H. NEWMARK & CO.--CARLISLE-KING DUEL
1865-1866
From 1862 I continued for three years, as I have told, in the
commission business; and notwithstanding the bad seasons, I was thus
pursuing a sufficiently easy and pleasant existence when a remark
which, after the lapse of time, I see may have been carelessly
dropped, inspired me with the determination to enter again upon a more
strenuous and confining life.
On Friday, June 18th, 1865, I was seated in my little office, when a
Los Angeles merchant named David Solomon, whose store was in the
Arcadia Block, called upon me and, with much feeling, related that
while returning by steamer from the North, Prudent Beaudry had made
the senseless boast that he would drive every Jew in Los Angeles out
of business. Beaudry, then a man of large means, conducted in his
one-story adobe building on the northeast corner of Aliso and Los
Angeles streets the largest general merchandise establishment this
side of San Francisco. I listened to Solomon's recital without giving
expression to my immediately-formed resolve; but no sooner had he left
than I closed my office and started for Wilmington.
[Illustration: Kaspare Cohn]
[Illustration: M. A. Newmark]
[Illustration: H. Newmark & Co.'s Store, Arcadia Block, about 1875,
Including (left) John Jones's Former Premises]
[Illustration: H. Newmark & Co.'s Building, Amestoy Block, about
1884]
During the twelve years that I had been in California the forwarding
business between Los Angeles and the Coast had seen many changes.
Tomlinson & Company, who had bought out A. W. Timms, controlled the
largest tonnage in town, including that of Beaudry, Jones, Childs and
others; while Banning & Company, although actively engaged in the
transportation to Yuma of freight and supplies for the United States
Government, were handicapped for lack of business into Los Angeles. I
thought, therefore, that Phineas Banning would eagerly seize an
opportunity to pay his score to the numerous local merchants who had
treated him with so little consideration. Besides, a very close
intimacy existed between him and myself, which may best be illustrated
by the fact that, for years past when short of cash, Banning used to
come to my old sheet-iron safe and help himself according to his
requirements.
Arriving in Wilmington, I found Banning loading a lot of teams with
lumber. I related the substance of Solomon's remarks and proposed a
secret partnership, with the understanding that, providing he would
release me from the then existing charge of seven dollars and a half
per ton for hauling freight from Wilmington to Los Angeles, I should
supply the necessary capital, purchase a stock of goods, conduct the
business without cost to him and then divide the profits if any should
accrue. Banning said, "I must first consult Don David," meaning
Alexander, his partner, promising at the same time to report the
result within a few days. While I was at dinner, therefore, on the
following Sunday, Patrick Downey, Banning's Los Angeles agent, called
on me and stated that "the Chief" was in his office in the Downey
Block, on the site of Temple's old adobe, and would be glad to see me.
Without further parleying, Banning accepted my proposition; and on the
following morning, or June 21st, I rented the last vacant store in
Stearns's Arcadia Block on Los Angeles Street, which stands to-day, by
the way, much as it was erected in 1858. It adjoined John Jones's, and
was nearly opposite the establishment of P. Beaudry. There I put up
the sign of H. Newmark, soon to be changed to H. Newmark & Company;
and it is a source of no little gratification to me that from this
small beginning has developed the wholesale grocery firm of M. A.
Newmark & Company.[26]
At that time, Stearns's property was all in the hands of the Sheriff,
Tomás Sanchez, who had also been appointed Receiver; and like all the
other tenants, I rented my storeroom from Deputy A. J. King. Rents and
other incomes were paid to the Receiver, and out of them a regular
monthly allowance of fifty dollars was made to Stearns for his private
expenses. The stock on Stearns's ranches, by the way, was then in
charge of Pierre Domec, a well-known and prosperous man, who was here
perhaps a decade before I came.
My only assistant was my wide-awake nephew, M. A. Newmark, then
fifteen years of age, who had arrived in Los Angeles early in 1865. At
my request Banning & Company released their bookkeeper, Frank
Lecouvreur, and I engaged him. He was a thoroughly reliable man and
had, besides, a technical knowledge of wagon materials, in which, as a
sideline, I expected to specialize. While all of these arrangements
were being completed, the local business world queried and buzzed as
to my intentions.
Having rented quarters, I immediately telegraphed my brother, J. P.
Newmark, to buy and ship a quantity of flour, sugar, potatoes, salt
and other heavy staples; and these I sold, upon arrival, at cost and
steamer freight plus seven dollars and a half per ton. Since the
departure of my brother from Los Angeles for permanent residence in
San Francisco (where he entered into partnership with Isaac Lightner,
forming J. P. Newmark & Company), he had been engaged in the
commission business; and this afforded me facilities I might
otherwise not have had. Inasmuch also, as all of my neighbors were
obliged to pay this toll for hauling, while I was not, they were
forced to do business at cost. About the first of July, I went to San
Francisco and laid in a complete stock paralleling, with the exception
of clothing and dry goods, the lines handled by Beaudry. Banning, who
was then building prairie schooners for which he had ordered some
three hundred and fifty tons of iron and other wagon materials, joined
me in chartering the brig _Tanner_ on which I loaded an equal tonnage
of general merchandise, wagon parts and blacksmith coal. The very
important trade with Salt Lake City, elsewhere described, helped us
greatly, for we at once negotiated with the Mormon leaders; and giving
them credit when they were short of funds, it was not long before we
were brought into constant communication with Brigham Young and
through his influence monopolized the Salt Lake business.
Thinking over these days of our dealings with the Latterday Saints, I
recall a very amusing experience with an apostle named Crosby, who
once brought down a number of teams and wagons to load with supplies.
During his visit to town, I invited him and several of his friends to
dinner; and in answer to the commonplace inquiry as to his preference
for some particular part of a dish, Crosby made the logical Mormonite
reply that _quantity_ was what appealed to him most--a flash of wit
much appreciated by all of the guests. During this same visit, Crosby
tried hard to convert me to Mormonism; but, after several ineffectual
interviews, he abandoned me as a hopeless case.
At another time, while reflecting on my first years as a wholesale
grocer, I was led to examine a day-book of 1867 and to draw a
comparison between the prices then current and now, when the high cost
of living is so much discussed. Raw sugar sold at fourteen cents;
starch at sixteen; crushed sugar at seventeen; ordinary tea at sixty;
coal oil at sixty-five cents a gallon; axle-grease at seventy-five
cents per tin; bluing at one dollar a pound; and wrapping paper at one
dollar and a half per ream. Spices, not yet sold in cans, cost three
dollars for a dozen bottles; yeast powders, now superseded by baking
powder, commanded the same price per dozen; twenty-five pounds of shot
in a bag cost three dollars and a half; while in October of that year,
blacksmith coal, shipped in casks holding fifteen hundred and
ninety-two pounds each, sold at the rate of fifty dollars a ton.
The steamers _Oriflamme_, _California_, _Pacific_ and _Sierra Nevada_
commenced to run in 1866 and continued until about the middle of the
seventies. The _Pacific_ was later sunk in the Straits of San Juan de
Fuca; and the _Sierra Nevada_ was lost on the rocks off Port Harford.
The _Los Angeles_, the _Ventura_ and the _Constantine_ were steamers
of a somewhat later date, seldom going farther south than San Pedro
and continuing to run until they were lost.
To resume the suggestive story of I. W. Hellman, who remained in
business with his cousin until he was able in 1865 to buy out Adolph
Portugal and embark for himself, at the corner of Main and Commercial
streets: during his association with large landowners and men of
affairs, who esteemed him for his practicality, he was fortunate in
securing their confidence and patronage; and being asked so often to
operate for them in financial matters, he laid the foundation for his
subsequent career as a banker, in which he has attained such success.
The Pioneer Oil Company had been organized about the first of
February, with Phineas Banning, President; P. Downey, Secretary;
Charles Ducommon, Treasurer; and Winfield S. Hancock, Dr. John S.
Griffin, Dr. J. B. Winston, M. Keller, B. D. Wilson, J. G. Downey and
Volney E. Howard among the trustees; and the company soon acquired
title to all _brea_, petroleum or rock oil in San Pasqual _rancho_. In
the early summer, Sackett & Morgan, on Main Street near the Post
Office, exhibited some local kerosene or "coal-oil;" and experimenters
were gathering the oil that floated on Pico Spring and refining it,
without distillation, at a cost of ten cents a gallon. Coming just
when Major Stroble announced progress in boring at la Cañada de Brea,
these ventures increased here the excitement about oil and soon after
wells were sunk in the Camulos _rancho_.
On Wednesday afternoon, July 5th, at four o'clock, occurred one of the
pleasant social occasions of the mid-sixties--the wedding of Solomon
Lazard and Miss Caroline, third daughter of Joseph Newmark. The
bride's father performed the ceremony at M. Kremer's residence on Main
Street, near my own adobe and the site on which, later, C. E. Thom
built his charming residence, with its rural attractions, diagonally
across from the pleasant grounds of Colonel J. G. Howard. The same
evening at half-past eight a ball and dinner at the Bella Union
celebrated the event.
While these festivities were taking place, a quarrel, ending in a
tragedy, began in the hotel office below. Robert Carlisle, who had
married Francisca, daughter of Colonel Isaac Williams, and was the
owner of some forty-six thousand acres comprising the Chino Ranch,
fell into an altercation with A. J. King, then Under Sheriff, over the
outcome of a murder trial; but before any further damage was done,
friends separated them.
About noon on the following day, however, when people were getting
ready to leave for the steamer and everything was life and bustle
about the hotel, Frank and Houston King, the Under Sheriff's brothers,
passing by the bar-room of the Bella Union and seeing Carlisle inside,
entered, drew their six-shooters and began firing at him. Carlisle
also drew a revolver and shot Frank King, who died almost instantly.
Houston King kept up the fight, and Carlisle, riddled with bullets,
dropped to the sidewalk. There King, not yet seriously injured, struck
his opponent on the head, the force of the blow breaking his weapon;
but Carlisle, a man of iron, put forth his little remaining strength,
staggered to the wall, raised his pistol with both hands, took
deliberate aim and fired. It was his last, but effective shot, for it
penetrated King's body.
Carlisle was carried into the hotel and placed on a billiard-table;
and there, about three o'clock, he expired. At the first exchange of
shots, the people nearby, panic-stricken, fled, and only a merciful
Providence prevented the sacrifice of other lives. J. H. Lander was
accidentally wounded in the thigh; some eight or ten bystanders had
their clothes pierced by stray bullets; and one of the stage-horses
dropped where he stood before the hotel door. When the first shot was
fired, I was on the corner of Commercial Street, only a short distance
away, and reached the scene in time to see Frank King expire and
witness Carlisle writhing in agony--a death more striking, considering
the murder of Carlisle's brother-in-law, John Rains. Carlisle was
buried from the Bella Union at four o'clock the next day. King's
funeral took place from A. J. King's residence, two days later, at
eight o'clock in the morning.
Houston King having recovered, he was tried for Carlisle's murder, but
was acquitted; the trial contributing to make the affair one of the
most mournful of all tragic events in the early history of Los
Angeles, and rendering it impossible to express the horror of the
public. One feature only of the terrible contest afforded a certain
satisfaction, and that was the splendid exhibition of those qualities,
in some respects heroic, so common among the old Californians of that
time.
July was clouded with a particularly gruesome murder. George Williams
and Cyrus Kimball of San Diego, while removing with their families to
Los Angeles, had spent the night near the Santa Ana River, and while
some distance from camp, at sunrise next morning, were overtaken by
seven armed desperadoes, under the leadership of one Jack O'Brien, and
without a word of explanation, were shot dead. The women, hearing the
commotion, ran toward the spot, only to be commanded by the robbers to
deliver all money and valuables in their possession. Over three
thousand dollars--the entire savings of their husbands--was secured,
after which the murderers made their escape. _Posses_ scoured the
surrounding country, but the cutthroats were never apprehended.
Stimulated, perhaps, by the King-Carlisle tragedy, the Common Council
in July prohibited everybody except officers and travelers from
carrying a pistol, dirk, sling-shot or sword; but the measure lacked
public support, and little or no attention was paid to the law.
Some idea of the modest proportion of business affairs in the early
sixties may be gathered from the fact that, when the Los Angeles Post
Office, on August 10th, was made a money-deposit office, it was
obligatory that all cash in excess of five hundred dollars should be
despatched by steamer to San Francisco.
In 1865, W. H. Perry, having been given a franchise to light the city
with gas, organized the Los Angeles City Gas Company, five years later
selling out his holdings at a large profit. A promise was made to
furnish free gas for lamps at the principal crossings on Main Street
and for lights in the Mayor's office, and the consumers' price at
first agreed upon was ten dollars a thousand cubic feet.
The history of Westlake Park is full of interest. About 1865, the City
began to sell part of its public land, in lots of thirty-five acres,
employing E. W. Noyes as auctioneer. Much of it went at five and ten
dollars an acre; but when the district now occupied by the park and
lake was reached, the auctioneer called in vain for bids at even a
dollar an acre; nobody wanted the alkali hillocks. Then the auctioneer
offered the area at twenty-five cents an acre, but still received no
bids, and the sale was discontinued. In the late eighties, a number of
citizens who had bought land in the vicinity came to Mayor Workman and
promised to pay one-half of the cost of making a lake and laying out
pleasure grounds on the unsightly place; and as the Mayor favored the
plan, it was executed, and this was the first step in the formation of
Westlake Park.
On September 2d, Dr. J. J. Dyer, a dentist from San Francisco, having
opened an office in the Bella Union hotel, announced that he would
visit the homes of patrons and there extract or repair the sufferers'
teeth. The complicated equipment of a modern dentist would hardly
permit of such peripatetic service to-day, although representatives of
this profession and also certain opticians still travel to many of the
small inland towns in California, once or twice a year, stopping in
each for a week or two at a time.
I have spoken of the use, in 1853, of river water for drinking, and
the part played by the private water-carrier. This system was still
largely used until the fall when David W. Alexander leased all the
public water-works for four years, together with the privilege of
renewing the lease another four or six years. Alexander was to pay one
thousand dollars rental a year, agreeing also to surrender the plant
to the City at the termination of his contract. On August 7th,
Alexander assigned his lease to Don Louis Sainsevain, and about the
middle of October Sainsevain made a new contract. Damien Marchessault
associated himself with Don Louis and together they laid pipes from
the street now known as Macy throughout the business part of the city,
and as far (!) south as First Street. These water pipes were
constructed of pine logs from the mountains of San Bernardino, bored
and made to join closely at the ends; but they were continually
bursting, causing springs of water that made their way to the surface
of the streets.
Conway & Waite sold the _News_, then a "tri-weekly" supposed to appear
three times a week, yet frequently issued but twice, to A. J. King &
Company, on November 11th; and King, becoming the editor, made of the
newspaper a semi-weekly.
To complete what I was saying about the Schlesingers: In 1865, Moritz
returned to Germany. Jacob had arrived in Los Angeles in 1860, but
disappearing four years later, his whereabouts was a mystery until,
one fine day, his brother received a letter from him dated, "Gun Boat
_Pocahontas_." Jake had entered the service of Uncle Sam! The
_Pocahontas_ was engaged in blockade work under command of Admiral
Farragut; and Jake and the Admiral were paying special attention to
Sabine Pass, then fortified by the Confederacy.
On November 27th, Andrew J. Glassell and Colonel James G. Howard
arrived together in Los Angeles. The former had been admitted to the
California Bar some ten or twelve years before; but in the early
sixties he temporarily abandoned his profession and engaged in
ranching near Santa Cruz. After the War, Glassell drifted back to the
practice of law; and having soon cast his lot with Los Angeles,
formed a partnership with Alfred B. Chapman. Two or three years later,
Colonel George H. Smith, a Confederate Army officer who in the early
seventies lived on Fort Street, was taken into the firm; and for years
Glassell, Chapman and Smith were among the leading attorneys at the
Los Angeles Bar. Glassell died on January 28th, 1901.
To add to the excitement of the middle sixties, a picturesque street
encounter took place, terminating almost fatally. Colonel, the
redoubtable E. J. C. Kewen, and a good-natured German named Fred
Lemberg, son-in-law to the old miller Bors, having come to blows on
Los Angeles Street near Mellus's Row, Lemberg knocked Kewen down;
whereupon friends interfered and peace was apparently restored. Kewen,
a Southerner, dwelt upon the fancied indignity to which he had been
subjected and went from store to store until he finally borrowed a
pistol; after which, in front of John Jones's, he lay in wait. When
Lemberg, who, because of his nervous energy, was known as the Flying
Dutchman, again appeared, rushing across the street in the direction
of Mellus's Row, the equally excited Colonel opened fire, drawing from
his adversary a retaliatory round of shots. I was standing nearly
opposite the scene and saw the Flying Dutchman and Kewen, each dodging
around a pillar in front of The Row, until finally Lemberg, with a
bullet in his abdomen, ran out into Los Angeles Street and fell to the
ground, his legs convulsively assuming a perpendicular position and
then dropping back. After recovering from what was thought to be a
fatal wound, Lemberg left Los Angeles for Arizona or Mexico; but
before he reached his destination, he was murdered by Indians.
I have told of the trade between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City, which
started up briskly in 1855, and grew in importance until the
completion of the transcontinental railroad put an end to it. Indeed,
in 1865 and 1866 Los Angeles enterprise pushed forward until
merchandise was teamed as far as Bannock, Idaho, four hundred and
fifty miles beyond Salt Lake, and Helena, Montana, fourteen hundred
miles away. This indicates to what an extent the building of
railroads ultimately affected the early Los Angeles merchants.
The Spanish drama was the event of December 17th, when Señor Don
Guirado L. del Castillo and Señora Amelia Estrella del Castillo played
_La Trenza de sus Cabellos_ to an enthusiastic audience.
In 1865 or 1866, William T. Glassell, a younger brother of Andrew
Glassell, came to Los Angeles on a visit; and being attracted by the
Southwest country, he remained to assist Glassell & Chapman in
founding Orange, formerly known as Richland. No doubt pastoral
California looked good to young Glassell, for he had but just passed
eighteen weary months in a Northern military prison. Having thought
out a plan for blowing up the United States ironclads off Charleston
Harbor, Lieutenant Glassell supervised the construction of a
cigar-shaped craft, known as a _David_, which carried a torpedo
attached to the end of a fifteen-foot pole; and on October 5th, 1863,
young Glassell and three other volunteers steamed out in the darkness
against the formidable new _Ironsides_. The torpedo was exploded,
doing no greater damage than to send up a column of water, which fell
onto the ship, and also to hurl the young officers into the bay.
Glassell died here at an early age.
John T. Best, the Assessor, was another pioneer who had an adventurous
life prior to, and for a long time after, coming to California. Having
run away to sea from his Maine home about the middle fifties, Best
soon found himself among pirates; but escaping their clutches, he came
under the domination of a captain whose cruelty, off desolate Cape
Horn, was hardly preferable to death. Reaching California about 1858,
Best fled from another captain's brutality and, making his way into
the Northern forests, was taken in and protected by kind-hearted
woodmen secluded within palisades. Successive Indian outbreaks
constantly threatened him and his comrades, and for years he was
compelled to defend himself against the savages. At last, safe and
sound, he settled within the pale of civilization, at the outbreak of
the Civil War enlisting as a Union officer in the first battalion of
California soldiers. Since then Best has resided mostly in Los
Angeles.
The year 1866 is memorable as the concluding period of the great War.
Although Lee had surrendered in the preceding April, more than fifteen
months elapsed before the Washington authorities officially proclaimed
the end of the Titanic struggle which left one-half of the nation
prostrate and the other half burdened with new and untold
responsibilities. By the opening of the year, however, one of the
miracles of modern history--the quiet and speedy return of the soldier
to the vocations of peace--began, and soon some of those who had left
for the front when the War broke out were to be seen again in our
Southland, starting life anew. With them, too, came a few pioneers
from the East, harbingers of an army soon to settle our valleys and
seasides. All in all, the year was the beginning of a brighter era.
Here it may not be amiss to take up the tale of the mimic war in which
Phineas Banning and I engaged, in the little commercial world of Los
Angeles, and to tell to what an extent the fortunes of my competitors
were influenced, and how the absorption of the transportation charge
from the seaboard caused their downfall. O. W. Childs, in less than
three months, found the competition too severe and surrendered "lock,
stock and barrel;" P. Beaudry, whose vain-glorious boast had stirred
up this rumpus, sold out to me on January 1st, 1866, just a few months
after his big talk. John Jones was the last to yield.
In January, 1866, I bought out Banning, who was soon to take his seat
in the Legislature for the advancing of his San Pedro Railroad
project, and agreed to pay him, in the future, seven dollars and a
half per ton for hauling my goods from Wilmington to Los Angeles,
which was mutually satisfactory; and when we came to balance up, it
was found that Banning had received, for his part in the enterprise,
an amount equal to all that would otherwise have been charged for
transportation and a tidy sum besides.
Sam, brother of Kaspare Cohn, who had been in Carson City, Nevada,
came to Los Angeles and joined me. We grew rapidly, and in a short
time became of some local importance. When Kaspare sold out at Red
Bluff, in January, 1866, we tendered him a partnership. We were now
three very busy associates, besides M. A. Newmark, who clerked for us.
Several references have been made to the trade between Los Angeles and
Arizona, due in part to the needs of the Army there. I remember that
early in February not less than twenty-seven Government wagons were
drawn up in front of H. Newmark & Company's store, to be loaded with
seventy to seventy-five tons of groceries and provisions for troops in
the Territory.
Notwithstanding the handicaps in this wagon-train traffic, there was
still much objection to railroads, especially to the plan for a line
between Los Angeles and San Pedro, some of the strongest opposition
coming from El Monte where, in February, ranchers circulated a
petition, disapproving railroad bills introduced by Banning into the
Legislature. A common argument was that the railroad would do away
with horses and the demand for barley; and one wealthy citizen who
succeeded in inducing many to follow his lead, vehemently insisted
that two trains a month, for many years, would be all that could be
expected! By 1874, however, not less than fifty to sixty freight cars
were arriving daily in Los Angeles from Wilmington.
Once more, in 1866, the Post Office was moved, this time to a building
opposite the Bella Union hotel. There it remained until perhaps 1868,
when it was transferred to the northwest corner of Main and Market
streets.
In the spring of 1866, the Los Angeles Board of Education was
petitioned to establish a school where Spanish as well as English
should be taught--probably the first step toward the introduction into
public courses here of the now much-studied _castellano_.
In noting the third schoolhouse, at the corner of San Pedro and
Washington streets, I should not forget to say that Judge Dryden
bought the lot for the City, at a cost of one hundred dollars. When
the fourth school was erected, at the corner of Charity and Eighth
streets, it was built on property secured for three hundred and fifty
dollars by M. Kremer, who served on the School Board for nine years,
from 1866, with Henry D. Barrows and William Workman. There, a few
years ago, a brick building replaced the original wooden structure.
Besides Miss Eliza Madigan, teachers of this period or later were the
Misses Hattie and Frankie Scott, daughters of Judge Scott, the Misses
Maggie Hamilton, Eula P. Bixby, Emma L. Hawkes, Clara M. Jones, H. K.
Saxe and C. H. Kimball; a sister of Governor Downey, soon to become
Mrs. Peter Martin, was also a public school teacher.
Piped gas as well as water had been quite generally brought into
private use shortly after their introduction, all pipes running along
the surface of walls and ceilings, in neither a very judicious nor
ornamental arrangement. The first gas-fixtures consisted of the
old-fashioned, unornamented drops from the ceiling, connected at right
angles to the cross-pipe, with its two plain burners, one at either
end, forming an inverted T ([Symbol: upside-down T]); and years passed
before artistic bronzes and globes, such as were displayed in
profusion at the Centennial Exposition, were seen to any extent here.
In September, Leon Loeb arrived in Los Angeles and entered the employ
of S. Lazard & Company, later becoming a partner. When Eugene Meyer
left for San Francisco on the first of January, 1884, resigning his
position as French Consular Agent, Loeb succeeded him, both in that
capacity and as head of the firm. After fifteen years' service, the
French Government conferred upon Mr. Loeb the decoration of an Officer
of the Academy. As Past Master of the Odd Fellows, he became in time
one of the oldest members of Lodge No. 35. On March 23d, 1879, Loeb
married my eldest daughter, Estelle; and on July 22d, 1911, he died.
Joseph P. and Edwin J. Loeb, the attorneys and partners of Irving M.
Walker, (son-in-law of Tomás Lorenzo Duque),[27] are sons of Leon
Loeb.
In the summer there came to Los Angeles from the Northern part of
California an educator who had already established there and in
Wisconsin an excellent reputation as a teacher. This was George W.
Burton, who was accompanied by his wife, a lady educated in France and
Italy. With them they brought two assistants, a young man and a young
woman, adding another young woman teacher after they arrived. The
company of pedagogues made quite a formidable array; and their number
permitted the division of the school--then on Main near what is now
Second Street--into three departments: one a kind of kindergarten,
another for young girls and a third for boys. The school grew and it
soon became necessary to move the boys' department to the vestry-room
of the little Episcopal Church on the corner of Temple and New High
streets.
Not only was Burton an accomplished scholar and experienced teacher,
but Mrs. Burton was a linguist of talent and also proficient in both
instrumental and vocal music. Our eldest children attended the Burton
School, as did also those of many friends such as the Kremers, Whites,
Morrises, Griffiths, the Volney Howards, Kewens, Scotts, Nichols, the
Schumachers, Joneses and the Bannings.
Daniel Bohen, another watchmaker and jeweler, came after Pyle,
establishing himself, on September 11th, on the south side of
Commercial Street. He sold watches, clocks, jewelry and spectacles;
and he used to advertise with the figure of a huge watch. S.
Nordlinger, who arrived here in 1868, bought Bohen out and continued
the jewelry business during forty-two years, until his death in 1911,
when, as a pioneer jeweler, he was succeeded by Louis S. and Melville
Nordlinger, who still use the title of S. Nordlinger & Sons.
Charles C. Lips, a German, came to Los Angeles from Philadelphia in
1866 and joined the wholesale liquor firm of E. Martin & Company,
later Lips, Craigue & Company, in the Baker Block. As a volunteer
fireman, he was a member of the old Thirty-Eights; a fact adding
interest to the appointment, on February 28th, 1905, of his son,
Walter Lips, as Chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department.
On October 3d, William Wolfskill died, mourned by many. Though but
sixty-eight years of age, he had witnessed much in the founding of our
great Southwestern commonwealth; and notwithstanding the handicaps to
his early education, and the disappointments of his more eventful
years, he was a man of marked intelligence and remained unembittered
and kindly disposed toward his fellow-men.
A good example of what an industrious man, following an ordinary
trade, could accomplish in early days was afforded by Andrew Joughin,
a blacksmith, who came here in 1866, a powerful son of the Isle of
Man, measuring over six feet and tipping the beam at more than two
hundred pounds. He had soon saved enough money to buy for five hundred
dollars a large frontage at Second and Hill streets, selling it
shortly after for fifteen hundred. From Los Angeles, Joughin went to
Arizona and then to San Juan Capistrano, but was back here again in
1870, opening another shop. Toward the middle seventies, Joughin was
making rather ingenious plows of iron and steel which attracted
considerable attention. As fast as he accumulated a little money, he
invested it in land, buying in 1874, for six thousand dollars, some
three hundred and sixty acres comprising a part of one of the Ciénega
_ranchos_, to which he moved in 1876. Seven years later, he purchased
three hundred and five acres once called the Tom Gray Ranch, now known
by the more pretentious name of Arlington Heights. In 1888, three
years after he had secured six hundred acres of the Palos Verdes
_rancho_ near Wilmington, the blacksmith retired and made a grand tour
of Europe, revisiting his beloved Isle of Man.
Pat Goodwin was another blacksmith, who reached Los Angeles in 1866 or
1867, shoeing his way, as it were, south from San Francisco, through
San José, Whisky Flat and other picturesque places, in the service of
A. O. Thorn, one of the stage-line proprietors. He had a shop first on
Spring Street, where later the Empire Stables were opened, and
afterward at the corner of Second and Spring streets, on the site in
time bought by J. E. Hollenbeck.
Still another smith of this period was Henry King (brother of John
King, formerly of the Bella Union), who in 1879-80 served two terms as
Chief of Police. Later, A. L. Bath was a well-known wheelwright who
located his shop on Spring Street near Third.
In 1866, quite a calamity befell this pueblo: the abandonment by the
Government of Drum Barracks. As this had been one of the chief sources
of revenue for our small community, the loss was severely felt, and
the immediate effect disastrous. About the same time, too, Samuel B.
Caswell (father of W. M. Caswell, first of the Los Angeles Savings
Bank and now of the Security), who had come to Los Angeles the year
before, took into partnership John F. Ellis, and under the title of
Caswell & Ellis, they started a good-sized grocery and merchandise
business; and between the competition that they brought and the
reduction of the circulating medium, times with H. Newmark & Company
became somewhat less prosperous. Later, John H. Wright was added to
the firm, and it became Caswell, Ellis & Wright. On September 1st,
1871, the firm dissolved.
FOOTNOTES:
[26] Fifty years after this unpretentious venture in Arcadia Block,
that is, in the summer of 1915, the half-centenary of M. A. Newmark &
Company and their predecessors was celebrated with a picnic in the
woodlands belonging to Universal City, the holiday and its pleasures
having been provided by the firm as a compliment to its employees. On
that occasion, a loving-cup was presented by the employees to M. A.
Newmark, who responded feelingly to the speech by M. H. Newmark.
Another, but somewhat differently inscribed cup was tendered Harris
Newmark in an address by Herman Flatau, bringing from the venerable
recipient a hearty reply, full of genial reminiscence and natural
emotion, in which he happily likened his commercial enterprise, once
the small store in Los Angeles Street, to a snowball rolling down the
mountain-side, gathering in momentum and size and, fortunately,
preserving its original whiteness. Undoubtedly, this Fifty-Year
Jubilee will take its place among the pleasantest experiences of a
long and varied career.--THE EDITORS.
[27] Died on April 6th, 1915.