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Sixty Years in Southern California 1853-1913

<h2>CHAPTER XIII PRINCELY RANCHO DOMAINS 1855</h2> Of the wonderful domains granted to the Spanish dons some were still in the possession of their descendants; some had passed into the hands of the Argonauts; but nothing in the way of subdividing had been attempted. The private ownership of Los Angeles County in the early fifties, therefore, was distinguished by few holders and large tracts, one of the most notable being that of Don Abel Stearns, who came here in 1829, and who, in his early adventures, narrowly escaped exile or being shot by an irate Spanish governor. Eventually, Stearns became the proud possessor of tens of thousands of acres between San Pedro and San Bernardino, now covered with cities, towns and hamlets. The site of the Long Beach of to-day was but a small part of his Alamitos rancho, a portion of the town also including some of the Cerritos acres of John Temple. Los Coyotes, La Habra and San Juan Cajón de Santa Ana were among the Stearns ranches advertised for sale in 1869. Later, I shall relate how this Alamitos land came to be held by Jotham Bixby and his associates. Juan Temple owned the Los Cerritos rancho, consisting of some twenty-seven thousand acres, patented on December 27th, 1867, but which, I have heard, he bought of the Nieto heirs in the late thirties, building there the typical ranch-house, later the home of the Bixbys and still a feature of the neighborhood. Across the Cerritos Stockton's weary soldiers dragged their way; and there, or near by, Carrillo, by driving wild horses 167 back and forth in confusion, and so creating a great noise and dust, tricked Stockton into thinking that there were many more of the mounted enemy than he had at first supposed. By 1853, Temple was estimated to be worth, in addition to his ranches, some twenty thousand dollars. In 1860, Los Cerritos supported perhaps four thousand cattle and great flocks of sheep; on a portion of the same ranch to-day, as I have remarked, Long Beach stands. Another citizen of Los Angeles who owned much property when I came, and who lived upon his ranch, was Francis Phinney Fisk Temple, one of the first Los Angeles supervisors, a man exceptionally modest and known among his Spanish-speaking friends as Templito, because of his five feet four stature. He came here, by way of the Horn, in 1841, when he was but nineteen years of age, and for a while was in business with his brother John. Marrying Señorita Antónia Margarita Workman, however, on September 30th, 1845, Francis made his home at La Merced Ranch, twelve miles east of Los Angeles, in the San Gabriel Valley, where he had a spacious and hospitable adobe after the old Spanish style, shaped something like a U, and about seventy by one hundred and ten feet in size. Around this house, later destroyed by fire, Temple planted twenty acres of fruit trees and fifty thousand or more vines, arranging the whole in a garden partly enclosed by a fence—the exception rather than the rule for even a country nabob of that time. Templito also owned other ranches many miles in extent; but misfortune overtook him, and by the nineties his estate possessed scarcely a single acre of land in either the city or the county of Los Angeles; and he breathed his last in a rude sheep herder's camp in a corner of one of his famous properties. Colonel Julian Isaac Williams, who died some three years after I arrived, owned the celebrated Cucamonga and Chino ranches. As early as 1842, after a nine or ten years' residence in Los Angeles, Williams moved to the Rancho del Chino, which included not merely the Santa Ana del Chino grant—some twenty-two thousand acres originally given to Don António María Lugo, in 1841—but the addition of twelve to thirteen 168 thousand acres, granted in 1843 to Williams (who became Lugo's son-in-law) making a total of almost thirty-five thousand acres. On that ranch Williams built a house famed far and wide for its spaciousness and hospitality; and it was at his hacienda that the celebrated capture of B. D. Wilson and others was effected when they ran out of ammunition. Williams was liberal in assisting the needy, even despatching messengers to Los Angeles, on the arrival at his ranch of worn-out and ragged immigrants, to secure clothing and other supplies for them; and it is related that, on other occasions, he was known to have advanced to young men capital amounting in the aggregate to thousands of dollars, with which they established themselves in business. By 1851, Williams had amassed personal property estimated to be worth not less than thirty-five thousand dollars. In the end, he gave his ranchos to his daughters as marriage-portions: the Chino to Francisca, or Mrs. Robert Carlisle, who became the wife of Dr. F. A. McDougall, Mayor in 1877-78, and, after his death, Mrs. Jesurun; and the Cucamonga to María Merced, or Mrs. John Rains, mother-in-law of ex-Governor Henry T. Gage, who was later Mrs. Carrillo. Benjamin Davis Wilson, or Benito Wilson, as he was usually called, who owned a good part of the most beautiful land in the San Gabriel Valley and who laid out the trail up the Sierra Madre to Wilson's Peak, was one of our earliest settlers, having come from Tennessee via New Mexico, in 1841. In June, 1846, Wilson joined the riflemen organized against Castro, and in 1848, having been put in charge of some twenty men to protect the San Bernardino frontier, he responded to a call from Isaac Williams to hasten to the Chino rancho where, with his compatriots, he was taken prisoner. Somewhat earlier—I have understood about 1844—Wilson and Albert Packard formed a partnership, but this was dissolved near the end of 1851. In 1850, Wilson was elected County Clerk; and the following year, he volunteered to patrol the hills and assist in watching for Garra, the outlaw, the report of whose coming was terrorizing the town. In 1853, he was Indian Agent for Southern California. It must have been about 1849 that Wilson secured 169 control, for a while, of the Bella Union. His first wife was Ramona Yorba, a daughter of Bernardo Yorba, whom he married in February, 1844, and who died in 1849. On February 1st, 1853, Wilson married again, this time Mrs. Margaret S. Hereford, a sister-in-law of Thomas S. Hereford; they spent many years together at Lake Vineyard, where he became one of the leading producers of good wine, and west of which he planted some twenty-five or thirty thousand raisin grape cuttings, and ten or twelve hundred orange trees, thus founding Oak Knoll. I shall have occasion to speak of this gentleman somewhat later. By the time that I came to know him, Wilson had accumulated much real estate, part of his property being a residence on Alameda Street, corner of Macy; but after a while he moved to one of his larger estates, where stands the present Shorb station named for his son-in-law and associate J. De Barth Shorb, who also had a place known as Mountain Vineyard. Don Benito died in March, 1878. <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_218a.jpg" width-obs="206" height-obs="329" alt="" /> Maurice Kremer </div> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_218b.jpg" width-obs="221" height-obs="326" alt="" /> Solomon Lazard </div> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_218c.jpg" width-obs="428" height-obs="224" alt="" /> Mellus's, or Bell's Row From a lithograph of 1858 </div> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_219a.jpg" width-obs="212" height-obs="323" alt="" /> William H. Workman and John King </div> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_219b.jpg" width-obs="219" height-obs="317" alt="" /> Prudent Beaudry </div> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_219c.jpg" width-obs="245" height-obs="330" alt="" /> James S. Mallard </div> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_219d.jpg" width-obs="206" height-obs="317" alt="" /> John Behn </div> Colonel Jonathan Trumbull Warner, master of Warner's Ranch, later the property of John G. Downey, and known—from his superb stature of over six feet—both as Juan José Warner and as Juan Largo, "Long John," returned to Los Angeles in 1857. Warner had arrived in Southern California, on December 5th, 1831, at the age of twenty-eight, having come West, from Connecticut, via Missouri and Salt Lake, partly for his health, and partly to secure mules for the Louisiana market. Like many others whom I have known, Warner did not intend to remain; but illness decided for him, and in 1843 he settled in San Diego County, near the California border, on what (later known as Warner's Ranch) was to become, with its trail from old Sonora, historic ground. There, during the fourteen years of his occupancy, some of the most stirring episodes of the Mexican War occurred; during one of which—Ensign Espinosa's attack—Don Juan having objected to the forcible searching of his house, he had his arm broken. There, also, António Garra and his lawless band made their assault, and were repulsed by Long John, who escaped on horseback, leaving in his wake four or five dead Indians. For this, and 170 not for military service, Warner was dubbed Colonel; nor was there anyone who cared to dispute his right to the title. In 1837, Juan married Miss Anita Gale, an adopted daughter of Don Pio Pico, and came to Los Angeles; but the following year, Mrs. Warner died. Warner once ran against E. J. C. Kewen for the Legislature but, after an exceedingly bitter campaign, was beaten. In 1874 Warner was a notary public and Spanish-English interpreter. For many years his home was in an orchard occupying the site of the Burbank Theater on Main Street. Warner was a man of character and lived to a venerable age; and after a decidedly arduous life he had more than his share of responsibility and affliction, even losing his sight in his declining years. William Wolfskill, who died on October 3d, 1866, was another pioneer well-established long before I had even thought of California. Born in Kentucky at the end of the Eighteenth Century—of a family originally of Teutonic stock (if we may credit a high German authority) traced back to a favorite soldier of Frederick the Great—Wolfskill in 1830 came to Los Angeles, for a short time, with Ewing Young, the noted beaver-trapper. Then he acquired several leagues of land in Yolo and Solano counties, sharing what he had with his brothers, John and Mateo. Later he sold out, returned to Los Angeles, and bought and stocked the rancho Lomas de Santiago, which he afterward disposed of to Flint, Bixby & Company. He also bought of Corbitt, Dibblee & Barker the Santa Anita rancho (comprising between nine and ten thousand acres), and some twelve thousand besides; the Santa Anita he gave to his son, Louis, who later sold it for eighty-five thousand dollars. Besides this, Wolfskill acquired title to a part of the rancho San Francisquito, on which Newhall stands, disposing of that, however, during the first oil excitement, to the Philadelphia Oil Company, at seventy-five cents an acre—a good price at that time. Before making these successful realty experiments, this hero of desert hardships had assisted to build, soon after his arrival here, one of the first vessels ever constructed and launched in California—a schooner fitted out at San Pedro to hunt for sea otter. In January, 1841, 171 Wolfskill married Doña Magdalena Lugo, daughter of Don José Ygnácio Lugo, of Santa Bárbara. A daughter, Señorita Magdalena, in 1865 married Frank Sabichi, a native of Los Angeles, who first saw the light of day in 1842. Sabichi, by the way, always a man of importance in this community, is the son of Mateo and Josefa Franco Sabichi (the mother, a sister of António Franco Coronel), buried at San Gabriel Mission. J. E. Pleasants, to whom I elsewhere refer, first made a good start when he formed a partnership with Wolfskill in a cattle deal. Concerning Mateo, I recall an interesting illustration of early fiscal operations. He deposited thirty thousand dollars with S. Lazard & Company and left it there so long that they began to think he would never come back for it. He did return, however, after many years, when he presented a certificate of deposit and withdrew the money. This transaction bore no interest, as was often the case in former days. People deposited money with friends in whom they had confidence, not for the purpose of profit but simply for safety. Elijah T. Moulton, a Canadian, was one of the few pioneers who preceded the Forty-niners and was permitted to see Los Angeles well on its way toward metropolitan standing. In 1844 he had joined an expedition to California organized by Jim Bridger; and having reached the Western country, he volunteered to serve under Frémont in the Mexican campaign. There the hardships which Moulton endured were far severer than those which tested the grit of the average emigrant; and Moulton in better days often told how, when nearly driven to starvation, he and a comrade had actually used a remnant of the Stars and Stripes as a seine with which to fish, and so saved their lives. About 1850, Moulton was Deputy Sheriff under George T. Burrill; then he went to work for Don Louis Vignes. Soon afterward, he bought some land near William Wolfskill's, and in 1855 took charge of Wolfskill's property. This resulted in his marriage to one of Wolfskill's daughters, who died in 1861. In the meantime, he had acquired a hundred and fifty acres or more in what is now East Los Angeles, and was thus 172 one of the first to settle in that section. He had a dairy, for a while, and peddled milk from a can or two carried in a wagon. Afterward, Moulton became a member of the City Council. William Workman and John Rowland, father of William or Billy Rowland, resided in 1853 on La Puente rancho, which was granted them July 22d, 1845, some four years after they had arrived in California. They were leaders of a party from New Mexico, of which B. D. Wilson, Lemuel Carpenter and others were members; and the year following they operated with Pico against Micheltorena and Sutter, Workman serving as Captain, and Rowland as Lieutenant, of a company of volunteers they had organized. The ranch, situated about twenty miles east of Los Angeles, consisted of nearly forty-nine thousand acres, and had one of the first brick residences erected in this neighborhood. Full title to this splendid estate was confirmed by the United States Government in April, 1867, a couple of years before Workman and Rowland, with the assistance of Cameron E. Thom, divided their property. Rowland, who in 1851 was supposed to own some twenty-nine thousand acres and about seventy thousand dollars' worth of personal property, further partitioned his estate, three or four years before his death in 1873, among his nearest of kin, giving to each heir about three thousand acres of land and a thousand head of cattle. One of these heirs, the wife of General Charles Forman, is the half-sister of Billy Rowland by a second marriage. John Reed, Rowland's son-in-law, was also a large land-proprietor. Reed had fallen in with Rowland in New Mexico, and while there married Rowland's daughter, Nieves; and when Rowland started for California, Reed came with him and together they entered into ranching at La Puente, finding artesian water there, in 1859. Thirteen years before, Reed was in the American army and took part in the battles fought on the march from San Diego to Los Angeles. After his death on the ranch in 1874, his old homestead came into possession of John Rowland's son, William, who often resided there; and Rowland, later discovering oil on his land, organized the Puente Oil Company. 173 Juan Forster, an Englishman, possessed the Santa Margarita rancho, which he had taken up in 1864, some years after he married Doña Ysidora Pico. She was a sister of Pio and Andrés Pico, and there, as a result of that alliance, General Pico found a safe retreat while fleeing from Frémont into Lower California. Forster for a while was a seaman out of San Pedro. When he went to San Juan Capistrano, where he became a sort of local Alcalde and was often called Don San Juan or even San Juan Capistrano, he experimented with raising stock and became so successful as a ranchero that he remained there twenty years, during which time he acquired a couple of other ranches, in San Diego and Los Angeles counties, comprising quite sixty thousand acres. Forster, however, was comparatively land-poor, as may be inferred from the fact that even though the owner of such a princely territory, he was assessed in 1851 on but thirteen thousand dollars in personal property. Later Don Juan lorded it over twice as much land in the ranches of Santa Margarita and Las Flores. His fourth son, a namesake, married Señorita Josefa del Valle, daughter of Don Ygnácio del Valle. Manuel, Pedro, Nasário and Victoria Dominguez owned in the neighborhood of forty-eight thousand acres of the choicest land in the South. More than a century ago, Juan José Dominguez received from the King of Spain ten or eleven leagues of land, known as the Rancho de San Pedro; and this was given by Governor de Sola, after Juan José's death in 1822, to his brother, Don Cristóbal Dominguez, a Spanish officer. Don Cristóbal married a Mexican commissioner's daughter, and one of their ten children was Manuel, who, educated by wide reading and fortunate in a genial temperament and high standard of honor, became an esteemed and popular officer under the Mexican régime, displaying no little chivalry in the battle of Dominguez fought on his own property. On the death of his father, Don Manuel took charge of the Rancho de San Pedro (buying out his sister Victoria's interest of twelve thousand acres, at fifty cents an acre) until in 1855 it was partitioned between himself, his brother, Don Pedro and two 174 nephews, José António Aguirre and Jacinto Rocha. One daughter, Victoria, married George Carson in 1857. At his death, in 1882, Dominguez bequeathed to his heirs twenty odd thousand acres, including Rattlesnake Island in San Pedro Bay. James A. Watson, an early-comer, married a second daughter; John F. Francis married a third, and Dr. del Amo married a fourth. Henry Dalton, who came here sometime before 1845, having been a merchant in Peru, owned the Azusa Ranch of over four thousand acres, the patent to which was finally issued in 1876, and also part of the San Francisquito Ranch of eight thousand acres, allowed him somewhat later. Besides these, he had an interest, with Ygnácio Palomares and Ricardo Vejar, in the San José rancho of nearly twenty-seven thousand acres. As early as the twenty-first of May, 1851, Dalton, with keen foresight, seems to have published a plan for the subdivision of nine or ten thousand acres into lots to suit limited ranchers; but it was some time before Duarte and other places, now on the above-mentioned estates, arose from his dream. On a part of his property, Azusa, a town of the Boom period, was founded some twenty-two miles from Los Angeles, and seven or eight hundred feet up the Azusa slope; and now other towns also flourish near these attractive foothills. One of Dalton's daughters was given in marriage to Louis, a son of William Wolfskill. Dalton's brother, George, I have already mentioned as having likewise settled here. Of all these worthy dons, possessing vast landed estates, Don António María Lugo, brother of Ygnácio Lugo, was one of the most affluent and venerable. He owned the San António rancho, named I presume after him; and in 1856, when he celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday, was reputed to be the owner of fully twenty-nine thousand acres and personal property to the extent of seventy-two thousand dollars. Three sons, José María, José del Carmen and Vicente Lugo, as early as 1842 also acquired in their own names about thirty-seven thousand acres. <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_226a.jpg" width-obs="225" height-obs="327" alt="" /> Louis Robidoux </div> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_226b.jpg" width-obs="230" height-obs="326" alt="" /> Julius G. Weyse </div> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_226c.jpg" width-obs="227" height-obs="326" alt="" /> John Behn </div> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_226d.jpg" width-obs="228" height-obs="327" alt="" /> Louis Breer </div> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_227a.jpg" width-obs="233" height-obs="328" alt="" /> William J. Broderick </div> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_227b.jpg" width-obs="219" height-obs="317" alt="" /> Isaac R. Dunkelberger </div> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_227c.jpg" width-obs="231" height-obs="330" alt="" /> Frank J. Carpenter </div> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_227d.jpg" width-obs="219" height-obs="318" alt="" /> Augustus Ulyard </div> Louis Robidoux, a French-American of superior ability who, like many others, had gone through much that was exciting 175 and unpleasant to establish himself in this wild, open country, eventually had an immense estate known as the Jurupa rancho, from which on September 26th, 1846, during the Mexican War, B. D. Wilson and others rode forth to be neatly trapped and captured at the Chino; and where the outlaw Irving later encamped. Riverside occupies a site on this land; and the famous Robidoux hill, usually spoken of as the Robidoux mountain, once a part of Louis's ranch and to-day a Mecca for thousands of tourists, was named after him. Many of the rancheros kept little ranch stores, from which they sold to their employees. This was rather for convenience than for profit. When their help came to Los Angeles, they generally got drunk and stayed away from work longer than the allotted time; and it was to prevent this, as far as possible, that these outlying stores were conducted. Louis Robidoux maintained such a store for the accommodation of his hands, and often came to town, sometimes for several days, on which occasions he would buy very liberally anything that happened to take his fancy. In this respect he occasionally acted without good judgment, and if opposed would become all the more determined. Not infrequently he called for so large a supply of some article that I was constrained to remark that he could not possibly need so much; whereupon he would repeat the order with angry emphasis. I sometimes visited his ranch and recall, in particular, one stay of two or three days there in 1857 when, after an unusually large purchase, Robidoux asked me to assist him in checking up the invoices. The cases were unpacked in his ranchhouse; and I have never forgotten the amusing picture of the numerous little Robidoux, digging and delving among the assorted goods for all the prizes they could find, and thus rendering the process of listing the goods much more difficult. When the delivery had been found correct, Robidoux turned to his Mexican wife and asked her to bring the money. She went to the side of the room, opened a Chinese trunk such as every well-to-do Mexican family had (and sometimes as many as half a dozen), and drew therefrom the customary buckskin, from which she extracted the 176 required and rather large amount. These trunks were made of cedar, were gaudily painted, and had the quality of keeping out moths. They were, therefore, displayed with pride by the owners. Recently on turning the pages of some ledgers in which Newmark, Kremer & Company carried the account of this famous ranchero, I was interested to find there full confirmation of what I have elsewhere claimed—that the now renowned Frenchman spelled the first syllable of his name Ro-, and not Ru-, nor yet Rou-, as it is generally recorded in books and newspapers. I should refrain from mentioning a circumstance or two in Robidoux's life with which I am familiar but for the fact that I believe posterity is ever curious to know the little failings as well as the pronounced virtues of men who, through exceptional personality or association, have become historic characters; and that some knowledge of their foibles should not tarnish their reputation. Robidoux, as I have remarked, came to town very frequently, and when again he found himself amid livelier scenes and congenial fellows, as in the late fifties, he always celebrated the occasion with a few intimates, winding up his befuddling bouts in the arms of Chris Fluhr, who winked at his weakness and good-naturedly tucked him away in one of the old-fashioned beds of the Lafayette Hotel, there to remain until he was able to transact business. After all, such celebrating was then not at all uncommon among the best of Southern California people, nor, if gossip may be credited, is it entirely unknown to-day. Robert Hornbeck, of Redlands, by the way, has sought to perpetuate this pioneer's fame in an illustrated volume, Roubidoux's Ranch in the 70's, published as I am closing my story. Robidoux's name leads me to recur to early judges and to his identification with the first Court of Sessions here, when there was such a sparseness even of rancherías. Robidoux then lived on his Jurupa domain, and not having been at the meeting of township justices which selected himself and Judge Scott to sit on the bench, and enjoying but infrequent communication with the more peopled districts of Southern California, he 177 knew nothing of the outcome of the election until sometime after it had been called. More than this, Judge Robidoux never actually participated in a sitting of the Court of Sessions until four or five weeks after it had been almost daily transacting business! Speaking of ranches, and of the Jurupa in particular, I may here reprint an advertisement—a miniature tree and a house heading the following announcement in the Southern Californian of June 20th, 1855: <div class="blockquot">The Subscriber, being anxious to get away from Swindlers, offers for sale one of the very finest ranchos, or tracts of land, that is to be found in California, known as the Rancho de Jurupa, Santa Ana River, in the County of San Bernardino. </div> Bernardo Yorba was another great landowner; and I am sure that, in the day of his glory, he might have traveled fifty to sixty miles in a straight line, touching none but his own possessions. His ranches, on one of which Pio Pico hid from Santiago Arguello, were delightfully located where now stand such places as Anaheim, Orange, Santa Ana, Westminster, Garden Grove and other towns in Orange County—then a part of Los Angeles County. This leads me to describe a shrewd trick. Schlesinger & Sherwinsky, traders in general merchandise in 1853, when they bought a wagon in San Francisco, brought it here by steamer, loaded it with various attractive wares, took it out to good-natured and easy-going Bernardo Yorba, and wheedled the well-known ranchero into purchasing not only the contents, but the wagon, horses and harness as well. Indeed, their ingenuity was so well rewarded, that soon after this first lucky hit, they repeated their success, to the discomfiture of their competitors; and if I am not mistaken, they performed the same operation on the old don several times. The Verdugo family had an extensive acreage where such towns as Glendale now enjoy the benefit of recent suburban development, Governor Pedro Fages having granted, as early as 1784, some thirty-six thousand acres to Don José María 178 Verdugo, which grant was reaffirmed in 1798, thereby affording the basis of a patent issued in 1882, to Julio Verdugo et al, although Verdugo died in 1858. To this Verdugo rancho, Frémont sent Jesus Pico—the Mexican guide whose life he had spared, as he was about to be executed at San Luis Obispo—to talk with the Californians and to persuade them to deal with Frémont instead of Stockton; and there on February 21st, 1845, Micheltorena and Castro met. Near there also, still later, the celebrated Casa Verdugo entertained for many years the epicures of Southern California, becoming one of the best-known restaurants for Spanish dishes in the State. Little by little, the Verdugo family lost all their property, partly through their refusal or inability to pay taxes; so that by the second decade of the Twentieth Century the surviving representatives, including Victoriano and Guillermo Verdugo, were reduced to poverty.[15] Recalling Verdugo and his San Rafael Ranch let me add that he had thirteen sons, all of whom frequently accompanied their father to town, especially on election day. On those occasions, J. Lancaster Brent, whose political influence with the old man was supreme, took the Verdugo party in hand and distributed, through the father, fourteen election tickets, on which were impressed the names of Brent's candidates. Manuel Garfias, County Treasurer a couple of years before I came, was another land-baron, owning in his own name some thirteen or fourteen thousand acres of the San Pasqual Ranch. There, among the picturesque hills and valleys where both Pico and Flores had military camps, now flourish the cities of Pasadena and South Pasadena, which include the land where stood the first house erected on the ranch. It is my impression that beautiful Altadena is also on this land. Ricardo Vejar, another magnate, had an interest in a wide area of rich territory known as the San José Ranch. Not less than twenty-two thousand acres made up this rancho which, as early as 1837, had been granted by Governor Alvarado to Vejar 179 and Ygnácio Palomares who died on November 25th, 1864. Two or three years later, Luis Arenas joined the two, and Alvarado renewed his grant, tacking on a league or two of San José land lying to the West and nearer the San Gabriel mountains. Arenas, in time, disposed of his interest to Henry Dalton; and Dalton joined Vejar in applying to the courts for a partitioning of the estate. This division was ordered by the Spanish Alcalde six or seven years before my arrival; but Palomares still objected to the decision, and the matter dragged along in the tribunals many years, the decree finally being set aside by the Court. Vejar, who had been assessed in 1851 for thirty-four thousand dollars' worth of personal property, sold his share of the estate for twenty-nine thousand dollars, in the spring of 1874. It is a curious fact that not until the San José rancho had been so cut up that it was not easy to trace it back to the original grantees, did the authorities at Washington finally issue a patent to Dalton, Palomares and Vejar for the twenty-two thousand acres which originally made up the ranch. The Machados, of whom there were several brothers—Don Agustin, who died on May 17th, 1865, being the head of the family—had title to nearly fourteen thousand acres. Their ranch, originally granted to Don Ygnácio Machado in 1839 and patented in 1873, was known as La Ballona and extended from the city limits to the ocean; and there, among other stock, in 1860, were more than two thousand head of cattle. The Picos acquired much territory. There were two brothers—Pio, who as Mexican Governor had had wide supervision over land, and Andrés, who had fought throughout the San Pasqual campaigns until the capitulation at Cahuenga, and still later had dashed with spirit across country in pursuit of the murderers of Sheriff Barton. Pio Pico alone, in 1851, was assessed for twenty-two thousand acres as well as twenty-one thousand dollars in personal property. Besides controlling various San Fernando ranches (once under B. H. Lancaro's management), Andrés Pico possessed La Habra, a ranch of over six thousand acres, for which a patent was granted in 1872, and 180 the ranch Los Coyotes, including over forty-eight thousand acres, patented three years later; while Pio Pico at one time owned the Santa Margarita and Las Flores ranchos, and had, in addition, some nine thousand acres known as Paso de Bartolo. In his old age the Governor—who, as long as I knew him, had been strangely loose in his business methods, and had borrowed from everybody—found himself under the necessity of obtaining some thirty or forty thousand dollars, even at the expense of giving to B. Cohn, W. J. Brodrick and Charles Prager, a blanket mortgage covering all of his properties. These included the Pico House, the Pico Ranch on the other side of the San Gabriel River—the homestead on which has for some time been preserved by the ladies of Whittier—and property on Main Street, north of Commercial, besides some other holdings. When his note fell due Pico was unable to meet it; and the mortgage was foreclosed. The old man was then left practically penniless, a suit at law concerning the interpretation of the loan-agreement being decided against him. Henry C. Wiley must have arrived very early, as he had been in Los Angeles some years before I came. He married a daughter of Andrés Pico and for a while had charge of his San Fernando Ranch. Wiley served, at one time, as Sheriff of the County. He died in 1898. The rancho Los Nietos or, more properly speaking, perhaps, the Santa Gertrudis, than whose soil (watered, as it is, by the San Gabriel River) none more fertile can be found in the world, included indeed a wide area extending between the Santa Ana and San Gabriel rivers, and embracing the ford known as Pico Crossing. It was then in possession of the Carpenter family, Lemuel Carpenter having bought it from the heirs of Manuel Nieto, to whom it had been granted in 1784. Carpenter came from Missouri to this vicinity as early as 1833, when he was but twenty-two years old. For a while, he had a small soap-factory on the right bank of the San Gabriel River, after which he settled on the ranch; and there he remained until November 6th, 1859, when he committed suicide. Within the borders of this ranch to-day lie such places as Downey and Rivera. 181 Francisco Sanchez was another early ranchero—probably the same who figured so prominently in early San Francisco; and it is possible that J. M. Sanchez, to whom, in 1859, was re-granted the forty-four hundred acres of the Potrero Grande, was his heir. There were two large and important landowners, second cousins, known as José Sepúlveda; the one, Don José Andrés, and the other, Don José Loreto. The father of José Andrés was Don Francisco Sepúlveda, a Spanish officer to whom the San Vicente Ranch had been granted; and José Andrés, born in San Diego in 1804, was the oldest of eleven children. His brothers were Fernando, José del Carmen, Dolores and Juan María; and he also had six sisters. To José Andrés, or José as he was called, the San Joaquín Ranch was given, an enormous tract of land lying between the present Tustin, earlier known as Tustin City, and San Juan Capistrano, and running from the hills to the sea; while, on the death of Don Francisco, the San Vicente Ranch, later bought by Jones and Baker, was left to José del Carmen, Dolores and Juan María. José, in addition, bought eighteen hundred acres from José António Yorba, and on this newly-acquired property he built his ranchhouse, although he and his family may be said to have been more or less permanent residents of Los Angeles. Fernando Sepúlveda married a Verdugo, and through her became proprietor of much of the Verdugo rancho. The fact that José was so well provided for, and that Fernando had come into control of the Verdugo acres, made it mutually satisfactory that the San Vicente Ranch should have been willed to the other sons. The children of José Andrés included Miguel, Maurício, Bernabé, Joaquín, Andrónico and Ygnácio, and Francisca, wife of James Thompson, Tomása, wife of Frank Rico, Ramona, wife of Captain Salisbury Haley of the Sea Bird, Ascención, wife of Tom Mott, and Tranquilina. The latter, with Mrs. Mott and Judge Ygnácio, are still living here. Don José Loreto, brother of Juan and Diego Sepúlveda, father of Mrs. John T. Lanfranco, and a well-known resident of Los Angeles County in early days, presided over the destinies 182 of thirty-one thousand acres in the Palos Verdes rancho, where Flores had stationed his soldiers to watch the American ship Savannah. Full patent to this land was granted in 1880. There being no fences to separate the great ranches, cattle roamed at will; nor were the owners seriously concerned, for every man had his distinct, registered brand and in proper season the various herds were segregated by means of rodeos, or round-ups of strayed or mixed cattle. On such occasions, all of the rancheros within a certain radius drove their herds little by little into a corral designated for the purpose, and each selected his own cattle according to brand. After segregation had thus been effected, they were driven from the corral, followed by the calves, which were also branded, in anticipation of the next rodeo. Such round-ups were great events, for they brought all the rancheros and vaqueros together. They became the raison d'être of elaborate celebrations, sometimes including horse-races, bull-fights and other amusements; and this was the case particularly in 1861, because of the rains and consequent excellent season. The enormous herds of cattle gathered at rodeos remind me, in fact, of a danger that the rancheros were obliged to contend with, especially when driving their stock from place to place: Indians stampeded the cattle, whenever possible, so that in the confusion those escaping the vaqueros and straggling behind might the more easily be driven to the Indian camps; and sometimes covetous ranchmen caused a similar commotion among the stock in order to make thieving easier. While writing of ranches, one bordering on the other, unfenced and open, and the enormous number of horses and cattle, as well as men required to take care of such an amount of stock, I must not forget to mention an institution that had flourished, as a branch of the judiciary, in palmier Mexican days, though it was on the wane when I arrived here. This was the Judgeship of the Plains, an office charged directly with the interests of the ranchman. Judges of the Plains were officials delegated to arrange for the rodeos, and to hold informal court, in the saddle or on the open hillside, in order to settle 183 disputes among, and dispense justice to, those living and working beyond the pales of the towns. Under Mexican rule, a Judge of the Plains, who was more or less a law unto himself, served for glory and dignity (much as does an English Justice of the Peace); and the latter factor was an important part of the stipulation, as we may gather from a story told by early Angeleños of the impeachment of Don António María Lugo. Don António was then a Judge of the Plains, and as such was charged with having, while on horseback, nearly trampled upon Pedro Sanchez, for no other reason than that poor Pedro had refused to "uncover" while the Judge rode by, and to keep his hat off until his Honor was unmistakably out of sight! When, at length, Americans took possession of Southern California, Judges of the Plains were given less power, and provision was made, for the first time, for a modest honorarium in return for their travel and work. For nearly a couple of decades after the organization of Los Angeles under the incoming white pioneers, not very much was known of the vast districts inland and adjacent to Southern California; and one can well understand the interest felt by our citizens on July 17th, 1855, when Colonel Washington, of the United States Surveying Expedition to the Rio Colorado, put up at the Bella Union on his way to San Francisco. He was bombarded with questions about the region lying between the San Bernardino Mountain range and the Colorado, hitherto unexplored; and being a good talker, readily responded with much entertaining information. In July, 1855, I attained my majority and, having by this time a fair command of English, I took a more active part in social affairs. Before he married Margarita, daughter of Juan Bandini, Dr. J. B. Winston, then interested in the Bella Union, organized most of the dances, and I was one of his committee of arrangements. We would collect from the young men of our acquaintance money enough to pay for candles and music; for each musician—playing either a harp, a guitar or a flute—charged from a dollar to a dollar and a half for his services. Formal social events occurred in the evening of almost any day 184 of the week. Whenever Dr. Winston or the young gallants of that period thought it was time to have a dance, they just passed around the hat for the necessary funds, and announced the affair. Ladies were escorted to functions, although we did not take them in carriages or other vehicles but tramped through the dust or mud. Young ladies, however, did not go out with gentlemen unless they were accompanied by a chaperon, generally some antiquated female member of the family. These hops usually took place at the residence of Widow Blair, opposite the Bella Union and north of the present Post Office. There we could have a sitting-room, possibly eighteen by thirty feet square; and while this was larger than any other room in a private house in town, it will be realized that, after all, the space for dancing was very limited. We made the best, however, of what we had; the refreshments, at these improvised affairs, were rarely more than lemonade and olla water. Many times such dances followed as a natural termination to another social observance, transmitted to us, I have no doubt, by the romantic Spanish settlers here, and very popular for some time after I came. This good old custom was serenading. We would collect money, as if for dancing; and in the evening a company of young men and chaperoned young ladies would proceed in a body to some popular girl's home where, with innocent gallantry, the little band would serenade her. After that, of course, we were always glad to accept an invitation to come into the house, when the ladies of the household sometimes regaled us with a bit of cake and wine. Speaking of the social life of those early days, when warm, stimulating friendships and the lack of all foolish caste distinctions rendered the occasions delightfully pleasant, may it not be well to ask whether the contrast between those simple, inexpensive pleasures, and the elaborate and extravagant demands of modern society, is not worth sober thought? To be sure, Los Angeles then was exceedingly small, and pioneers here were much like a large family in plain, unpretentious circumstances. There were no such ceremonies 185 as now; there were no four hundred, no three hundred, nor even one hundred. There was, for example, no flunky at the door to receive the visitor's card; and for the very good reason that visiting cards were unknown. In those pastoral, pueblo days it was no indiscretion for a friend to walk into another friend's house without knocking. Society of the early days could be divided, I suppose, into two classes: the respectable and the evil element; and people who were honorable came together because they esteemed each other and liked one another's company. The "gold fish" of the present age had not yet developed. We enjoyed ourselves together, and without distinction were ready to fight to the last ditch for the protection of our families and the preservation of our homes. In the fall of 1855, Dr. Thomas J. White, a native of St. Louis and Speaker of the Assembly in the first California Legislature convened at San José, in December, 1849, arrived from San Francisco with his wife and two daughters, and bought a vineyard next to Dr. Hoover's ten-acre place where, in three or four years, he became one of the leading wine-producers. Their advent created quite a stir, and the house, which was a fine and rather commodious one for the times, soon became the scene of extensive entertainments. The addition of this highly-accomplished family was indeed quite an accession to our social ranks. Their hospitality compared favorably even with California's open-handed and open-hearted spirit, and soon became notable. Their evening parties and other receptions were both frequent and lavish, so that the Whites quickly took rank as leaders in Los Angeles. While yet in Sacramento, one of the daughters, who had fallen in love with E. J. C. Kewen when the latter was a member of the White party in crossing the great Plains, married the Colonel; and in 1862, another daughter, Miss Jennie, married Judge Murray Morrison. A son was T. Jeff White, who named his place Casalinda. In the late fifties, Dr. White had a drug-store in the Temple Building on Main Street. It was long before Los Angeles had anything like a regular theater, or even enjoyed such shows as were provided by 186 itinerant companies, some of which, when they did begin to come, stayed here for weeks; although I remember having heard of one ambitious group of players styling themselves The Rough and Ready Theater, who appeared here very early and gave sufficient satisfaction to elicit the testimony from a local scribe, that "when Richmond was conquered and laid off for dead, the enthusiastic auditors gave the King a smile of decided approval!" Minstrels and circuses were occasionally presented, a minstrel performance taking place sometime in the fifties, in an empty store on Aliso Street, near Los Angeles. About the only feature of this event that is now clear in my memory is that Bob Carsley played the bones; he remained in Los Angeles and married, later taking charge of the foundry which Stearns established when he built his Arcadia Block on Los Angeles Street. An Albino also was once brought to Los Angeles and publicly exhibited; and since anything out of the ordinary challenged attention, everybody went to see a curiosity that to-day would attract but little notice. Speaking of theatrical performances and the applause bestowed upon favorites, I must not forget to mention the reckless use of money and the custom, at first quite astounding to me, of throwing coins—often large, shining slugs—upon the stage or floor, if an actor or actress particularly pleased the spendthrift patron. In October, 1855, William Abbott, who was one of the many to come to Los Angeles in 1853, and who had brought with him a small stock of furniture, started a store in a little wooden house he had acquired on a lot next to that which later became the site of the Pico House. Abbott married Doña Merced Garcia; and good fortune favoring him, he not only gradually enlarged his stock of goods, but built a more commodious building, in the upper story of which was the Merced Theater, named after Abbott's wife, and opened in the late sixties. The vanity of things mundane is well illustrated in the degeneration of this center of early histrionic effort, which entered a period of decay in the beginning of the eighties and, as the scene of disreputable dances, before 1890 had been pronounced a nuisance. 187 During the first decade under the American régime, Los Angeles gradually learned the value of reaching toward the outside world and welcoming all who responded. In 1855, as I have said, a brisk trade was begun with Salt Lake, through the opening up of a route—leading along the old Spanish trail to Santa Fé. Banning & Alexander, with their usual enterprise, together with W. T. B. Sanford, made the first shipment in a heavily-freighted train of fifteen wagons drawn by one hundred and fifty mules. The train, which carried thirty tons, was gone four months; having left Los Angeles in May, it returned in September. In every respect the experiment was a success, and naturally the new route had a beneficial effect on Southern California trade. It also contributed to the development of San Bernardino, through which town it passed. Before the year was out, one or two express companies were placarding the stores here with announcements of rates "To Great Salt Lake City." Banning, by the way, then purchased in Salt Lake the best wagons he had, and brought here some of the first vehicles with spokes to be seen in Los Angeles. The school authorities of the past sometimes sailed on waters as troubled as those rocking the Educational Boards to-day. I recall an amusing incident of the middle fifties, when a new set of Trustees, having succeeded to the control of affairs, were scandalized, or at least pretended to be, by an action of their predecessors, and immediately adopted the following resolution: <div class="blockquot"> Resolved, that page seven of the School Commissioners' Record be pasted down on page eight, so that the indecorous language written therein by the School Commissioners of 1855, can never again be read or seen, said language being couched in such terms that the present School Commissioners are not willing to read such record. </div> Richard Laughlin died at his vineyard, on the east side of Alameda Street, in or soon after 1855. Like William Wolfskill, Ewing Young—who fitted out the Wolfskill party—and Moses Carson, brother of the better-known Kit and at one time a 188 trader at San Pedro, Laughlin was a trapper who made his way to Los Angeles along the Gila River. This was a waterway of the savage Apache country traversed even in 1854—according to the lone ferryman's statistics—by nearly ten thousand persons. In middle life, Laughlin supported himself by carpentry and hunting. With the increase in the number and activity of the Chinese in California, the prejudice of the masses was stirred up violently. This feeling found expression particularly in 1855, when a law was passed by the Legislature, imposing a fine of fifty dollars on each owner or master of a vessel bringing to California anyone incapable of becoming a citizen; but when suit was instituted, to test the act's validity, it was declared unconstitutional. At that time, most of the opposition to the Chinese came from San Franciscans, there being but few coolies here. Certain members of the same Legislature led a movement to form a new State, to be called Colorado and to include all the territory south of San Luis Obispo; and the matter was repeatedly discussed in several subsequent sessions. Nothing came of it, however; but Kern County was formed, in 1866, partly from Los Angeles County and partly from Tulare. About five thousand square miles, formerly under our County banner, were thus legislated away; and because the mountainous and desert area seemed of little prospective value, we submitted willingly. In this manner, unenlightened by modern science and ignorant of future possibilities, Southern California, guided by no clear and certain vision, drifted and stumbled along to its destiny. 189 <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_242.jpg" width-obs="790" height-obs="434" alt="" /> Los Angeles in the Late Fifties From a contemporary sketch </div> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_243a.jpg" width-obs="238" height-obs="329" alt="" /> Myer J. Newmark </div> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_243b.jpg" width-obs="269" height-obs="357" alt="" /> Dr. John S. Griffin </div> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_243c.jpg" width-obs="251" height-obs="332" alt="" /> Edward J. C. Kewen </div> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_243d.jpg" width-obs="212" height-obs="320" alt="" /> William C. Warren </div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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