REMOVAL TO NEW YORK, AND RETURN
1867-1868
The reader may already have noted that more than one important move in
my life has been decided upon with but little previous deliberation.
During August, 1866, while on the way to a family picnic at La
Ballona, my brother suggested the advisability of opening an office
for H. Newmark & Company in New York; and so quickly had I expressed
my willingness to remove there that, when we reached the _rancho_, I
announced to my wife that we would leave for the East as soon as we
could get ready. Circumstances, however, delayed our going a few
months.
My family at this time consisted of my wife and four children; and
together on January 29th, 1867, we left San Pedro for New York, by way
of San Francisco and Panamá, experiencing frightfully hot weather.
Stopping at Acapulco, during Maximilian's revolution, we were
summarily warned to keep away from the fort on the hill; while at
Panamá yellow fever, spread by travelers recently arrived from South
America, caused the Captain to beat a hasty retreat. Sailing on the
steamer _Henry Chancey_ from Aspinwall, we arrived at New York on the
sixth of March; and having domiciled my family comfortably, my next
care was to establish an office on the third floor at 31 and 33
Broadway, placing it in charge of M. J. Newmark, who had preceded me
to the metropolis a year before. In a short time, I bought a home on
Forty-ninth Street, between Sixth and Seventh avenues, then an
agreeable residence district. An intense longing to see my old home
next induced me to return to Europe, and I sailed on May 16th for
Havre on the steam-propeller _Union_; the band playing _The Highland
Fling_ as the vessel left the pier. In mid-ocean, the ship's propeller
broke, and she completed the voyage under sail. Three months later, I
returned on the _Russia_. The recollection of this journey gives me
real satisfaction; for had I not taken it then, I should never again
have seen my father. On the twenty-first of the following November, or
a few months after I last bade him good-bye, he died at Loebau, in the
seventy-fifth year of his age. My mother had died in the summer of
1859.
It was during this visit that, tarrying for a week in the brilliant
French capital, I saw the Paris Exposition, housed to a large extent
in one immense building in the Champ de Mars. I was wonderfully
impressed with both the city and the fair, as well as with the
enterprising and artistic French people who had created it, although I
was somewhat disappointed that, of the fifty thousand or more
exhibitors represented, but seven hundred were Americans.
One little incident may be worth relating. While I was standing in the
midst of the machinery one day, the _gendarmes_ suddenly began to
force the crowd back, and on retreating with the rest, I saw a group
of ladies and gentlemen approaching. It was soon whispered that they
were the Empress Eugénie and her suite, and that we had been commanded
to retire in order to permit her Majesty to get a better view of a new
railroad coach that she desired to inspect.
Not long ago I was reading of a trying ordeal in the life of Elihu B.
Washburne, American Minister to France, who, having unluckily removed
his shoe at a Court dinner, was compelled to rise with the company on
the sudden appearance of royalty, and to step back with a stockinged
foot! The incident recalled an experience of my own in London. I had
ordered from a certain shoemaker in Berlin a pair of patent-leather
gaiters which I wore for the first time when I went to Covent Garden
with an old friend and his wife. It was a very warm evening and the
performance had not progressed far before it became evident that the
shoes were too small. I was, in fact, nearly overcome with pain, and
in my desperation removed the gaiters (when the lights were low),
quietly shoved them under the seat and sat out the rest of the
performance with a fair degree of comfort and composure. Imagine my
consternation, however, when I sought to put the shoes on again and
found the operation almost impossible! The curtain fell while I was
explaining and apologizing to my friends; and nearly every light was
extinguished before I was ready to emerge from the famous opera house
and limp to a waiting carriage.
A trifling event also lingers among the memories of this revisit to my
native place. While journeying towards Loebau in a stage, I happened
to mention that I had married since settling in America; whereupon one
of my fellow-passengers inquired whether my wife was white, brown or
black?
Major Ben C. Truman was President Johnson's private secretary until he
was appointed, in 1866, special agent for the Post Office department
on the Pacific Coast. He came to Los Angeles in February, 1867, to
look after postal matters in Southern California and Arizona, but more
particularly to reëstablish, between Los Angeles and points in New
Mexico, the old Butterfield Route which had been discontinued on
account of the War. Truman opened post offices at a number of places
in Los Angeles County. On December 8th, 1869, the Major married Miss
Augusta Mallard, daughter of Judge J. S. Mallard. From July, 1873,
until the late summer of 1877, he controlled the Los Angeles _Star_,
contributing to its columns many excellent sketches of early life in
Southern California, some of which were incorporated in one or more
substantial volumes; and of all the pioneer journalists here, it is
probable that none have surpassed this affable gentleman in brilliancy
and genial, kindly touch. Among Truman's books is an illustrated work
entitled _Semi-Tropical California_, dedicated, with a _Dominus
vobiscum_, to Phineas Banning and published in San Francisco, 1874;
while another volume, issued seven years later, is devoted to
_Occidental Sketches_.
A fire, starting in Bell's Block on Los Angeles Street, on July 13th,
during my absence from the city, destroyed property to the value of
sixty-four thousand dollars; and the same season, S. Lazard & Company
moved their dry goods store from Bell's Row to Wolfskill's building on
Main Street, opposite the Bella Union hotel.
Germain Pellissier, a Frenchman from the Hautes-Alpes, came to Los
Angeles in August, and for twenty-eight years lived at what is now the
corner of Seventh and Olive streets. Then the land was in the country;
but by 1888, Pellissier had built the block that bears his name. On
settling here, Pellissier went into sheep-raising, scattering stock in
Kern and Ventura counties, and importing sheep from France and
Australia in order to improve his breed; and from one ram alone in a
year, as he demonstrated to some doubting challengers, he clipped
sixty-two and a half pounds of wool.
P. Beaudry began to invest in hill property in 1867, at once improving
the steep hillside of New High Street, near Sonora Town, which he
bought in, at sheriff's sale, for fifty-five dollars. Afterward,
Beaudry purchased some twenty acres between Second, Fourth, Charity
and Hill streets, for which he paid five hundred and seventeen
dollars; and when he had subdivided this into eighty lots, he cleared
about thirty thousand dollars. Thirty-nine acres, between Fourth and
Sixth, and Pearl and Charity streets, he finally disposed of at a
profit, it is said, of over fifty thousand dollars.
John G. Downey having subdivided Nieto's _rancho_, Santa Gertrudis,
the little town of Downey, which he named, soon enjoyed such a boom
that sleepy Los Angeles began to sit up and take notice. Among the
early residents was E. M. Sanford, a son-in-law of General John W.
Gordon, of Georgia. A short time before the founding of Downey, a
small place named Galatin had been started near by, but the flood of
1868 caused our otherwise dry rivers to change their courses, and
Galatin was washed away. This subdividing at once stimulated the
coming of land and home-seekers, increased the spirit of enterprise
and brought money into circulation.
Soon afterward, Phineas Banning renewed the agitation to connect Los
Angeles with Wilmington by rail. He petitioned the County to assist
the enterprise, but the larger taxpayers, backed by the
over-conservative farmers, still opposed the scheme, tooth and nail,
until it finally took all of Banning's influence to carry the project
through to a successful termination.
George S. Patton, whose father, Colonel Patton of the Confederate
Army, was killed at Winchester, September 19th, 1864, is a nephew of
Andrew Glassell and the oldest of four children who came to Los
Angeles with their mother and her father, Andrew Glassell, Sr., in
1867. Educated in the public schools of Los Angeles, Patton afterward
attended the Virginia Military Institute, where Stonewall Jackson had
been a professor, returning to Los Angeles in September, 1877, when he
entered the law firm of Glassell, Smith & Patton. In 1884, he married
Miss Ruth, youngest daughter of B. D. Wilson, after which he retired
to private life. One of Patton's sisters married Tom Brown; another
sister became the wife of the popular physician, Dr. W. Le Moyne
Wills. In 1871, his mother, relict of Colonel George S. Patton,
married her kinsman, Colonel George H. Smith.
John Moran, Sr., conducted a vineyard on San Pedro Street near the
present Ninth, in addition to which he initiated the soda-water
business here, selling his product at twenty-five cents a bottle. Soda
water, however, was too "soft" a drink to find much favor and little
was done to establish the trade on a firm basis until 1867, when H. W.
Stoll, a German, drove from Colorado to California and organized the
Los Angeles Soda Water Works. As soon as he began to manufacture the
aerated beverages, Stevens & Wood set up the first soda-water fountain
in Los Angeles, on North Spring Street near the Post Office. After
that, bubbling water and strangely-colored syrups gained in popularity
until, in 1876, quite an expensive fountain was purchased by Preuss &
Pironi's drug store, on Spring Street opposite Court. And what is
more, they brought in hogsheads from Saratoga what would be difficult
to find in all Los Angeles to-day: Congress, Vichy and Kissingen
waters. Stoll, by the way, in 1873, married Fräulein Louisa Behn,
daughter of John Behn.
An important industry of the late sixties and early seventies was the
harvesting of castor beans, then growing wild along the _zanjas_. They
were shipped to San Francisco for manufacturing purposes, the oil
factories there both supplying the ranchmen with seed and pledging
themselves to take the harvest when gathered. In 1867, a small
castor-oil mill was set up here.
The _chilicothe_--derived, according to Charles F. Lummis, from the
Aztec, _chilacayote_, the wild cucumber, or _echinocystes fabacea_--is
the name of a plaything supplied by diversified nature, which grew on
large vines, especially along the slope leading down to the river on
what is now Elysian Park, and in the neighborhood of the hills
adjacent to the Mallard and Nichols places. Four or five of these
_chilicothes_, each shaped much like an irregular marble, came in a
small burr or gourd; and to secure them for games, the youngsters
risked limb, if not life, among the trees and rocks. Small circular
holes were sometimes cut into the nuts; and after the meat, which was
not edible, had been extracted, the empty shells were strung together
like beads and presented, as necklaces and bracelets, to sisters and
sweethearts.
Just about the time when I first gazed upon the scattered houses of
our little pueblo, the Pacific Railway Expedition, sent out from
Washington, prepared and published a tinted lithograph sketch of Los
Angeles, now rather rare. In 1867, Stephen A. Rendall, an Englishman
of Angora goat fame, who had been here, off and on, as a photographer,
devised one of the first large panoramas of Los Angeles, which he sold
by advance subscription. It was made in sections; and as the only view
of that year extant, it also has become notable as an historical
souvenir.
Surrounded by his somewhat pretentious gallery and his mysterious
darkroom on the top floor of Temple's new block, V. Wolfenstein also
took good, bad and indifferent photographs, having arrived here,
perhaps, in the late sixties, and remaining a decade or more, until
his return to his native Stockholm where I again met him. He operated
with slow wet-plates, and pioneers will remember the inconvenience,
almost tantamount to torture, to which the patron was subjected in
sitting out an exposure. The children of pioneers, too, will recall
his magic, revolving stereoscope, filled with fascinating views at
which one peeped through magnifying glasses.
Louis Lewin must have arrived here in the late sixties. Subsequently,
he bought out the stationery business of W. J. Brodrick, and P.
Lazarus, upon his arrival from Tucson in 1874, entered into
partnership with him; Samuel Hellman, as was not generally known at
the time, also having an interest in the firm which was styled Louis
Lewin & Company. When the Centennial of the United States was
celebrated here in 1876, a committee wrote a short historical sketch
of Los Angeles; and this was published by Lewin & Company. Now the
firm is known as the Lazarus Stationery Company, P. Lazarus[28] being
President. Lewin and Lazarus married into families of pioneers: Mrs.
Lewin is a daughter of S. Lazard, while Mrs. Lazarus is a daughter of
M. Kremer. Lewin died at Manilla on April 5th, 1905.
On November 18th, the Common Council contracted with Jean Louis
Sainsevain to lay some five thousand feet of two- and three-inch iron
pipe at a cost of about six thousand dollars in scrip; but the great
flood of that winter caused Sainsevain so many failures and losses
that he transferred his lease, in the spring or summer of 1868, to Dr.
J. S. Griffin, Prudent Beaudry, and Solomon Lazard, who completed
Sainsevain's contract with the City.
Dr. Griffin and his associates then proposed to lease the water-works
from the City for a term of fifty years, but soon changed this to an
offer to buy. When the matter came up before the Council for adoption,
there was a tie vote, whereupon Murray Morrison, just before resigning
as President of the Council, voted in the affirmative, his last
official act being to sign the franchise. Mayor Aguilar, however,
vetoed the ordinance, and then Dr. Griffin and his colleagues came
forward with a new proposition. This was to lease the works for a
period of thirty years, and to pay fifteen hundred dollars a year in
addition to performing certain things promised in the preceding
proposition.
At this stage of the negotiations, John Jones made a rival offer, and
P. McFadden, who had been an unsuccessful bidder for the Sainsevain
lease, tried with Juan Bernard to enter into a twenty-year contract.
Notwithstanding these other offers, however, the City authorities
thought it best, on July 22d, 1868, to vote the franchise to Dr.
Griffin, S. Lazard and P. Beaudry, who soon transferred their
thirty-year privileges to a corporation known as the Los Angeles City
Water Company, in which they became trustees. Others associated in
this enterprise were Eugene Meyer, I. W. Hellman, J. G. Downey, A. J.
King, Stephen Hathaway Mott--Tom's brother--W. H. Perry and Charles
Lafoon. A spirited fight followed the granting of the thirty-year
lease, but the water company came out victorious.
In the late sixties, when the only communities of much consequence in
Los Angeles County were Los Angeles, Anaheim and Wilmington, the
latter place and Anaheim Landing were the shipping ports of Los
Angeles, San Bernardino and Arizona. At that time, or during some of
the especially prosperous days of Anaheim, the slough at Anaheim
Landing (since filled up by flood) was so formed, and of such depth,
that heavily-loaded vessels ran past the warehouse to a considerable
distance inland, and there unloaded their cargoes. At the same time
the leading Coast steamers began to stop there. Not many miles away
was the corn-producing settlement, Gospel Swamp.
I have pointed out the recurring weakness in the wooden pipes laid by
Sainsevain and Marchessault. This distressing difficulty, causing, as
it did, repeated losses and sharp criticism by the public, has always
been regarded as the motive for ex-Mayor Marchessault's death on
January 20th, when he committed suicide in the old City Council room.
Jacob Loew arrived in America in 1865 and spent three years in New
York before he came to California in 1868. Clerking for a while in San
Francisco, he went to the Old Town of San Diego, then to Galatin, and
in 1872 settled in Downey; and there, in conjunction with Jacob
Baruch, afterward of Haas, Baruch & Company, he conducted for years
the principal general merchandise business of that section. On coming
to Los Angeles in 1883, he bought, as I have said, the Deming Mill now
known as the Capitol Mills. Two years later, on the second of August,
he was married to my daughter Emily.
Dr. Joseph Kurtz, once a student at Giessen, arrived in Los Angeles on
February 3d, with a record for hospital service at Baltimore during
the Civil War, having been induced to come here by the druggist, Adolf
Junge, with whom for a while he had some association. Still later he
joined Dr. Rudolph Eichler in conducting a pharmacy. For some time
prior to his graduation in medicine, in 1872, Dr. Kurtz had an office
in the Lanfranco Building. For many years, he was surgeon to the
Southern Pacific Railroad Company and consulting physician to the
Santa Fé Railroad Company, and he also served as President of the Los
Angeles College Clinical Association. I shall have further occasion to
refer to this good friend. Dr. Carl Kurtz is distinguishing himself in
the profession of his father.
Hale fellow well met and always in favor with a large circle, was my
Teutonic friend, Lewis Ebinger, who, after coming to Los Angeles in
1868, turned clay into bricks. Perhaps this also recalled the days of
his childhood when he made pies of the same material; but be that as
it may, Lewis in the early seventies made his first venture in the
bakery business, opening shop on North Spring Street. In the bustling
Boom days when real estate men saw naught but the sugar-coating,
Ebinger, who had moved to elaborate quarters in a building at the
southwest corner of Spring and Third streets, was dispensing cream
puffs and other baked delicacies to an enthusiastic and unusually
large clientele. But since everybody then had money, or thought that
he had, one such place was not enough to satisfy the ravenous
speculators; with the result that John Koster was soon conducting a
similar establishment on Spring Street near Second, while farther
north, on Spring Street near First, the Vienna Bakery ran both Lewis
and John a merry race.
Dr. L. W. French, one of the organizers of the Odontological Society
of Southern California, also came to Los Angeles in 1868--so early
that he found but a couple of itinerant dentists, who made their
headquarters here for a part of the year and then hung out their
shingles in other towns or at remote ranches.
One day in the spring of 1868, while I was residing in New York City,
I received a letter from Phineas Banning, accompanied by a sealed
communication, and reading about as follows:
DEAR HARRIS:
Herewith I enclose to you a letter of the greatest
importance, addressed to Miss Mary Hollister (daughter, as
you know, of Colonel John H. Hollister), who will soon be
on her way to New York, and who may be expected to arrive
there by the next steamer.
This letter I beg you to deliver to Miss Hollister
personally, immediately upon her arrival in New York,
thereby obliging
Yours obediently,
(Signed) PHINEAS BANNING.
The steamer referred to had not yet arrived, and I lost no time in
arranging that I should be informed, by the company's agents, of the
vessel's approach, as soon as it was sighted. This notification came,
by the by, through a telegram received before daylight one bitterly
cold morning, when I was told that the ship would soon be at the dock;
and as quickly as I could, I procured a carriage, hastened to the
wharf and, before any passengers had landed, boarded the vessel. There
I sought out Miss Hollister, a charming lady, and gave her the
mysterious missive.
I thought no more of this matter until I returned to Los Angeles when,
welcoming me back, Banning told me that the letter I had had the honor
to deliver aboard ship in New York contained nothing less than a
proposal of marriage, his solicitation of Miss Hollister's heart and
hand!
One reason why the Bella Union played such an important _rôle_ in the
early days of Los Angeles, was because there was no such thing as a
high-class restaurant; indeed, the first recollection I have of
anything like a satisfactory place is that of Louis Vielle, known by
some as French Louis and nicknamed by others Louis _Gordo_, or Louis
the Fat. Vielle came to Los Angeles from Mexico, a fat, jolly little
French caterer, not much over five feet in height and weighing, I
should judge, two hundred and fifty pounds; and this great bulk,
supported as it was by two peg-like legs, rendered his appearance
truly comical. His blue eyes, light hair and very rosy cheeks
accentuated his ludicrous figure. Louis, who must have been about
fifty-four years of age when I first met him, then conducted his
establishment in John Lanfranco's building on Main Street, between
Commercial and Requena; from which fact the place was known as the
Lanfranco, although it subsequently received the more suggestive
title, the What Cheer House. Louis was an acknowledged expert in his
art, but he did not always choose to exert himself. Nevertheless his
lunches, for which he charged fifty or seventy-five cents, according
to the number of dishes served, were well thought of, and it is
certain that Los Angeles had never had so good a restaurant before. At
one time, our caterer's partner was a man named Frederico Guiol, whom
he later bought out. Louis could never master the English language,
and to his last day spoke with a strong French accent. His florid
cheeks were due to the enormous quantity of claret consumed both at
and between meals. He would mix it with soup, dip his bread into it
and otherwise absorb it in large quantities. Indeed, at the time of
his fatal illness, while he was living with the family of Don Louis
Sainsevain, it was assumed that over-indulgence in wine was the cause.
Be that as it may, he sickened and died, passing away at the Lanfranco
home in 1872. Vielle had prospered, but during his sickness he spent
largely of his means. After his death, it was discovered that he had
been in the habit of hiding his coin in little niches in the wall of
his room and in other secret places; and only a small amount of the
money was found. A few of the real pioneers recollect Louis _Gordo_
as one who added somewhat to the comfort of those who then patronized
restaurants; while others will associate him with the introduction
here of the first French dolls, to take the place of rag-babies.
Both Judge Robert Maclay Widney and Dr. Joseph P. Widney, the surgeon,
took up their residence in Los Angeles in 1868. R. M. Widney set out
from Ohio about 1855 and, having spent two years in exploring the
Rockies, worked for a while in the Sacramento Valley, where he chopped
wood for a living, and finally reached Los Angeles with a small trunk
and about a hundred dollars in cash. Here he opened a law and
real-estate office and started printing the _Real Estate Advertiser_.
Dr. Widney crossed the Continent in 1862, spent two years as surgeon
in the United States Army in Arizona, after which he proceeded to Los
Angeles and soon became one of the charter members of the Los Angeles
Medical Society, exerting himself in particular to extend Southern
California's climatic fame.
I have spoken of the ice procured from the San Bernardino mountains in
rather early days, but I have not said that in summer, when we most
needed the cooling commodity, there was none to be had. The
enterprising firm of Queen & Gard, the first to arrange for regular
shipments of Truckee River ice in large quantities by steamer from the
North, announced their purpose late in March, 1868, of building an ice
house on Main Street; and about the first of April they began
delivering daily, in a large and substantial wagon especially
constructed for that purpose and which, for the time being, was an
object of much curiosity. Liberal support was given the enterprise;
and perhaps it is no wonder that the perspiring editor of the _News_,
going into ecstasies because of a cooling sample or two deposited in
his office, said, in the next issue of his paper:
The founding of an ice depot is another step forward in the
progress that is to make us a great City. We have Water and
Gas, and now we are to have the additional luxury of Ice!
[Illustration: Dr. Truman H. Rose]
[Illustration: Dr. Vincent Gelcich]
[Illustration: Andrew Glassell]
[Illustration: Charles E. Miles, in Uniform of 38's]
[Illustration: Facsimile of Stock Certificate, Pioneer Oil Co.]
[Illustration: American Bakery, Jake Kuhrts's Building, about 1880]
Banning's fight for the Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad has been
touched upon more than once. Tomlinson, his rival, opposed the
project; but his sudden death, about two weeks before the election in
1868, removed one of the serious obstacles. When the vote was taken,
on March 24th, as to whether the City and County should bond
themselves to encourage the building of the railroad, seven hundred
votes were cast in favor of, and six hundred and seventy-two votes
against, the undertaking, leaving Banning and his associates ready to
go ahead. By the way, as a reminder of the quondam vogue of Spanish
here, it may be noted that the proclamation regarding the railroad,
published in 1868, was printed in both English and Spanish.
On May 16th, Henry Hamilton, whose newspaper, the _Star_, during part
of the War period had been suspended through the censorship of the
National Government, again made his bow to the Los Angeles public,
this time in a half-facetious leader in which he referred to the "late
unpleasantness" in the family circle. Hamilton's old-time vigor was
immediately recognized, but not his former disposition to attack and
criticize.
Dr. H. S. Orme, once President of the State Board of Health of
California, arrived in Los Angeles on July 4th and soon became as
prominent in Masonic as in medical circles. Dr. Harmon, an early
successor to Drs. Griffin and Den, first settled here in 1868,
although he had previously visited California in 1853.
Carl Felix Heinzeman, at one time a well-known chemist and druggist,
emigrated from Germany in 1868 and came direct to Los Angeles, where
after succeeding J. B. Saunders & Company, he continued, in the
Lanfranco Building, what grew to be the largest drug store south of
San Francisco. Heinzeman died on April 29th, 1903. About the same
period, a popular apothecary shop on Main Street, near the Plaza, was
known as Chevalier's. In the seventies, when hygiene and sanitation
were given more attention, a Welshman named Hughes conducted a
steam-bath establishment on Main Street, almost opposite the Baker
Block, and the first place of its kind in the city.
Charles F. Harper[29] of Mississippi, and the father of ex-Mayor
Harper, in 1868 opened with R. H. Dalton a hardware store in the Allen
Block, corner of Spring and Temple streets, thus forerunning Coulter &
Harper, Harper & Moore, Harper, Reynolds & Company and the
Harper-Reynolds Company.
Michel Lèvy, an Alsatian, arrived in San Francisco when but seventeen
years of age, and after various experiences in California and Nevada
towns, he came to Los Angeles in 1868, soon establishing, with Joe
Coblentz, the wholesale liquor house of Lèvy & Coblentz. The latter
left here in 1879, and Lèvy continued under the firm name of M. Lèvy &
Company until his death in 1905.
Anastácio Cárdenas, a dwarf who weighed but one and a half pounds when
born, came to Los Angeles in 1867 and soon appeared before the public
as a singer and dancer. He carried a sword and was popularly dubbed
"General." A brother, Ruperto, long lived here.
When the Canal & Reservoir Company was organized with George Hansen as
President and J. J. Warner as Secretary, P. Beaudry contributed
heavily to construct a twenty-foot dam across the _cañon_, below the
present site of Echo Park, and a ditch leading down to Pearl Street.
This first turned attention to the possibilities in the hill-lands to
the West; and in return, the City gave to the company a large amount
of land, popularly designated as canal and reservoir property.
In 1868, when there was still not a three-story house in Los Angeles,
James Alvinza Hayward, a San Franciscan, joined John G. Downey in
providing one hundred thousand dollars with which to open, in the old
Downey Block on the site of the Temple adobe, the first bank in Los
Angeles, under the firm name of Hayward & Company. The lack of
business afforded this enterprise short shrift and they soon retired.
In July of the same year, I. W. Hellman, William Workman, F. P. F.
Temple and James R. Toberman started a bank, with a capital of one
hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, under the title of Hellman,
Temple & Company, Hellman becoming manager.
I do not remember when postal lock-boxes were first brought into use,
but I do recollect that in the late sixties Postmaster Clarke had a
great deal of trouble collecting quarterly rents, and that he finally
gave notice that boxes held by delinquents would thereafter be nailed
up.
A year or two after the Burtons had established themselves here, came
another pedagogue in the person of W. B. Lawlor, a thick-set, bearded
man with a flushed complexion, who opened a day-school called the
Lawlor Institute; and after the Burtons left here to settle at
Portland, Oregon, where Burton became headmaster of an academy for
advanced students, many of his former pupils attended Lawlor's school.
The two institutions proved quite different in type: the Burton
training had tended strongly to languages and literature, while
Lawlor, who was an adept at short-cut methods of calculation, placed
more stress on arithmetic and commercial education. Burton, who
returned to Los Angeles, has been for years a leading member of the
_Times_ editorial staff, and _Burton's Book on California and its
Sunlit Skies_ is one of this author's contributions to Pacific Coast
literature; his wife, however, died many years ago. Lawlor, who was
President of the Common Council in 1880, is also dead.
The most popular piano-teacher of about that time was Professor Van
Gilpin.
William Pridham came to Los Angeles in August, having been transferred
from the San Francisco office of Wells Fargo & Company, in whose
service as pony rider, clerk at Austin, Nevada, and at Sacramento, and
cashier in the Northern metropolis he had been for some ten years.
Here he succeeded Major J. R. Toberman, when the latter, after long
service, resigned; and with a single office-boy, at one time little
Joe Binford, he handled all the business committed to the company's
charge. John Osborn was the outside expressman. Then most of the heavy
express matter from San Francisco was carried by steamers, but letters
and limited packages of moment were sent by stage. With the advent of
railroads, Pridham was appointed by Wells Fargo & Company
Superintendent of the Los Angeles district. On June 12th, 1880, he
married Miss Mary Esther, daughter of Colonel John O. Wheeler, and
later moved to Alameda. Now, after fifty-one years of association
with the express business, Pridham still continues to be officially
connected with the Wells Fargo company.
Speaking of that great organization, reminds me that it conducted for
years a mail-carrying business. Three-cent stamped envelopes,
imprinted with Wells Fargo & Company's name, were sold to their
patrons for ten cents each; and to compensate for this bonus, the
Company delivered the letters entrusted to them perhaps one to two
hours sooner than did the Government.
This recalls to me a familiar experience on the arrival of the mail
from the North. Before the inauguration of a stage-line, the best time
in the transmission of mail matter between San Francisco and Los
Angeles was made by water, and Wells Fargo messengers sailed with the
steamers. Immediately upon the arrival of the boat at San Pedro, the
messenger boarded the stage, and as soon as he reached Los Angeles,
pressed on to the office of the Company, near the Bella Union, where
he delivered his bagful of letters. The steamer generally got in by
five o'clock in the morning; and many a time, about seven, have I
climbed Signal or Pound Cake Hill--higher in those days than now, and
affording in clear weather a view of both ocean and the smoke of the
steamer--upon whose summit stood a house, used as a signal station,
and there watched for the rival stages, the approach of which was
indicated by clouds of dust. I would then hurry with many others to
the Express Company's office where, as soon as the bag was emptied, we
would all help ourselves unceremoniously to the mail.
In August, General Edward Bouton, a Northern Army officer, came to Los
Angeles and soon had a sheep ranch on Boyle Heights--a section then
containing but two houses; and two years later he camped where
Whittier now lies. In 1874, he bought land for pasture in the San
Jacinto Valley, and for years owned the ocean front at Alamitos Bay
from Devil's Gate to the Inlet, boring artesian wells there north of
Long Beach.
Louis Robidoux, who had continued to prosper as a _ranchero_, died in
1868 at the age of seventy-seven years.
With the usual flourish of spades, if not of trumpets, ground was
broken for the Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad at Wilmington on
September 19th, and toward the end of November, the rails had been
laid about a mile out from Wilmington.
The last contract for carrying the Overland Mail was given to Wells
Fargo & Company on October 1st and pledged a round remuneration of one
million, seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars per annum, while it
also permitted passengers and freight to be transported; but the
Company came to have a great deal of competition. Phineas Banning, for
example, had a stage-line between Los Angeles and Yuma, in addition to
which mail and passengers were carried in buckboards, large wagons and
jerkies. Moreover there was another stage-line between Tucson and El
Paso, and rival stage-lines between El Paso and St. Louis; and in
consequence, the Butterfield service was finally abandoned.
This American vehicle, by the by, the jerky, was so named for the very
good reason that, as the wagon was built without springs, it _jerked_
the rider around unmercifully. Boards were laid across the wagon-box
or bed for seats, accommodating four passengers; and some space was
provided in the back for baggage. To maintain one's position in the
bumping, squeaking vehicle at all, was difficult; while to keep one's
place on the seat approached the impossible.
Of the various Los Angeles roadways in 1868, West Sixth Street was
most important in its relation to travel. Along this highway the daily
Overland stages entered and departed from the city; and by this route
came all the Havilah, Lone Pine, Soledad and Owens River trade, as
well as that of the Ballona and Ciénega districts. Sixth Street also
led to the Fair Grounds, and over its none too even surface dashed
most of the sports and gallants on their way to the race course.
I have said that I returned to New York, in 1867, presumably for
permanent residence. Soon after I left Los Angeles, however, Samuel
Cohn became desperately ill, and the sole management of H. Newmark &
Company suddenly devolved on Sam's brother Kaspare. This condition of
affairs grew so bad that my return to Los Angeles became imperative.
Accordingly, leaving my family, I took passage on October 31st, 1868,
for San Francisco, and returned to Los Angeles without delay. Then I
wired my wife to start with the children for the Coast, and to have
the furniture, including a Chickering grand piano, just purchased,
shipped after them; and when they arrived, we once more took
possession of the good old adobe on Main Street, where we lived
contentedly until 1874. This piano, by the way, which came by freight
around Cape Horn, was one of the first instruments of the kind seen
here, John Schumacher having previously bought one. While we were
living in New York, Edward J. Newmark, my wife's brother, died here on
February 17th, 1868.
Before I left for New York, hardly anything had been done, in
subdividing property, save perhaps by the Lugos and Downey, and at
Anaheim and Wilmington. During the time that I was away, however,
newspapers and letters from home indicated the changes going on here;
and I recall what an impression all this made upon me. On my way down
from San Francisco on Captain Johnson's _Orizaba_ in December--about
the same time that the now familiar locomotive _San Gabriel_ reached
Wilmington--land-agents were active and people were talking a great
deal about these subdivisions; and by the time I reached Los Angeles
I, too, was considerably stirred up over the innovations and as soon
as possible after my return hastened out to see the change. The
improvements were quite noticeable, and among other alterations
surprising me were the houses people had begun to build on the
approaches to the western hills. I was also to learn that there was a
general demand for property all over the city, Colonel Charles H.
Larrabee, City Attorney in 1868, especially having bought several
hundred feet on Spring and Fort streets. Later, I heard of the
experiences of other Angeleños aboard ship who were deluged with
circulars advertising prospective towns.
To show the provincial character of Los Angeles fifty years ago, I
will add an anecdote or two. While I was in New York, members of my
family reported by letter, as a matter of extraordinary interest, the
novelty of a silver name-plate on a neighboring front door; and when I
was taken to inspect it, a year later, I saw the legend, still novel:
Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Meyer
In the metropolis I had found finger-bowls in common use, and having
brought back with me such a supply as my family would be likely to
need, I discovered that it had actually fallen to my lot to introduce
these desirable conveniences into Los Angeles.
William Ferguson was an arrival of 1868, having come to settle up the
business of a brother and remaining to open a livery stable on North
Main Street near the Plaza, which he conducted for ten years.
Investing in water company stock, Ferguson abandoned his stable to
make water-pipes, a couple of years later, perhaps, than J. F.
Holbrook had entered the same field. Success enabled Ferguson to build
a home at 303 South Hill Street, where he found himself the only
resident south of Third.
This manufacture here of water pipe recalls a cordial acquaintance
with William Lacy, Sr., an Englishman, who was interested with William
Rowland in developing the Puente oil fields. His sons, William, Jr.,
and Richard H., originators of the Lacy Manufacturing Company, began
making pipe and tanks a quarter of a century ago.
C. R. Rinaldi started a furniture business here in 1868, opening his
store almost opposite the Stearns's home on North Main Street. Before
long he disposed of an interest to Charles Dotter, and then, I think,
sold out to I. W. Lord and moved to the neighborhood of the San
Fernando Mission. About the same time, Sidney Lacey, who arrived in
1870 and was a popular clerk with the pioneer carpet and wall-paper
house of Smith & Walter, commenced what was to be a long association
with this establishment. In 1876, C. H. Bradley bought out Lord, and
the firm of Dotter & Bradley, so well known to householders of forty
years ago, came into existence. In 1884, H. H. Markham (soon to be
Congressman and then Governor of the State), with General E. P.
Johnson bought this concern and organized the Los Angeles Furniture
Company, whose affairs since 1910, (when her husband died), have been
conducted by the President, Mrs. Katherine Fredericks.
Conrad Hafen, a German-Swiss, reached Los Angeles in December, 1868,
driving a six-horse team and battered wagon with which he had braved
the privations of Death Valley; and soon he rented a little vineyard,
two years later buying for the same purpose considerable acreage on
what is now Central Avenue. Rewarded for his husbandry with some
affluence, Hafen built both the old Hafen House and the new on South
Hill Street, once a favorite resort for German arrivals. He retired in
1905.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] Died on September 30th, 1914.
[29] Died on September 13th, 1915.