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.
[Illustration: Maurice Kremer]
[Illustration: Solomon Lazard]
[Illustration: Mellus's, or Bell's Row
From a lithograph of 1858]
[Illustration: William H. Workman and John King]
[Illustration: Prudent Beaudry]
[Illustration: James S. Mallard]
[Illustration: John Behn]
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.
[Illustration: Louis Robidoux]
[Illustration: Julius G. Weyse]
[Illustration: John Behn]
[Illustration: Louis Breer]
[Illustration: William J. Broderick]
[Illustration: Isaac R. Dunkelberger]
[Illustration: Frank J. Carpenter]
[Illustration: Augustus Ulyard]
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.
[Illustration: Los Angeles in the Late Fifties
From a contemporary sketch]
[Illustration: Myer J. Newmark]
[Illustration: Dr. John S. Griffin]
[Illustration: Edward J. C. Kewen]
[Illustration: William C. Warren]
FOOTNOTE:
[15] Julio Chrisostino Verdugo died early in March, 1915, supposed to
be about one hundred and twelve years old.