SHERIFF BARTON AND THE _BANDIDOS_
1857
In the beginning of 1857, we had a more serious earthquake than any in
recent years. At half-past eight o'clock on the morning of January
9th, a tremor shook the earth from North to South; the first shocks
being light, the quake grew in power until houses were deserted, men,
women and children sought refuge in the streets, and horses and cattle
broke loose in wild alarm. For perhaps two, or two and a half minutes,
the _temblor_ continued and much damage was done. Los Angeles felt the
disturbance far less than many other places, although five to six
shocks were noted and twenty times during the week people were
frightened from their homes; at Temple's _rancho_ and at Fort Tejón
great rents were opened in the earth and then closed again, piling up
a heap or dune of finely-powdered stone and dirt. Large trees were
uprooted and hurled down the hillsides; and tumbling after them went
the cattle. Many officers, including Colonel B. L. Beall--well known
in Los Angeles social circles--barely escaped from the barracks with
their lives; and until the cracked adobes could be repaired, officers
and soldiers lived in tents. It was at this time, too, that a
so-called tidal wave almost engulfed the _Sea Bird_, plying between
San Pedro and San Francisco, as she was entering the Golden Gate.
Under the splendid seamanship of Captain Salisbury Haley, however, his
little ship weathered the wave, and he was able later to report her
awful experience to the scientific world.
This year also proved a dry season; and, consequently, times became
very bad. With two periods of adversity, even the richest of the
cattle-kings felt the pinch, and many began to part with their lands
in order to secure the relief needed to tide them over. The effects of
drought continued until 1858, although some good influences improved
business conditions.
Due to glowing accounts of the prospects for conquest and fortune
given out by Henry A. Crabb, a Stockton lawyer who married a Spanish
woman with relatives in Sonora, a hundred or more filibusters gathered
in Los Angeles, in January, to meet Crabb at San Pedro, when he
arrived from the North on the steamer _Sea Bird_. They strutted about
the streets here, displaying rifles and revolvers; and this would seem
to have been enough to prevent their departure for Sonita, a little
town a hundred miles beyond Yuma, to which they finally tramped. The
filibusters were permitted to leave, however, and they invaded the
foreign soil; but Crabb made a mess of the undertaking, even failing
in blowing up a little church he attacked; and those not killed in the
skirmish were soon surrounded and taken prisoners. The next morning,
Crabb and some others who had paraded so ostentatiously while here,
were tied to trees or posts, and summarily executed. Crabb's body was
riddled with a hundred bullets and his head cut off and sent back in
_mescal_; only one of the party was spared--Charley Evans, a lad of
fifteen years, who worked his way to Los Angeles and was connected
with a somewhat similar invasion a while later.
In January, also, when threats were made against the white population
of Southern California, Mrs. Griffin, the wife of Dr. J. S. Griffin,
came running, in all excitement, to the home of Joseph Newmark, and
told the members of the family to lock all their doors and bolt their
windows, as it was reported that some of the outlaws were on their way
to Los Angeles, to murder the white people. As soon as possible, the
ladies of the Griffin, Nichols, Foy, Mallard, Workman, Newmark and
other families were brought together for greater safety in Armory
Hall, on Spring Street near Second, while the men took their places
in line with the other citizens to patrol the hills and streets.
A still vivid impression of this startling episode recalls an
Englishman, a Dr. Carter, who arrived here some three years before. He
lived on the east side of Main Street near First, where the McDonald
Block now stands; and while not prominent in his profession, he
associated with some estimable families. When others were volunteering
for sentry-work or to fight, the Doctor very gallantly offered his
services as a Committee of One to care for the ladies--far from the
firing line!
On hearing of these threats by native _bandidos_, James R. Barton,
formerly a volunteer under General S. W. Kearny and then Sheriff, at
once investigated the rumors; and the truth of the reports being
verified, our small and exposed community was seized with terror.
A large band of Mexican outlaws, led by Pancho Daniel, a convict who
had escaped from San Quentin prison, and including Luciano Tapía and
Juan Flores, on January 22d had killed a German storekeeper named
George W. Pflugardt, in San Juan Capistrano, while he was preparing
his evening meal; and after having placed his body on the table, they
sat around and ate what the poor victim had provided for himself. On
the same occasion, these outlaws plundered the stores of Manuel
Garcia, Henry Charles and Miguel Kragevsky or Kraszewski; the last
named escaping by hiding under a lot of wash in a large
clothes-basket. When the news of this murder reached Los Angeles,
excitement rose to fever-heat and we prepared for something more than
defense.
Jim Barton, accompanied by William H. Little and Charles K. Baker,
both constables, Charles F. Daley, an early blacksmith here, Alfred
Hardy and Frank Alexander--all volunteers--left that evening for San
Juan Capistrano, to capture the murderers, and soon arrived at the San
Joaquín Ranch, about eighteen miles from San Juan. There Don José
Andrés Sepúlveda told Barton of a trap set for him, and that the
robbers outnumbered his _posse_, two to one; and urged him to send
back to Los Angeles for more volunteers. Brave but reckless Barton,
however, persisted in pushing on the next day, and so encountered some
of the marauders in Santiago Canyon. Barton, Baker, Little and Daley
were killed; while Hardy and Alexander escaped.
When Los Angeles was apprised of this second tragedy, the frenzy was
indescribable, and steps were taken toward the formation of both a
Committee of Safety and a Vigilance Committee--the latter to avenge
the foul deed and to bring in the culprits. In meeting this emergency,
the El Monte boys, as usual, took an active part. The city was placed
under martial law, and Dr. John S. Griffin was put in charge of the
local defenses. Suspicious houses, thought to be headquarters for
robbers and thieves, were searched; and forty or fifty persons were
arrested. The State Legislature was appealed to and at once voted
financial aid.
Although the Committee of Safety had the assistance of special foot
police in guarding the city, the citizens made a requisition on Fort
Tejón, and fifty soldiers were sent from that post to help pursue the
band. Troops from San Diego, with good horses and plenty of
provisions, were also placed at the disposition of the Los Angeles
authorities. Companies of mounted Rangers were made up to scour the
country, American, German and French citizens vying with one another
for the honor of risking their lives; one such company being formed at
El Monte, and another at San Bernardino. There were also two
detachments of native Californians; but many Sonorans and Mexicans
from other States, either from sympathy or fear, aided the murdering
robbers and so made their pursuit doubly difficult. However, the
outlaws were pursued far into the mountains; and although the first
party sent out returned without effecting anything (reporting that the
desperadoes were not far from San Juan and that the horses of the
pursuers had given out) practically all of the band, as will be seen,
were eventually captured.
Not only were vigorous measures taken to apprehend and punish the
murderers, but provision was made to rescue the bodies of the slain,
and to give them decent and honorable burial. The next morning, after
nearly one hundred mounted and armed men had set out to track the
fugitives, another party, also on horseback, left to escort several
wagons filled with coffins, in which they hoped to bring back the
bodies of Sheriff Barton and his comrades. In this effort, the posse
succeeded; and when the remains were received in Los Angeles on Sunday
about noon, the city at once went into mourning. All business was
suspended, and the impressive burial ceremonies, conducted on Monday,
were attended by the citizens _en masse_. Oddly enough, there was not
a Protestant clergyman in town at the time; but the Masonic Order took
the matter in hand and performed their rites over those who were
Masons, and even paid their respects, with a portion of the ritual, to
the non-Masonic dead.
General Andrés Pico, with a company of native mounted Californians,
who left immediately after the funeral, was especially prominent in
running down the outlaws, thus again displaying his natural gift of
leadership; and others fitted themselves out and followed as soon as
they could. General Pico knew both land and people; and on capturing
Silvas and Ardillero, two of the worst of the _bandidos_, after a hard
resistance, he straightway hung them to trees, at the very spot where
they had tried to assassinate him and his companions.
In the pursuit of the murderers, James Thompson (successor, in the
following January, to the murdered Sheriff Getman) led a company of
horsemen toward the Tejunga; and at the Simi Pass, high upon the
rocks, he stationed United States soldiers as a lookout. Little San
Gabriel, in which J. F. Burns, as Deputy Sheriff, was on the watch,
also made its contribution to the restoration of order and peace; for
some of its people captured and executed three or four of Daniels's
and Flores's band. Flores was caught on the top of a peak in the
Santiago range; all in all, some fifty-two culprits were brought to
Los Angeles and lodged in jail; and of that number eleven were lynched
or legally hung.
When the Vigilance Committee had jailed a suspected murderer, the
people were called to sit in judgment. We met near the veranda of the
Montgomery, and Judge Jonathan R. Scott having been made Chairman, a
regular order of procedure, extra-legal though it was, was followed;
after announcing the capture, and naming the criminal, the Judge
called upon the crowd to determine the prisoner's fate. Thereupon some
one would shout: "_Hang him!_" Scott would then put the question
somewhat after the following formula: "Gentlemen, you have heard the
motion; all those in favor of hanging So-and-So, will signify by
saying, Aye!"
And the citizens present unanimously answered, _Aye!_
Having thus expressed their will, the assemblage proceeded to the
jail, a low, adobe building behind the little Municipal and County
structure, and easily subdued the jailer, Frank J. Carpenter, whose
daughter, Josephine, became Frank Burns's second wife. The prisoner
was then secured, taken from his cell, escorted to Fort Hill--a rise
of ground behind the jail--where a temporary gallows had been
constructed, and promptly despatched; and after each of the first
batch of culprits had there successively paid the penalty for his
crime, the avengers quietly dispersed to their homes to await the
capture and dragging in of more cutthroats.
Among those condemned by vote at a public meeting in the way I have
described, was Juan Flores, who was hanged on February 14th, 1857,
well up on Fort Hill, in sight of such a throng that it is hardly too
much to say that practically every man, woman and child in the pueblo
was present, not to mention many people drawn by curiosity from
various parts of the State who had flocked into town. Flores was but
twenty-one years of age; yet, the year previous he had been sent to
prison for horse-stealing. At the same time that Flores was executed,
Miguel Blanco, who had stabbed the militiaman, Captain W. W. Twist, in
order to rob him of a thousand dollars, was also hanged.
Espinosa and Lopez, two members of the robber band, for a while eluded
their pursuers. At San Buenaventura, however, they were caught, and on
the following morning, Espinosa was hung. Lopez again escaped; and it
was not until February 16th that he was finally recaptured and
despatched to other realms.
Two days after Juan Flores was sent to a warmer clime, Luciano Tapía
and Thomas King were executed. Tapía's case was rather regrettable,
for he had been a respectable laborer at San Luis Obispo until Flores,
meeting him, persuaded him to abandon honest work. Tapía came to Los
Angeles, joined the robber band and was one of those who helped to
kill Sheriff Barton.
In 1857, the Sisters of Charity founded the Los Angeles Infirmary, the
first regular hospital in the city, with Sister Ana, for years well
known here, as Sister Superior. For a while, temporary quarters were
taken in the house long occupied by Don José María Aguilar and family,
which property the Sisters soon purchased; but the next year they
bought some land from Don Luis Arenas, adjoining Don José Andrés
Sepúlveda's, and were thus enabled to enlarge the hospital. Their
service being the best, in time they were enabled to acquire a
good-sized, two-story building of brick, in the upper part of the
city; and there their patients enjoyed the refreshing and
health-restoring environment of garden and orchard.
It was not until this year that, on the corner of Alameda and Bath
streets, Oscar Macy, City Treasurer in 1887-88, opened the first
public bath house, having built a water-wheel with small cans attached
to the paddles, to dip water up from the Alameda _zanja_, as a medium
for supplying his tank. He provided hot water as well as cold. Oscar
charged fifty cents a bath, and furnished soap and towels.
In 1857, the steamship _Senator_ left San Francisco on the fifth and
twentieth of each month and so continued until the people wanted a
steamer at least once every ten days.
Despite the inconvenience and expense of obtaining water for the home,
it was not until February 24th that Judge W. G. Dryden--who, with a
man named McFadden, had established the nucleus of a system--was
granted a franchise to distribute water from his land, and to build a
water-wheel in the _zanja madre_. The Dryden, formerly known as the
Ábila Springs and later the source of the Beaudry supply, were near
the site selected for the San Fernando Street Railway Station; and
from these springs water was conveyed by a _zanja_ to the Plaza.
There, in the center, a brick tank, perhaps ten feet square and
fifteen feet high, was constructed; and this was filled by means of
pumps, while from the tank wooden pipes distributed water to the
consumer.
So infrequently did we receive intelligence from the remoter parts of
the world throughout the fifties that sometimes a report, especially
if apparently authentic, when finally it reached here, created real
excitement. I recall, more or less vividly, the arrival of the stages
from the _Senator_, late in March, and the stir made when the news was
passed from mouth to mouth that Livingstone, the explorer, had at last
been heard from in far-off and unknown Africa.
Los Angeles schools were then open only part of the year, the School
Board being compelled, in the spring, to close them for want of money.
William Wolfskill, however, rough pioneer though he was, came to the
Board's rescue. He was widely known as an advocate of popular
education, having, as I have said, his own private teachers; and to
his lasting honor, he gave the Board sufficient funds to make possible
the reopening of one of the schools.
In 1857, I again revisited San Francisco. During the four years since
my first visit a complete metamorphosis had taken place. Tents and
small frame structures were being largely replaced with fine buildings
of brick and stone; many of the sand dunes had succumbed to the march
of improvement; gardens were much more numerous, and the uneven
character of streets and sidewalks had been wonderfully improved. In a
word, the spirit of Western progress was asserting itself, and the
city by the Golden Gate was taking on a decidedly metropolitan
appearance.
Notwithstanding various attempts at citrus culture in Southern
California, some time elapsed before there was much of an orange or
lemon industry in this vicinity. In 1854, a Dr. Halsey started an
orange and lime nursery, on the Rowland place, which he soon sold to
William Wolfskill, for four thousand dollars; and in April, 1857, when
there were not many more than a hundred orange trees bearing fruit in
the whole county, Wolfskill planted several thousand and so
established what was to be, for that time, the largest orange orchard
in the United States. He had thrown away a good many of the lemon
trees received from Halsey, because they were frost-bitten; but he
still had some lemon, orange and olive trees left. Later, under the
more scientific care of his son, Joseph Wolfskill, who extended the
original Wolfskill grove, this orchard was made to yield very large
crops.
In 1857, a group of Germans living in San Francisco bought twelve
hundred acres of waste, sandy land, at two dollars an acre, from Don
Pacífico Onteveras, and on it started the town of Anaheim--a name
composed of the Spanish _Ana_, from Santa Ana, and the German _Heim_,
for home; and this was the first settlement in the county founded
after my arrival. This land formed a block about one and a quarter
miles square, some three miles from the Santa Ana River, and five
miles from the residence of Don Bernardo Yorba, from whom the company
received special privileges. A. Langenberger, a German, who married
Yorba's daughter, was probably one of the originators of the Anaheim
plan; at any rate, his influence with his father-in-law was of value
to his friends in completing the deal. There were fifty shareholders,
who paid seven hundred and fifty dollars each, with an Executive
Council composed of Otmar Caler, President; G. Charles Kohler,
Vice-President; Cyrus Beythien, Treasurer; and John Fischer,
Secretary; while John Fröhling, R. Emerson, Felix Bachman, who was a
kind of Sub-treasurer, and Louis Jazyinsky, made up the Los Angeles
Auditing Committee. George Hansen, afterward the colony's
Superintendent, surveyed the tract and laid it out in fifty
twenty-acre lots, with streets and a public park; around it a live
fence of some forty to fifty thousand willow cuttings, placed at
intervals of a couple of feet, was planted. A main canal, six to seven
miles long, with a fall of fifteen to twenty feet, brought abundant
water from the Santa Ana River, while some three hundred and fifty
miles of lateral ditches distributed the water to the lots. On each
lot, some eight or ten thousand grape vines were set out, the first as
early as January, 1858. On December 15th, 1859, the stockholders came
south to settle on their partially-cultivated land; and although but
one among the entire number knew anything about wine-making, the dream
of the projectors--to establish there the largest vineyard in the
world--bade fair to come true. The colonists were quite a curious
mixture--two or three carpenters, four blacksmiths, three watchmakers,
a brewer, an engraver, a shoemaker, a poet, a miller, a bookbinder,
two or three merchants, a hatter and a musician; but being mostly of
sturdy, industrious German stock, they soon formed such a prosperous
and important little community that, by 1876, the settlement had grown
to nearly two thousand people. A peculiar plan was adopted for
investment, sale and compensation: each stockholder paid the same
price at the beginning, and later all drew for the lots, the
apportionment being left to chance; but since the pieces of land were
conceded to have dissimilar values, those securing the better lots
equalized in cash with their less lucky associates. Soon after 1860,
when Langenberger had erected the first hotel there, Anaheim took a
leading place in the production of grapes and wine; and this position
of honor it kept until, in 1888, a strange disease suddenly attacked
and, within a single year, killed all the vines, after which the
cultivation of oranges and walnuts was undertaken. Kohler and Fröhling
had wineries in both San Francisco and Los Angeles, the latter being
adjacent to the present corner of Central Avenue and Seventh Street;
and this firm purchased most of Anaheim's grape crop, although some
vineyard owners made their own wine. Morris L. Goodman, by the way,
was here at an early period, and was one of the first settlers of
Anaheim.
Hermann Heinsch, a native of Prussia, arrived in Los Angeles in 1857
and soon after engaged in the harness and saddlery business. On March
8th, 1863, he was married to Mary Haap. Having become proficient at
German schools in both music and languages, Heinsch lent his time and
efforts to the organization and drill of Germans here, and contributed
much to the success of both the Teutonia and the Turnverein. In 1869,
the Heinsch Building was erected at the corner of Commercial and Los
Angeles streets; and as late as 1876 this was a shopping district, a
Mrs. T. J. Baker having a dressmaking establishment there. After a
prosperous career, Heinsch died on January 13th, 1883; his wife
followed him on April 14th, 1906. R. C. Heinsch, a son, survives them.
Major Walter Harris Harvey, a native of Georgia once a cadet at West
Point, but dismissed for his pranks (who about the middle of the
fifties married Eleanor, eldest full sister of John G. Downey, and
became the father of J. Downey Harvey, now living in San Francisco),
settled in California shortly after the Mexican War. During the first
week in May, 1857, or some four years before he died, Major Harvey
arrived from Washington with an appointment as Register of the Land
Office, in place of H. P. Dorsey. At the same time, Don Agustin Olvera
was appointed Receiver, in lieu of General Andrés Pico. These and
other rotations in office were due, of course, to national
administration changes, President Buchanan having recently been
inaugurated.
One of the interesting legal inquiries of the fifties was conducted in
1857 when, in the District Court here, António María Lugo, crowned
with the white of seventy-six winters, testified, at a hearing to
establish certain claims to land, as to what he knew of old _ranchos_
hereabouts, recalling many details of the pueblo and incidents as far
back as 1785. He had seen the San Rafael Ranch, for example, in 1790,
and he had also roamed, as a young man, over the still older Dominguez
and Nietos hills.
Charles Henry Forbes, who was born at the Mission San José, came to
Los Angeles County in 1857 and, though but twenty-two years old, was
engaged by Don Abel Stearns to superintend his various _ranchos_,
becoming Stearns's business manager in 1866, with a small office on
the ground-floor of the Arcadia Block. In 1864, Forbes married Doña
Luisa Olvera, daughter of Judge Agustin Olvera, and a graduate of the
Sisters' school. On the death of Don Abel, in 1871, Forbes settled up
Stearns's large estate, retaining his professional association with
Doña Arcadia, after her marriage to Colonel Baker, and even until he
died in May, 1894.
As I have intimated, the principal industry throughout Los Angeles
County, and indeed throughout Southern California, up to the sixties,
was the raising of cattle and horses--an undertaking favored by a
people particularly fond of leisure and knowing little of the latent
possibilities in the land; so that this entire area of magnificent
soil supported herds which provided the whole population in turn,
directly or indirectly, with a livelihood. The live stock subsisted
upon the grass growing wild all over the county, and the prosperity of
Southern California therefore depended entirely upon the season's
rainfall. This was true to a far greater extent than one might
suppose, for water-development had received no attention outside of
Los Angeles. If the rainfall was sufficient to produce feed, dealers
came from the North and purchased our stock, and everybody thrived;
if, on the other hand, the season was dry, cattle and horses died and
the public's pocket-book shrank to very unpretentious dimensions. As
an incident in even a much later period than that which I here have in
mind, I can distinctly remember that I would rise three or four times
during a single meal to see if the overhanging clouds had yet begun to
give that rain which they had seemed to promise, and which was so
vital to our prosperity.
As for rain, I am reminded that every newspaper in those days devoted
much space to weather reports or, rather, to gossip about the weather
at other points along the Coast, as well as to the consequent
prospects here. The weather was the one determining factor in the
problem of a successful or a disastrous season, and became a very
important theme when ranchers and others congregated at our store.
And here I may mention, _à propos_ of this matter of rainfall and its
general effects, that there were millions of ground-squirrels all over
this country that shared with other animals the ups and downs of the
season. When there was plenty of rain, these squirrels fattened and
multiplied; but when evil days came, they sickened, starved and
perished. On the other hand, great overflows, due to heavy rainfalls,
drowned many of these troublesome little rodents.
The raising of sheep had not yet developed any importance at the time
of my arrival; most of the mutton then consumed in Los Angeles coming
from Santa Cruz Island, in the Santa Bárbara Channel, though some was
brought from San Clemente and Santa Catalina islands. On the latter,
there was a herd of from eight to ten thousand sheep in which Oscar
Macy later acquired an interest; and L. Harris, father-in-law of H. W.
Frank, the well- and favorably-known President and member of the Board
of Education, also had extensive herds there. They ran wild and needed
very little care, and only semi-yearly visits were made to look after
the shearing, packing and shipping of the wool. Santa Cruz Island had
much larger herds, and steamers running to and from San Francisco
often stopped there to take on sheep and sheep-products.
Santa Catalina Island, for years the property of Don José María
Covarrúbias--and later of the eccentric San Francisco pioneer James
Lick, who crossed the plains in the same party with the Lanfranco
brothers and tried to induce them to settle in the North--was not far
from San Clemente; and there, throughout the extent of her hills and
vales, roamed herd after herd of wild goats. Early seafarers, I
believe it has been suggested, accustomed to carry goats on their
sailing vessels, for a supply of milk, probably deposited some of the
animals on Catalina; but however that may be, hunting parties to this
day explore the mountains in search of them.
Considering, therefore, the small number of sheep here about 1853, it
is not uninteresting to note that, according to old records of San
Gabriel for the winter of 1828-29, there were then at the Mission no
less than fifteen thousand sheep; while in 1858, on the other hand,
according to fairly accurate reports, there were fully twenty thousand
sheep in Los Angeles County. Two years later, the number had doubled.
George Carson, a New Yorker who came here in 1852, and after whom
Carson Station is named, was one of the first to engage in the sheep
industry. Soon after he arrived, he went into the livery business, to
which he gave attention even when in partnership successively with
Sanford, Dean and Hicks in the hardware business, on Commercial
Street. On July 30th, 1857, Carson married Doña Victoria, a daughter
of Manuel Dominguez; but it was not until 1864 that, having sold out
his two business interests (the livery to George Butler and the
hardware to his partner), he moved to the ranch of his father-in-law,
where he continued to live, assisting Dominguez with the management of
his great property. Some years later, Carson bought four or five
hundred acres of land adjoining the Dominguez acres and turned his
attention to sheep. Later still, he became interested in the
development of thoroughbred cattle and horses, but continued to help
his father-in-law in the directing of his ranch. When rain favored the
land, Carson, in common with his neighbors, amassed wealth; but during
dry years he suffered disappointment and loss, and on one occasion was
forced to take his flocks, then consisting of ten thousand sheep, to
the mountains, where he lost all but a thousand head. It cost him ten
thousand dollars to save the latter, which amount far exceeded their
value. In this movement of stock, he took with him, as his lieutenant,
a young Mexican named Martin Cruz whom he had brought up on the
_rancho_. Carson was one of my cronies, while I was still young and
single; and we remained warm friends until he died.
Almost indescribable excitement followed the substantiated reports,
received in the fall of 1857, that a train of emigrants from Missouri
and Arkansas, on their way to California, had been set upon by
Indians, near Mountain Meadow, Utah, on September 7th, and that
thirty-six members of the party had been brutally killed. Particularly
were the Gentiles of the Southwest stirred up when it was learned that
the assault had been planned and carried through by one Lee, a Mormon,
whose act sprang rather from the frenzy of a madman than from the
deliberation of a well-balanced mind. The attitude of Brigham Young
toward the United States Government, at that time, and his alleged
threat to "turn the Indians loose" upon the whites, added color to the
assertion that Young's followers were guilty of the massacre; but
fuller investigation has absolved the Mormons, I believe, as a
society, from any complicity in the awful affair. Some years later the
two Oatman girls were rescued from the Indians (by whom they had been
tattooed), and for a while they stayed at Ira Thompson's, where I saw
them.
In 1857, J. G. Nichols was reëlected Mayor of Los Angeles, and began
several improvements he had previously advocated, especially the
irrigating of the plain below the city. By August 2d, _Zanja_ No. 2
was completed; and this brought about the building of the Aliso Mill
and the further cultivation of much excellent land.
One of the passengers that left San Francisco with me for San Pedro on
October 18th, 1853, who later became a successful citizen of Southern
California, was Edward N. McDonald, a native of New York State. We had
sailed from New York together, and together had finished the long
journey to the Pacific Coast, after which I lost track of him.
McDonald had intended proceeding farther south, and I was surprised at
meeting him on the street, some weeks after my arrival, in Los
Angeles. Reaching San Pedro, he contracted to enter the service of
Alexander & Banning, and remained with Banning for several years,
until he formed a partnership with John O. Wheeler's brother, who
later went to Japan. McDonald, subsequently raised sheep on a large
scale and acquired much ranch property; and in 1876, he built the
block on Main Street bearing his name. Sixteen years later, he erected
another structure, opposite the first one. When McDonald died at
Wilmington, on June 10th, 1899, he left his wife an estate valued at
about one hundred and sixty thousand dollars which must have increased
in value, since then, many fold.
N. A. Potter, a Rhode Islander, came to Los Angeles in 1855, bringing
with him a stock of Yankee goods and opening a store; and two years
later he bought a two-story brick building on Main Street, opposite
the Bella Union. Louis Jazynsky was a partner with Potter, for a
while, under the firm name of Potter & Company; but later Jazynsky
left Los Angeles for San Francisco. Potter died here in 1868.
Possibly the first instance of an Angeleño proffering a gift to the
President of the United States--and that, too, of something
characteristic of this productive soil and climate--was when Henry D.
Barrows, in September, called on President Buchanan, in Washington
and, on behalf of William Wolfskill, Don Manuel Requena and himself,
gave the Chief Executive some California fruit and wine.
I have before me a Ledger of the year 1857; it is a medium-sized
volume bound in leather, and on the outside cover is inscribed, in the
bold, old-fashioned handwriting of fifty-odd years ago, the simple
legend,
NEWMARK, KREMER & COMPANY
Each page is headed with the name of some still-remembered worthy of
that distant day who was a customer of the old firm; and in 1857, a
customer was always a friend. According to the method of that period
the accounts are closed, not with balancing entries and red lines but,
in the blackest of black ink, with the good, straightforward and
positive inscription, _Settled_.
The perusal of this old book carries me back over the vanished years.
As the skull in the hand of the ancient monk, so does this antiquated
volume recall to me how transitory is this life and all its affairs. A
few remain to tell a younger generation the story of the early days;
but the majority, even as in 1857 they carefully balanced their scores
in this old Ledger, have now closed their accounts in the great Book
of Life. They have settled with their heaviest Creditor; they have
gone before Him to render their last account. With few or no
exceptions, they were a manly, sterling race, and I have no doubt that
He found their assets far greater than their liabilities.