VIII. ROUND ABOUT THE PLAZA…

VIII. ROUND ABOUT THE PLAZA

1853-1854

At the time of my arrival, the Plaza, long the nucleus of the original settlement, was the center of life in the little community, and around it clustered the homes of many of those who were uppermost in the social scale, although some of the descendants of the finest Spanish families were living in other parts of the city. This was particularly so in the case of José Andrés Sepúlveda, who had a beautiful old adobe on some acreage that he owned northwest of Sonora Town, near the place where he constructed a stone reservoir to supply his house with water. Opposite the old Plaza Church dwelt a number of families of position and, for the most part, of wealth--in many cases the patrons of less fortunate or dependent ones, who lived nearby. The environment was not beautiful, a solitary pepper, somewhat north of the Plaza, being the only shade-tree there; yet the general character of the homes was somewhat aristocratic, the landscape not yet having been seriously disturbed by any utilitarian project such as that of the City Fathers who, by later granting a part of the old square for a prosaic water tank, created a greater rumpus than had the combative soldiers some years before. The Plaza was shaped much as it is at present, having been reduced considerably, but five or six years earlier, by the Mexican authorities: they had planned to improve its shape, but had finished their labors by contracting the object before them. There was no sign of a park; on the contrary, parts of the Plaza itself, which had suffered the same fate as the Plaza in San Francisco, were used as a dumping-ground for refuse. From time to time many church and other festivals were held at this square--a custom no doubt traceable to the Old World and to earlier centuries; but before any such affair could take place--requiring the erecting of booths and banks of vegetation in front of the neighboring houses--all rubbish had to be removed, even at the cost of several days' work.

Among the distinguished citizens of Los Angeles whose residences added to the social prestige of the neighborhood was Don Ygnácio Del Valle, father of R. F. Del Valle. Until 1861, he resided on the east side of the square, in a house between Calle de los Negros and Olvera Street, receiving there his intimate friends as well as those who wished to pay him their respects when he was Alcalde, Councilman and member of the State Legislature. In 1861, Del Valle moved to his ranch, Camulos. Ygnácio Coronel was another eminent burgher residing on the east side of the Plaza, while Cristóbal Aguilar's home faced the South.

Not far from Del Valle's--that is, back of the later site of the Pico House, between the future Sanchez Street and Calle de los Negros--lived Don Pio Pico, then and long after a striking figure, not merely on account of his fame as the last of the Mexican governors, but as well because of his physique and personality. I may add that as long as he lived, or at least until the tide of his fortune turned and he was forced to sell his most treasured personal effects, he invariably adorned himself with massive jewelry of much value; and as a further conceit, he frequently wore on his bosom Mexican decorations that had been bestowed upon him for past official services. Don Pio really preferred country life at the Ranchito, as his place was called; but official duties and, later, illness and the need of medical care, kept him in town for months at a time. He had three sisters, two of whom married in succession José António Carrillo, another resident at the Plaza and the then owner of the site of the future Pico House; while the third was the wife of Don Juan Forster, in whose comfortable home Don Pio found a retreat when distressing poverty overtook him in old age. Sanchez Street recalls still another don of the neighborhood, Vicente Sanchez, grandfather of Tomás A. Sanchez, who was domiciled in a two-story and rather elaborate dwelling near Carrillo, on the south side of the Plaza. Sanchez Hall stood there until the late seventies.

The Beau Brummel of Los Angeles in the early fifties was Don Vicente Lugo, whose wardrobe was made up exclusively of the fanciest patterns of Mexican type; his home, one of the few two-story houses in the pueblo, was close to Ygnácio Del Valle's. Lugo, a brother of Don José María, was one of the heavy taxpayers of his time; as late as 1860, he had herds of twenty-five hundred head of cattle, or half a thousand more than Pio and Andrés Pico together owned. María Ballestero, Lugo's mother-in-law, lived near him.

Don Agustin Olvera dwelt almost opposite Don Vicente Lugo's, on the north side of the Plaza, at the corner of the street perpetuating his name. Don Agustin arrived from Mexico, where he had been Juez de Paz, in 1834, or about the same time that Don Ygnácio Coronel came, and served as Captain in the campaign of Flores against Frémont, even negotiating peace with the Americans; then he joined Dr. Hope's volunteer police, and was finally chosen, at the first election in Los Angeles, Judge of the First Instance, becoming the presiding officer of the Court of Sessions. Five or six years later, he was School Commissioner. He had married Doña Concepción, one of not less than twenty-two children of Don Santiago Arguello, son of a governor of both Californias, and his residence was at the northeast end of the Plaza, in an adobe which is still standing. There, while fraternizing with the newly-arrived Americans, he used to tell how, in 1850, when the movement for the admission of California as a State was under way, he acted as secretary to a meeting called in this city to protest against the proposal, fearing lest the closer association with Northern California would lead to an undue burden of taxes upon the South. Olvera Street is often written by mistake, Olivera.

Francisco O'Campo was another man of means whose home was on the east side of the Plaza. Although he was also a member of the new Ayuntamiento, inaugurated in 1849, and although he had occupied other offices, he was very improvident, like so many natives of the time, and died, in consequence, a poor man. In his later years, he used to sit on the curbstone near the Plaza, a character quite forlorn, utterly dejected in appearance, and despondently recalling the by-gone days of his prosperity.

Don Cristóbal Aguilar, several times in his career an Alcalde, several times a City Councilman beginning with the first organization of Los Angeles, and even twice or thrice Mayor, was another resident near the Plaza. His adobe on upper Main Street was fairly spacious; and partly, perhaps, for that reason, was used by the Sisters of Charity when they instituted the first hospital in Los Angeles.

A short distance from the Plaza, on Olvera Street, had long stood the home of Don José María Ábila, who was killed in battle in the early thirties. It was there that Commodore Stockton made his headquarters, and the story of how this was brought about is one of the entertaining incidents of this warlike period. The widow Ábila, who had scant love for the Americans, had fled with her daughters to the home of Don Luis[7] Vignes, but not before she placed a native boy on guard, cautioning him against opening either doors or windows. When the young custodian, however, heard the flourishes of Stockton's brass band, he could not resist the temptation to learn what the excitement meant; so he first poked his head out of a window, and finally made off to the Plaza. Some of Stockton's staff, passing by, and seeing the tasteful furniture within, were encouraged to investigate, with the result that they selected the widow Ábila's house for Stockton's abode. Another Ábila--Francisco--had an adobe at the present southeast corner of San Fernando and Alpine streets.

Francisca Gallardo, daughter of one of the Sepúlvedas, lived in the vicinity of the Plaza.

The only church in Los Angeles at this time was that of Nuestra Señora la Reyna de los Angeles, known as Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels, at the Plaza; and since but few changes were made for years in its exterior, I looked upon the edifice as the original adobe built here in the eighties of the preceding century. When I came to inquire into the matter, however, I was astonished to learn that the Church dated back no farther than the year 1822, although the first attempt at laying a corner-stone was made in 1815, probably somewhat to the east of the old Plaza and a year or two after rising waters frustrated the attempt to build a chapel near the river and the present Aliso Street. Those temporary foundations seem to have marked the spot where later the so-called Woman's Gun--once buried by Mexicans, and afterward dug up by women and used at the Battle of Dominguez Ranch--was long exposed to view, propped up on wooden blocks. The venerable building I then saw, in which all communicants for want of pews knelt on the floor or stood while worshiping, is still admired by those to whom age and sacred tradition, and the sacrifices of the early Spanish Fathers, make appeal. In the first years of my residence here, the bells of this honored old pile, ringing at six in the morning and at eight in the evening, served as a curfew to regulate the daily activities of the town.

Had Edgar Allan Poe lived in early Los Angeles, he might well have added to his poem one more stanza about these old church bells, whose sweet chimes, penetrating the peace and quiet of the sleepy village, not alone summoned the devout to early mass or announced the time of vespers, but as well called many a merchant to his day's labor and dismissed him to his home or the evening's rendezvous. That was a time of sentiment and romance, and the memory of it lingers pleasantly in contrast with the rush and bustle of to-day, when cold and chronometrical exactitude, instead of a careless but, in its time, sufficient measure of the hours, arranged the order of our comings and our goings.

Incidental to the ceremonial activity of the old Church on the Plaza, the Corpus Christi festival was one of the events of the year when not the least imposing feature was the opening procession around the Plaza. For all these occasions, the square was thoroughly cleaned, and notable families, such as the Del Valles, the Olveras, the Lugos and the Picos erected before their residences temporary altars, decorated with silks, satins, laces and even costly jewelry. The procession would start from the Church after the four o'clock service and proceed around the Plaza from altar to altar. There the boys and girls, carrying banners and flowers, and robed or dressed in white, paused for formal worship, the progress through the square, small as the Plaza was, thus taking a couple of hours. Each succeeding year the procession became more resplendent and inclusive, and I have a distinct recollection of a feature incidental to one of them when twelve men, with twelve great burning candles, represented the Apostles.

These midwinter festivities remind me that, on Christmas Eve, the young people here performed pastoral plays. It was the custom, much as it still is in Upper Bavaria, to call at the homes of various friends and acquaintances and, after giving little performances such as Los Pastores, to pass on to the next house. A number of the Apostles and other characters associated with the life of Jesus were portrayed, and the Devil, who scared half to death the little children of the hamlet, was never overlooked. The buñuelo, or native doughnut, also added its delight to these celebrations.

And now a word about the old Spanish Missions in this vicinity. It was no new experience for me to see religious edifices that had attained great age, and this feature, therefore, made no special impression. I dare say that I visited the Mission of San Gabriel very soon after I arrived in Los Angeles; but it was then less than a century old, and so was important only because it was the place of worship of many natives. The Protestant denominations were not as numerous then as now, and nearly all of the population was Catholic. With the passing of the years, sentimental reverence for the Spanish Fathers has grown greater and their old Mission homes have acquired more and more the dignity of age. Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona, John S. McGroarty's Mission Play (in which, by the by, Señorita Lucretia, daughter of R. F. and granddaughter of Don Ygnácio Del Valle, so ably portrays the character of Doña Josefa Yorba) and various other literary efforts have increased the interest in these institutions of the past.

The missions and their chapels recall an old Mexican woman who had her home, when I came to Los Angeles, at what is now the southeast corner of San Pedro and First streets. She dwelt in a typical adobe, and in the rear of her house was a vineyard of attractive aspect. Adjoining one of the rooms of her dwelling was a chapel, large enough, perhaps, to hold ten or twelve people and somewhat like those on the Dominguez and Coronel estates; and this chapel, like all the other rooms, had an earthen floor. In it was a gaudily-decorated altar and crucifix. The old lady was very religious and frequently repaired to her sanctuary. From the sale of grapes, she derived, in part, her income; and many a time have I bought from her the privilege of wandering through her vineyard and eating all I could of this refreshing berry. If the grape-season was not on, neighbors were none the less always welcome there; and it was in this quiet and delightful retreat that, in 1856, I proposed marriage to Miss Sarah Newmark, my future wife, such a mere girl that a few evenings later I found her at home playing jackstones--then a popular game--with Mrs. J. G. Downey, herself a child.

But while Catholics predominated, the Protestant churches had made a beginning. Rev. Adam Bland, Presiding Elder of the Methodists in Los Angeles in 1854, had come here a couple of years before, to begin his work in the good, old-fashioned way; and, having bought the barroom, El Dorado, and torn down Hughes's sign, he had transformed the place into a chapel. But, alas for human foresight, or the lack of it: on at least a part of the new church lot, the Merced Theater later stood!

Two cemeteries were in existence at the time whereof I write: the Roman Catholic--abandoned a few years ago--which occupied a site on Buena Vista Street, and one, now long deserted, for other denominations. This cemetery, which we shall see was sadly neglected, thereby occasioning bitter criticism in the press, was on Fort Hill. Later, another burial-ground was established in the neighborhood of what is now Flower and Figueroa streets, near Ninth, many years before there was any thought of Rosedale or Evergreen.

As for my co-religionists and their provision of a cemetery, when I first came to Los Angeles they were without a definite place for the interment of their dead; but in 1854 the first steps were taken to establish a Jewish cemetery here, and it was not very long before the first Jewish child to die in Los Angeles, named Mahler, was buried there. This cemetery, on land once owned and occupied by José Andrés Sepúlveda's reservoir, was beautifully located in a recess or little pocket, as it were, among the hills in the northwest section of the city, where the environment of nature was in perfect harmony with the Jewish ideal--"Home of Peace."

Mrs. Jacob Rich, by the way, had the distinction of being the first Jewess to settle in Los Angeles; and I am under the impression that Mrs. E. Greenbaum became the mother of the first Jewish child born here.

Sam Prager arrived in 1854, and after clerking a while, associated himself with the Morrises, who were just getting nicely established. For a time, they met with much success and were among the most important merchants of their day. Finally they dissolved, and the Morris Brothers bought the large tract of land which I have elsewhere described as having been refused by Newmark, Kremer & Company in liquidation of Major Henry Hancock's account. Here, for several years, in a fine old adobe lived the Morris family, dispensing a bountiful hospitality quite in keeping with the open-handed manner of the times. In the seventies, the Morris Brothers sold this property--later known as Morris Vineyard--after they had planted it to vines, for the insignificant sum of about twenty thousand dollars.

Following Sam Prager, came his brother Charles. For a short time they were associated, but afterward they operated independently, Charles Prager starting on Commercial Street, on May 19th, 1869. Sam Prager, long known as "Uncle Sam," was a good-natured and benevolent man, taking a deep interest in Masonic matters, becoming Master of 42, and a regular attendant at the annual meetings of the Grand Lodge of California. He was also Chairman of the Masonic Board of Relief until the time of his death. Charles Prager and the Morrises have all gone to that

undiscovered country, from whose bourn No traveler returns.

In the summer of 1853, a movement was inaugurated, through the combined efforts of Mayors Nichols and Coronel, aided by John T. Jones, to provide public schools; and three citizens, J. Lancaster Brent, Lewis Granger and Stephen C. Foster, were appointed School Commissioners. As early as 1838, Ygnácio Coronel, assisted by his wife and daughter, had accepted some fifteen dollars a month from the authorities--to permit the exercise of official supervision--and opened a school which, as late as 1854, he conducted in his own home; thereby doubtless inspiring his son António to take marked interest in the education of the Indians. From time to time, private schools, partly subsidized from public funds, were commenced. In May, 1854, Mayor Foster pointed out that, while there were fully five hundred children of school age and the pueblo had three thousand dollars surplus, there was still no school building which the City could call its own. New trustees--Manuel Requena, Francis Mellus and W. T. B. Sanford--were elected; and then happened what, perhaps, has not occurred here since, or ever in any other California town: Foster, still Mayor, was also chosen School Superintendent. The new energy put into the movement now led the Board to build, late in 1854 or early in 1855, a two-story brick schoolhouse, known as School No. 1, on the northwest corner of Spring and Second streets, on the lot later occupied, first by the old City Hall and secondly by the Bryson Block. This structure cost six thousand dollars. Strange as it now seems, the location was then rather "out in the country;" and I dare say the selection was made, in part, to get the youngsters away from the residential district around the Plaza. There school was opened on March 19th, 1855; William A. Wallace, a botanist who had been sent here to study the flora, having charge of the boys' department and Miss Louisa Hayes directing the division for girls. Among her pupils were Sarah Newmark and her sisters; Mary Wheeler, who married William Pridham; and Lucinda Macy, afterward Mrs. Foy, who recalls participating in the first public school examination, in June, 1856. Dr. John S. Griffin, on June 7th, 1856, was elected Superintendent. Having thus established a public school, the City Council voted to discontinue all subsidies to private schools.

One of the early school-teachers was the pioneer, James F. Burns. Coming with an emigrant train in 1853, Burns arrived in Los Angeles, after some adventures with the Indians near what was later the scene of the Mountain Meadow Massacre, in November of the same year. Having been trained in Kalamazoo, Michigan, as a teacher, Burns settled, in 1854, in San Gabriel; and there with Cæsar C. Twitchell, he conducted a cross-roads school in a tent. Later, while still living at San Gabriel, Burns was elected County School Superintendent. Before reaching here--that is, at Provo, Utah, on September 25th--the young schoolmaster had married Miss Lucretia Burdick, aunt of Fred Eaton's first wife. Burns, though of small stature, became one of the fighting sheriffs of the County.

Among others who conducted schools in Los Angeles or vicinity, in the early days, were Mrs. Adam Bland, wife of the missionary; H. D. Barrows and the Hoyts. Mrs. Bland taught ten or twelve poor girls, in 1853, for which the Common Council allowed her about thirty-five dollars. Barrows was one of several teachers employed by William Wolfskill at various times, and at Wolfskill's school not merely were his own children instructed but those of the neighboring families of Carpenter, Rowland and Pleasants as well. Mrs. Gertrude Lawrence Hoyt was an Episcopal clergyman's wife from New York who, being made a widow, followed her son, Albert H. Hoyt, to Los Angeles in 1853. Young Hoyt, a graduate of Rutgers College and a teacher excited by the gold fever, joined a hundred and twenty men who chartered the bark Clarissa Perkins to come around the Horn, in 1849; but failing as a miner, he began farming near Sacramento. When Mrs. Hoyt came to Los Angeles, she conducted a private school in a rented building north of the Plaza, beginning in 1854 and continuing until 1856; while her son moved south and took up seventy or eighty acres of land in the San Gabriel Valley, near El Monte. In 1855, young Hoyt came into town to assist his mother in the school; and the following year Mrs. Hoyt's daughter, Mary, journeyed West and also became a teacher here. Later, Miss Hoyt kept a school on Alameda Street near the site of the Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad depot. Mrs. Hoyt died in Los Angeles in 1863. Other early teachers were William McKee, Mrs. Thomas Foster and Miss Anna McArthur.

As undeveloped as the pueblo was, Los Angeles boasted, in her very infancy, a number of physicians, although there were few, if any, Spanish or Mexican practitioners. In 1850, Drs. William B. Osburn, W. W. Jones, A. W. Hope, A. P. Hodges and a Dr. Overstreet were here; while in 1851, Drs. Thomas Foster, John Brinckerhoff and James P. McFarland followed, to be reënforced, in 1852, by Dr. James B. Winston and, soon after, by Drs. R. T. Hayes, T. J. White and A. B. Hayward. Dr. John Strother Griffin (General Albert Sidney Johnston's brother-in-law and the accepted suitor of Miss Louisa Hayes) came to Los Angeles in 1848, or rather to San Gabriel--where, according to Hugo Reid, no physician had settled, though the population took drugs by the barrel; being the ranking surgeon under Kearney and Stockton when, on January 8th, they drove back the Mexican forces. He was also one of the hosts to young W. T. Sherman. Not until 1854, however, after Griffin had returned to Washington and had resigned his commission, did he actually settle in Los Angeles. Thereafter, his participation in local affairs was such that, very properly, one of our avenues is named after him. Dr. Richard S. Den antedated all of these gentlemen, having resided and practiced medicine in Los Angeles in 1843, 1844 and again in the early fifties, though he did not dwell in this city permanently until January, 1866. Den I knew fairly well, and Griffin was my esteemed physician and friend. Foster and Griffin were practitioners whom I best recall as being here during my first years, one or two others, as Dr. Osburn and Dr. Winston, having already begun to devote their time to other enterprises.

Dr. Richard S. Den, an Irishman of culture and refinement, having been for awhile with his brother, Nicholas Den, in Santa Bárbara, returned to Los Angeles in 1851. I say, "returned," because Den had looked in on the little pueblo before I had even heard its name. While in the former place, in the winter of 1843-44, Den received a call from Los Angeles to perform one or two surgical operations, and here he practiced until drawn to the mines by the gold excitement. He served, in 1846-47, as Chief Physician and Surgeon of the Mexican forces during the Mexican War, and treated, among others, the famous American Consul Larkin, whose surety he became when Larkin was removed to better quarters in the home of Louis Vignes. Den had only indifferent luck as a miner, but was soon in such demand to relieve the sufferers from malaria that it is said he received as much as a thousand dollars in a day for his practice. In 1854, he returned to Santa Bárbara County, remaining there for several years and suffering great loss, on account of the drought and its effects on his cattle. Nicholas Den, who was also known in Los Angeles, and was esteemed for both his integrity and his hospitality, died at Santa Bárbara in 1862.

Old Dr. Den will be remembered, not only with esteem, but with affection. He was seldom seen except on horseback, in which fashion he visited his patients, and was, all in all, somewhat a man of mystery. He rode a magnificent coal-black charger, and was himself always dressed in black. He wore, too, a black felt hat; and beneath the hat there clustered a mass of wavy hair as white as snow. In addition to all this, his standing collar was so high that he was compelled to hold his head erect; and as if to offset the immaculate linen, he tied around the collar a large black-silk scarf. Thus attired and seated on his richly-caparisoned horse, Dr. Den appeared always dignified, and even imposing. One may therefore easily picture him a friendly rival with Don Juan Bandini at the early Spanish balls, as he was on intimate terms with Don and Doña Abel Stearns, acknowledged social leaders. Dr. Den was fond of horse-racing and had his own favorite racehorses sent here from Santa Bárbara, where they were bred.

Dr. Osburn, the Postmaster of 1853, had two years before installed a small variety of drugs on a few shelves, referred to by the complimentary term of drug store. Dr. Winston also kept a stock of drugs. About the same time, and before Dr. A. W. Hope opened the third drug store in September, 1854, John Gately Downey, an Irishman by birth, who had been apprenticed to the drug trade in Maryland and Ohio, formed a partnership with James P. McFarland, a native of Tennessee, buying some of Winston's stock. Their store was a long, one-story adobe on the northwest corner of Los Angeles and Commercial streets, and was known as McFarland & Downey's. The former had been a gold-miner; and this experience intensified the impression of an already rugged physique as a frontier type. Entering politics, as Osburn and practically every other professional man then did--doubtless as much as anything else for the assurance of some definite income--McFarland secured a seat in the Assembly in 1852, and in the Senate in 1853-54. About 1858, he returned to Tennessee and in December, 1860, revisited California; after which he settled permanently in the East. Downey, in 1859, having been elected Lieutenant-Governor, was later made Governor, through the election of Latham to the United States Senate; but his suddenly-revealed sympathies with the Secessionists, together with his advocacy of a bill for the apprenticing of Indians, contributed toward killing him politically and he retired to private life. Dr. H. R. Myles, destined to meet with a tragic death in a steamboat disaster which I shall narrate, was another druggist, with a partner, Dr. J. C. Welch, a South Carolinian dentist who came here in the early fifties and died in August, 1869. Their drug store on Main Street, nearly opposite the Bella Union, filled the prescriptions of the city's seven or eight doctors. Considerably later, but still among the pioneer druggists, was Dr. V. Gelcich, who came here as Surgeon to the Fourth California Infantry.

Speaking of druggists, it may be interesting to add that medicines were administered in earlier days to a much greater extent than now. For every little ailment there was a pill, a powder or some other nostrum. The early botica, or drug store, kept only drugs and things incidental to the drug business. There was also more of home treatment than now. Every mother did more or less doctoring on her own account, and had her well-stocked medicine-chest. Castor oil, ipecac, black draught and calomel were generally among the domestic supply.

The practice of surgery was also very primitive; and he was unfortunate, indeed, who required such service. Operations had to be performed at home; there were few or none of the modern scientific appliances or devices for either rendering the patient immune or contending with active disease.

Preceded by a brother, Colonel James C. Foy--who visited California in 1850 and was killed in 1864, while in Sherman's army, by the bursting of a shell--Samuel C. Foy started for San Francisco, by way of New Orleans and the Isthmus, when he was but twenty-two years old and, allured by the gold-fever, wasted a year or two in the mines. In January, 1854, he made his way south to Los Angeles; and seeing the prospect for trade in harness, on February 19th of that year opened an American saddlery, in which business he was joined by his brother, John M. Foy. Their store was on Main Street, between Commercial and Requena. The location was one of the best; and the Foy Brothers offering, besides saddlery, such necessities of the times as tents, enjoyed one of the first chances to sell to passing emigrants and neighboring rancheros, as they came into town. Some spurs, exhibited in the County Museum, are a souvenir of Foy's enterprise in those pioneer days. In May, 1856, Sam Foy began operating in cattle and continued in that business until 1865, periodically taking herds north and leaving his brother in charge of the store.

In the course of time, the Foys moved to Los Angeles Street, becoming my neighbors; and while there, in 1882, S. C. Foy, in a quaint advertisement embellished with a blanketed horse, announced his establishment as the "oldest business house in Los Angeles, still at the old stand, 17 Los Angeles Street, next to H. Newmark & Company's." John Foy, who later removed to San Bernardino, died many years ago, and Sam Foy also has long since joined the silent majority; but one of the old signs of the saddlery is still to be seen on Los Angeles Street, where the son, James Calvert Foy, conducts the business. The Foys first lived on Los Angeles Street, and then on Main. Some years later, they moved to the corner of Seventh and Pearl streets, now called Figueroa, and came to control much valuable land there, still in possession of the family. A daughter of Samuel C. Foy is Miss Mary Foy, formerly a teacher and later Public Librarian. Another daughter married Thomas Lee Woolwine, the attorney.

Wells Fargo & Company--formerly always styled Wells, Fargo & Company--were early in the field here. On March 28th, 1854, they were advertising, through H. R. Myles, their agent, that they were a joint stock company with a capital of five hundred thousand dollars!

FOOTNOTE:

[7] Often spoken of as Don Louis.

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IX. FAMILIAR HOME-SCENES

1854

Many of the houses, as I have related, were clustered around and north of the Plaza Church, while the hills surrounding the pueblo to the West were almost bare. These same hills have since been subdivided and graded to accommodate the Westlake, the Wilshire, the West Temple and other sections. Main and Spring streets were laid out beyond First, but they were very sparsely settled; while to the East of Main and extending up to that street, there were many large vineyards without a single break as far south as the Ninth Street of to-day, unless we except a narrow and short lane there. To enable the reader to form an accurate impression of the time spent in getting to a nearby point, I will add that, to reach William Wolfskin's home, which was in the neighborhood of the present Arcade Depot, one was obliged to travel down to Aliso Street, thence to Alameda, and then south on Alameda to Wolfskin's orchard. From Spring Street, west and as far as the coast, there was one huge field, practically unimproved and undeveloped, the swamp lands of which were covered with tules. All of this land, from the heart of the present retail district to the city limits, belonged to the municipality. I incline to the opinion that both Ord and Hancock had already surveyed in this southwestern district; but through there, nevertheless, no single street had as yet been cut.

Not merely at the Plaza, but throughout Los Angeles, most of the houses were built of adobe, or mud mixed with straw and dried for months in the sun; and several fine dwellings of this kind were constructed after I came. The composition was of such a nature that, unless protected by roofs and verandas,[8] the mud would slowly wash away. The walls, however, also requiring months in which to dry, were generally three or four feet thick; and to this as well as to the nature of the material may be attributed the fact that the houses in the summer season were cool and comfortable, while in winter they were warm and cheerful. They were usually rectangular in shape, and were invariably provided with patios and corridors. There was no such thing as a basement under a house, and floors were frequently earthen. Conventionality prescribed no limit as to the number of rooms, an adobe frequently having a sitting-room, a dining-room, a kitchen and as many bedrooms as were required; but there were few, if any, "frills" for the mere sake of style. Most adobes were but one story in height, although there were a few two-story houses; and it is my recollection that, in such cases, the second story was reached from the outside. Everything about an adobe was emblematic of hospitality: the doors, heavy and often apparently home-made, were wide, and the windows were deep. In private houses, the doors were locked with a key; but in some of the stores, they were fastened with a bolt fitted into iron receptacles on either side. The windows, swinging on hinges, opened inward and were locked in the center. There were few curtains or blinds; wooden shutters, an inch thick, also fastening in the center, being generally used instead. If there were such conveniences as hearths and fireplaces, I cannot recollect them, although I think that here and there the brasero, or pan and hot coals, was still employed. There were no chimneys, and the smoke, as from the kitchen stove, escaped through the regular stacks leading out through a pane in the window or a hole in the wall. The porches, also spoken of as verandas and rather wide, were supported by equidistant perpendicular posts; and when an adobe had two stories, the veranda was also double-storied. Few if any vines grew around these verandas in early days, largely because of the high cost of water. For the same reason, there were almost no gardens.

The roofs which, as I have intimated, proved as necessary to preserve the adobe as to afford protection from the semi-tropical sun, were generally covered with asphalt and were usually flat in order to keep the tar from running off. As well as I can recollect, Vicente Salsido--or Salcito, as his name was also written--who lived in or somewhere near Nigger Alley, was the only man then engaged in the business of mending pitch-roofs. When winter approached and the first rainfall produced leaks, there was a general demand for Salsido's services and a great scramble among owners of buildings to obtain them. Such was the need, in fact, that more than one family, drowned out while waiting, was compelled to move to the drier quarters of relatives or friends, there to stay until the roofer could attend to their own houses. Under a huge kettle, put up in the public street, Salsido set fire to some wood, threw in his pitch and melted it. Then, after he or a helper had climbed onto the roof, the molten pitch was hauled up in buckets and poured over the troublesome leaks. Much of this tar was imported from the North, but some was obtained in this locality, particularly from so-called springs on the Hancock ranch, which for a long time have furnished great quantities of the useful, if unattractive, substance. This asphalt was later used for sidewalks, and even into the eighties was employed as fuel. To return to Salsido, I might add that in summer the pitch-roofer had no work at all.

Besides the adobes with their asphalt roofs, some houses, erected within the first quarter of the Nineteenth Century, were covered with tiles. The most notable tiled building was the old Church, whose roof was unfortunately removed when the edifice was so extensively renovated. The Carrillo home was topped with these ancient tiles, as were also José María Ábila's residence; Vicente Sanchez's two-story adobe south of the Plaza, and the Alvarado house on First Street, between Main and Los Angeles streets.

It was my impression that there were no bricks in Los Angeles when I first came, although about 1854 or 1855 Jacob Weixel had the first regular brickyard. In conversation with old-timers, however, many years ago, I was assured that Captain Jesse Hunter, whom I recall, had built a kiln not far from the later site of the Potomac Block, on Fort Street, between Second and Third; and that, as early as 1853, he had put up a brick building on the west side of Main Street, about one hundred and fifty feet south of the present site of the Bullard Block. This was for Mayor Nichols, who paid Hunter thirty dollars a thousand for the new and more attractive kind of building material. This pioneer brick building has long since disappeared. Hunter seems to have come to Los Angeles alone, and to have been followed across the plains by his wife, two sons and three daughters, taking up his permanent residence here in 1856. One of the daughters married a man named Burke, who conducted a blacksmith and wagon shop in Hunter's Building on Main Street. Hunter died in 1874. Dr. William A. Hammel, father of Sheriff William Hammel, who came to California during the gold excitement of '49, had one of the first red brick houses in Los Angeles, on San Pedro Street, between Second and Third.

Sometime in 1853, or perhaps in 1854, the first building erected by the public in Los Angeles County was put together here of brick baked in the second kiln ever fired in the city. It was the Town Jail on the site of the present Phillips Block,[9] at the northwest corner of Spring and Franklin streets. This building took the place of the first County Jail, a rude adobe that stood on the hill back of the present National Government Building. In that jail, I have understood, there were no cells, and prisoners were fastened by chains to logs outside.

Zanja water was being used for irrigation when I arrived. A system of seven or eight zanjas, or open ditches--originated, I have no doubt, by the Catholic Fathers--was then in operation, although it was not placed under the supervision of a Zanjero, or Water Commissioner, until 1854. These small surface canals connected at the source with the zanja madre, or mother ditch, on the north side of the town, from which they received their supply; the zanja madre itself being fed from the river, at a point a long way from town. The Zanjero issued permits, for which application had to be made some days in advance, authorizing the use of the water for irrigation purposes. A certain amount was paid for the use of this water during a period of twelve hours, without any limit as to the quantity consumed, and the purchaser was permitted to draw his supply both day and night.

Water for domestic uses was a still more expensive luxury. Inhabitants living in the immediate neighborhood of zanjas, or near the river, helped themselves; but their less-fortunate brethren were served by a carrier, who charged fifty cents a week for one bucket a day, while he did not deliver on Sunday at all. Extra requirements were met on the same basis; and in order to avoid an interruption in the supply, prompt settlement of the charge had to be made every Saturday evening. This character was known as Bill the Waterman. He was a tall American, about thirty or thirty-five years old; he had a mustache, wore long, rubber boots coming nearly to his waist, and presented the general appearance of a laboring man; and his somewhat rickety vehicle, drawn by two superannuated horses, slowly conveyed the man and his barrel of about sixty gallons capacity from house to house. He was a wise dispenser, and quite alert to each household's needs.

Bill obtained his supply from the Los Angeles River, where at best it was none too clean, in part owing to the frequent passage of the river by man and beast. Animals of all kinds, including cattle, horses, sheep, pigs, mules and donkeys, crossed and recrossed the stream continually, so that the mud was incessantly stirred up, and the polluted product proved unpalatable and even, undoubtedly, unhealthful. To make matters worse, the river and the zanjas were the favorite bathing-places, all the urchins of the hamlet disporting themselves there daily, while most of the adults, also, frequently immersed themselves. Both the yet unbridged stream and the zanjas, therefore, were repeatedly contaminated, although common sense should have protected the former to a greater or less extent; while as to the latter there were ordinances drawn up by the Common Council of 1850 which prohibited the throwing of filth into fresh water designed for common use, and also forbade the washing of clothes on the zanja banks. This latter regulation was disobeyed by the native women, who continued to gather there, dip their soiled garments in the water, place them on stones and beat them with sticks, a method then popular for the extraction of dirt.

Besides Bill the Waterman, Dan Schieck was a water-vender, but at a somewhat later date. Proceeding to the zanja in a curious old cart, he would draw the water he needed, fresh every morning, and make daily deliveries at customers' houses for a couple of dollars a month. Schieck forsook this business, however, and went into draying, making a specialty of meeting Banning's coaches and transferring the passengers to their several destinations. He was a frugal man, and accumulated enough to buy the southwest corner of Franklin and Spring streets. As a result, he left property of considerable value. He died about twenty-five years ago; Mrs. Schieck, who was a sister of John Fröhling, died in 1874.

Just one more reference to the drinking-water of that period. When delivered to the customer, it was emptied into ollas, or urn-shaped vessels, made from burned clay or terra cotta. Every family and every store was provided with at least one of these containers which, being slightly porous, possessed the virtue (of particular value at a time when there was no ice) of keeping the water cool and refreshing. The olla commonly in use had a capacity of four or five gallons, and was usually suspended from the ceiling of a porch or other convenient place; while attached to this domestic reservoir, as a rule, was a long-handled dipper generally made from a gourd. Filters were not in use, in consequence of which fastidious people washed out their ollas very frequently. These wide-mouthed pots recall to me an appetizing Spanish dish, known as olla-podrida, a stew consisting of various spiced meats, chopped fine, and an equally varied assortment of vegetables, partaken of separately; all bringing to mind, perhaps, Thackeray's sentimental Ballad of Bouillabaisse. Considering these inconveniences, how surprising it is that the Common Council, in 1853, should have frowned upon Judge William G. Dryden's proposition to distribute, in pipes, all the water needed for domestic use.

On May 16th, 1854, the first Masonic lodge--then and now known as 42--received its charter, having worked under special dispensation since the preceding December. The first officers chosen were: H. P. Dorsey, Master; J. Elias, Senior Warden; Thomas Foster, Junior Warden; James R. Barton, Treasurer; Timothy Foster, Secretary; Jacob Rich, Senior Deacon; and W. A. Smith, Tyler.

For about three decades after my arrival, smallpox epidemics visited us somewhat regularly every other year, and the effect on the town was exceedingly bad. The whole population was on such a friendly footing that every death made a very great impression. The native element was always averse to vaccination and other sanitary measures; everybody objected to isolation, and disinfecting was unknown. In more than one familiar case, the surviving members of a stricken family went into the homes of their kinsmen, notwithstanding the danger of contagion. Is it any wonder, therefore, when such ignorance was universal, that the pest spread alarmingly and that the death-rate was high?

The smallpox wagon, dubbed the Black Maria, was a frequent sight on the streets of Los Angeles during these sieges. There was an isolated pesthouse near the Chavez Ravine, but the patients of the better class were always treated at home, where the sanitation was never good; and at best the community was seriously exposed. Consternation seized the public mind, communication with the outside world was disturbed, and these epidemics were the invariable signal for business disorder and crises.

This matter of primitive sanitation reminds me of an experience. To accommodate an old iron bath-tub that I wished to set up in my Main Street home in the late sixties, I was obliged to select one of the bedrooms; since, when my adobe was built, the idea of having a separate bathroom in a house had never occurred to any owner. I connected it with the zanja at the rear of my lot by means of a wooden conduit; which, although it did not join very closely, answered all purposes for the discharge of waste water. One of my children for several years slept in this combination bath- and bedroom; and although the plumbing was as old-fashioned as it well could be, yet during all that time there was no sickness in our family.

It was fortunate indeed that the adobe construction of the fifties rendered houses practically fireproof since, in the absence of a water-system, a bucket-brigade was all there was to fight a fire with, and this rendered but poor service. I remember such a brigade at work, some years after I came, in the vicinity of the Bell Block, when a chain of helpers formed a relay from the nearest zanja to the blazing structure. Buckets were passed briskly along, from person to person, as in the animated scene described by Schiller in the well-known lines of Das Lied von der Glocke:

_Durch der Hände lange Kette Um die Wette Fliegt der Eimer_;[10]

a process which was continued until the fire had exhausted itself. Francis Mellus had a little hand-cart, but for lack of water it was generally useless. Instead of fire-bells announcing to the people that a conflagration was in progress, the discharging of pistols in rapid succession gave the alarm and was the signal for a general fusillade throughout the neighboring streets. Indeed, this method of sounding a fire-alarm was used as late as the eighties. On the breaking out of fires, neighbors and friends rushed to assist the victim in saving what they could of his property.

On account of the inadequate facilities for extinguishing anything like a conflagration, it transpired that insurance companies would not for some time accept risks in Los Angeles. If I am not mistaken, S. Lazard obtained the first protection late in the fifties and paid a premium of four per cent. The policy was issued by the Hamburg-Bremen Company, through Adelsdorfer Brothers of San Francisco, who also imported foreign merchandise; and Lazard, thereafter, as the Los Angeles agent for the Hamburg-Bremen Company, was the first insurance underwriter here of whom I have any knowledge. Adelsdorfer Brothers, it is also interesting to note, imported the first Swedish matches brought into California, perhaps having in mind cause and effect with profit at both ends; they put them on the retail market in Los Angeles at twenty-five cents a package.

This matter of fires calls to mind an interesting feature of the city when I first saw it. When Henry, or Enrique Dalton sailed from England, he shipped a couple of corrugated iron buildings, taking them to South America where he used them for several years. On coming to Los Angeles, he brought the buildings with him, and they were set up at the site of the present corner of Spring and Court streets. In a sense, therefore, these much-transported iron structures (one of which, in 1858, I rented as a storeroom for wool) came to be among the earliest "fire-proof" buildings here.

As early as 1854, the need of better communication between Los Angeles and the outside world was beginning to be felt; and in the summer of that year the Supervisors--D. W. Alexander, S. C. Foster, J. Sepúlveda, C. Aguilar and S. S. Thompson--voted to spend one thousand dollars to open a wagon road over the mountains between the San Fernando Mission and the San Francisco rancho. A rather broad trail already existed there; but such was its grade that many a pioneer, compelled to use a windlass or other contrivance to let down his wagon in safety, will never forget the real perils of the descent. For years it was a familiar experience with stages, on which I sometimes traveled, to attach chains or boards to retard their downward movement; nor were passengers even then without anxiety until the hill- or mountain-side had been passed.

During 1854, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Newmark and family, whom I had met, the year before, for a few hours in San Francisco, arrived here and located in the one-story adobe owned by John Goller and adjoining his blacksmith shop. There were six children--Matilda, Myer J., Sarah, Edward, Caroline and Harriet--all of whom had been born in New York City. With their advent, my personal environment immediately changed: they provided me with a congenial home; and as they at once began to take part in local social activities, I soon became well acquainted. My aunt took charge of my English education, and taught me to spell, read and write in that language; and I have always held her efforts in my behalf in grateful appreciation. As a matter of fact, having so early been thrown into contact with Spanish-speaking neighbors and patrons, I learned Spanish before I acquired English.

The Newmarks had left New York on December 15th, 1852, on the ship Carrington, T. B. French commanding, to make the trip around the Horn, San Francisco being their destination. After a voyage for the most part pleasant, although not altogether free from disagreeable features and marked by much rough weather, they reached the Golden Gate, having been four months and five days on the ocean. One of the enjoyable incidents en route was an old-fashioned celebration in which Neptune took part when they crossed the equator. In a diary of that voyage kept by Myer J. Newmark, mention is made that "our Democratic President, Franklin Pierce, and Vice-President, William R. King, were inaugurated March 4th, 1853;" which reminds me that some forty years later Judge H. A. Pierce, the President's cousin, and his wife who was of literary proclivities, came to be my neighbors in Los Angeles. Mr. and Mrs. Newmark and their family remained in San Francisco until 1854.

Joseph Newmark, formerly Neumark, born June 15th, 1799, was, I assume, the first to adopt the English form of the name. He was genuinely religious and exalted in character. His wife, Rosa, whom he married in New York in 1835, was born in London on March 17th, 1808. He came to America in 1824, spent a few years in New York, and resided for a while in Somerset, Connecticut, where, on January 21st, 1831, he joined the Masonic fraternity. During his first residence in New York, he started the Elm Street Synagogue, one of the earliest in America. In 1840, we find him in St. Louis, a pioneer indeed. Five years later he was in Dubuque, Iowa, then a frontier village. In 1846, he once more pitched his tent in New York; and during this sojourn he organized the Wooster Street Congregation. Immediately after reaching Los Angeles, he brought into existence the Los Angeles Hebrew Benevolent Society, which met for some time at his home on Sunday evenings, and which, I think, was the first charitable institution in this city. Its principal objects were to care for the sick, to pay proper respect, according to Jewish ritual, to the dead, and to look after the Jewish Cemetery which was laid out about that time; so that the Society at once became a real spiritual force and continued so for several years. The first President was Jacob Elias. Although Mr. Newmark had never served as a salaried Rabbi, he had been ordained and was permitted to officiate; and one of the immediate results of his influence was the establishment of worship on Jewish holidays, under the auspices of the Society named. The first service was held in the rear room of an adobe owned by John Temple. Joseph Newmark also inspired the purchase of land for the Jewish Cemetery. After Rabbi Edelman came, my uncle continued on various occasions to assist him. When, in course of time, the population of Los Angeles increased, the responsibilities of the Hebrew Benevolent Society were extended. Although a Jewish organization, and none but Jews could become members of it or receive burial in the Jewish Cemetery, its aim was to give relief, as long as its financial condition would permit, to every worthy person that appeared, whoever he was or whatever his creed. Recalling this efficient organization, I may say that I believe myself to be one of but two survivors among the charter members--S. Lazard being the other.

Kiln Messer was another pioneer who came around the Horn about that time, although he arrived here from Germany a year later than I did; and during his voyage, he had a trying experience in a shipwreck off Cape Verde where, with his comrades, he had to wait a couple of months before another vessel could be signaled. Even then he could get no farther toward his destination--the Golden Gate--than Rio de Janeiro, where he was delayed five or six months more. Finally reaching San Francisco, he took to mining; but, weakened by fever (an experience common among the gold-seekers), he made his way to Los Angeles. After brewing beer for a while at the corner of Third and Main streets, Messer bought a twenty-acre vineyard which, in 1857, he increased by another purchase to forty-five or fifty acres; and it was his good fortune that this property was so located as to be needed by the Santa Fé Railroad, in 1888, as a terminal. Toward the end of the seventies, Messer, moderately well-to-do, was a grocer at the corner of Rose and First streets; and about 1885, he retired.

Joseph Newmark brought with him to Los Angeles a Chinese servant, to whom he paid one hundred dollars a month; and, as far as I know, this Mongolian was the first to come to our city. This domestic item has additional interest, perhaps, because it was but five or six years before that the first Chinese to emigrate from the Celestial Kingdom to California--two men and a lone woman--had come to San Francisco in the ship Eagle from Hong Kong. A year later, there were half a hundred Chinamen in the territory, while at the end of still another year, during the gold excitement, nearly a thousand Chinese entered the Golden Gate.

The housekeeping experiences of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Newmark remind me that it was not easy in the early days to get satisfactory domestic service. Indians, negroes and sometimes Mexicans were employed, until the arrival of more Chinese and the coming of white girls. Joseph Newmark, when I lived with his family, employed, in addition to the Chinaman, an Indian named Pedro who had come with his wife from Temécula and whose remuneration was fifty cents a day; and these servants attended to most of the household duties. The annual fiesta at Temécula used to attract Pedro and his better-half; and while they were absent, the Newmark girls did the work.

My new home was very congenial, not the least of its attractions being the family associations at meal-time. The opportunities for obtaining a variety of food were not as good perhaps as they are to-day, and yet some delicacies were more in evidence. Among these I might mention wild game and chickens. Turkeys, of all poultry, were the scarcest and most-prized. All in all, our ordinary fare has not changed so much except in the use of mutton, certain vegetables, ice and a few dainties.

There was no extravagance in the furnishing of pioneer homes. Few people coming to Los Angeles expected to locate permanently; they usually planned to accumulate a small competency and then return to their native heaths. In consequence, little attention was paid to quality or styles, and it is hard to convey a comprehensive idea of the prevailing lack of ordinary comforts. For many years the inner walls of adobes were whitewashed--a method of mural finish not the most agreeable, since the coating so easily "came off;" and only in the later periods of frame houses, did we have kalsomined and hard-finished wall surfaces. Just when papered and tinted walls came in, I do not remember; but they were long delayed. Furniture was plain and none too plentiful; and glassware and tableware were of an inferior grade.

Certain vegetables were abundant, truck-gardening having been introduced here in the early fifties by Andrew Briswalter, an Alsatian by birth and an original character. He first operated on San Pedro Street, where he rented a tract of land and peddled his vegetables in a wheelbarrow, charging big prices. So quickly did he prosper that he was soon able to buy a piece of land, as well as a horse and wagon. When he died, in the eighties, he bequeathed a large estate, consisting of City and County acreage and lots, in the disposition of which he unrighteously cut off his only niece. Playa del Rey was later built on some of this land. Acres of fruit trees, fronting on Main, in the neighborhood of the present Ninth and Tenth streets, and extending far in an easterly direction, formed another part of his holding. It was on this land that Briswalter lived until his last illness. He bought this tract from O. W. Childs, it having originally belonged to H. C. Cardwell, a son-in-law of William Wolfskill--the same Cardwell who introduced here, on January 7th, 1856, the heretofore unknown seedling strawberries.

One Mumus was in the field nearly as soon as Briswalter. A few years later, Chinese vegetable men came to monopolize this trade. Most of their gardens neighbored on what is now Figueroa Street, north of Pico; and then, as now, they peddled their wares from wagons. Wild celery grew in quantities around the zanjas, but was not much liked. Cultivated celery, on the other hand, was in demand and was brought from the North, whence we also imported most of our cabbage, cauliflower and asparagus. But after a while, the Chinese also cultivated celery; and when, in the nineties, E. A. Curtis, D. E. Smeltzer and others failed in an effort to grow celery, Curtis fell back on the Chinese gardeners. The Orientals, though pestered by envious workmen, finally made a success of the industry, helping to establish what is now a most important local agricultural activity.

These Chinese vegetable gardeners, by the way, came to practice a trick[11] designed to reduce their expenses, and at which they were sometimes caught. Having bargained with the authorities for a small quantity of water, they would cut the zanjas, while the Zanjero or his assistants slept, steal the additional water needed, and, before the arrival of the Zanjero at daybreak, close the openings!

J. Wesley Potts was an early arrival, having tramped across the Plains all the way from Texas, in 1852, reaching Los Angeles in September. At first, he could obtain nothing to do but haul dirt in a hand-cart for the spasmodic patching-up of the streets; but when he had earned five or six dollars in that way, he took to peddling fruit, first carrying it around in a basket. Then he had a fruit stand. Getting the gold-fever, however, Potts went to the mines; but despairing at last of realizing anything there, he returned to Los Angeles and raised vegetables, introducing, among other things, the first locally-grown sweet potatoes put on the market--a stroke of enterprise recalling J. E. Pleasants's early venture in cultivating garden pease. Later he was widely known as a "weather prophet"--with predictions quite as likely to be worthless as to come true.

The prickly pear, the fruit of the cactus, was common in early Los Angeles. It grew in profusion all over this Southern country, but particularly so around San Gabriel at which place it was found in almost obstructing quantities; and prickly pears bordered the gardens of the Round House where they were plucked by visitors. Ugly enough things to handle, they were, nevertheless, full of juice, and proved refreshing and palatable when properly peeled. Pomegranates and quinces were also numerous, but they were not cultivated for the trade. Sycamore and oak trees were seen here and there, while the willow was evident in almost jungle profuseness, especially around river banks and along the borders of lanes. Wild mustard charmingly variegated the landscape and chaparral obscured many of the hills and rising ground. In winter, the ground was thickly covered with burr-clover and the poetically-named alfilaria.

Writing of vegetables and fruit, I naturally think of one of California's most popular products, the sandía or watermelon, and of its plenteousness in those more monotonous days when many and many a carreta load was brought to the indulging town. The melons were sold direct from the vehicles, as well as in stores, and the street seemed to be the principal place for the consumption of the luscious fruit. It was a very common sight to see Indians and others sitting along the roads, their faces buried in the green-pink depths. Some old-timers troubled with diseases of the kidney, believing that there was virtue in watermelon seeds, boiled them and used the tea medicinally.

Fish, caught at San Pedro and peddled around town, was a favorite item of food during the cooler months of the year. The pescadero, or vender, used a loud fish horn, whose deep but not melodious tones announced to the expectant housewife that he was at hand with a load of sea-food. Owing to the poorer facilities for catching them, only a few varieties of deep-water fish, such as barracuda, yellowtail and rockfish were sold.

Somewhere I have seen it stated that, in 1854, O. W. Childs brought the first hive of bees from San Francisco at a cost of one hundred and fifty dollars; but as nearly as I can recollect, a man named Logan owned the first beehives and was, therefore, the pioneer honey-producer. I remember paying him three dollars for a three-pound box of comb-honey, but I have forgotten the date of the transaction. In 1860, Cyrus Burdick purchased several swarms of bees and had no difficulty in selling the honey at one dollar a pound. By the fall of 1861, the bee industry had so expanded that Perry & Woodworth, as I have stated, devoted part of their time to the making of beehives. J. E. Pleasants, of Santiago Cañon, known also for his Cashmere goats, was another pioneer bee-man and received a gold medal for his exhibit at the New Orleans Exposition.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] Verandas, spoken of locally as corridors; from which fact I may use both terms interchangeably.

[9] Recently razed.

[10] Translated by Perry Worden for the centenary of The Song of the Bell:

Through each hand close-joined and waiting, Emulating, Flies the pail.

[11] History repeats itself: in 1915, ranchers at Zelzah were accused of appropriating water from the new aqueduct, under cover of the night, without paying for it.

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X. EARLY SOCIAL LIFE

1854

In June, 1854, my brother sold out, and I determined to establish myself in business and thus become my own master. My lack of knowledge of English was somewhat of a handicap; but youth and energy were in my favor, and an eager desire to succeed overcame all obstacles. Upon computing my worldly possessions, I found that I had saved nearly two hundred and forty dollars, the sum total of my eight months' wages; and this sum I invested in my first venture. My brother, J. P. Newmark, opened a credit for me, which contributed materially to my success; and I rented the store on the north side of Commercial Street, about one hundred feet west of Los Angeles, owned by Mateo Keller and just vacated by Prudent Beaudry. Little did I think, in so doing, that, twelve years later, some Nemesis would cause Beaudry to sell out to me. I fully realized the importance of succeeding in my initial effort, and this requited me for seven months of sacrifices, until January 1st, 1855, when I took an inventory and found a net profit of fifteen hundred dollars. To give some idea of what was then required to attain such success, I may say that, having no assistance at all, I was absolutely a prisoner from early morning until late in the evening--the usual hour of closing, as I have elsewhere explained, being eight o'clock. From sweeping out to keeping books, I attended to all my own work; and since I neither wished to go out and lock up nor leave my stock long unprotected, I remained on guard all day, giving the closest possible attention to my little store.

Business conditions in the fifties were necessarily very different from what they are to-day. There was no bank in Los Angeles for some years, although Downey and one or two others may have had some kind of a safe. People generally hoarded their cash in deep, narrow buckskin bags, hiding it behind merchandise on the shelves until the departure of a steamer for San Francisco, or turning it into such vouchers as were negotiable and could be obtained here. John Temple, who had a ranch or two in the North (from which he sent cattle to his agent in San Francisco), generally had a large reserve of cash to his credit with butchers or bankers in the Northern city, and he was thus able to issue drafts against his balances there; being glad enough to make the exchange, free of cost. When, however, Temple had exhausted his cash, the would-be remitter was compelled to send the coin itself by express. He would then take the specie to the company's agent; and the latter, in his presence, would do it up in a sealed package and charge one dollar a hundred for safe transmission. No wonder, therefore, that people found expressing coin somewhat expensive, and were more partial to the other method.

In the beginning of the fifties, too, silver was irregular in supply. Nevada's treasures still lay undiscovered within the bowels of the earth, and much foreign coin was in use here, leading the shrewdest operators to import silver money from France, Spain, Mexico and other countries. The size of coins, rather than their intrinsic value, was then the standard. For example, a five-franc piece, a Mexican dollar or a coin of similar size from any other country passed for a dollar here; while a Mexican twenty-five-cent piece, worth but fourteen cents, was accepted for an American quarter, so that these importers did a "land-office" business. Half-dollars and their equivalents were very scarce; and these coins being in great demand among gamblers, it often happened that they would absorb the supply. This forced such a premium that eighteen dollars in silver would commonly bring twenty dollars in gold.

Most of the output of the mines of Southern California--then rated as the best dust--went to San Francisco assayers, who minted it into octagonal and round pieces known as slugs. Among those issuing privately-stamped coins were J. S. Ormsby (whose mark, J. S. O., became familiar) and Augustus Humbert, both of whom circulated eight-cornered ingots; and Wass Molitor & Co., whose slugs were always round. Pieces of the value of from one to twenty-five dollars, and even miniature coins for fractional parts of a dollar, were also minted; while F. D. Kohler, the State Assayer, made an oblong ingot worth about fifty dollars. Some of the other important assaying concerns were Moffatt & Co., Kellogg & Co. and Templeton Reid. Baldwin & Co. was another firm which issued coins of smaller denomination; and to this firm belonged David Colbert Broderick, who was killed by Terry.

Usurers were here from the beginning, and their tax was often ruinously exorbitant. So much did they charge for money, in fact, that from two to twelve and a half per cent. a week was paid; this brought about the loss of many early estates. I recollect, for example, that the owner of several thousand acres of land borrowed two hundred dollars, at an interest charge of twelve and a half per cent. for each week, from a resident of Los Angeles whose family is still prominent in California; and that when principal and interest amounted to twenty-two thousand dollars, the lender foreclosed and thus ingloriously came into possession of a magnificent property.

For at least twenty years after I arrived in Los Angeles, the credit system was so irregular as to be no system at all. Land and other values were exceedingly low, there was not much ready money, and while the credit of a large rancher was small compared with what his rating would be today because of the tremendous advances in land and stock, much longer time was then given on running accounts than would be allowed now. Bills were generally settled after the harvest. The wine-grower would pay his score when the grape crop was sold; and the cattleman would liquidate what he could when he sold his cattle. In other words, there was no credit foundation whatever; indeed, I have known accounts to be carried through three and four dry seasons.

It is true, also, that many a fine property was lost through the mania of the Californian for gambling, and it might be just as well to add that the loose credit system ruined many. I believe, in fact, it is generally recognized in certain lines of business that the too flexible local fiscal practice of to-day is the descendant of the careless methods of the past.

My early experiences as a merchant afforded me a good opportunity to observe the character and peculiarities of the people with whom I had to deal. In those days a disposition to steal was a common weakness on the part of many, especially Indians, and merchants generally suffered so much from the evil that a sharp lookout had to be kept. On one occasion, I saw a native woman deftly abstract a pair of shoes and cleverly secrete them on her person; and at the conclusion of her purchases, as she was about to leave the store, I stepped up to her, and with a "¡Dispense me Vd.!" quietly recovered the zapatos. The woman smiled, each of us bowed, the pilfering patron departed, and nothing further was ever said of the affair.

This proneness to steal was frequently utilized by early and astute traders, who kept on hand a stock of very cheap but gaudy jewelry which was placed on the counter within easy reach--a device which prevented the filching of more valuable articles, while it attracted, at the same time, this class of customers; and as soon as the esteemed customers ceased to buy, the trays of tempting trinkets were removed.

Shyness of the truth was another characteristic of many a native that often had to be reckoned with by merchants wishing to accommodate, as far as possible, while avoiding loss. One day in 1854, a middle-aged Indian related to me that his mother (who was living half a block north on Main Street, and was between eighty and ninety years of age) had suddenly died, and that he would like some candles, for which he was unable to pay, to place around the bed holding the remains of the departed. I could not refuse this filial request, and straightway gave him the wax tapers which were to be used for so holy a purpose. The following day, however, I met the old woman on the street and she was as lively a corpse as one might ever expect to see; leaving me to conclude that she was lighted to her room, the previous night, by one of the very candles supposed to be then lighting her to eternity.

The fact that I used to order straw hats which came telescoped in dozens and were of the same pattern (in the crown of one of which, at the top, I found one morning a litter of kittens tenderly deposited there by the store cat), recalls an amusing incident showing the modesty of the times, at least in the style of ladies' bonnets. S. Lazard & Company once made an importation of Leghorn hats which, when they arrived, were found to be all trimmed alike--a bit of ribbon and a little bunch of artificial flowers in front being their only ornamentation! Practically, all the fair damsels and matrons of the town were limited, for the season, to this supply--a fact that was patent enough, a few days later, at a picnic held at Sainsevain's favorite vineyard and well patronized by the feminine leaders in our little world.

But to return to one or two pioneers. David Workman died soon after he came here, in 1854, with his wife whose maiden name was Nancy Hook. He was a brother of William Workman and followed him to Los Angeles, bringing his three sons, Thomas H.--killed in the explosion of the Ada Hancock--Elijah H. and William H., who was for a while a printer and later in partnership with his brother in the saddlery business. Elijah once owned a tract of land stretching from what is now Main to Hill streets and around Twelfth. Workman Street is named after this family.

Henry Mellus, brother of Francis Mellus, to whom I elsewhere more fully refer, who had returned to New England, was among us again in 1854. Whether this was the occasion of Mellus's unfortunate investment, or not, I cannot say; but on one of his trips to the East, he lost a quarter of a million through an unlucky investment in iron.

Jean B. Trudell (a nephew of Damien Marchessault and a cousin of P. Beaudry), for a short time in partnership with S. Lazard, was an old-timer who married Anita, the widow of Henry Mellus; and through this union a large family resulted. He conducted salt works, from which he supplied the town with all grades of cheap salt; and he stood well in the community. Mrs. Trudell took care of her aunt, Mrs. Bell, during her later years.

With the growth of our little town, newspapers increased, even though they did not exactly prosper. On the 20th of July, 1854, C. N. Richards & Company started the Southern Californian, a name no doubt suggested by that of the San Francisco journal, with William Butts as editor; and on November 2d, Colonel John O. Wheeler joined Butts and bought out Richards & Company. Their paper was printed in one of Dalton's corrugated iron houses. The Southern Californian was a four-page weekly, on one side of which news, editorials and advertisements, often mere translations of matter in the other columns, were published in Spanish. One result of the appearance of this paper was that Waite & Company, a month or so later, reduced the subscription price of the Star--their new rate being nine dollars a year, or six dollars in advance.

In 1853, a number of Spanish-American restaurant keepers plied their vocation, so that Mexican and Spanish cooking were always obtainable. Then came the cafetería, but the term was used with a different significance from that now in vogue. It was rather a place for drinking than for eating, and in this respect the name had little of the meaning current in parts of Mexico to-day, where a cafetería is a small restaurant serving ordinary alcoholic drinks and plain meals. Nor was the institution the same as that familiarly known in Pacific Coast towns, and particularly in Los Angeles--one of the first American cities to experiment with this departure; where a considerable variety of food (mostly cooked and warm) is displayed to view, and the prospective diner, having secured his tray and napkin, knife, fork and spoons, indicates his choice as he passes by the steam-heated tables and is helped to whatever he selects, and then carries both service and viands to a small table.

The native population followed their own cuisine, and the visitor to Spanish-American homes naturally partook of native food. All the Mexican dishes that are common now, such as tamales, enchiladas and frijoles, were favorite dishes then. There were many saloons in Sonora Town and elsewhere, and mescal and aguardiente, popular drinks with the Mexicans, were also indulged in by the first white settlers. Although there were imported wines, the wine-drinkers generally patronized the local product. This was a very cheap article, costing about fifteen cents a gallon, and was usually supplied with meals, without extra charge. Tamales in particular were very popular with the Californians, but it took some time for the incoming epicure to appreciate all that was claimed for them and other masterpieces of Mexican cooking.

The tortilla was another favorite, being a generous-sized maize cake, round and rather thin, in the early preparation of which the grain was softened, cleaned and parboiled, after which it was rolled and crushed between two pieces of flat stone. Deft hands then worked the product into a pancake, which was placed, sometimes on a piece of stoneware, sometimes on a plate of iron, and baked, first on one side and then on the other. A part of the trick in tortilla-baking consisted in its delicate toasting; and when just the right degree of parching had been reached, the crisp, tasty tortilla was ready to maintain its position even against more pretentious members of the pancake family.

Pan de huevos, or bread of eggs, was peddled around town on little trays by Mexican women and, when well-prepared, was very palatable. Panocha, a dark Mexican sugar made into cakes, was also vended by native women. Pinole was brought in by Indians; and as far as I can remember, it could not have had a very exact meaning, since I have heard the term applied both to ground pinenuts and ground corn, and it may also have been used to mean other food prepared in the same manner. Be this as it may, the value to the Indian came from the fact that, when mixed with water, pinole proved a cheap, but nutritious article of diet.

I have told of the old-fashioned, comfortable adobes, broad and liberal, whose halls, rooms, verandas and patios bespoke at least comfort if not elaborateness. Among the old California families dwelling within these houses, there was much visiting and entertainment, and I often partook of this proverbial and princely hospitality. There was also much merry-making, the firing of crackers, bell-ringing and dancing the fandango, jota and cachucha marking their jolly and whole-souled fiestas. Only for the first few years after I came was the real fandango--so popular when Dana visited Los Angeles and first saw Don Juan Bandini execute the dance--witnessed here; little by little it went out of fashion, perhaps in part because of the skill required for its performance. Balls and hops, however, for a long time were carelessly called by that name. When the fandango really was in vogue, Bandini, António Coronel, Andrés Pico, the Lugos and other native Californians were among its most noted exponents; they often hired a hall, gave a fandango in which they did not hesitate to take the leading parts, and turned the whole proceeds over to some church or charity. On such occasions not merely the plain people (always so responsive to music and its accompanying pleasures) were the fandangueros, but the flower of our local society turned out en masse, adding to the affair a high degree of éclat. There was no end, too, of good things to eat and drink, which people managed somehow to pass around; and the enjoyment was not lessened by the fact that every such dance hall was crowded to the walls, and that the atmosphere, relieved by but a narrow door and window or two, was literally thick with both dust and smoke.

Still living are some who have memories of these old fandango days and the journeys taken from suburb to town in order to participate in them. Doña Petra Pilar Lanfranco used to tell me how, as a young girl, she came up from the old Palos Verdes ranch house in a carreta and was always chaperoned by a lady relative. On such occasions, the carreta would be provided with mattresses, pillows and covers, while at the end, well strapped, was the trunk containing the finery to be worn at the ball. To reach town even from a point that would now be regarded as near, a start was generally made by four o'clock in the morning; and it often took until late the same evening to arrive at the Bella Union, where final preparations were made.

One of the pleasant features of a fandango or hop was the use of cascarones, or egg-shells, filled with one thing or another, agreeable when scattered, and for the time being sealed up. These shells were generally painted; and most often they contained many-colored pieces of paper, or the tinsel, oropel, cut up very fine. Not infrequently the shell of the egg was filled with perfume; and in the days when Californians were flush, gold leaf or even gold dust was sometimes thus inclosed, with a wafer, and kept for the casamiento, when it would be showered upon the fortunate bride. The greatest compliment that a gentleman could pay a lady was to break one of these cascarones over her head, and often the compliment would be returned; the floor, at the termination of such festivities, being literally covered with the bits of paper and egg-shell. When the fandango was on in all its mad delight, a gentleman would approach a lady to salute her, upon which she would bow her head slightly and permit him, while he gently squeezed the egg-shell, to let its contents fall gracefully over her head, neck and shoulders; and very often she would cleverly choose the right moment--perhaps when he was not looking--to politely reciprocate the courtesy, under which circumstances he was in duty bound to detect, if he could, among the smiling, blushing ladies, the one who had ventured so agreeably to offend. Such was the courtliness, in fact, among the native population that even at fandangos, in which the public participated and the compliment of the cascarón was almost universally observed, there was seldom a violation of regard for another's feelings. When such rowdyism did occur, however (prompted perhaps by jealousy), and bad eggs or that which was even less aromatic, were substituted, serious trouble ensued; and one or two fatalities are on record as growing out of such senseless acts. Speaking of fandangos, it may be added that in January, 1861, the Common Council of Los Angeles passed an ordinance requiring the payment in advance of ten dollars for a one-night license to hold any public dance within the city limits.

The pueblo was so small in the fifties, and the number of white people so limited that, whenever a newcomer arrived, it caused considerable general excitement; and when it infrequently happened that persons of note came for even a single night, a deputation of prominent citizens made their short stay both noisy with cannonading and tiresome with spread-eagle oratory.

A very important individual in early days was Peter Biggs, or Nigger Pete, a pioneer barber who came here in 1852, having previously been sold as a slave to an officer at Fort Leavenworth and freed, in California, at the close of the Mexican War. He was a black-haired, good-natured man, then about forty years of age, and had a shop on Main Street, near the Bella Union. He was, indeed, the only barber in town who catered to Americans, and while by no means of the highest tonsorial capacity, was sufficiently appreciative of his monopoly to charge fifty cents for shaving and seventy-five cents for hair-cutting. When, however, a Frenchman named Felix Signoret (whose daughter married Ed. McGinnis, the high-toned saloon keeper) appeared, some years later--a barber by trade, of whom we shall hear more later--it was not long before Pete was seriously embarrassed, being compelled, first to reduce his prices and then to look for more humble work. In the early sixties, Pete was advertising as follows:

NEW ORLEANS SHAVING SALOON OPPOSITE MELLUS' STORE ON MAIN STREET.

PRICES REDUCED! To Keep Pace with the Times Shaving 12½c. Hair-cutting 25c. Shampoo_n_ing 25c.

Peter Biggs will always be on hand and ready to attend to all business in his line, such as cleaning and polishing the "understanding" together with an Intelligence Office and City Express. Also washing and ironing done with all neatness and despatch, at reasonable rates.

Recalling Biggs and his barber shop, I may say that, in fitting up his place, he made little or no pretension. He had an old-fashioned, high-backed chair, but otherwise operated much as barbers do to-day. People sat around waiting their turn; and as Biggs called "Next!" he sprinkled the last victim with Florida water, applying to the hair at the same time his Bear Oil (sure to leave its mark on walls and pillows), after which, with a soiled towel he put on the finishing touch--for one towel in those days served many customers. But few patrons had their private cups. Biggs served only men and boys, as ladies dressed their own hair. To some extent, Biggs was a maker or, at least, a purveyor of wigs.

Besides Peter Biggs, a number of colored people lived in Los Angeles at an early date--five of whom belonged to the Mexican Veterans--Bob Owens and his wife being among the most prominent. Owens--who came here from Texas in December, 1853--was known to his friends as Uncle Bob, while Mrs. Owens was called Aunt Winnie. The former at first did all kinds of odd jobs, later profiting through dealings with the Government; while his good wife washed clothes, in which capacity she worked from time to time for my family. They lived in San Pedro Street, and invested their savings in a lot extending from Spring to Fort streets, between Third and Fourth. Owens died in 1865. Their heirs are wealthy as a result of this investment; in fact, I should not be surprised if they are among the most prosperous negroes in America.

Another colored man of the sixties was named Berry, though he was popularly known as Uncle George. He was indeed a local character, a kind of popinjay; and when not busy with janitor or other all-around scrubwork, sported among the negroes as an ultra-fashionable.

Elsewhere I have spoken of the versatility of Dr. William B. Osburn, who showed no little commendable enterprise. In October, 1854, he shipped to an agricultural convention in Albany, New York, the first Los Angeles grapes ever sent to the East; and the next year he imported roses, shrubbery and fruit trees from Rochester.

On October 13th, 1854, a good-for-nothing gambler, Dave Brown--who had planned to rob John Temple on one of his business trips, but was thwarted because Temple changed his route--murdered a companion, Pinckney Clifford, in a livery stable at what was later to become the corner of Main and Court streets; and next day the lawless act created such general indignation that vengeance on Brown would undoubtedly then and there have been wreaked had not Stephen C. Foster, who was Mayor, met the crowd of citizens and persuaded them quietly to disperse. In order to mollify the would-be Vigilantes, Foster promised that, if the case miscarried in the courts and Brown was not given his due, he would resign his office and would himself lead those who favored taking the law into their own hands; and as Foster had been a Lieutenant in the Rangers under Dr. Hope, showing himself to be a man of nerve, the crowd had confidence in him and went its way.

On November 30th, Brown was tried in the District Court, and Judge Benjamin Hayes sentenced him to hang on January 12th, 1855--the same date on which Felipe Alvitre, a half-breed Indian, was to pay the penalty for killing James Ellington at El Monte. Brown's counsel were J. R. Scott, Cameron E. Thom and J. A. Watson; and these attorneys worked so hard and so effectively for their client that on January 10th, or two days before the date set for the execution, Judge Murray of the Supreme Court granted Brown a stay, although apparently no relief was provided for Alvitre. The latter was hanged in the calaboose or jail yard, in the presence of a vast number of people, at the time appointed. Alvitre having been strung up by Sheriff Barton and his assistants, the rope broke, letting the wretch fall to the ground, more dead than alive. This bungling so infuriated the crowd that cries of "Arriba! Arriba!" (Up with him! up with him!) rent the air. The executioners sprang forward, lifted the body, knotted the rope together and once more drew aloft the writhing form. Then the gallows was dismantled and the guards dismissed.

The news that one execution had taken place, while the Court, in the other case, had interfered, was speedily known by the crowds in the streets and proved too much for the patience of the populace; and only a leader or two were required to focus the indignation of the masses. That leader appeared in Foster who, true to his word, resigned from the office of Mayor and put himself at the head of the mob. Appeals, evoking loud applause, were made by one speaker after another, each in turn being lifted to the top of a barrel; and then the crowd began to surge toward the jail. Poles and crowbars were brought, and a blacksmith called for; and the prison doors, which had been locked, bolted and barred, were broken in, very soon convincing the Sheriff and his assistants--if any such conviction were needed--that it was useless to resist. In a few minutes, Brown was reached, dragged out and across Spring Street, and there hanged to the crossbeam of a corral gateway opposite the old jail, the noose being drawn tight while he was still attempting to address the crowd.

When Brown was about to be disposed of, he was asked if he had anything to say; to which he replied that he had no objection to paying the penalty of his crime, but that he did take exception to a "lot of Greasers" shuffling him off! Brown referred to the fact that Mexicans especially were conspicuous among those who had hold of the rope; and his coarsely-expressed objection striking a humorous vein among the auditors, the order was given to indulge his fancy and accommodate him--whereupon, Americans strung him up! One of those who had previously volunteered to act as hangman for Brown was Juan Gonzales; but within four months, that is, in May, 1855, Gonzales himself was sent to the penitentiary by Judge Myron Norton, convicted of horse-stealing.

A rather amusing feature of this hanging was the manner in which the report of it was served up to the public. The lynching-bee seemed likely to come off about three o'clock in the afternoon, while the steamer for San Francisco was to leave at ten o'clock on the same morning; so that the schedules did not agree. A closer connection was undoubtedly possible--at least so thought Billy Workman, then a typo on the Southern Californian, who planned to print a full account of the execution in time to reach the steamer. So Billy sat down and wrote out every detail, even to the confession of the murderer on the improvised gallows; and several hours before the tragic event actually took place, the wet news-sheet was aboard the vessel and on its way north. A few surplus copies gave the lynchers the unique opportunity, while watching the stringing-up, of comparing the written story with the affair as it actually occurred.

While upon the subject of lynching, I wish to observe that I have witnessed many such distressing affairs in Los Angeles; and that, though the penalty of hanging was sometimes too severe for the crime (and I have always deplored, as much as any of us ever did, the administration of mob-justice) yet the safety of the better classes in those troublous times often demanded quick and determined action, and stern necessity knew no law. And what is more, others besides myself who have also repeatedly faced dangers no longer common, agree with me in declaring, after half a century of observation and reflection, that milder courses than those of the vigilance committees of our young community could hardly have been followed with wisdom and safety.

Wood was the only regular fuel for many years, and people were accustomed to buy it in quantities and to pile it carefully in their yards. When it was more or less of a drug on the market, I paid as little as three dollars and a half a cord; in winter I had to pay more, but the price was never high. No tree was spared, and I have known magnificent oaks to be wantonly felled and used for fuel. Valuable timber was often destroyed by squatters guilty of a form of trespassing that gave much trouble, as I can testify from my own experience.

Henry Dwight Barrows, who had been educated as a Yankee schoolmaster, arrived in Los Angeles in December, 1854, as private tutor to William Wolfskill. Other parts of Barrows's career were common to many pioneers: he was in business for a while in New York, caught the gold-fever, gave up everything to make the journey across the Isthmus of Panamá, on which trip he was herded as one of seventeen hundred passengers on a rickety Coast vessel; and finally, after some unsuccessful experiences as a miner in Northern California, he made his way to the Southland to accept the proffered tutorship, hoping to be cured of the malarial fever which he had contracted during his adventures. Barrows taught here three years, returned East by steamer for a brief trip in 1857, and in 1859-60 tried his hand at cultivating grapes, in a vineyard owned by Prudent Beaudry. On November 14th, 1860, Barrows was married to Wolfskill's daughter, Señorita Juana; and later he was County School Superintendent. In 1861, President Lincoln appointed Barrows United States Marshal, the duties of which office he performed for four years. In 1864, having lost his wife he married the widow (formerly Miss Alice Woodworth) of Thomas Workman. The same year he formed a partnership with J. D. Hicks, under the firm name of J. D. Hicks & Company, and sold tin and hardware for twelve or fifteen years. In 1868, bereaved of his second wife, Barrows married Miss Bessie Ann Greene, a native of New York. That year, too, he was joined by his brother, James Arnold Barrows,[12] who came by way of Panamá and bought thirty-five acres of land afterward obtained by the University of Southern California. About 1874, Barrows was manufacturing pipe. For years he dwelt with his daughter, Mrs. R. G. Weyse, contributing now and then to the activities of the Historical Society, and taking a keen interest[13] in Los Angeles affairs.

About 1854 or 1855, I. M., Samuel and Herman (who must not be confused with H. W.) Hellman, arrived here, I. M. preceding his brothers by a short period. In time, I. M. Hellman, in San Francisco, married Miss Caroline Adler; and in 1862 her sister, Miss Adelaide, came south on a visit and married Samuel Hellman. One of the children of this union is Maurice S. Hellman, who, for many years associated with Joseph F. Sartori, has occupied an important position in banking and financial circles.

In 1854 or 1855, Bishop & Beale, a firm consisting of Samuel A. Bishop and E. F. Beale, became owners of an immense tract of Kern County land consisting of between two and three-hundred thousand acres. This vast territory was given to them in payment for the work which they had done in surveying the Butterfield Route, later incorporated in the stage road connecting San Francisco with St. Louis. Recently I read an account of Beale's having been an Indian Agent at the Reservation; but if he was, I have forgotten it. I remember Colonel James F. Vineyard, an Indian Agent and later Senator from Los Angeles; one of whose daughters was married, in 1862, to Congressman Charles De Long, of Nevada City, afterward United States Minister to Japan, and another daughter to Dr. Hayes, of Los Angeles.

Bishop, after a while, sold out his interest in the land and moved to San José, where he engaged in street-car operations. He was married near San Gabriel to Miss Frances Young, and I officiated as one of the groomsmen at the wedding. After Bishop disposed of his share, Colonel R. S. Baker became interested, but whether or not he bought Bishop's interest at once, is not clear in my memory. It is worth noting that Bakersfield, which was part of this great ranch, took its name from Colonel Baker. Some time later, Baker sold out to Beale and then came South and purchased the San Vicente Ranch. This rancho comprised the whole Santa Monica district and consisted of thirty thousand acres, which Baker stocked with sheep. On a part of this land, the Soldiers' Home now stands.

Hilliard P. Dorsey, another typical Western character, was Register of the Land Office and a leading Mason of early days. He lived in Los Angeles in 1853, and I met him on the Goliah in October of that year, on the way south, after a brief visit to San Francisco, and while I was bound for my new home. We saw each other frequently after my arrival here; and I was soon on good terms with him. When I embarked in business on my own account, therefore, I solicited Dorsey's patronage.

One day, Dorsey bought a suit of clothes from me on credit. A couple of months passed by, however, without any indication on his part that he intended to pay; and as the sum involved meant much to me at that time, I was on the lookout for my somewhat careless debtor. In due season, catching sight of him on the other side of the street, I approached, in genuine American fashion, and unceremoniously asked him to liquidate his account. I had not then heard of the notches in Friend Dorsey's pistol, and was so unconscious of danger that my temerity seemed to impress him. I believe, in fact, that he must have found the experience novel. However that may be, the next day he called and paid his bill.

In relating this circumstance to friends, I was enlightened as to Dorsey's peculiar propensities and convinced that youth and ignorance alone had saved me from disaster. In other words, he let me go, as it were, on probation. Dorsey himself was killed sometime later by his father-in-law, William Rubottom, who had come to El Monte with Ezekiel Rubottom, in 1852 or 1853. After quarreling with Rubottom, Dorsey, who was not a bad fellow, but of a fiery temper, had entered the yard with a knife in his hand; and Rubottom had threatened to shoot him if he came any nearer. The son-in-law continued to advance; and Rubottom shot him dead. M. J. Newmark, Rubottom's attorney, who had been summoned to El Monte for consultation as to Dorsey's treatment of Rubottom's daughter, was present at the fatal moment and witnessed the shooting affray.

Uncle Billy Rubottom, as he was familiarly called, came to Los Angeles County after losing heavily through the bursting of Yuba Dam and was one of the founders of Spadra. He named the settlement, laid out on a part of the San José rancho, after his home town, Spadra Bluffs in Arkansas, and opened a hotel which he made locally famous, during a decade and a half, for barbecues and similar events, giving personal attention (usually while in shirt-sleeves) to his many guests. In his declining years, Uncle Billy lived with Kewen H. Dorsey, his grandson, who was also prominent in masonic circles.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] Died, June 9th, 1914.

[13] Died, August 7th, 1914.

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XI. THE RUSH FOR GOLD

1855

As I have already related, I made fifteen hundred dollars in a few months, and in January, 1855, my brother advised me to form a partnership with men of maturer years. In this I acquiesced. He thereupon helped to organize the firm of Rich, Newmark & Company, consisting of Elias Laventhal (who reached here in 1854 and died on January 20th, 1902), Jacob Rich and myself. Rich was to be the San Francisco resident partner, while Laventhal and I undertook the management of the business in Los Angeles. We prospered from the beginning, deriving much benefit from our San Francisco representation which resulted in our building up something of a wholesale business.

In the early fifties, Los Angeles was the meeting-place of a Board of Land Commissioners appointed by the National Government to settle land-claims and to prepare the way for that granting of patents to owners of Southern California ranches which later awakened from time to time such interest here. This interest was largely due to the fact that the Mexican authorities, in numerous instances, had made the same grant to different persons, often confusing matters badly. Cameron E. Thom, then Deputy Land Agent, took testimony for the Commissioners. In 1855, this Board completed its labors. The members were Hiland Hall (later Governor of Vermont,) Harry I. Thornton and Thompson Campbell; and during the season they were here, these Land Commissioners formed no unimportant part of the Los Angeles legal world.

Thomas A. Delano, whose name is perpetuated in our local geography, was a sailor who came to Los Angeles on January 4th, 1855, after which, for fifteen or sixteen years, he engaged in freighting. He married Señorita Soledad, daughter of John C. Vejar, the well-known Spanish Californian.

Slowness and uncertainty of mail delivery in our first decades affected often vital interests, as is shown in the case of the half-breed Alvitre who, as I have said, was sentenced to be executed. One reason why the Vigilantes, headed by Mayor Foster, despatched Brown was the expectation that both he and Alvitre would get a stay from higher authority; and sure enough, a stay was granted Alvitre, but the document was delayed in transit until the murderer, on January 12th, 1855, had forfeited his life! Curiously enough, another Alvitre--an aged Californian named José Claudio--also of El Monte, but six years later atrociously murdered his aged wife; and on April 28th, 1861, he was hanged. The lynchers placed him on a horse under a tree, and then drove the animal away, leaving him suspended from a limb.

Washington's Birthday, in 1855, was made merrier by festivities conducted under the auspices of the City Guards, of which W. W. Twist--a grocer and commission merchant at Beaudry's Block, Aliso Street, and afterward in partnership with Casildo Aguilar--was Captain. The same organization gave its first anniversary ball in May. Twist was a Ranger, or member of the volunteer mounted police; and it was he who, in March, 1857, formed the first rifle company. In the early sixties, he was identified with the sheriff's office, after which, venturing into Mexico, he was killed.

Henry C. G. Schaeffer came to Los Angeles on March 16th, 1855, and opened the first gunsmith shop in a little adobe on the east side of Los Angeles Street near Commercial, which he soon surrounded with an attractive flower garden. A year after Schaeffer came, he was followed by another gunsmith, August Stoermer. Schaeffer continued, however, to sell and mend guns and to cultivate flowers; and twenty years later found him on Wilmington Street, near New Commercial, still encircled by one of the choicest collections of flowers in the city, and the first to have brought here the night-blooming cereus. With more than regret, therefore, I must record that, in the middle seventies, this warm-hearted friend of children, so deserving of the good will of everyone, committed suicide.

Gold was discovered at Havilah, Kern County, in 1854; and by the early spring of 1855 exaggerated accounts of the find had spread broadcast over the entire State. Yarn after yarn passed from mouth to mouth, one of the most extravagant of the reports being that a Mexican doctor and alchemist suddenly rode into Mariposa from the hills, where he had found a gulch paved with gold, his horse and himself being fairly covered with bags of nuggets. The rush by gold-seekers on their way from the North to Los Angeles (the Southern gateway to the fields) began in January, 1855, and continued a couple of years, every steamer being loaded far beyond the safety limit; and soon miles of the rough highways leading to the mines were covered with every conceivable form of vehicle and struggling animals, as well as with thousands of footsore prospectors, unable to command transportation at any price. For awhile, ten, twelve and even fifteen per cent. interest a month was offered for small amounts of money by those of the prospectors who needed assistance, a rate based on the calculation that a wide-awake digger would be sure of eight to ten dollars a day, and that with such returns one should certainly be satisfied. This time the excitement was a little too much for the Los Angeles editors to ignore; and in March the publisher of the Southern Californian, himself losing his balance, issued an "extra" with these startling announcements:

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 average $50.00 a day. One man with his own hands took out $160.00 in a day. Five men in ten days took out $4,500.00.

The affair proved, however, a ridiculous failure; and William Marsh, an old Los Angeles settler and a very decent chap, who conducted a store at Havilah, was among those who suffered heavy loss. Although some low-grade ore was found, it was generally not in paying quantities. The dispersion of this adventurous mass of humanity brought to Los Angeles many undesirable people, among them gamblers and desperadoes, who flocked in the wake of the gold-diggers, making another increase in the rough element. Before long, four men were fatally shot and half a dozen wounded near the Plaza, one Sunday night.

When the excitement about the gold-finds along the Kern River was at its height, Frank Lecouvreur arrived here, March 6th, on the steamship America, lured by reports then current in San Francisco. To save the fare of five dollars, he trudged for ten hours all the way from San Pedro, carrying on his shoulders forty pounds of baggage; but on putting up at the United States Hotel, then recently started, he was dissuaded by some experienced miners from venturing farther up the country. Soon after, he met a fellow-countryman from Königsberg, named Arnold, who induced him, on account of his needy condition, to take work in his saloon; but disliking his duties and the rather frequent demands upon his nervous system through being shot at, several times, by patrons not exactly satisfied with Lecouvreur's locomotion and his method of serving, the young German quit the job and went to work as a carriage-painter for John Goller. In October, Captain Henry Hancock, then County Surveyor, engaged Lecouvreur as flagman, at a salary of sixty dollars; which was increased twenty-five per cent. on the trip of the surveyors to the Mojave.

March 29th, 1855, witnessed the organization of the first Odd Fellows' lodge--No. 35--instituted here. General Ezra Drown was the leading spirit; and others associated with him were E. Wilson High, Alexander Crabb, L. C. Goodwin, William C. Ardinger, Morris L. Goodman and M. M. Davis.

During the fifties, the Bella Union passed under several successive managements. On July 22d, 1854, Dr. Macy sold it to W. G. Ross and a partner named Crockett. They were succeeded, on April 7th, 1855, by Robert S. Hereford. Ross was killed, some years afterward, by C. P. Duane in San Francisco.

In pursuit of business, in 1855, I made a number of trips to San Bernardino, some of which had their amusing incidents, and most of which afforded pleasure or an agreeable change. Meeting Sam Meyer on one of these occasions, just as I was mounted and ready to start, I invited him to accompany me; and as Sam assured me that he knew where to secure a horse, we started down the street together and soon passed a shop in which there was a Mexican customer holding on to a reata leading out through the door to his saddled nag. Sam walked in; and having a casual acquaintance with the man, asked him if he would lend him the animal for a while? People were generous in those days; and the good-hearted Mexican, thinking perhaps that Sam was "just going around the corner," carelessly answered, "Sí, Señor," and proceeded with his bartering. Sam, on the other hand, came out of the shop and led the horse away! After some days of minor adventures, when we lost our path near the Old Mission and had to put back to El Monte for the night, we arrived at San Bernardino; and on our return, after watering the horses, Sam found in his unhaltered steed such a veritable Tartar that, in sheer desperation, he was about to shoot the borrowed beast!

On another one of these trips I was entertained by Simon Jackson, a merchant of that town, who took me to a restaurant kept by a Captain Weiner. This, the best eating-place in town, was about ten feet square and had a mud floor. It was a miserably hot day--so hot, in fact, that I distinctly remember the place being filled with flies, and that the butter had run to oil. Nature had not intended Weiner to cater to sensitive stomachs, at least not on the day of which I speak, and to make matters worse, Weiner was then his own waiter. He was wallowing around in his bare feet, and was otherwise unkempt and unclean; and the whole scene is therefore indelibly impressed on my memory. When the slovenly Captain bawled out: "Which will you have--chops or steak?" Jackson straightened up, threw out his chest, and in evidence of the vigor of his appetite, just as vociferously answered: "I want a steak as big as a mule's foot!"

Living in San Bernardino was a customer of ours, a celebrity by the name of Lewis Jacobs. He had joined the Mormon Church and was a merchant of worth and consequence. Jacobs was an authority on all matters of finance connected with his town, and anyone wishing to know the condition of business men in that neighborhood had only to apply to him. Once when I was in San Bernardino, I asked him for information regarding a prospective patron who was rather a gay sort of individual; and this was Jacobs's characteristic reply: "A very fine fellow: he plays a little poker, and drinks a little whiskey!" Jacobs became a banker and in 1900 died on shipboard while returning from Europe, leaving a comfortable fortune and the more valuable asset of a good name.

In referring to Alexander & Mellus and their retirement from business, I have said that merchandise required by Southern Californians in the early days, and before the absorption of the Los Angeles market by San Francisco, was largely transported by sailing vessels from the East. When a ship arrived, it was an event worthy of special notice, and this was particularly the case when such sailing craft came less and less often into port. Sometimes the arrival of the vessel was heralded in advance; and when it was unloaded, the shrewd merchants used decidedly modern methods for the marketing of their wares. In 1855, for example, Johnson & Allanson advertised as follows:

NEW GOODS! NEW GOODS!

Direct from the Atlantic States, 112 Days' Passage.

Samples of the Cargo at our Store in the Stearns Building; and the entire Cargo will be disposed of cheap, for cash.

Goods delivered at San Pedro or Los Angeles.

From the above announcement, it must not be inferred that these Los Angeles tradesmen brought to this port the whole shipload of merchandise. Such ships left but a small part of their cargo here, the major portion being generally consigned to the North.

The dependence on San Francisco continued until the completion of our first transcontinental railway. In the meantime, Los Angeles had to rely on the Northern city for nearly everything, live stock being about the only exception; and this relation was shown in 1855 by the publication of no less than four columns of San Francisco advertisements in the regular issue of a Los Angeles newspaper. Much of this commerce with the Southland for years was conducted by means of schooners which ran irregularly and only when there was cargo. They plied between San Francisco and San Pedro, and by agreement put in at Santa Bárbara and other Coast places such as Port San Luis, when the shipments warranted such stops. N. Pierce & Company were the owners. One of these vessels in 1855 was the clipper schooner Laura Bevan, captained by F. Morton and later wrecked at sea when Frank Lecouvreur just escaped taking passage on her; and another was the Sea Serpent, whose Captain bore the name of Fish.

I have said that in 1849 the old side-wheeler Gold Hunter had commenced paddling the waters around here; but so far as I can remember, she was not operating in 1853. The Goliah, on the other hand, was making two round trips a month, carrying passengers, mail and freight from San Francisco to San Diego, and stopping at various Coast points including San Pedro. In a vague way, I also remember the mail steamer Ohio under one of the Haleys, the Sea Bird, at one time commanded by Salisbury Haley, and the Southerner; and if I am uncertain about others, the difficulty may be due to the fact that, because of unseaworthiness and miserable service, owners changed the names of ships from time to time in order to allay the popular prejudice and distrust, so that during some years, several names were successively applied to the same vessel. It must have been about 1855 or 1856 that the Senator (brought to the Coast by Captain Coffin, January 28th, 1853) was put on the Southern run, and with her advent began a considerably improved service. As the schooners were even more irregular than the steamers, I generally divided my shipments, giving to the latter what I needed immediately, and consigning by the schooners, whose freight rates were much lower, what could stand delay. One more word about the Goliah: one day in the eighties I heard that she was still doing valiant service, having been sold to a Puget Sound company.

Recalling these old-time side-wheelers whose paddles churned the water into a frothing foam out of all proportion to the speed with which they drove the boat along her course, I recall, with a feeling almost akin to sentiment, the roar of the signal-gun fired just before landing, making the welcome announcement, as well to the traveler as to his friends awaiting him on shore, that the voyage had been safely consummated.

Shortly after my arrival in Los Angeles, the transportation service was enlarged by the addition of a stage line from San Francisco which ran along the Coast from the Northern city to the Old Town of San Diego, making stops all along the road, including San José, San Luis Obispo, Santa Bárbara and San Buenaventura, and particularly at Los Angeles, where not only horses, but stages and supplies were kept. The stage to San Diego followed, for the most part, the route selected later by the Santa Fé Railroad.

These old-time stages remind me again of the few varieties of vehicles then in use. John Goller had met with much skepticism and ridicule, as I have said, when he was planning an improvement on the old and clumsy carreta; and when his new ideas did begin to prevail, he suffered from competition. E. L. Scott & Company came as blacksmiths and carriage-makers in 1855; and George Boorham was another who arrived about the same time. Ben McLoughlin was also an early wheelwright. Among Goller's assistants who afterward opened shops for themselves, were the three Louis's--Roeder, Lichtenberger and Breer; Roeder and Lichtenberger[14] having a place on the west side of Spring Street just south of First.

Thomas W. Seeley, Captain of the Senator, was very fond of Los Angeles diversions, as will appear from the following anecdote of the late fifties. After bringing his ship to anchor off the coast, he would hasten to Los Angeles, leaving his vessel in command of First Mate Butters to complete the voyage to San Diego and return, which consumed forty-eight hours; and during this interval, the old Captain regularly made his headquarters at the Bella Union. There he would spend practically all of his time playing poker, then considered the gentleman's game of chance, and which, since the mania for Chemical Purity had not yet possessed Los Angeles, was looked upon without criticism. When the steamer returned from San Diego, Captain Seeley, if neither his own interest in the game nor his fellow-players' interest in his pocketbook had ebbed, would postpone the departure of his ship, frequently for even as much as twenty-four hours, thus adding to the irregularity of sailings which I have already mentioned. Many, in fact, were the inconveniences to which early travelers were subjected from this infrequency of trips and failure to sail at the stated hour; and to aggravate the trouble, the vessels were all too small, especially when a sudden excitement--due, perhaps, to some new report of the discovery of gold--increased the number of intending travelers. It even happened, sometimes, that persons were compelled to postpone their trip until the departure of another boat. Speaking of anchoring vessels off the coast, I may add that high seas frequently made it impossible to reach the steamers announced to leave at a certain time; in which case the officers used to advertise in the newspapers that the time of departure had been changed.

When Captain Seeley was killed in the Ada Hancock disaster, in 1863, First Mate Butters was made Captain and continued for some time in command. Just what his real fitness was, I cannot say; but it seemed to me that he did not know the Coast any too well. This impression also existed in the minds of others; and once, when we were supposed to be making our way to San Francisco, the heavy fog lifted and revealed the shore thirty miles north of our destination; whereupon a fellow-passenger exclaimed: "Why, Captain, this isn't at all the part of the Coast where we should be!" The remark stung the sensitive Butters, who probably was conscious enough of his shortcomings; and straightway he threatened to put the offending passenger in irons!

George F. Lamson was an auctioneer who arrived in Los Angeles in 1855. Aside from the sale of live stock, there was not much business in his line; although, as I have said, Dr. Osburn, the Postmaster, also had an auction room. Sales of household effects were held on a Tuesday or a Wednesday; while horses were offered for sale on Saturdays. Lamson had the typical auctioneer's personality; and many good stories were long related, illustrating his humor, wit and amusing impudence by which he often disposed, even to his friends, of almost worthless objects at high prices. A daughter Gertrude, widely known as Lillian Nance O'Neill, never married; another daughter, Lillian, is the wife of William Desmond, the actor.

In 1854, Congress made an appropriation of fifty thousand dollars which went far toward opening up the trade that later flourished between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City. This money was for the survey and location of a wagon-road between San Bernardino and the Utah capital; and on the first of May, 1855, Gilbert & Company established their Great Salt Lake Express over that Government route. It was at first a pony express, making monthly trips, carrying letters and stopping at such stations as Coal Creek, Fillmore City, Summit Creek and American Fork, and finally reaching Great Salt Lake; and early having good Los Angeles connections, it prospered sufficiently to substitute a wagon-service for the pony express. Although this was at first intended only as a means of connecting the Mormon capital with the more recently-founded Mormon settlement at San Bernardino, the extension of the service to Los Angeles eventually made this city the terminus.

Considerable excitement was caused by the landing at San Pedro, in 1855, of a shipload of Mormons from Honolulu. Though I do not recall that any more recruits came subsequently from that quarter, the arrival of these adherents of Brigham Young added color to his explanation that he had established a Mormon colony in California, as a base of operations and supplies for converts from the Sandwich Islands.

Thomas Foster, a Kentuckian, was the sixth Mayor of Los Angeles, taking office in May, 1855. He lived opposite Masonic Hall on Main Street, with his family, among whom were some charming daughters, and was in partnership with Dr. R. T. Hayes, in Apothecaries' Hall near the Post Office. He was one of the first Masons here and was highly esteemed; and he early declared himself in favor of better school and water facilities.

About the second week of June, 1855, appeared the first Spanish newspaper in Los Angeles under the American régime. It was called El Clamor Público, and made its appeal, socially, to the better class of native Californians. Politically, it was edited for Republicans, especially for the supporters, in 1856, of Frémont for President. Its editor was Francisco P. Ramirez; but though he was an able journalist and a good typo--becoming, between 1860 and 1862, State Printer in Sonora and, in 1865, Spanish Translator for the State of California--the Clamor, on December 31st, 1859, went the way of so many other local journals.

FOOTNOTE:

[14] Lichtenberger died some years ago; Roeder died February 20th, 1915.

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XII. THE GREAT HORSE RACE

1855

From all accounts, Fourth of July was celebrated in Los Angeles with more or less enthusiasm from the time of the City's reorganization, although afterward, as we shall see, the day was often neglected; but certainly in 1855 the festivities were worthy of remembrance. There was less formality, perhaps, and more cannonading than in later years; music was furnished by a brass band from Fort Tejón; and Phineas Banning was the stentorian "orator of the day." Two years previously, Banning had provided a three days' celebration and barbecue for the Fourth, attended by my brother; and I once enjoyed a barbecue at San Juan Capistrano where the merriment, continuing for half a week, marked both the hospitality and the leisurely habits of the people. In those days (when men were not afraid of noise) boys, in celebrating American Independence, made all the hullabaloo possible, untrammeled by the nonsense of "a sane Fourth."

On the Fourth of July and other holidays, as well as on Sundays, men from the country came to town, arrayed in their fanciest clothes; and, mounted upon their most spirited and gaily-caparisoned caballos de silla, or saddle-horses, they paraded the streets, as many as ten abreast, jingling the metallic parts of their paraphernalia, admired and applauded by the populace, and keenly alive to the splendid appearance they and their outfits made, and to the effect sure to be produced on the fair señoritas. The most popular thoroughfare for this purpose was Main Street. On such occasions, the men wore short, very tight-fitting jackets of bright-colored material--blue, green and yellow being the favorite colors--and trimmed with gold and silver lace or fringe. These jackets were so tight that often the wearers put them on only with great difficulty. The calzoneras, or pantaloons, were of the same material as the jackets, open on the side and flanked with brass buttons. The openings exposed the calzoncillos, or drawers. A fashionable adjunct was the Mexican garter, often costing ten to fifteen dollars, and another was the high-heeled boot, so small that ten minutes or more were required to draw it on. This boot was a great conceit; but though experiencing much discomfort, the victim could not be induced to increase the size.

The serape, worn by men, was the native substitute for the overcoat. It was a narrow, Mexican blanket of finest wool, multicolored and provided with a hole near the center large enough to let the wearer's head through; and when not in actual use, it was thrown over the saddle. The head-gear consisted in winter of a broad-rimmed, high-crowned, woolen sombrero, usually brown, which was kept in place during fast travel or a race by a ribbon or band fastened under the chin; often, as in the familiar case of Ygnácio Lugo, the hat was ornamented with beads. In summer, the rider substituted a shirt for the serape and a Panamá for the sombrero. The caballero's outfit, in the case of some wealthy dons, exceeded a thousand dollars in value; and it was not uncommon for fancy costumes to be handed down as heirlooms.

The women, on the other hand, wore skirts of silk, wool or cotton, according to their wealth or the season. Many of the female conceits had not appeared in 1853; the grandmothers of the future suffragettes wore, instead of bonnets and hats, a rebozo, or sort of scarf or muffler, which covered their heads and shoulders and looked delightfully picturesque. To don this gracefully was, in fact, quite an art. Many of the native California ladies also braided their hair, and wore circular combs around the back of their heads; at least this was so until, with the advent of a greater number of American women, their more modern, though less romantic, styles commenced to prevail, when even the picturesque mantilla was discarded.

Noting these differences of dress in early days, I should not forget to state that there were both American and Mexican tailors here; among the former being one McCoy and his son, merry companions whose copartnership carousals were proverbial. The Mexican tailor had the advantage of knowing just what the native requirements were, although in the course of time his Gringo rival came to understand the tastes and prejudices of the paisano, and to obtain the better share of the patronage. The cloth from which the caballero's outfit was made could be found in most of the stores.

As with clothes and tailors, so it was with other articles of apparel and those who manufactured them; the natives had their own shoe- and hat-makers, and their styles were unvarying. The genuine Panamá hat was highly prized and often copied; and Francisco Velardes--who used a grindstone bought of John Temple in 1852, now in the County Museum--was one who sold and imitated Panamás of the fifties. A product of the bootmakers' skill were leathern leggings, worn to protect the trousers when riding on horseback. The Gringos were then given to copying the fashions of the natives; but as the pioneer population increased, the Mexican came more and more to adopt American styles.

Growing out of these exhibitions of horsemanship and of the natives' fondness for display, was the rather important industry of making Mexican saddles, in which quite a number of skilled paisanos were employed. Among the most expert was Francisco Moreno, who had a little shop on the south side of Aliso Street, not far from Los Angeles. One of these hand-worked saddles often cost two hundred dollars or more, in addition to which expensive bridles, bits and spurs were deemed necessary accessories. António María Lugo had a silver-mounted saddle, bridle and spurs that cost fifteen hundred dollars.

On holidays and even Sundays, Upper Main Street--formerly called the Calle de las Virgenes, or Street of the Maids, later San Fernando Street--was the scene of horse races and their attendant festivities, just as it used to be when money or gold was especially plentiful, if one may judge from the stories of those who were here in the prosperous year, 1850. People from all over the county visited Los Angeles to take part in the sport, some coming from mere curiosity, but the majority anxious to bet. Some money, and often a good deal of stock changed hands, according to the success or failure of the different favorites. It cannot be claimed, perhaps, that the Mexican, like the Gringo, made a specialty of developing horseflesh to perfection; yet Mexicans owned many of the fast horses, such as Don José Sepúlveda's Sydney Ware and Black Swan, and the Californian Sarco belonging to Don Pio Pico.

The most celebrated of all these horse races of early days was that between José Andrés Sepúlveda's Black Swan and Pio Pico's Sarco, the details of which I learned, soon after I came here, from Tom Mott. Sepúlveda had imported the Black Swan from Australia, in 1852, the year of the race, while Pico chose a California steed to defend the honors of the day. Sepúlveda himself went to San Francisco to receive the consignment in person, after which he committed the thoroughbred into the keeping of Bill Brady, the trainer, who rode him down to Los Angeles, and gave him as much care as might have been bestowed upon a favorite child. They were to race nine miles, the carrera commencing on San Pedro Street near the city limits, and running south a league and a half and return; and the reports of the preparation having spread throughout California, the event came to be looked upon as of such great importance, that, from San Francisco to San Diego, whoever had the money hurried to Los Angeles to witness the contest and bet on the result. Twenty-five thousand dollars, in addition to five hundred horses, five hundred mares, five hundred heifers, five hundred calves and five hundred sheep were among the princely stakes put up; and the wife of José Andrés was driven to the scene of the memorable contest with a veritable fortune in gold slugs wrapped in a large handkerchief. Upon arriving there, she opened her improvised purse and distributed the shining fifty-dollar pieces to all of her attendants and servants, of whom there were not a few, with the injunction that they should wager the money on the race; and her example was followed by others, so that, in addition to the cattle, land and merchandise hazarded, a considerable sum of money was bet by the contending parties and their friends. The Black Swan won easily. The peculiar character of some of the wagers recalls to me an instance of a later date when a native customer of Louis Phillips tried to borrow a wagon, in order to bet the same on a horse race. If the customer won, he was to return the wagon at once; but if he lost, he was to pay Phillips a certain price for the vehicle.

Many kinds of amusements marked these festal occasions, and bull-fights were among the diversions patronized by some Angeleños, the Christmas and New Year holidays of 1854-55 being celebrated in that manner. I dare say that in earlier days Los Angeles may have had its Plaza de Toros, as did the ancient metropolis of the great country to the South; but in the later stages of the sport here, the toreador and his colleagues conducted their contests in a gaudily-painted corral, in close proximity to the Plaza. They were usually proclaimed as professionals from Mexico or Spain, but were often engaged for a livelihood, under another name, in a less dangerous and romantic occupation near by. Admission was charged, and some pretense to a grandstand was made; but through the apertures in the fence of the corral those who did not pay might, by dint of hard squinting, still get a peep at the show. In this corral, in the fifties, I saw a fight between a bear and a bull. I can still recollect the crowd, but I cannot say which of the infuriated animals survived. Toward the end of 1858, a bull-fight took place in the Calle de Toros, and there was great excitement when a horse was instantly killed.

Cock-fights were also a very common form of popular entertainment, and sports were frequently seen going around the streets with fighting cocks under each arm. The fights generally took place in Sonora Town, though now and then they were held in San Gabriel. Mexicans carried on quite a trade in game roosters among the patrons of this pastime, of whom M. G. Santa Cruz was one of the best known. Sometimes, too, roosters contributed to still another brutal diversion known as correr el gallo: their necks having been well greased, they would be partially buried in the earth alongside a public highway, when riders on fleet horses dashed by at full speed, and tried to seize the fowls and pull them out! This reminds me of another game in which horsemen, speeding madly by a succession of suspended, small rings, would try, by the skillful handling of a long spear, to collect as many of the rings as they could--a sport illustrated in one of the features of the modern merry-go-round.

The easy-going temperament of the native gave rise to many an amusing incident. I once asked a woman, as we were discussing the coming marriage of her daughter, whom the dark-eyed señorita was to marry; whereupon she replied, "I forget;" and turning to her daughter, she asked: "¿Como se llama?" (What did you say was his name?)

George Dalton bought a tract of land on Washington, east of San Pedro Street, in 1855, and set out a vineyard and orchard which he continued to cultivate until 1887, when he moved to Walnut Avenue. Dalton was a Londoner who sailed from Liverpool on the day of Queen Victoria's coronation, to spend some years wandering through Pennsylvania and Ohio. About 1851, he followed to the Azusa district his brother, Henry Dalton, who had previously been a merchant in Peru; but, preferring the embryo city to the country, he returned to Los Angeles to live. Two sons, E. H. Dalton, City Water Overseer, in 1886-87, and Winnall Travelly Dalton, the vineyardist, were offspring of Dalton's first marriage. Elizabeth M., a daughter, married William H. Perry. Dalton Avenue is named after the Dalton family.

In another place I have spoken of the dearth of trees in the town when I came, though the editor of the Star and others had advocated tree-planting. This was not due to mere neglect; there was prejudice against such street improvement. The School Trustees had bought a dozen or more black locust-trees, "at eight bits each," and planted them on the school lot at Second and Spring streets. Drought and squirrels in 1855 attacked the trees, and while the pedagogue went after the "varmints" with a shot-gun, he watered the trees from the school barrel. The carrier, however, complained that drinking-water was being wasted; and only after several rhetorical bouts was the schoolmaster allowed to save what was already invested. The locust-trees flourished until 1884, when they were hewn down to make way for the City Hall.

Two partially-successful attempts were made, in 1855, to introduce the chestnut-tree here. Jean Louis Sainsevain, coming to Los Angeles in that year, brought with him some seed; and this doubtless led Solomon Lazard to send back to Bordeaux for some of the Italian variety. William Wolfskill, who first brought here the persimmon-tree, took a few of the seeds imported by Lazard and planted them near his homestead; and a dozen of the trees later adorned the beautiful garden of O. W. Childs who, in the following year, started some black walnut seed obtained in New York. H. P. Dorsey was also a pioneer walnut grower.

My brother's plans at this time included a European visit, commencing in 1855 and lasting until 1856, during which trip, in Germany, on November 11th, 1855, he was married. After his Continental tour, he returned to San Francisco and was back in Los Angeles some time before 1857. On this European voyage, my brother was entrusted with the care and delivery of American Government documents. From London he carried certain papers to the American Minister in Denmark; and in furtherance of his mission, he was given the following introduction and passport from James Buchanan, then Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James and later President of the United States:

No. 282 BEARER OF DESPATCHES

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AT LONDON.

To all to whom these presents shall come, Greeting;

Know Ye, that the bearer hereof, Joseph P. Newmark, Esq., is proceeding to Hamburgh and Denmark, bearing Despatches from this Legation, to the United States' Legation at Copenhagen.

These are therefore to request all whom it may concern, to permit him to pass freely without let or molestation, and to extend to him such friendly aid and protection, as would be extended to Citizens and Subjects of Foreign Countries, resorting to the United States, bearing Despatches.

In testimony whereof, I, James Buchanan, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, of the United States of America, at London, have hereunto set my hand, and caused the Seal of this Legation to be affixed this Tenth day of July A.D. 1855 and of the Independence of the United States the Eightieth.

(Signed,)

JAMES BUCHANAN.

(Seal of the Legation of the U. S. of America to Great Britain.)

I have always accepted the fact of my brother's selection to convey these documents as evidence that, in the few years since his arrival in America, he had attained a position of some responsibility. Aside from this, I am inclined to relate the experience because it shows the then limited resources of our Federal authorities abroad, especially as compared with their comprehensive facilities to-day, including their own despatch agents, messengers and Treasury representatives scattered throughout Europe.

A trip of Prudent Beaudry abroad about this time reminds me that specialization in medical science was as unknown in early Los Angeles as was specialization in business, and that persons suffering from grave physical disorders frequently visited even remoter points than San Francisco in search of relief. In 1855, Beaudry's health having become seriously impaired, he went to Paris to consult the famous oculist, Sichel; but he received little or no benefit. While in Europe, Beaudry visited the Exposition of that year, and was one of the first Angeleños, I suppose, to see a World's Fair.

These early tours to Europe by Temple, Beaudry and my brother, and some of my own experiences, recall the changes in the manner of bidding Los Angeles travelers bon-voyage. Friends generally accompanied the tourist to the outlying steamer, reached by a tug or lighter; and when the leave-taking came, there were cheers, repetitions of adiós and the waving of hats and handkerchiefs, which continued until the steamer had disappeared from view.

The first earthquake felt throughout California, of which I have any recollection, occurred on July 11th, 1855, somewhat after eight o'clock in the evening, and was a most serious local disturbance. Almost every structure in Los Angeles was damaged, and some of the walls were left with large cracks. Near San Gabriel, the adobe in which Hugo Reid's Indian wife dwelt was wrecked, notwithstanding that it had walls four feet thick, with great beams of lumber drawn from the mountains of San Bernardino. In certain spots, the ground rose; in others, it fell; and with the rising and falling, down came chimneys, shelves full of salable stock or household necessities, pictures and even parts of roofs, while water in barrels, and also in several of the zanjas, bubbled and splashed and overflowed. Again, on the 14th of April, the 2d of May and the 20th of September of the following year, we were alarmed by recurring and more or less continuous shocks which, however, did little or no damage.

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XIII. PRINCELY RANCHO DOMAINS

1855

Of the wonderful domains granted to the Spanish dons some were still in the possession of their descendants; some had passed into the hands of the Argonauts; but nothing in the way of subdividing had been attempted. The private ownership of Los Angeles County in the early fifties, therefore, was distinguished by few holders and large tracts, one of the most notable being that of Don Abel Stearns, who came here in 1829, and who, in his early adventures, narrowly escaped exile or being shot by an irate Spanish governor. Eventually, Stearns became the proud possessor of tens of thousands of acres between San Pedro and San Bernardino, now covered with cities, towns and hamlets. The site of the Long Beach of to-day was but a small part of his Alamitos rancho, a portion of the town also including some of the Cerritos acres of John Temple. Los Coyotes, La Habra and San Juan Cajón de Santa Ana were among the Stearns ranches advertised for sale in 1869. Later, I shall relate how this Alamitos land came to be held by Jotham Bixby and his associates.

Juan Temple owned the Los Cerritos rancho, consisting of some twenty-seven thousand acres, patented on December 27th, 1867, but which, I have heard, he bought of the Nieto heirs in the late thirties, building there the typical ranch-house, later the home of the Bixbys and still a feature of the neighborhood. Across the Cerritos Stockton's weary soldiers dragged their way; and there, or near by, Carrillo, by driving wild horses back and forth in confusion, and so creating a great noise and dust, tricked Stockton into thinking that there were many more of the mounted enemy than he had at first supposed. By 1853, Temple was estimated to be worth, in addition to his ranches, some twenty thousand dollars. In 1860, Los Cerritos supported perhaps four thousand cattle and great flocks of sheep; on a portion of the same ranch to-day, as I have remarked, Long Beach stands.

Another citizen of Los Angeles who owned much property when I came, and who lived upon his ranch, was Francis Phinney Fisk Temple, one of the first Los Angeles supervisors, a man exceptionally modest and known among his Spanish-speaking friends as Templito, because of his five feet four stature. He came here, by way of the Horn, in 1841, when he was but nineteen years of age, and for a while was in business with his brother John. Marrying Señorita Antónia Margarita Workman, however, on September 30th, 1845, Francis made his home at La Merced Ranch, twelve miles east of Los Angeles, in the San Gabriel Valley, where he had a spacious and hospitable adobe after the old Spanish style, shaped something like a U, and about seventy by one hundred and ten feet in size. Around this house, later destroyed by fire, Temple planted twenty acres of fruit trees and fifty thousand or more vines, arranging the whole in a garden partly enclosed by a fence--the exception rather than the rule for even a country nabob of that time. Templito also owned other ranches many miles in extent; but misfortune overtook him, and by the nineties his estate possessed scarcely a single acre of land in either the city or the county of Los Angeles; and he breathed his last in a rude sheep herder's camp in a corner of one of his famous properties.

Colonel Julian Isaac Williams, who died some three years after I arrived, owned the celebrated Cucamonga and Chino ranches. As early as 1842, after a nine or ten years' residence in Los Angeles, Williams moved to the Rancho del Chino, which included not merely the Santa Ana del Chino grant--some twenty-two thousand acres originally given to Don António María Lugo, in 1841--but the addition of twelve to thirteen thousand acres, granted in 1843 to Williams (who became Lugo's son-in-law) making a total of almost thirty-five thousand acres. On that ranch Williams built a house famed far and wide for its spaciousness and hospitality; and it was at his hacienda that the celebrated capture of B. D. Wilson and others was effected when they ran out of ammunition. Williams was liberal in assisting the needy, even despatching messengers to Los Angeles, on the arrival at his ranch of worn-out and ragged immigrants, to secure clothing and other supplies for them; and it is related that, on other occasions, he was known to have advanced to young men capital amounting in the aggregate to thousands of dollars, with which they established themselves in business. By 1851, Williams had amassed personal property estimated to be worth not less than thirty-five thousand dollars. In the end, he gave his ranchos to his daughters as marriage-portions: the Chino to Francisca, or Mrs. Robert Carlisle, who became the wife of Dr. F. A. McDougall, Mayor in 1877-78, and, after his death, Mrs. Jesurun; and the Cucamonga to María Merced, or Mrs. John Rains, mother-in-law of ex-Governor Henry T. Gage, who was later Mrs. Carrillo.

Benjamin Davis Wilson, or Benito Wilson, as he was usually called, who owned a good part of the most beautiful land in the San Gabriel Valley and who laid out the trail up the Sierra Madre to Wilson's Peak, was one of our earliest settlers, having come from Tennessee via New Mexico, in 1841. In June, 1846, Wilson joined the riflemen organized against Castro, and in 1848, having been put in charge of some twenty men to protect the San Bernardino frontier, he responded to a call from Isaac Williams to hasten to the Chino rancho where, with his compatriots, he was taken prisoner. Somewhat earlier--I have understood about 1844--Wilson and Albert Packard formed a partnership, but this was dissolved near the end of 1851. In 1850, Wilson was elected County Clerk; and the following year, he volunteered to patrol the hills and assist in watching for Garra, the outlaw, the report of whose coming was terrorizing the town. In 1853, he was Indian Agent for Southern California. It must have been about 1849 that Wilson secured control, for a while, of the Bella Union. His first wife was Ramona Yorba, a daughter of Bernardo Yorba, whom he married in February, 1844, and who died in 1849. On February 1st, 1853, Wilson married again, this time Mrs. Margaret S. Hereford, a sister-in-law of Thomas S. Hereford; they spent many years together at Lake Vineyard, where he became one of the leading producers of good wine, and west of which he planted some twenty-five or thirty thousand raisin grape cuttings, and ten or twelve hundred orange trees, thus founding Oak Knoll. I shall have occasion to speak of this gentleman somewhat later. By the time that I came to know him, Wilson had accumulated much real estate, part of his property being a residence on Alameda Street, corner of Macy; but after a while he moved to one of his larger estates, where stands the present Shorb station named for his son-in-law and associate J. De Barth Shorb, who also had a place known as Mountain Vineyard. Don Benito died in March, 1878.

Colonel Jonathan Trumbull Warner, master of Warner's Ranch, later the property of John G. Downey, and known--from his superb stature of over six feet--both as Juan José Warner and as Juan Largo, "Long John," returned to Los Angeles in 1857. Warner had arrived in Southern California, on December 5th, 1831, at the age of twenty-eight, having come West, from Connecticut, via Missouri and Salt Lake, partly for his health, and partly to secure mules for the Louisiana market. Like many others whom I have known, Warner did not intend to remain; but illness decided for him, and in 1843 he settled in San Diego County, near the California border, on what (later known as Warner's Ranch) was to become, with its trail from old Sonora, historic ground. There, during the fourteen years of his occupancy, some of the most stirring episodes of the Mexican War occurred; during one of which--Ensign Espinosa's attack--Don Juan having objected to the forcible searching of his house, he had his arm broken. There, also, António Garra and his lawless band made their assault, and were repulsed by Long John, who escaped on horseback, leaving in his wake four or five dead Indians. For this, and not for military service, Warner was dubbed Colonel; nor was there anyone who cared to dispute his right to the title. In 1837, Juan married Miss Anita Gale, an adopted daughter of Don Pio Pico, and came to Los Angeles; but the following year, Mrs. Warner died. Warner once ran against E. J. C. Kewen for the Legislature but, after an exceedingly bitter campaign, was beaten. In 1874 Warner was a notary public and Spanish-English interpreter. For many years his home was in an orchard occupying the site of the Burbank Theater on Main Street. Warner was a man of character and lived to a venerable age; and after a decidedly arduous life he had more than his share of responsibility and affliction, even losing his sight in his declining years.

William Wolfskill, who died on October 3d, 1866, was another pioneer well-established long before I had even thought of California. Born in Kentucky at the end of the Eighteenth Century--of a family originally of Teutonic stock (if we may credit a high German authority) traced back to a favorite soldier of Frederick the Great--Wolfskill in 1830 came to Los Angeles, for a short time, with Ewing Young, the noted beaver-trapper. Then he acquired several leagues of land in Yolo and Solano counties, sharing what he had with his brothers, John and Mateo. Later he sold out, returned to Los Angeles, and bought and stocked the rancho Lomas de Santiago, which he afterward disposed of to Flint, Bixby & Company. He also bought of Corbitt, Dibblee & Barker the Santa Anita rancho (comprising between nine and ten thousand acres), and some twelve thousand besides; the Santa Anita he gave to his son, Louis, who later sold it for eighty-five thousand dollars. Besides this, Wolfskill acquired title to a part of the rancho San Francisquito, on which Newhall stands, disposing of that, however, during the first oil excitement, to the Philadelphia Oil Company, at seventy-five cents an acre--a good price at that time. Before making these successful realty experiments, this hero of desert hardships had assisted to build, soon after his arrival here, one of the first vessels ever constructed and launched in California--a schooner fitted out at San Pedro to hunt for sea otter. In January, 1841, Wolfskill married Doña Magdalena Lugo, daughter of Don José Ygnácio Lugo, of Santa Bárbara. A daughter, Señorita Magdalena, in 1865 married Frank Sabichi, a native of Los Angeles, who first saw the light of day in 1842. Sabichi, by the way, always a man of importance in this community, is the son of Mateo and Josefa Franco Sabichi (the mother, a sister of António Franco Coronel), buried at San Gabriel Mission. J. E. Pleasants, to whom I elsewhere refer, first made a good start when he formed a partnership with Wolfskill in a cattle deal.

Concerning Mateo, I recall an interesting illustration of early fiscal operations. He deposited thirty thousand dollars with S. Lazard & Company and left it there so long that they began to think he would never come back for it. He did return, however, after many years, when he presented a certificate of deposit and withdrew the money. This transaction bore no interest, as was often the case in former days. People deposited money with friends in whom they had confidence, not for the purpose of profit but simply for safety.

Elijah T. Moulton, a Canadian, was one of the few pioneers who preceded the Forty-niners and was permitted to see Los Angeles well on its way toward metropolitan standing. In 1844 he had joined an expedition to California organized by Jim Bridger; and having reached the Western country, he volunteered to serve under Frémont in the Mexican campaign. There the hardships which Moulton endured were far severer than those which tested the grit of the average emigrant; and Moulton in better days often told how, when nearly driven to starvation, he and a comrade had actually used a remnant of the Stars and Stripes as a seine with which to fish, and so saved their lives. About 1850, Moulton was Deputy Sheriff under George T. Burrill; then he went to work for Don Louis Vignes. Soon afterward, he bought some land near William Wolfskill's, and in 1855 took charge of Wolfskill's property. This resulted in his marriage to one of Wolfskill's daughters, who died in 1861. In the meantime, he had acquired a hundred and fifty acres or more in what is now East Los Angeles, and was thus one of the first to settle in that section. He had a dairy, for a while, and peddled milk from a can or two carried in a wagon. Afterward, Moulton became a member of the City Council.

William Workman and John Rowland, father of William or Billy Rowland, resided in 1853 on La Puente rancho, which was granted them July 22d, 1845, some four years after they had arrived in California. They were leaders of a party from New Mexico, of which B. D. Wilson, Lemuel Carpenter and others were members; and the year following they operated with Pico against Micheltorena and Sutter, Workman serving as Captain, and Rowland as Lieutenant, of a company of volunteers they had organized. The ranch, situated about twenty miles east of Los Angeles, consisted of nearly forty-nine thousand acres, and had one of the first brick residences erected in this neighborhood. Full title to this splendid estate was confirmed by the United States Government in April, 1867, a couple of years before Workman and Rowland, with the assistance of Cameron E. Thom, divided their property. Rowland, who in 1851 was supposed to own some twenty-nine thousand acres and about seventy thousand dollars' worth of personal property, further partitioned his estate, three or four years before his death in 1873, among his nearest of kin, giving to each heir about three thousand acres of land and a thousand head of cattle. One of these heirs, the wife of General Charles Forman, is the half-sister of Billy Rowland by a second marriage.

John Reed, Rowland's son-in-law, was also a large land-proprietor. Reed had fallen in with Rowland in New Mexico, and while there married Rowland's daughter, Nieves; and when Rowland started for California, Reed came with him and together they entered into ranching at La Puente, finding artesian water there, in 1859. Thirteen years before, Reed was in the American army and took part in the battles fought on the march from San Diego to Los Angeles. After his death on the ranch in 1874, his old homestead came into possession of John Rowland's son, William, who often resided there; and Rowland, later discovering oil on his land, organized the Puente Oil Company.

Juan Forster, an Englishman, possessed the Santa Margarita rancho, which he had taken up in 1864, some years after he married Doña Ysidora Pico. She was a sister of Pio and Andrés Pico, and there, as a result of that alliance, General Pico found a safe retreat while fleeing from Frémont into Lower California. Forster for a while was a seaman out of San Pedro. When he went to San Juan Capistrano, where he became a sort of local Alcalde and was often called Don San Juan or even San Juan Capistrano, he experimented with raising stock and became so successful as a ranchero that he remained there twenty years, during which time he acquired a couple of other ranches, in San Diego and Los Angeles counties, comprising quite sixty thousand acres. Forster, however, was comparatively land-poor, as may be inferred from the fact that even though the owner of such a princely territory, he was assessed in 1851 on but thirteen thousand dollars in personal property. Later Don Juan lorded it over twice as much land in the ranches of Santa Margarita and Las Flores. His fourth son, a namesake, married Señorita Josefa del Valle, daughter of Don Ygnácio del Valle.

Manuel, Pedro, Nasário and Victoria Dominguez owned in the neighborhood of forty-eight thousand acres of the choicest land in the South. More than a century ago, Juan José Dominguez received from the King of Spain ten or eleven leagues of land, known as the Rancho de San Pedro; and this was given by Governor de Sola, after Juan José's death in 1822, to his brother, Don Cristóbal Dominguez, a Spanish officer. Don Cristóbal married a Mexican commissioner's daughter, and one of their ten children was Manuel, who, educated by wide reading and fortunate in a genial temperament and high standard of honor, became an esteemed and popular officer under the Mexican régime, displaying no little chivalry in the battle of Dominguez fought on his own property. On the death of his father, Don Manuel took charge of the Rancho de San Pedro (buying out his sister Victoria's interest of twelve thousand acres, at fifty cents an acre) until in 1855 it was partitioned between himself, his brother, Don Pedro and two nephews, José António Aguirre and Jacinto Rocha. One daughter, Victoria, married George Carson in 1857. At his death, in 1882, Dominguez bequeathed to his heirs twenty odd thousand acres, including Rattlesnake Island in San Pedro Bay. James A. Watson, an early-comer, married a second daughter; John F. Francis married a third, and Dr. del Amo married a fourth.

Henry Dalton, who came here sometime before 1845, having been a merchant in Peru, owned the Azusa Ranch of over four thousand acres, the patent to which was finally issued in 1876, and also part of the San Francisquito Ranch of eight thousand acres, allowed him somewhat later. Besides these, he had an interest, with Ygnácio Palomares and Ricardo Vejar, in the San José rancho of nearly twenty-seven thousand acres. As early as the twenty-first of May, 1851, Dalton, with keen foresight, seems to have published a plan for the subdivision of nine or ten thousand acres into lots to suit limited ranchers; but it was some time before Duarte and other places, now on the above-mentioned estates, arose from his dream. On a part of his property, Azusa, a town of the Boom period, was founded some twenty-two miles from Los Angeles, and seven or eight hundred feet up the Azusa slope; and now other towns also flourish near these attractive foothills. One of Dalton's daughters was given in marriage to Louis, a son of William Wolfskill. Dalton's brother, George, I have already mentioned as having likewise settled here.

Of all these worthy dons, possessing vast landed estates, Don António María Lugo, brother of Ygnácio Lugo, was one of the most affluent and venerable. He owned the San António rancho, named I presume after him; and in 1856, when he celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday, was reputed to be the owner of fully twenty-nine thousand acres and personal property to the extent of seventy-two thousand dollars. Three sons, José María, José del Carmen and Vicente Lugo, as early as 1842 also acquired in their own names about thirty-seven thousand acres.

Louis Robidoux, a French-American of superior ability who, like many others, had gone through much that was exciting and unpleasant to establish himself in this wild, open country, eventually had an immense estate known as the Jurupa rancho, from which on September 26th, 1846, during the Mexican War, B. D. Wilson and others rode forth to be neatly trapped and captured at the Chino; and where the outlaw Irving later encamped. Riverside occupies a site on this land; and the famous Robidoux hill, usually spoken of as the Robidoux mountain, once a part of Louis's ranch and to-day a Mecca for thousands of tourists, was named after him.

Many of the rancheros kept little ranch stores, from which they sold to their employees. This was rather for convenience than for profit. When their help came to Los Angeles, they generally got drunk and stayed away from work longer than the allotted time; and it was to prevent this, as far as possible, that these outlying stores were conducted.

Louis Robidoux maintained such a store for the accommodation of his hands, and often came to town, sometimes for several days, on which occasions he would buy very liberally anything that happened to take his fancy. In this respect he occasionally acted without good judgment, and if opposed would become all the more determined. Not infrequently he called for so large a supply of some article that I was constrained to remark that he could not possibly need so much; whereupon he would repeat the order with angry emphasis. I sometimes visited his ranch and recall, in particular, one stay of two or three days there in 1857 when, after an unusually large purchase, Robidoux asked me to assist him in checking up the invoices. The cases were unpacked in his ranchhouse; and I have never forgotten the amusing picture of the numerous little Robidoux, digging and delving among the assorted goods for all the prizes they could find, and thus rendering the process of listing the goods much more difficult. When the delivery had been found correct, Robidoux turned to his Mexican wife and asked her to bring the money. She went to the side of the room, opened a Chinese trunk such as every well-to-do Mexican family had (and sometimes as many as half a dozen), and drew therefrom the customary buckskin, from which she extracted the required and rather large amount. These trunks were made of cedar, were gaudily painted, and had the quality of keeping out moths. They were, therefore, displayed with pride by the owners. Recently on turning the pages of some ledgers in which Newmark, Kremer & Company carried the account of this famous ranchero, I was interested to find there full confirmation of what I have elsewhere claimed--that the now renowned Frenchman spelled the first syllable of his name Ro-, and not Ru-, nor yet Rou-, as it is generally recorded in books and newspapers.

I should refrain from mentioning a circumstance or two in Robidoux's life with which I am familiar but for the fact that I believe posterity is ever curious to know the little failings as well as the pronounced virtues of men who, through exceptional personality or association, have become historic characters; and that some knowledge of their foibles should not tarnish their reputation. Robidoux, as I have remarked, came to town very frequently, and when again he found himself amid livelier scenes and congenial fellows, as in the late fifties, he always celebrated the occasion with a few intimates, winding up his befuddling bouts in the arms of Chris Fluhr, who winked at his weakness and good-naturedly tucked him away in one of the old-fashioned beds of the Lafayette Hotel, there to remain until he was able to transact business. After all, such celebrating was then not at all uncommon among the best of Southern California people, nor, if gossip may be credited, is it entirely unknown to-day. Robert Hornbeck, of Redlands, by the way, has sought to perpetuate this pioneer's fame in an illustrated volume, Roubidoux's Ranch in the 70's, published as I am closing my story.

Robidoux's name leads me to recur to early judges and to his identification with the first Court of Sessions here, when there was such a sparseness even of rancherías. Robidoux then lived on his Jurupa domain, and not having been at the meeting of township justices which selected himself and Judge Scott to sit on the bench, and enjoying but infrequent communication with the more peopled districts of Southern California, he knew nothing of the outcome of the election until sometime after it had been called. More than this, Judge Robidoux never actually participated in a sitting of the Court of Sessions until four or five weeks after it had been almost daily transacting business!

Speaking of ranches, and of the Jurupa in particular, I may here reprint an advertisement--a miniature tree and a house heading the following announcement in the Southern Californian of June 20th, 1855:

The Subscriber, being anxious to get away from Swindlers, offers for sale one of the very finest ranchos, or tracts of land, that is to be found in California, known as the Rancho de Jurupa, Santa Ana River, in the County of San Bernardino.

Bernardo Yorba was another great landowner; and I am sure that, in the day of his glory, he might have traveled fifty to sixty miles in a straight line, touching none but his own possessions. His ranches, on one of which Pio Pico hid from Santiago Arguello, were delightfully located where now stand such places as Anaheim, Orange, Santa Ana, Westminster, Garden Grove and other towns in Orange County--then a part of Los Angeles County.

This leads me to describe a shrewd trick. Schlesinger & Sherwinsky, traders in general merchandise in 1853, when they bought a wagon in San Francisco, brought it here by steamer, loaded it with various attractive wares, took it out to good-natured and easy-going Bernardo Yorba, and wheedled the well-known ranchero into purchasing not only the contents, but the wagon, horses and harness as well. Indeed, their ingenuity was so well rewarded, that soon after this first lucky hit, they repeated their success, to the discomfiture of their competitors; and if I am not mistaken, they performed the same operation on the old don several times.

The Verdugo family had an extensive acreage where such towns as Glendale now enjoy the benefit of recent suburban development, Governor Pedro Fages having granted, as early as 1784, some thirty-six thousand acres to Don José María Verdugo, which grant was reaffirmed in 1798, thereby affording the basis of a patent issued in 1882, to Julio Verdugo et al, although Verdugo died in 1858. To this Verdugo rancho, Frémont sent Jesus Pico--the Mexican guide whose life he had spared, as he was about to be executed at San Luis Obispo--to talk with the Californians and to persuade them to deal with Frémont instead of Stockton; and there on February 21st, 1845, Micheltorena and Castro met. Near there also, still later, the celebrated Casa Verdugo entertained for many years the epicures of Southern California, becoming one of the best-known restaurants for Spanish dishes in the State. Little by little, the Verdugo family lost all their property, partly through their refusal or inability to pay taxes; so that by the second decade of the Twentieth Century the surviving representatives, including Victoriano and Guillermo Verdugo, were reduced to poverty.[15]

Recalling Verdugo and his San Rafael Ranch let me add that he had thirteen sons, all of whom frequently accompanied their father to town, especially on election day. On those occasions, J. Lancaster Brent, whose political influence with the old man was supreme, took the Verdugo party in hand and distributed, through the father, fourteen election tickets, on which were impressed the names of Brent's candidates.

Manuel Garfias, County Treasurer a couple of years before I came, was another land-baron, owning in his own name some thirteen or fourteen thousand acres of the San Pasqual Ranch. There, among the picturesque hills and valleys where both Pico and Flores had military camps, now flourish the cities of Pasadena and South Pasadena, which include the land where stood the first house erected on the ranch. It is my impression that beautiful Altadena is also on this land.

Ricardo Vejar, another magnate, had an interest in a wide area of rich territory known as the San José Ranch. Not less than twenty-two thousand acres made up this rancho which, as early as 1837, had been granted by Governor Alvarado to Vejar and Ygnácio Palomares who died on November 25th, 1864. Two or three years later, Luis Arenas joined the two, and Alvarado renewed his grant, tacking on a league or two of San José land lying to the West and nearer the San Gabriel mountains. Arenas, in time, disposed of his interest to Henry Dalton; and Dalton joined Vejar in applying to the courts for a partitioning of the estate. This division was ordered by the Spanish Alcalde six or seven years before my arrival; but Palomares still objected to the decision, and the matter dragged along in the tribunals many years, the decree finally being set aside by the Court. Vejar, who had been assessed in 1851 for thirty-four thousand dollars' worth of personal property, sold his share of the estate for twenty-nine thousand dollars, in the spring of 1874. It is a curious fact that not until the San José rancho had been so cut up that it was not easy to trace it back to the original grantees, did the authorities at Washington finally issue a patent to Dalton, Palomares and Vejar for the twenty-two thousand acres which originally made up the ranch.

The Machados, of whom there were several brothers--Don Agustin, who died on May 17th, 1865, being the head of the family--had title to nearly fourteen thousand acres. Their ranch, originally granted to Don Ygnácio Machado in 1839 and patented in 1873, was known as La Ballona and extended from the city limits to the ocean; and there, among other stock, in 1860, were more than two thousand head of cattle.

The Picos acquired much territory. There were two brothers--Pio, who as Mexican Governor had had wide supervision over land, and Andrés, who had fought throughout the San Pasqual campaigns until the capitulation at Cahuenga, and still later had dashed with spirit across country in pursuit of the murderers of Sheriff Barton. Pio Pico alone, in 1851, was assessed for twenty-two thousand acres as well as twenty-one thousand dollars in personal property. Besides controlling various San Fernando ranches (once under B. H. Lancaro's management), Andrés Pico possessed La Habra, a ranch of over six thousand acres, for which a patent was granted in 1872, and the ranch Los Coyotes, including over forty-eight thousand acres, patented three years later; while Pio Pico at one time owned the Santa Margarita and Las Flores ranchos, and had, in addition, some nine thousand acres known as Paso de Bartolo. In his old age the Governor--who, as long as I knew him, had been strangely loose in his business methods, and had borrowed from everybody--found himself under the necessity of obtaining some thirty or forty thousand dollars, even at the expense of giving to B. Cohn, W. J. Brodrick and Charles Prager, a blanket mortgage covering all of his properties. These included the Pico House, the Pico Ranch on the other side of the San Gabriel River--the homestead on which has for some time been preserved by the ladies of Whittier--and property on Main Street, north of Commercial, besides some other holdings. When his note fell due Pico was unable to meet it; and the mortgage was foreclosed. The old man was then left practically penniless, a suit at law concerning the interpretation of the loan-agreement being decided against him.

Henry C. Wiley must have arrived very early, as he had been in Los Angeles some years before I came. He married a daughter of Andrés Pico and for a while had charge of his San Fernando Ranch. Wiley served, at one time, as Sheriff of the County. He died in 1898.

The rancho Los Nietos or, more properly speaking, perhaps, the Santa Gertrudis, than whose soil (watered, as it is, by the San Gabriel River) none more fertile can be found in the world, included indeed a wide area extending between the Santa Ana and San Gabriel rivers, and embracing the ford known as Pico Crossing. It was then in possession of the Carpenter family, Lemuel Carpenter having bought it from the heirs of Manuel Nieto, to whom it had been granted in 1784. Carpenter came from Missouri to this vicinity as early as 1833, when he was but twenty-two years old. For a while, he had a small soap-factory on the right bank of the San Gabriel River, after which he settled on the ranch; and there he remained until November 6th, 1859, when he committed suicide. Within the borders of this ranch to-day lie such places as Downey and Rivera.

Francisco Sanchez was another early ranchero--probably the same who figured so prominently in early San Francisco; and it is possible that J. M. Sanchez, to whom, in 1859, was re-granted the forty-four hundred acres of the Potrero Grande, was his heir.

There were two large and important landowners, second cousins, known as José Sepúlveda; the one, Don José Andrés, and the other, Don José Loreto. The father of José Andrés was Don Francisco Sepúlveda, a Spanish officer to whom the San Vicente Ranch had been granted; and José Andrés, born in San Diego in 1804, was the oldest of eleven children. His brothers were Fernando, José del Carmen, Dolores and Juan María; and he also had six sisters. To José Andrés, or José as he was called, the San Joaquín Ranch was given, an enormous tract of land lying between the present Tustin, earlier known as Tustin City, and San Juan Capistrano, and running from the hills to the sea; while, on the death of Don Francisco, the San Vicente Ranch, later bought by Jones and Baker, was left to José del Carmen, Dolores and Juan María. José, in addition, bought eighteen hundred acres from José António Yorba, and on this newly-acquired property he built his ranchhouse, although he and his family may be said to have been more or less permanent residents of Los Angeles. Fernando Sepúlveda married a Verdugo, and through her became proprietor of much of the Verdugo rancho. The fact that José was so well provided for, and that Fernando had come into control of the Verdugo acres, made it mutually satisfactory that the San Vicente Ranch should have been willed to the other sons. The children of José Andrés included Miguel, Maurício, Bernabé, Joaquín, Andrónico and Ygnácio, and Francisca, wife of James Thompson, Tomása, wife of Frank Rico, Ramona, wife of Captain Salisbury Haley of the Sea Bird, Ascención, wife of Tom Mott, and Tranquilina. The latter, with Mrs. Mott and Judge Ygnácio, are still living here.

Don José Loreto, brother of Juan and Diego Sepúlveda, father of Mrs. John T. Lanfranco, and a well-known resident of Los Angeles County in early days, presided over the destinies of thirty-one thousand acres in the Palos Verdes rancho, where Flores had stationed his soldiers to watch the American ship Savannah. Full patent to this land was granted in 1880.

There being no fences to separate the great ranches, cattle roamed at will; nor were the owners seriously concerned, for every man had his distinct, registered brand and in proper season the various herds were segregated by means of rodeos, or round-ups of strayed or mixed cattle. On such occasions, all of the rancheros within a certain radius drove their herds little by little into a corral designated for the purpose, and each selected his own cattle according to brand. After segregation had thus been effected, they were driven from the corral, followed by the calves, which were also branded, in anticipation of the next rodeo.

Such round-ups were great events, for they brought all the rancheros and vaqueros together. They became the raison d'être of elaborate celebrations, sometimes including horse-races, bull-fights and other amusements; and this was the case particularly in 1861, because of the rains and consequent excellent season.

The enormous herds of cattle gathered at rodeos remind me, in fact, of a danger that the rancheros were obliged to contend with, especially when driving their stock from place to place: Indians stampeded the cattle, whenever possible, so that in the confusion those escaping the vaqueros and straggling behind might the more easily be driven to the Indian camps; and sometimes covetous ranchmen caused a similar commotion among the stock in order to make thieving easier.

While writing of ranches, one bordering on the other, unfenced and open, and the enormous number of horses and cattle, as well as men required to take care of such an amount of stock, I must not forget to mention an institution that had flourished, as a branch of the judiciary, in palmier Mexican days, though it was on the wane when I arrived here. This was the Judgeship of the Plains, an office charged directly with the interests of the ranchman. Judges of the Plains were officials delegated to arrange for the rodeos, and to hold informal court, in the saddle or on the open hillside, in order to settle disputes among, and dispense justice to, those living and working beyond the pales of the towns. Under Mexican rule, a Judge of the Plains, who was more or less a law unto himself, served for glory and dignity (much as does an English Justice of the Peace); and the latter factor was an important part of the stipulation, as we may gather from a story told by early Angeleños of the impeachment of Don António María Lugo. Don António was then a Judge of the Plains, and as such was charged with having, while on horseback, nearly trampled upon Pedro Sanchez, for no other reason than that poor Pedro had refused to "uncover" while the Judge rode by, and to keep his hat off until his Honor was unmistakably out of sight! When, at length, Americans took possession of Southern California, Judges of the Plains were given less power, and provision was made, for the first time, for a modest honorarium in return for their travel and work.

For nearly a couple of decades after the organization of Los Angeles under the incoming white pioneers, not very much was known of the vast districts inland and adjacent to Southern California; and one can well understand the interest felt by our citizens on July 17th, 1855, when Colonel Washington, of the United States Surveying Expedition to the Rio Colorado, put up at the Bella Union on his way to San Francisco. He was bombarded with questions about the region lying between the San Bernardino Mountain range and the Colorado, hitherto unexplored; and being a good talker, readily responded with much entertaining information.

In July, 1855, I attained my majority and, having by this time a fair command of English, I took a more active part in social affairs. Before he married Margarita, daughter of Juan Bandini, Dr. J. B. Winston, then interested in the Bella Union, organized most of the dances, and I was one of his committee of arrangements. We would collect from the young men of our acquaintance money enough to pay for candles and music; for each musician--playing either a harp, a guitar or a flute--charged from a dollar to a dollar and a half for his services. Formal social events occurred in the evening of almost any day of the week. Whenever Dr. Winston or the young gallants of that period thought it was time to have a dance, they just passed around the hat for the necessary funds, and announced the affair. Ladies were escorted to functions, although we did not take them in carriages or other vehicles but tramped through the dust or mud. Young ladies, however, did not go out with gentlemen unless they were accompanied by a chaperon, generally some antiquated female member of the family.

These hops usually took place at the residence of Widow Blair, opposite the Bella Union and north of the present Post Office. There we could have a sitting-room, possibly eighteen by thirty feet square; and while this was larger than any other room in a private house in town, it will be realized that, after all, the space for dancing was very limited. We made the best, however, of what we had; the refreshments, at these improvised affairs, were rarely more than lemonade and olla water.

Many times such dances followed as a natural termination to another social observance, transmitted to us, I have no doubt, by the romantic Spanish settlers here, and very popular for some time after I came. This good old custom was serenading. We would collect money, as if for dancing; and in the evening a company of young men and chaperoned young ladies would proceed in a body to some popular girl's home where, with innocent gallantry, the little band would serenade her. After that, of course, we were always glad to accept an invitation to come into the house, when the ladies of the household sometimes regaled us with a bit of cake and wine.

Speaking of the social life of those early days, when warm, stimulating friendships and the lack of all foolish caste distinctions rendered the occasions delightfully pleasant, may it not be well to ask whether the contrast between those simple, inexpensive pleasures, and the elaborate and extravagant demands of modern society, is not worth sober thought? To be sure, Los Angeles then was exceedingly small, and pioneers here were much like a large family in plain, unpretentious circumstances. There were no such ceremonies as now; there were no four hundred, no three hundred, nor even one hundred. There was, for example, no flunky at the door to receive the visitor's card; and for the very good reason that visiting cards were unknown. In those pastoral, pueblo days it was no indiscretion for a friend to walk into another friend's house without knocking. Society of the early days could be divided, I suppose, into two classes: the respectable and the evil element; and people who were honorable came together because they esteemed each other and liked one another's company. The "gold fish" of the present age had not yet developed. We enjoyed ourselves together, and without distinction were ready to fight to the last ditch for the protection of our families and the preservation of our homes.

In the fall of 1855, Dr. Thomas J. White, a native of St. Louis and Speaker of the Assembly in the first California Legislature convened at San José, in December, 1849, arrived from San Francisco with his wife and two daughters, and bought a vineyard next to Dr. Hoover's ten-acre place where, in three or four years, he became one of the leading wine-producers. Their advent created quite a stir, and the house, which was a fine and rather commodious one for the times, soon became the scene of extensive entertainments. The addition of this highly-accomplished family was indeed quite an accession to our social ranks. Their hospitality compared favorably even with California's open-handed and open-hearted spirit, and soon became notable. Their evening parties and other receptions were both frequent and lavish, so that the Whites quickly took rank as leaders in Los Angeles. While yet in Sacramento, one of the daughters, who had fallen in love with E. J. C. Kewen when the latter was a member of the White party in crossing the great Plains, married the Colonel; and in 1862, another daughter, Miss Jennie, married Judge Murray Morrison. A son was T. Jeff White, who named his place Casalinda. In the late fifties, Dr. White had a drug-store in the Temple Building on Main Street.

It was long before Los Angeles had anything like a regular theater, or even enjoyed such shows as were provided by itinerant companies, some of which, when they did begin to come, stayed here for weeks; although I remember having heard of one ambitious group of players styling themselves The Rough and Ready Theater, who appeared here very early and gave sufficient satisfaction to elicit the testimony from a local scribe, that "when Richmond was conquered and laid off for dead, the enthusiastic auditors gave the King a smile of decided approval!" Minstrels and circuses were occasionally presented, a minstrel performance taking place sometime in the fifties, in an empty store on Aliso Street, near Los Angeles. About the only feature of this event that is now clear in my memory is that Bob Carsley played the bones; he remained in Los Angeles and married, later taking charge of the foundry which Stearns established when he built his Arcadia Block on Los Angeles Street. An Albino also was once brought to Los Angeles and publicly exhibited; and since anything out of the ordinary challenged attention, everybody went to see a curiosity that to-day would attract but little notice. Speaking of theatrical performances and the applause bestowed upon favorites, I must not forget to mention the reckless use of money and the custom, at first quite astounding to me, of throwing coins--often large, shining slugs--upon the stage or floor, if an actor or actress particularly pleased the spendthrift patron.

In October, 1855, William Abbott, who was one of the many to come to Los Angeles in 1853, and who had brought with him a small stock of furniture, started a store in a little wooden house he had acquired on a lot next to that which later became the site of the Pico House. Abbott married Doña Merced Garcia; and good fortune favoring him, he not only gradually enlarged his stock of goods, but built a more commodious building, in the upper story of which was the Merced Theater, named after Abbott's wife, and opened in the late sixties. The vanity of things mundane is well illustrated in the degeneration of this center of early histrionic effort, which entered a period of decay in the beginning of the eighties and, as the scene of disreputable dances, before 1890 had been pronounced a nuisance.

During the first decade under the American régime, Los Angeles gradually learned the value of reaching toward the outside world and welcoming all who responded. In 1855, as I have said, a brisk trade was begun with Salt Lake, through the opening up of a route--leading along the old Spanish trail to Santa Fé. Banning & Alexander, with their usual enterprise, together with W. T. B. Sanford, made the first shipment in a heavily-freighted train of fifteen wagons drawn by one hundred and fifty mules. The train, which carried thirty tons, was gone four months; having left Los Angeles in May, it returned in September. In every respect the experiment was a success, and naturally the new route had a beneficial effect on Southern California trade. It also contributed to the development of San Bernardino, through which town it passed. Before the year was out, one or two express companies were placarding the stores here with announcements of rates "To Great Salt Lake City." Banning, by the way, then purchased in Salt Lake the best wagons he had, and brought here some of the first vehicles with spokes to be seen in Los Angeles.

The school authorities of the past sometimes sailed on waters as troubled as those rocking the Educational Boards to-day. I recall an amusing incident of the middle fifties, when a new set of Trustees, having succeeded to the control of affairs, were scandalized, or at least pretended to be, by an action of their predecessors, and immediately adopted the following resolution:

Resolved, that page seven of the School Commissioners' Record be pasted down on page eight, so that the indecorous language written therein by the School Commissioners of 1855, can never again be read or seen, said language being couched in such terms that the present School Commissioners are not willing to read such record.

Richard Laughlin died at his vineyard, on the east side of Alameda Street, in or soon after 1855. Like William Wolfskill, Ewing Young--who fitted out the Wolfskill party--and Moses Carson, brother of the better-known Kit and at one time a trader at San Pedro, Laughlin was a trapper who made his way to Los Angeles along the Gila River. This was a waterway of the savage Apache country traversed even in 1854--according to the lone ferryman's statistics--by nearly ten thousand persons. In middle life, Laughlin supported himself by carpentry and hunting.

With the increase in the number and activity of the Chinese in California, the prejudice of the masses was stirred up violently. This feeling found expression particularly in 1855, when a law was passed by the Legislature, imposing a fine of fifty dollars on each owner or master of a vessel bringing to California anyone incapable of becoming a citizen; but when suit was instituted, to test the act's validity, it was declared unconstitutional. At that time, most of the opposition to the Chinese came from San Franciscans, there being but few coolies here.

Certain members of the same Legislature led a movement to form a new State, to be called Colorado and to include all the territory south of San Luis Obispo; and the matter was repeatedly discussed in several subsequent sessions. Nothing came of it, however; but Kern County was formed, in 1866, partly from Los Angeles County and partly from Tulare. About five thousand square miles, formerly under our County banner, were thus legislated away; and because the mountainous and desert area seemed of little prospective value, we submitted willingly. In this manner, unenlightened by modern science and ignorant of future possibilities, Southern California, guided by no clear and certain vision, drifted and stumbled along to its destiny.

FOOTNOTE:

[15] Julio Chrisostino Verdugo died early in March, 1915, supposed to be about one hundred and twelve years old.

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XIV. ORCHARDS AND VINEYARDS

1856

During 1856, I dissolved with my partners, Rich and Laventhal, and went into business with my uncle, Joseph Newmark, J. P. Newmark and Maurice Kremer, under the title of Newmark, Kremer & Company. Instead of a quasi wholesale business, we now had a larger assortment and did more of a retail business. We occupied a room, about forty by eighty feet in size, in the Mascarel and Barri block on the south side of Commercial Street (then known as Commercial Row), between Main and Los Angeles streets, our modest establishment being almost directly opposite the contracted quarters of my first store and having the largest single storeroom then in the city; and there we continued with moderate success, until 1858.

To make this new partnership possible, Kremer had sold out his interest in the firm of Lazard & Kremer, dry goods merchants, the readjustment providing an amusing illustration of the manner in which business, with its almost entire lack of specialization, was then conducted. When the stock was taken, a large part of it consisted, not of dry goods, as one might well suppose, but of--cigars and tobacco!

About the beginning of 1856, Sisters of Charity made their first appearance in Los Angeles, following a meeting called by Bishop Amat during the preceding month, to provide for their coming, when Abel Stearns presided and John G. Downey acted as Secretary. Benjamin Hayes, Thomas Foster, Ezra Drown, Louis Vignes, Ygnácio del Valle and António Coronel coöperated, while Manuel Requena collected the necessary funds. On January 5th, Sisters María Scholastica, María Corzina, Ana, Clara, Francisca and Angela arrived--three of them coming almost directly from Spain; and immediately they formed an important adjunct to the Church in matters pertaining to religion, charity and education. It was to them that B. D. Wilson sold his Los Angeles home, including ten acres of fine orchard, at the corner of Alameda and Macy streets, for eight thousand dollars; and there for many years they conducted their school, the Institute and Orphan Asylum, until they sold the property to J. M. Griffith, who used the site for a lumber-yard. Griffith, in turn, disposed of it to the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. Sister Scholastica, who celebrated in 1889 her fiftieth anniversary as a sister, was long the Mother Superior.

The so-called First Public School having met with popular approval, the Board of Education in 1856 opened another school on Bath Street. The building, two stories in height, was of brick and had two rooms.

On January 9th, John P. Brodie assumed charge of the Southern Californian. Andrés Pico was then proprietor; and before the newspaper died, in 1857, Pico lost, it is said, ten thousand dollars in the venture.

The first regular course of public lectures here was given in 1856 under the auspices of a society known as the Mechanics' Institute, and in one of Henry Dalton's corrugated iron buildings.

George T. Burrill, first County Sheriff, died on February 2d, his demise bringing to mind an interesting story. He was Sheriff, in the summer of 1850, when certain members of the infamous Irving party were arraigned for murder, and during that time received private word that many of the prisoners' friends would pack the little court room and attempt a rescue. Burrill, however, who used to wear a sword and had a rather soldierly bearing, was equal to the emergency. He quickly sent to Major E. H. Fitzgerald and had the latter come post-haste to town and court with a detachment of soldiers; and with this superior, disciplined force he overawed the bandits' compañeros who, sure enough, were there and fully armed to make a demonstration.

Thomas E. Rowan arrived here with his father, James Rowan, in 1856, and together they opened a bakery. Tom delivered the bread for a short time, but soon abandoned that pursuit for politics, being frequently elected to office, serving in turn as Supervisor, City and County Treasurer and even, from 1893 to 1894, as Mayor of Los Angeles. Shortly before Tom married Miss Josephine Mayerhofer in San Francisco in 1862--and a handsome couple they made--the Rowans bought from Louis Mesmer the American Bakery, located at the southwest corner of Main and First streets and originally established by August Ulyard. When James Rowan died about forty years ago, Tom fell heir to the bakery; but as he was otherwise engaged, he employed Maurice Maurício as manager, and P. Galta, afterward a prosperous business man of Bakersfield, as driver. Tom, who died in 1899, was also associated as cashier with I. W. Hellman and F. P. F. Temple in their bank. Rowan Avenue and Rowan Street were both named after this early comer.

The time for the return of my brother and his European bride now approached, and I felt a natural desire to meet them. Almost coincident, therefore, with their arrival in San Francisco, I was again in that growing city in 1856, although I had been there but the year previous.

On April 9th, occurred the marriage of Matilda, daughter of Joseph Newmark, to Maurice Kremer. The ceremony was performed by the bride's father. For the subsequent festivities, ice, from which ice cream was made, was brought from San Bernardino; both luxuries on this occasion being used in Los Angeles, as far as I can remember, for the first time.

To return to the Los Angeles Star. When J. S. Waite became Postmaster, in 1855, he found it no sinecure to continue even such an unpretentious and, in all likelihood, unprofitable news-sheet and at the same time attend to Uncle Sam's mail-bags; and early in 1856 he offered "the entire establishment at one thousand dollars less than cost." Business was so slow at that time, in fact, that Waite--after, perhaps, ruefully looking over his unpaid subscriptions--announced that he would "take wood, butter, eggs, flour, wheat or corn" in payment of bills due. He soon found a ready customer in William A. Wallace, the Principal of the boys' school who, on the twelfth of April, bought the paper; but Waite's disgust was nothing to that of the schoolteacher who, after two short months' trial with the editorial quill, scribbled a last doleful adiós. "The flush times of the pueblo, the day of large prices and pocket-books, are past," Wallace declared; and before him the editor saw "only picayunes, bad liquor, rags and universal dullness, when neither pistol-shots nor dying groans" could have any effect, and "when earthquakes would hardly turn men in their beds!" Nothing was left for such a destitute and discouraged quillman "but to wait for a carreta and get out of town." Wallace sold the paper, therefore, in June, 1856, to Henry Hamilton, a native of Ireland who had come to California in 1848 an apprenticed printer, and was for some years in newspaper work in San Francisco; and Hamilton soon put new life into the journal.

In 1856, the many-sided Dr. William B. Osburn organized a company to bore an artesian well west of the city; but when it reached a depth of over seven hundred feet, the prospectors went into bankruptcy.

George Lehman, early known as George the Baker (whose shop at one time was on the site of the Hayward Hotel), was a somewhat original and very popular character who, in 1856, took over the Round House on Main Street, between Third and Fourth, and there opened a pleasure-resort extending to Spring Street and known as the Garden of Paradise. The grounds really occupied on the one hand what are now the sites of the Pridham, the Pinney and the Turnverein, and on the other the Henne, the Breed and the Lankershim blocks. There was an entrance on Main Street and one, with two picket gates, on Spring. From the general shape and appearance of the building, it was always one of the first objects in town to attract attention; and Lehman (who, when he appeared on the street, had a crooked cane hanging on his arm and a lemon in his hand), came to be known as "Round House George." The house had been erected in the late forties by Raimundo, generally called Ramón, or Raymond Alexander, a sailor, who asserted that the design was a copy of a structure he had once seen on the coast of Africa; and there Ramón and his native California wife had lived for many years. Partly because he wished to cover the exterior with vines and flowers, Lehman nailed boards over the outer adobe walls and thus changed the cylinder form into that of an octagon. An ingenious arrangement of the parterre and a peculiar distribution of some trees, together with a profusion of plants and flowers--affording cool and shady bowers, somewhat similar to those of a typical beer or wine garden of the Fatherland--gave the place great popularity; while two heroic statues--one of Adam and the other of Eve--with a conglomeration of other curiosities, including the Apple Tree and the Serpent--all illustrating the world-old story of Eden--and a moving panorama made the Garden unique and rather famous. The balcony of the house provided accommodation for the playing of such music, perhaps discordant, as Los Angeles could then produce, and nearby was a framework containing a kind of swing then popular and known as "flying horses." The bar was in the Garden, near a well-sweep; and at the Main Street entrance stood a majestic and noted cactus tree which was cut down in 1886. The Garden of Paradise was opened toward the end of September, 1858, and so large were the grounds that when they were used, in 1876, for the Fourth of July celebration, twenty-six hundred people were seated there.

This leads me to say that Arthur McKenzie Dodson, who established a coal- and wood-yard at what was later the corner of Spring and Sixth streets, started there a little community which he called Georgetown--as a compliment, it was said, to the famous Round House George whose bakery, I have remarked, was located on that corner.

On June 7th, Dr. John S. Griffin, who had an old fashioned, classical education, and was a graduate, in medicine, of the University of Pennsylvania, succeeded Dr. William B. Osburn as Superintendent of the Los Angeles City Schools.

In these times of modern irrigation and scientific methods, it is hard to realize how disastrous were climatic extremes in an earlier day: in 1856, a single electric disturbance, accompanied by intense heat and sandstorms, left tens of thousands of dead cattle to tell the story of drought and destruction.

During the summer, I had occasion to go to Fort Tejón to see George C. Alexander, a customer, and I again asked Sam Meyer if he would accompany me. Such a proposition was always agreeable to Sam; and, having procured horses, we started, the distance being about one hundred and fifteen miles.

We left Los Angeles early one afternoon, and made our first stop at Lyons's Station, where we put up for the night. One of the brothers, after whom the place was named, prepared supper. Having to draw some thick blackstrap from a keg, he used a pitcher to catch the treacle; and as the liquid ran very slowly, our sociable host sat down to talk a bit, and soon forgot all about what he had started to do. The molasses, however, although it ran pretty slowly, ran steadily, and finally, like the mush in the fairy-tale of the enchanted bowl, overflowed the top of the receptacle and spread itself over the dirt floor. When Lyons had finished his chat, he saw, to his intense chagrin, a new job upon his hands, and one likely to busy him for some time.

Departing next morning at five o'clock we met Cy Lyons, who had come to Los Angeles in 1849 and was then engaged with his brother Sanford in raising sheep in that neighborhood. Cy was on horseback and had two pack animals, loaded with provisions. "Hello, boys! where are you bound?" he asked; and when we told him that we were on our way to Fort Tejón, he said that he was also going there, and volunteered to save us forty miles by guiding us over the trail. Such a shortening of our journey appealed to us as a good prospect, and we fell in behind the mounted guide.

It was one of those red-hot summer days characteristic of that region and season, and in a couple of hours we began to get very thirsty. Noticing this, Cy told us that no water would be found until we got to the Rancho de la Liebre, and that we could not possibly reach there until evening. Having no bota de agua handy, I took an onion from Lyons's pack and ate it, and that afforded me some relief; but Sam, whose decisions were always as lasting as the fragrance of that aromatic bulb, would not try the experiment. To make a long story short, when we at last reached the ranch, Sam, completely fagged out, and unable to alight from his horse, toppled off into our arms. The chewing of the onion had refreshed me to some extent, but just the same the day's journey proved one of the most miserable experiences through which I have ever passed.

The night was so hot at the ranch that we decided to sleep outdoors in one of the wagons; and being worn out with the day's exposure and fatigue, we soon fell asleep. The soundness of our slumbers did not prevent us from hearing, in the middle of the night, a snarling bear, scratching in the immediate neighborhood. A bear generally means business; and you may depend upon it that neither Sam, myself nor even Cy were very long in bundling out of the wagon and making a dash for the more protecting house. Early next morning, we recommenced our journey toward Fort Tejón, and reached there without any further adventures worth relating.

Coming back, we stopped for the night at Gordon's Station, and the next day rode fully seventy miles--not so inconsiderable an accomplishment, perhaps, for those not accustomed to regular saddle exercise.

A few months later, I met Cy on the street. "Harris," said he, "do you know that once, on that hot day going to Fort Tejón, we were within three hundred feet of a fine, cool spring?" "Then why in the devil," I retorted, "didn't you take us to it?" To which Cy, with a chuckle, answered: "Well, I just wanted to see what would happen to you!"

My first experience with camp meetings was in the year 1856, when I attended one in company with Miss Sarah Newmark, to whom I was then engaged, and Miss Harriet, her sister--later Mrs. Eugene Meyer. I engaged a buggy from George Carson's livery stable on Main Street; and we rode to Ira Thompson's grove at El Monte, in which the meeting was held. These camp meetings supplied a certain amount of social attraction to residents, in that good-hearted period when creeds formed a bond rather than a hindrance.

It was in 1856 that, in connection with our regular business, we began buying hides. One day a Mexican customer came into the store and, looking around, said: "¿Compra cueros?" (Do you buy hides?) "Sí, señor," I replied, to which he then said: "Tengo muchos en mi rancho" (I have many at my ranch). "Where do you live?" I asked. "Between Cahuenga and San Fernando Mission," he answered. He had come to town in his carreta, and added that he would conduct me to his place, if I wished to go there.

I obtained a wagon and, accompanied by Samuel Cohn, went with the Mexican. The native jogged on, carreta-fashion, the oxen lazily plodding along, while the driver with his ubiquitous pole kept them in the road by means of continual and effective prods, delivered first on one side, then on the other. It was dark when we reached the ranch; and the night being balmy, we wrapped ourselves up in blankets, and slept under the adobe veranda.

Early in the morning, I awoke and took a survey of the premises. To my amazement, I saw but one little kipskin hanging up to dry! When at length my Mexican friend appeared on the scene, I asked him where he kept his hides? (¿Donde tiene usted los cueros?) At which he pointed to the lone kip and, with a characteristic and perfectly indifferent shrug of the shoulders, said: "¡No tengo más!" (I have no more!)

I then deliberated with Sam as to what we should do; and having proceeded to San Fernando Mission to collect there, if possible, a load of hides, we were soon fortunate in obtaining enough to compensate us for our previous trouble and disappointment. On the way home, we came to a rather deep ditch preventing further progress. Being obliged, however, to get to the other side, we decided to throw the hides into the ditch, placing one on top of the other, until the obstructing gap was filled to a level with the road; and then we drove across, if not on dry land, at least on dry hides, which we reloaded onto the wagon. Finally, we reached town at a late hour.

In this connection, I may remind the reader of Dana's statement, in his celebrated Two Years before the Mast, that San Pedro once furnished more hides than any other port on the Coast; and may add that from the same port, more than forty years afterward, consignments of this valuable commodity were still being made, I myself being engaged more and more extensively in the hide trade.

Colonel Isaac Williams died on September 13th, having been a resident of Los Angeles and vicinity nearly a quarter of a century. A Pennsylvanian by birth, he had with him in the West a brother, Hiram, later of San Bernardino County. Happy as was most of Colonel Williams' life, tragedy entered his family circle, as I shall show, when both of his sons-in-law, John Rains and Robert Carlisle, met violent deaths at the hands of others.

Jean Louis Vignes came to Los Angeles in 1829, and set out the Aliso Vineyard of one hundred and four acres which derived its name, as did the street, from a previous and incorrect application of the Castilian aliso, meaning alder, to the sycamore tree, a big specimen of which stood on the place. This tree, possibly a couple of hundred years old, long shaded Vignes' wine-cellars, and was finally cut down a few years ago to make room for the Philadelphia Brew House. From a spot about fifty feet away from the Vignes adobe extended a grape arbor perhaps ten feet in width and fully a quarter of a mile long, thus reaching to the river; and this arbor was associated with many of the early celebrations in Los Angeles. The northern boundary of the property was Aliso Street; its western boundary was Alameda; and part of it was surrounded by a high adobe wall, inside of which, during the troubles of the Mexican War, Don Louis enjoyed a far safer seclusion than many others. On June 7th, 1851, Vignes advertised El Aliso for sale, but it was not subdivided until much later, when Eugene Meyer and his associates bought it for this purpose. Vignes Street recalls the veteran viticulturist.

While upon the subject of this substantial old pioneer family, I may give a rather interesting reminiscence as to the state of Aliso Street at this time. I have said that this street was the main road from Los Angeles to the San Bernardino country; and so it was. But in the fifties, Aliso Street stopped very abruptly at the Sainsevain Vineyard, where it narrowed down to one of the willow-bordered, picturesque little lanes so frequently found here, and paralleled the noted grape-arbor as far as the river-bank. At this point, Andrew Boyle and other residents of the Heights and beyond were wont to cross the stream on their way to and from town. The more important travel was by means of another lane known as the Aliso Road, turning at a corner occupied by the old Aliso Mill and winding along the Hoover Vineyard to the river. Along this route the San Bernardino stage rolled noisily, traversing in summer or during a poor season what was an almost dry wash, but encountering in wet winter raging torrents so impassable that all intercourse with the settlements to the east was disturbed. For a whole week, on several occasions, the San Bernardino stage was tied up, and once at least Andrew Boyle, before he had become conversant with the vagaries of the Los Angeles River, found it impossible for the better part of a fortnight to come to town for the replenishment of a badly-depleted larder. Lovers' Lane, willowed and deep with dust, was a narrow road now variously located in the minds of pioneers; my impression being that it followed the line of the present Date Street, although some insist that it was Macy.

Pierre Sainsevain, a nephew of Vignes, came in 1839 and for a while worked for his uncle. Jean Louis Sainsevain, another nephew, arrived in Los Angeles in 1849 or soon after, and on April 14th, 1855, purchased for forty-two thousand dollars the vineyard, cellars and other property of his uncle. This was the same year in which he returned to France for his son Michel and remarried, leaving another son, Paul, in school there. Pierre joined his brother; and in 1857 Sainsevain Brothers made the first California champagne, first shipping their wine to San Francisco. Paul, now a resident of San Diego, came to Los Angeles in 1861. The name endures in Sainsevain Street.

The activity of these Frenchmen reminds me that much usually characteristic of country life was present in what was called the city of Los Angeles, when I first saw it, as may be gathered from the fact that, in 1853, there were a hundred or more vineyards hereabouts, seventy-five or eighty of which were within the city precincts. These did not include the once famous "mother vineyard" of San Gabriel Mission, which the padres used to claim had about fifty thousand vines, but which had fallen into somewhat picturesque decay. Near San Gabriel, however, in 1855, William M. Stockton had a large vineyard nursery. William Wolfskill was one of the leading vineyardists, having set out his first vine, so it was said, in 1838, when he affirmed his belief that the plant, if well cared for, would flourish a hundred years! Don José Serrano, from whom Dr. Leonce Hoover bought many of the grapes he needed, did have vines, it was declared, that were nearly a century old. When I first passed through San Francisco, en route to Los Angeles, I saw grapes from this section in the markets of that city bringing twenty cents a pound; and to such an extent for a while did San Francisco continue to draw on Los Angeles for grapes, that Banning shipped thither from San Pedro, in 1857, no less than twenty-one thousand crates, averaging forty-five pounds each. It was not long, however, before ranches nearer San Francisco began to interfere with this monopoly of the South, and, as, a consequence, the shipment of grapes from Los Angeles fell off. This reminds me that William Wolfskill sent to San Francisco some of the first Northern grapes sold there; they were grown in a Napa Valley vineyard that he owned in the middle of the fifties, and when unloaded on the Long Wharf, three or four weeks in advance of Los Angeles grapes, brought at wholesale twenty-five dollars per hundred weight!

With the decline in the fresh fruit trade, however, the making and exportation of wine increased, and several who had not ventured into vineyarding before, now did so, acquiring their own land or an interest in the establishments of others. By 1857, Jean Louis Vignes boasted of possessing some white wine twenty years old--possibly of the same vintage about which Dr. Griffin often talked, in his reminiscences of the days when he had been an army surgeon; and Louis Wilhart occasionally sold wine which was little inferior to that of Jean Louis. Dr. Hoover was one of the first to make wine for the general market, having, for a while, a pretty and well-situated place called the Clayton Vineyard; and old Joseph Huber, who had come to California from Kentucky for his health, began in 1855 to make wine with considerable success. He owned the Foster Vineyard, where he died in July, 1866. B. D. Wilson was also soon shipping wine to San Francisco. L. J. Rose, who first entered the field in January, 1861, at Sunny Slope, not far from San Gabriel Mission, was another producer, and had a vineyard famous for brandy and wine. He made a departure in going to the foothills, and introduced many varieties of foreign grapes. By the same year, or somewhat previously, Matthew Keller, Stearns & Bell, Dr. Thomas J. White, Dr. Parrott, Kiln Messer, Henry Dalton, H. D. Barrows, Juan Bernard and Ricardo Vejar had wineries, and John Schumacher had a vineyard opposite the site of the City Gardens in the late seventies. L. H. Titus, in time, had a vineyard, known as the Dewdrop, near that of Rose. Still another wine producer was António María Lugo, who set out his vines on San Pedro Street, near the present Second, and often dwelt in the long adobe house where both Steve Foster, Lugo's son-in-law, and Mrs. Wallace Woodworth lived, and where I have been many times pleasantly entertained.

Dr. Leonce Hoover, who died on October 8th, 1862, was a native of Switzerland and formerly a surgeon in the army of Napoleon, when his name--later changed at the time of naturalization--had been Huber. Dr. Hoover in 1849 came to Los Angeles with his wife, his son, Vincent A. Hoover, then a young man, and two daughters, the whole family traveling by ox-team and prairie schooner. They soon discovered rich placer gold-beds, but were driven away by hostile Indians. A daughter, Mary A., became the wife of Samuel Briggs, a New Hampshire Yankee, who was for years Wells Fargo's agent here. For a while the Hoovers lived on the Wolfskill Ranch, after which they had a vineyard in the neighborhood of what is now the property of the Cudahy Packing Company. Vincent Hoover was a man of prominence in his time; he died in 1883. Mrs. Briggs, whose daughter married the well-known physician, Dr. Granville MacGowan, sold her home, on Broadway between Third and Fourth streets, to Homer Laughlin when he erected the Laughlin Building. Hoover Street is named for this family.

Accompanied by his son William, Joseph Huber, Sr., in 1855 came to Los Angeles from Kentucky, hoping to improve his health; and when the other members of his family, consisting of his wife and children, Caroline, Emeline, Edward and Joseph, followed him here, in 1859, by way of New York and the Isthmus, they found him settled as a vineyardist, occupying the Foster property running from Alameda Street to the river, in a section between Second and Sixth streets. The advent of a group of young people, so well qualified to add to what has truthfully been described by old-time Angeleños as our family circle, was hailed with a great deal of interest and satisfaction. In time, Miss Emeline Huber was married to O. W. Childs, and Miss Caroline was wedded to Dr. Frederick Preston Howard, a druggist who, more than forty years ago, bought out Theodore Wollweber, selling the business back to the latter a few years later. The prominence of this family made it comparatively easy for Joseph Huber, Jr., in 1865, to secure the nomination and be elected County Treasurer, succeeding M. Kremer, who had served six years. Huber, Sr., died about the middle sixties. Mrs. Huber lived to be eighty-three years old.

José de Rúbio had at least two vineyards when I came--one on Alameda Street, south of Wolfskill's and not far from Coronel's, and one on the east side of the river. Rúbio came here very early in the century, after having married Juana, a daughter of Juan María Miron, a well-known sea captain, and built three adobe houses. The first of these was on the site of the present home of William H. Workman, on Boyle Heights; the second was near what was later the corner of Alameda and Eighth streets, and the third was on Alameda Street near the present Vernon Avenue. One of his ranches was known as "Rúbio's," and there many a barbecue was celebrated. In 1859, Rúbio leased the Sepúlveda Landing, at San Pedro, and commenced to haul freight, to and fro. Señor and Señora Rúbio[16] had twenty-five children, of whom five are now living. Another Los Angeles vineyardist who lived near the river when I came was a Frenchman named Clemente.

Julius Weyse also had a vineyard, living on what is now Eighth Street near San Pedro. A son, H. G. Weyse, has distinguished himself as an attorney and has served in the Legislature; another, Otto G., married the widow of Edward Naud, while a third son, Rudolf G., married a daughter of H. D. Barrows.

The Reyes family was prominent here; a daughter married William Nordholt. Ysidro had a vineyard on Washington Street; and during one of the epidemics, he died of smallpox. His brother, Pablo, was a rancher.

While on the subject of vineyards, I may describe the method by which wine was made here in the early days and the part taken in the industry by the Indians, who always interested and astounded me. Stripped to the skin, and wearing only loin-cloths, they tramped with ceaseless tread from morn till night, pressing from the luscious fruit of the vineyard the juice so soon to ferment into wine. The grapes were placed in elevated vats from which the liquid ran into other connecting vessels; and the process exhaled a stale acidity, scenting the surrounding air. These Indians were employed in the early fall, the season of the year when wine is made and when the thermometer as a rule, in Southern California, reaches its highest point; and this temperature coupled with incessant toil caused the perspiration to drip from their swarthy bodies into the wine product, the sight of which in no wise increased my appetite for California wine.

A staple article of food for the Indians in 1856, by the way, was the acorn. The crop that year, however, was very short; and streams having also failed, in many instances, to yield the food usually taken from them, the tribes were in a distressed condition. Such were the aborigines' straits, in fact, that rancheros were warned of the danger, then greater than ever, from Indian depredations on stock.

In telling of the Sisters of Charity, I have forgotten to add that, after settling here, they sent to New York for a portable house, which they shipped to Los Angeles by way of Cape Horn. In due time, the house arrived; but imagine their vexation on discovering that, although the parts were supposed to have been marked so that they might easily be joined together, no one here could do the work. In the end, the Sisters were compelled to send East for a carpenter who, after a long interval, arrived and finished the house.

Soon after the organization of a Masonic lodge here, in 1854, many of my friends joined, and among them my brother, J. P. Newmark, who was admitted on February 26th, 1855, on which occasion J. H. Stuart was the Secretary; and through their participation in the celebration of St. John's Day (the twenty-fourth of June,) I was seized with a desire to join the order. This I did at the end of 1856, becoming a member of Los Angeles Lodge No. 42, whose meetings were held over Potter's store on Main Street. Worshipful Master Thomas Foster initiated me, and on January 22d, 1857, Worshipful Master Jacob Elias officiating, I took the third degree. I am, therefore, in all probability, the oldest living member of this now venerable Masonic organization.

FOOTNOTE:

[16] Señora de Rúbio survived her husband many years, dying on October 27th, 1914, at the age of one hundred and seven, after residing in Los Angeles ninety-four years.

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