MARRIAGE--THE BUTTERFIELD STAGES
1858
In January, 1858, I engaged, in the sheep business. After some
investigation, I selected and purchased for an insignificant sum, just
west of the present Hollenbeck Home on Boyle Avenue, a convenient
site, which consisted of twenty acres of land, through which a ditch
conducted water to Don Felipe Lugo's San António _rancho_--a flow
quite sufficient, at the time, for my herd. These sheep I pastured on
adjacent lands belonging to the City; and as others often did the
same, no one said me Nay. Everything progressed beautifully until the
first of May, when the ditch ran dry. Upon making inquiry, I learned
that the City had permitted Lugo to dig a private ditch across this
twenty-acre tract to his ranch, and to use what water he needed during
the rainy season; but that in May, when the authorities resumed their
irrigation service, the privilege was withdrawn. I was thus deprived
of water for the sheep.
Despite the fact that there was an adobe on the land, I could not
dispose of the property at any price. One day a half-breed known as
the Chicken Thief called on me and offered a dozen chickens for the
adobe, but--not a chicken for the land! Stealing chickens was this
man's profession; and I suppose that he offered me the medium of
exchange he was most accustomed to have about him.
Sheriff William C. Getman had been warned, in the tragic days of 1858,
to look out for a maniac named Reed; but almost courting such an
emergency, Getman (once a dashing Lieutenant of the Rangers and
bearing grapeshot wounds from his participation in the Siege of
Mexico) went, on the seventh of January, with Francis Baker to a
pawnbroker, whose establishment, near Los Angeles and Aliso streets,
was popularly known as the Monte Pio. There the officers found Reed
locked and barricaded in a room; and while the Sheriff was endeavoring
to force an entrance, Reed suddenly threw open the door, ran out and,
to the dismay of myself and many others gathered to witness the
arrest, pulled a pistol from his pocket, discharged the weapon, and
Getman dropped on the spot. The maniac then retreated into the
pawnbroker's from which he fired at the crowd. Deputy Baker--later
assistant to Marshal Warren, who was shot by Dye--finally killed the
desperado, but not before Reed had fired twenty to thirty shots, four
or five of which passed through Baker's clothing. When the excited
crowd broke into the shop, it was found that the madman had been armed
with two derringers, two revolvers and a bowie knife--a convenient
little arsenal which he had taken from the money-lender's stock. The
news of the affray spread rapidly through the town and everywhere
created great regret. Baker, who had sailed around the Horn a couple
of years before I arrived, died on May 17th, 1899, after having been
City Marshal and Tax Collector.
Such trouble with men inclined to use firearms too freely was not
confined to maniacs or those bent on revenge or robbery. On one
occasion, for example, about 1858, while passing along the street I
observed Gabriel Allen, known among his intimates as Gabe Allen, a
veteran of the War with Mexico--and some years later a Supervisor--on
one of his jollifications, with Sheriff Getman following close at his
heels. Having arrived in front of a building, Gabe suddenly raised his
gun and aimed at a carpenter who was at work on the roof. Getman
promptly knocked Allen down; whereupon the latter said, "You've got
me, Billy!" Allen's only purpose, it appeared, was to take a shot at
the innocent stranger and thus test his marksmanship.
This Gabe Allen was really a notorious character, though not
altogether bad. When sober, he was a peaceable man; but when on a
spree, he was decidedly warlike and on such occasions always "shot up
the town." While on one of these jamborees, for example, he was heard
to say, "I'll shoot, if I only kill six of them!" In later life,
however, Allen married a Mexican lady who seems to have had a
mollifying influence; and thereafter he lived at peace with the world.
During the changing half-century or more of which I write, Los Angeles
has witnessed many exciting street scenes, but it is doubtful if any
exhibition here ever called to doors, windows and the dusty streets a
greater percentage of the entire population than that of the
Government camels driven through the town on January 8th, 1858, under
the martial and spectacular command of Ned, otherwise Lieutenant, and
later General and Ambassador E. F. Beale, and the forbear of the
so-called hundred million dollar McLean baby; the same Lieutenant
Beale who opened up Beale's Route from the Rio Grande to Fort Tejón.
The camels had just come in from the fort, having traveled forty or
more miles a day across the desert, to be loaded with military stores
and provisions. As early as the beginning of the fifties, Jefferson
Davis, then in Congress, had advocated, but without success, the
appropriation of thirty thousand dollars for the purchase of such
animals, believing that they could be used on the overland routes and
would prove especially serviceable in desert regions; and when Davis,
in 1854, as Secretary of War, secured the appropriation for which he
had so long contended, he despatched American army officers to Egypt
and Arabia to make the purchase. Some seventy or seventy-five camels
were obtained and transported to Texas by the storeship _Supply_; and
in the Lone Star State the herd was divided into two parts, half being
sent to the Gadsden Purchase, afterward Arizona, and half to
Albuquerque. In a short time, the second division was put in charge of
Lieutenant Beale who was assisted by native camel-drivers brought from
abroad. Among these was Philip Tedro, or Hi Jolly--who had been picked
up by Commodore Dave Porter--and Greek George, years afterward host
to bandit Vasquez; and camels and drivers made several trips back and
forth across the Southwest country. Once headquartered at Fort Tejón,
they came to Los Angeles every few weeks for provisions; each time
creating no little excitement among the adult population and affording
much amusement, as they passed along the streets, to the small boy.
To return to Pancho Daniel, the escaped leader of the Barton
murderers. He was heard from occasionally, as foraging north toward
San Luis Obispo, and was finally captured, after repeated efforts to
entrap and round him up, by Sheriff Murphy, on January 19th, 1858,
while hiding in a haystack near San José. When he was brought to Los
Angeles, he was jailed, and then released on bail. Finally, Daniel's
lawyers secured for him a change of venue to Santa Bárbara; and this
was the last abuse that led the public again to administer a little
law of its own. Early on the morning of November 30th, Pancho's body
was found hanging by the neck at the gateway to the County Jail yard,
a handful of men having overpowered the keeper, secured the key and
the prisoner, and sent him on a journey with a different destination
from Santa Bárbara.
On February 25th, fire started in Childs & Hicks's store, on Los
Angeles Street, and threatened both the Bella Union and _El Palacio_,
then the residence of Don Abel Stearns. The brick in the building of
Felix Bachman & Company and the volunteer bucket-brigade prevented a
general conflagration. Property worth thousands of dollars was
destroyed, Bachman & Company alone carrying insurance. The
conflagration demonstrated the need of a fire engine, and a
subscription was started to get one.
Weeks later workmen, rummaging among the _débris_, found five thousand
dollars in gold, which discovery produced no little excitement. Childs
claimed the money as his, saying that it had been stolen from him by a
thieving clerk; but the workmen, undisturbed by law, kept the
treasure.
A new four-page weekly newspaper appeared on March 24th, bearing the
suggestive title, the _Southern Vineyard_, and the name of Colonel J.
J. Warner, as editor. By December, it had become a semi-weekly.
Originally Democratic, it now favored the Union party; it was edited
with ability, but died on June 8th, 1860.
On March 24th, I married Sarah, second daughter of Joseph Newmark, to
whom I had been engaged since 1856. She was born on January 9th, 1841,
and had come to live in Los Angeles in 1854. The ceremony, performed
by the bride's father, took place at the family home, at what is now
501 North Main Street, almost a block from the Plaza, on the site of
the Brunswig Drug Company; and there we continued to live until about
1860.
At four o'clock, a small circle of intimates was welcomed at dinner;
and in the evening there was a house-party and dance, for which
invitations printed on lace-paper, in the typography characteristic of
that day, had been sent out. Among the friends who attended, were the
military officers stationed at Fort Tejón, including Major Bell, the
commanding officer, and Lieutenant John B. Magruder, formerly Colonel
at San Diego and later a Major General in the Civil War, commanding
Confederate forces in the Peninsula and in Texas, and eventually
serving under Maximilian in Mexico. Other friends still living in Los
Angeles who were present are Mr. and Mrs. S. Lazard, Mrs. S. C. Foy,
William H. Workman, C. E. Thom and H. D. Barrows. Men rarely went out
unarmed at night, and most of our male visitors doffed their
weapons--both pistols and knives--as they came in, spreading them
around in the bedrooms. The ladies brought their babies with them for
safe-keeping, and the same rooms were placed at their disposal.
Imagine, if you can, the appearance of this nursery-arsenal!
[Illustration: Harris Newmark, when (about) Thirty-four Years Old]
[Illustration: Sarah Newmark, when (about) Twenty-four Years of Age]
[Illustration: Facsimile of Harris and Sarah Newmark's Wedding
Invitation]
It was soon after we were married that my wife said to me one day,
rather playfully, but with a touch of sadness, that our meeting might
easily have never taken place; and when I inquired what she meant, she
described an awful calamity that had befallen the Greenwich Avenue
school in New York City, which she attended as a little girl, and
where several hundred pupils were distributed in different
classrooms. The building was four stories in height; the ground floor
paved with stones, was used as a playroom; the primary department was
on the second floor; the more advanced pupils occupied the third;
while the top floor served as a lecture-room.
On the afternoon of November 20th, 1851, Miss Harrison, the Principal
of the young ladies' department, suddenly fell in a faint, and the
resulting screams for water, being misunderstood, led to the awful cry
of _Fire!_ It was known that the pupils made a dash for the various
doors and were soon massed around the stairway, yet a difference of
opinion existed as to the cause of the tragedy. My wife always said
that the staircase, which led from the upper to the first floor, _en
caracole_, gave way, letting the pupils fall; while others contended
that the bannister snapped asunder, hurling the crowded unfortunates
over the edge to the pavement beneath. A frightful fatality resulted.
Hundreds of pupils of all ages were precipitated in heaps on to the
stone floor, with a loss of forty-seven lives and a hundred or more
seriously crippled.
My wife, who was a child of but eleven years, was just about to jump
with the rest when a providential hand restrained and saved her.
News of the disaster quickly spread, and in a short time the crowd of
anxious parents, kinsfolk and friends who had hastened to the scene in
every variety of vehicle and on foot, was so dense that the police had
the utmost difficulty in removing the wounded, dying and dead.
From Geneva, Switzerland, in 1854, a highly educated French lady,
Mlle. Theresa Bry, whose oil portrait hangs in the County Museum,
reached Los Angeles, and four years later married François Henriot, a
gardener by profession, who had come from _la belle France_ in 1851.
Together, on First Street near Los Angeles, they conducted a private
school which enjoyed considerable patronage; removing the institution,
in the early eighties, to the Arroyo Seco district. This matrimonial
transaction, on account of the unequal social stations of the
respective parties, caused some little flurry: in contrast to her own
beauty and ladylike accomplishments, François's manners were
unrefined, his stature short and squatty, while his full beard
(although it inspired respect, if not a certain feeling of awe, when
he came to exercise authority in the school) was scraggy and unkempt.
Mme. Henriot died in 1888, aged eighty-seven years, and was followed
to the grave by her husband five years later.
In 1858, the outlook for business brightened in Los Angeles; and Don
Abel Stearns, who had acquired riches as a _ranchero_, built the
Arcadia Block, on the corner of Los Angeles and Arcadia streets,
naming it after his wife, Doña Arcadia, who, since these memoirs were
commenced, has joined the silent majority. The structure cost about
eighty thousand dollars, and was talked of for some time as the most
notable business block south of San Francisco. The newspapers hailed
it as an ornament to the city and a great step toward providing what
the small and undeveloped community then regarded as a fire-proof
structure for business purposes. Because, however, of the dangerous
overflow of the Los Angeles River in rainy seasons, Stearns elevated
the building above the grade of the street and to such an extent that,
for several years, his store-rooms remained empty. But the enterprise
at once bore some good fruit; to make the iron doors and shutters of
the block, he started a foundry on New High Street and soon created
some local iron-casting trade.
On April 24th, Señora Guadalupe Romero died at the age, it is said, of
one hundred and fifteen years. She came to Los Angeles, I was told, as
far back as 1781, the wife of one of the earliest soldiers sent here,
and had thus lived in the pueblo about seventy-seven years.
Some chapters in the life of Henry Mellus are of more than passing
interest. Born in Boston, he came to California in 1835, with Richard
Henry Dana, in Captain Thompson's brig _Pilgrim_ made famous in the
story of _Two Years before the Mast_; clerked for Colonel Isaac
Williams when that Chino worthy had a little store where later the
Bella Union stood; returned to the East in 1837 and came back to the
Coast the second time as supercargo. Settling in San Francisco, he
formed with Howard the well-known firm of Howard & Mellus, which was
wiped out, by the great fire, in 1851. Again Mellus returned to
Massachusetts, and in 1858 for a third time came to California, at
length casting his fortune with us in growing Los Angeles. On Dana's
return to San Pedro and the Pacific Coast in 1859, Mellus--who had
married a sister of Francis Mellus's wife and had become a
representative citizen--entertained the distinguished advocate and
author, and drove him around Los Angeles to view the once familiar and
but little-altered scenes. Dana bore all his honors modestly,
apparently quite oblivious of the curiosity displayed toward him and
quite as unconscious that he was making one of the memorable visits in
the early annals of the town. Dana Street serves as a memorial to one
who contributed in no small degree to render the vicinity of Los
Angeles famous.
Just what hotel life in Los Angeles was in the late fifties, or about
the time when Dana visited here, may be gathered from an anecdote
often told by Dr. W. F. Edgar, who came to the City of the Angels for
the first time in 1858. Dr. Edgar had been ordered to join an
expedition against the Mojave Indians which was to start from Los
Angeles for the Colorado River, and he put up at the old Bella Union,
expecting at least one good night's rest before taking to the saddle
again and making for the desert. Dr. Edgar found, however, to his
intense disgust, that the entire second story was overcrowded with
lodgers. Singing and loud talking were silenced, in turn, by the
protests of those who wanted to sleep; but finally a guest, too full
for expression but not so drunk that he was unable to breathe
hoarsely, staggered in from a Sonora Town ball, tumbled into bed with
his boots on, and commenced to snort, much like a pig. Under ordinary
circumstances, this infliction would have been grievous enough; but
the inner walls of the Bella Union were never overthick, and the
rhythmic snoring of the late-comer made itself emphatically audible
and proportionately obnoxious. Quite as emphatic, however, were the
objections soon raised by the fellow-guests, who not only raised them
but threw them, one after another--boots, bootjacks and sticks
striking, with heavy thud, the snorer's portal; but finding that even
these did not avail, the remonstrants, in various forms of deshabille,
rushed out and began to kick at the door of the objectionable bedroom.
Just at that moment the offender turned over with a grunt; and the
excited army of lodgers, baffled by the unresisting apathy of the
sleeper, retreated, each to his nest. The next day, breathing a sigh
of relief, Edgar forsook the heavenly regions of the Bella Union and
made for Cajón Pass, eventually reaching the Colorado and the place
where the expedition found the charred remains of emigrants' wagons,
the mournful evidence of Indian treachery and atrocity.
Edgar's nocturnal experience reminds me of another in the good old
Bella Union. When Cameron E. Thom arrived here in the spring of 1854,
he engaged a room at the hotel which he continued to occupy for
several months, or until the rains of 1855 caused both roof and
ceiling to cave in during the middle of the night, not altogether
pleasantly arousing him from his slumbers. It was then that he moved
to Joseph Newmark's, where he lived for some time, through which
circumstance we became warm friends.
Big, husky, hearty Jacob Kuhrts, by birth a German and now living here
at eighty-one years of age, left home, as a mere boy, for the sea,
visiting California on a vessel from China as early as 1848, and
rushing off to Placer County on the outbreak of the gold-fever.
Roughing it for several years and narrowly escaping death from
Indians, Jake made his first appearance in Los Angeles in 1858, soon
after which I met him, when he was eking out a livelihood doing odd
jobs about town, a fact leading me to conclude that his success at the
mines was hardly commensurate with the privations endured. It was just
about that time, when he was running a dray, that, attracted by a
dance among Germans, Jake dropped in as he was; but how sorry an
appearance he made may perhaps be fancied when I say that the
door-keeper, eyeing him suspiciously, refused him admission and
advised him to go home and put on his Sunday go-to-meetings. Jake went
and, what is more important, fortunately returned; for while spinning
around on the knotty floor, he met, fell in love with and ogled
Fräulein Susan Buhn, whom somewhat later he married. In 1864, Kuhrts
had a little store on Spring Street near the adobe City Hall; and
there he prospered so well that by 1866 he had bought the northwest
corner of Main and First streets, and put up the building he still
owns. For twelve years he conducted a grocery in a part of that
structure, living with his family in the second story, after which he
was sufficiently prosperous to retire. Active as his business life has
been, Jake has proved his patriotism time and again, devoting his
efforts as a City Father, and serving, sometimes without salary, as
Superintendent of Streets, Chief of the Fire Department and Fire
Commissioner.
In 1858, John Temple built what is now the south wing of the Temple
Block standing directly opposite the Bullard Building; but the Main
Street stores being, like Stearns's Arcadia Block, above the level of
the sidewalk and, therefore, reached only by several steps, proved
unpopular and did not rent, although Tischler & Schlesinger, heading a
party of grain-buyers, stored some wheat in them for a while or until
the grain, through its weight, broke the flooring, and was
precipitated into the cellar; and even as late as 1859, after
telegraph connection with San Francisco had been completed, only one
little space on the Spring Street side, in size not more than eight by
ten feet, was rented, the telegraph company being the tenants. One day
William Wolfskill, pointing to the structure, exclaimed to his
friends: "What a pity that Temple put all his money there! Had he not
gone into building so extravagantly, he might now be a rich man."
Wolfskill himself, however, later commenced the construction of a
small block on Main Street, opposite the Bella Union, to be occupied
by S. Lazard & Company, but which he did not live to see completed.
Later on, the little town grew and, as this property became more
central, Temple removed the steps and built the stores flush with the
sidewalk, after which wide-awake merchants began to move into them.
One of Temple's first important tenants on Main Street was Daniel
Desmond, the hatter. His store was about eighteen by forty feet. Henry
Slotterbeck, the well-known gunsmith, was another occupant. He always
carried a large stock of gunpowder, which circumstance did not add
very much to the security of the neighborhood.
On the Court Street side, Jake Philippi was one of the first to
locate, and there he conducted a sort of _Kneipe_. His was a large
room, with a bar along the west side. The floor was generously
sprinkled with sawdust, and in comfortable armchairs, around the good,
old-fashioned redwood tables, frequently sat many of his German
friends and patrons, gathered together to indulge in a game of
_Pedro_, _Skat_ or whist, and to pass the time pleasantly away. Some
of those who thus met together at Jake Phillippi's, at different
periods of his occupancy, were Dr. Joseph Kurtz, H. Heinsch, Conrad
Jacoby, Abe Haas, C. F. Heinzeman, P. Lazarus, Edward Pollitz, A.
Elsaesser and B. F. Drackenfeld, who was a brother-in-law of Judge
Erskine M. Ross and claimed descent from some dwellers on the Rhine.
He succeeded Frank Lecouvreur as bookkeeper for H. Newmark & Company,
and was in turn succeeded, on removing to New York, by Pollitz; while
the latter was followed by John S. Stower, an Englishman now residing
in London, whose immediate predecessor was Richard Altschul.
Drackenfeld attained prominence in New York, and both Altschul and
Pollitz in San Francisco. Of these, Drackenfeld and Pollitz are dead.
Most of these convivial frequenters at Phillipi's belonged to a sort
of _Deutscher Klub_ which met, at another period, in a little room in
the rear of the corner of Main and Requena streets, just over the cool
cellar then conducted by Bayer & Sattler. A stairway connected the two
floors, and by means of that communication the _Klub_ obtained its
supply of lager beer. This fact recalls an amusing incident. When
Philip Lauth and Louis Schwarz succeeded Christian Henne in the
management of the brewery at the corner of Main and Third streets, the
_Klub_ was much dissatisfied with the new brew and forthwith had Bayer
& Sattler send to Milwaukee for beer made by Philip Best. Getting
wind of the matter, Lauth met the competition by at once putting on
the market a brand more wittily than appropriately known as "Philip's
Best." Sattler left Los Angeles in the early seventies and established
a coffee-plantation in South America where, one day, he was killed by
a native wielding a _machete_.
The place, which was then known as Joe Bayer's, came to belong to Bob
Eckert, a German of ruddy complexion and auburn hair, whose
good-nature brought him so much patronage that in course of time he
opened a large establishment at Santa Monica.
John D. Woodworth, a cousin, so it was said, of Samuel Woodworth, the
author of _The Old Oaken Bucket_, and father of Wallace Woodworth who
died in 1883, was among the citizens active here in 1858, being
appointed Postmaster, on May 19th of that year, by President Buchanan.
Then the Post Office, for a twelvemonth in the old Lanfranco Block,
was transferred north on Main Street until, a year or two later, it
was located near Temple and Spring streets.
In June, the Surveyor-General of California made an unexpected demand
on the authorities of Los Angeles County for all the public documents
relating to the County history under Spanish and Mexican rule. The
request was at first refused; but finally, despite the indignant
protests of the press, the invaluable records were shipped to San
Francisco.
I believe it was late in the fifties that O. W. Childs contracted with
the City of Los Angeles to dig a water-ditch, perhaps sixteen hundred
feet long, eighteen inches wide and about eighteen inches deep. As I
recollect the transaction, the City allowed him one dollar per running
foot, and he took land in payment. While I cannot remember the exact
location of this land, it comprised in part the wonderfully important
square beginning at Sixth Street and running to Twelfth, and taking in
everything from Main Street as far as and including the present
Figueroa. When Childs put this property on the market, his wife named
several of the streets. Because of some grasshoppers in the vicinity,
she called the extension of Pearl Street (now Figueroa) Grasshopper
or Calle de los Chapules[17]; her Faith Street has been changed to
Flower; for the next street to the East, she selected the name of
Hope; while as if to complete the trio of the Graces, she christened
the adjoining roadway--since become Grand--Charity. The old Childs
home place sold to Henry E. Huntington some years ago, and which has
been subdivided, was a part of this land.
None of the old settlers ever placed much value on real estate, and
Childs had no sooner closed this transaction than he proceeded to
distribute some of the land among his own and his wife's relatives. He
also gave to the Catholic Church the block later bounded by Sixth and
Seventh streets, between Broadway and Hill; where, until a few years
ago, stood St. Vincent's College, opened in 1855 on the Plaza, on the
site now occupied by the Pekin Curio Store. In the Boom year of 1887,
the Church authorities sold this block for one hundred thousand
dollars and moved the school to the corner of Charity and Washington
streets.
Andrew A. Boyle, for whom the eastern suburb of Los Angeles, Boyle
Heights, was named by William H. Workman, arrived here in 1858. As
early as 1848, Boyle had set out from Mexico, where he had been in
business, to return to the United States, taking with him some twenty
thousand Mexican dollars, at that time his entire fortune, safely
packed in a fortified claret box. While attempting to board a steamer
from a frail skiff at the mouth of the Rio Grande, the churning by the
paddle-wheels capsized the skiff, and Boyle and his treasure were
thrown into the water. Boyle narrowly escaped with his life; but his
treasure went to the bottom, never to be recovered. It was then said
that Boyle had perished; and his wife, on hearing the false report,
was killed by the shock. Quite as serious, perhaps, was the fact that
an infant daughter was left on his hands--the same daughter who later
became the wife of my friend, William H. Workman. Confiding this child
to an aunt, Boyle went to the Isthmus where he opened a shoe store;
and later coming north, after a San Francisco experience in the
wholesale boot and shoe business, he settled on the bluff which was to
be thereafter associated with his family name. He also planted a small
vineyard, and in the early seventies commenced to make wine, digging a
cellar out of the hill to store his product.
The brick house, built by Boyle on the Heights in 1858 and always a
center of hospitality, is still standing, although recently remodeled
by William H. Workman, Jr. (brother of Boyle Workman, the banker), who
added a third story and made a cosy dwelling; and it is probably,
therefore, the oldest brick structure in that part of the town.
Mendel was a younger brother of Sam Meyer, and it is my impression
that he arrived here in the late fifties. He originally clerked for
his brother, and for a short time was in partnership with him and
Hilliard Loewenstein. In time, Meyer engaged in business for himself.
During a number of his best years, Mendel was well thought of
socially, with his fiddle often affording much amusement to his
friends. All in all, he was a good-hearted, jovial sort of a chap, who
too readily gave to others of his slender means. About 1875, he made a
visit to Europe and spent more than he could afford. At any rate, in
later life he did not prosper. He died in Los Angeles a number of
years ago.
Thomas Copley came here in 1858, having met with many hardships while
driving an ox-team from Fort Leavenworth to Salt Lake and tramped the
entire eight hundred miles between the Mormon capital and San
Bernardino. On arriving, he became a waiter and worked for a while for
the Sisters' Hospital; subsequently he married a lady of about twice
his stature, retiring to private life with a competence.
Another arrival of the late fifties was Manuel Ravenna, an Italian. He
started a grocery store and continued the venture for some time; then
he entered the saloon business on Main Street. Ravenna commissioned
Wells Fargo & Company to bring by express the first ice shipped to Los
Angeles for a commercial purpose, paying for it an initial price of
twelve and a half cents per pound. The ice came packed in blankets;
but the loss by melting, plus the expense of getting it here, made the
real cost about twenty-four cents a pound. Nevertheless, it was a
clever and profitable move, and brought Ravenna nearly all of the best
trade in town.
John Butterfield was originally a New York stage-driver and later the
organizer of the American Express Company, as well as projector of the
Morse telegraph line between New York and Buffalo. As the head of John
Butterfield & Company, he was one of my customers in 1857. He
contracted with the United States, in 1858, as President of the
Overland Mail Company, to carry mail between San Francisco and the
Missouri River. To make this possible, sections of the road, afterward
popularly referred to as the Butterfield Route, were built; and the
surveyors, Bishop and Beale, were awarded the contract for part of the
work. It is my recollection that they used for this purpose some of
the camels imported by the United States Government, and that these
animals were in charge of Greek George to whom I have already
referred.
Butterfield chose a route from San Francisco coming down the Coast to
Gilroy, San José and through the mountain passes; on to Visalia and
Fort Tejón, and then to Los Angeles, in all some four hundred and
sixty-two miles. From Los Angeles it ran eastward through El Monte,
San Bernardino, Temécula and Warner's Ranch to Fort Yuma, and then by
way of El Paso to St. Louis. In this manner, Butterfield arranged for
what was undoubtedly the longest continuous stage-line ever
established, the entire length being about two thousand, eight hundred
and eighty miles. The Butterfield stages began running in September,
1858; and when the first one from the East reached Los Angeles on
October 7th, just twenty days after it started, there was a great
demonstration, accompanied by bon-fires and the firing of cannon. On
this initial trip, just one passenger made the through journey--W. L.
Ormsby, a reporter for the New York _Herald_. This stage reached San
Francisco on October 10th, and there the accomplishment was the
occasion, as we soon heard, of almost riotous enthusiasm.
Stages were manned by a driver and a conductor or messenger, both
heavily armed. Provender and relief stations were established along
the route, as a rule not more than twenty miles apart, and sometimes
half that distance. The schedule first called for two stages a week,
then one stage in each direction, every other day; and after a while
this plan was altered to provide for a stage every day. There was
little regularity, however, in the hours of departure, and still less
in the time of arrival, and I recollect once leaving for San Francisco
at the unearthly hour of two o'clock in the morning.
So uncertain, indeed, were the arrival and departure of stages, that
not only were passengers often left behind, but mails were actually
undelivered because no authorized person was on hand, in the lone
hours of the night, to receive and distribute them. Such a ridiculous
incident occurred in the fall of 1858, when bags of mail destined for
Los Angeles were carried on to San Francisco, and were returned by the
stage making its way south and east, fully six days later! Local
newspapers were then more or less dependent for their exchanges from
the great Eastern centers on the courtesy of drivers or agents; and
editors were frequently acknowledging the receipt of such bundles,
from which, with scissors and paste, they obtained the so-called news
items furnished to their subscribers.
George Lechler, here in 1853, who married Henry Hazard's sister, drove
a Butterfield stage and picked up orders for me from customers along
the route.
B. W. Pyle, a Virginian by birth, arrived in Los Angeles in 1858, and
became, as far as I can recall, the first exclusive jeweler and
watchmaker, although Charley Ducommun, as I have said, had handled
jewelry and watches some years before in connection with other things.
Pyle's store adjoined that of Newmark, Kremer & Company on Commercial
Street, and I soon became familiar with his methods. He commissioned
many of the stage-drivers to work up business for him on the
Butterfield Route; and as his charges were enormous, he was enabled,
within three or four years, to establish himself in New York. He was
an exceedingly clever and original man and a good student of human
affairs, and I well remember his prediction that, if Lincoln should be
elected President, there would be Civil War. When the United States
Government first had under consideration the building of a
trans-isthmian canal, Pyle bought large tracts of land in Nicaragua,
believing that the Nicaraguan route would eventually be chosen.
Shortly after the selection of the Panamá survey, however, I read one
day in a local newspaper that B. W. Pyle had shot himself, at the age
of seventy years.
In 1857, Phineas Banning purchased from one of the Dominguez brothers
an extensive tract some miles to the North of San Pedro, along the arm
of the sea, and established a new landing which, in a little while,
was to monopolize the harbor business and temporarily affect all
operations at the old place. Here, on September 25th, 1858, he started
a community called at first both San Pedro New Town and New San Pedro,
and later Wilmington--the latter name suggested by the capital of
Banning's native State of Delaware. Banning next cultivated a tract of
six hundred acres, planted with grain and fruit where, among other
evidences of his singular enterprise, there was soon to be seen a
large well, connected with a steam pump of sufficient force to supply
the commercial and irrigation wants of both Wilmington and San Pedro.
Banning's founding of the former town was due, in part, to heavy
losses sustained through a storm that seriously damaged his wharf, and
in part to his desire to outdo J. J. Tomlinson, his chief business
rival. The inauguration of the new shipping point, on October 1st,
1858, was celebrated by a procession on the water, when a line of
barges loaded with visitors from Los Angeles and vicinity, and with
freight, was towed to the decorated landing. A feature of the
dedication was the assistance rendered by the ladies, who even tugged
at the hawser, following which host and guests liberally partook of
the sparkling beverages contributing to enliven the festive occasion.
In a short time, the shipping there gave evidence of Banning's
wonderful go-ahead spirit. He had had built, in San Francisco, a
small steamer and some lighters, for the purpose of carrying
passengers and baggage to the large steamships lying outside the
harbor. The enterprise was a shrewd move, for it shortened the
stage-trip about six miles and so gave the new route a considerable
advantage over that of all competitors. Banning, sometimes dubbed "the
Admiral," about the same time presented town lots to all of his
friends (including Eugene Meyer and myself), and with Timms Landing,
the place became a favorite beach resort; but for want of foresight,
most of these same lots were sold for taxes in the days of long ago. I
kept mine for many years and finally sold it for twelve hundred
dollars; while Meyer still owns his. As for Banning himself, he built
a house on Canal Street which he occupied many years, until he moved
to a more commodious home situated half a mile north of the original
location.
At about this period, three packets plied between San Francisco and
San Diego every ten days, leaving the Commercial Street wharf of the
Northern city and stopping at various intermediate points including
Wilmington. These packets were the clipper-brig _Pride of the Sea_,
Captain Joseph S. Garcia; the clipper-brig _Boston_, Commander W. H.
Martin; and the clipper-schooner _Lewis Perry_, then new and in charge
of Captain Hughes.
In the fall of 1858, finding that our business was not sufficiently
remunerative to support four families, Newmark, Kremer & Company
dissolved. In the dissolution, I took the clothing part of the
business, Newmark & Kremer retaining the dry goods.
In November or December, Dr. John S. Griffin acquired San Pasqual
_rancho_, the fine property which had once been the pride of Don
Manuel Garfias. The latter had borrowed three thousand dollars, at
four per cent. per month, to complete his manorial residence, which
cost some six thousand dollars to build; but the ranch proving
unfavorable for cattle, and Don Manuel being a poor manager, the debt
of three thousand dollars soon grew into almost treble the original
amount. When Griffin purchased the place, he gave Garfias an
additional two thousand dollars to cover the stock, horses and
ranch-tools; but even at that the doctor drove a decided bargain. As
early as 1852, Garfias had applied to the Land Commission for a
patent; but this was not issued until April 3d, 1863, and the
document, especially interesting because it bore the signature of
Abraham Lincoln, brought little consolation to Garfias or his proud
wife, _née_ Ábila, who had then signed away all claim to the splendid
property which was in time to play such a _rôle_ in the development of
Los Angeles, Pasadena and their environs.
On November 20th, Don Bernardo Yorba died, bequeathing to numerous
children and grandchildren an inheritance of one hundred and ten
thousand dollars' worth of personal property, in addition to
thirty-seven thousand acres of land.
Sometime in December, 1858, Juan Domingo--or, as he was often called,
Juan Cojo or "Lame John," because of a peculiar limp--died at his
vineyard on the south side of Aliso Street, having for years enjoyed
the esteem of the community as a good, substantial citizen. Domingo,
who successfully conducted a wine and brandy business, was a Hollander
by birth, and in his youth had borne the name of Johann Groningen; but
after coming to California and settling among the Latin element, he
had changed it, for what reason will never be known, to Juan Domingo,
the Spanish for John Sunday. The coming of Domingo, in 1827, was not
without romance; he was a ship's carpenter and one of a crew of
twenty-five on the brig _Danube_ which sailed from New York and was
totally wrecked off San Pedro, only two or three souls (among them
Domingo) being saved and hospitably welcomed by the citizens. On
February 12th, 1839, he married a Spanish woman, Reymunda Feliz, by
whom he had a large family of children. A son, J. A. Domingo, was
living until at least recently. A souvenir of Domingo's lameness, in
the County Museum, is a cane with which the doughty sailor often
defended himself. Samuel Prentiss, a Rhode Islander, was another of
the _Danube's_ shipwrecked sailors who was saved. He hunted and fished
for a living and, about 1864 or 1865, died on Catalina Island; and
there, in a secluded spot, not far from the seat of his labors, he
was buried. As the result of a complicated lumber deal, Captain Joseph
S. Garcia, of the _Pride of the Sea_, obtained an interest in a small
vineyard owned by Juan Domingo and Sainsevain; and through this
relation Garcia became a minor partner of Sainsevain in the Cucamonga
winery. Mrs. Garcia is living in Pomona; the Captain died some ten
years ago at Ontario.
_A propos_ of the three Louis, referred to--Breer, Lichtenberger and
Roeder--all of that sturdy German stock which makes for good American
citizenship, I do not suppose that there is any record of the exact
date of Breer's arrival, although I imagine that it was in the early
sixties. Lichtenberger, who served both as a City Father and City
Treasurer, arrived in 1864, while Roeder used to boast that the ship
on which he sailed to San Francisco, just prior to his coming to Los
Angeles, in 1856 brought the first news of Buchanan's election to the
Presidency. Of the three, Breer--who was known as Iron Louis, on
account of his magnificent physique, suggesting the poet's smith,
"with large and sinewy hands," and muscles as "strong as iron
bands,"--was the least successful; and truly, till the end of his
days, he earned his living by the sweat of his brow. In 1865,
Lichtenberger and Roeder formed a partnership which, in a few years,
was dissolved, each of them then conducting business independently
until, in comfortable circumstances, he retired. Roeder, an early and
enthusiastic member of the Pioneers, is never so proud as when paying
his last respects to a departed comrade: his unfeigned sorrow at the
loss apparently being compensated for, if one may so express it, by
the recognition he enjoyed as one of the society's official committee.
Two of the three Louis are dead.[18] Other early wheelwrights and
blacksmiths were Richard Maloney, on Aliso Street, near Lambourn &
Turner's grocery, and Page & Gravel, who took John Goller's shop when
he joined F. Foster at his Aliso Street forge.
FOOTNOTES:
[17] Mexican corruption of the Aztec _chapollin_, grasshopper. _Cf._
Chapultepec, Grasshopper Hill.--CHARLES F. LUMMIS.
[18] Louis Roeder died on February 20, 1915