HANCOCK--LADY FRANKLIN--THE DELUGE
1861
When the Civil War began, California and the neighboring territory
showed such pronounced Southern sympathies that the National
Government kept both under close surveillance, for a time stationing
Major, afterward General James Henry Carleton--in 1862 sent across the
Colorado River when the Government drove out the Texans--with a force
at Camp Latham, near Ballona, and dispatching another force to Drum
Barracks, near Wilmington. The Government also established a thorough
system of espionage over the entire Southwest. In Los Angeles and
vicinity, many people, some of whom I mention elsewhere, were
arrested; among them being Henry Schaeffer who was taken to Wilmington
Barracks but through influential friends was released after a few
days. On account of the known political views of their proprietors,
some of the hotels also were placed under watch for a while; but
beyond the wrath of the innkeepers at the sentinels pacing up and down
their verandas, nothing more serious transpired. Men on both sides
grew hot-headed and abused one another roundly, but few bones were
broken and little blood was shed. A policy of leniency was adopted by
the authorities, and sooner or later persons arrested for political
offenses were discharged.
The ominous tidings from beyond the Colorado, and their effect,
presaging somewhat the great internecine conflict, recalls an
unpublished anecdote of Winfield Scott Hancock, who was a graduate of
West Point, an intense patriot and a "natural born" fighter. One day
in 1861, coincident with the Texan invasion, and while I was visiting
him in his office on Main Street near Third (after he had removed from
the upstairs rooms adjoining the Odd Fellows' Hall in the Temple
Building), John Goller dropped in with the rumor that conspirators, in
what was soon to become Arizona, were about to seize the Government
stores. Hancock was much wrought up when he heard the report, and
declared, with angry vehemence, that he would "treat the whole damned
lot of them as common thieves!" In the light of this demonstration and
his subsequent part as a national character of great renown, Hancock's
speech at the Fourth of July celebration, in 1861, when the patriotic
Angeleños assembled at the Plaza and marched to the shady grove of Don
Luis Sainsevain, is worthy of special note. Hancock made a sound
argument for the preservation of the Union, and was heartily
applauded; and a few days afterward one of the local newspapers, in
paying him a deserved tribute, almost breathed an augury in saying:
Captain Hancock's loyalty to the Stars and Stripes has
never for a moment been doubted, and we hope he may be
advanced in rank and honors, and live to a green old age,
to see the glorious banner of our country yet waving in
peaceful glory over a united, prosperous, and happy people.
Few of us, however, who heard Hancock speak on that occasion, dreamed
to what high position he would eventually attain.
Soon after this episode, that is, in the early part of August, 1861,
Hancock left for the front, in company with his wife; and taking with
him his military band, he departed from San Pedro on the steamer
_Senator_. Some of my readers may know that Mrs. Hancock--after whom
the ill-fated _Ada Hancock_ was named--was a Southern woman, and
though very devoted to her husband, had certain natural sympathies for
the South; but none, I dare say, will have heard how she perpetrated
an amusing joke upon him on their way north. When once out upon the
briny deep, she induced the musicians to play _Dixie_, to the great
amusement of the passengers. Like many Southerners, Mrs. Hancock was
an Episcopalian and frequently contributed her unusual musical talent
to the service of the choir of St. Athanasius Church, the little
edifice for a while at the foot of Pound Cake Hill--first the location
of the Los Angeles High School and now of the County Courthouse--and
the forerunner of the Episcopal Pro-Cathedral, on Olive Street
opposite Central Park.
Having in mind the sojourn in Los Angeles for years of these
representative Americans, the following editorial from the Los Angeles
_Star_ on the departure of the future General and Presidential
nominee, seems to me now of more than passing significance:
While resident here, Captain Hancock took great interest in
our citizens, the development of our resources, and the
welfare of this section of the country; and as a
public-spirited, enterprising gentleman, he will be missed
from among us, and his most estimable lady will long live
in the hearts of her many friends. We desire their
prosperity, happiness, and long life, wherever their lot
may be cast.
The establishing of Drum Barracks and Camp Drum at Wilmington was a
great contribution to the making of that town, for the Government not
only spent over a million dollars in buildings and works there, and
constantly drew on the town for at least part of its supplies, but
provisions of all kinds were sent through Wilmington to troops in
Southern California, Utah, Yuma, Tucson and vicinity, and New Mexico.
P. H., popularly known as Major Downing, was employed by Banning for
some time during the War to take charge of the great wagon-trains of
Government supplies sent inland; and later he opened a general
merchandise store in Wilmington, after which he transacted a large
volume of business with H. Newmark & Company.
At the breaking out of the War, the Southern Overland Mail Route was
discontinued and a contract was made with Butterfield for service
along a more central course, by way of Great Salt Lake. There was then
a stage six times a week; and a branch line ran to Denver, the
terminus having been changed from St. Joseph to Omaha. Twenty days was
the time allowed the company to get its stages through during eight
months of the year, and twenty-three days for the more uncertain
winter months. This contract was made for three years, and one million
dollars a year was the compensation allowed the Butterfields. After
the War, the old route was resumed.
J. De Barth Shorb came to Los Angeles at the commencement of the War,
as Assistant Superintendent of the Philadelphia & California Oil
Company; and in 1867 he bought the Temescal grant and began to mine
upon the property. The same year he married a daughter of B. D.
Wilson, establishing a relationship which brought him a partnership in
the San Gabriel Wine Company, of which he eventually became manager.
His position in this community, until he died in 1895, was important,
the little town of Shorb testifying to one of his activities.
Not only were the followers of the indefatigable _padres_ rather tardy
in taking up the cultivation of olives, but the olive-oil industry
hereabouts was a still later venture. As an illustration, even in 1861
somewhat less than five hundred gallons of olive oil was made in all
Los Angeles County, and most of that was produced at the San Fernando
Mission.
How important was the office of the _Zanjero_, may be gathered from
the fact that in 1861 he was paid twelve hundred dollars a year, while
the Mayor received only eight hundred dollars and the Treasurer two
hundred dollars less than the Mayor. At the same time, the Marshal,
owing to the hazardous duties of his office, received as much as the
Mayor; the City Attorney one hundred dollars less than the Treasurer;
and the Clerk but three hundred and fifty.
By 1861, there were serious doubts as to the future of cattle-raising
in Southern California, but Banning & Company came forward proposing
to slaughter at New San Pedro and contracted with John Temple, John
Rains and others, to do their killing. For a while, the enterprise
was encouraged; Temple alone having six hundred head so disposed of
and sold.
In September, Columbus Sims, the popular attorney of unique
personality who from 1856 to 1860 had been Clerk of the United States
District Court, was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel in the United States
Army and placed in charge of Camp Alert, at the Pioneer Race Course,
San Francisco, where twelve companies were soon assembled; and a month
or two later he was made Colonel in the Second Cavalry. Late in
December of that year, however, he had an altercation with D. D.
Colton, in San Francisco, when blows were exchanged and Sims drew "a
deadly weapon." For this, the doughty Colonel was arrested and held to
await the action of the Grand Jury; but I am under the impression that
nothing very serious befell the belligerent Sims as a result.
On September 11th, H. Stassforth, after having bought out A. W.
Schulze, announced a change in the control of the United States Hotel,
inviting the public, at the same time, to a "free lunch," at half-past
four o'clock the following Sunday. Stassforth was an odd, but
interesting character, and stated in his advertisement that guests
were at liberty, when they had partaken of the collation, to judge if
he could "keep a hotel." Whether successful or otherwise, Stassforth
did not long continue in control, for in November, 1862, he disposed
of the business to Webber & Haas, who in turn sold it to Louis Mesmer.
In the fall, an atrocious murder took place here, proving but the
first in a series of vile deeds for which, eventually, the culprit
paid with his own life at the hands of an infuriated populace. On
Sunday evening, September 30th, some Frenchmen were assembled to sit
up with the body of one of their recently-deceased countrymen; and at
about eleven o'clock a quarrel arose between two of the watchers, A.
M. G., or Michel Lachenais--a man once of good repute, who had cast
some slurs at the French Benevolent Society--and Henry Delaval, a
respected employee of the Aliso Mills who spiritedly defended the
organization. Lachenais drew a weapon, approached Delaval and tried to
shoot him; but the pistol missed fire. Thereupon Lachenais, enraged,
walked toward a lamp, adjusted two other caps, and deliberately shot
Delaval through the body. The next day his victim died. Lachenais made
his escape and so eluded the authorities that it was not until the
middle of February, 1866, that he surrendered himself to Deputy
Sheriff Henderson. Then he was tried, but was acquitted.
About October, Remi Nadeau, a Canadian, after whom Nadeau Street is
named and father of George A. Nadeau, came across the Plains to Los
Angeles, having spent the previous winter, _en route_, in Salt Lake
City; and for a while he teamed between here and Montana. Within the
year, believing that San Francisco offered a larger field, he moved to
that city and continued his operations there.
In the front part of a little building on Main Street, between Second
and Third, Lorenzo Leck, whom I have already mentioned, conducted a
grocery, living with his family in the rear. He was a plain,
unassuming, honest Dane of the old school, who attended scrupulously
to his business and devoted his Sundays and holidays to modest
amusements. On such days, he would put his wife, Caroline, and their
children on a little wagon that he owned and take them to his vineyard
on the outskirts of the town; and there he would enjoy with them those
rural pastimes to which he had been accustomed in the Fatherland, and
which to many early-comers here were a source of rest and delight.
On the afternoon of Saturday, October 17th, Francisco Cota, a Mexican
boy fifteen years of age, entered Leck's store while he was out, and,
taking advantage of the fact that Frau Leck was alone, whipped out a
knife, stabbed her to death, stole what cash was in sight and then
escaped to a vineyard, where he hid himself. John W. Henderson, the
son of A. J. Henderson, a Deputy Sheriff here still living in Los
Angeles, came in soon after and finding Mrs. Leck horribly disfigured,
he gave the alarm. Neighbors and friends at once started in pursuit
and caught Cota; and having tied a rope around the murderer's neck
during the excitement they dragged him down to Alameda Street, where I
witnessed the uproar. As they proceeded by way of Aliso Street, the
mob became more and more infuriated, so that before it reached the
spot which had been selected for his execution, the boy had been
repeatedly stabbed and was nearly dead. At length, he was strung up as
a warning to other malefactors.
A short time after this melancholy event, I was driving with my wife
to the Cerritos _rancho_ and, missing our road, we stopped at a
Mexican home to inquire the way. The woman who answered our summons
proved to be one who knew, and was known by all Los Angeles merchants
on account of her frequent excursions to town; she was, in fact, the
mother of the Mexican boy who had been mobbed and hung for the murder
of poor Leck's wife! The sight of _Gringos_ kindled anew her maternal
wrath; and she set up such a hue and cry as to preclude any further
intelligible conversation.
California being so far removed from the seat of war did not awake to
its full significance until the credit of the Government began to
decline. Four weeks were required, it is well to remember, to complete
the trip from New York to San Francisco _via_ Panamá, and our
knowledge of events in the East was far from perfect. Until the
completion of the continental telegraph in October, 1861, the only
immediate news that reached the Coast came privately and we were,
therefore, pretty much in the dark until the arrival of Eastern
papers, and even after that telegraphing was so expensive that our
poorly-patronized little news-sheets could not afford the outlay. A
few of us therefore made up a purse of one hundred dollars a month,
which small sum enabled us to allay our anxiety at least in the case
of very important happenings.
It must not be forgotten, though, that we then had a little relief
from San Francisco, whose newspapers, containing some telegraphic
despatches, arrived in town perhaps three to four days after their
publication. I may add, in fact, that it was not until about the
beginning of the eighties that Los Angeles dailies could afford the
luxury of regular direct telegrams.
In other respects as well, editing a local newspaper during the War
was apt to entail financial loss. The Los Angeles _News_, for
instance, was outspoken for the Union and so escaped the temporary
eclipse suffered by the _Star_ through Government censorship; but the
Unionists being in a decided minority in the community, pickings for
the _News_ were mighty poor. Perhaps this want of patronage suggested
the advisability, in 1863 (when that paper was published by C. R.
Conway and Alonzo Waite, on Main Street, opposite the express office),
of reducing the subscription rate to five dollars a year.
Probably one of the most interesting visits to Los Angeles ever made
by a well-known personage was the sudden call with which Lady
Franklin, the wife of the eminent, lost Arctic explorer, honored our
little town far back in 1861. The distinguished lady, accompanied by
Mrs. Cracroft, her niece, Commodore and Madame Watkins and Collector
and Mrs. Rankin, arrived at San Pedro on the _Golden State_ during the
first week in November and was driven, with her companions, to the
Bella Union hotel, from which she made such short excursions about the
city as were then possible; and as sympathy for her in her sorrow, and
admiration for her long years of plucky though vain search for her
husband were still general, every courtesy possible was afforded her.
During Lady Franklin's stay Benjamin D. Wilson arranged a delightful
garden party at his hospitable mansion at Lake Vineyard in her
ladyship's honor, and Phineas Banning also entertained her with a
reception and collation at his San Pedro home; and these receptions
and collations were as enjoyable as they were notable. After a day or
two, Lady Franklin and her party left on the _Senator_ for San
Francisco, being accorded, as the vessel weighed anchor, a marked
ovation.
For many years funerals were attended by men on horseback and by women
on foot, as hacks were unknown in early days; and while the good
citizens were doubtless then conducted to their last resting-place in
a manner just as satisfactory to themselves as are their descendants
who are buried according to present-day customs, those who followed in
the train were very seriously inconvenienced by the melancholy, dusty
processions to the old and now-forgotten burial-grounds; for in those
days the trip, in summer exceedingly hot and in winter through rain
and mud, was a long, fatiguing one.
Speaking of funerals, a strange sight was witnessed in our streets
about the end of November, 1861, attending the burial of a child. The
father and mother, both native Californians, were seated in a wagon,
in which was also placed the strikingly plain little coffin or box
containing the dead. Beside the wagon walked an old man, playing a
fiddle. Two or three persons followed in the deep mud; the whole
forming a weird picture, said to be the relic of an almost obsolete
back-woods custom.
Banning & Hinchman's _Comet_ proving insufficient, the _Gondolier_ was
put on in the fall of 1861 and became a familiar craft in the
conveying of passengers and freight between New San Pedro and the
ships lying off the harbor.
Two years previous to the completion of the telegraph from San
Francisco to Los Angeles--that is, in 1858--the first continental
telegraph was undertaken; and by October, 1861, Governor Downey of
California sent a congratulatory message to President Lincoln. On
November 7th, the line was open to the public. Several months before,
all the companies in the State had consolidated into the California
State Telegraph Company. Banning & Hinchman having succeeded, for a
short season, Phineas Banning, the sub-contractor for the building of
the first telegraph, they made an effort, following the establishment
of communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific, to secure a
line to New San Pedro; and at the end of October, 1861, the first
telegraph pole in the long row from Los Angeles to the harbor was
formally set. About the middle of November, this line was completed;
and though it was widely proclaimed as "working like a charm," the
apparatus soon got out of order and by the following January there
were many complaints that both poles and wire had fallen to the
ground, blocking the thoroughfares and entangling animals in such a
way as to become a nuisance. Indeed, there was soon a public demand
either to repair the telegraph or to remove it altogether and throw
the equipment away. Soon after the first of February, 1862, the line
was working again; but by that time the telegraph to San Francisco had
gotten out of order! And so great were the difficulties in repairing
that line, that Los Angeles was not again talking uninterruptedly over
the wire with its neighbor until July.
On November 15th, the first number of _El Amigo del Pueblo_, printed
in Spanish, appeared from the shop of José E. Gonzales & Company; but
native support being withheld, "The Friend of the People" starved to
death in the following May.
Whaling, like shark-hunting, continued brisk in 1861 and 1862, and
many vessels were fitted out at San Pedro; Los Angeles merchants
selling them most of their supplies. The sea-monsters usually moved up
the coast about the first of the year, the males keeping in toward the
shore going up, and the females hugging the coast, coming down; and
small boats such as Captain W. Clark's _Ocean_, used to take from four
hundred and fifty to five hundred barrels of oil in five or six weeks.
For six days, in March, 1862, San Pedro whalers harpooned a whale a
day, bringing to the landing over two hundred barrels of oil as a
result of the week's labor.
The bitter fight between Abolitionists and Southern sympathizers was
immediately reflected in the public schools. Defenders of the Union
worked for a formal oath of allegiance to the National Government, as
a preliminary to granting teachers' certificates; while the
Confederates, incensed at what they deemed a violation of personal
rights, assailed the institutions. The result was that attendance at
the public schools gradually fell off until, in the winter of 1865-66,
only about three hundred and fifty children of school age were being
instructed by public teachers; another third of a thousand was in
private schools, while some three hundred and sixty-nine were not on
any roster.
The gloom naturally caused by the outbreak of war was sometimes
penetrated by the brightness of social life, and among the happier
occasions of the winter of 1861 was the marriage, on December 23d, in
the presence of a large circle of friends, of Tom D. Mott to
Ascención, daughter of Don José Andrés and Doña Francisca Ábila
Sepúlveda.
The winter of 1861-62 recorded the greatest of all floods, especially
in the North where, in December and January, something like
thirty-five inches of rain was precipitated. In Los Angeles County the
rivers soon rose and overflowed the lowlands; but the rise was
gradual, causing the loss of but few or no lives and permitting the
stock to reach the neighboring hills in safety. In Anaheim the water
was four feet deep in the streets and people had to seek flight to the
uplands or retreat to the roofs of their little houses. Vineyards were
sometimes half-ruined with the layers of deep sand; banks of streams
were lined for miles with driftwood; and ranchers saw many a clod of
their farms carried off and deposited to enrich their neighbors, miles
away. For a month it rained so steadily that the sun peeped out for
scarcely an hour.
I witnessed this inundation in Los Angeles, where much damage was done
to business buildings, especially to Mellus's Row, and saw merchants
in water up to their waists, trying to save their goods. The wall of
the room occupied by Sam Meyer fell first, whereupon Hellman & Brother
became intensely interested in the removal of their stock, while poor
Sam, knee-deep in water, sadly contemplated his losses. Before the
Hellmans had made much headway, they observed a tendency on the part
of their walls to crumble, and their exit was neither graceful nor
delayed. After that the store occupied by Meyer & Breslauer caved in,
smashing show cases and shelves, and ruining a large amount of
merchandise. The ludicrous picture of this rush for "safety first" is
not a fit reflection of the feelings of those pioneers who saw the
results of years of labor obliterated in a moment. Friends and
neighbors lent assistance to the unfortunate, and helped to save what
they could. After this flood, Hellman & Brother and Sam Meyer removed
to the Arcadia Block, while Meyer & Breslauer secured accommodations
north of the Plaza Church.