THE WOOL CRAZE
1872-1873
As already stated, the price of wool in 1871 was exceedingly high and
continued advancing until in 1872 when, as a result, great prosperity
in Southern California was predicted. Enough wool had been bought by
us to make what at that time was considered a very handsome fortune.
We commenced purchasing on the sheep's back in November, and continued
buying everything that was offered until April, 1872, when we made the
first shipment, the product being sold at forty-five cents per pound.
As far as I am aware, the price of wool had never reached fifty cents
anywhere in the world, it being ordinarily worth from ten to twelve
cents; and without going into technicalities, which would be of no
interest to the average reader, I will merely say that forty-five
cents was a tremendously high figure for dirty, burry, California wool
in the grease. When the information arrived that this sale had been
effected, I became wool-crazy, the more so since I knew that the
particular shipment referred to was of very poor quality.
Colonel R. S. Baker, who was living on his ranch in Kern County, came
to Los Angeles about that time, and we offered him fifty cents a pound
for Beale & Baker's clip amounting to one hundred and seventy-five
thousand pounds. His reply was that it would be impossible to sell
without consulting Beale; but Beale proved as wool-crazy as I, and
would not sell. It developed that Beale & Baker did not succeed in
effecting a sale in San Francisco, where they soon offered their
product, and that they concluded to ship it to Boston; the New England
metropolis then, as now, being the most important wool-center in the
United States. Upon its arrival, the wool was stored; and there it
remained until, as Fate would have it, the entire shipment was later
destroyed in the great Boston fire of 1872. As a result of this
tremendous conflagration, the insurance company which carried their
policy failed and Beale & Baker met with a great loss.
The brothers Philip, Eugène and Camille Garnier of the Encino
Ranch--who, while generally operating separately, clubbed together at
that time in disposing of their product--had a clip of wool somewhat
exceeding one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. The spokesman for the
three was Eugène, and on the same day that I made Colonel Baker the
offer of fifty cents, I told Eugène that I would allow him forty-eight
and a half cents for the Garnier product. This offer he disdainfully
refused, returning immediately to his ranch; and now, as I look back
upon the matter, I do not believe that in my entire commercial
experience I ever witnessed anything demonstrating so thoroughly, as
did these wool transactions, the monstrous greed of man. The sequel,
however, points the moral. My offer to the Garnier Brothers was made
on a Friday. During that day and the next, we received several
telegrams indicating that the crest of the craze had been reached, and
that buyers refused to take hold. On Monday following the first visit
of Eugène Garnier, he again came to town and wanted me to buy their
wool at the price which I had quoted him on Friday; but by that time
we had withdrawn from the market. My brother wired that San Francisco
buyers would not touch it; hence the Garnier Brothers also shipped
their product East and, after holding it practically a full year,
finally sold it for sixteen and a half cents a pound in currency,
which was then worth eighty-five cents on the dollar. The year 1872 is
on record as the most disastrous wool season in our history, when
millions were lost; and H. Newmark & Company suffered their share in
the disaster.
It was in March that we purchased from Louis Wolfskill, through the
instrumentality of L. J. Rose, the Santa Anita _rancho_, consisting of
something over eight thousand acres, paying him eighty-five thousand
dollars for this beautiful domain. The terms agreed upon were twenty
thousand dollars down and four equal quarterly payments for the
balance. In the light of the aftermath, the statement that our
expectations of prospective wool profits inspired this purchase seems
ludicrous, but it was far from laughable at the time; for it took less
than sixty days for H. Newmark & Company to discover that buying
ranches on any such basis was not a very safe policy to follow and
would, if continued, result in disaster. Indeed, the outcome was so
different from our calculations, that it pinched us somewhat to meet
our obligations to Wolfskill. This purchase, as I shall soon show,
proved a lucky one, and compensated for the earlier nervous and
financial strain. John Simmons, who drove H. Newmark & Company's truck
and slept in a barn in my back yard on Main Street, was so reliable a
man that we made him overseer of the ranch. When we sold the property,
Simmons was engaged by Lazard Frères, the San Francisco bankers, to do
special service that involved the carrying of large sums of money.
When we bought the Santa Anita, there were five eucalyptus or blue gum
trees growing near the house. I understood at the time that these had
been planted by William Wolfskill from seed sent to him by a friend in
Australia; and that they were the first eucalyptus trees cultivated in
Southern California. Sometime early in 1875, the Forest Grove
Association started the first extensive tract of eucalyptus trees seen
in Los Angeles, and in a decade or two the eucalyptus had become a
familiar object; one tree, belonging to Howard & Smith, florists at
the corner of Olive and Ninth streets, attaining,[31] after a growth
of nineteen years, a height of one hundred and thirty-four feet.
On the morning of March 26th, Los Angeles was visited by an earthquake
of sufficient force to throw people out of bed, many men, women and
children seeking safety by running out in their night-clothes. A day
or two afterward excited riders came in from the Owens River Valley
bringing reports which showed the quake to have been the worst, so far
as loss of life was concerned, that had afflicted California since the
memorable catastrophe of 1812.
Intending thereby to encourage the building of railroads, the
Legislature, on April 4th, 1870, authorized the various Boards of
Supervisors to grant aid whenever the qualified voters so elected.
This seemed a great step forward, but anti-railroad sentiment, as in
the case of Banning's line, again manifested itself here. The Southern
Pacific, just incorporated as a subsidiary of the Central Pacific, was
laying its tracks down the San Joaquín Valley; yet there was grave
doubt whether it would include Los Angeles or not. It contemplated a
line through Teháchepi Pass; but from that point two separate surveys
had been made, one by way of Soledad Pass via Los Angeles, through
costly tunnels and over heavy grades; the other, straight to the
Needles, over an almost level plain along the Thirty-fifth parallel,
as anticipated by William H. Seward in his Los Angeles speech. At the
very time when every obstacle should have been removed, the opposition
so crystallized in the Legislature that a successful effort was made
to repeal the subsidy law; but thanks to our representatives, the
measure was made ineffective in Los Angeles County, should the voters
specifically endorse the project of a railroad.
In April, 1872, Tom Mott and B. D. Wilson wrote Leland Stanford that a
meeting of the taxpayers, soon to be called, would name a committee to
confer with the railroad officials; and Stanford replied that he would
send down E. W. Hyde to speak for the company. About the first of May,
however, a few citizens gathered for consultation at the Board of
Trade room; and at that meeting it was decided unanimously to send to
San Francisco a committee of two, consisting of Governor Downey and
myself, there to convey to the Southern Pacific Company the overtures
of the City. We accordingly visited Collis P. Huntington, whose
headquarters were at the Grand Hotel; and during our interview we
canvassed the entire situation. In the course of this interesting
discussion, Huntington displayed some engineer's maps and showed us
how, in his judgment, the railroad, if constructed to Los Angeles at
all, would have to enter the city. When the time for action arrived,
the Southern Pacific built into Los Angeles along the lines indicated
in our interview with Huntington.
On Saturday afternoon, May 18th, 1872, a public meeting was held in
the Los Angeles Court-house. Governor Downey called the assembly to
order; whereupon H. K. S. O'Melveny was elected President and Major
Ben C. Truman, Secretary. Speeches were made by Downey, Phineas
Banning, B. D. Wilson, E. J. C. Kewen and C. H. Larrabee; and
resolutions were adopted pledging financial assistance from the
County, provided the road was constructed within a given time. A
Committee was then appointed to seek general information concerning
railroads likely to extend their lines to Los Angeles; and on that
Committee I had the honor of serving with F. P. F. Temple, A. F.
Coronel, H. K. S. O'Melveny, J. G. Downey, S. B. Caswell, J. M.
Griffith, Henry Dalton, Andrés Pico, L. J. Rose, General George
Stoneman and D. W. Alexander. A few days later, Wilson, Rose and W. R.
Olden of Anaheim were sent to San Francisco to discuss terms with the
Southern Pacific; and when they returned, they brought with them
Stanford's representative, Hyde. Temple, O'Melveny and I were made a
special committee to confer with Hyde in drawing up ordinances for the
County; and these statutes were immediately passed by the Supervisors.
The Southern Pacific agreed to build fifty miles of its main trunk
line through the County, with a branch line to Anaheim; and the
County, among other conditions, was to dispose of its stock in the Los
Angeles & San Pedro Railroad to the Southern Pacific Company.
When all this matter was presented to the people, the opposition was
even greater than in the campaign of 1868. One newspaper--the _Evening
Express_--while declaring that "railway companies are soulless
corporations, invariably selfish, with a love for money," even
maintained that "because they are rich, they have no more right to
build to us than has Governor Downey to build our schoolhouses."
Public addresses were made to excited, demonstrative audiences by
Henry T. Hazard, R. M. Widney and others who favored the Southern
Pacific. On the evening of November 4th, or the night before the
election, the Southern Pacific adherents held a torchlight procession
and a mass-meeting, at the same time illuminating the pueblo with the
customary bonfires. When the vote was finally counted, it was found
that the Southern Pacific had won by a big majority; and thus was made
the first concession to the railroad which has been of such paramount
importance in the development of this section of the State.
In 1872, Nathaniel C. Carter, who boasted that he made for the
Government the first American flag woven by machinery, purchased and
settled upon a part of the Flores _rancho_ near San Gabriel. Through
wide advertising, Carter attracted his Massachusetts friends to this
section; and in 1874 he started the Carter excursions and brought
train-loads of people to Los Angeles.
Terminating a series of wanderings by sea and by land, during which he
had visited California in 1849, John Lang, father of Gustav J. (once a
Police Commissioner), came to Los Angeles for permanent residence in
1872, bringing a neat little pile of gold. With part of his savings he
purchased the five acres since known as the Laurel Tract on Sixteenth
Street, where he planted an orchard, and some of the balance he put
into a loan for which, against his will, he had to take over the lot
on Spring Street between Second and Third where the Lang Building now
stands. Soon after his advent here, Lang found himself one of four
persons of the same name, which brought about such confusion between
him, the pioneer at Lang's Station and two others, that the bank
always labelled him "Lang No. 1," while it called the station master
"Lang No. 2." In 1866, Lang had married, in Victoria, Mrs. Rosine
Everhardt, a sister of Mrs. Kiln Messer; and his wife refusing to live
at the lonesome ranch, Lang bought, for four hundred dollars, the lot
on Fort Street on which Tally's Theater now stands, and built there a
modest home from which he went out daily to visit his orchard. Being
of an exceedingly studious turn of mind, Lang devoted his spare time
to profitable reading; and to such an extent had he secluded himself
that, when he died, on December 9th, 1900, he had passed full thirty
years here without having seen Santa Monica or Pasadena. Nor had he
entered the courtroom more than once, and then only when compelled to
go there to release some property seized upon for taxes remaining
unpaid by one of the other John Langs. Regarded by his family as
idealistic and kind-hearted, John Lang was really such a hermit that
only with difficulty were friends enough found who could properly
serve as pall-bearers.
On June 2d, B. F. Ramirez and others launched the Spanish newspaper,
_La Cronica_, from the control of which Ramirez soon retired to make
way for E. F. de Celis. Under the latter's leadership, the paper
became notable as a Coast organ for the Latin race. Almost
simultaneously, A. J. King and A. Waite published their City
Directory.
On the seventeenth of July our family circle was gladdened by the
wedding festivities of Kaspare Cohn and Miss Hulda, sister of M. A.
Newmark. The bride had been living with us for some time as a member
of our family.
I have spoken of the attempt made, in 1859, to found a Public Library.
In 1872, there was another agitation that led to a mass-meeting on
December 7th, in the old Merced Theatre on Main Street; and among
others present were Judge Ygnácio Sepúlveda, General George H.
Stoneman, Governor John G. Downey, Henry Kirk White Bent, S. B.
Caswell, W. J. Brodrick, Colonel G. H. Smith, W. B. Lawlor and myself.
The Los Angeles Library Association was formed; and Downey, Bent,
Brodrick, Caswell and I were appointed to canvas for funds and
donations of books. Fifty dollars was charged for a life membership,
and five dollars for yearly privileges; and besides these
subscriptions, donations and loans of books maintained the Library.
The institution was established in four small, dark rooms of the old
Downey Block on Temple and Spring streets, where the Federal Building
now stands, and where the _Times_, then the youngest newspaper in Los
Angeles, was later housed; and there J. C. Littlefield acted as the
first Librarian. In 1874, the State Legislature passed an enabling act
for a Public Library in Los Angeles, and from that time on public
funds contributed to the support of the worthy undertaking.
On January 1st, 1873, M. A. Newmark, who had come to Los Angeles eight
years before, was admitted into partnership with H. Newmark & Company;
and three years later, on February 27th, he married Miss Harriet,
daughter of J. P. Newmark. Samuel Cohn having died, the associates
then were: Kaspare Cohn, M. J. Newmark, M. A. Newmark and myself.
On February 1st, 1873, two job printers, Yarnell & Caystile, who had
opened a little shop at 14 Commercial Street, began to issue a
diminutive paper called the _Weekly Mirror_, with four pages but ten
by thirteen inches in size and three columns to the page; and this
miniature news-sheet, falling wet from the press every Saturday, was
distributed free. Success greeted the advertising venture and the
journal was known as the smallest newspaper on the Coast. A month
later, William M. Brown joined the firm, thenceforth called Yarnell,
Caystile & Brown. On March 19th, the publishers added a column to each
page, announcing, rather prophetically perhaps, their intention of
attaining a greatness that should know no obstacle or limit. In
November, the _Mirror_ was transferred to a building on Temple Street,
near the Downey Block, erected for its special needs; and there it
continued to be published until, in 1887, it was housed with the
_Times_.
Nels Williamson, to whom I have referred, married a native
Californian, and their eldest daughter, Mariana, in 1873 became the
wife of António Franco Coronel, the gay couple settling in one of the
old pueblo adobes on the present site of Bishop & Company's factory;
and there they were visited by Helen Hunt Jackson when she came here
in the early eighties. In 1886, they moved opposite to the home that
Coronel built on the southwest corner of Seventh Street and Central
Avenue. Educated here at the public and the Sisters' schools, Mrs.
Coronel was a recognized leader in local society, proving very
serviceable in the preparation of _Ramona_ and receiving, in return,
due acknowledgment from the distinguished authoress who presented her
with the first copy of the book published.
Daniel Freeman, a Canadian who came in 1873, was one of many to be
attracted to California through Nordhoff's famous book. After looking
at many ranches, Freeman inspected the Centinela with Sir Robert
Burnett, the Scotch owner then living there. Burnett insisted that the
ranch was too dry for farming and cited his own necessity of buying
hay at thirty dollars a ton; but Freeman purchased the twenty-five
thousand acres, stocked them with sheep and continued long in that
business, facing many a difficulty attendant upon the dry seasons,
notably in 1875-76, when he lost fully twenty-two thousand head.
L. H. Titus, who bought from J. D. Woodworth the land in his San
Gabriel orchard and vineyard, early used iron water-pipes for
irrigation. A bold venture of the same year was the laying of iron
water-pipes throughout East Los Angeles, at great expense, by Dr. John
S. Griffin and Governor John G. Downey. About the same time, the
directors of the Orange Grove Association which as we shall later see
founded Pasadena, used iron pipe for conducting water, first to a good
reservoir and then to their lands, for irrigating. In 1873 also, the
Alhambra Tract, then beginning to be settled as a fashionable suburb
of Los Angeles, obtained its water supply through the efforts of B. D.
Wilson and his son-in-law, J. De Barth Shorb, who constructed large
reservoirs near the San Gabriel Mission, piped water to Alhambra and
sold it to local consumers.
James R. Toberman, destined to be twice rechosen Mayor of Los Angeles,
was first elected in 1873, defeating Cristóbal Aguilar, an honored
citizen of early days, who had thrice been Mayor and was again a
candidate. Toberman made a record for fiscal reform by reducing the
City's indebtedness over thirty thousand dollars and leaving a balance
of about twenty-five thousand in the Treasury; while, at the same
time, he caused the tax-rate during his administration to dwindle,
from one dollar and sixty cents per hundred to one dollar. Toberman
Street bears this Mayor's name.
In 1873, President Grant appointed Henry Kirk White Bent, who had
arrived in 1868, Postmaster of Los Angeles.
The several agitations for protection against fire had, for a long
time no tangible results--due most probably to the lack of water
facilities; but after the incorporation of the Los Angeles Water
Company and the introduction of two or three hydrants, thirty-eight
loyal citizens of the town in April organized themselves into the
first volunteer fire company, popularly termed the 38's, imposing a
fee of a dollar a month. Some of the yeomen who thus set the ball
a-rolling were Major Ben C. Truman, Tom Rowan, W. J. Brodrick, Jake
Kuhrts, Charley Miles, George Tiffany, Aaron Smith, Henry T. Hazard,
Cameron E. Thom, Fred Eaton, Matthew Keller, Dr. J. S. Crawford,
Sidney Lacey, John Cashin and George P. McLain; and such was their
devotion to the duty of both allaying and producing excitement, that
it was a treat to stand by the side of the dusty street and watch the
boys, bowling along, answer the fire-bell--the fat as well as the lean
hitched to their one hose-cart. This cart, pulled by men, was known as
the _jumper_--a name widely used among early volunteer firemen and so
applied because, when the puffing and blowing enthusiasts drew the
cart after them, by means of ropes, the two-wheeled vehicle jumped
from point to point along the uneven surface of the road. The first
engine of the 38's, known as Fire Engine No. 1, was housed, I think,
back of the Pico House, but was soon moved to a building on Spring
Street near Franklin and close to the City Hall.
About 1873, or possibly 1874, shrimps first appeared in the local
market.
In 1873, the Los Angeles _Daily News_ suspended publication. A. J.
King had retired on the first of January, 1870, to be succeeded by
Charles E. Beane; on October 10th, 1872, Alonzo Waite had sold his
interest and Beane alone was at the helm when the ship foundered.
To resume the narrative of the _Daily Star_. In July, Henry Hamilton
sold both the paper and the job-printing office for six thousand
dollars to Major Ben C. Truman, and the latter conducted the _Star_
for three or four years, filling it brimful of good things just as his
more fiery predecessor had done.
John Lang--"number two"--the cultivator of fruit on what was afterward
Washington Gardens, who established Lang's Station and managed the
sulphur springs and the hotel there, in July killed a bear said to
have been one of the grizzliest grizzlies ever seen on the Coast. Lang
started after Mr. Bruin and, during an encounter in the San Fernando
range that nearly cost his life, finally shot him. The bear tipped the
beam--forbid it that anyone should question the reading of the
scales!--at two thousand, three hundred and fifty pounds; and later,
as gossip had it, the pelt was sold to a museum in Liverpool, England.
This adventure, which will doubtless bear investigation, recalls
another hunt, by Colonel William Butts, later editor of the _Southern
Californian_, in which the doughty Colonel, while rolling over and
over with the infuriated beast, plunged a sharp blade into the
animal's vitals; but only after Butts's face, arms and legs had been
horribly lacerated. Butts's bear, a hundred hunters in San Luis Obispo
County might have told you, weighed twenty-one hundred pounds--or
more.
Dismissing these bear stories, some persons may yet be interested to
learn of the presence here, in earlier days, of the ferocious wild
boar. These were met with, for a long time, in the wooded districts of
certain mountainous land-tracts owned by the Ábilas, and there wild
swine were hunted as late as 1873.
In the summer, D. M. Berry, General Nathan Kimball, Calvin Fletcher
and J. H. Baker came to Los Angeles from Indianapolis, representing
the California Colony of Indiana, a coöperative association which
proposed to secure land for Hoosiers who wished to found a settlement
in Southern California. This scheme originated with Dr. Thomas Balch
Elliott of Indianapolis, Berry's brother-in-law and an army surgeon
who had established the first grain elevator in Indiana and whose
wife, now ill, could no longer brave the severe winters of the middle
West.
Soon after their arrival, Wall Street's crash brought ruin to many
subscribers and the members of the committee found themselves stranded
in Los Angeles. Berry opened a real estate office on Main Street near
Arcadia, for himself and the absent Elliott; and one day, at the
suggestion of Judge B. S. Eaton, Baker visited the San Pasqual
_rancho_, then in almost primeval glory, and was so pleased with what
he saw that he persuaded Fletcher to join Dr. Elliott, Thomas H. Croft
of Indianapolis and himself in incorporating the San Gabriel Orange
Grove Association, with one hundred shares at two hundred and fifty
dollars each. The Association then bought out Dr. J. S. Griffin's
interest, or some four thousand acres in the ranch, paying about
twelve dollars and a half per acre, after which some fifteen hundred
of the choicest acres were subdivided into tracts of from fifteen to
sixty acres each.
The San Pasqual settlement was thus called for a while the Indiana
Colony, though but a handful of Hoosiers had actually joined the
movement; and Dr. and Mrs. Elliott, reaching Los Angeles on December
1st, 1874, immediately took possession of their grant on the banks of
the Arroyo Seco near the Frémont Trail. On April 22d, 1875, The
Indiana Colony was discontinued as the name of the settlement; it
being seen that a more attractive title should be selected. Dr.
Elliott wrote to a college-mate in the East for an appropriate Indian
name; and _Pasadena_ was adopted as Chippewa for "Crown of the
Valley." Linguists, I am informed, do not endorse the word as Indian
of any kind, but it is a musical name, and now famous and
satisfactory. Dr. Elliott threw all his energy into the cultivation of
oranges, but it was not long before he saw, with a certain prophetic
vision, that not the fruit itself, but the health-giving and charming
qualities of the San Pasqual climate were likely to prove the real
asset of the colonists and the foundation of their prosperity.
Pasadena and South Pasadena, therefore, owe their existence largely to
the longing of a frail Indiana woman for a less rigorous climate and
her dream that in the sunny Southland along the Pacific she should
find health and happiness.
M. J. Newmark was really instrumental, more than anyone else, in first
persuading D. M. Berry to come to California. He had met Berry in New
York and talked to him of the possibility of buying the Santa Anita
_rancho_, which we were then holding for sale; and on his return he
traveled homeward by way of Indiana, stopping off at Indianapolis in
order to bring Berry out here to see the property. Owing to the high
price asked, however, Berry and his associates could not negotiate the
purchase, and so the matter was dropped.
Lawson D. Hollingsworth and his wife, Lucinda, Quakers from Indiana,
opened the first grocery at the crossroads in the new settlement, and
for many years were popularly spoken of as Grandpa and Grandma
Hollingsworth. Dr. H. T. Hollingsworth, their son, now of Los Angeles,
kept the Post Office in the grocery, receiving from the Government for
his services the munificent sum of--twenty-five cents a week.
The summer of 1873 was marked by the organization of a corporation
designed to advance the general business interests of Los Angeles and
vicinity. This was the Chamber of Commerce or, as it was at first
called, the Board of Trade; and had its origin in a meeting held on
August 1st in the old Court-House on the site of the present Bullard
Block. Ex-Governor John G. Downey was called to the chair; and J. M.
Griffith was made Secretary _pro tem_. Before the next meeting, over
one hundred representative merchants registered for membership, and on
August 9th, a constitution and by-laws were adopted, a board of eleven
Directors elected and an admission fee of five dollars agreed upon.
Two days later, the organization was incorporated, with J. G. Downey,
S. Lazard, M. J. Newmark, H. W. Hellman, P. Beaudry, S. B. Caswell,
Dr. J. S. Griffin, R. M. Widney, C. C. Lips, J. M. Griffith and I. W.
Lord, as Directors; and these officers chose Solomon Lazard as the
first President and I. W. Lord as the first Secretary. Judge Widney's
office in the Temple Block was the meeting-place. The Chamber unitedly
and enthusiastically set to work to push forward the commercial
interests of Southern California; and the first appropriation by
Congress for the survey and improvement of San Pedro Harbor was
effected mainly through the new society's efforts. Descriptive
pamphlets setting forth the advantages of our locality were
distributed throughout the East; and steps were taken to build up the
trade with Arizona and the surrounding territory. In this way the
Chamber of Commerce labored through the two or three succeeding years,
until bank failures, droughts and other disasters, of which I shall
speak, threw the cold blanket of discouragement over even so
commendable an enterprise and for the time being its activities
ceased.
On October 3d, C. A. Storke founded the _Daily and Weekly Herald_,
editing the paper until August, 1874 when J. M. Bassett became its
editor. In a few months he retired and John M. Baldwin took up the
quill.
In the autumn of 1873, Barnard Brothers set in operation the first
woolen mill here, built in 1868 or 1869 by George Hansen and his
associates in the Canal and Reservoir Company. It was located on the
ditch along the _cañon_ of the Arroyo de Los Reyes--now Figueroa
Street; and for fifteen years or more was operated by the Barnards and
the Coulters, after which it was turned into an ice factory.
In March of the preceding year, I sent my son Maurice to New York,
expecting him there to finish his education. It was thought best,
however, to allow him, in 1873, to proceed across the ocean and on to
Paris where he might also learn the French language, at that time an
especially valuable acquisition in Los Angeles. To this latter
decision I was led when Zadoc Kahn, Grand Rabbi of Paris and afterward
Grand Rabbi of France, and a brother-in-law of Eugene Meyer, signified
his willingness to take charge of the lad; and for three years the
Grand Rabbi and his excellent wife well fulfilled their every
obligation as temporary guardians. How great an advantage, indeed,
this was will be readily recognized by all familiar with the published
life of Zadoc Kahn and his reputation as a scholar and pulpit orator.
He was a man of the highest ideals, as was proved in his unflinching
activity, with Émile Zola, in the defense and liberation of the
long-persecuted Dreyfus.
Sometime in December, L. C. Tibbetts, one of the early colonists at
Riverside, received a small package from a friend at Washington, D.
C., after having driven sixty-five miles to Los Angeles to get it; and
he took it out of the little express office without attracting any
more attention than to call forth the observation of the clerk that
some one must care a lot about farming to make so much fuss about two
young trees. "'Tis nothing, says the fool!" The package in question
contained two small orange trees from Bahia, Brazil, brought to the
United States by the Agricultural Department and destined to bestow
upon Tibbetts the honor of having originated the navel orange industry
of California.
In 1873, Drum Barracks at Wilmington were offered by the Government at
public auction; and what had cost a million dollars or so to install,
was knocked down for less than ten thousand dollars to B. D. Wilson,
who donated it for educational purposes.
During the winter of 1873-74, the Southern Pacific commenced the
construction of its Anaheim branch; and the first train from Los
Angeles to the thriving, expectant German settlement made the run in
January, 1875.
Max Cohn, a nephew, arrived in Los Angeles in 1873 and clerked for H.
Newmark & Company for a number of years. In December, 1885, when I
retired from the wholesale grocery business, Max became a full
partner. In 1888, failing health compelled him, although a young man,
to seek European medical advice; and he entered a sanatorium at
Falkenstein, in the Taunus Mountains where, in 1889, he died.
FOOTNOTE:
[31] Blown down, in a wind-storm, on the night of April 13th, 1915.