Transcriber's Note:

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation in the original document have been preserved.

The book uses both Phillippi and Phillipi.

Harris Newmark
Eng. by E. G. Williams & Bro. N. Y.

SIXTY YEARS
IN
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

1853-1913

CONTAINING THE REMINISCENCES OF
HARRIS NEWMARK

EDITED BY
MAURICE H. NEWMARK
MARCO R. NEWMARK

Every generation enjoys the use of a vast hoard bequeathed to it by antiquity, and transmits that hoard, augmented by fresh acquisitions, to future ages. In these pursuits, therefore, the first speculators lie under great disadvantages, and, even when they fail, are entitled to praise.—Macaulay.

WITH 150 ILLUSTRATIONS

NEW YORK
The Knickerbocker Press
1916

Copyright, 1916
by
M. H. and M. R. NEWMARK

To
THE MEMORY OF
MY WIFE

In Memoriam

At the hour of high twelve on April the fourth, 1916, the sun shone into a room where lay the temporal abode, for eighty-one years and more, of the spirit of Harris Newmark. On his face still lingered that look of peace which betokens a life worthily used and gently relinquished.

Many were the duties allotted him in his pilgrimage; splendidly did he accomplish them! Providence permitted him the completion of his final task—a labor of love—but denied him the privilege of seeing it given to the community of his adoption.

To him and to her, by whose side he sleeps, may it be both monument and epitaph.

Thy will be done!

M. H. N.
M. R. N.

INTRODUCTION

Several times during his latter years my friend, Charles Dwight Willard, urged me to write out my recollections of the five or six decades I had already passed in Los Angeles, expressing his regret that many pioneers had carried from this world so much that might have been of interest to both the Angeleño of the present and the future historian of Southern California; but as I had always led an active life of business or travel, and had neither fitted myself for any sort of literary undertaking nor attempted one, I gave scant attention to the proposal. Mr. Willard's persistency, however, together with the prospect of coöperation offered me by my sons, finally overcame my reluctance and I determined to commence the work.

Accordingly in June, 1913, at my Santa Monica home, I began to devote a few hours each day to a more or less fragmentary enumeration of the incidents of my boyhood; of my voyage over the great wastes of sea and land between my ancestral and adopted homes; of the pueblo and its surroundings that I found on this Western shore; of its people and their customs; and, finally, of the men and women who, from then until now, have contributed to the greatness of the Southland, and of the things they have done or said to entitle their names to be recorded. This task I finished in the early fall. During its progress I entered more and more into the distant Past, until Memory conjured before me many long-forgotten faces and happenings. In the end, I found that I had jotted down a mass of notes much greater than I had expected.

Thereupon the Editors began their duties, which were to arrange the materials at hand, to supply names and dates that had escaped me, and to interview many who had been principals in events and, accordingly, were presumed to know the details; and much progress was made, to the enlarging and enrichment of the book. But it was not long before they found that the work involved an amount of investigation which their limited time would not permit; and that if carried out on even the modest plan originally contemplated, some additional assistance would be required.

Fortunately, just then they met Perry Worden, a post-graduate of Columbia and a Doctor of Philosophy of the University of Halle, Germany; a scholar and an author of attainments. His aid, as investigator and adviser, has been indispensable to the completion of the work in its present form. Dr. Worden spent many months searching the newspapers, magazines and books—some of whose titles find special mention in the text—which deal with Southern California and its past; and he also interviewed many pioneers, to each of whom I owe acknowledgment for ready and friendly coöperation. In short, no pains was spared to confirm and amplify all the facts and narratives.

Whether to arrange the matter chronologically or not, was a problem impossible of solution to the complete satisfaction of the Editors; this, as well as other methods, having its advantages and disadvantages. After mature consideration, the chronological plan was adopted, and the events of each year have been recorded more or less in the order of their happening. Whatever confusion, if any, may arise through this treatment of local history as a chronicle for ready reference will be easily overcome, it is believed, through the dating of the chapters and the provision of a comprehensive index; while the brief chapter-heading, generally a reference to some marked occurrence in that period, will further assist the reader to get his bearings. Preference has been given to the first thirty years of my residence in Los Angeles, both on account of my affectionate remembrance of that time and because of the peculiarity of memory in advanced life which enables us to recall remote events when more recent ones are forgotten; and inasmuch as so little has been handed down from the days of the adobe, this partiality will probably find favor.

In collecting this mass of data, many discrepancies were met with, calling for the acceptance or rejection of much long current here as fact; and in all such cases I selected the version most closely corresponding with my own recollection, or that seemed to me, in the light of other facts, to be correct. For this reason, no less than because in my narrative of hitherto unrecorded events and personalities it would be miraculous if errors have not found their way into the story, I shall be grateful if those who discover inaccuracies will report them to me. In these sixty years, also, I have met many men and women worthy of recollection, and it is certain that there are some whose names I have not mentioned; if so, I wish to disclaim any intentional neglect. Indeed, precisely as I have introduced the names of a number for whom I have had no personal liking, but whose services to the community I remember with respect, so there are doubtless others whose activities, past or present, it would afford me keen pleasure to note, but whom unhappily I have overlooked.

With this brief introduction, I give the manuscript to the printer, not with the ambitious hope of enriching literature in any respect, but not without confidence that I have provided some new material for the local historian—perhaps of the future—and that there may be a goodly number of people sufficiently interested to read and enjoy the story, yet indulgent enough to overlook the many faults in its narration.

H. N.

Los Angeles, December 31, 1915.

FOREWORD

The Historian no longer writes History by warming over the pancakes of his predecessors. He must surely know what they have done, and how—and whereby they succeeded and wherein they failed. But his own labor is to find the sidelights they did not have. Macaulay saves him from doing again all the research that Macaulay had to do; but if he could find a twin Boswell or a second Pepys he would rather have either than a dozen new Macaulays. Since history is becoming really a Science, and is no more a closet exploration of half-digested arm-chair books, we are beginning to learn the overwhelming value of the contemporary witness. Even a justice's court will not admit Hearsay Evidence; and Science has been shamed into adopting the same sane rule. Nowadays it demands the eye-witness. We look less for the "Authorities" now, and more for the Documents. There are too many histories already, such as they are—self-satisfied and oracular, but not one conclusive. Every history is put out of date, almost daily, by the discovery of some scrap of paper or some clay tablet from under the ashes of Babylon.

Mere Humans no longer read History—except in school where they have to, or in study clubs where it is also Required. But a plain personal narrative is interesting now as it has been for five thousand years. The world's greatest book is of course compulsory; but what is the interesting part of it? Why, the stories—Adam and Eve; Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; Saul and David and Samson and Delilah; Solomon, Job, and Jesus the Christ! And if anyone thinks Moses worked-in a little too much of the Family Tree—he doesn't know what biblical archæology is doing. For it is thanks to these same "petty" details that modern Science, in its excavations and decipherings, has verified the Bible and resolved many of its riddles!

Greece had one Herodotus. America had four, antedating the year 1600. All these truly great historians built from all the "sources" they could find. But none of them quite give us the homely, vital picture of life and feeling that one untaught and untamed soldier, Bernal Diaz, wrote for us three hundred years ago when he was past ninety, and toothless—and angry "because the historians didn't get it straight." The student of Spanish America has often to wish there had been a Bernal Diaz for every decade and every province from 1492 to 1800. His unstudied gossip about the conquest of Mexico is less balanced and less authoritative, but far more illuminative, than the classics of his leader, Cortez—a university man, as well as a great conqueror.

For more than a quarter of a century it was one of my duties to study and review (for the Nation and other critical journals) all sorts of local chronicles all over Spanish and English America—particularly of frontier times. In this work I have read searchingly many hundreds of volumes; and have been brought into close contact with our greatest students and editors of "History-Material," and with their standards.

I have read no other such book with so unflagging interest and content as these memoirs of Harris Newmark. My personal acquaintance with Southern California for more than thirty years may color my interest in names and incidents; but I am appraising this book (whose proofs I have been permitted to read thoroughly) from the standpoint of the student of history anywhere. Parkman and Fiske and Coues and Hodge and Thwaites would join me in the wish that every American community might have so competent a memorandum of its life and customs and growth, for its most formative half-century.

This is not a history. It is two other much more necessary things—for there is no such thing as a real History of Los Angeles, and cannot be for years. These are the frank, naïve, conversational memoirs of a man who for more than sixty years could say of Southern California almost as truly as Æneas of his own time—"All of which I saw, much of which I was." The keen observation, the dry humor, the fireside intimacy of the talk, the equity and accuracy of memory and judgment—all these make it a book which will be much more valued by future generations of readers and students. We are rather too near to it now.

But it is more than the "confessions" of one ripe and noble experience. It is, beyond any reasonable comparison, the most characteristic and accurate composite picture we have ever had of an old, brave, human, free, and distinctive life that has changed incredibly to the veneers of modern society. It is the very mirror of who and what the people were that laid the real foundations for a community which is now the wonder of the historian. The very details which are "not Big enough" for the casual reader (mentally over-tuned to newspaper headlines and moving pictures) are the vital and enduring merits of this unpretentious volume. No one else has ever set down so many of the very things that the final historian of Los Angeles will search for, a hundred years after all our oratories and "literary efforts" have been well forgotten. It is a chronicle indispensable for every public library, every reference library, the shelf of every individual concerned with the story of California.

It is the Pepys's Diary of Los Angeles and its tributary domain.

Charles F. Lummis.

PREFACE

The Editors wish to acknowledge the coöperation given, from time to time, by many whose names, already mentioned in the text, are not repeated here, and in particular to Drs. Leo Newmark and Charles F. Lummis, and Joseph P. and Edwin J. Loeb, for having read the proofs. They also wish to acknowledge Dr. Lummis's self-imposed task of preparing the generous foreword with which this volume has been favored. Gratitude is also due to various friends who have so kindly permitted the use of photographs—not a few of which, never before published, are rare and difficult to obtain. Just as in the case, however, of those who deserve mention in these memoirs, but have been overlooked, so it is feared that there are some who have supplied information and yet have been forgotten. To all such, as well as to several librarians and the following, thanks are hereby expressed: Frederick Baker, Horace Baker, Mrs. J. A. Barrows, Prospero Barrows, Mrs. R. C. Bartow, Miss Anna McConnell Beckley, Sigmund Beel, Samuel Behrendt, Arthur S. Bent, Mrs. Dora Bilderback, C. V. Boquist, Mrs. Mary Bowman, Allan Bromley, Professor Valentin Buehner, Dr. Rose Bullard, J. O. Burns, Malcolm Campbell, Gabe Carroll, J. W. Carson, Walter M. Castle, R. B. Chapman, J. H. Clancy, Herman Cohn, Miss Gertrude Darlow, Ernest Dawson and Dawson's Bookshop, Louise Deen, George E. Dimitry, Robert Dominguez, Durell Draper, Miss Marjorie Driscoll, S. D. Dunann, Gottlieb Eckbahl, Richard Egan, Professor Alfred Ewington, David P. Fleming, James G. Fowler, Miss Effie Josephine Fussell, A. P. Gibson, J. Sherman Glasscock, Gilbert H. Grosvenor, Edgar J. Hartung, Chauncey Hayes, George H. Higbee, Joseph Hopper, Adelbert Hornung, Walter Hotz, F. A. Howe, Dr. Clarence Edward Ide, Luther Ingersoll, C. W. Jones, Mrs. Eleanor Brodie Jones, Reverend Henderson Judd, D. P. Kellogg, C. G. Keyes, Willis T. Knowlton, Bradner Lee, Jr., H. J. Lelande, Isaac Levy, Miss Ella Housefield Lowe, Mrs. Celeste Manning, Mrs. Morris Meyberg, Miss Louisa Meyer, William Meying, Charles E. Mitchell, R. C. Neuendorffer, S. B. Norton, B. H. Prentice, Burr Price, Edward H. Quimby, B. B. Rich, Edward I. Robinson, W. J. Rouse, Paul P. Royere, Louis Sainsevain, Ludwig Schiff, R. D. Sepúlveda, Calvin Luther Severy, Miss Emily R. Smith, Miss Harriet Steele, George F. Strobridge, Father Eugene Sugranes, Mrs. Carrie Switzer, Walter P. Temple, W. I. Turck, Judge and Mrs. E. P. Unangst, William M. Van Dyke, August Wackerbarth, Mrs. J. T. Ward, Mrs. Olive E. Weston, Professor A. C. Wheat and Charles L. Wilde.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

SIXTY YEARS
IN
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

CHAPTER I
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
1834-1853

I was born in Loebau, West Prussia, on the 5th of July, 1834, the son of Philipp and Esther, née Meyer, Neumark; and I have reason to believe that I was not a very welcome guest. My parents, who were poor, already had five children, and the prospects of properly supporting the sixth child were not bright. As I had put in an appearance, however, and there was no alternative, I was admitted with good grace into the family circle and, being the baby, soon became the pet.

My father was born in the ancient town of Neumark; and in his youth he was apprenticed to a dealer in boots and shoes in a Russian village through which Napoleon Bonaparte marched on his way to Moscow. The conqueror sent to the shop for a pair of fur boots, and I have often heard my father tell, with modest satisfaction, how, shortly before he visited the great fair at Nijni Novgorod, he was selected to deliver them; how more than one ambitious and inquisitive friend tried to purchase the privilege of approaching the great man, and what were his impressions of the warrior. When ushered into the august presence, he found Bonaparte in one of his characteristic postures, standing erect, in a meditative mood, braced against the wall, with one hand to his forehead and the other behind his back, apparently absorbed in deep and anxious thought.

When I was but three weeks old, my father's business affairs called him away from home, and compelled the sacrifice of a more or less continued absence of eight and one half years. During this period my mother's health was very poor. Unfortunately, also, my father was too liberal and extravagantly-inclined for his narrow circumstances; and not being equipped to meet the conditions of the district in which we lived and our economical necessities, we were continually, so to speak, in financial hot water. While he was absent, my father traveled in Sweden and Denmark, remitting regularly to his family as much as his means would permit, yet earning for them but a precarious living. In 1842 he again joined his family in Loebau, making visits to Sweden and Denmark during the summer seasons from 1843 until the middle fifties and spending the long winters at home. Loebau was then, as now, of little commercial importance, and until 1849, when I was fifteen years of age and had my first introduction to the world, my life was very commonplace and marked by little worthy of special record, unless it was the commotion centering in the cobble-paved market-place, as a result of the Revolution of 1848.

With the winter of 1837 had come a change in my father's plans and enterprises. Undergoing unusually severe weather in Scandinavia, he listened to the lure of the New World and embarked for New York, arriving there in the very hot summer of 1838. The contrast in climatic conditions proved most disastrous; for, although life in the new Republic seemed both pleasing and acceptable to one of his temperament and liberal views, illness finally compelled him to bid America adieu.

Facsimile of a Part of the MS.

"Note.—The 'F' in the above announcement is the abbreviation for Fabian, one of Philipp Neumark's given names, at one time used in business, but seldom employed in social correspondence, and finally abandoned altogether."

My father was engaged in the making of ink and blacking, neither of which commodities was, at that time, in such universal demand as it is now; and my brother, Joseph Philipp, later known as J. P. Newmark, having some time before left Sweden, where he had been assisting him, for England, it was agreed, in 1849, after a family council, that I was old enough to accompany my father on his business trips, gradually become acquainted with his affairs, and thus prepare to succeed him. Accordingly, in April of that year, I left the family hearth, endeared to me, unpretentious though it was, and wandered with my father out into the world. Open confession, it is said, is good for the soul; hence I must admit that the prospect of making such a trip attracted me, notwithstanding the tender associations of home; and the sorrow of parting from my mother was rather evenly balanced, in my youthful mind, by the pleasurable anticipation of visiting new and strange lands.

Any attempt to compare methods of travel in 1849, even in the countries I then traversed, with those now in vogue, would be somewhat ridiculous. Country roads were generally poor—in fact, very bad; and vehicles were worse, so that the entire first day's run brought us only to Lessen, a small village but twelve miles from home! Here we spent the night, because of the lack of better accommodations, in blankets, on the floor of the wayside inn; and this experience was such a disappointment, failing to realize, as it did, my youthful anticipations, that I was desperately homesick and ready, at the first opportunity, to return to my sorrowing mother. The Fates, however, were against any such change in our plans; and the next morning we proceeded on our way, arriving that evening at the much larger town of Bromberg. Here, for the first time, the roads and other conditions were better, and my spirits revived.

Next day we left for Stettin, where we took passage for Ystad, a small seaport in southern Sweden. Now our real troubles began; part of the trip was arduous, and the low state of our finances permitted us nothing better than exposed deck-quarters. This was particularly trying, since the sea was rough, the weather tempestuous, and I both seasick and longing for home; moreover, on arriving at Ystad, after a voyage of twelve hours or more, the Health Officer came on board our boat and notified us that, as cholera was epidemic in Prussia, we were prohibited from landing! This filled me with mortal fear lest we should be returned to Stettin under the same miserable conditions through which we had just passed; but this state of mind had its compensating influence, for my tears at the discouraging announcement worked upon the charity of the uniformed officials, and, in a short time, to my inexpressible delight, we were permitted to land. With a natural alertness to observe anything new in my experience, I shall never forget my first impressions of the ocean. There seemed no limit to the expanse of stormy waters over which we were traveling; and this fact alone added a touch of solemnity to my first venture from home.

From Ystad we proceeded to Copenhagen, where my father had intimate friends, especially in the Lachmann, Eichel and Ruben families, to whose splendid hospitality and unvarying kindness, displayed whenever I visited their neighborhood, I wish to testify. We remained at Copenhagen a couple of months, and then proceeded to Gothenburg. It was not at this time my father's intention to burden me with serious responsibility; and, having in mind my age, he gave me but little of the work to do, while he never failed to afford me, when he could, an hour of recreation or pleasure. The trip as a whole, therefore, was rather an educational experiment.

In the fall of 1849, we returned to Loebau for the winter. From this time until 1851 we made two trips together, very similar to the one already described; and in 1851, when I was seventeen years of age, I commenced helping in real earnest. By degrees, I was taught the process of manufacturing; and when at intervals a stock had been prepared, I made short trips to dispose of it. The blacking was a paste, put up in small wooden boxes, to be applied with a brush, such a thing as waterproof blacking then not being thought of, at least by us. During the summer of 1851, business carried me to Haparanda, about the most northerly port in Sweden; and from there I took passage, stopping at Luleå, Piteå, Umeå, Hernösand, Sundsvall, Söderhamn and Gefle, all small places along the route. I transacted no business, however, on the trip up the coast because it was my intention to return by land, when I should have more time for trade; accordingly, on my way back to Stockholm, I revisited all of these points and succeeded beyond my expectations.

On my trip north, I sailed over the Gulf of Bothnia which, the reader will recollect, separates Sweden from Finland, a province most unhappily under Russia's bigoted, despotic sway; and while at Haparanda, I was seized with a desire to visit Torneå, in Finland. I was well aware that if I attempted to do so by the regular routes on land, it would be necessary to pass the Russian customhouse, where officers would be sure to examine my passport; and knowing, as the whole liberal world now more than ever knows, that a person of Jewish faith finds the merest sally beyond the Russian border beset with unreasonable obstacles, I decided to walk across the wide marsh in the northern part of the Gulf, and thus circumvent these exponents of intolerance. Besides, I was curious to learn whether, in such a benighted country, blacking and ink were used at all. I set out, therefore, through the great moist waste, making my way without much difficulty, and in due time arrived at Torneå, when I proceeded immediately to the first store in the neighborhood; but there I was destined to experience a rude, unexpected setback. An old man, evidently the proprietor, met me and straightway asked, "Are you a Jew?" and seeing, or imagining that I saw, a delay (perhaps not altogether temporary!) in a Russian jail, I withdrew from the store without ceremony, and returned to the place whence I had come. Notwithstanding this adventure, I reached Stockholm in due season, the trip back consuming about three weeks; and during part of that period I subsisted almost entirely on salmon, bear's meat, milk, and knäckebröd, the last a bread usually made of rye flour in which the bran had been preserved. All in all, I was well pleased with this maiden-trip; and as it was then September, I returned to Loebau to spend one more winter at home.

CHAPTER II
WESTWARD, HO!
1853

In April, 1853, when I had reached the age of nineteen, and was expected to take a still more important part in our business—an arrangement perfectly agreeable to me—my father and I resumed our selling and again left for Sweden. For the sake of economy, as well as to be closer to our field of operations, we had established two insignificant manufacturing plants, the one at Copenhagen, where we packed for two months, the other at Gothenburg, where we also prepared stock; and from these two points, we operated until the middle of May, 1853. Then a most important event occurred, completely changing the course of my life. In the spring, a letter was received from my brother, J. P. Newmark, who, in 1848, had gone to the United States, and had later settled in Los Angeles. He had previously, about 1846, resided in England, as I have said; had then sailed to New York and tarried for a while in the East; when, attracted by the discovery of gold, he had proceeded to San Francisco, arriving there on May 6th, 1851, being the first of our family to come to the Coast. In this letter my brother invited me to join him in California; and from the first I was inclined to make the change, though I realized that much depended on my father. He looked over my shoulder while I read the momentous message; and when I came to the suggestion that I should leave for America, I examined my father's face to anticipate, if possible, his decision. After some reflection, he said he had no doubt that my future would be benefited by such a change; and while reluctant enough to let me go, he decided that as soon as practicable I ought to start. We calculated the amount of blacking likely to be required for our trade to the season's end, and then devoted the necessary time to its manufacture. My mother, when informed of my proposed departure, was beside herself with grief and forthwith insisted on my return to Loebau; but being convinced that she intended to thwart my desire, and having in mind the very optimistic spirit of my brother's letter, I yielded to the influence of ambitious and unreflecting youth, and sorrowfully but firmly insisted on the execution of my plans. I feared that, should I return home to defend my intended course, the mutual pain of parting would still be great. I also had in mind my sisters and brothers (two of whom, Johanna, still alive, and Nathan, deceased, subsequently came to Los Angeles), and knew that each would appeal strongly to my affection and regret. This resolution to leave without a formal adieu caused me no end of distress; and my regret was the greater when, on Friday, July 1st, 1853, I stood face to face with the actual realization, among absolute strangers on the deck of the vessel that was to carry me from Gothenburg to Hull and far away from home and kindred.

With deep emotion, my father bade me good-bye on the Gothenburg pier, nor was I less affected at the parting; indeed, I have never doubted that my father made a great sacrifice when he permitted me to leave him, since I must have been of much assistance and considerable comfort, especially during his otherwise solitary travels in foreign lands. I remember distinctly remaining on deck as long as there was the least vision of him; but when distance obliterated all view of the shore, I went below to regain my composure. I soon installed my belongings in the stateroom, or cabin as it was then called, and began to accustom myself to my new and strange environment.

There was but one other passenger—a young man—and he was to have a curious part in my immediate future. As he also was bound for Hull, we entered into conversation; and following the usual tendency of people aboard ship, we soon became acquaintances. I had learned the Swedish language, and could speak it with comparative ease; so that we conversed without difficulty. He gave Gothenburg as his place of residence, although there was no one at his departure to wish him God-speed; and while this impressed me strangely at the time, I saw in it no particular reason to be suspicious. He stated also that he was bound for New York; and as it developed that we intended to take passage on the same boat, we were pleased with the prospect of having each other's company throughout the entire voyage. Soon our relations became more confidential and he finally told me that he was carrying a sum of money, and asked me to take charge of a part of it. Unsophisticated though I was, I remembered my father's warning to be careful in transactions with strangers; furthermore, the idea of burdening myself with another's responsibility seeming injudicious, I politely refused his request, although even then my suspicions were not aroused. It was peculiar, to be sure, that when we steamed away from land, the young man was in his cabin; but it was only in the light of later developments that I understood why he so concealed himself.

We had now entered the open sea, which was very rough, and I retired, remaining in my bunk for two days, or until we approached Hull, suffering from the most terrible seasickness I have ever experienced; and not until we sailed into port did I recover my sea legs at all. Having dressed, I again met my traveling companion; and we became still more intimate. On Sunday morning we reached Hull, then boasting of no such harbor facilities as the great Humber docks now in course of construction; and having transferred our baggage to the train as best we could, we proceeded almost immediately on our way to Liverpool. While now the fast English express crosses the country in about three hours, the trip then consumed the better part of the night and, being made in the darkness, afforded but little opportunity for observation.

Hardly had we arrived in Liverpool, when I was surprised in a way that I shall never forget. While attempting to find our bundles as they came from the luggage van—a precaution necessitated by the poor baggage system then in vogue, which did not provide for checking—my companion and I were taken in hand by officers of the law, told that we were under arrest, and at once conducted to an examining magistrate! As my conscience was clear, I had no misgivings on account of the detention, although I did fear that I might lose my personal effects; nor was I at ease again until they were brought in for special inspection. Our trunks were opened in the presence of the Swedish Consul who had come, in the meantime, upon the scene; and mine having been emptied, it was immediately repacked and closed. What was my amazement, however, when my fellow-traveler's trunk was found to contain a very large amount of money with which he had absconded from Gothenburg! He was at once hurried away to police headquarters; and I then learned that, after our departure, messages had been sent to both Hull and Liverpool to stop the thief, but that through confusion in the description, doubtless due to the crude and incomplete information transmitted by telegraph (then by no means as thoroughly developed as now), the Liverpool authorities had arrested the only two passengers arriving there who were known to have embarked at Gothenburg, and I, unfortunately, happened to be one of them.

At the period whereof I write, there was a semimonthly steamer service between Liverpool and New York; and as bad luck would have it, the boat in which I was to travel paddled away while I was in the midst of the predicament just described, leaving me with the unpleasant outlook of having to delay my departure for America two full weeks. The one thing that consoled me was that, not having been fastidious as to my berth, I had not engaged passage in advance, and so was not further embarrassed by the forfeiture of hard-earned and much-needed money. As it was, having stopped at a moderately priced hotel for the night, I set out the next morning to investigate the situation. Speaking no English, I was fortunate, a few days later, in meeting a Swedish emigration agent who informed me that the Star King, a three-masted sailing vessel in command of Captain Burland—both ship and captain hailing from Baltimore—was booked to leave the following morning; and finding the office of the company, I engaged one of the six first-class berths in the saloon. There was no second-cabin, or I might have traveled in that class; and of steerage passengers the Star King carried more than eight hundred crowded and seasick souls, most of whom were Irish. Even in the first-class saloon, there were few, if any, of the ordinary comforts, as I soon discovered, while of luxuries there were none; and if one had the misfortune to lose even trifling delicacies such as I had, including half a dozen bottles of assorted syrups—put up by good Mrs. Lipman, on my leaving Gothenburg, and dropped by a bungling porter—the inconvenience of the situation was intensified.

We left Liverpool—which, unlike Hull, I have since seen on one of my several visits to Europe—on the evening of the 10th of July. On my way to the cabin, I passed the dining table already arranged for supper; and as I had eaten very sparingly since my seasickness on the way to Hull, I was fully prepared for a square meal. The absence not only of smoke, but of any smell as from an engine, was also favorable to my appetite; and when the proper time arrived, I did full justice to what was set before me. Steamers then were infrequent on the Atlantic, but there were many sailing vessels; and these we often passed, so close, in fact, as to enable the respective captains to converse with each other. In the beginning, we had an ample supply of fresh meat, eggs and butter, as well as some poultry, and the first week's travel was like a delightful pleasure excursion. After that, however, the meat commenced to deteriorate, the eggs turned stale, and the butter became rancid; and as the days passed, everything grew worse, excepting a good supply of cheese which possessed, as usual, the faculty of improving, rather than spoiling, as it aged. Mountain water might justly have shown indignation if the contents of the barrels then on board had claimed relationship; while coffee and tea, of which we partook in the usual manner at the commencement of our voyage, we were compelled to drink, after a short time, without milk—the one black and the other green. Notwithstanding these annoyances, I enjoyed the experience immensely, once I had recovered from my depression at leaving Europe; for youth could laugh at such drawbacks, none of which, after all, seriously affected my naturally buoyant spirits. Not until I narrowly escaped being shot, through the Captain's careless handling of a derringer, was I roused from a monotonous, half-dreamy existence.

Philipp Neumark
From a Daguerreotype

Esther Neumark
From a Daguerreotype

J. P. Newmark
From a Daguerreotype

Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Newmark

Los Angeles in the Early Fifties
From a drawing of the Pacific Railway Expedition

Following this escape, matters progressed without special incident until we were off the coast of Newfoundland, when we had every reason to expect an early arrival in New York. Late one afternoon, while the vessel was proceeding with all sail set, a furious squall struck her, squarely amidships; and in almost as short a time as it takes to relate the catastrophe, our three masts were snapped asunder, falling over the side of the boat and all but capsizing her. The utmost excitement prevailed; and from the Captain down to the ordinary seaman, all hands were terror-stricken. The Captain believed, in fact, that there was no hope of saving his ship; and forgetful of all need of self-control and discipline, he loudly called to us, "Every man for himself!" at the same time actually tearing at and plucking his bushy hair—a performance that in no wise relieved the crisis. In less than half an hour, the fury of the elements had subsided, and we found ourselves becalmed; and the crew, assisted by the passengers, were enabled, by cutting away chains, ropes and torn sails, to steady the ship and keep her afloat. After this was accomplished, the Captain engaged a number of competent steerage passengers to help put up emergency masts, and to prepare new sails, for which we carried material. For twelve weary days we drifted with the current, apparently not advancing a mile; and during all this time the Atlantic, but recently so stormy and raging, was as smooth as a mill-pond, and the wreckage kept close to our ship. It was about the middle of August when this disaster occurred, and not until we had been busy many days rigging up again did a stiff breeze spring up, enabling us to complete our voyage.

On August 28th, 1853, exactly forty-nine days after our departure from Liverpool, we arrived at New York, reaching Sandy Hook in a fog so dense that it was impossible to see any distance ahead; and only when the fog lifted, revealing the great harbor and showing how miraculously we had escaped collision with the numerous craft all about us, was our joy and relief at reaching port complete. I cannot recollect whether we took a pilot aboard or not; but I do know that the peculiar circumstances under which we arrived having prevented a health officer from immediately visiting us, we were obliged to cast anchor and await his inspection the next morning. During the evening, the Captain bought fresh meat, vegetables, butter and eggs, offered for sale by venders in boats coming alongside; and with sharpened appetites we made short work of a fine supper, notwithstanding that various features of shore life, or some passing craft, every minute or two challenged our attention, and quite as amply we did justice, on the following morning, to our last breakfast aboard ship. As I obtained my first glimpse of New York, I thought of the hardships of my father there, a few years before, and of his compulsory return to Europe; and I wondered what might have been my position among Americans had he succeeded in New York. At last, on August 29th, 1853, under a blue and inspiriting sky and with both curiosity and hope tuned to the highest pitch, I first set foot on American soil, in the country where I was to live and labor the remainder of my life, whose flag and institutions I have more and more learned to honor and love.

Before leaving Europe, I had been provided with the New York addresses of friends from Loebau, and my first duty was to look them up. One of these, named Lindauer, kept a boarding-house on Bayard Street near the Five Points, now, I believe, in the neighborhood of Chinatown; and as I had no desire to frequent high-priced hotels, I made my temporary abode with him. I also located the house of Rich Brothers, associated with the San Francisco concern of the same name and through whom I was to obtain funds from my brother with which to continue my journey; but as I had to remain in New York three weeks until their receipt, I could do little more in furthering my departure than to engage second-cabin passage via Nicaragua by a line running in opposition to the Panamá route, and offering cheapness as its principal attraction. Having attended to that, I spent the balance of the time visiting and seeing the city, and in making my first commercial venture in the New World. In my impatience to be doing something, I foolishly relieved Samuel, a brother of Kaspare Cohn, and a nephew of mine, of a portion of his merchandise; but in a single day I decided to abandon peddling—a difficult business for which, evidently, I was never intended. After that, a painful experience with mosquitoes was my only unpleasant adventure. I did not know until later that an excited crowd of men were just then assembled in the neighborhood, in what was styled the Universal Ice-Water Convention, and that not far away a crowd of women, quite as demonstrative, excluded from the councils of men and led by no less a personality than P. T. Barnum, the showman, were clamoring for both Prohibition and Equal Suffrage!

CHAPTER III
NEW YORK—NICARAGUA—THE GOLDEN GATE
1853

On September 20th, during some excitement due to the fear lest passengers from New Orleans afflicted with yellow-fever were being smuggled into the city despite the vigilance of the health authorities, I left New York for Nicaragua, then popularly spoken of as the Isthmus, sailing on the steamer Illinois as one of some eleven or twelve hundred travelers recently arrived from Europe who were hurrying to California on that ship and the Star of the West. The occasion afforded my numerous acquaintances a magnificent opportunity to give me all kinds of advice, in the sifting of which the bad was discarded, while some attention was paid to the good. One of the important matters mentioned was the danger from drinking such water as was generally found in the tropics unless it were first mixed with brandy; and this led me, before departing, to buy a gallon demijohn—a bulging bottle destined to figure in a ludicrous episode on my trip from sea to sea. I can recall little of the voyage to the eastern coast of Nicaragua. We kept well out at sea until we reached the Bahama Islands, when we passed near Mariguana, felt our way through the Windward Passage, and steered east of the Island of Jamaica; but I recollect that it became warmer and warmer as we proceeded farther south to about opposite Mosquito Gulf, where we shifted our position in relation to the sun, and that we consumed nine days in covering the two thousand miles or more between New York and San Juan del Norte, or Grey Town.

From San Juan del Norte—in normal times, a hamlet of four or five hundred people clustered near one narrow, dirty street—we proceeded up the San Juan River, nine hundred passengers huddled together on three flat-bottomed boats, until, after three or four days, our progress was interfered with, at Castillo Rapids, by a fall in the stream. There we had to disembark and climb the rough grade, while our baggage was carried up on a tramway; after which we continued our journey on larger boats, though still miserably packed together, until we had almost reached the mouth of Lake Nicaragua, when the water became so shallow that we had to trust ourselves to the uncertain bongos, or easily-overturned native canoes, or get out again and walk. It would be impossible to describe the hardships experienced on these crowded little steamboats, which were by no means one quarter as large as the Hermosa, at present plying between Los Angeles harbor and Catalina. The only drinking water that we could get came from the river, and it was then that my brandy served its purpose: with the addition of the liquor, I made the drink both palatable and safe. Men, women and children, we were parched and packed like so many herring, and at night there was not only practically no space between passengers sleeping on deck, but the extremities of one were sure to interfere with the body of another. The heat was indeed intense; the mosquitoes seemed omnivorous; to add to which, the native officers in charge of our expedition pestered us with their mercenary proceedings. For a small cup of black coffee, a charge of fifty cents was made, which leaves the impression that food was scarce, else no one would have consented to pay so much for so little. This part of the trip was replete with misery to many, but fortunately for me, although the transportation company provided absolutely no conveniences, the hardships could not interfere with my enjoyment of the delightful and even sublime scenery surrounding us on all sides in this tropical country. As the river had no great width, we were at close range to the changing panorama on both banks; while the neighboring land was covered with gorgeous jungles and vegetation. Here I first saw orange, lemon and cocoanut trees. Monkeys of many kinds and sizes were to be seen; and birds of variegated colors were plentiful, almost innumerable varieties of parrots being visible. All these things were novel to me; and notwithstanding the great discomforts under which we traveled, I repeat that I enjoyed myself.

A walk of a mile or two along the river bank, affording beneficial exercise, brought us to Port San Carlos, from which point a larger boat crossed the lake to Virgin Bay, where we took mules to convey us to San Juan del Sur. This journey was as full of hardship as it was of congeniality, and proved as interesting as it was amusing. Imagine, if you please, nine hundred men, women and children from northern climes, long accustomed to the ways of civilization, suddenly precipitated, under an intensely hot tropical sun, into a small, Central American landing, consisting of a few huts and some cheap, improvised tents (used for saloons and restaurants), every one in search of a mule or a horse, the only modes of transportation. The confusion necessarily following the preparation for this part of the trip can hardly be imagined: the steamship company furnished the army of animals, and the nervous tourists furnished the jumble! Each one of the nine hundred travelers feared that there would not be enough animals for all, and the anxiety to secure a beast caused a stampede.

In the scramble, I managed to get hold of a fine mule, and presently we were all mounted and ready to start. This conglomeration of humanity presented, indeed, a ludicrous sight; and I really believe that I must have been the most grotesque figure of them all. I have mentioned the demijohn of brandy, which a friend advised me to buy; but I have not mentioned another friend who told me that I should be in danger of sunstroke in this climate, and who induced me to carry an umbrella to protect myself from the fierce rays of the enervating sun. Picture me, then, none too short and very lank, astride a mule, a big demijohn in one hand, and a spreading, green umbrella in the other, riding through this southern village, and practically incapable of contributing anything to the course of the mule. Had the animal been left to his own resources, he might have followed the caravan; but in my ignorance, I attempted to indicate to him which direction he should take. My method was evidently not in accordance with the tradition of guiding in just that part of the world; and to make a long story short, the mule, with his three-fold burden, deftly walked into a restaurant, in the most innocent manner and to the very great amusement of the diners, but to the terrible embarrassment and consternation of the rider. After some difficulty (for the restaurant was hardly intended for such maneuvers as were required), we were led out of the tent. This experience showed me the necessity of abandoning either the umbrella or the brandy; and learning that lemonade could be had at points along the route, I bade good-bye to the demijohn and its exhilarating contents. From this time on, although I still displayed inexpertness in control, his muleship and I gradually learned to understand each other, and matters progressed very well, notwithstanding the intense heat, and the fatigue natural to riding so long in such an unaccustomed manner. The lemonade, though warm and, therefore, dear at ten cents a glass, helped to quench my thirst; and as the scenery was wonderful, I derived all the benefit and pleasure possible from the short journey.

All in all, we traversed about twelve miles on mule or horseback, and finally arrived, about four o'clock in the afternoon of the day we had started, at San Juan del Sur, thus putting behind us the most disagreeable part of this uncomfortable trip. Here it may be interesting to add that on our way across the Isthmus, we met a crowd of disappointed travelers returning from the Golden Gate, on their way toward New York. They were a discouraged lot and loudly declared that California was nothing short of a fiasco; but, fortunately, there prevailed that weakness of human nature which impels every man to earn his own experience, else, following the advice of these discomfited people, some of us might have retraced our steps and thus completely altered our destinies. Not until the publication, years later, of the Personal Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, did I learn, with peculiar interest, that the then rising soldier, returning to California with his young wife, infant child and nurse, had actually embarked from New York on the same day that I had, arriving in San Francisco the same day that I arrived, and that therefore the Shermans, whose experience with the mules was none the less trying and ridiculous than my own, must have been members of the same party with me in crossing the mosquito-infested Isthmus.

There was no appreciable variation in temperature while I was in Nicaragua, and at San Juan del Sur (whose older portion, much like San Juan del Norte, was a village of the Spanish-American type with one main street, up and down which, killing time, I wandered) the heat was just as oppressive as it had been before. People often bunked in the open, a hotel-keeper named Green renting hammocks, at one dollar each, when all his beds had been taken. One of these hammocks I engaged; but being unaccustomed to such an aërial lodging, I was most unceremoniously spilled out, during a deep sleep in the night, falling only a few feet, but seeming, to my stirred-up imagination, to be sliding down through limitless space. Here I may mention that this Nicaragua Route was the boom creation of a competitive service generally understood to have been initiated by those who intended, at the first opportunity, to sell out; and that since everybody expected to pack and move on at short notice, San Juan del Sur, suddenly enlarged by the coming and going of adventurers, was for the moment in part a community of tents, presenting a most unstable appearance. A picturesque little creek flowed by the town and into the Pacific; and there a fellow-traveler, L. Harris, and I decided to refresh ourselves. This was no sooner agreed upon than done; but a passer-by having excitedly informed us that the creek was infested with alligators, we were not many seconds in following his advice to scramble out, thereby escaping perhaps a fate similar to that which overtook, only a few years later, a near relative of Mrs. Henry Hancock.

At sundown, on the day after we arrived at San Juan del Sur, the Pacific terminal, we were carried by natives through the surf to small boats, and so transferred to the steamer Cortez; and then we started, amidst great rejoicing, on the last lap of our journey. We steamed away in a northerly direction, upon a calm sea and under the most favorable circumstances, albeit the intense heat was most unpleasant. In the course of about a week the temperature fell, for we were steadily approaching a less tropical zone. Finally, on the 16th of October, 1853, we entered the Golden Gate.

Notwithstanding the lapse of many years, this first visit to San Francisco has never been forgotten. The beauty of the harbor, the surrounding elevations, the magnificence of the day, and the joy of being at my journey's end, left an impression of delight which is still fresh and agreeable in my memory. All San Francisco, so to speak, was drawn to the wharf, and enthusiasm ran wild. Jacob Rich, partner of my brother, was there to meet me and, without ceremony, escorted me to his home; and under his hospitable roof I remained until the morning when I was to depart for the still sunnier South.

San Francisco, in 1853, was much like a frontier town, devoid of either style or other evidences of permanent progress; yet it was wide-awake and lively in the extreme. What little had been built, bad and good, after the first rush of gold-seekers, had been destroyed in the five or six fires that swept the city just before I came, so that the best buildings I saw were of hasty and, for the most part, of frame construction. Tents also, of all sizes, shapes and colors, abounded. I was amazed, I remember, at the lack of civilization as I understood it, at the comparative absence of women, and at the spectacle of people riding around the streets on horseback like mad. All sorts of excitement seemed to fill the air; everywhere there was a noticeable lack of repose; and nothing perhaps better fits the scene I would describe than some lines from a popular song of that time entitled, San Francisco in 1853:

City full of people,

In a business flurry;

Everybody's motto,

Hurry! hurry! hurry!

Every nook and corner

Full to overflowing:

Like a locomotive,

Everybody going!

One thing in particular struck me, and that was the unsettled state of the surface on which the new town was being built. I recall for example, the great quantity of sand that was continually being blown into the streets from sand-dunes uninterruptedly forming in the endless vacant lots, and how people, after a hard wind at night, would find small sand-heaps in front of their stores and residences; so that, in the absence of any municipal effort to keep the thoroughfares in order, the owners were repeatedly engaged in sweeping away the accumulation of sand, lest they might be overwhelmed. The streets were ungraded, although some were covered with planks for pavement, and presented altogether such an aspect of uncertainty that one might well believe General Sherman's testimony that, in winter time, he had seen mules fall, unable to rise, and had even witnessed one drown in a pool of mud! Sidewalks, properly speaking, there were none. Planks and boxes—some filled with produce not yet unpacked—were strung along in irregular lines, requiring the poise of an acrobat to walk upon, especially at night. As I waded through the sand-heaps or fell over the obstructions designed as pavements, my thoughts reverted, very naturally, to my brother who had preceded me to San Francisco two years before; but it was not until some years later that I learned that my distinguished fellow-countryman, Heinrich Schliemann, destined to wander farther to Greece and Asia Minor, and there to search for ancient Troy, had not only knocked about the sand-lots in the same manner in which I was doing, but, stirred by the discovery of gold and the admission of California to the Union, had even taken on American citizenship. Schliemann visited California in 1850 and became naturalized; nor did he ever, I believe, repudiate the act which makes the greatest explorer of ancient Greece a burgher of the United States!

During my short stay in San Francisco, before leaving for Los Angeles, I made the usual rounds under the guidance of Jacob Rich. Having just arrived from the tropics, I was not provided with an overcoat; and since the air was chilly at night, my host, who wore a talma or large cape, lent me a shawl, shawls then being more used than they are now. Rich took me to a concert that was held in a one-story wooden shack, whereat I was much amazed; and afterward we visited a number of places of louder revelry. Just as I found it to be a few days later in Los Angeles, so San Francisco was filled with saloons and gambling-houses; and these institutions were in such contrast to the features of European life to which I had been accustomed, that they made a strong impression upon me. There were no restrictions of any sort, not even including a legal limit to their number, and people engaged in these enterprises because, in all probability, they were the most profitable. Such resorts attracted criminals, or developed in certain persons latent propensities to wrong-doing, and perhaps it is no wonder that Walker, but the summer previous, should have selected San Francisco as headquarters for his filibustering expedition to Lower California. By far the most talked-of man of that day was Harry Meiggs—popularly known as "Honest Harry"—who was engaged in various enterprises, and was a good patron of civic and church endeavor. He was evidently the advance guard of the boomer organization, and built the Long Wharf at North Beach, on a spot now at Commercial and Montgomery streets, where later the Australian convict, trying to steal a safe, was captured by the First Vigilance Committee; and so much was Meiggs the envy of the less pyrotechnical though more substantial people, that I repeatedly had my attention called, during my brief stay in San Francisco, to what was looked upon as his prodigious prosperity. But Meiggs, useful as he was to the society of his day, finally ended his career by forging a lot of city scrip (a great deal of which he sold to W. T. Sherman and his banking associates), and by absconding to Peru, where he became prominent as a banker and a developer of mines.

Situated at the Plaza—where, but three years before, on the admission of California as a State, the meeting of gold-seeking pioneers and lassoing natives had been symbolized with streaming banners, and the thirty-one stars were nailed to a rude pole—was the El Dorado, the most luxurious gambling-place and saloon in the West, despite the existence near by of the Bella Union, the Parker House and the Empire. Music, particularly native Spanish or Mexican airs, played its part there, as well as other attractions; and much of the life of the throbbing town centered in that locality. It is my impression that the water front was then Sansome Street; and if this be correct, it will afford some idea of the large territory in San Francisco that is made ground.

As there was then no stage line between San Francisco and the South, I was compelled to continue my journey by sea; and on the morning of October 18th, I boarded the steamer Goliah—whose Captain was Salisbury Haley, formerly a surveyor from Santa Bárbara—bound for Los Angeles, and advertised to stop at Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Bárbara and one or two other landings formerly of importance but now more or less forgotten. There were no wharves at any of those places; passengers and freight were taken ashore in small boats; and when they approached shallow water, everything was carried to dry land by the sailors. This performance gave rise, at times, to most annoying situations; boats would capsize and empty their passengers into the water, creating a merriment enjoyed more by those who were secure than by the victims themselves. On October 21st we arrived a mile or so off San Pedro, and were disembarked in the manner above described, having luckily suffered no such mishap as that which befell passengers on the steamship Winfield Scott who, journeying from Panamá but a month or so later, at midnight struck one of the Anacapa Islands, now belonging to Ventura County, running dead on to the rocks. The vessel in time was smashed to pieces, and the passengers, several hundred in number, were forced to camp on the island for a week or more.

Almost from the time of the first visit of a steamer to San Pedro, the Gold Hunter (a side-wheeler which made the voyage from San Francisco to Mazatlán in 1849), and certainly from the day in January of that same year when Temple & Alexander put on their four-wheeled vehicle, costing one thousand dollars and the second in the county, there was competition in transporting passengers to Los Angeles. Phineas Banning, Augustus W. Timms, J. J. Tomlinson, John Goller, David W. Alexander, José Rúbio and B. A. Townsend were among the most enterprising commission men; and their keen rivalry brought about two landings—one controlled by Banning, who had come to Los Angeles in 1851, and the other by Timms, after whom one of the terminals was named. Before I left San Francisco, Rich provided me with a letter of introduction to Banning—who was then known, if I remember aright, as Captain, though later he was called successively Major and General—at the same time stating that this gentleman was a forwarding merchant. Now, in European cities where I had heretofore lived, commission and forwarding merchants were a dignified and, to my way of thinking, an aristocratic class, which centuries of business experience had brought to a genteel perfection; and they would have found themselves entirely out of their element had their operations demanded their sudden translation, in the fifties, to the west coast of America. At any rate, upon arriving at San Pedro I had expected to find a man dressed either in a uniform or a Prince Albert, with a high hat and other appropriate appurtenances, and it is impossible to describe my astonishment when Banning was pointed out to me; for I knew absolutely nothing of the rough methods in vogue on the Pacific Coast. There stood before me a very large, powerful man, coatless and vestless, without necktie or collar, and wearing pantaloons at least six inches too short, a pair of brogans and socks with large holes; while bright-colored suspenders added to the picturesque effect of his costume. It is not my desire to ridicule a gentleman who, during his lifetime, was to be a good, constant friend of mine, but rather to give my readers some idea of life in the West, as well as to present my first impressions of Southern California. The fact of the matter is that Banning, in his own way, was even then such a man of affairs that he had bought, but a few months before, some fifteen wagons and nearly five times as many mules, and had paid almost thirty thousand dollars for them. I at once delivered the letter in which Rich had stated that I had but a smattering of English and that it would be a favor to him if Banning would help me safely on my way to Los Angeles; and Banning, having digested the contents of the communication, looked me over from head to foot, shook hands and, in a stentorian voice—loud enough, I thought, to be heard beyond the hills—good-naturedly called out, "Wie geht's?" After which, leading the way, and shaking hands again, he provided me with a good place on the stage.

Not a minute was lost between the arrival of passengers and the departure of coaches for Los Angeles in the early fifties. The competition referred to developed a racing tendency that was the talk of the pueblo. The company that made the trip in the shortest time usually obtained, through lively betting, the best of advertising and the largest patronage; so that, from the moment of leaving San Pedro until the final arrival in Los Angeles two and a half hours later, we tore along at breakneck speed, over roads slowly traveled, but a few years before, by Stockton's cannon. These roads never having been cared for, and still less inspected, were abominably bad; and I have often wondered that during such contests there were not more accidents. The stages were of the common Western variety, and four to six broncos were always a feature of the equipment. No particular attention had been given to the harness, and everything was more or less primitive. The stage was provided with four rows of seats and each row, as a rule, was occupied by four passengers, the front row including the oft-bibulous driver; and the fare was five dollars.

Soon after leaving San Pedro, we passed thousands of ground squirrels, and never having seen anything of the kind before, I took them for ordinary rats. This was not an attractive discovery; and when later we drove by a number of ranch houses and I saw beef cut into strings and hung up over fences to dry, it looked as though I had landed on another planet. I soon learned that dried beef or, as the natives here called it, carne seca (more generally known, perhaps, at least among frontiersmen, as "jerked" beef or jerky) was an important article of food in Southern California; but from the reminiscences of various pioneers I have known, it evidently astonished others as much as it did me.

Having reached the Half-Way House, we changed horses; then we continued and approached Los Angeles by San Pedro Street, which was a narrow lane, possibly not more than ten feet wide, with growing vineyards bordered by willow trees on each side of the road. It was on a Sunday and in the midst of the grape season that I first beheld the City of the Angels; and to these facts in particular I owe another odd and unfavorable first impression of the neighborhood. Much of the work connected with the grape industry was done by Indians and native Mexicans, or Californians, as they were called, and every Saturday evening they received their pay. During Saturday night and all day Sunday, they drank themselves into hilarity and intoxication, and this dissipation lasted until Sunday night. Then they slept off their sprees and were ready to work Monday morning. During each period of excitement, from one to three or four of these revelers were murdered. Never having seen Indians before, I supposed them to represent the citizenship of Los Angeles—an amusing error for which I might be pardoned when one reflects that nine out of forty-four of the founders of Los Angeles were Indians, and that, according to an official census made the year before, Los Angeles County in 1852 had about thirty-seven hundred domesticated Indians among a population of a little over four thousand whites; and this mistake as to the typical burgher, together with my previous experiences, added to my amazement.

At last, with shouts and yells from the competing drivers, almost as deafening as the horn-blowing of a somewhat later date, and hailed apparently by every inhabitant and dog along the route, we arrived at the only real hotel in town, the Bella Union, where stages stopped and every city function took place. This hotel was a one-story, adobe house enlarged in 1858 to two stories, and located on Main Street above Commercial; and Dr. Obed Macy, who had bought it the previous spring from Winston & Hodges, was the proprietor.

Bella Union as it Appeared in 1858
From a lithograph

John Goller's Blacksmith Shop
From a lithograph of 1858

My friend, Sam Meyer (now deceased, but for fifty years or more treasurer of Forty-two, the oldest Masonic lodge in Los Angeles), who had come here a few months in advance of me, awaited the arrival of the stage and at once recognized me by my costume, which was anything but in harmony with Southern California fashions of that time. My brother, J. P. Newmark, not having seen me for several years, thought that our meeting ought to be private, and so requested Sam to show me to his store. I was immediately taken to my brother's place of business where he received me with great affection; and there and then we renewed that sympathetic association which continued many years, until his death in 1895.

CHAPTER IV
FIRST ADVENTURES IN LOS ANGELES
1853

Once fairly well settled here, I began to clerk for my brother, who in 1852 had bought out a merchant named Howard. For this service I received my lodging, the cost of my board, and thirty dollars each month. The charges for board at the Bella Union—then enjoying a certain prestige, through having been the official residence of Pio Pico when Stockton took the city—were too heavy, and arrangements were made with a Frenchman named John La Rue, who had a restaurant on the east side of Los Angeles Street, about two hundred feet south of Bell's Row. I paid him nine dollars a week for three more or less hearty meals a day, not including eggs, unless I provided them; in this case he agreed to prepare them for me. Eggs were by no means scarce; but steaks and mutton and pork chops were the popular choice, and potatoes and vegetables a customary accompaniment.

This La Rue, or Leroux, as he was sometimes called, was an interesting personality with an interesting history. Born in France, he sailed for the United States about the time of the discovery of gold in California, and made his way to San Francisco and the mines, where luck encouraged him to venture farther and migrate to Mazatlán, Mexico. While prospecting there, however, he was twice set upon and robbed; and barely escaping with his life, he once more turned northward, this time stopping at San Pedro and Los Angeles. Here, meeting Miss Bridget Johnson, a native of Ireland, who had just come from New York by way of San Diego, La Rue married her, notwithstanding their inability to speak each other's language, and then opened a restaurant, which he continued to conduct until 1858 when he died, as the result of exposure at a fire on Main Street. Although La Rue was in no sense an eminent citizen, it is certain that he was esteemed and mourned. Prior to his death, he had bought thirty or thirty-five acres of land, on which he planted a vineyard and an orange-orchard; and these his wife inherited. In 1862, Madame La Rue married John Wilson, also a native of Ireland, who had come to Los Angeles during the year that the restaurateur died. He was a blacksmith and worked for John Goller, continuing in business for over twenty years, and adding greatly, by industry and wise management, to the dowry brought him by the thrifty widow.

I distinctly recall La Rue's restaurant, and quite as clearly do I remember one or two humorous experiences there. Nothing in Los Angeles, perhaps, has ever been cruder than this popular eating-place. The room, which faced the street, had a mud-floor and led to the kitchen through a narrow opening. Half a dozen cheap wooden tables, each provided with two chairs, stood against the walls. The tablecloths were generally dirty, and the knives and forks, as well as the furniture, were of the homeliest kind. The food made up in portions what it lacked in quality, and the diner rarely had occasion to leave the place hungry. What went most against my grain was the slovenliness of the proprietor himself. Flies were very thick in the summer months; and one day I found a big fellow splurging in my bowl of soup. This did not, however, faze John La Rue. Seeing the struggling insect, he calmly dipped his coffee-colored fingers into the hot liquid and, quite as serenely, drew out the fly; and although one could not then be as fastidious as nowadays, I nevertheless found it impossible to eat the soup.

On another occasion, however, mine host's equanimity was disturbed. I had given him two eggs one morning, to prepare for me, when Councilman A. Jacobi, a merchant and also a customer of La Rue's, came in for breakfast, bringing one more egg than mine. Presently my meal, unusually generous, was served, and without loss of time I disposed of it and was about to leave; when just then Jacobi discovered that the small portion set before him could not possibly contain the three eggs he had supplied. Now, Jacobi was not only possessed of a considerable appetite, but had as well a definite unwillingness to accept less than his due, while La Rue, on the other hand, was very easily aroused to a high pitch of Gallic excitement; so that in less time than is required to relate the story, the two men were embroiled in a genuine Franco-Prussian dispute, all on account of poor La Rue's unintentional interchange of the two breakfasts. Soon after this encounter, Jacobi, who was an amateur violinist of no mean order, and had fiddled himself into the affections of his neighbors, left for Berlin with a snug fortune, and there after some years he died.

Having arranged for my meals, my brother's next provision was for a sleeping-place. A small, unventilated room adjoining the store was selected; and there I rested on an ordinary cot furnished with a mattress, a pillow, and a pair of frazadas, or blankets. According to custom, whatever of these covers I required were taken each evening from stock, and the next morning they were returned to the shelves. Stores as well as houses were then almost without stoves or fireplaces; and as it grew colder, I found that the blankets gave little or no warmth. Indeed they were nothing more or less, notwithstanding their slight mixture of wool, than ordinary horse-blankets, on which account in winter I had to use five or six of them to enjoy any comfort whatever; and since I experienced difficulty in keeping them on the cot, I resorted at last to the device of tacking them down on one side.

In 1853, free-and-easy customs were in vogue in Los Angeles, permitting people in the ordinary affairs of life to do practically as they pleased. There were few if any restrictions; and if circumscribing City ordinances existed—except, perhaps, those of 1850 which, while licensing gaming places, forbade the playing of cards on the street—I do not remember what they were. As was the case in San Francisco, neither saloons nor gambling places were limited by law, and there were no regulations for their management. As many persons as could make a living in this manner kept such establishments, which were conspicuous amid the sights of the town. Indeed, chief among the surprises greeting me during my first few weeks upon the Coast, the many and flourishing gambling dens caused me the greatest astonishment.

Through the most popular of these districts, a newly-found friend escorted me on the evening of my arrival in Los Angeles. The quarter was known by the euphonious title of Calle de los Negros—Nigger Alley; and this alley was a thoroughfare not over forty feet wide which led from Aliso Street to the Plaza, an extent of just one unbroken block. At this period, there was a long adobe facing Los Angeles Street, having a covered platform or kind of veranda, about four feet from the ground, running its entire length. The building commenced at what was later Sanchez Street, and reached, in an easterly direction, to within forty feet, more or less, of the east side of Nigger Alley, then continuing north to the Plaza. This formed the westerly boundary, while a line of adobes on the other side of the street formed the easterly line. The structure first described, and which was demolished many years ago, later became the scene of the beginning of an awful massacre to which I shall refer in due season.

Each side of the alley was occupied by saloons and gambling houses. Men and women alike were to be found there, and both sexes looked after the gaming tables, dealing monte and faro, and managing other contrivances that parted the good-natured and easy-going people from their money. Those in charge of the banks were always provided with pistols, and were ready, if an emergency arose, to settle disputes on the spot; and only rarely did a case come up for adjustment before the properly-constituted authorities, such as that in 1848, which remained a subject of discussion for some time, when counterfeiters, charged with playing at monte with false money, were tried before a special court made up of Abel Stearns and Stephen C. Foster. Time was considered a very important element during the play; and sanguinary verdicts in financial disputes were generally rendered at once.

Human life at this period was about the cheapest thing in Los Angeles, and killings were frequent. Nigger Alley was as tough a neighborhood, in fact, as could be found anywhere, and a large proportion of the twenty or thirty murders a month was committed there. About as plentiful a thing, also, as there was in the pueblo was liquor. This was served generously in these resorts, not only with respect to quantity, but as well regarding variety. In addition to the prodigality of feasting, there was no lack of music of the native sort—the harp and the guitar predominating. These scenes were picturesque and highly interesting. Nigger Alley, for a while the headquarters for gamblers, enjoyed through that circumstance a certain questionable status; but in the course of years it came to be more and more occupied by the Chinese, and given over to their opium-dens, shops and laundries. There, also, their peculiar religious rites were celebrated in just as peculiar a joss house, the hideously-painted gods not in the least becoming a deterrent factor. Juan Apablasa was among those who owned considerable property in Chinatown, and a street in that quarter perpetuates his name.

Having crossed the Plaza, we entered Sonora Town, where my friend told me that every evening there was much indulgence in drinking, smoking and gambling, and quite as much participation in dancing. Some of this life, which continued in full swing until the late seventies, I witnessed on my first evening in Los Angeles.

Returning to Main Street, formerly Calle Principal, we entered the Montgomery, one of the well-known gambling houses—a one-story adobe about a hundred feet in width, in front of which was a shaded veranda—situated nearly opposite the Stearns home, and rather aristocratic, not only in its furnishings but also in its management. This resort was managed by the fearless William C., or Billy Getman, afterward Sheriff of Los Angeles County, whom I saw killed while trying to arrest a lunatic. The Montgomery was conducted in an orderly manner, and catered to the most fastidious people of Los Angeles, supplying liquors of a correspondingly high grade; the charge for a drink there being invariably twenty-five cents. It was provided with a billiard parlor, where matches were often arranged for a stake of hundreds of dollars. Games of chance there were for every requirement, the long and the short purse being equally well accommodated. The ranch owner could bet his hundreds, while he of lowlier estate might tempt the fickle goddess according to his narrower means.

A fraternity of gamblers almost indigenous to California, and which has been celebrated and even, to an extent, glorified by such writers as Mark Twain, Bret Harte and others, was everywhere then in evidence in Los Angeles; and while it is true that their vocation was illegitimate, many of them represented nevertheless a splendid type of man: generous, honest in methods, courageous in operations and respected by everybody. It would be impossible, perhaps, to describe this class as I knew them and at the same time to satisfy the modern ideal; but pioneers will confirm my tribute to these early gamesters (among whom they may recall Brand Phillips) and their redeeming characteristics.

As I have said, my brother, J. P. Newmark, was in partnership with Jacob Rich, the gentleman who met me when I reached San Francisco; their business being dry-goods and clothing. They were established in J. N. Padilla's adobe on the southeast corner of Main and Requena streets, a site so far "out of town" that success was possible only because of their catering to a wholesale clientele rather than to the retail trade; and almost opposite them, ex-Mayor John G. Nichols conducted a small grocery in a store that he built on the Main Street side of the property now occupied by Temple Block. There was an old adobe wall running north and south along the east line of the lot, out of which Nichols cut about fifteen feet, using this property to a depth of some thirty feet, thus forming a rectangular space which he enclosed. Here he carried on a modest trade which, even in addition to his other cares, scarcely demanded his whole time; so that he would frequently visit his neighbors, among whom Newmark & Rich were his nearest friends. Often have I seen him therefore, long and lank, seated in my brother's store tilted back in a chair against the wall or merchandise, a cigar, which he never lighted, in his mouth, exhorting his hearers to be patriotic and to purchase City land at a dollar an acre, thereby furnishing some of the taxes necessary to lubricate the municipal machinery. Little did any of us realize, as we listened to this man, that in the course of another generation or so there would spring into life a prosperous metropolis whose very heart would be situated near where old Mayor Nichols was vainly endeavoring to dispose of thirty-five-acre bargains at thirty-five dollars each—a feature of municipal coöperation with prospective settlers which was inaugurated August 13th, 1852, and repealed through dissatisfaction in 1854. Nichols, who, with J. S. Mallard and Lewis Granger, brought one of the first three American families to settle here permanently, and who married a sister of Mrs. Mallard, was the father of John Gregg Nichols, always claimed to be the first boy born (April 24th, 1851), of American parents, in Los Angeles. Nichols when Mayor was never neglectful of his official duties, as may be seen from his record in providing Hancock's survey, his construction of the Bath Street School, his encouragement of better irrigation facilities, his introduction of the first fruit grafts—brought, by the way, from far-off New York—and his reëlection as Mayor in 1856, 1857, and 1858. In 1869, another son, Daniel B. Nichols, of whom I shall speak, was a participant in a fatal shooting affray here.

A still earlier survey than that of Hancock was made by Lieutenant Edward O. C. Ord—later distinguished in the Union Army where, singularly enough, he was fighting with Rosecrans, in time a resident of Los Angeles—who, in an effort to bring order out of the pueblo chaos, left still greater confusion. To clear up the difficulty of adobes isolated or stranded in the middle of the streets, the Common Council in 1854 permitted owners to claim a right of way to the thoroughfares nearest their houses. This brings to mind the fact that the vara, a Spanish unit equal to about thirty-three inches, was a standard in real estate measurements even after the advent of Ord, Hancock and Hansen, who were followed by such surveyors as P. J. Virgen (recalled by Virgen Street) and his partner Hardy; and also that the reata was often used as a yardstick—its uncertain length having contributed, without doubt, to the chaotic condition confronting Ord.

Graded streets and sidewalks were unknown; hence, after heavy winter rains mud was from six inches to two feet deep, while during the summer dust piled up to about the same extent. Few City ordinances were obeyed; for notwithstanding that a regulation of the City Council called on every citizen to sweep in front of his house to a certain point on Saturday evenings, not the slightest attention was paid to it. Into the roadway was thrown all the rubbish: if a man bought a new suit of clothes, a pair of boots, a hat or a shirt, to replace a corresponding part of his apparel that had outlived its usefulness, he would think nothing, on attiring himself in the new purchase, of tossing the discarded article into the street where it would remain until some passing Indian, or other vagabond, took possession of it. So wretched indeed were the conditions, that I have seen dead animals left on the highways for days at a time, and can recall one instance of a horse dying on Alameda Street and lying there until a party of Indians cut up the carcass for food. What made these street conditions more trying was the fact that on hot days roads and sidewalks were devoid of shade, except for that furnished by a few scattered trees or an occasional projecting veranda; while at night (if I except the illumination from the few lanterns suspended in front of barrooms and stores) thoroughfares were altogether unlighted. In those nights of dark streets and still darker tragedies, people rarely went out unless equipped with candle-burning lanterns, at least until camphine was imported by my brother, after which this was brought into general use. Stores were lighted in the same manner: first with candles, then with camphine and finally with coal-oil, during which period of advancement lamps replaced the cruder contrivances.

Southern California from the first took an active part in State affairs. Edward Hunter and Charles E. Carr were the Assemblymen from this district in 1853; and the following year they were succeeded by Francis Mellus and Dr. Wilson W. Jones. Carr was a lawyer who had come in 1852; Hunter afterward succeeded Pablo de la Guerra as Marshal. Jones was the doctor who just about the time I came, while returning from a professional call at the Lugos at about sunset, nearly rode over the bleeding and still warm body of a cattle-buyer named Porter, on Alameda Street. The latter had been out to the Dominguez rancho, to purchase stock, and had taken along with him a Mexican named Manuel Vergara who introduced himself as an experienced interpreter and guide, but who was, in reality, a cutthroat with a record of one or two assassinations. Vergara observed that Porter possessed considerable money; and on their way back to Los Angeles shot the American from behind. Jones quickly gave the alarm; and Banning, Stanley and others of the volunteer mounted police pursued the murderer for eighty-five or ninety miles when, the ammunition of all parties being exhausted, Vergara turned on the one Vigilante who had caught up with him and, with an adroit thrust of his knife, cut the latter's bridle and escaped. In the end, however, some of Major Heintzelman's cavalry at Yuma (who had been informed by a fleet Indian hired to carry the news of the fugitive's flight) overtook Vergara and shot him dead. These volunteer police or Rangers, as they were called, were a company of one hundred or more men under command of Dr. A. W. Hope, and included such well-known early settlers as Nichols, J. G. Downey, S. C. Foster, Agustin Olvera, Juan Sepúlveda, Horace Bell, M. Keller, Banning, Benjamin Hayes, F. L. Guirado, David Alexander, J. L. Brent and I. S. K. Ogier.

Under the new order of things, too, following the adoption in 1849 of a State constitution, County organization in Los Angeles was effected; and by the time I declared myself for American citizenship, several elections had been held. Benjamin Hayes was District Judge in 1853; Agustin Olvera was finishing his term as County Judge; Dr. Wilson W. Jones was County Clerk and Recorder—two offices not separated for twenty years or until 1873; Lewis Granger was County Attorney; Henry Hancock was Surveyor; Francis Mellus (who succeeded Don Manuel Garfias, once the princely owner but bad manager of the San Pasqual rancho), was Treasurer; A. F. Coronel was Assessor; James R. Barton was Sheriff and also Collector of Taxes; and J. S. Mallard, whose name was given to Mallard Street, was Coroner. Russell Sackett was a Justice of the Peace here when I arrived; and after a while Mallard had a court as Justice, near my store on Commercial Street. All in all, a group of rather strong men!

The administrative officials of both the City and the County had their headquarters in the one-story adobe building at the northwest corner of Franklin Alley (later called Jail Street[1]) and Spring Street. In addition to those mentioned, there was a Justice of the Peace, a Zanjero, and a Jailer. António Franco Coronel had but recently succeeded Nichols as Mayor; A. S. Beard was Marshal and Tax Collector; Judge William G. Dryden was Clerk; C. E. Carr was Attorney; Ygnácio Coronel was Assessor; and S. Arbuckle was Treasurer.

António Franco Coronel, after whom Coronel Street is named, had just entered upon the duties of Mayor, and was busy enough with the disposal of donation lots when I first commenced to observe Los Angeles' government. He came from Mexico to California with his father, Don Ygnácio F. Coronel; and by 1850 he was the first County Assessor. He lived at what is now Alameda and Seventh streets, and had a brother, Manuel, who was City Assessor in 1858.

Major Henry Hancock, a New Hampshire lawyer and surveyor, came to Los Angeles in 1852, and at the time of my arrival had just made the second survey of the city, defining the boundaries of the thirty-five-acre City lots. I met him frequently, and by 1859 I was well acquainted with him. He then owed Newmark, Kremer & Company some money and offered, toward liquidation of the debt, one hundred and ten acres of land lying along Washington and extending as far as the present Pico Street. It also reached from Main Street to what is now Grand Avenue. Newmark, Kremer & Company did not wish the land, and so arranged with Hancock to take firewood instead. From time to time, therefore, he brought great logs into town, to be cut up; he also bought a circular saw, which he installed, with horse-power and tread-mill, in a vacant lot on Spring Street, back of Joseph Newmark's second residence. The latter was on Main Street, between First and the northern junction of Main and Spring; and between this junction and First Street, it may be interesting to note, there was in 1853 no thoroughfare from Main to Spring. As I was living there, I acted as his agent for the sale of the wood that was left after our settlement. The fact is that Hancock was always land poor, and never out of debt; and when he was particularly hard up, he parted with his possessions at whatever price they would bring. The Major (earlier known as Captain Hancock, who enjoyed his titles through his association with the militia) retained, however, the celebrated La Brea rancho—bought at a very early date from A. J. Rocha, and lying between the city and the sea—which he long thought would furnish oil, but little dreamt would also contain some of the most important prehistoric finds; and this ranch, once managed by his wife, a daughter of Colonel Augustin Haraszthy, the San Francisco pioneer, is now owned by his son, George Allan Hancock.

George Hansen, to whose far-reaching foresight we owe the Elysian Park of to-day, was another professional man who was here before I reached Los Angeles, having come to California in 1850, by way of Cape Horn and Peru. When he arrived at Los Angeles, in 1853, as he was fond of recounting, he was too poor to possess even surveying instruments; but he found a friend in John Temple, who let him have one hundred dollars at two per cent interest per month, then a very low rate. Thereupon Hansen sent to San Francisco for the outfit that enabled him to establish himself. I met Hansen for the first time in the last few weeks of 1853, when he came to my brother's store to buy a suit of clothes, his own being in rags. He had been out, very probably, on an expedition such as subjected a surveyor, particularly in the early days, to much hard work and fatigue. Hansen, a good student and fine linguist, was prominent for many years and made more land measurements hereabouts than did any one else; he had the real management, in fact, of Hancock's second survey.

Among others who were here, I might mention the Wheeler brothers. Colonel John Ozias Wheeler, at various times an office-holder, came to California from Florida, and having endured many hardships on the trip along the Mississippi, Arkansas and Gila rivers, arrived at the Chino rancho on August 12th, 1849, afterward assisting Isaac Williams in conveying a train of supplies back to the Colorado River. The next year he was joined by his brother, Horace Z. Wheeler, who came by way of the Isthmus, and later rose to be Appraiser-General of the Imperial Customs at Yokohama; and the two young men were soon conducting a general merchandise business in Los Angeles—if I recollect aright, in a one-story adobe at the northeast corner of Main and Commercial streets. Extravagant stories have been printed as to Wheeler's mercantile operations, one narrative crediting him with sales to the extent of five thousand dollars or more a day. In those times, however, no store was large enough to contain such a stock; and two successive days of heavy sales would have been impossible. In 1851 Colonel Wheeler, who had been on General Andrés Pico's staff, served as a Ranger; and in 1853 he organized the first military company in Los Angeles.

Manuel Requena, from Yucatan, was another man of influence. He lived on the east side of Los Angeles Street, north of the thoroughfare opened through his vineyard and named after him—later extended east of Los Angeles Street. As early as June, 1836, Requena, then Alcalde, made a census of this district. He was a member of the first, as well as the second, third, fifth and seventh Common Councils, and with David W. Alexander was the only member of the first body to serve out the entire term. In 1852, Requena was elected a Supervisor. Mrs. Requena was a sister of Mrs. Alexander Bell and Mrs. James, or Santiago Johnson, and an aunt of Henry and Francis Mellus and Mrs. J. H. Lander. Requena died on June 27th, 1876, aged seventy-four years.

Henry N. Alexander appeared in Los Angeles at about the same time that I did—possibly afterward—and was very active as a Ranger. He too occupied positions of trust, in business as well as public life, being both City and County Treasurer—in the latter case, preceding Maurice Kremer. It is not surprising, therefore, that he became Wells Fargo & Company's agent when much uphill work had to be done to establish their interests here. He married a daughter of Don Pedro Dominguez. Alexander moved to Arizona, after which I lost track of him.

John W. Shore, who was here in 1853, was County Clerk from 1854 to 1857, and again from 1860 to 1863. He always canvassed for votes on horseback until, one day, he fell off and broke his leg, necessitating amputation. This terminated his active campaigns; but through sympathy he was reëlected, and by a larger majority. Shore was a Democrat.

Mention of public officials leads me to speak of an interesting personality long associated with them. On the west side of Spring Street near First, where the Schumacher Building now stands, John Schumacher conducted, in a single room, as was then common, a grocery store and bar. A good-hearted, honest German of the old school, and a first-class citizen, he had come from Würtemberg to America, and then, with Stevenson's Regiment, to California, arriving in Los Angeles in 1847 or 1848. From here he went to Sutter's Creek, where he found a nugget of gold worth eight hundred dollars, for which he was offered land in San Francisco later worth millions—a tender which the Würtemberger declined; and the same year that I arrived, he returned to Los Angeles, whose activity had increased considerably since he had last seen it. In 1855, Schumacher married Fräulein Mary Uhrie, from which union six children including two sons, John and Frank G. Schumacher, were born. The eldest daughter became Mrs. Edward A. Preuss. Schumacher established his store, having bought nearly the whole block bounded by Spring and First streets and Franklin Alley for the value of his famous gold nugget; and there he remained until the early seventies, the Schumacher Block being built, as I have said, on a part of the property. Mrs. Schumacher in 1880 met with a tragic death: while at the railway station in Merced, she was jolted from the platform of a car and was instantly killed.

For something else, however, Schumacher was especially known. When he returned in 1853, he put on sale the first lager beer introduced into Los Angeles, importing the same from San Francisco, of which enterprise the genial German was proud; but Schumacher acquired even more fame for a drink that he may be said to have invented, and which was known to the early settlers as Peach and Honey. It contained a good mixture with peach brandy, and was a great favorite, especially with politicians and frequenters of the neighboring Courthouse, including well-known members of the Bar, all of whom crowded John's place, "between times," to enjoy his much-praised concoction. Whenever in fact anyone had a cold, or fancied that he was going to be so afflicted, he hastened to John for his reputedly-certain cure. Schumacher, who served as Councilman in 1855, 1856 and 1857, was proficient in languages and, as an interpreter, often gave his time and services freely in assisting his less-gifted neighbors, particularly the poor and unfortunate, to straighten out their affairs. In the fall of 1860, he had a narrow escape through the carelessness of a customer who threw a lighted match into a can of powder. Schumacher owned some acreage in what was known as the Green Meadows, a section located near what is now South Figueroa Street; and this land he held with Jacob Bell, who was assassinated, as I shall relate, by a Frenchman named Lachenais—hanged, in turn, by an exasperated mob.

Most political meetings of that period took place at the Plaza home of Don Ygnácio Del Valle, first County Recorder. From 1841, Don Ygnácio lived for some time on the San Francisco rancho granted by the King of Spain to his father and confirmed by patent in 1875. He also owned the more famous Camulos rancho on the Santa Clara River, consisting of several thousand acres north and west of Newhall, afterward selected by Helen Hunt Jackson as the setting for some of the scenes in her novel, Ramona; and these possessions made him a man of great importance. During his later life, when he had abandoned his town residence, Del Valle dwelt in genteel leisure at the rancho, dying there in 1880; and I will not miss this opportunity to attest his patrician bearing and genial qualities.

At the time of my arrival, there was but one voting precinct and the polling place was located at the old municipal and County adobe already spoken of; although later a second polls was established at the Round House. Inside the room sat the election judges and clerks; outside a window stood the jam of voters. The window-sill corresponded to the thickness of the adobe wall, and was therefore about three feet deep. This sill served as a table, upon it being placed a soap- or candle-box, into which a hole had been cut for the deposit of the votes.

There was also no register, either great or small, and anyone could vote. Each party printed its own tickets; and so could any candidate. This resulted in great confusion, since there were always many tickets in the field—as many, in fact, as there were candidates; yet the entire proceeding had become legalized by custom. The candidate of one party could thus use the ticket of the other, substituting his own name for his opponent's, and leaving all of the remainder of the ticket unchanged; in addition to which there was such a lack of uniformity in the size and color of the ballots as greatly to add to the confusion in counting.

To make matters worse, the ballot-box was not easily reached because of the crowd which was made up largely of the candidates and their friends. Challenging was the order of the day; yet, after crimination and recrimination, the votes were generally permitted to be cast. Although it is true, of course, that many votes were legitimate, yet aliens such as Mexicans, who had not even considered the question of taking out citizenship papers, were permitted to vote while Indians and half-breeds, who were not eligible to citizenship at all, were irregularly given the franchise. The story is told of an election not far from Los Angeles at which a whole tribe of Indians was voted; while on another occasion the names on a steamer's passenger-list were utilized by persons who had already voted, that very day, once or twice! Cutting off the hair, shaving one's beard or mustache, reclothing or otherwise transforming the appearance of the voter—these were some of the tricks then practiced, which the new registry law of 1866 only partially did away with.

Sonorans, who had recently arrived from Mexico, as well as the aliens I have mentioned, were easy subjects for the political manipulator. The various candidates, for example, would round-up these prospective voters like so many cattle, confine them in corrals (usually in the neighborhood of Boyle Heights), keep them in a truly magnificent state of intoxication until the eventful morning, and then put them in stages hired from either Banning or Tomlinson for the purpose; and from the time the temporary prisoners left the corral until their votes had been securely deposited, they were closely watched by guards. On reaching the voting place, the captives were unloaded from the stage like so much inanimate baggage, and turned over to friends of the candidate to whom, so to speak, for the time being they belonged. One at a time, these creatures were led to vote; and as each staggered to the ballot-box, a ticket was held up and he was made to deposit it. Once having served the purpose, he was turned loose and remained free until another election unless, as I have intimated, he and his fellows were again corralled and made to vote a second or even a third time the same day.

Nearly all influential Mexicans were Democrats, so that this party easily controlled the political situation; from which circumstance a certain brief campaign ended in a most amusing manner. It happened that Thomas H. Workman, brother of William H., once ran for County Clerk, although he was not a Democrat. Billy was naturally much interested in his brother's candidacy, and did what he could to help him. On the evening before election, he rented a corral—located near what is now Macy Street and Mission Road, on property later used by Charles F., father of Alfred Stern, and for years in partnership with L. J. Rose; and there, with the assistance of some friends, he herded together about one hundred docile though illegal voters, most of whom were Indians, kept them all night and, by supplying fire-water liberally, at length led them into the state of bewilderment necessary for such an occasion. The Democratic leaders, however, having learned of this magnificent coup, put their heads together and soon resolved to thwart Billy's plan. In company with some prominent Mexican politicians led by Tomás Sanchez, they loaded themselves into a stage and visited the corral; and once arrived there, those that could made such flowery stump speeches in the native language of the horde that, in fifteen or twenty minutes, they had stampeded the whole band! Billy entered a vigorous protest, saying that the votes were his and that it was a questionable and even a damnable trick; but all his protests were of no avail: the bunch of corralled voters had been captured in a body by the opposition, deciding the contest. These were the methods then in vogue in accordance with which it was considered a perfectly legitimate transaction to buy votes, and there was no secret made of the modus operandi by either party.

During these times of agitated politics, newspapers (such as they were) played an important part. In them were published letters written by ambitious candidates to themselves and signed, "The People," "A Disinterested Citizen," or some equally anonymous phrase. As an exception to the usual maneuver, however, the following witty announcement was once printed by an office-seeker:

George N. Whitman, not having been requested by "Many Friends," or solicited by "Many Voters," to become a candidate for the office of Township Constable, at the end of the ensuing September election, offers himself.

Here I am reminded of an anecdote at the expense of John Quincy Adams Stanley, who in 1856 ran for Sheriff against David W. Alexander, and was County Assessor in the middle seventies. Stanley was a very decent but somewhat over-trusting individual; and ignoring suggestions as to expenditures for votes, too readily believed promises of support by the voters of the county, almost every one of whom gave him a favorable pledge in the course of the campaign. When the ballots were counted, however, and Stanley learned that he had received just about fifty votes, he remarked, rather dryly: "I didn't know that there were so many damned liars in the county!"

Another interesting factor in early elections was the vote of Teháchepi, then in Los Angeles County. About thirty votes were cast there; but as communication with Los Angeles was irregular, it was sometimes necessary to wait a week or more to know what bearing the decision of Teháchepi had on the general result.

CHAPTER V
LAWYERS AND COURTS
1853

In the primitive fifties there were but comparatively few reputable lawyers in this neighborhood; nor was there, perhaps, sufficient call for their services to insure much of a living to many more. To a greater extent even than now, attorneys were called "Judge;" and at the time whereof I write, the most important among them were Jonathan R. Scott, Benjamin Hayes, J. Lancaster Brent, Myron Norton, General Ezra Drown, Benjamin S. Eaton, Cameron E. Thom, James H. Lander, Lewis Granger, Isaac Stockton, Keith Ogier, Edward J. C. Kewen and Joseph R. Gitchell. In addition to these, there was a lawyer named William G. Dryden, of whom I shall presently speak, and one Kimball H. Dimmick, who was largely devoted to criminal practice.

Scott, who had been a prominent lawyer in Missouri, stood very high, both as to physique and reputation. In addition to his great stature, he had a splendid constitution and wonderful vitality and was identified with nearly every important case. About March, 1850, he came here an overland emigrant, and was made one of the two justices of the peace who formed, with the county judge, on June 24th, the first Court of Sessions. He then entered into partnership with Benjamin Hayes, continuing in joint practice with him until April, 1852, after which he was a member successively of the law firms of Scott & Granger, Scott & Lander, and Scott, Drown & Lander. Practicing law in those days was not without its difficulties, partly because of the lack of law-books; and Scott used to tell in his own vehement style how, on one occasion, when he was defending a French sea captain against charges preferred by a rich Peruvian passenger, he was unable to make much headway because there was but one volume (Kent's Commentaries) in the whole pueblo that threw any light, so to speak, on the question; which lack of information induced Alcalde Stearns to decide against Scott's client. Although the Captain lost, he nevertheless counted out to Scott, in shining gold-pieces, the full sum of one thousand dollars as a fee. In 1859, a daughter of Scott married Alfred Beck Chapman, a graduate of West Point, who came to Los Angeles and Fort Tejón, as an officer, about 1854. Chapman later studied law with Scott, and for twenty years practiced with Andrew Glassell. In 1863, Chapman succeeded M. J. Newmark as City Attorney; and in 1868, he was elected District Attorney. If I recollect rightly, Scott died in the sixties, survived by Mrs. Scott—a sister of both Mrs. J. S. Mallard and Mrs. J. G. Nichols—and a son, J. R. Scott, admitted in 1880 to practice in the Supreme Court.

Hayes was District Judge when I came, and continued as such for ten or twelve years. His jurisdiction embraced Los Angeles, San Diego, San Luis Obispo and Santa Bárbara counties; and the latter section then included Ventura County. The Judge had regular terms in these districts and was compelled to hold court at all of the County seats. A native of Baltimore, Hayes came to Los Angeles on February 3d, 1850—followed on St. Valentine's Day, 1852, by his wife whose journey from St. Louis, via New Orleans, Havana and Panamá, consumed forty-three days on the steamers. He was at once elected the first County Attorney, and tried the famous case against the Irving party. About the same time Hayes formed his partnership with Scott. In January, 1855, and while District Judge, Hayes sentenced the murderer Brown; and in 1858 he presided at Pancho Daniel's trial. Hayes continued to practice for many years, and was known as a jurist of high standing, though on account of his love for strong drink, court on more than one occasion had to be adjourned. During his residence here, he was known as an assiduous collector of historical data. He was a brother of both Miss Louisa Hayes, the first woman public-school teacher in Los Angeles, later the wife of Dr. J. S. Griffin, and Miss Helena Hayes, who married Benjamin S. Eaton. Judge Hayes died on August 4th, 1877.

Brent, a native of the South, was also a man of attainment, arriving here in 1850 with a fairly representative, though inadequate library, and becoming in 1855 and 1856 a member of the State Assembly. He had such wonderful influence, as one of the Democratic leaders, that he could nominate at will any candidate; and being especially popular with the Mexican element, could also tell a good story or two about fees. When trouble arose in 1851 between several members of the Lugo family and the Indians, resulting finally in an attempted assassination and the narrow escape from death of Judge Hayes (who was associated with the prosecution of the case), several of the Lugos were tried for murder; and Brent, whose defense led to their acquittal, received something like twenty thousand dollars for his services. He was of a studious turn of mind and acquired most of Hugo Reid's Indian library. When the Civil War broke out, Brent went South again and became a Confederate brigadier-general. Brent Street bears his name.

Norton, a Vermonter, who had first practiced law in New York, then migrated west, and had later been a prime mover for, and a member of, the first California Constitutional Convention, and who was afterward Superior Court Judge at San Francisco, was an excellent lawyer, when sober, and a good fellow. He came to the Coast in the summer of 1848, was made First Lieutenant and Chief-of-Staff of the California Volunteers, and drifted in 1852 from Monterey to Los Angeles. He joined Bean's Volunteers, and in 1857 delivered here a flowery Fourth of July oration. Norton was the second County Judge, succeeding Agustin Olvera and living with the latter's family at the Plaza; and it was from Norton's Court of Sessions, in May, 1855, that the dark-skinned Juan Flores was sent to the State prison, although few persons suspected him to be guilty of such criminal tendencies as he later developed. Norton died in Los Angeles in 1887; and Norton Avenue recalls his life and work.

Judge Hayes' successor, Don Pablo de la Guerra, was born in the presidio of Santa Bárbara in 1819, a member of one of the most popular families of that locality. Although a Spaniard of the Spaniards, he had been educated in an Eastern college, and spoke English fluently. Four times he was elected State Senator from Santa Bárbara and San Luis Obispo, and was besides a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1849. Late in 1863, he was a candidate for District Judge when a singular opposition developed that might easily have led, in later years at least, to his defeat. A large part of the population of Santa Bárbara was related to him by blood or marriage; and it was argued that, if elected, De la Guerra in many cases would be disqualified from sitting as judge. On January 1st, 1864, however, Don Pablo took up the work as District Judge where Hayes surrendered it. Just as De la Guerra in 1854 had resigned in favor of Hunter, before completing his term as United States Marshal, so now toward the end of 1873, De la Guerra withdrew on account of ill-health from the district judgeship, and on February 5th, 1874, he died.

Drown was a lawyer who came here a few months before I did, having just passed through one of those trying ordeals which might easily prove sufficient to destroy the courage and ambition of any man. He hailed from Iowa, where he had served as Brigadier-General of Militia, and was bound up the Coast from the Isthmus on the steamer Independence when it took fire, off Lower California, and burned to the water's edge. General Drown, being a good swimmer and a plucky fellow, set his wife adrift on a hencoop and then put off for shore with his two children on his back. Having deposited them safely on the beach, he swam back to get his wife; but a brutal fellow-passenger pushed the fainting woman off when her agonized husband was within a few feet of her; she sank beneath the waves, and he saw his companion go to her doom at the moment she was about to be rescued. Though broken in spirit, Drown on landing at San Pedro came to Los Angeles with his two boys, and put his best foot forward. He established himself as a lawyer and in 1858 became District Attorney, succeeding Cameron E. Thom; and it was during his term that Pancho Daniel was lynched. In 1855, too, Drown instituted the first Los Angeles lodge of Odd Fellows. Drown was an able lawyer, eloquent and humorous, and fairly popular; but his generosity affected his material prosperity, and he died, at San Juan Capistrano, on August 17th, 1863, none too blessed with this world's goods.

Dimmick, who at one time occupied an office in the old Temple Block on Main Street, had rather an eventful career. Born in Connecticut, he learned the printer's trade; then he studied law and was soon admitted to practice in New York; and in 1846 he sailed with Colonel J. D. Stevenson, in command of Company K, landing, six months later, at the picturesquely-named Yerba Buena, on whose slopes the bustling town of San Francisco was so soon to be founded. When peace with Mexico was established, Dimmick moved to San José; after which with Foster he went to the convention whose mission was to frame a State constitution, and was later chosen Judge of the Supreme Court. In 1852, after having revisited the East and been defrauded of practically all he possessed by those to whom he had entrusted his California affairs, Dimmick came to Los Angeles and served as Justice of the Peace, Notary Public and County Judge. He was also elected District Attorney, and at another time was appointed by the Court to defend the outlaw, Pancho Daniel. Dimmick's practice was really largely criminal, which frequently made him a defender of horse-thieves, gamblers and desperadoes; and in such cases one could always anticipate his stereotyped plea:

Gentlemen of the Jury: The District Attorney prosecuting my client is paid by the County to convict this prisoner, whether he be guilty or innocent; and I plead with you, gentlemen, in the name of Impartial Justice, to bring in a verdict of "Not guilty!"

Through the help of his old-time friend, Secretary William H. Seward, Dimmick toward the end of his life was appointed Attorney for the Southern District of the United States in California; but on September 11th, 1861, he suddenly died of heart disease.

Eaton, another prominent representative of the Bar, came from New England as early as 1850, while California government was in its infancy and life anything but secure; and he had not been here more than a few months when the maneuvers of António Garra, Agua Caliente's chief, threatened an insurrection extending from Tulare to San Diego and made necessary the organization, under General J. H. Bean, of volunteers to allay the terror-stricken community's fears. Happily, the company's chief activity was the quieting of feminine nerves. On October 3d, 1853, Eaton was elected District Attorney and in 1857, County Assessor. Later, after living for a while at San Gabriel, Eaton became a founder of the Pasadena colony, acting as its President for several years; and in 1876 he was one of the committee to arrange for the local Centennial celebration. Frederick Eaton, several times City Engineer and once—in 1899-1900—Mayor of Los Angeles, is a son of Benjamin Eaton and his first wife, Helena Hayes, who died a few years after she came here, and the brother of Mrs. Hancock Johnston. He reflects no little credit on his father by reason of a very early, effective advocacy of the Owens River Aqueduct. Under his administration, the City began this colossal undertaking, which was brought to a happy consummation in the year 1913 through the engineering skill of William Mulholland, Eaton's friend. In 1861, Judge Eaton married Miss Alice Taylor Clark, of Providence, R. I., who is still living.

Henry Mellus
From a Daguerrotype

Francis Mellus
From a Daguerrotype

John G. Downey

Charles L. Ducommun

The Plaza Church
From a photograph, probably taken in the middle eighties

While I am upon this subject of lawyers and officialdom, a few words regarding early jurists and court decorum may be in order. In 1853, Judge Dryden, who had arrived in 1850, was but a Police Justice, not yet having succeeded Dimmick as County Judge; and at no time was his knowledge of the law and things pertaining thereto other than extremely limited. His audacity, however, frequently sustained him in positions that otherwise might have been embarrassing; and this audacity was especially apparent in Dryden's strong opposition to the criminal element. He talked with the volubility of a Gatling gun, expressing himself in a quick, nervous manner and was, besides, very profane. One day he was trying a case, when Captain Cameron E. Thom (who had first come to Los Angeles in 1854, as the representative of the National Government, to take testimony before Commissioner Burrill) was one of the attorneys. During the progress of the case, Thom had occasion to read a lengthy passage from some statute book. Interrupting him, the Judge asked to see the weighty volume; when, having searched in vain for the citation, he said in his characteristic, jerky way:

"I'll be —— damned, Mr. Thom, if I can find that law!"

All of which recalls to me a report, once printed in the Los Angeles Star, concerning this same jurist and an inquest held by him over a dead Indian:

Justice Dryden and the Jury sat on the body. The verdict was: "Death from intoxication, or by the visitation of God!"

Dryden, who was possessed of a genial personality, was long remembered with pleasure for participation in Fourth of July celebrations and processions. He was married, I believe, in 1851, only one year after he arrived here, to Señorita Dolores Nieto; and she having died, he took as his second wife, in September, 1868, another Spanish lady, Señorita Anita Dominguez, daughter of Don Manuel Dominguez. Less than a year afterward, on September 10th, 1869, Judge Dryden himself died at the age of seventy years.

Thom, by the way, came from Virginia in 1849 and advanced rapidly in his profession. It was far from his expectation to remain in Los Angeles longer than was necessary; and he has frequently repeated to me the story of his immediate infatuation with this beautiful section and its cheering climate, and how he fell in love with the quaint little pueblo at first sight. Soon after he decided to remain here, he was assigned as associate counsel to defend Pancho Daniel, after the retirement of Columbus Sims. In 1856, Thom was appointed both City and District Attorney, and occupied the two positions at the same time—an odd situation which actually brought it about, during his tenure of offices, that a land dispute between the City and the County obliged Thom to defend both interests! In 1863, he was a partner with A. B. Chapman; and twenty years later, having previously served as State Senator, he was elected Mayor of the city. Captain Thom married two sisters—first choosing Miss Susan Henrietta Hathwell, and then, sometime after her death, leading to the altar Miss Belle Cameron Hathwell whom he had named and for whom, when she was baptized, he had stood godfather. A man ultimately affluent, he owned, among other properties, a large ranch at Glendale.[2]

Another good story concerning Judge Dryden comes to mind, recalling a certain Sheriff. As the yarn goes, the latter presented himself as a candidate for the office of Sheriff; and in order to capture the vote of the native element, he also offered to marry the daughter of an influential Mexican. A bargain was concluded and, as the result, he forthwith assumed the responsibilities and dangers of both shrieval and matrimonial life.

Before the Sheriff had possessed this double dignity very long, however, a gang of horse-thieves began depredations around Los Angeles. A posse was immediately organized to pursue the desperadoes, and after a short chase they located the band and brought them into Los Angeles. Imagine the Sheriff's dismay, when he found that the leader was none other than his own brother-in-law whom he had never before seen!

To make the story short, the case was tried and the prisoner was found guilty; but owing to influence (to which most juries in those days were very susceptible) there was an appeal for judicial leniency. Judge Dryden, therefore, in announcing the verdict, said to the Sheriff's brother-in-law, "The jury finds you guilty as charged," and then proceeded to read the prisoner a long and severe lecture, to which he added: "But the jury recommends clemency. Accordingly, I declare you a free man, and you may go about your business." Thereupon someone in the room asked: "What is his business?" To which the Judge, never flinching, shouted: "Horse-stealing, sir! horse-stealing!"

Lander was here in 1853, having come from the East the year previous. He was a Harvard College graduate—there were not many on the Coast in those days—and was known as a good office-practitioner; he was for some time, in fact, the Bar's choice for Court Commissioner. I think that, for quite a while, he was the only examiner of real estate titles; he was certainly the only one I knew. On October 15th, 1852, Lander had married Señorita Margarita, a daughter of Don Santiago Johnson, who was said to have been one of the best known business men prior to 1846. Afterward Lander lived in a cottage on the northeast corner of Fourth and Spring streets. This cottage he sold to I. W. Hellman in the early seventies, for four thousand dollars; and Hellman, in turn, sold it at cost to his brother. On that lot, worth to-day probably a million dollars, the H. W. Hellman Building now stands. Lander died on June 10th, 1873.

Granger was still another lawyer who was here when I arrived, he having come with his family—one of the first American households to be permanently established here—in 1850. By 1852, he had formed a partnership with Jonathan R. Scott, and in that year attained popularity through his Fourth of July oration. Granger was, in fact, a fluent and attractive speaker, which accounted, perhaps, for his election as City Attorney in 1855, after he had served the city as a member of the Common Council in 1854. If I recollect aright, he was a candidate for the district judgeship in the seventies, but was defeated.

Ogier, a lawyer from Charleston, S. C., came to California in 1849, and to Los Angeles in 1851, forming a partnership on May 31st of that year with Don Manuel Clemente Rojo, a clever, genial native of Peru. On September 29th, Ogier succeeded William C. Ferrell, the first District Attorney; in 1853, he joined the voluntary police; and later served, for some years, as United States District Judge. He died at Holcombe Valley in May, 1861. Ogier Street, formerly Ogier Lane, was named for him. Rojo, after dividing his time between the law and the Spanish editorial work on the Star, wandered off to Lower California and there became a "sub-political chief."

Kewen, a native of Mississippi and a veteran of the Mexican War, came to Los Angeles in 1858 with the title of Colonel, after fiasco followed his efforts, in the Southern States, to raise relief for the filibuster Walker, on whose expedition A. L. Kewen, a brother, had been killed in the battle at Rivas, Nicaragua, in June, 1855. Once a practitioner at law in St. Louis, Kewen was elected California's first Attorney-General, and even prior to the delivery of his oration before the Society of Pioneers at San Francisco, in 1854, he was distinguished for his eloquence. In 1858, he was Superintendent of Los Angeles City Schools. In the sixties, Kewen and Norton formed a partnership. Settling on an undulating tract of some four hundred and fifty acres near San Gabriel, including the ruins of the old Mission mill and now embracing the grounds of the Huntington Hotel, Kewen repaired the house and converted it into a cosy and even luxurious residence, calling the estate ornamented with gardens and fountains, El Molino—a title perpetuated in the name of the present suburb. Kewen was also a member of the State Assembly and, later, District Attorney. He died in November, 1879.

Gitchell, United States District Attorney in the late fifties, practiced here for many years. He was a jolly old bachelor and was popular, although he did not attain eminence.

Isaac Hartman, an attorney, and his wife, who were among the particularly agreeable people here in 1853, soon left for the East.

Volney E. Howard came with his family in the late fifties. He left San Francisco, where he had been practicing law, rather suddenly, and at a time when social conditions in the city were demoralized, and the citizens, as in the case of the people of Los Angeles, were obliged to organize a vigilance committee. William T. Coleman, one of the foremost citizens of his city, led the Northern movement, and M. J. Newmark, then a resident of San Francisco, was among those who participated. Howard, who succeeded William T., afterward General Sherman in leading the Law and Order contingent, opposed the idea of mob rule; but the people of San Francisco, fully alive to the necessity of wiping out the vicious elements, and knowing how hard it was to get a speedy trial and an honest jury, had little sympathy with his views. He was accordingly ordered out of town, and made his way, first to Sacramento, then to the South. Here, with Kewen as their neighbor, Howard and his talented wife, a lady of decidedly blue-stocking tendencies, took up their residence near the San Gabriel Mission; and he became one of the most reliable attorneys in Los Angeles, serving once or twice as County Judge and on the Supreme Court bench, as well as in the State Constitutional Convention of 1878-1879.

Speaking of the informality of courts in the earlier days, I should record that jurymen and others would come in coatless and, especially in warm weather, without vests and collars; and that it was the fashion for each juryman to provide himself with a jack-knife and a piece of wood, in order that he might whittle the time away. This was a recognized privilege, and I am not exaggerating when I say that if he forgot his piece of wood, it was considered his further prerogative to whittle the chair on which he sat! In other respects, also, court solemnity was lacking. Judge and attorneys would frequently lock horns; and sometimes their disputes ended violently. On one occasion, for example, while I was in court, Columbus Sims, an attorney who came here in 1852, threw an inkstand at his opponent, during an altercation; but this contempt of court did not call forth his disbarment, for he was later found acting as attorney for Pancho Daniel, one of Sheriff Barton's murderers, until sickness compelled his retirement from the case. As to panel-service, I recollect that while serving as juror in those early days, we were once locked up for the night; and in order that time might not hang too heavily on our hands, we engaged in a sociable little game of poker. Sims is dead.

More than inkstands were sometimes hurled in the early courts. On one occasion, for instance, after the angry disputants had arrived at a state of agitation which made the further use of canes, chairs, and similar objects tame and uninteresting, revolvers were drawn, notwithstanding the marshal's repeated attempts to restore order. Judge Dryden, in the midst of the mêlée, hid behind the platform upon which his Judgeship's bench rested; and being well out of the range of the threatening irons, yelled at the rioters:

"Shoot away, damn you! and to hell with all of you!"

After making due allowance for primitive conditions, it must be admitted that many and needless were the evils incidental to court administration. There was, for instance, the law's delay, which necessitated additional fees to witnesses and jurors and thus materially added to the expenses of the County. Juries were always a mixture of incoming pioneers and natives; the settlers understood very little Spanish, and the native Californians knew still less English; while few or none of the attorneys could speak Spanish at all. In translating testimony, if the interpreter happened to be a friend of the criminal (which he generally was), he would present the evidence in a favorable light, and much time was wasted in sifting biased translations. Of course, there were interpreters who doubtless endeavored to perform their duties conscientiously. George Thompson Burrill, the first Sheriff, received fifty dollars a month as court interpreter, and Manuel Clemente Rojo translated testimony as well; officials I believe to have been honest and conscientious.

While alluding to court interpreters and the general use of Spanish during at least the first decade after I came to California, I am reminded of the case of Joaquín Carrillo, who was elected District Judge, in the early fifties, to succeed Judge Henry A. Tefft of Santa Bárbara, who had been drowned near San Luis Obispo while attempting to land from a steamer in order to hold court. During the fourteen years when Carrillo held office, he was constantly handicapped by his little knowledge of the English language and the consequent necessity of carrying on all court proceedings in Spanish, to say nothing of the fact that he was really not a lawyer. Yet I am told that Carrillo possessed common sense to such a degree that his decisions were seldom set aside by the higher courts.

Sheriff Burrill had a brother, S. Thompson Burrill, who was a lawyer and a Justice of the Peace. He held court in the Padilla Building on Main Street, opposite the present site of the Bullard Block and adjoining my brother's store; and as a result of this proximity we became friendly. He was one of the best-dressed men in town, although, when I first met him, he could not have been less than sixty years of age. He presented me with my first dog, which I lost on account of stray poison: evil-disposed or thoughtless persons, with no respect for the owner, whether a neighbor or not, and without the slightest consideration for pedigree, were in the habit of throwing poison on the streets to kill off canines, of which there was certainly a superabundance.

Ygnácio Sepúlveda, the jurist and a son of José Andrés Sepúlveda, was living here when I arrived, though but a boy. Born in Los Angeles in 1842, he was educated in the East and in 1863 admitted to the Bar; he served in the State Legislature of the following winter, was County Judge from 1870 to 1873, and District Judge in 1874. Five years later he was elected Superior Judge, but resigned his position in 1884 to become Wells Fargo & Company's representative in the City of Mexico, at which capital for two years he was also American Chargé d'Affaires. There to my great pleasure I met him, bearing his honors modestly, in January, 1885, during my tour of the southern republic.[3] Sepúlveda Avenue is named for the family.

Horace Bell was a nephew of Captain Alexander Bell, of Bell's Row; and as an early comer to Los Angeles, he joined the volunteer mounted police. Although for years an attorney and journalist, in which capacity he edited the Porcupine, he is best known for his Reminiscences of a Ranger, a volume written in rather a breezy and entertaining style, but certainly containing exaggerations.

This reference to the Rangers reminds me that I was not long in Los Angeles when I heard of the adventures of Joaquín Murieta, who had been killed but a few months before I came. According to the stories current, Murieta, a nephew of José María Valdez, was a decent-enough sort of fellow, who had been subjected to more or less injustice from certain American settlers, and who was finally bound to a tree and horsewhipped, after seeing his brother hung, on a trumped-up charge. In revenge, Murieta had organized a company of bandits, and for two or three years had terrorized a good part of the entire State. Finally, in August, 1853, while the outlaw and several of his companions were off their guard near the Tejón Paso, they were encountered by Captain Harry Love and his volunteer mounted police organized to get him, "dead or alive;" the latter killed Murieta and another desperado known as Three-fingered Jack. Immediately the outlaws were despatched, their heads and the deformed hand of Three-fingered Jack were removed from the bodies and sent by John Sylvester and Harry Bloodsworth to Dr. William Francis Edgar, then a surgeon at Fort Miller; but a flood interfering, Sylvester swam the river with his barley sack and its gruesome contents. Edgar put the trophies into whiskey and arsenic, when they were transmitted to the civil authorities, as vouchers for a reward. Bloodsworth died lately.

Daredevils of a less malicious type were also resident among us. On the evening of December 31st, 1853, for example, I was in our store at eight o'clock when Felipe Rheim—often called Reihm and even Riehm—gloriously intoxicated and out for a good time, appeared on the scene, flourishing the ubiquitous weapon. His celebration of the New Year had apparently commenced, and he was already six sheets in the wind. Like many another man, Felipe, a very worthy German, was good-natured when sober, but a terror when drunk; and as soon as he spied my solitary figure, he pointed his gun at me, saying, at the same time, in his vigorous native tongue, "Treat, or I shoot!" I treated. After this pleasing transaction amid the smoky obscurity of Ramón Alexander's saloon, Felipe fired his gun into the air and disappeared. Startling as a demand like that might appear to-day, no thought of arrest then resulted from such an incident.

The first New Year's Eve that I spent in Los Angeles was ushered in with the indiscriminate discharging of pistols and guns. This method of celebrating was, I may say, a novelty to me, and no less a surprise; for of course I was unaware of the fact that, when the city was organized, three years before, a proposition to prohibit the carrying of firearms of any sort, or the shooting off of the same, except in defense of self, home or property, had been stricken from the first constitution by the committee on police, who reported that such an ordinance could not at that time be enforced. Promiscuous firing continued for years to be indulged in by early Angeleños, though frequently condemned in the daily press, and such was its effect upon even me that I soon found myself peppering away at a convenient adobe wall on Commercial Street, seeking to perfect my aim!

CHAPTER VI
MERCHANTS AND SHOPS
1853

Trivial events in a man's life sometimes become indelibly impressed on his memory; and one such experience of my own is perhaps worth mentioning as another illustration of the rough character of the times. One Sunday, a few days after my arrival, my brother called upon a tonsorial celebrity, Peter Biggs, of whom I shall speak later, leaving me in charge of the store. There were two entrances, one on Main Street, the other on Requena. I was standing at the Main Street door, unconscious of impending excitement, when a stranger rode up on horseback and, without the least hesitation or warning, pointed a pistol at me. I was not sufficiently amused to delay my going, but promptly retreated to the other door where the practical joker, astride his horse, had easily anticipated my arrival and again greeted me with the muzzle of his weapon. These maneuvers were executed a number of times, and my ill-concealed trepidation only seemed to augment the diversion of a rapidly-increasing audience. My brother returned in the midst of the fun and asked the jolly joker what in hell he meant by such behavior; to which he replied: "Oh, I just wanted to frighten the boy!"

Soon after this incident, my brother left for San Francisco; and his partner, Jacob Rich, accompanied by his wife, came south and rented rooms in what was then known as Mellus's Row, an adobe building for the most part one-story, standing alone with a garden in the rear, and occupying about three hundred feet on the east side of Los Angeles Street, between Aliso and First. In this row, said by some to have been built by Barton & Nordholt, in 1850, for Captain Alexander Bell, a merchant here since 1842, after whom Bell Street is named, and by others claimed to have been the headquarters of Frémont, in 1846, there was a second-story at the corner of Aliso, provided with a large veranda; and there the Bell and Mellus families lived. Francis Mellus, who arrived in California in 1839, had married the niece of Mrs. Bell, and Bell having sold the building to Mellus, Bell's Row became known as Mellus's Row. Finally, Bell repurchased the property, retaining it during the remainder of his life; and the name was again changed. This famous stretch of adobe, familiarly known as The Row, housed many early shopkeepers, such as Ferner & Kraushaar, general merchants, Kalisher & Wartenberg, and Bachman & Bauman. The coming to Los Angeles of Mr. and Mrs. Rich enabled me to abandon La Rue's restaurant, as I was permitted to board with them. None the less, I missed my brother very much.

Everything at that time indicating that I was in for a commercial career, it was natural that I should become acquainted with the merchants then in Los Angeles. Some of the tradesmen, I dare say, I have forgotten; but a more or less distinct recollection remains of many, and to a few of them I shall allude.

Temple Street had not then been opened by Beaudry and Potts, although there was a little cul-de-sac extending west from Spring Street; and at the junction of what is now Spring and Temple streets, there was a two-story adobe building in which D. W. Alexander and Francis Mellus conducted a general merchandise business, and at one time acted as agents for Mellus & Howard of San Francisco. Mellus, who was born in Salem, Massachusetts, February 3d, 1824, came to the Coast in 1839, first landing at Santa Bárbara; and when I first met him he had married Adelaida, daughter of Don Santiago Johnson, and our fellow-townsman, James J. Mellus—familiarly known as plain Jim—was a baby. Alexander & Mellus had rather an extensive business in the early days, bringing goods by sailing vessel around Cape Horn, and exchanging them for hides and tallow which were carried back East by the returning merchantmen. They had operated more or less extensively even some years before California was ceded to the United States; but competition from a new source forced these well-established merchants to retire. With the advent of more frequent, although still irregular service between San Francisco and the South, and the influx of more white people, a number of new stores started here bringing merchandise from the Northern market, while San Francisco buyers began to outbid Alexander & Mellus for the local supply of hides and tallow. This so revolutionized the methods under which this tradition-bound old concern operated that, by 1858, it had succumbed to the inevitable, and the business passed into the hands of Johnson & Allanson, a firm made up of Charles R. Johnson, soon to be elected County Clerk, and Horace S. Allanson.

Most of the commercial activity in this period was carried on north of First Street. The native population inhabited Sonora Town, for the most part a collection of adobes, named after the Mexican state whence came many of our people; there was a contingent from other parts of Mexico; and a small sprinkling of South Americans from Chile and Peru. Among this Spanish-speaking people quite a business was done by Latin-American storekeepers. It followed, naturally enough, that they dealt in all kinds of Mexican goods.

One of the very few white men in this district was José Mascarel (a powerfully-built French sea-captain and master of the ship that brought Don Luis Vignes to the Southland), who settled in Los Angeles in 1844, marrying an Indian woman. He had come with Prudhomme and others; and under Captain Henseley had taken part in the military events at San Bartolo and the Mesa. By 1865, when he was Mayor of the city, he had already accumulated a number of important real estate holdings and owned, with another Frenchman, Juan Barri, a baker, the block extending east on the south side of Commercial Street, from Main to Los Angeles, which had been built in 1861 to take the place of several old adobes. This the owners later divided, Mascarel taking the southeast corner of Commercial and Main streets, and Barri the southwest corner of Commercial and Los Angeles streets. In the seventies, I. W. Hellman bought the Mascarel corner, and in 1883, the Farmers & Merchants Bank moved to that location, where it remained until the institution purchased the southwest corner of Fourth and Main streets, for the erection of its own building.

Andrés Ramirez was another Sonora Town merchant. He had come from Mexico in 1844, and sold general merchandise in what, for a while, was dubbed the Street of the Maids. Later, this was better known as Upper Main Street; and still later it was called San Fernando Street.

Louis Abarca was a tradesman and a neighbor of Ramirez. Prosperous until the advent of the pioneer, he little by little became poorer, and finally withdrew from business.

Juan Bernard, a native of French Switzerland, whose daughter married D. Botiller, now an important landowner, came to California by way of the Horn, in search of the precious metal, preceding me to this land of sunshine. For awhile, he had a brickyard on Buena Vista Street; but in the late seventies, soon after marrying Señorita Susana Machado, daughter of Don Agustin Machado, he bought a vineyard on Alameda Street, picturesquely enclosed by a high adobe or brick wall much after the fashion of a European château. He also came to own the site of the Natick House. A clever linguist and a man of attractive personality, he passed away in 1889.

An American by the name of George Walters lived on Upper Main Street, among the denizens of which locality he was an influential person. Born at New Orleans as early as 1809, Walters had trapped and traded in the Rocky Mountains, then teamed for awhile between Santa Fé and neighboring points. Near the end of 1844, he left New Mexico in company with James Waters, Jim Beckwith and other travelers, finally reaching Los Angeles. Walters, who settled in San Bernardino, was at the Chino Ranch, with B. D. Wilson and Louis Robidoux, when so many Americans were made prisoners.

Julian Chavez, after whom Chavez Street is named, was here in 1853. If he was not native-born, he came here at a very early day. He owned a stretch of many acres, about a mile northeast of Los Angeles. He was a good, honest citizen, and is worthy of recollection.

Ramón Alexander, a Frenchman often confused with David Alexander, came to Los Angeles before 1850, while it was still a mere Mexican village. Pioneers remember him especially as the builder of the long-famous Round House, on Main Street, and as one who also for some time kept a saloon near Requena Street. Alexander's wife was a Señorita Valdez. He died in 1870.

Antoine Laborie was another Frenchman here before the beginning of the fifties. He continued to live in Los Angeles till at least the late seventies. A fellow-countryman, B. Dubordieu, had a bakery in Sonora Town.

Philip Rheim, the good-natured German to whom I have referred, had a little store and saloon, before I came, called Los dos Amigos, as the proprietor of which he was known as Don Felipe. Nor was this title amiss; for Felipe married a native woman and, German though he had been, he gradually became, like so many others who had mated in the same way, more and more Californian in manners and customs.

A month after I arrived here, John Behn, who had a grocery business at the northeast corner of First and Los Angeles streets, retired. He had come to Los Angeles from Baden in 1848, and, after forming one or two partnerships, had sold out to Lorenzo Leck, a German Dane, who reached here in November, 1849, and whose son, Henry von der Leck, married a daughter of Tom Mott and is living at San Juan Capistrano. Leck opened his own store in 1854, and despite the trials to which he was to be subjected, he was able, in 1868, to pay John Schumacher three thousand dollars for a lot on Main Street. Leck had a liking for the spectacular; and in the November previous to my arrival was active, as I have been told, with Goller and Nordholt, in organizing the first political procession seen in Los Angeles. The election of Pierce was the incentive, and there were gorgeous transparencies provided for the event. It was on this occasion that a popular local character, George the Baker, burned himself badly while trying to fire off the diminutive cannon borrowed from the Spanish padre for the event.

In the one-story adobe of Mascarel and Barri, on the corner of Commercial and Main streets, now the site of the United States National Bank, an Irishman named Samuel G. Arbuckle, who had come here in 1850 and was associated for a short time with S. Lazard, conducted a dry goods store. From 1852 to 1856, Arbuckle was City Treasurer.

In the same building, and adjoining Arbuckle's, John Jones, father of Mrs. J. B. Lankershim and M. G. Jones, carried on a wholesale grocery business. Jones had left England for Australia, when forty-seven years old, and a year later touched the coast of California at Monterey and came to Los Angeles. Twice a year, Jones went north in a schooner, for the purpose of replenishing his stock; and after making his purchases and having the boat loaded, he would return to Los Angeles. Sometimes he traveled with the round-bellied, short and jolly Captain Morton who recalled his illustrious prototype, Wouter van Twiller, so humorously described by Washington Irving as "exactly five feet six inches in height, and six feet five inches in circumference;" sometimes he sailed with Captain J. S. Garcia, a good-natured seaman. During his absence, the store remained closed; and as this trip always required at least six weeks, some idea may be obtained of the Sleepy Hollow methods then prevailing in this part of the West. In 1854 or 1855, Jones, who was reputed to be worth some fifty thousand dollars, went to San Francisco and married Miss Doria Deighton, and it was generally understood that he expected to settle there; but having been away for a couple of years, he returned to the City of the Angels, this being one of the first instances within my observation of the irresistible attraction of Los Angeles for those who have once lived here. It is my recollection that Jones bought from John G. Downey the Cristóbal Aguilar home then occupied by W. H. and Mrs. Perry; a building the more interesting since it was understood to have served, long in the past and before the American occupation, as a calabozo or jail, and to have had a whipping-post supposed to have done much service in keeping the turbulently-inclined natives quiet. How many of the old adobes may at times have been used as jails, I am unable to say, but it is also related that there stood on the hill west of the Plaza another cuartel, afterward the home of B. S. Eaton, where Fred, later Mayor of Los Angeles, was born. Like Felix Bachman and others, Jones entered actively into trade with Salt Lake City; and although he met with many reverses—notably in the loss of Captain Morton's Laura Bevan, which sank, carrying down a shipload of uninsured goods—he retired well-to-do.

John, sometimes called Juan Temple—or Jonathan, as he used to sign himself in earlier years—who paid the debt of Nature in 1866, and after whom Temple Street is named, was another merchant, having a store upon the piece of land (later the site of the Downey Block, and now occupied by the Post Office) which, from 1849 to 1866, was in charge of my friend, Don Ygnácio Garcia, his confidential business agent. Garcia imported from Mexico both serapes and rebozos; and as every Mexican man and woman required one of these garments, Temple had a large and very lucrative trade in them alone. Following the death of Temple, Garcia continued under Hinchman, the executor of the estate, until everything had been settled.

It was really far back in 1827 when Temple came to Los Angeles, started the first general merchandise store in town, and soon took such a lead in local affairs that the first Vigilance Committee in the city was organized in his store, in 1836. Toward the fifties, he drifted south to Mexico and there acquired a vast stretch of land on the coast; but he returned here, and was soon known as one of the wealthiest, yet one of the stingiest men in all California. His real estate holdings in or near Los Angeles were enormous; but the bad judgment of his executor cost him dear, and valuable properties were sacrificed. After his death, Temple's wife—who once accompanied her husband to Paris, and had thus formed a liking for the livelier French capital—returned to France with her daughter, later Doña Ajuria, to live; and A. F. Hinchman, Temple's brother-in-law, who had been Superintendent of Santa Bárbara County Schools, was appointed administrator. Hinchman then resided in San Diego, and was intensely partial to that place. This may have prejudiced him against Los Angeles; but whatever the cause, he offered Temple's properties at ridiculous prices, and some of the items of sale may now be interesting.

The present site of the Government Building, embracing as it then did the forty-foot street north of it, was at that time improved with an adobe building covering the entire front and running back to New High Street; and this adobe, known after Temple's death as the Old Temple Block, Hinchman sold for fifteen thousand dollars. He also disposed of the new Temple Block, including the improvement at the south end which I shall describe, for but sixteen thousand dollars. I remember quite well that Ygnácio Garcia was the purchaser, and that, tiring of his bargain in a couple of weeks, he resold the property to John Temple's brother, Francisco, at cost.

Hinchman, for fourteen thousand dollars, also disposed of the site of the present Bullard Block, whereon Temple had erected a large brick building, the lower part of which was used as a market while the upper part was a theater. The terms in each of these three transactions were a thousand dollars per annum, with interest at ten per cent. He sold to the Bixbys the Cerritos rancho, containing twenty-six thousand acres, for twenty thousand dollars. Besides these, there were eighteen lots, each one hundred and twenty by three hundred and thirty feet, located on Fort Street (now Broadway), some of which ran through to Spring and others to Hill, which were bought by J. F. Burns and William Buffum for one thousand and fifty dollars, or fifty dollars each for the twelve inside and seventy-five dollars each for the six corner lots.

Returning to the Fort Street lots, it may be interesting to know that the property would be worth to-day—at an average price of four thousand dollars per foot—about nine million dollars. Eugene Meyer purchased one of the lots (on the west side of Fort Street, running through to Hill, one hundred and twenty by three hundred and thirty feet in size), for the sum of one thousand dollars; and I paid him a thousand dollars for sixty feet and the same depth. In 1874 I built on this site the home occupied by me for about twelve years, after which I improved both fronts for F. L. Blanchard. These two blocks are still in my possession; the Broadway building is known as Blanchard Hall. Blanchard, by the way, a comer of 1886, started his Los Angeles career in A. G. Bartlett's music store, and has since always been closely identified with art movements. He organized the system of cluster street-lights in use here and was an early promoter of good roads.

Pio Pico
From an oil portrait

Juan Bandini

Abel Stearns

Isaac Williams

Store of Felipe Rheim

Charles L. Ducommun was here in business in 1853, he and John G. Downey having arrived together, three years before. According to the story still current, Ducommun, with his kit and stock as a watchmaker, and Downey, with his outfit as a druggist, hired a carreta together, to transport their belongings from San Pedro to Los Angeles; but the carreta broke down, and the two pilgrims to the City of the Angels had to finish their journey afoot. Ducommun's first store, located on Commercial Street between Main and Los Angeles, was about sixteen by thirty feet in size, but it contained an astonishing assortment of merchandise, such as hardware, stationery and jewelry. Perhaps the fact that Ducommun came from Switzerland, then even more than now the chief home of watchmaking, explains his early venture in the making and selling of watches; however that may be, it was to Charlie Ducommun's that the bankrupt merchant Moreno—later sentenced to fourteen or fifteen years in the penitentiary for robbing a Frenchman—came to sell the Frenchman's gold watch. Moreno confessed that he had organized a gang of robbers, after his failure in business, and had murdered even his own lieutenants. Ducommun, pretending to go into a rear room for the money, slipped out of the back door and gave the alarm. Ducommun's store was a sort of curiosity-shop containing many articles not obtainable elsewhere; and he was clever enough, when asked for any rarity, to charge all that the traffic would bear. I wonder what Charlie Ducommun would say if he could return to life and see his sons conducting a large, modern wholesale hardware establishment on an avenue never thought of in his day and where once stretched acres of fruit and vine lands! Ducommun Street commemorates this pioneer.

Ozro W. Childs, who came to Los Angeles in November, 1850, was for awhile in partnership with J. D. Hicks, the firm being known as Childs & Hicks. They conducted a tin-shop on Commercial Street, in a building about twenty by forty feet. In 1861, H. D. Barrows joined them, and hardware was added to the business. Somewhat later the firm was known as J. D. Hicks & Company. In 1871, Barrows bought out the Childs and Hicks interests, and soon formed a partnership with W. C. Furrey, although the latter arrived in Los Angeles only in 1872. When Barrows retired, Furrey continued alone for several years. The W. C. Furrey Company was next organized, with James W. Hellman as the active partner of Furrey, and with Simon Maier, the meat-packer and brother of the brewer, and J. A. Graves as stockholders. Hellman, in time, succeeded this company and continued for himself. When Childs withdrew, he went in for importing and selling exotic trees and plants, and made his home place, in more modern days known as the Huntington Purchase and running from Main to Hill and Eleventh to Twelfth streets, wonderfully attractive to such tourists as then chanced this way; he also claimed to be the pioneer floriculturist of Los Angeles County. Toward the end of his life, Childs erected on Main Street, south of First, a theater styled an opera house and later known as the Grand, which was popular in its time. Childs Avenue bears the family name.

Labatt Brothers had one of the leading dry goods houses, which, strange as it may seem, they conducted in a part of the Abel Stearns home, corner of Main and Arcadia streets, now occupied by the Baker Block. Their establishment, while the most pretentious and certainly the most specialized of its day in town, and therefore patronized by our well-to-do people, would nevertheless make but a sorry appearance in comparison with even a single department in any of the mammoth stores of to-day.

Jacob Elias was not only here in 1853, in partnership with his brother under the firm name of Elias Brothers, but he also induced some of his friends in Augusta, Georgia, to migrate to California. Among those who came in 1854 were Pollock, whose given name I forget, and L. C., better known as Clem Goodwin. The latter clerked for awhile for Elias Brothers, after which he associated himself with Pollock under the title of Pollock & Goodwin. They occupied premises at what was then the corner of Aliso Street and Nigger Alley, and the site, some years later, of P. Beaudry's business when we had our interesting contest, the story of which I shall relate in due time. Pollock & Goodwin continued in the general merchandise business for a few years, after which they returned to Augusta. Goodwin, however, came back to California in 1864 a Benedick, and while in San Francisco accidentally met Louis Polaski who was then looking for an opening. Goodwin induced Polaski to enter into partnership with him, and the well-known early clothing house of Polaski & Goodwin was thus established in the Downey Block. In 1867, they bought out I. W. Hellman and moved over to the southeast corner of Commercial and Main streets. Goodwin sold out to Polaski in 1881, when the firm became Polaski & Sons; in 1883 Sam, Isidor and Myer L. Polaski bought out their father, and in time Polaski Brothers also withdrew. Goodwin became Vice-president of the Farmers & Merchants Bank. Polaski died in 1900, Goodwin having preceded him a short time before. Goodwin left his wife some valuable property, and as they were without issue, she so richly endowed the Children's Hospital, at her death, that the present building was made possible.

The Lanfranco brothers—Juan T. and Mateo—came from Genoa, Italy, by way of Lima, Peru and New York, whence they crossed the Plains with James Lick the carpenter later so celebrated, and they were both here in business in 1853; Juan, a small capitalist or petit rentier, living where the Lanfranco Building now stands, opposite the Federal Building, while Mateo kept a grocery store on Main Street, not far from Commercial. In 1854, Juan added to his independence by marrying Señorita Petra Pilar, one of fourteen children of Don José Loreto Sepúlveda, owner of the Palos Verdes rancho; the celebration of the nuptials, in dancing and feasting, lasting five days. It was at that ranch that a great stampede of cattle occurred, due to fright when the pioneer sulky, imported by Juan Lanfranco from San Francisco, and then a strange object, was driven into their midst. About 1861, the first Lanfranco Building was erected. Mateo died on October 4th, 1873, while Juan passed away on May 20th, 1875. His wife died in 1877. A daughter married Walter Maxwell; a second daughter became the wife of Walter S. Moore, for years Chief of the Fire Department; and still another daughter married Arthur Brentano, one of the well-known Paris and New York booksellers.

Solomon Lazard and Maurice Kremer, cousins of about the same age, and natives of Lorraine, were associated in 1853 under the title of Lazard & Kremer, being located in a storeroom in Mellus's Row, and I may add that since nearly all of the country development had taken place in districts adjacent to San Gabriel, El Monte and San Bernardino, travel through Aliso Street was important enough to make their situation one of the best in town. Lazard had arrived in San Francisco in 1851, and having remained there about a year, departed for San Diego, where it was his intention to engage in the dry goods business. Finding that there were not enough people there to maintain such an establishment of even moderate proportions, Lazard decided upon the advice of a seafaring man whom he met to remove his stock, which he had brought from the Northern town, to Los Angeles. He told me that he paid fifty-six dollars' steamer fare from San Francisco to San Diego, and that the freight on his merchandise cost him twenty dollars a ton. Among his native friends, Lazard was always known as Don Solomon, and being popular, he frequently acted as floor-manager at balls and fandangos. Lazard is still living at the good old age of eighty-seven years. Kremer also reached here in 1852. In time, Timoteo Wolfskill, a son of William Wolfskill, bought Kremer's interest, and the firm name became Lazard & Wolfskill. Each of these worthy pioneers in his day rendered signal service to the community—Lazard serving as Councilman in 1862; and I shall have occasion, therefore, to refer to them again. Abe Lazard, a brother of Solomon, who had spent some years in South America, came in the late fifties. Dr. E. M. Lazard is a son of S. Lazard.

While speaking of San Diego, I may remark that it was quite fifteen years before the interesting old Spanish settlement to the South, with which I had no business relations, attracted me; and as I was no exception, the reader may see how seldom the early settlers were inclined to roam about merely for sight-seeing.

In 1853, M. Norton and E. Greenbaum sold merchandise at the southwest corner of Los Angeles and Commercial streets (when Jacob, J. L., an early Supervisor and City Treasurer, 1863-64 and Moritz Morris, Councilman in 1869-70, were competitors). In time, Jacob returned to Germany, where he died. Herman Morris, a brother, was a local newspaper reporter. Jacob Letter was another rival, who removed to Oakland. Still another dealer in general merchandise was M. Michaels, almost a dwarf in size, who emigrated to South America. Casper Behrendt—father-in-law of John Kahn, a man prominent in many movements—who arrived in 1851, was another Commercial Street merchant. Still other early merchants whom I somewhat distinctly recall were Israel Fleishman and Julius Sichel, who had a glassware, crockery and hardware business; and L. Lasky, on Commercial Street.

Thomas D. Mott, father of John Mott, the attorney, who was lured to California by the gold-fever of 1849, and to Los Angeles, three years later, by the climate, I met on the day of my arrival. His room adjoined my brother's store, so that we soon formed an acquaintanceship which ripened, in the course of time, into a friendship that endured until the day of his death. In the early sixties, he was the proprietor of a livery stable on Main Street, opposite the Stearns home. He was very fond of hunting, being an expert at dropping a bird on the wing; and frequently went dove-shooting with his friends.

All of which, insignificant as it may at first appear, I mention for the purpose of indicating the neighborhood of these operations. The hunting-ground covered none other than that now lying between Main and Olive streets from about Sixth Street to Pico, and teeming to-day, as the reader knows, with activity and life. There sportsmen hunted, while more matter-of-fact burghers frequently went with scythes to cut grass for their horses.

Prudent Beaudry, a native of Quebec destined to make and lose several fortunes, was here when I came, having previously been a merchant in San Francisco when staple articles—such as common tacks, selling at sixteen dollars a package!—commanded enormous prices. Two or three times, however, fire obliterated all his savings, and when he reached Los Angeles, Beaudry had only about a thousand dollars' worth of goods and two or three hundred dollars in cash. With these assets he opened a small store on Main Street, opposite the Abel Stearns home; and again favored by the economic conditions of the times, he added to his capital very rapidly. From Main Street Beaudry moved to Commercial, forming partnerships successively with a man named Brown and with one Le Maître. As early as 1854, Beaudry had purchased the property at the northeast corner of Aliso Street and Nigger Alley for eleven thousand dollars, and this he so improved with the additional investment of twenty-five thousand dollars that he made his now elongated adobe bring him in an income of a thousand a month. As stated elsewhere, Beaudry went to Europe in 1855, returning later to Montreal; and it was not until 1861 or later that he came back to Los Angeles and reëngaged in business, this time in his own building where until 1865 he thrived, withdrawing, as I shall soon show, in the beginning of 1866. Beaudry Avenue recalls this early and important man of affairs.

David W. Alexander, Phineas Banning's enterprising partner in establishing wagon-trains, was here when I came and was rather an influential person. An Irishman by birth, he had come to California from Mexico by way of Salt Lake, in the early forties, and lived for awhile in the San Bernardino country. From 1844 to 1849, John Temple and he had a store at San Pedro, and still later he was associated in business with Banning, selling out his interest in 1855. In 1850, Alexander was President of the first Common Council of Los Angeles, being one of the two members who completed their term; in 1852, he visited Europe; and in September, 1855, he was elected Sheriff of the County, bringing to his aid the practical experience of a Ranger. Before keeping store, Alexander had farmed for awhile on the Rincon rancho; he continued to hold a large extent of acreage and in 1872 was granted a patent to over four thousand acres in the Providencia, and in 1874 to nearly seventeen thousand acres in the Tejunga rancho. George C. Alexander, David's brother, was Postmaster at San Pedro in 1857.

The Hazards arrived in 1853 with a large family of children, Captain A. M. Hazard having made his way with ox-teams from the East, via Salt Lake, on a journey which consumed nearly two years. At first they took up a claim about four miles from Los Angeles, which was later declared Government land. The eldest son, Daniel, was employed by Banning as a teamster, traveling between Los Angeles and Yuma; but later he set up in the teaming business for himself. George W. Hazard became a dealer in saddlery in Requena Street; and taking an active interest in the early history of Los Angeles, he collected, at personal sacrifice, souvenirs of the past, and this collection has become one of the few original sources available for research.[4] In 1889, Henry T. Hazard, after having served the City as its Attorney, was elected Mayor, his administration being marked by no little progress in the town's growth and expansion. Henry, who married a daughter of Dr. William Geller, and after whom Hazard Street is named, is the only one of the brothers who survives.

Sam Meyer, who met me, as related, when I alighted from the stage, was another resident of Los Angeles prior to my coming. He had journeyed from Germany to America in 1849, had spent four years in New Orleans, Macon, and other Southern cities, and early in 1853 had come to California. On Main Street, south of Requena, I found him, with Hilliard Loewenstein, in the dry goods business, an undertaking they continued until 1856, when Loewenstein returned to Germany, to marry a sister of Meyer. Emanuel Loewenstein, one of the issue of this marriage, and a jolly, charitable fellow, is well known about town. On December 15th, 1861, Meyer married Miss Johanna,[5] daughter of S. C. and Rosalia Davis, and the same year formed a partnership with Davis in the crockery business. After two and a half years of residence in Germany, Loewenstein returned to Los Angeles. Meyer, so long identified with local freemasonry, died in 1903. A daughter married Max Loewenthal, the attorney.

Baruch Marks, one of the very few people yet living who were here when I arrived, is now about ninety-one years of age, and still[6] a resident of Los Angeles. He was with Louis Schlesinger (who lost his life when the Ada Hancock was destroyed) and Hyman Tischler in the general merchandise business in 1853 at Mellus's Row, the firm being known as B. Marks & Company; and having prospered, he went to Berlin. There, after the Franco-Prussian War, when much disaster befell speculators, he lost most of his means; and greatly reduced in resources, he returned to Los Angeles. Since then, however, he has never been able to retrieve his fortune. Luckily he enjoys good health, even being able at his advanced age, as he told me recently, to shave himself.

In 1851, Herman Schlesinger reached Los Angeles and engaged in the dry goods business with Tobias Sherwinsky. In 1855, Moritz Schlesinger, Herman's brother, came here and clerked for the firm. In 1857, Schlesinger & Sherwinsky, having made, approximately, fourteen thousand dollars, which they divided, sold out to Moritz Schlesinger and returned to Germany. A few years later Sherwinsky lost his money and, coming back to California, located in San Diego where he died. Schlesinger remained in Germany and died there, about 1900.

Collins Wadhams had a general store on the northeast corner of Main and Commercial streets—a piece of property afterward bought by Charlie Ducommun. At another time, Wadhams & Foster were general merchants who, succeeding to the business of Foster & McDougal, were soon followed by Douglass, Foster & Wadhams. Clerking for this firm when I came was William W. Jenkins, who left for Arizona, years afterward, where he led an adventurous life.

Henry G. Yarrow, often called Cuatro Ojos or four eyes, from the fact that he wore a pair of big spectacles on a large hooked nose, was an eccentric character of the fifties and later. He once conducted a store at the southwest corner of Los Angeles and Requena streets, and was the Jevne of his day in so far as he dealt in superior and exceptional commodities generally not found in any other store. In other respects, however, the comparison fails; for he kept the untidiest place in town, and his stock was fearfully jumbled together, necessitating an indefinite search for every article demanded. The store was a little low room in an adobe building about twenty feet long and ten feet wide, with another room in the rear where Yarrow cooked and slept. He was also a mysterious person, and nobody ever saw the inside of this room. His clothes were of the commonest material; he was polite and apparently well-bred; yet he never went anywhere for social intercourse, nor did he wish anyone to call upon him except for trade. Aside from the barest necessities, he was never known to spend any money, and so he came to be regarded as a miser. One morning he was found dead in his store, and for some time thereafter people dug in his backyard searching for the earnings believed to have been secreted there; but not a cent of his horde was ever found. There were all kinds of rumors, however, respecting Yarrow. One was to the effect that he was the scion of a noted English family, and that disappointment in love had soured and driven him from the world; while another report was that his past had been somewhat shady. Nobody, apparently, knew the truth; but I personally believe that Yarrow was honest, and know that when at one time, despite his efforts, he failed in business, he endeavored to settle his debts upon the most honorable basis.

Charles Hale, later associated with M. W. Childs, had a tin-shop just where Stearns's Arcadia Block now stands. This shop stood on elevated ground, making his place of business rather difficult of access; from which the reader will gain some idea of the irregular appearance of the landscape in early days. Hale in time went to Mexico, where he was reported to have made a fortune.

August Ulyard arrived with his wife on the last day of December, 1852, and rented a house near the Plaza. In competition with Joseph Lelong, who had established his Jenny Lind bakery a couple of years previous, Ulyard opened a bake-shop, making his first bread from yeast which Mrs. Ulyard had brought with her across the Plains. There had been nothing but French bread in Los Angeles up to that time, but Ulyard began to introduce both German and American bread and cake, which soon found favor with many; later he added freshly-baked crackers. After a while, he moved to the site of the Natick House, at the southwest corner of Main and First streets; and once he owned the southwest corner of Fifth and Spring streets, on which the Alexandria Hotel now stands. Having no children of their own, Ulyard and his wife adopted first one and then another, until eventually they had a family of seven!

Picturing these unpretentious stores, I recall a custom long prevalent here among the native population. Just as in Mexico a little lump of sugar called a pilon, or something equally insignificant, was given with even the smallest purchase, so here some trifle, called a pilon, was thrown in to please the buyer. And if a merchant neglected to offer such a gratuity, the customer was almost certain to ask for it.

Among the meat-handlers, there were several Sentous brothers, but those with whom I was more intimately acquainted were Jean and Louis, father of Louis Sentous the present French Consul, both of whom, if I mistake not, came about the middle of the fifties. They engaged in the sheep business; and later Louis had a packing-house of considerable importance located between Los Angeles and Santa Monica, where he also owned over a thousand acres of valuable land which he sold some time before his death. They were very successful; and Sentous Street bears their name. Jean died in 1903, and Louis a few years later.

Refúgio Botello was another wholesale cattle- and meat-dealer.

Arthur McKenzie Dodson, who came here in 1850 and later married Miss Reyes, daughter of Nasário Dominguez, conducted a butcher shop and one of the first grocery stores. He was also the first to make soap here. For a while Dodson was in partnership with John Benner who, during a quarter of a century when in business for himself, in the old Temple adobe on Main Street, built up an important trade in the handling of meat. James H. Dodson is Arthur's son.

Santiago Bollo also kept a small grocery.

"Hog" Bennett was here in the middle fifties. He raised and killed hogs, and cured the ham and bacon which he sold to neighboring dealers.

Possessed as he was of an unusual sense of rectitude, I esteemed Francisco Solano, father of Alfredo Solano, for his many good qualities. He was in the butcher business in Sonora Town, and was prosperous in the early fifties.

An odd little store was that of Madame Salandie, who came to California in 1849, on the same vessel that brought Lorenzo Leck. She had a butcher shop; but, rather curiously, she was also a money-lender.

I believe that Jack Yates was here in 1853. He owned the first general laundry, located on Los Angeles Street between First and Requena, and conducted it with success and profit for many years, until he succumbed to the competition of the Chinese. Yates's daughter, Miss Mary D., married H. J. Woollacott, at one time a prominent financier.

More than once, in recording these fragmentary recollections, I have had occasion to refer to persons who, at one time or another, were employed in a very different manner than in a later period of their lives. The truth is that in the early days one's occupation did not weigh much in the balance, provided only that he was honorable and a good citizen; and pursuits lowly to-day were then engaged in by excellent men. Many of the vocations of standing were unknown, in fact, fifty or sixty years ago; and refined and educated gentlemen often turned their attention to what are now considered humble occupations.

CHAPTER VII
IN AND NEAR THE OLD PUEBLO
1853

About the time when I arrived, Assessor António F. Coronel reported an increase in the City and County assessment of over eight hundred and five thousand dollars, but the number of stores was really limited, and the amount of business involved was in proportion. The community was like a village; and such was the provincial character of the town that, instead of indicating the location of a store or office by a number, the advertiser more frequently used such a phrase as "opposite the Bella Union," "near the Express Office," or "vis-à-vis to Mr. Temple's." Nor was this of great importance: change of names and addresses were frequent in business establishments in those days—an indication, perhaps, of the restless spirit of the times.