baker's bay, Wash., then Ore-
gon Territory. The speculation proved disas-
trous, and having little to do but to hunt and
fish, he and his partner, C. W. C. Russell, ex-
plored Shoal Water bay and discovered the
oyster beds which have made that bay famous.
Securing enough of the bivalves to fill sixteen
sacks, they employed Indians to carry them
across the portage to Baker's bay and shipped
them thence to San Francisco. So eagerly
were they sought after that a vessel was im-
mediately chartered and sent to Shoal Water
bay for a cargo of oysters. Thus these sixteen
sacks laid the foundation for the oyster trade
between that bay and San Francisco. Business
demanding his attention in San Francisco,
Mr. Willis left the oyster enterprise to be con-
ducted by Mr. Russell. From this time, 1851,
until 1854 Judge Willis remained in the Pa-
cific metropolis engaged in the dry-goods busi-
ness on Sacramento street. Being fond of
study, he, unassisted during these years, pre-
pared himself for college and the study of law.
In 1854, in company with his friend, Hinto
Rowan Helper, who was studying with a sim-
ilar purpose, he left for the east, he to enter
college and Helper to publish his first book,
“The Land of Gold.” Until January 1, 1856,
Judge Willis studied law at the college of
Chapel Hill, N. C., under the tutorage of
Judge Battel, of the Supreme Court, assisted
bv Hon. Sam F. Phillips, and on the above
date was admitted to the bar of the Supreme
Court of the state. After spending six months
in the law office of Chauncy Shaefer in New
York City studying the codes, the young bar-
1040 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
#
rister returned to San Francisco, arriving in
June, just after the hanging of Casey and Cora
by the vigilance committee.
Having already achieved more than a local
reputation as a writer for the press, and hav-
ing received a tempting offer as the chron-
icler of a three years' cruising expedition in
the South Seas, he was undecided whether to
make literature or law his life work when came
his appointment as prosecuting attorney of
San Francisco in the fall of 1856. He accept-
ed, and the decisive step was taken. He how-
ever continued the contributing of articles to
the columns of the Evening Bulletin for a num-
ber of years. He filled the office of prosecut-
ing attorney until his removal to San Bernar-
dino in 1858 to attend to the litigation growing
out of the purchase of some land in the coun-
ty, in which his mother was interested. While
attending to this business he became engaged
in farming and fruit-growing. January I,
1861, Judge Willis married Miss Amelia,
daughter of Jerome M. Benson, an old citizen
of the county. The same year he was chosen
district attorney of San Bernardino county,
which office he resigned after holding it for a
few months. He rapidly rose to prominence
in his profession and was employed in the
courts of the county, involving land title or
water rights. He won the first water suit in
the county, known as the “Cram right,” thereby
fixing a precedent and securing prosperity to
the settlers in that part of the county. In 1872
he took his seat on the bench as county judge
and filled that position continuously for eight
years with marked ability and satisfaction to
his constituents. The new state constitution
abolished the office of county judge, and upon
retiring from the bench Judge Willis resumed
his position at the head of the San Bernardino
county bar and his large law practice. In the
fall of 1886 he was elected superior judge and
honorably discharged the duties of that office
from January, 1887, to January, 1889. After
retiring from the bench, he continued in active
law practice as the senior partner of the firm
of Willis & Cole, and later of the firm of Wil-
lis & Willis, finally retiring from active prac-
tice in 1894, and going to the city of Ocean-
side, in San Diego county, to pass the summer.
He there died, in September, 1895, at the age
of sixty-four years.
In 1868 he began to improve what was
known as the “Willis Homestead” in old San
Bernardino, and being confident that artesian
water could be obtained in this valley he im-
ported the first tools and sank the first well in
the county. Not being successful on his farm,
the tools were brought into San Bernardino
and soon after many artesian streams were
flowing from wells bored by them within the
city limits. He made another trial on his farm
and was rewarded by an abundant flow of wa-
ter at the depth of four hundred and ten feet.
In May, 1887, he disposed of the homestead
and thereafter resided in the city of San Ber-
nardino until his death.
There were born to him and his wife twelve
children, of whom six daughters and one son
reached maturity and are now living. His son,
Henry M. Willis, still resides in Redlands,
San Bernardino county, and was lately deputy
district attorney of the county, and is now
State Senator from the thirtieth district.
Judge Willis was one of the few to establish
Odd Fellowship in the county, by organizing
San Bernardino Lodge No. 146, and he was
also a member of other fraternal orders, being
a charter member of Valley Lodge No. 27,
Knights of Pythias. He always took an active
interest in pioneer matters, was a member of
the State Pioneer Association when in San
Francisco, and was a prominent member and
corresponding secretary of the San Bernardino
Society of Pioneers. In ante-bellum times,
Judge Willis was politically a Douglas Demo-
crat; during the war he was a stanch Union
man, and after the war he resumed his old par-
ty affiliations. He was noted for his sociable,
affable manners and his generous hospitality
to his friends.
*
JESSE P. R. HALL. . Prominent among the
men of energy, enterprise and sagacity, who have
been instrumental in developing and advancing
the leading industries of the El Cajon valley is
Jesse P. R. Hall, of Bostonia, an extensive fruit
grower, and one of the leading horticulturists of
his community. A son of the late John R. Hall,
he was born February 16, 1847, in Madison
county, N. Y., of English ancestry on the pa-
ternal side. g
A native of England, John R. Hall immigrated
to America when young, and for a number of
years thereafter was a resident of New York
state, living there from 1830 until 1854. Follow-
ing the march of civilization westward, he re-
moved with his family to Michigan in the latter
year, took up raw land and having cleared a farm
was there employed in its management until 1886.
Coming then to California, he resided here until
his death, in 1889, at the age of seventy-three
years. His wife, whose maiden name was Mary
Fairchild, was born in New York state, and died
in California in 1887, aged eighty-two years.
Receiving an excellent education in the com-
mon schools of Michigan, Jesse P. R. Hall subse-
quently learned the carpenter's trade, and for
many years was busily employed as a contractor
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
1041
and builder, although he owned a farm, and was
to some extent engaged in agricultural pursuits,
his home being in South Blendon, Ottawa county,
Mich. Capable, intelligent, practical in his views
and possessing excellent judgment, he became in-
fluential in public affairs while young, and at the
age of twenty-one years was elected township
clerk, serving from 1870 until 1874, and later
was elected and held the office of supervisor of
Blendon township, Ottawa county, Serving from
1876 until 1884. For four years he was superin-
tendent of the schools of Blendon township, and
also served as justice of the peace for several
years, holding public office much of his time while
there. Coming to El Cajon valley in 1886, he
located near Bostonia, buying the first year forty
acres of his present home ranch, and the following
year buying twenty acres more. At once begin-
ning the improvement of his property, he erected
his fine residence and substantial farm buildings,
and then turned his attention to the cultivation of
the soil. He has now a bearing vineyard of
forty acres of raisin grapes, and ten acres de-
voted to the raising of oranges and other fruits.
In his chosen industry he is meeting with signal
success, from the productions of his ranch reap-
ing a good annual income.
March 18, 1866, in Ottawa county, Mich., Mr.
Hall married Charlotte Abbott, who was born,
March 6, 1848, in Grandville, Kent county, Mich.
Eleven children blessed the union of Mr. and
Mrs. Hall, namely: Wilson D., proprietor of a
lumber yard, machine shop and hardware store
at El Cajon; Marie E., a teacher in the Chico
Normal School; Julian D., a gardener and
rancher in the El Cajon valley; Burdette
Coutts, who was born at South Blendon,
Mich., October 12, 1874, and died June
22, 1899, at the home of her parents; John Ab-
bott, who was born October 6, 1876, and died
September 9, 1885; Samuel C., born August 18,
1878, and in business in Los Angeles, with office
in the O. T. Johnson building; Rosa Lucy, who
was born February 14, 1880, and died October
16, 1902; Jesse Rexford, born September 12,
1878, graduated from the University at Berkeley
in May, 1905, and is now at Yale college; Arthur
Nelson, born October 25, 1885, in Grandville,
Mich., and now attending the University of Cali-
fornia; Mary Julia., who was born March
II, 1888, and died February 12, 1903,
and Helen Genevieve, Born February 12,
1890, and attending the El Cajon high
school. In the death of four of their
children, Mr. and Mrs. Hall have been deeply
bereaved, the loss of their second daughter hav-
ing been particularly sad. She was named by
her grandfather in honor of Baroness Burdette
Coutts, of England. After her graduation, she
was engaged for several terms as a teacher in
both the public schools and the Sunday school,
and was especially active in the Y. P. S. C. E.
Society. She was a true Christian, following
in the footsteps of her Master, and in her own
Sweet and quiet way doing much good, giving
one-tenth of her income, which she called the
Lord's money, for charitable purposes. Miss
Hall was a lover of nature in all of its forms, and
had a rare faculty of expressing her feelings in
poetic words. Some of the poems which she
penned are worthy of more than passing notice,
from one of which, entitled “God’s Pictures,”
we dare quote briefly for the benefit and pleasure
of her many friends and acquaintances:
“God’s pictures, what wealth there is in them,
What joy in the sight, what sweet rest;
His pencils sketch none but the fairest,
His brush painteth none but the best.
God’s pictures, no price asked in payment,
Ay, even a beggar may see.
He giveth to all of His beauty
Sweet glimpses of Heaven to be.”
“Oh Christ! she said in her gladness
Her face glowing full in His light,
How near to my heart is Thy sunshine,
How far from my path is the night.
Oh clouds ! you reflect back the glory
And grandeur of heavenly things;
But I in my life as I serve Him,
Reflect Christ, mv Saviour and King.”
Politically Mr. Hall is a Republican, and is
now a trustee of his school district. Religiously
both Mr. and Mrs. Hall are active and valued
members of the Presbyterian Church.
SAMUEL F. LEWIS. For a period of suf-
ficient duration to entitle him to rank among the
pioneer agriculturists of Mesa Grande, Mr. Lewis
has been identified with the ranching interests of
this portion of San Diego county, and meanwhile
has risen to a position of influence among his as-
Sociates and acquaintances. Shortly after his
removal to Mesa Grande in 1884 he purchased
the ranch he still owns and occupies and later he
acquired the title to a tract adjoining his original
purchase, so that now he has three hundred and
eighty-five acres in one body. Of this large
ranch he has fifty acres under cultivation to grain,
fifteen acres in a vineyard of choice grapes and
the balance in grazing land adapted for the pas-
turage of stock. All of the improvements on the
farm have been made by him, and, being a car-
penter by trade, he was able to erect all of his
own buildings with little outside help, so that
it may be stated with unusual accuracy that the
mºvements On the property are his own handi-
WOTK.
1042
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Dating his residence in California from 1870,
Mr. Lewis, prior to that year lived in various
parts of the south and in his native Missouri,
where he was born at St. Louis, June 3, 1838.
His parents, John and Nancy M. (Mann) Lewis,
were natives respectively of Kentucky and Mis-
souri. Before the bridge had been built at St.
Louis the father owned and operated the upper
ferry at that city and later he bought a farm in
St. Louis county, where he engaged in general
farm pursuits and in raising stock. His death
occurred near St. Paul, St. Charles county, Mo.,
about 1850, when he was fifty-four years of age;
and he was survived by his wife until the pe-
riod of the Civil war, when she passed away. In
addition to attending the public schools Samuel
F. Lewis had the advantage of a collegiate course,
and to the knowledge thus acquired he has added
by the reading of current periodicals and by
habits of close observation.
In a family consisting of four sons and three
daughters Samuel F. Lewis was the fourth
among the sons and when he had finished school
he returned to the farm to care for his widowed
mother, whose property he superintended for a
time. In 1859 he removed to Texas and settled at
Lagrange, Fayette county, where he followed the
carpenter's trade. At the outbreak of the Civil
war he returned to his old Missouri home and en-
listed in Company H, Tenth Missouri Infantry,
with which he served in camp and field until the
surrender at Little Rock, Ark., at the close of
the historic struggle. From the expiration of
the war until 1870 he engaged in farming in
Missouri, but during the latter year he disposed
of his interests in that state and came to Cali-
fornia. For four years he engaged in the dairy
business near Petaluma, and in 1874 removed
to Timber Cove, Sonoma county, where he was
proprietor of a hotel, and later bought and con-
ducted the Washoe house near Petaluma. From
there he came to San Diego county and pur-
chased his present farm property, where since he
has labored indefatigably in the improving of the
land and the developing of a first-class farm.
The marriage of Mr. Lewis was solemnized in
Missouri in 1866 and united him with Miss N. M.
Beale, daughter of Dr. J. B. H. Beale, for years
a busy and successful physician in Missouri, but
now, at the age of seventy-nine years, living
retired in San Diego. The family of Mr. and
Mrs. Lewis comprises the following children:
Clarence, now in Mexico; Gale H., of San Diego;
Mrs. Betty B. Story, of San Diego county, and
Ida, who married J. I. Morris, and lives in Mesa
Grande. The Methodist Episcopal Church South
is the religious home of the family. Politically
Mr. Lewis was reared in the Democratic faith
and has never swerved in his allegiance to the
party. Since coming to San Diego he has served
as superintendent of roads for a number of years
and during his term of service he built the road
from Ramona to Mesa Grande, also surveyed the
same. The Keith grade, as this road is called,
is one of the finest grades in the whole county
and many tributes of praise have been bestowed
upon the superintendent to whose ability and wise
workmanship the success of the undertaking may
be attributed.
NATHAN HALL. It is not definitely known
what era of American history the Hall family
became established in the new world, but the
records show they were early identified with that
portion of the Old Dominion now known as
West Virginia. There Hon. Nathan Hall was
born and reared, there he engaged in farm pur-
suits and the raising of stock, and from his home
district he was sent to the legislature of his state
to assist in formulating its laws. Early in man-
hood he married Mary, daughter of Isaac Means
and a native of West Virginia, where she re-
mained until death, and in that state also Oc-
curred the death of Nathan Hall. Born of their
union were twelve children, all but one of whom
lived to maturity, Nathan, Jr., being the eighth in
order of birth and the only one among the num-
ber to settle on the Pacific coast. In his native
town of Grafton, W. Va., where he was born
December 23, 1840, he attended a subscription
school held in a log building equipped with slab
benches, a puncheon floor, and a fireplace open-
ing into a chimney made of mud and sticks.
There were few text-books in those days, and
a quill pen was used in writing, but in spite
of all disadvantages he obtained a fair educa-
t1O11.
Starting out for himself at the age of twenty-
one years, Nathan Hall went to Iowa via Missouri
and bought a tract of land near Granville, Ma-
haska county, where he engaged in raising corn
and cattle. Later he sold there and went to Car-
roll county, Mo., where he bought a farm and
engaged in raising stock. On Selling that prop-
erty he turned his attention to the manufacture
of cloth and blankets in a woolen mill, near
Kirksville, Mo., but the price of wool, which had
been very high, dropped suddenly and ruined him
financially. Forced to begin anew, and without
the means necessary to buy a farm, he decided
to turn to railroading. In 1875 he secured work
near Kirksville with the Wabash Railroad Com-
pany as a section hand. It was customary then
to work four years before being made foreman,
but his work proved so satisfactory that in four-
teen months he was promoted to be foreman of a
section.
Coming to California in 1887 Mr. Hall set-
tled in San Diego and secured employment with
Gºv.
or
º

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
1045
the Southern California Railroad Company as
track foreman in the yards. After two years he
was appointed assistant roadmaster under O. T.
Casson and continued in that capacity until 1896,
when he was appointed roadmaster in charge of
the division from National City to Orange (one
hundred miles), including the branches to Es-
condido (twenty-two miles) and Fallbrook
(eighteen miles), making a total of one hundred
and forty miles under his supervision. Thoroughly
familiar with the details connected with railroad-
ing, he has proved an experienced and capable
man in the business and has shown himself to be
trustworthy and painstaking. For some years he
has been a member of the Roadmasters’ Main-
tenance of Way Association of the United States
and Canada, and when their convention was held
at Niagara Falls, N. Y., he was an interested
spectator and participant. During 1896 he re-
moved from San Diego to Oceanside and now re-
sides in his commodious residence on Fifth and
Hill streets.
The first wife of Nathan Hall was Miss Maria
Marcus, who was born in West Virginia and died
in Missouri. Three children were born of that
union, namely: Laura, of Pomona, Cal. ; Charles
W., who is engaged in mining in Nevada, and
John, a farmer of Adair county, Mo. The second
marriage of Mr. Hall was solemnized at Macon,
Mo., in 1872, and united him with Mrs. Lizzie
(Wallace) Barnhart, the widow of James Barn-
hart, a Pennsylvanian by birth, who engaged in
farming and the manufacture of brick near Kirks-
ville, Adair county, Mo., where he died. One
child was born of their union, Ellsworth Barn-
hart, now living in Los Angeles. To Mr. and
Mrs. Hall a son was born, Wilbert N., of San
Diego, who is a foreman with the Santa Fé Rail-
road Company. Mrs. Hall was born in Randolph
county, Mo., being a daughter of James and
Malina (Jones) Wallace, natives of Tennessee.
The father was a pioneer of Randolph county,
Mo., and later removed to a farm in Macon coun-
ty, the same state, where he remained until death.
His wife, who removed to Missouri with her
father, Aquilla Jones, and settled on a farm, was
a resident of that state until death. Five children
were born of their union and Mrs. Hall is the
youngest of the three now living. In politics Mr.
Hall favors Republican principles. While living
in Missouri he was made a Mason in Queen City
Lodge No. 38o, A. F. & A. M., of which he is
now a demitted member.
WILLIAM C. BILLINGSLY. When a
stranger inquires of the people of Ballena
valley concerning their prominent citizens,
the name of W. C. Billingsly is always given
as that of a leading resident, and often the
Statement is made that “He is one of our finest
men and most honored pioneers.” The respect
accorded him is proof of his manly and sterling
qualities, and of the high attributes of character
that have won for him the good-will of every-
one with whom he has had business or social
relations. Though now he has reached an age
justifying retirement from life’s activities and
though he has retired from agricultural pur-
suits, he still retains a warm interest in local
affairs and serves as justice of the peace, which
office he long has filled both in this state and
formerly in Texas.
A native of Trenton, Tenn., Mr. Billingsly
was born September 8, 1833, being a grandson
of Jephtha Billingsly, a soldier in the war of
1812. His parents, Elisha and Martha (Fite)
Billingsly, were natives respectively of Mis-
Souri and Virginia, the mother being a cousin
of Senator John Randolph of Virginia. As
early as 1848 the family removed from Tennes-
see to Texas and engaged in the transformation
of a raw tract of land into a cultivated ranch.
On the homestead the death of the mother
occurred in 1882, when she was sixty-eight
years of age, and the father passed away in
1860, aged eighty-two years. The primary
education of W. C. Billingsly was secured in
private schools in Tennessee. After going to
Texas he was a student in private schools,
where he completed the high-school course.
On starting out for himself he engaged in
iocating and surveying land and for a time
filled the office of surveyor of Llano county,
Tex., where also he engaged in stock-raising
and general ranching.
Removing from Texas to California in 1871,
Mr. Billingsly bought a lot in San Diego,
erected a house and began to work at carpen-
tering. A year later he came to the Ballena
valley and rented a building at what is known
as ILuckett Station, where he carried on a hotel
for two years. At the expiration of that time
he gave up the hotel business and secured a
tract of two hundred and eighty acres of gov-
ernment land where he now lives. Since mov-
ing to the farm he has increased its size by
the purchase of adjoining property and now
owns four hundred and eighty acres of valuable
land, on which he has planted a first-class
orchard and erected a neat and substantial
ranch-house. Early in manhood he established
a home of his own during the period of his
residence in the Lone Star state. His marriage
was solemnized in Llano county August I,
I861, and united him with Martha E. Putman,
who was born, reared and educated in Texas,
and is a ladv of earnest Christian character, a
member of the Baptist Church, with which also
he is identified. Their union was blessed with
1046
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
one child, Martha O., who is now the wife of
Z. Quincy and makes her home in San Diego.
She is the mother of nine living children.
Though not a partisan in political views, Mr.
Billingsly upholds the Democratic party with
the earnestness of deep convictions and has
never swerved in his allegiance to its prin-
ciples. &
J. W. ANDERSON. The date of the estab-
lishment of the Anderson family in America is
not definitely known nor do the genealogical rec-
ords give the name of the original immigrant, but
it is a matter of family history that early in the
colonization of the new world they became estab-
lished in Pennsylvania, where succeeding genera-
tions lived and labored and died. Joseph An-
derson, who was a native of Pennsylvania, and a
farmer's son, began an apprenticeship to the trade
of currier at an early age and on the completion
of his apprenticeship began to work for wages.
In 1847 he embarked in the patent leather busi-
ness in Pittsburg, Pa., and carried on a growing
trade until his factory burned to the ground in
1856, after which he began in business at Hill-
side. Eventually he removed to the Pacific coast
and became identified with the interests of Los
Angeles county, establishing his home near
Compton, but soon afterward, in 1878, his earthly
life ended, when he was seventy-three years of
age. His wife, who bore the maiden name of
Mary C. Storm, was born at Frederick, Md., and
died in the east when sixty years of age. Both
were earnest members of the Christian Church;
the father affiliated with the Independent Order
of Odd Fellows and in politics supported Repub-
lican principles after the organization of that
party. Of their children only two sons lived to
maturity, J. W. and George H. The latter was
formerly a prominent citizen of Pittsburg, Pa.,
where he was vice-president of the Chamber of
Commerce, but is now a resident of Southern
California.
J. W. Anderson is a native of Wheeling, W.
Va., born August 3, 1838, and from the age of
two years was reared in Pittsburg, Pa., where he
attended public and private schools. After dis-
continuing his studies he began to help his father
in the patent leather business and worked both
in the factory and the storeroom. In 1873 he
left home and came to California, making the
journey via the railroad to San Francisco, and
thence on a steamboat to Wilmington, and from
there to Anaheim, where he made a brief so-
journ. Next he went to Orange and bought land
which he planted to citrus fruit trees. In 1886
he removed from his orange grove into Los An-
geles and for four years was employed as a
deputy in the customhouse, also for two years
was connected with the waterworks system. On
leaving Los Angeles for a visit in Pennsylvania,
his son, Lawrence, took charge of the water-
works and has since been connected with the
plant, being now auditor of the city water works.
On his return from the east Mr. Anderson en-
gaged in the shoe business for two years, but
this business he turned over to his son, George,
and secured a position for himself as book-
keeper with the Southern California Packing
Company. After a year in their employ he be-
came bookkeeper, accountant and general office
manager for the Los Angeles & Redondo Rail-
road Company, in which capacity he continued
for thirteen years discharging his many and re-
sponsible duties with promptness and accuracy.
On severing his connection with the railway
company Mr. Anderson engaged in the real estate
and insurance business and continued to reside in
Redondo, where he still owns a home. From
there he came to San Diego county and settled
near Bonsall, where he bought a ranch of five
hundred acres and erected the house now Occu-
pied by his family. In addition to general farm-
ing he is engaged in the dairy business and also
carries other lines of stock on the place. Through
his long and active career he has been identified
with many enterprises and has held various posi-
tions of trust, all of which he has filled with
dignity and energy. While living in Orange
county he served as a notary public and justice
of the peace and there, as in other places of his
abode, he was active in Republican political af-
fairs, maintaining a warm interest in everything
tending to the success of the party and the ad-
vancement of its principles. In fraternal rela-
tions he is a Mason, having been initiated into
that order in the Santa Ana blue lodge. With
his family he holds membership with the Christ-
ian Church and contributes to its missionary and
charitable movements.
The marriage of Mr. Anderson took place in
December, 1860, and united him with Sarah Mc-
lelland, a native of Pittsburg, Pa. They are
the parents of the following children: Lawrence,
who married Priscilla B. McNitt and lives in Los
Angeles: George H., who married Sadie Dixon,
of Escondido and resides at Redondo; Margaret
M., the wife of Tremont Loveland, of Bonsall;
Ivan, who is with his parents on the home farm;
Arthur T., living in Los Angeles county; Her-
bert, who married Blanche Harlan, and Arthur,
who married Jacintha Smith, and lives at Re-
dondo.
WINFIELD SCOTT TOWNSEND. It is
now sixteen years since Mr. Scott first set foot
on California soil, coming hither from Illinois
where the family had flourished since 1835. It
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
1047
was in that year that the grandfather, Nathaniel
Townsend, left his native state, New York, and
with his family settled in what was then consider-
ed the frontier, they being the first white settlers
in Adams township, La Salle county, Ill. Dur-
ing his early manhood he displayed his patriotic
spirit by valiantly defending the cause of the col-
onies in the second struggle with England, and in
the course of the conflict was severely wounded.
Among the children born to himself and wife
was Charles Townsend, who accompanied his
parents to the pioneer region of Illinois in 1835
and thereafter remained a resident of the state
until his death at the age of sixty-five. His
marriage united him with Jane Smith, a native
of Ohio, who was a member of the Presby-
terian Church, in the faith of which she passed
away in Illinois when in her sixty-sixth year.
The conditions which confronted the pioneers in
the middle west were such as to make heavy
demands upon their abilities, and none met these
conditions more graciously than did Charles
Townsend, who from the first took a deep in-
terest in the welfare of La Salle county, and
especially of Adams township, where he served as
road commissioner and school director, filling
the latter position the greater part of his mature
years. Politically he was a Republican. Of his
union with Jane Smith (for he had been pre-
viously married) three children were born, one
of whom is Winfield Scott, of this review.
Winfield S. Townsend was the third reple-
sentative of the family in Adams township, La
Salle county, Ill., and it was there on his father's
farm that his birth occurred November 16, 1853.
Until he had reached mature years his life was
associated with that locality exclusively, having
in the meantime applied himself diligently in
prosecuting his studies in the common and high
schools. This training was supplemented by at-
tending Hedding College, in Abingdon, Knox
county. His school life over, he returned to
La Salle county and was variously employed there
until 1885, that year witnessing his removal to
Minnesota, where for two years he was employed
as a stationary engineer. During this time his
thoughts had turned many times to the land of
the setting sun, and hither he came in 1888,
After spending about two months in Pasadena
he went to Corona, Riverside county, where for
a time he raised oranges on a six-acre tract
which he had purchased. Selling this he im-
mediately purchased a ten-acre ranch in the same
locality, where for twelve years he was inter-
ested in an orange industry that netted him.
splendid returns for his labor. However, at
the end of this time he disposed of his interests
there and came to Los Angeles, where for three
years he conducted a real estate business. After
his return from Illinois, whither he had gone
for a short visit, he went to Yolo county, there
carrying on a ranch of eighty acres devoted
to the raising of grain and hay. It was after
disposing of his interests in that locality that he
came to Los Angeles county once more, this
time settling upon a ranch near Pomona, which
was his home for nearly three years. While his
ranch of forty acres was not as large as many
in the vicinity, it is safe to say that none of his
neighbors could claim better returns per acre than
he. The entire tract was under cultivation, thir-
ty-three acres being in alfalfa, and the remainder
in potatoes. To supply his ranch with plenty of
water Mr. Townsend installed a pumping plant,
which enabled him to irrigate the land thoroughly
with the result that he harvested abundant crops
of both commodities, especially of alfalfa, which
produced six and seven crops per year.
In 1878, while still a resident of Illinois Mr.
Townsend was married to Clara E. Barnhart,
who like himself was a native of La Salle county,
that state. Two children have been born to
brighten their home life, Claude Ellis and Lo-
retta. Mrs. Townsend is a member of the
Christian Church and both herself and husband
are interested in benevolent and uplifting en-
terprises, whether of a religious or secular na-
ture. Like his father before him Mr. Townsend
is a believer in Republican principles, and like
him also he is interested in good roads and in
furnishing the best school advantages possible
for the rising generation. For this reason while
in Illinois he was made road commissioner and
was also a school director, giving to both the
same care and interest which he bestowed upon
his private affairs. While in point of years Mr.
Townsend may be called a newcomer to Pomona,
no one is more deeply interested in its welfare
than he and as neighbor and citizen he has won
a foothold which is a credit to himself and a
distinct benefit to those with whom he comes in
COntact.
JAMES HENRY POWERS. The thriving
city of San Pedro has a full quota of live, en-
ergetic business men, among whom is James
Henry Powers, who is actively identified with
the mercantile interests of the place as one of
its leading hay and grain warehouse merchants.
Since becoming a resident of this place, Mr.
Powers has identified himself with its growth
and advancement, encouraging the establish-
ment of beneficial enterprises, and by his decis-
ion of character and integrity has won the re-
spect and esteem of the community. A native
of Canada, he was born on the Bay of Chaleurs,
near the mouth of the Restigouche river, a son
of Dr. Joseph Henry Powers. He is descended
from a family of note, his grandfather, Thomas
1048
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Powers, having, after his graduation from the
University of Edinburgh, Scotland, settled in
Dublin, Ireland, where he was engaged in the
practice of law until his death, being one of the
leading attorneys of that city.
Born in Scotland, Joseph Henry Powers com-
pleted his education at Trinity College, Dublin,
Ireland, where he was graduated with the de-
gree of M. D. Subsequently immigrating to
America, he located in Canada, where he acquired
a fine reputation as a physician, and was actively
engaged in his professional labors until his death,
in 1872. His wife, whose maiden name was
Mary Cronen was born in London, England, and
died in Wisconsin, in 1886. She bore her hus-
band ten children, all of whom grew to years of
maturity, James Henry being the second in or—
der of birth. -
Born August 29, 1844, on the home farm,
which was located on the banks of the Resti-
gouche river, James Henry Powers received a
practical common-school education, remaining
beneath the parental roof-tree until nineteen
years of age. Going then to Wisconsin, he was
there employed in lumbering until 1875. Chang-
ing his occupation in that year, he went to Ari-
zona, locating near Apache, on the Gila river,
where he embarked in the stock business for
awhile. Removing from there to Cochise coun-
ty, Ariz., he bought land in the Chiricahua
mountains, and was there successfully engaged
in cattle raising and dealing until 1896. Selling
his stock at that time, he came to Los Angeles
county, locating at Gardena, where he bought
ten acres of land, which he at once began to
improve, being one of the first to irrigate, es-
tablishing a pumping plant, the well being two
hundred and twenty-five feet deep.
good crops of alfalfa by irrigation, and from
his well furnished water for his neighbors, ir-
rigating about one hundred and twenty acres
of land from his plant. In 1898 he engaged in
the grocery business at San Pedro, erecting his
present store building, which was then the larg—
est of the kind in the city. Putting in a full line
of staple and fancy groceries, he has since built
up a large and lucrative trade, and for the past
four years has also carried feed of all kinds,
having a large trade in this line. By means
of good business management and judgment he
has acquired considerable valuable real estate
in the city and has also built the largest ware-
house in this vicinity.
In Arizona, Mr. Powers married Jennie Mark,
who was born in Troy, N. Y., and prior to
her marriage was engaged in educational work.
Mr. and Mrs. Powers have one child, a daugh-
ter named Helen.
stanch Republican. Fraternally he was made a
Mason in 1895, in Wilcox Lodge No. 10, of
He raised
Politically Mr. Powers is a
Wilcox, Ariz., and in 1897 became a charter
member of San Pedro Lodge No. 332, F. &
A. M., which he has served as master; he was
made a Royal Arch Mason in Long Beach, and
is now a member of San Pedro Chapter No.
89, R. A. M.; and is a member and worthy
patron of San Pedro Chapter, O. E. S. Mrs.
Powers is a member of the Episcopal Church.
JOSEPH A. ROOKER. Although a resi-
dent at his present place for a comparatively brief
period only, Mr. Rooker has made his home in .
California since 1859 and since 1884 has been
identified with agricultural interests in San Diego
county, where now he makes his residence near
the village of Vista in Delpy valley. It was
during 1904 that he came to this locality and
purchased one hundred and twenty acres, which
he devotes to the raising of grain, and in addi-
tion he has been interested in the bee industry,
his apiary consisting of thirty-eight colonies of
bees. Always a tireless worker, energetic and
persevering, it is wholly due to industry and not
to luck that he has accumulated a competency,
and by honorable traits of character he has won
and retained the good will of his community.
Council Bluffs, Iowa, is Mr. Rooker’s native
place, and December 25, 1848, the date of his
birth, his parents being Joseph and Emeline
(Hewitt) Rooker, natives of Indiana, and pio-
neers of Iowa. During the year 1848 the family
disposed of their effects in Iowa and started
across the plains with a party of immigrants.
Settling in Utah, they remained there until 1859
when they pushed on toward the coast and set-
tled in Alameda county, Cal., there engaging in
farm pursuits. While in that locality the fam-
ily experienced some successes and some reverses
but on the whole achieved noteworthy progress
and became independent financially. During 1884
they became pioneers of San Diego county. The
father settled at Bonsall in a locality whither
at the time few immigrants had drifted. His
death occurred at Oceanside in 1893, when he
was eighty-four years of age, and he was sur-
vived for thirteen years, by his wife, who died
in Oceanside at seventy-nine years of age in
1906.
The earliest recollections of Joseph A. Rooker
are associated with Utah, for he was only an
infant when the family crossed the plains. After
completing his education in the schools of Ala-
meda county he assisted his father on the home
farm, first in Alameda county and later in San
Diego county. During 1888 he took up farming
at Bonsall, where he still owns an eighty-acre
tract, but recently he removed from that farm
to the tract near Vista that forms his present
-


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
1051
home. The neat residence is presided over by
his wife, whom he married in 1887 and who
was Emma DeWitt Knox, a native of Indiana.
They have no children of their own, but took into
their home a niece, Ruth, a daughter of Mr.
Rooker's sister, and this child they have reared
from the age of eighteen months. In her edu-
cation they are taking deep interest and are now
sending her to the Fallbrook high school. The
family attend the Methodist Episcopal Church
and Mrs. Rooker is a member of that denom-
ination. Ever since casting his first ballot Mr.
Rooker has supported Democratic principles, but
has not been a candidate for office nor has he
sought local leadership in the party, but in a
quiet, unostentatious way he discharges every
duty that falls to a public-spirited, progressive
citizen.
HON, NEWTON W. THOMPSON. In-
dicative of the sagacious judgment that has
marked his steady progress in commercial en-
terprises is the fact that more than twenty
years ago, when the present development of
Los Angeles county was undreamed of by
even the most sanguine settlers, Mr. Thomp-
son came to this locality, strong in his faith
as to its future fortunes. Subsequent history
has but deepened his faith in the country and
his loyality to its institutions. The years have
brought him manifold successes and honors,
including his present responsible position as
manager of the examining department of the
Title, Insurance and Trust Company of Los
Angeles, also president of the board of trus-
tees of his home town of Alhambra and a
member of the California state legislature
from the sixty-ninth district.
Descended from an eastern family of colon-
ial prominence, Mr. Thompson is a son of
Newton M. and Ada (Warner) Thompson, na-
tives of New York state, and a grandson of
Daniel Thompson, an eastern farmer, also of
Seth Warner, member of a pioneer family of
Vermont. Throughout the brief period of his
business activity (for he was only forty-seven
when he died) Newton M. Thompson followed
the occupation of a farmer and the trade of a
merchant; possessed of admirable traits of
character and endowments of mind, had he
been spared to old age he would have reaped
an unquestioned success, but he passed away
ere his fortunes had been thoroughly estab-
lished and his children therefore were obliged
to develop self-reliance and industrious habits
at an early age. The widowed mother, at the
age of sixty-six years (1907), is making her
home in Alhambra with her son, Newton W.
The latter was born at Pulaski, N. Y., Sep-
tember 16, 1865, and had the advantage of an
excellent education at Pulaski Academy, grad-
uating as the valedictorian in the class of
1883, after which he engaged in teaching
school.
Upon his arrival to California in 1885 Mr.
Thompson made a brief sojourn at Florence
and then removed to Los Angeles, where for
a year he acted as clerk to the justice of peace
of the township, also reported for the Tribune
for a short time. In 1887 he purchased an in-
terest in an abstract business in Los Angeles
and conducted the same until 1890, when he
entered the employ of the Los Angeles Ab-
stract Company. On the merging of that con-
cern in 1894 into the Title, Insurance and
Trust Company, he continued with the latter
Organization and at different times was em-
ployed in varying capacities, but since 1903
has been in charge of the examining depart-
ment, a position of trust and arduous respon-
sibilities. Since 1887 he has made his home in
Alhambra, where he owns a comfortable resi-
dence with modern improvements, and in his
pleasant suburban surroundings he finds an
agreeable relaxation from the cares of city
business affairs.
The marriage of Mr. Thompson was solem-
nized November II, 1891, and united him with
Miss M. Elizabeth Lloyd, who was born and
reared at Pulaski, N. Y., and by whom he has
three children, Lloyd W., Newton E. and Mar-
garet O. The family are identified with the
Presbyterian Church of Alhambra, in which
Mr. Thompson officiates as elder and also for
five years served as superintendent of the Sun-
day-school. Ever since his settlement in Cali-
fornia he has been an interested participant in
local affairs and has supported the Republican
party in local convention and committee work.
On the incorporation of Alhambra he was se-
jected to serve as president of the board of
trustees and in that capacity has supported all
movements for the steady growth and perma-
nent progress of the place, yet has maintained
a conservative spirit and a devotion to the in-
terests of tax-payers. Local educational mat-
ters have benefited by his intelligence and in-
terest. For three years he has been honored
with the office of president of the Alhambra city
school board. In 1904, the year after his first
election as president of the Alhambra board
of trustees, he was elected to represent the
sixty-ninth district of California in the state
assembly by a plurality of twenty-seven hun-
dred, and in the following session maintained
an active interest in legislative work, besides
being a member of the special committee on
education. In 1906 he was re-elected by a
1majority of over forty-three hundred. In fra-
54
1052
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
ternal relations he is an active member and
past master of Alhambra Lodge No. 322, F.
& A. M., and past patron of the Alhambra
Chapter of the Eastern Star, both of which or-
ganizations have benefited by his sagacious
judgment as an officer and his enthusiastic sup-
port as a member.
JOHN BAILARD. The Bailard family is
one that originated in Germany, and it was first
represented in the United States by the grand-
father of our subject, at which time his son,
Andrew Bailard, was only four years old. Mis-
souri was then far out on the frontier
line and was covered with forests throughout
the greater extent of the state, but this did not
blind the sturdy pioneer to the opportunities
which the new land afforded and here he brought
his family and made for them a home. Andrew
Bailard, who was born in Germany, November
22, 1827, remained under the parental roof until
1853, when, attracted by the stories of the still
greater opportunities in the country on the west-
ern coast, he joined a party of emigrants and
crossed the plains with Ox team and typical
overland outfit of those days. The party started
with a number of cattle which they hoped to
take with them to the new country beyond the
mountains, but in common with many others
they were molested by the Indians, who stamped-
ed their stock and succeeded in driving away a
number of the animals. *
Miss Martha Shoults, who had been a member
of the same party of emigrants from Missouri,
her native state, in 1857 became the wife of Mr.
Bailard, and they resided in San Mateo county,
the first stopping place of the original party, un-
til 1868, when they removed to Santa Barbara
county, where a section of five hundred acres of
land formerly embraced within the boundaries
of one of the large grants, was purchased. A
part of this was devoted to pasturage, a part
of it planted to walnut trees, and the remainder
devoted to the cultivation of beans, for which
product that section of the state has always been
noted. Mr. Bailard took a prominent part in the
administration of the public affairs of the county
in which he resided, and served for two terms
as county supervisor, being elected by the Demo-
cratic party, with which he affiliated during his
lifetime. His death in 1876 removed a leading
citizen who was highly esteemed by all who knew
him. His wife still resides on the old homestead
in Santa Barbara county.
John Bailard was born in San Mateo county,
August 6, 1859, and after receiving a preliminary
education in the public schools of his native
county he attended the Santa Barbara College,
his parents having removed with the family to
Santa Barbara county. When school days were
over he worked for a time on the home ranch;
a desire to establish himself independently, how-
ever, induced him to buy a ranch of his own and
he now has fifty-four acres of fertile land under
his care and ownership, forty acres of which are
in beans and yield heavy crops. In addition to
this he cultivates twenty-eight acres of the old
homestead, which produces thirty-two hundred
pounds of beans to the acre, and he also has
thirty acres in hay. In Ventura county he owns
a half interest in a six hundred and fifty acre
ranch, and also another holding of one hundred
and forty-eight acres. In all of his business
ventures he has invariably met with much suc-
cess, and his fellow citizens recognizing that a
man who can well and profitably conduct his
private affairs has the best recommendation for
being able to wisely help in the managing of the
county’s business, have elected him for two terms
to the office of supervisor in Santa Barbara coun-
ty. When it is remembered that this is a strong
Republican stronghold and that Mr. Bailard is a
stanch believer in the principles of the Demo-
cratic party, the tribute to his worth is a flat-
tering one.
In 1887 Mr. Bailard married Miss Kitty Cra-
vens, a native daughter of California, and they
are the parents of three children, John, Jesse
and Jean.
ALEXANDER. H. SHIPLEY. The varied
attractions of climate and scenery which make
certain favored spots in Southern California
the rival of the European Rivera have brought
hither people from all parts of the world and
have given to the country a cosmopolitan
population representing many varied types of
thought, sentiment and nationality, but united
in their expressions of devotion to the inter-
ests of the region now their home. Some have
chosen to establish their Lares et Penates in
the larger cities, where the air is vibrant with
the whirl of commerce; others have preferred
the smaller towns, where within sight of the
majestic ocean or lofty mountain peaks, they
may enjoy the changing charms of nature un-
disturbed by the stress of business cares and
the turmoil of political responsibilities. To
Mr. Shipley, laying aside the cares of a long
business experience in this country and
abroad, there came the wish to enjoy the quiet
charm of a home near the ocean, in the midst
of an environment attractive to the eye and
exhilarating to the mind. In search of such
a location he came to San Diego and in 1893
purchased a residence near the shore of Carls-
bad, where he has since lived in retirement
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
1053
from commercial cares and in the enjoyment
of a beautiful home.
Brooklyn is Mr. Shipley's native city and
November 5, 1843, the date of his birth, his
parents being Capt. Thomas and Sophia
(O'Connor) Shipley, natives respectively of
Delaware and Dublin, Ireland. Through all
of his active life Captain Shipley followed the
sea and rose from a humble position to the
command of a vessel, in which capacity he con-
tinued until his death in 1864, at the age of
sixty years. His wife survived him for many
years, passing away in 1886, when seventy-two
years of age. Their son, Alexander H., was
taken to England in childhood for the benefit
of his health and in order that he might enjoy
the educational advantages offered by the
schools of that country. On the completion
of his education he returned to the United
States and for some years afterward was iden-
tified with affairs in Wall street. In 1875 he
removed to New Zealand and engaged in the
commission business. From 1877 until 1886
he represented the United States as consul to
New Zealand, attending to the duties of the
office in addition to managing his large busi-
ness interests. Fventually, however, consid-
erations of health caused him to resign the
consulate and close out his holdings in New
Zealand, after which he returned to the United
States and settled in the northern part of Cali-
fornia, removing from there to San Diego
county in order to enjoy the benefits offered
by the equable climate of this locality. Im-
mediately before he sailed for New Zealand he
was married in San Francisco to Miss Julia G.
Seamont, of New York, by whom he has one
daughter, Florence. In religious views Mr.
Shipley and his family are believers in the
doctrines of the Episcopalian denomination
and contribute to all the activities of their
church. Fraternally he has been identified
with the Masonic Order for many years and
has been interested in the philanthropies of
that organization.
SYLVESTER W. BARTON. Perhaps no
citizen of Whittier has been more active in its
development than Sylvester W. Barton, who has
been a resident of this locality since 1890 and
during the passing years has acquired a com-
petence and at the same time has established a
position of influence among the representative
men of the place. In Wayne county, Ind.,
where his birth occurred February 5, 1855, his
paternal grandfather was numbered among the
early settlers, as were also his parents, John
and Rachel (Penland) Barton; the family were
universally esteemed for the qualities of man-
hood manifested in their citizenship and in ag-
ricultural labors were named among the suc-
cessful men of the section.
Inheriting traits of self-reliance and indepen-
dence S. W. Barton early assumed the burden of
self-support, with nothing to presage success
save determination and energy. Through his
own efforts, as a substitute teacher, he procured
means to pursue his studies at the state normal,
in Ada, Hardin county, Ohio. Trained to the
life of a farmer he eventually returned to this
pursuit, in Mahaska county, Iowa, engaging in
farming for the period of four years; attracted
to the Pacific slope in 1887 he came to South-
ern California with the intention of pursuing
ranching and the raising of stock as he had
formerly done. For two years he cultivated a
ranch at Compton, where he finally purchased
an alfalfa ranch. Locating in Whittier in 1890
he has since made this city his home, making
his personal efforts parallel with those for the
advancement of the general welfare of the com-
munity. In addition to the cultivation of his ranch
(located a mile southeast of the city proper and
consisiting of ten acres devoted to English wal-
nuts) he is in the possession of a good real-es-
tate business, having opened an office in 1893
for the purpose of conducting this enterprise.
He is located on Philadelphia street and is ac-
counted one of the successful men engaged in
this business. He has accumulated considera–
ble property since his location here and has tak-
en a prominent part in the upbuilding of im-
portant industries, among them assisting ma-
terially in the organization of the Whittier
Steam Laundry, in which he is a stockholder.
For many years he was also largely identified
with the oil industry in the vicinity of Whit-
tier, being one of the promoters of the Whittier
Oil & Development Company, the firm of Bar-
ton & Clayton making extensive purchases in
oil lands. He has been a director in the com-
pany ever since its organization and has also
served efficiently as secretary and general man-
ager. Another enterprise of note with which
his name has been identified was the purchase of
three thousand acres of unimproved land in La
Habra valley, which he subdivided and sold to
colonists. -
Notwithstanding his many cares Mr. Bar-
ton has found time to ally himself with social
and fraternal Organizations. He is a promi-
nent member of the Knights of Pythias, while
politically he gives a stanch support to the prin-
ciples advocated in the platform of the Repub-
lican party. He can always be counted upon to
further any plan for the advancement of the
general welfare, and as a member of the Los
Angeles Chamber of Commerce and a director
of the Whittier Board of Trade he takes a pro-
1054
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
found interest in business affairs. His home,
which is in Whittier, is presided over by his
wife, formerly Miss Leila Mendenhall, a na-
tive of Indiana, and they are the parents of one
son, Russell J. Mr. Barton is one of the rep-
resentative citizens of Whittier, having won his
position through the exercise of executive abil-
ity and judgment, which have given him a finan-
cial success and the possession of many admir-
able traits of character upon which his life struc-
ture has been founded. Progressive and enter-
prising he has sought the advancement of the
community in every instance and as a conserva-
tive business man has won the confidence of the
people. -
WILLIAM H. HOOD. A representative
citizen of the Alamos valley is found in Will-
iam H. Hood, who owns one hundred and
sitxy acres of land and rents an additional
two hundred and eighty acres, the whole
amount being devoted to the raising of grain
crops. He also has about thirty stands of
bees, which produce a very satisfactory
amount of honey that sells for a good price.
Mr. Hood was born in England in 1861,
and received his education through the me-
dium of the schools of his native land. As a
young man he took up the occupation of clerk-
ing and continued in that employment until
January, 1885, when he removed to Canada
and remained a resident of that country for
two years. He then came to the United States
and located in Philadelphia, his residence in
California dating from 1889. The following
year he went to Minnesota, where he was mar-
Tied to Miss Christina Brakkey, and upon
their return to California Mr. Hood engaged
in farming, in 1892 purchasing and removing
to the present ranch, which has since been his
bome. He is a man of many admirable per-
sonal qualities and is held in high esteem by
all who know him.
ADAM M. VOGT. Varying degrees of
prosperity have been experienced by Mr. Vºgt
since his association with Los Angeles in 1887,
losing heavily during the boom period, but these
losses have been more than recouped in the
meantime and he is today living retired in this
city on the corner of Twenty-first and Tober-
man StreetS. gº
The patronymic Vogt is suggestive of the
Fatherland, and there Adam M. Vogt was born,
in Baden, December 27, 1848. Up to his four-
teenth vear he was a pupil in the gymnasium in
1,is native town, after which he was appren-
ticed to learn the jeweler's trade. As his fath-
er was an invalid and the family of children
large it goes without saying that he, being the
eldest, had to assist in supplying the family ne-
cessities, and as soon as he became competent at
his trade worked at it continuously until the
'breaking out of the Franco-Prussian war in
1870. Believing that in the New World he
would find greater opportunity for gettting ahead
he came to the United States that year, going
at once to Forreston, Ogle county, Ill. Honor-
able work of any kind was acceptable to him
at this time, for although distance divided him
from his kinsmen they were uppermost in his
thoughts, their need of his assistance spurring
him on in his undertakings. Work as a farm
hand was the first opportunity that offered, and
he followed this until accepting a position in a
restaurant, which he held for two years. It
would not have been an impossibility to find
work at his trade, but as his lungs and throat
were already affected as a consequence of the
previous years devoted to the work he deemed
it inadvisable to undertake it again. From For-
reston, Ill., he went to Monroe, Wis., where
for a short time he drove a beer wagon, follow-
ing this by clerking in a restaurant for two
years. Subsequently he opened a grocery and
restaurant in Monroe, which he carried on with
excellent results for about seventeen years, his
health at this time making it necessary for him
to seek a milder climate. Selling out his Wis-
consin interests in 1887 he came the same year
to California, with Los Angeles as his destina-
tion.
With the proceeds of the sale of his Wiscon-
sin holdings, Mr. Vogt purchased three acres
where he now lives, paying therefore $9,700.
During the period of the boom he speculated
heavily in real-estate and for a time he experi-
enced financial difficulties, and it , was at this
time that he began buying and selling stock.
His efforts along this line were far more suc-
cessful than he had anticipated, so much so
that in 1904 he, was enabled to retire from active
business. His original plot of three acres has of
late years been divided into city lots, some of
which have been sold, reserving for his home place
a frontage of two hundred and sixteen feet, on
the northeast corner of Twenty-first and Tober-
man streets, which is valued at $15,000. Be-
sides the homestead he owns another residence
at Twenty-first and Toberman streets, which he
rents, also a store building near Ascot, which is
likewise occupied by a tenant. When it is re-
membered that Mr. Vogt came to the United
States empty-handed (landing in New York
with just $2 in his pocket), with health im-
paired, and with necessity for work confronting
him, both for his own support and to enable
him to render assistance to his parents in the


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
1057
Fatherland, it is little short of marvelous what
he has accomplished and much praise is due
him for his persevering efforts.
Mr. Vogt's first marriage occurred in 1874
and united him with Miss Louisa Miller, a na-
tive of Wisconsin, by whom he has two chil-
dren, Frederick Julius and Edward Karl, both
of whom are in San Francisco. His second
marriage was celebrated September 15, 1881,
and the present Mrs. Vogt was before her mar-
riage Miss Maggie Baker, she too being a na-
tive of Wisconsin. The only child of this mar-
riage is Gladys, who is still at home with her
parents. Prior to the present administration Mr.
Vogt had always espoused Democratic princi-
ples, but his last presidential vote was cast for
Theodore Roosevelt. Locally he casts his bal-
lot for the man best qualified for the office in
question, irrespective of party. The only fra-
ternal order of which he is a member is the
Odd Fellows, belonging to Concordia Lodge No.
I24 at Monroe, Wis.
JOSEPH CRAWFORD. Now living re-
tired from active business at Bowers, a half
mile east of San Jacinto, Joseph Crawford,
one of the old settlers of the state, is enjoying
the fruits of the labors of many years. He
was born March 7, 1832, in Utica, N. Y., the
son of John H. and Mary (Taylor) Crawford,
both of New York nativity, and the grandson
of William Crawford, who fought in the war
of 1812. John H. Crawford was a merchant
and removed to Indiana in 1833, engaging in
business at Fremont, where his wife died Au-
gust II, 1839. He then changed his residence
to Saratoga, N. Y., and finally removed to
Washington, D. C., and was staying with
Zachary Taylor, in company with whom he
had fought in the Indian wars, when his death
occurred in June, 1842, at the age of seventy
years. Camp Crawford, at Prairie du Chien,
Wis., was built by a brother, Samuel Craw-
ford.
here was little opportunity for Joseph
Crawford to attend school when he was a boy,
for from his eighth year he was obliged to
“hoe his own row.” By much reading and pri-
vate study he has, however, been able to ac-
cumulate a larger store of knowledge than
many more fortunate people acquire. Between
the ages of eight and ten years he was em-
ployed at team driving in Indiana, then hired
out by the month, doing various tasks, in 1843
engaging to drive a team to Green Bay, Wis.
Two years later he went to Weyauwega and
teamed for a time, returning again to Green
Bay at a later period and was for the follow-
ing eleven years occupied as a log driver. Sep-
tember 1, 1861, he enlisted in Company F,
Twelfth Regiment Wisconsin Volunteer In-
fantry, and during his army service was en-
gaged in the siege of Vicksburg, at Jackson,
at Meridian, the commencement of the battle
of Corinth, later was stationed near Memphis,
and took part in engagements at Bolivar, At-
lanta and Kenesaw Mountain, as well as in
other lesser battles. The term of his service
extended over three years and four months,
an honorable discharge being given him at
Chattanooga in 1864.
Returning to Wisconsin Mr. Crawford re-
mained two years in the logging camps, then
removed to Colorado, driving overland from
Omaha to Georgetown, and followed mining
until 1869, at intervals doing some wood cut-
ting also. He then went to Arizona and pur-
chased a ranch on the San Pedro river, sixty
miles east of Tucson, lived in that city for
one year, then went to Mountain Springs,
Cal., and was employed in building the stage
road then under way. Following this he
worked in the mines, prospected and teamed
loetween San Diego and Julian for a year.
From there he came to San Jacinto, Septem-
ber 1, 1875, and constructed a private toll road
over the San Jacinto range, the trail made at
that time being used for many years. Riv-
erside was his next location, then Bear Val-
ley, and finally San Jacinto, where he now
lives. There were few white people in this
section when Mr. Crawford first settled here
and he has been an active participant in the
great development the country has since un-
dergone. He has invested in farming prop-
erty, owning two hundred acres near Valle
Vista, one hundred and sixty acres near. Ca-
huilla and eighteen acres near San Jacinto.
Politically he is an advocate of the principles
of the Republican party.
TEOFILO VALDEZ. As the name would
indicate Mr. Valdez is a descendant of Spanish
ancestors, and he was born in California Jan-
uary 8, 1854. His father, Jose E. Valdez, was
also a native of the state, where he was well
known as a rancher and stock raiser. From
Jose G. Rocher, who was one of the heirs of
the rancho La Brea, the father purchased eleven
hundred and sixty acres of land, paying the
money therefor and receiving in return the deed
to the property. Twenty-five years later, in
some unknown way Henry Hancock ascertained
that the deed had never been recorded, an omis-
sion which in point of law made Mr. Valdez'
deed worthless, and for the sum of $1 he pur-
chased the land from Mr. Rocher, which a quar-
1058
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
ter of a century before he had handed over to
Mr. Valdez. A lawsuit necessarily followed,
which cost Mr. Valdez $30,000, but in spite of all
his efforts he was compelled to give up posses-
sion of the ranch in November 1879. Fron
that time until the latter years of his life he
traveled from place to place, his death occurring
at the home of his son near Hollywood. His
wife, formerly Cecelia Lopez, was also a native
of California, and by her marriage with Mr.
Valdez became the mother of four children, as
follows: Francisco P., Warsiza, Teofilo and
Martina.
After the loss of the old homestead Teofilo
Valdez took up one hundred and sixty acres in
what is now the beautiful city of Hollywood, and
here it was that his father passed his last days
in quiet and peace. Although Mr. Valdez still
owns one hundred and fifty acres there he now
makes his home in Sherman, where he also
owns considerable property, this being in the
choicest and most desirable part of the city.
While to some extent he sells and exchanges
property he makes a specialty of renting resi-
dences erected by himself, the well-planned
houses and desirable locations both tending to
make his undertaking a success.
By his marriage in 1876 Mr. Valdez was united
with Maria Antonia Corta, who was also a de-
scendant of a long line of Spanish ancestors,
her birth occurring in Los Angeles county on
the old Machado La Ballona rancho. As one
of the heirs to the estate she now owns three
tracts near Venice and Ocean Park. Of the nine
children who blessed the marriage of Mr. and
Mrs. Valdez eight are now living, as follows:
Teofilo D., Frank, Eliza, Jose E., Thomas, Mar-
tina, Eugene and Charles. Following the relig-
ious belief of their ancestors Mr. and Mrs. Val-
dez are Catholics, and in this faith their children
have also been reared. Following in the foot-
steps of his worthy father in matter of politics
Mr. Valdez believes in the principles of the Re-
publican party, to which he gives his allegiance
at all times.
COLUMBUS W. PATTERSON. One of
the most energetic and successful ranchmen of
the San Marcos district in San Diego county is
Columbus W. Patterson, who was born Novem-
ber 11, 1857, in Polk county, Mo., the son of
William and Elizabeth (Reed) Patterson, both
of whom were natives of Tennessee. The father
was at different times farmer, millwright and
storekeeper in Missouri, having been engaged in
the latter named business at Pleasanthope. The
parents were unusually strong and vigorous, the
father having lived to be seventy-six years of
age and the mother attained eighty years. Both
died in Missouri. They became the parents of
nine children, four of whom are still living.
Columbus W. received his education through
the medium of the public schools of Missouri
and when he grew to manhood engaged in farm-
ing in his native state for two years, then re-
moved to Kansas and was interested in cattle
on the ranges there for nine months, after which
he came to the Calico mining camp of California
and worked in the mines for two years. In 1886
he came to Buena, San Diego county, and filed
on a government claim of one hundred and sixty
acres, and also bought twenty-five acres in order
to get water on his holdings. The land is de-
voted to the cultivation of grain and hay crops,
and Mr. Patterson also finds that the raising of
chickens is a profitable part of successful ranch-
ing. He was married in 1886 to Miss Minnie
Vansandt, a native of Missouri, and they have
become the parents of two children, James and
Noel. Mr. Patterson is a stanch believer in the
principles advocated in the platform of the Dem-
Ocratic party, and takes an active interest in all
matters that tend to advance the community in
which he lives. He is a man of pleasing per-
sonality and stands high in the esteem of his
fellow-citizens.
JOSEPH CHARLES PEARSON. Among
the horticulturists of Los Angeles county men-
tion may be made of Joseph Charles Pearson,
who is located in El Monte and engaged in the
cultivation of a small but valuable ranch of his
own, and his father's ranch, a total of one hun-
dred and thirty acres all in walnuts and one-half
in full bearing. Mr. Pearson is the son of a
pioneer, having been brought to California by
his father, David F. Pearson, in 1886. The
elder man was born near Dayton, Ohio, a son
of Samuel Pearson, an emigrant from North
Carolina, who settled in Ohio and there reared
his family. In 1853 he removed to Cedar county,
Iowa, where he engaged in farming until his
death. He was a member of the Society of
Friends, a helpful and conscientious citizen, and
held in high esteem by all who knew him. David
F. Pearson engaged as a farmer in Iowa for
some years, then went to Kansas and followed a
like occupation near Dodge City, and in 1879
removed to Osage county, same state. He
farmed there until 1886, when he came to Cal-
ifornia, making his home in Wildomar for seven
years, after which, in 1893, he removed to El
Monte, where he engaged in the raising of wal-
nuts. He is now retired from active business
and is making his home in Pasadena, at No. 426
North Mentor street. His wife, formerly Annie
Michener, was born in Morgan county, Ohio,
a daughter of George Michener, a graduate phy-

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
1061
sician, the descendant of a prominent Quaker
family. She also survives and resides in Pasa-
dena. Of their six children, a son, George M.,
is county surveyor of Riverside county; Samuel
F., city engineer of Pasadena; and Joseph C.,
the subject of this review.
Next to the youngest in his father's family
Joseph Charles Pearson was born near West
Branch, Cedar county, Iowa, November 30, 1874,
and received his education in the public schools
of Kansas and California, being but twelve years
old when brought to the state. He assisted his
father in the improvement of the ranch in El
Monte, where they located in 1893, and later he
purchased sixteen acres adjoining the old home-
stead and set it to walnuts. He continued gen-
eral farming also and since his father's retire-
ment has taken charge of the entire property,
which is devoted to walnuts, alfalfa, garden
vegetables, etc. There are two wells on the place,
one hundred and fifty feet in depth each, with a
total capacity of three hundred and fifty inches.
He has been very successful in his work, is en-
ergetic and capable, and is building up for him-
self a competence and at the same time taking a
place among the representative citizens of the
community.
In Springville, Iowa, Mr. Pearson married
Miss Edith E. Hall, a native of Ohio, and daugh-
ter of Pearson Hall, a farmer in Iowa. They
have one son, Chester Charles. Mr. Pearson is
a member of the Society of Friends, and polit-
ically is a stanch adherent of the principles of
the Republican party.
JOSEPH DE MEULLE. As president of
the Harbor iron works of Long Beach Joseph
De Meulle is recognized as one of the most
prominent and influential business men of this
city. He was born November 22, 1850, in
Montreal, Canada, the son of Edward and
Margaret (Boulveau) De Meulle, both na-
tives of Canada, the former having been born
on the Isle of Orleans, province of Quebec.
As a young man he was a ship carpenter by
trade and later established shipyards in Corn-
wall, conducting the business until the time
of his death, at the age of fifty-six years. The
family was one of the oldest in Quebec, the
first member having come with the first
French troops sent to Canada. Six of the
eight children of this family are now living,
one son, Charles, being a resident of Long
Beach and in charge of the moulding depart-
ment of the iron works owned by his brother,
Joseph De Meulle.
Reared in Cornwall, Ontario, Mr. De Meulle
attended the common schools and later worked
as a ship carpenter, continuing at that em-
ployment until 1867, when he came to Cali-
fornia via the Nicaragua route on the San-
tiago de Cuba from New York to Greytown.
He spent some time on the American river, in
San Francisco and at Marysville, being em-
ployed at the latter place until April, 1868,
when he went to Virginia City, Nev. For a
year he was employed in a planing mill there
and became interested in mining, and in 1869
went to the White Pine (Nev.) country with a
surveying corps. He became a surveyor and
followed this occupation as well as mining for
about seven years, then took up contracting in
the same state, remaining there until 1880.
Removing to Utah he next engaged in stock-
raising and mining and established the horse-
shoe T brand on the Wah Wah ranch.
Retaining his interest in the ranch and other
properties, including charcoal kilns and iron
mines in Utah, Mr. De Meulle, in 1903, came
to Long Beach, purchased property on the cor-
ner of Fifth and Pacific avenue and has since
that time made this city his home. The Har-
bor iron works, of which he was an incor-
porator, is the leading manufacturing estab-
lishment here and a new plant is to be built
on the Riverside tract to keep pace with the
rapidly increasing demands made upon the
business. -
The marriage of Mr. De Meulle occurred in
Beaver county, Utah, uniting him with The-
resa Squire, a native of Echo Canon, in that
state. Fraternally he was made a Mason in
Long Beach Lodge No. 327, F. & A. M., and
also belongs to Long Beach Chapter No. 48,
R. A. M. He is an advocate of the principles
embraced in the platform of the Republican
party and as a public-spirited citizen is ac-
tively interested in every enterprise tending
to upbuild and develop the community in
which he resides.
HENRY JAY CAMP. A prominent resident
of the vicinity of De Luz, and one of the best
known men in this part of San Diego county,
Henry J. Camp has here been profitably engaged
in general agricultural for a full quarter of a
century, owning and occupying one of the most
attractive of the manv beautiful homesteads to
be found in this vicinity. As one of the oldest
settlers of this section of the state, he has con-
tributed his full share towards its intellectual
and moral progress, and as one of its early min-
isters of the gospel has done much missionary
work, laboring to incline the hearts and minds
of the people to religious things. Coming from
substantial New England stock, he was born,
February 13, 1843, in Medina county, Ohio. His
father, Israel Camp, a native of Connecticut,
1062
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
was fitted for the bar in his early manhood, and
during his brief life was engaged in the practice
of law in Ohio, being in partnership with Will-
iam H. Canfield. He married Sarah Higby,
who was born in New York, and she too, died
when young, leaving two orphan children,
namely: Charles I., who died at the age of nine-
teen years; and Henry Jay, the special subject
of this brief sketch.
His parents dying before he was five years of
age, Henry J. Camp was brought up in Con-
necticut, receiving his elementary education in
the common schools. Subsequently going to
Gambier, Ohio, he took a preparatory, academic
and collegiate course at Kenyon College, and in
1872 was graduated from its theological depart-
ment. Locating then in Circleville, Ohio, he
there had charge of St. Philip's Episcopal Church
for four years. Coming to California in 1876,
he spent a brief time in San Francisco, and then
came by steamer to San Diego, arriving in that
city on the last day of October. Continuing his
ministerial labors he became rector of the Church
of the Holy Trinity. Retiring from the active
work of the ministry in 1881 he turned his at-
tention to agricultural pursuits, taking up a gov-
ernment claim of two hundred acres near De
Luz, and here, by dint of untiring labor and ex-
cellent management, he has improved a valuable
estate. He raises some grain, and in addition
to general ranching does considerable fancy
farming, keeping bees, cows and poultry, and
having a good orchard of various kinds of fruit,
and an olive grove containing sixty trees that
are in a bearing condition.
In 1871 Mr. Camp married Mary Nash, a
daughter of the late Asa Nash, and sister of
George K. Nash, a former governor of Ohio,
and they are the parents of two children, namely:
Irvine Nash, a well-known dairyman of River-
side; and Charles H., who is employed in the
San Jose car shops. A Socialist in politics, Mr.
Camp takes an intelligent interest in everything
pertaining to local affairs, and as a loyal citizen
never shirks his public duties, but has served as
roadmaster, school trustee and as deputy county
clerk of San Diego county. Regaining a fair
degree of health from outdoor work, in 1890
Mr. Camp took up missionary work in the
county, serving at Murrietta, Temecula, Fall-
brook, Escondido and Bostonia.
WILLIAM REIMAN. Many of the most
industrious and enterprising members of the
farming population of Ventura county have
come from the land beyond the seas, Germany
furnishing some of our most prosperous agri-
culturists. Noteworthy among these valued
citizens is William Reiman, who is actively em-
ployed in his independent occupation of the
Schiappa Pietra ranch, where he has met with
unquestioned success in the cultivation of beans.
A Son of the late Joseph Reiman, he was born,
November 4, 1861, in Hanover, Germany, and
was there trained to habits of industry and thrift.
Joseph Reiman spent a large part of his life
in the Fatherland, where he labored hard to
give his wife and children the comforts of life,
Determining if possible to better his financial
condition, he immigrated with his family to
America in 1881, coming directly to the Santa
Clara valley, Cal., where he settled as a per-
manent resident, living there until his death.
His wife, whose maiden name was Elizabeth
(Schneider), still lives in that locality, being a
bright and active woman of seventy-six years.
After completing his early education in the
public Schools of Germany, William Reiman
worked in different hotels in his native city, be-
ing employed in various capacities. In 1881 he
came with the family to the United States, land-
ing at San Francisco. Locating in the Santa
Clara valley, he has since been profitably em-
ployed in tilling the soil. Energetic and per-
Severing, he has met with genuine success in
his labors, and is now carrying on one hundred
and forty-five acres of land, twenty-five of which
he owns. Seventy acres are devoted to the rais-
ing of lima beans, the remainder being in bar-
ley. For the past twelve years he has also en-
gaged in raising fine black Minorca fowles.
May 21, 1896, Mr. Reiman married Bertha
Adam, a native of St. Paul, Minn. Two chil-
dren were born of their union, both of whom
died in infancy. Politically Mr. Reiman is an
independent Democrat, voting as his conscience
dictates, regardless of party restrictions. Re-
ligiously both Mr. and Mrs. Reiman are members
of the Oxnard Catholic Church.
QUINCY C. WEBSTER. That portion of
Los Angeles county embraced between the city
of Los Angeles and the Pacific Ocean was but
Sparsely settled at the time of Mr. Webster's
arrival in the locality. The villages now rank-
ing among the growing towns of the county had
not been platted or, if already laid out in lots,
were of very insignificant proportions. The
county, however, was beginning to draw
permanent settlers of fine character and
the resources of the soil were becoming
increasingly known as the result of study
and experiment. On first coming to this county
he assisted his father, James C., in the cultiva-
tion of the ranch situated one mile from Ingle-
wood, known then as the old ranch place of Dan
Freeman, and later personally operated by Mr.
Webster himself. After the death of his father


HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
1065
he took charge of the tract of three hundred and
fifty acres, under cultivation to grain, corn and
alfalfa, and retained its management until No-
vember 1, 1906, since which time he has been
engaged in the hay and feed business in Los
Angeles, at the corner of Vernon and Central
aVe11116S. -
Hill county in the state of Texas is Mr. Web-
ster's native place and May 23, 1871, the date
of his birth. The family is of old southern line-
age. His father was born and reared in Ala-
bama, but at an early age accompanied other
members of the family to Texas, at that time a
new country with few American settlers. Se-
curing a large tract of land, he took up stock-
raising and general ranch pursuits, and for many
years remained in that state extensively engaged
in agricultural affairs. There he met and mar-
ried Miss Melissa Taylor, who was born in Ala- .
bama, but removed to Texas in childhood, and
died at the age of twenty-eight years. Four
children were born of their union, namely:
Quincy C., the subject of this sketch : Walter,
who is engaged in the management of a stage
line at Cass, Mexico; Emmett, a clerk in Los
Angeles; and Jessie, wife of Giles E. Stevens,
who is employed in the registry department of
the Los Angeles postoffice.
Disposing of his interests in Texas in 1890,
James C. Webster came to California and re-
mained for one year on a ranch in Ventura coun-
ty, after which he removed to Inglewood, Los
Angeles county, and there died January 7, 1897,
at fifty-three years of age.
tive life he was a worker in the Democratic party
and maintained a warm interest in local affairs.
As previously stated, upon his death the man-
agement of the ranch was assumed by his son
Quincy C., who was united in marriage, April
25, 1904, with Miss Nita Carpenter, a native
of Kansas, and has until recently made his home
at the old ranchhouse. With his wife he holds
membership in the Presbyterian Church and con-
tributes to the maintenance of the same; for
some years he officiated as an elder of the con-
gregation. Like his father, he favors the Dem-
ocratic party, but he is liberal in his views
and in local affairs believes the character and
intelligence of the candidate to be of greater im-
portance than his views concerning national
problems.
DANIEL DONOVAN. As the name indi-
cates, the Donovan family comes of Irish line-
age. Their establishment in the United States
is an event of the present generation, but no
native-born sons of our country have been
more loyal than they. John and Kate (Swee-
ny) Donovan, who were lifelong residents of
the Emerald Isle, were the parents of seven
All through his ac-
children, of whom one daughter and one son
(Daniel) reside in California, and another son,
Patrick, for years before his death held a
prominent position among the ranchers of the
valley near Arroyo Grande. The member of
the family whose name introduces this sketch
was born in County Cork, Ireland, January 5,
1842, and remained at home until sixteen years
of age, meanwhile availing himself of such ed-
ucational advantages as the circumstances of
the family rendered possible.
An uneventful voyage via the Isthmus of
Panama brought Mr. Donovan to San Fran-
cisco in 1866, and there he remained for two
years working at the trade of a shoemaker.
For a year he also worked in the mines. Next
he removed to Watsonville and engaged in the
retail shoe business for two years, but at the
expiration of that time he disposed of the bus-
iness and removed to Monterey county, where
he took up land from the government. Six
busy years were spent on the land, which he
devoted principally to the raising of cattle.
Selling out his interests in 1877, he brought
forty-five head of milch cows to Guadaloupe,
Santa Barbara county, and from there came to
Nipomo, San Luis Obispo county, where for
four years he engaged in the stock business in
partnership with J. Sheehy. On the division
of their interests Mr. Donovan came to Los
Berros valley, San Luis Obispo county, and
bought his present ranch of five hundred and
four acres, of which one hundred and fifty
acres are in pasture and the balance under cul-
tivation to grain and beans. -
The marriage of Mr. Donovan was solemn-
ized in Watsonville in 1869 and united him
with Miss Mary McSweeney, who was born
in Cork, Ireland, and came to the United
States with her mother, settling in San Fran-
cisco. Her education was received in the
schools of that city. Possessing a kind dis-
position and pleasant manner, she won many
friends and her death in 1904 was mourned by
all of her acquaintances. One of her daugh-
ters, Maggie Frances, had died at the age of
fourteen years. The other, Mary C., is mar-
ried to M. W. Phelan, by whom she has one
child. In religious connections Mr. Donovan
was reared in the Catholic faith and now holds
membership with the church of that denomi-
nation in Arroyo Grande. Ever since becom-
ing familiar with the platforms of the different
political parties he has given his support to the
Democratic party and votes the regular ticket
in national elections. For a number of years
he held the position of deputy assessor, but
with that exception he has held no offices and
has not been a candidate for such positions,
preferring to devote himself to the duties con-
1066
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
Inected with his ranch. Genial and companion-
able, he is a man whom it is a pleasure to
meet Socially, and whose long identification
with the locality entitles him to the honored
position accorded all pioneers.
FRANK M. NEWSOM. Among the en-
terprising and successful agriculturists of Los
Angeles county are many men who bring to
their calling great skill, much ability and ex-
cellent judgment. Ranking among these is
Frank M. Newsom, who is busily employed
in his chosen occupation on his well cultivated
ranch near Inglewood. He was born, August
I8, 1860, in North Carolina, which was like-
wise the birthplace of his father, Jerry V.
Newsom. Born in North Carolina Jerry V.
Newsom was reared to agricultural pursuits,
and during his entire life has been engaged in
farming. In his early days he owned a large
plantation and had many slaves to do the work.
T)uring the Civil war he enlisted in a North
Carolina regiment and served in the Confed-
erate army during the entire conflict. But
few of his slaves left him when freed, the ma-
jority of them remaining on the plantation and
subsequently working for wages. He still
owns and occupies the old home place. He
married Anna Nickleson, and of the seven
children born of their union six are living,
namely: Frank M., Matthew, Alex, Lena,
Lucie and ILizzie. The mother, who was a
faithful Christian woman and a member of
the Presbyterian Church, died on the home
farm.
The oldest child of the parental household,
Frank M. Newsom was educated in the district
schools, and while assisting his father on the
old plantation acquired a good knowledge of
agriculture. Leaving home at the age of
twenty-one years, he migrated to Texas, where
be followed farming for four years. Coming
from there to California in 1885, he spent a
few months in Pasadena, later in the year com-
ing to Inglewood, where he has improved a
good ranch. This he is operating successful-
ly, carrying on general farming after the most
approved modern methods.
In 1901 Mr. Newsom married Anna Young,
who was born in Austria. Politically he is an
earnest supporter of the principles of the Dem-
ocratic party.
JOHN L. WEAVER. Among the energetic
and enterprising men who have assisted in de-
veloping the rich agricultural resources of South-
ern California, the name of John L. Weaver
should receive special mention. In the pursuit
of his chosen vocation he is directing his ener-
gies wisely and well, and is meeting with note-
worthy success, his ranch, located in Wiseburn,
comparing favorably as regards its improve-
ments with any in this section of the county. He
was born, in 1865, at Mount Vernon, Ohio,
which was also the birthplace of his father, Phil-
ip M. Weaver.
A farmer by occupation, Philip M. Weaver
began his agricultural labors in his native state,
but after a few years went to Minnesota to look
about. Not liking that country, he came to Cali-
fornia with his family in 1869, locating in the
Sacramento valley, where he bought land, and
carried on farming and stock-raising for seven
years. Going thence to Kern county, he re-
mained there five years. Removing to Los An-
geles in 1885, he resided there until his death,
October 4, 1904. Of the five children born of
their union four are living, namely: John L.,
of this review ; Mrs. Mary Damon, of Shasta
county, Cal.; Mrs. Hattie Miller, of Joplin, Mo.;
and Nelson, of San Francisco. John L., is the
youngest son of the family.
Coming with his parents to California when
but four years of age, John L. Weaver received
a practical education in the public schools, and
while young became familiar with the various
branches of agriculture. At the age of twenty-
five years he began farming on his own account
in Los Angeles county. Subsequently locating
in the Wiseburn district, he bought a ranch,
and has since carried on general farming on
a large scale. By the exercise of his native in-
dustry and his able business capacity he has
met with success. Though not an aspirant for
office, he takes a genuine interest in local and
national affairs, and is a stanch adherent of the
Republican party. -
In 1879 Mr. Weaver married Magneta White,
a native of Kansas, and they are the parents of
four children, namely: Wallace H., Bessie, Hat-
tie and Charles B. Fraternally Mr. Weaver be-
longs to Redondo Lodge No. 328, F. & A. M.,
and with his wife is a member of the Order of
the Eastern Star, of which his daughter Bessie
is (1906) Worthy Matron.
LOUIS B. HARDIN. Closely identified with
the agricultural interests of Los Angeles county
is Louis B. Hardin, who is pleasantly located
four and one-half miles southwest of Ingle-
wood, not far from Wiseburn. Industrious and
progressive, possessing excellent judgment and
good business ability, he is carrying on general
farming with satisfactory pecuniary results, in
his chosen occupation having amassed a comfort-
able competence. A son of the late Nathan C.
Hardin, he was born, September 28, 1862, in
Delaware, Ohio. -
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
1067
A native of Ohio, Nathan C. Hardin was born
in Delaware in June, 1821. Succeeding to the
occupation to which he was reared, he carried
On general farming for many years in his native
place, being especially interested in raising cat-
tle and sheep. During the Civil war he served
as a soldier, belonging to an Ohio regiment,
and participated in many engagements, including
among others both of the battles at Bull Run.
Being mustered out of service at the close of
the war, he returned to his farm, resuming his
former employment. In 1866 he moved with
his family to Missouri, where he bought land,
improved a farm, and was there successfully en-
gaged in agricultural pursuits until his death,
in May, 1893. He married Julia Sellers, who
was born in Delaware county, Ohio, and died, in
I899, in Missouri, aged sixty-nine years. Six
children were born of their union, and all grew
to years of maturity, namely: Laura, Henry,
Louis B., Sarah, Joseph and Mary
Receiving a practical education in the common
schools of Ohio, Louis B. Hardin began life
for himself when a boy of fourteen years, work-
ing as a farm hand, first in Missouri, and after-
wards in Kansas, remaining thus employed un-
til taking upon himself the responsibilities of
a married man. In 1893, disposing of his in-
terests in the middle west he came to California,
purchased the land on which he is now living,
and has since improved a valuable ranch, his
estate in its appointments being one of the best
in the community.
In 1886, in Missouri, Mr. Hardin married
Violet Tharp, and into their pleasant household
four children have been born, namely: Charles
C., Retta, Ray H. and Louis B., Jr. Fraternal-
ly Mr. Hardin belongs to the Royal Arcanum,
and politically he is a strong Republican, but has
had neither time nor inclination to take an ac-
tive part in public affairs.
JOHN DAWSON ARDIS. The Ardis fam-
ily has been represented in the vicinity of Dow-
ney, Los Angeles county, since 1868, when John
C. Ardis sought a home in California because
of its unsurpassed climatic conditions. He was
a native of Georgia and the descendant of an
honored ancestry. Receiving his education in
Emory College, at Oxford, Ga., he subsequent-
ly engaged in the practice of law, but afterward
entered the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal
Church South. After his removal to Arkansas,
which took place in 1857, he engaged in teach-
ing and continued so occupied for a number
of years. The close confinement gradually told
upon his health, until he found it expedient to
seek both a change of climate and occupation,
and in July, 1868, he came to California with
nest life.
the intention of making this state his home. In
the vicinity of Downey he purchased a twenty-
five acre ranch, barren of all improvement or
cultivation, and with no promise of the great
productiveness which the future was destined to
yield in return for unremitting effort. The death
of Mr. Ardis occurred nine years later, on the
24th of December, 1877, and though the time
was short, yet he improved well his opportunity
and laid the foundation for the competence
which his property should yield. With his re-
moval from the active affairs of the community
there passed away a man of exceptional ability
and worth, one strong in the inherited qualities
of manhood, generous in his citizenship, unsel-
fish and devoted in his home, and always a power
for the moral uplifting of those about him. Al-
ways stanch in his support of right and justice,
he was chosen at various times to positions of
public honor and trust, as a member of the Ar-
kansas State legislature for two years endeavor-
ing to advance the best interests of the citizen-
ship of the state, the influence won by a splendid
personality being held by the display of honest,
earnest manhood and worthy purpose.
The marriage of Mr. Ardis united him with a
member of an old and honored southern family,
whose first ancestor settled in Virginia in the
early colonial days, when the name of Harris
was prominent in public affairs. Frances Aman-
da Harris was a daughter of the far southern
branch, an ancestor having located in Alabama,
where her birth occurred. As befitted the daugh-
ters of the southern aristocracy she received an
excellent education in the Female College at La-
Grange, Ga., after which, in young womanhood,
she met and married Mr. Ardis. She survived
her husband many years, passing away Decem-
ber I, IOO2, after many years of useful and ear-
Eleven children blessed the union of
Mr. and Mrs. Ardis, of whom John D. is a
rancher at Downey; Isaac L., deceased, was for-
merly a resident of Downey, and for over twenty
years was an engineer with the Southern Pacific
Railroad; Sallie A. is the wife of A. S. Gray,
a rancher of Downey; Lida T., the wife of Dr.
Q. J. Rowley, of Los Angeles, was a teacher in
the schools of Downey for about fourteen years;
Julius H. is a successful attorney of Downey;
William M. is associated with a wholesale
leather house in Los Angeles, and Julia is the
wife of J. H. McCullough, a dealer in imple-
ments in Downey. By the upright lives of the
men and women who bear the name of Ardis
they have gained a wide influence throughout
the community, and are justly named among the
citizens who have given most for the upbuilding
and development of this section.
John Dawson Ardis is the oldest surviving
child of the Ardis family, his birth having oc-
1068
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
curred in Russell county, Ala., January I4, 1849,
his early life being passed in his native state,
where he received a preliminary education
through the medium of the subscription schools.
Accompanying his parents to Arkansas in 1857,
he completed his studies under the instruction
of his father and in Arkansas College. In De-
cember, 1867, he came to California with his
parents, who made the trip in their own con-
veyances, and on the 28th of July, 1868, ar-
rived in the vicinity of Downey, where he has
ever since resided. Here his father purchased
a ranch of twenty-five acres, devoid of all culti-
vation or improvement. Nothing daunted by
the prospect Mr. Ardis gave himself heartily
to the work of cultivation, and passing years
have ably demonstrated his ability, for he is now
the owner of a well-paying ranch of walnut,
orange and apple orchards, to whose cultivation
he gives his entire time and attention. Thirty-
eight years have passed away since he came to
this location and on the same ranch he has made
his home ever since, and in the same commun-
ity has won a place among the substantial and
upright men, who can always be counted upon
to further any plan for the advancement of the
country’s welfare. He established home ties De-
cember 2, 1899, when he married Ada V.
(Rudd) Anderson, a native of Iowa, in which
state her father, James Rudd, was also born,
and thence removed to California and located in
the vicinity of Downey. Mr. Ardis has two chil-
dren, John Rudd and Glenn Dawson. Both him-
self and wife are devoted members of the Method-
ist Episcopal Church South, and are liberal in
their support of its charities, Mr. Ardis having
been associated with this religious denomination
since the age of eight years. He has held every
office in the church and is at present officiating
as trustee and steward. In his political convic-
tions he is a stanch adherent of the principles
advocated in the platform of the Democratic
party, and fraternally is identified with the Ma-
sonic organization, being past master of Dow-
ney Lodge No. 220, F. A. M. Like his father
Mr. Ardis has always stood for good govern-
ment, the improvement and upbuilding of pub-
lic utilities and private interests, and no man has
been more active than he in the promotion of all
enterprises tending toward this end. Personally
he combines many traits which have won him a
wide circle of friends and makes his influence
far-reaching.
MYRON NELSON CASTERLINE. In
Oceanside, San Diego county, are to be found
many live, energetic, persevering business men,
prominent among whom may be mentioned the
name of Myron Nelson Casterline, a well-known
contractor and builder. By his own unaided
efforts he has achieved success, and is in fact
a self-made man in every sense implied by the
term. With his natural endowments of fine
health, strong hands and a clear, cool brain, he
started out in life with a determination to win,
and gaining experience and business ability as
the years have quickly fled, he has become very
prosperous while yet in manhood’s prime, his
record being one of which he may well be proud.
A Son of John Casterline, he was born, January
20, 1865, in Scott county, Minn., coming from
thrifty Scotch-Irish ancestry.
Barnabas Casterline, the grandfather of M.
N. Casterline, was born, reared and married in
New York state. Removing with his family to
Minnesota in 1844, he became one of the brave
pioneer farmers of that state, settling there when
the country was in its original wildness, game of
all kinds being abundant, while the Indians far
outnumbered the white people. For awhile he
was engaged in trading with the Redmen, first
at Fort Snelling, and later at Mendota. Sub-
sequently moving still farther into the forest, he
settled near two small bodies of water, Spring
Lake and Prone Lake, where he carried on
general farming until his death, in 1883.
A native of Cayuga county, N. Y., John Caster-
line removed with his parents to Minnesota when
a boy, and there assisted in the pioneer labor of
clearing and improving a tract of wild land. He
learned the trades of carpenter, builder and mill-
wright, and followed these for a number of years.
During the Civil war he served in a Minnesota
regiment of volunteer infantry, after which he
returned to his home in Scott county. In 1884
he removed with his family to Osakis, Douglas
county, where he engaged in contracting and
building for awhile, and at the present time is
a resident of Cass Lake, Cass county. His wife,
whose maiden name was Sarah McCullum, was
born in Pennsylvania, removed with her parents
to Minnesota when a girl, and died a few years
after her marriage, leaving three children, of
whom Myron Nelson, the subject of this sketch,
is the first-born.
Receiving but a limited education in the dis-
trict Schools of Scott county, which he attended
rather irregularly until twelve years old, Myron
Nelson Casterline began to be self-supporting
when but eleven years old. He worked as a farm
laborer, drifting about in different parts of the
State until coming of age, when he went to St.
Paul, where he served an apprenticeship at the
carpenter’s trade. Going subsequently to Oregon,
he worked at his trade in Portland from 1890
until 1893, when he settled as a contractor and
builder in Phoenix, Ariz., remaining there seven
years. The following two years he was similar-
ly employed at Prescott, Ariz., and from 1902

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
1071
until 1905 was one of the leading builders and
contractors of Hollywood, Los Angeles county,
Cal., where he built up a fine business. Coming
to Oceanside in 1905, he bought land and built
a fine residence, on Corona Heights, where he
now resides, his home being pleasant and at-
tractive. Continuing in his former Occupation,
he is one of the foremost builders and contrac-
tors of this section of San Diego county, and is
carrying on a large remunerative business, draw-
ing his own plans and erecting some of the finest
and best-appointed buildings of Southern Cali-
fornia. -
In Phoenix, Ariz., Mr. Casterline married
Mary Monahan, a native of Ireland, and they
have one child, Clissie May. Mr. Casterline
is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
and in politics he is a Prohibitionist. He is
public-spirited, generous and liberal, and while
living in St. Paul, Minn., served for two years
in the Artillery Company, Union Guards.
CALEB E. WHITE. No more courageous
and hopeful pioneer braved the dangers of the
trip to California by the straits of Magellan in
1849 than Caleb E. White, and with as much
certainty may it be said that none labored
more indefatigably than did he for the ad-
vancement of his adopted state. As early as
1852 he began raising fruit on the American
river, an attempt which met with discourage-
ments at first but with keen foresight he real-
ized that the conditions of climate and soil
were adapted for this branch of agriculture,
and instead of giving up the project, renewed
his efforts with even more zeal. Be it said to
his credit that he was the pioneer in the rais-
ing of navel oranges in California. Such was
his success in the raising of this special fruit,
that at one time he planted and cultivated a
three hundred acre orange grove for Oakland
capitalists. Had he accomplished no more for
his adopted home state than creating and sus-
taining the interest in horticultural affairs
which followed from his example he would
have been counted a benefactor, but this was
only one avenue of his usefulness, and his
death, September 2, 1902, was counted a pub-
lic loss.
A native of Massachusetts, Mr. White was
born in Holbrook, Norfolk county, February
5, 1830, his father, Jonathan White, being a
native of that same New England state. The
latter was a prominent manufacturer there
and well known in business circles in the east.
His busy and useful life came to a close in
1875, when he was in his eighty-eighth year.
His wife, formerly Abigail Holbrook, lived to
attain the remarkable age of ninety-two years.
rivers.
In the quiet precincts of his home town near
Boston Caleb E. White was reared, but the
spot was not so secluded that it did not hear
the thrilling reports that followed the finding
of gold in California in 1848. In February of
1849 he was one of the passengers who board-
ed the brig Arcadia at Boston bound for San
Francisco by way of Cape Horn. An exceed-
ingly tiresome voyage of two hundred and six-
ty-three days finally brought them to the
Golden Gate, through which they passed Oc-
tober 29.
With several others who had accompanied
him on the voyage Mr. White opened a mer-
cantile business in Sacramento, and under the
name of Haskell, White & Co. business was
carried on for one year, after which, until 1852,
Mr. White was sole proprietor. In the latter
year he sold out and engaged in fruit raising
on grant land on the American river, an enter-
prise which as yet was entirely unknown in
that part of the country, but he lived to see
the triumph of his efforts and share in the
prosperity of the country, to which more than
to any other one source is traceable the rais-
ing of fruit. The land was part of a Spanish
grant, and he lost it after having built up a fine
home. His efforts were not without discour-
agements, for in shipping the trees from the
east many of them were destroyed in
transit or died afterward, and to obviate this
he decided to start a nursery of his own. This
lie established on his home place and later on
he purchased one with Mr. Hollister. The
business grew and prospered, and at the time
he sold his ranch in 1868 he was the largest
fruit raiser on the American and Sacramento
It was in the latter year that he lo-
cated in San Luis Obispo county and estab-
lished himself as a sheep raiser, an industry
in which he was destined to become as well
known as he was in horticultural lines, his
prime object being the production of wool,
rather than raising sheep for the market. The
following year, 1869, he came to Los Angeles
county and established a sheep ranch at what
is now Florence, carrying it on with excellent
results for ten years, during which time he
lived in Los Angeles, in order to educate his
children. During this time he became closely
associated with the business affairs of that
city, and in 1875 and '76 conducted the Los
Angeles Emigration and Land Co-operative
Association, of which company he was a di-
1"ectOr.
It was in 1880 that Mr. White came to PO-
mona and connected himself financially and SO-
cially with the city which was to be his last
home. After the Los Angeles Emigration and
Co-operative Association went down with the
1072
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
boom it became absorbed by the Pomona Land
and Water Company and he was no longer
actively associated with it. Resuming his in-
terest in horticulture, he secured a number of
the finest locations for fruit raising that it was
possible to find and in the years that followed
concentrated his efforts along this line of ag-
riculture with unflagging energy. As a com-
pensation for his efforts he had the satisfaction
of knowing that he owned some of the finest
orange orchards in the San José valley. He
also produced a large variety of deciduous
fruits. Mr. White was also a large property
owner in this city, most of it being in the
business portion and included among his hold-
ings was the White block.
Mr. White's marriage in 1855 united him
with Mrs. Rebecca A. (Ferguson) Holship, a
native of Missouri, born in St. Louis Decem-
ber 12, 1835. When she was about sixteen
years of age she became the wife of E. B. Hol-
ship, and soon after their marriage they start-
ed across the plains behind mule teams. Their
experiences with the Indians were many and
exciting, and at one time in their travels they
journeyed three days and three nights with-
out stopping in order to keep in advance of
their dusky foe. The ravages of cholera, how-
ever, which broke out while en route, depleted
their number considerably and caused great
suffering and sorrow, and upon reaching Sac-
ramento Mr. Holship was added to its victims.
Of the two children born to Mr. and Mrs. Hol-
ship one died at the age of five years and John
died in Los Angeles at the age of eighteen.
Four children blessed the marriage of Mr. and
Mrs. White. Helen M. became the wife of
Thomas J. Caystile, the latter now deceased;
he was the first editor of the Los Angeles
Times. Nannie became the wife of Charles L.
Northcraft, of Pomona; Harry R. married
Miss Mary Blainey, and with their four chil-
dren they reside in Pomona; Abigail died in
early childhood. In his political affiliations
Mr. White was a stanch Republican and fra-
ternally he was a Mason, belonging to Pental-
pha Lodge No. 202, F. & A. M., of Los An-
geles. As would be expected of one as deeply
devoted to the city’s welfare he was a member
of the Board of Trade. He was also a work-
ing member of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, and for years had served in the ca-
pacity of vice-president of the People's Bank
of Pomona. It would be impossible to over-
estimate Mr. White's value as a pioneer settler
in Los Angeles county and also in Pomona,
for besides being the father of horticulture in
the state, he was no less a father to the strug-
gling town in which he settled. Through his
efforts the first school house in the town was
made a possibility and he was the prime mover
in the installation of the first water system and
erected the first hotel. At his death Septem-
ber 2, 1902, he left a host of friends who had
been intimately associated with him in his
business and social life, all of whom admired
him for his many manly and noble traits.
MRS. MARGARET MEHEGAN. During
her long residence in California, embracing a
period of more than thirty years, Mrs. Mehegan
has witnessed the growth and development of
the Pacific coast region and has been loyally de-
voted to the welfare of the west. The scenes
familiar to her mature years are far removed
from those associated with her girlhood, for she
is a native of the Atlantic coast country, and
was born at Hodgaon, Aroostook county, Me.,
December 14, 1837. The schools of that day and
locality were poorly equipped with facilities for
the training of the young, hence her advantages
were meagre, yet, by reason of habits of ciose
observation and study, she is now a well-in-
formed woman. June 14, 1864, she became the
wife of William Mehegan, who lived in the same
neighborhood in Maine as that in which her
girlhood years had been passed. As indicated
by the name, Mr. Mehegan belonged to an Irish
family. In that country he was born February
2, 1838, but he retained no recollections of the
land of his birth, for he was only two years of
age when his family sought the larger oppor-
tunities of the United States. Reared to a
knowledge of farm work, he chose that occupa-
tion upon starting out in the world for himself,
and for some years he and his wife lived upon
a Maine farm, but about 1870 they moved to
Pennsylvania and settled in Butler county, where
he was employed in the laying of pipe tunnels.
in the oil regions.
After removing to California in 1875 Mr.
Mehegan ran a stationary engine in San Fran-
cisco, under the employ of the Aetna iron works,
but in a short time he resigned the position and
came to the southern coast. Under the impres-
sion that the Rosecrans tract belonged to the
government, he located one hundred and six-
ty acres there and remained for three years,
when the courts decided that the property was
not open to settlement. Afterward he remained
on the same farm as a tenant of the Rosecrans
estate and there his death occurred October 16
1884. Four years after he had passed away his
widow removed to the present site of Ingle-
wood and bought an acre of vacant property,
where she erected a residence and now makes
her home. In addition she still owns other lots
in Inglewood and has bought and sold some.
real-estate in the town. Notwithstanding her
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
1073
advanced years, she is active mentally and physi-
cally and able to superintend all of her affairs,
which she does with precision and economy. In
her family there are five children, named as fol-
lows: Anna, who is with her mother; William
J., who is engaged in farming near Marysville,
this state; Charles A., who is employed in the
mines of Inyo county, this state; Walter Jo-
seph, residing in Inglewood; and Edward, who
is in Los Angeles, holding a position with a
business establishment of that city.
THOMAS POLLARD. Hospitality and
liberality are the prime factors in the home
owned by Mr. Pollard, who is located two
miles south of El Monte, Los Angeles county,
and since 1892 has been engaged in the culti-
vation of peat land and the improvement of a
ranch, where his friends receive a cordial wel-
come and the stranger a hospitable hand. He
inherits his chief characteristics from Eng-
lish ancestry, his birth having occurred in
Cornwall, England, April 24, 1856; his father,
John Pollard, was a native of that place and
the representative of one of the oldest families
of the section. He engaged in mining in Corn-
wall, where he spent his entire life with the
exception of a few years in America, from
1869, when he came to the Pacific coast via
Cape Horn, and entered the service of the
Union Pacific Railroad Company, being em-
ployed in the building of the line through the
Sierra mountains. He married Jane Hore,
also a native of Cornwall, and daughter of
William Hore, a miner; her death also oc-
curred in that location. They were the pa-
rents of nine children, of whom but two are
now surviving, Thomas Pollard being the
youngest.
Thomas Pollard was eighteen years old be-
fore he left his native country; his education
had been received in the common schools and
his youth spent in the lead and tin mines of
his home section. In 1874 he came to Amer-
ica, drawn hither by the glowing reports sent
him by his uncles, who came to Pasadena,
Cal., that year and there engaged in business.
Thomas went to Michigan first and in Mar-
Quette engaged in the iron mines for a time.
In 1881 he started westward, locating in Utah
and mining in Park City for a brief time, then
spending one year in Montana, similarly oc-
cupied, when he came to California and in
Amador county followed quartz mining for
two years. He came to Los Angeles county
in 1890; two years later he located on his
present property, purchasing fifteen acres of
tule and willow land, which he proceeded to
ditch and drain and cultivate. His first crop
was potatoes, which turned out two hundred
sacks to the acre. He is now occupied in rais-
ing celery, which he ships east to Kansas City
and Chicago markets, and has also a nursery
of walnut and apple trees.
In Cornwall, England, in 1889, Mr. Pollard
was united in marriage with Miss Jane Mit-
chell, a native of that place, and daughter of
John Mitchell, a farmer of that locality and
the descendant of a long line of Welsh ances-
try, prominent in the history of that section.
His wife was in maidenhood Christina Hare,
a native also of Cornwall, and of this union
were born ten children, three of whom are
now living, Mrs. Pollard being the oldest. Mr.
and Mrs. Pollard have one son, Thomas, Jr.
Fraternally Mr. Pollard is a member of the
Knights of Pythias, and politically is a Re-
publican. He is a strong temperance advocate
and loses no opportunity to assist the move-
ment. Both himself and wife are members of
the Methodist Episcopal Church, but their re-
ligion is not narrow or circumscribed, and be-
ing the first of their denomination in this sec-
tion they were among the first to assist the
Presbyterians in erecting a church at Moun-
tain View, Mr. Pollard helping to haul lum-
ber from Los Angeles. In 1904 there were
sufficient members of the Methodist Church
to justify the erection of a building, and Mr.
Pollard was again a chief organizer in this
enterprise, and is now a trustee and class-
leader and a man and citizen always to be de-
pended upon in every movement looking to-
ward the general welfare of the community.
FRANK AYERS. To become a successful
ranchman requires as much business ability and
painstaking care in looking after details as are
necessary in any other occupation, and it is a
pleasure to meet a progressive farmer who is
energetic and ambitious and proud of his ac-
complishments. Frank Ayers is one of the most
successful of this class of men in the Ojai valley
and he has just finished a new fine house and
made new outbuildings and otherwise improved
his ranch. In one holding he has one hundred and
six acres of fertile land and in another one hun-
dred and twenty acres, the latter being now
planted to wheat, oats and barley; next year he
will engage in alfalfa raising—one of the most
profitable crops a farmer can grow in Southern
California. There is a fine artesian well on his
place which furnishes an abundance of water
for all purposes.
Frank Ayers was born in Sonoma county,
Cal., March II, 1861, of Irish-American parent-
age, his father, Robert Ayers, being a native of
Ireland, who immigrated to California in 1849,
1074
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
and joined the army of progressive men who
were eager to have a share in the wonderful op-
portunities which this country afforded. He first
went to the mines and worked for a time, but
later deciding to engage in ranching, removed
to Ventura county, where he remained until the
time of his death, at the age of Seventy-four
years. His mother, Annie Connor before her
marriage, was a native of Pennsylvania; she
lived to be sixty-four years old, her death also
occurring in Ventura county. There were seven
children in the family, of whom six are still
living, four of them in Ventura county, and two
in Petaluma, Sonora county. Frank Ayers was
but seven years of age when his parents brought
him to Ventura county in 1868, and all of his
early education was received in the Ventura
county public schools. After reaching maturity
he worked on the ranch at home for a time, but
soon managed to acquire an independent property
and in 1885 he married Miss Fannie A. Smith,
one of Ohio's native daughters, and established .
a home of his own. Two children have been
born to this union, Bertha and Kenneth.
While Mr. Ayers is a firm believer in the
policies advocated in the platform of the Demo-
cratic party, in local affairs he reserves the right
to vote an independent ticket and helps to elect
the men whom he thinks will most honestly and
efficiently discharge the duties devolving upon
them. Progressive, energetic and public spirited,
he is one of the most highly esteemed citizens
of Ventura county.
J. L. VAN DERVEER. Numbered among
the progressive business men of Escondido is
J. L. Van Derveer, an energetic, brainy man,
actively indentified with the mercantile interests
of this section of the county, and a valued as-
sistant in promoting its prosperity. Although it
is a compartively brief time since he entered
upon his present career, he is conducting his
business in a most systematic manner, and by
his strict attention to all of its details, and his
thoroughly upright dealings, he has met with
most gratifying success and is fast making for
himself an honorable record. A son of the late
D. S. Van Derveer, he was born in the town of
Lysander, near Syracuse, N.Y., April 17, 1874,
being the youngest of a family of eight children,
seven of whom are living, and the only one on
the Pacific coast. His grandfather, Garrett Van
Derveer, was born in New Jersey, the descendant
of a Holland-Dutch family. After his marriage
he removed to New York state, becoming a
pioneer of Onondaga county, where from the
heavily timbered land he cleared and improved
a farm.
Born on the pioneer homestead of his parents
in Lysander, N. Y., D. S. Van Derveer there
spent his three score years of earthly life, be-
ing engaged principally in agricultural pursuits.
He married Rachel Martin, who was born, lived,
and died in the same town, where her father,
Thomas S. Martin, was a pioneer settler, her
death occurring when she was seventy years of
age. -
Brought up on the home farm, J. L. Van
Derveer received his rudimentary education in
the public schools, after which he entered Onon-
daga Academy, from which he was graduated
with the class of 1895. The ensuing five years
he was employed as a teacher in his native county,
meeting with excellent success in his profession.
Coming to California in 1900, he spent two years
in Santa Barbara, the first year serving as princi-
pal of the Goleta school, and the next year be-
ing book keeper for the Johnson Fruit Company.
Accepting the principalship of the Escondido
grammar school in 1902, he held the position for
three years, performing the duties devolving up-
on him with marked ability and fidelity. Re-
signing in 1905, he bought out the firm of J.
W. Hedges & Co., and has since continued the
business at his store on Grand Avenue, carry-
ing a full line of books, stationery, wallpaper,
crockery and queensware. As head of the firm
of J. L. Van Derveer & Co., he is building up
a fine trade, and has already acquired a note-
worthy position among the successful merchants
of the place.
In Escondido, Mr. Van Derveer married Nora
Van Fleet, who was born in Colorado, of Hol-
land-Dutch ancestry, and they have one child,
Janey. Mr. Van Derveer belongs to the Es-
condido Chamber of Commerce, is a member of
the Committee on Railroads and Transportation,
is treasurer of City of Escondido, and justice of
the peace of Escondido judicial township. He
is Independent in politics, voting for what he
deems the best men and measures.
JOHN H. FREER was born in San Jose
November 26, 1852, and is the son of William
H. Freer, one of the early settlers of El
Monte, whose biographical sketch appears
elsewhere in this work. Reared arid educated
in Santa Clara county, in 1874 he came to El
Monte, where he spent two years on his
father's farm. He then engaged in farming
at Whittier, Savannah and Puente until 1883,
when he removed to Umatilla, Ore., and en-
gaged in stock-raising for three years, Then
he returned to the San Gabriel valley and is
now residing in Arcadia, where he is engaged
in the pursuit of horticulture.
In spite of the many ups and downs Mr.
Freer is a very pleasant and affable gentle-
man, very liberal and ready to help any public
enterprise to the fullest extent of his means.
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