 Chapter 11 of Sixty Years in Southern California, 1853 to 1913 by Harris Newmark. As I have already related I made fifteen hundred dollars in a few months, and in January 1855 my brother advised me to form a partnership with men of mature years. In this I acquiesced. He thereupon helped to organize the firm of Rich, Newmark, and Company, consisting of Elias Laventhal, who reached here in 1854 and died on January 20, 1920, Jacob Rich and myself. Rich was to be the San Francisco resident partner while Laventhal and I undertook the management of the business in Los Angeles. We prospered from the beginning, deriving much benefit from our San Francisco representation, which resulted in our building up something of a wholesale business. In the early fifties Los Angeles was the meeting place of a board of land commissioners appointed by the national government to settle land claims and to prepare the way for that granting of patents to owners of Southern California ranches, which later awakened from time to time such interest here. This interest was largely due to the fact that the Mexican authorities, in numerous instances, had made the same grant to different persons, often confusing matters badly. Cameron E. Tom, then deputy land agent, took testimony for the commissioners. In 1855 this board completed its labors. The members were Highland Hall, later Governor of Vermont, Harry I. Thornton, and Thompson Campbell, and during the season they were here these land commissioners formed no unimportant part of the Los Angeles legal world. Thomas A. Delano, whose name is perpetuated in our local geography, was a sailor who came to Los Angeles on January 4, 1855, after which for fifteen or sixteen years he engaged in freighting. He married Sr. Rita Solerad, daughter of John C. Vajar, the well-known Spanish Californian. Slowness and uncertainty of mail delivery in our first decades affected often vital interests, as is shown in the case of the half-breed al-Vitre, who, as I have said, was sentenced to be executed. One reason why the vigilantes, headed by Mayor Foster, dispatched Brown was the expectation that both he and al-Vitre would get a stay from higher authority. And sure enough, a stay was granted al-Vitre, but the document was delayed in transit until the murderer, on January 12, 1855, had forfeited his life. Early enough, another al-Vitre, an aged Californian man, named Jose Claudio, also of El Monte, but six years later atrociously murdered his aged wife, and on April 28, 1861 he was hanged. The lynchers placed him on a horse under a tree, and then drove the animal away, leaving him suspended from a limb. Washington's birthday, in 1855, was made merrier by festivities conducted under the auspices of the city guards, of which W. W. Twist, a grocer and commission merchant at Bodrie's Block, Aliso Street, and afterward, in partnership with Casildo Alguilar, was captain. The same organization gave its first anniversary ball in May. Twist was a ranger, or member of the volunteer-mounted police, and it was he who, in March, 1857, formed the first rifle company. In the early sixties he was identified with the sheriff's office, after which, venturing into Mexico, he was killed. Henry C. G. Schaefer came to Los Angeles on March 16, 1855, and opened the first gunsmith shop in a little adobe on the east side of Los Angeles Street, near Commercial, which he soon surrounded with an attractive flower garden. A year after Schaefer came he was followed by another gunsmith, August Stormer. Schaefer continued, however, to sell and mend guns and to cultivate flowers, and twenty years later found him on Wilmington Street, near New Commercial, still encircled by one of the choicest collections of flowers in the city, and the first who have brought here the night blooming serious. With more than regret, therefore, I must record that in the middle seventies, this warm-hearted friend of children, so deserving of the goodwill of everyone, committed suicide. It was discovered at Javala, Kern County, in 1854, and by the early spring of 1855, exaggerated accounts of the find had spread broadcast over the entire state. Yarn after yarn passed from mouth to mouth, one of the most extravagant of the reports being that a Mexican doctor and alchemist suddenly rode into Mariposa from the hills, where he had found a gulch paved with gold, his horse and himself being fairly covered with bags of nuggets. The rush by gold-seekers on their way from the north to Los Angeles, the southern gateway to the fields, began in January, 1855, and continued a couple of years, every steamer being loaded far beyond the safety limit, and soon miles of the rough highways leading to the mines were covered with every conceivable form of vehicle and struggling animals, as well as with thousands of foot-sore prospectors, unable to command transportation at any price. For a while, ten, twelve, and even fifteen percent interest a month was offered for small amounts of money by those of the prospectors who needed assistance, a rate based on the calculation that a wide awake digger would be sure of eight to ten dollars a day, and that was such returns one should certainly be satisfied. This time the excitement was a little too much for the Los Angeles editors to ignore, and in March the publisher of the Southern Californian, himself losing his balance, issued an extra with these startling announcements. Stop the press. Glorious news from Kern River. Bring out the big gun. There are a thousand gulches rich with gold and room for ten thousand miners. Miners average fifty dollars a day. One man with his own hands took out one hundred sixty dollars in a day. Five men in ten days took out four thousand five hundred dollars. The affair proved, however, a ridiculous failure, and William Marsh, an old Los Angeles settler in a very decent chap, who conducted a store at Havela, was among those who suffered heavy loss. Although some load-grade ore was found, it was generally not in paying quantities. The dispersion of this adventurous mass of humanity brought to Los Angeles many undesirable people, among them gamblers and desperados, who flocked in the wake of the gold diggers, making another increase in the rough element. Before long four men were fatally shot, and half a dozen wounded near the plaza one Sunday night. The excitement about the gold finds along the Kern River was at its height. Frank Le Corvier arrived here, March 6, on the steamship America, lured by reports then current in San Francisco. To save the fare of five dollars he trudged for ten hours all the way from San Pedro, carrying on his shoulders forty pounds of baggage. But on putting up at the United States Hotel, then recently started, he was dissuaded by some experienced miners from venturing farther up the country. Soon after he met a fellow countrymen from Konigsburg named Arnold, who induced him, on account of his needy condition, to take work in his saloon. But disliking his duties and the rather frequent demands upon his nervous system through being shot at, several times, by patrons not exactly satisfied with Le Corvier's locomotion and his method of serving, the young German quit the job and went to work as a carriage painter for John Goeller. In October Captain Henry Hancock, then county surveyor, led Le Corvier as a flagman at a salary of sixty dollars, which was increased twenty-five percent on the trip of the surveyors to the Mojave. March 29, 1855, witnessed the organization of the first Odd Fellows Lodge, number thirty-five, instituted here. General Ezra Drown was the leading spirit and others associated with him were E. Wilson High, Alexander Krab, L. C. Goodwin, William C. Ardinger, Morris L. Goodman, and M. M. Davis. During the fifties, the Bella Union passed under several successive managements. On July 22, 1854, Dr. Macy sold it to W. G. Ross and a partner named Crockett. They were succeeded on April 7, 1855, by Robert S. Hurford. Ross was killed some years afterward by C. P. Dwayne in San Francisco. In pursuit of business, in 1855 I made a number of trips to San Bernardino, some of which had their amusing incidents and most of which afforded pleasure or an agreeable change. Meeting Sam Meyer, on one of these occasions, just as I was mounted and ready to start, I invited him to accompany me. It as Sam assured me that he knew where to secure a horse, we started down the street together and soon passed a shop in which there was a Mexican customer holding on to a reyata leading out through the door to his saddled nag. Sam walked in and having a casual acquaintance with the man asked him if he would lend him the animal for a while. People were generous in those days and the good-hearted Mexican, thinking perhaps that Sam was just going around the corner, carelessly answered, sea-senior, and proceeded with his bartering. Sam, on the other hand, came out of the shop and led the horse away. After some days of minor adventures, when we lost our path near the old mission and had to put back to El Monte for the night, we arrived at San Bernardino, and on our return, after watering the horses, Sam found in his unholtered steed such a veritable tartare that in sheer desperation he was about to shoot the borrowed beast. On another one of these trips I was entertained by Simon Jackson, a merchant of that town, who took me to a restaurant kept by a captain-viner. This, the best eating place in town, was about ten feet square and had a mud-floor. It was a miserably hot day, so hot in fact that I distinctly remember the place being filled with flies and that the butter had run to oil. Nature had not intended Viner to cater to such sensitive stomachs, at least not on the day of which I speak, and to make matters worse, Viner was then his own waiter. He was wallowing around in his bare feet, and was otherwise unkempt and unclean, and the whole scene is therefore indelibly impressed on my memory. When the slovenly captain balled out, which will you have, chops or steak, Jackson straightened up, threw out his chest, and in evidence of the vigor of his appetite, just as vociferously answered, I want a steak as big as a mule's foot. Living in San Bernardino was a customer of ours, a celebrity by the name of Louis Jacobs. He had joined the Mormon church and was a merchant of worth and consequence. Jacobs was an authority on all matters of finance connected with his town, and anyone wishing to know the condition of businessmen in that neighborhood had only to apply to him. Once when I was in San Bernardino, I asked him for information regarding a prospective patron, who was rather a gay sort of individual, and this was Jacobs's characteristic reply. The very fine fellow, he plays a little poker and drinks a little whiskey. Jacobs became a banker, and in 1900 died on shipboard while returning from Europe, leaving a comfortable fortune and the more valuable asset of a good name. In referring to Alexander and Melis and their retirement from business, I have said that merchandise required by Southern Californians in the early days, and before the absorption of the Los Angeles market by San Francisco, was largely transported by sailing vessels from the east. When a ship arrived, it was an event worthy of special notice, and this was particularly the case when such sailing craft came less and less often in deport. Sometimes the arrival of the vessel was heralded in advance, and when it was unloaded, the shrewd merchants used decidedly modern methods for the marketing of their wares. In 1855, for example, Johnson and Allinson advertised as follows. New goods, new goods, direct from the Atlantic State's 112 days passage. Samples of the cargo at our store in the Stearns Building, and the entire cargo, will be disposed of cheap for cash. Goods delivered at San Pedro, or Los Angeles. From the above announcement, it must not be inferred that these Los Angeles tradesmen brought to this port the whole shipload of merchandise. Such ships left but a small part of their cargo here, the major portion being generally consigned to the north. The dependence on San Francisco continued until the completion of our first transcontinental railway. In the meantime, Los Angeles had to rely on the northern city for nearly everything, livestock being about the only exception. And this relation was shown in 1855 by the publication of no less than four columns of San Francisco advertisements in the regular issue of a Los Angeles newspaper. Much of this commerce with the Southland for years was conducted by means of schooners which ran irregularly and only when there was cargo. They plied between San Francisco and San Pedro, and by agreement put in at Santa Barbara, and other coast places such as Port San Luis, when the shipments warranted such stops. And Pierce and Company were the owners. One of these vessels in 1855 was the clipper schooner Laura Bevin, captain by F. Morton, and later wrecked at sea when Frank LeCuvier just escaped taking passage on her, and in other words a sea serpent whose captain bore the name of Fish. I have said that in 1849 the old side-wheeler Gold Hunter had commenced paddling the waters around here, but so far as I can remember she was not operating in 1853. The Goliath, on the other hand, was making two round trips a month, carrying passengers mail and freight from San Francisco to San Diego, and sopping at various coast points including San Pedro. In a vague way I also remember the mail steamer Ohio under one of the Haley's, the Seabird at one time commanded by Salisbury Haley, and the Southerner, and if I am uncertain about the others the difficulty may be due to the fact that because of the unsee worthiness and miserable service, owners changed the names of ships from time to time in order to allay the popular prejudice and distrust so that during some years several names were successively applied to the same vessel. It must have been about 1855 or 1856 that the senator, brought to the coast by Captain Coffin, January 28, 1853, was put on the southern run and with her advent began a considerably improved service. As the schooners were even more irregular than the steamers I generally divided my shipments, giving to the latter what I needed immediately, and consigning by the schooners whose freighted rates were much lower, what could stand to delay. One more word about the Goliath. One day in the 80s I heard that she was still doing valiant service, having been sold to a Puget Sound company. Recalling these old time side-wheelers whose paddles churned the water into a frothing foam out of all proportion to the speed with which they drove the boat along her course, I recall with a feeling almost akin to sentiment, the roar of the signal gun fired just before landing, making the welcome announcement, as well to the traveler as to his friends awaiting him on shore, that the voyage had been safely consummated. Shortly after my arrival in Los Angeles the transportation service was enlarged by the addition of a state line from San Francisco which ran along the coast from the northern city to the old town of San Diego, making stops all along the road including San Jose, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and San Buena Ventura, and particularly at Los Angeles were not only horses but stages and supplies were kept. The stage to San Diego followed, for the most part, the route selected later by the Santa Fe Railroad. These old time stages remind me again of the few varieties of vehicles that in use. John Goeller had met with much skepticism and ridicule, as I have said, when he was planning an improvement on the old enclosé Carreta, and when his new ideas did begin to prevail he suffered from competition. EL Scott Inc. came as blacksmiths and carriage makers in 1855, and George Borum was another who arrived about the same time. Ben McLaughlin was also an early wheelwright. Among Goeller's assistants, who afterward opened shops for themselves, there were three, Lewises, Roder, Lichtenberger, and Brewer. Roder and Lichtenberger, footnote, Lichtenberger died some years ago, Roder died February 20th, 1915, and footnote. Having a place on the west side of Spring Street, just south of First. Thomas W. Sealy, captain of the senator, was very fond of Los Angeles diversions, as will appear from the following anecdote of the late fifties. After bringing his ship to anchor off the coast, he would hasten to Los Angeles, leaving his vessel in command of first made butters, to complete the voyage to San Diego and return, which consumed forty-eight hours. During this interval, the old captain regularly made his headquarters at the Bella Union. There he would spend practically all of his time playing poker, then considered the gentleman's game of chance, and which, since the mania for chemical purity had not yet possessed Los Angeles, was looked upon without criticism. When the steamer returned from San Diego, captain Sealy, if neither his own interest in the game nor his fellow player's interest in his pocket-book had ebbed, would postpone the departure of his ship, frequently for even as much as twenty-four hours, thus adding to the irregularity of sailings which I have already mentioned. Many, in fact, were the inconveniences to which early travelers were subjected from this infrequency of trips and failure to sail at the stated hour, and to aggravate the trouble the vessels were all too small, especially when a sudden excitement, due perhaps to some new report of the discovery of gold, increased the number of intending travelers. It even happened sometimes that persons were compelled to postpone their trip until the departure of another boat. Speaking of anchoring vessels off the coast, I may add that high seas frequently made it impossible to reach the steamers announced to leave at a certain time, in which case the officers used to advertise in the newspapers that the time of departure had been changed. When captain Sealy was killed in the Ada Hancock disaster in 1863, first mate Butters was made captain and continued for some time in command. Just what his real fitness was, I cannot say, but it seemed to me that he did not know the coast any too well. This impression also existed in the minds of others, and once, when we were supposed to be making our way to San Francisco, the heavy fog lifted and revealed the shore thirty miles north of our destination, whereupon a fellow passenger exclaimed, Why, captain, this isn't at all the part of the coast where we should be. The remark stung the sensitive Butters, who probably was conscious enough of his shortcomings, and straight away he threatened to put the offending passenger in irons. George F. Lampson was an auctioneer who arrived in Los Angeles in 1855. Aside from the sale of livestock, there was not much business in his line, although, as I have said, Dr. Osburn, the postmaster, also had an auction room. Sales of household effects were held on a Tuesday or a Wednesday, while horses were offered for sale on Saturdays. Lampson had the typical auctioneer's personality, and many good stories were long related, illustrating his humor, wit, and amusing impudence by which he often disposed, even to his friends, of almost worthless objects at high prices. A daughter Gertrude, widely known as Lillian Nance O'Neill, never married, another daughter Lillian is the wife of William Desmond, the actor. In 1854 Congress made an appropriation of fifty thousand dollars which went far toward opening up the trade that later flourished between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City. This money was for their survey and location of a wagon road between San Bernardino and the Utah Capitol, and on the first of May 1855 Gilbert and Company established their Great Salt Lake Express over that government route. It was at first a pony express making monthly trips carrying letters and stopping at such stations as Cole Creek, Fillmore City, Summit Creek, and American Fork, and finally reaching Great Salt Lake, and early having good Los Angeles connections it prospered sufficiently to substitute a wagon service for the pony express. Although this was at first intended only as a means of connecting the Mormon Capitol with the more recently founded Mormon settlement at San Bernardino, the extension of the service to Los Angeles eventually made this city the terminus. Considerable excitement was caused by the landing at San Pedro in 1855 of a shipload of Mormons from Honolulu. Though I do not recall that any more recruits came subsequently from that quarter, the arrival of those adherents of Brigham Young added color to his explanation that he had established a Mormon colony in California as a base of operations and supplies for converts from the Sandwich Islands. Thomas Foster at Kentucky Inn was the sixth mayor of Los Angeles taking office in May 1855. He lived opposite Masonic Hall on Main Street with his family, among whom were some charming daughters, and was in partnership with the Dr. R. T. Hayes in Apothecaries Hall near the Post Office. He was one of the first Masons here and was highly esteemed, and he early declared himself in favor of better school and water facilities. About the second week of June 1855 appeared the first Spanish newspaper in Los Angeles under the American regime. It was called El Clamor Público and made its appeal socially to the better class of native Californians. Politically it was edited for Republicans, especially for the supporters in 1856 of Freemont for president. Its editor was Francisco P. Ramirez, but though he was an able journalist and a good typo, becoming between 1860 and 1862, State Printer in Sonora and in 1865, Spanish translator for the State of California, the Clamor on December 31st, 1859, went the way of so many other local journals. CHAPTER XII THE GREAT HORSE RACE, 1855 From all accounts, Fourth of July was celebrated in Los Angeles with more or less enthusiasm from the time of the city's reorganization, although afterward, as we shall see, the day was often neglected. But certainly in 1855 the festivities were worthy of remembrance. There was less formality perhaps and more canonating than in later years. Music was furnished by a brass band from Fort Tejon, and Phineas Banning was the Stentorian orator of the day. Two years previously Banning had provided a three-days celebration and barbecue for the Fourth attended by my brother, and I once enjoyed a barbecue at San Juan Capistrano, with a merriment continuing for half a week, marked both by the hospitality and the leisurely habits of the people. In those days, when men were not afraid of noise, boys, in celebrating American independence, made all the hullabaloo possible, untrammeled by the nonsense of a sane fourth. On the Fourth of July and other holidays, as well as on Sundays, men from the country came to town, arrayed in their fanciest clothes, and mounted upon their most spirited and gaily comparisoned caballos de silla, or saddle-horses. They paraded the streets, as many as ten abreast, jingling the metallic parts of their paraphernalia, admired and applauded by the populace, and keenly alive to the splendid appearance they and their outfits made, and to the effect sure to be produced on the fair, senioritas. The most popular thoroughfare for this purpose was Main Street. On such occasions, the men wore short, very tight-fitting jackets of bright-colored material, blue, green, and yellow being the favorite colors, and trimmed with gold and silver lace or fringe. These jackets were so tight that often the wearers put them on only with great difficulty. The calzoneras, or pantaloons, were of the same material as the jackets, opened on the side and flanked with brass buttons. The openings exposed of the calzoncillos or drawers. A fashionable adjunct was the Mexican garter, often costing ten to fifteen dollars, and another was the high-heeled boot, so small that ten minutes or more were required to draw it on. This boot was a great conceit, but though experiencing much discomfort, the victim could not be induced to increase the size. The sarape, worn by men, was the native substitute for the overcoat. It was a narrow Mexican blanket, a finest wool, multicolored, and provided with a hole near the center large enough to let the wearer's head through. And when not in actual use, it was thrown over the saddle. The headgear consisted in winter of a broad-rimmed, high-crowned woolen sombrero, usually brown, which was kept in place during fast travel or a race by a ribbon or band fastened under the chin. Often, as in the familiar case of Ignacio Lugo, the hat was ornamented with beads. In summer, the rider substituted a shirt for the sarape and a Panama for the sombrero. The caballero's outfit, in the case of some wealthy dons, exceeded a thousand dollars in value, and it was not uncommon for fancy costumes to be handed down as heirlooms. The women, on the other hand, wore skirts of silk, wool, or cotton, according to their wealth or the season. Many of the female conceits had not appeared in 1853. The grandmothers of the future suffragettes wore, instead of bonnets and hats, a reboso, or sort of scarf or muffler, which covered their heads and shoulders and looked delightfully picturesque. To don this gracefully was, in fact, quite an art. Many of the native California ladies also braided their hair and wore circular combs around the back of their heads. At least this was so until, with the advent of a greater number of American women, their more modern, though less romantic styles commenced to prevail, even when the picturesque Montia was discarded. Noting these differences of dress in early days, I should not forget to state that there were both American and Mexican tailors here, among the former being one McCoy and his son, Mary Companions, whose co-partnership carousels were proverbial. The Mexican tailor had the advantage of knowing just what the native requirements were, although in the course of time his gringo rival came to understand the tastes and prejudices of the paisano and to obtain the better share of the patronage. The cloth from which the Caballero's outfit was made could be found in most of the stores. As with clothes and tailors, so it was with other articles of apparel and those who manufactured them. The natives had their own shoe and hat-makers, and their styles were unvarying. The genuine Panama hat was highly prized and often copied, and Francisco Velardes, who used a grindstone bought of John Temple in 1852, now in the county museum, was one who sold an imitated Panama's of the fifties. A product of the bootmaker's skill were leather and leggings worn to protect the trousers when riding on horseback. The gringos were then given to copying the fashions of the natives, but as the pioneer population increased, the Mexican came more and more to adopt American styles. Growing out of these exhibitions of horsemanship and of the natives' fondness for display was the rather important industry of making Mexican saddles, in which quite a number of skilled paisanos were employed. Among the most expert was Francisco Moreno, who had a little shop on the south side of Aliso Street, not far from Los Angeles. One of these hand-worked saddles often cost $200 or more, in addition to which expensive bridles, bits, and spurs were deemed necessary accessories. Antonio María Lugo had a silver-mounted saddle, bridle, and spurs that cost $1,500. On holidays and even Sundays Upper Main Street, formerly called the Calle de las Virgenes, or Street of the Mades, later San Fernando Street, was the scene of horse races in their attended festivities, just as it used to be when money or gold was especially plentiful, if one may judge from the stories of those who were here in the prosperous year, 1850. People from all over the county visited Los Angeles to take part in the sport, some coming from mere curiosity, but the majority anxious to bet. Some money, and often a good deal of stock, changed hands, according to the success or failure of the different favorites. It cannot be claimed perhaps that the Mexican, like the gringo, made a specialty of developing horse flesh to perfection. Yet Mexicans owned many of the fast horses, such as Don José Sopolveda's Sidney Ware and Black Swan, and the Californian Sarco, belonging to Don Pio Pico. The most celebrated of all these horse races of the early days was that between José Andrés Sopolveda's Black Swan and Pio Pico's Sarco, the details of which I learned soon after I came here from Tom Mott. Sopolveda had imported the Black Swan from Australia in 1852, the year of the race, while Pico chose a California steed to defend the honors of the day. Sopolveda himself went to San Francisco to receive the consignment in person, after which he committed the thoroughbred into the keeping of Bill Brady, the trainer, who rode him down to Los Angeles and gave him as much care as might have been bestowed upon a favorite child. They were to race nine miles, the Carrera commencing on San Pedro Street near the city limits, and running south a league and a half and return. In the reports of the preparation having spread throughout California, the event came to be looked upon as of such great importance that from San Francisco to San Diego, whoever had the money hurried to Los Angeles to witness the contest and bet on the result. $25,000 in addition to 500 horses, 500 mayors, 500 heifers, 500 calves, and 500 sheep were among the princely stakes put up, and the wife of Jose Andres was driven to the scene of the memorable contest with a veritable fortune in gold slugs wrapped in a large handkerchief. Upon arriving there, she opened her improvised purse and distributed the shiny $50 pieces to all of her attendants and servants, of whom there were not a few, with the injunction that they should wager the money on the race, and her example was followed by others, so that in addition to the cattle land and merchandise hazarded, a considerable sum of money was bet by the contending parties and their friends. The black swan won easily. The peculiar character of some of the wagers recalls me to an instance of a later date when a native customer of Luis Phillips tried to borrow a wagon in order to bet the same on a horse race. If the customer won, he was to return the wagon at once, but if he lost, he was to pay Phillips a certain price for the vehicle. Many kinds of amusements marked these festival occasions, and bullfights were among the diversions patronized by some Angelenos, the Christmas and New Year holidays of 1854 and 55, being celebrated in that manner. I daresay that in earlier days Los Angeles may have had its plaza de Torros, as did the ancient metropolis of the great country to the south, but in the later stages of the sport here, the toreador and his colleagues conducted their contests in a godly painted corral, in close proximity to the plaza. They were usually proclaimed as professionals from Mexico or Spain, but were often engaged for a livelihood under another name in a less dangerous and romantic occupation nearby. Admission was charged and some pretence to a grandstand was made, but through the apertures in the fence of the corral, those who did not pay might, by dint of hard squinting, still get a peep at the show. In this corral, in the 50s, I saw a fight between a bear and a bull. I can still recollect the crowd, but I cannot say which of the infuriated animals survived. Toward the end of 1858, a bull fight took place in a calle de Torros, and there was great excitement when a horse was instantly killed. Cock fights were also a very common form of popular entertainment, and sports were frequently seen going around the streets with fighting cocks under each arm. The fights generally took place in Sonoratown, though now and then they were held in San Gabriel. Mexicans carried on quite a trade in game roosters among the patrons of this past time, of whom MG Santa Cruz was one of the best known. Sometimes too, roosters contributed to still another brutal diversion known as Correr de Gallo. Their necks having been well greased, they would be partially buried in the earth alongside a public highway, when riders on fleet horses dashed by at full speed, and tried to seize the fowls and pull them out. This reminds me of another game in which horsemen, speeding madly by a succession of suspended small rings, would try by the skillful handling of a long spear to collect as many of the rings as they could, a sport illustrated in one of the features of the modern merry-go-round. The easy-going temperament of the native gave rise to many an amusing incident. I once asked a woman, as we were discussing the coming marriage of her daughter, whom the dark-eyed senorita was to marry, whereupon she replied, I forget, and turning to her daughter she asked, Como se llama? What did you say was his name? George Dalton bought a tract of land on Washington, east of San Pedro Street, in 1855, and set out a vineyard and orchard which he continued to cultivate until 1887, when he moved to Walnut Avenue. Dalton was a Londoner who sailed from Liverpool on the day of Queen Victoria's coronation, to spend some years wandering through Pennsylvania and Ohio. About 1851 he followed to the Asusa District his brother Henry Dalton, who had previously been emergent in Peru, but preferring the embryo city to the country he returned to Los Angeles to live. Two sons, E. H. Dalton, city water overseer in 1886-87, and Winnell Travelie Dalton, the vineyardist, were offspring of Dalton's first marriage. Elizabeth M., a daughter, married William H. Perry. Dalton Avenue is named after the Dalton family. In another place I have spoken of the dearth of trees in the town when I came, though the editor of the star and others had advocated tree planting. This was not due to mere neglect. There was prejudice against such street improvement. The school trustees had bought a dozen or more black locust trees at eight bits each, and planted them on the school lawn at Second and Spring Streets. Drought and squirrels in 1855 attacked the trees, and while the pedagogue went after the varmints with a shotgun, he watered the trees from the school barrel. The carrier, however, complained that drinking water was being wasted, and only after several rhetorical bouts was the schoolmaster allowed to save what was already invested. The locust trees flourished until 1884 when they were hewn down to make way for the city hall. Two partially successful attempts were made in 1855 to introduce the chestnut tree here, Jean-Louis Saint-Savain, coming to Los Angeles in that year, brought with him some seed, and this doubtless led Solomon Lazard to send back to Bordeaux for some of the Italian variety. William Wolfskill, who first brought here the persimmon tree, took a few of the seeds imported by Lazard and planted them near his homestead, and a dozen of the trees later adorned the beautiful garden of O. W. Childs, who, in the following year, started some black walnut seed obtained in New York. H. P. Dorsey was also a pioneer walnut grower. My brother's plans at this time included a European visit, commencing in 1855 and lasting until 1856, during which trip, in Germany, on November 11, 1855, he was married. After his continental tour he returned to San Francisco and was back in Los Angeles sometime before 1857. On this European voyage my brother was entrusted with the care and delivery of American government documents. From London he carried certain papers to the American minister in Denmark, and in furtherance of his mission he was given the following introduction and passport from James Buchanan, the minister plenipotentiary to the court of St. James, and later president of the United States. Number 282. Bearer of Despatches. Legation of the United States of America at London. To all to whom these present shall come, greeting. No ye that the bearer hereof, Joseph P. Newmark Esquire, is proceeding to Hamburg and Denmark bearing despatches from this legation to the United States legation at Copenhagen. These are therefore to request all whom it may concern to permit him to pass freely without let or molestation and to extend to him such friendly aid and protection as would be extended to citizens and subjects of foreign countries resorting to the United States bearing despatches. In testimony whereof I, James Buchanan, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States of America at London, have herein to set my hand and cause the seal of this legation to be affixed this 10th day of July, A.D. 1855, and of the Independence of the United States the 80th, signed James Buchanan. Seal of the Legation of the U.S. of America to Great Britain. I have always accepted the fact of my brother's selection to convey these documents as evidence that, in the few years since his arrival in America, he had attained a position of some responsibility. Aside from this I am inclined to relate the experience because it shows the then limited resources of our federal authorities abroad, especially as compared with their comprehensive facilities today including their own despatch agents, messengers, and treasury representatives scattered throughout Europe. A trip of prudent Baudry abroad about this time reminds me that specialization in medical science was as unknown in early Los Angeles as was specialization in business, and that persons suffering from grave physical disorders frequently visited even remotor points than San Francisco in search of relief. In 1855 Baudry's health, having become seriously impaired, he went to Paris to consult the famous Oculus Cycle, but he received little or no benefit. While in Europe, Baudry visited the exposition of that year and was one of the first Angelinos I suppose to see a world's fair. These early tours to Europe by Temple, Baudry, and my brother, and some of my own experiences, recall the changes in the manner of bidding Los Angeles travelers bon voyage. Friends generally accompanied the tourists to the outlying steamer achieved by a tug or lighter, and when the leave taking came there were cheers, repetitions of alios, and the waving of hats and handkerchiefs, which continued until the steamer had disappeared from view. The first earthquake felt through California of which I have any recollection occurred on July 11, 1855, someone after eight o'clock in the evening, and was a most serious local disturbance. Almost every structure in Los Angeles was damaged, and some of the walls were left with large cracks. Near San Gabriel, the adobe in which Hugo Reed's Indian wife dwelt was wrecked, notwithstanding that it had walls four feet thick with great beams of lubber drawn from the mountains of San Bernardino. In certain spots the ground rose, in others it fell, and with the rising and falling down came chimneys, shelves full of saleable stock or household necessities, pictures and even parts of roofs, while water in barrels and also in several of the zanjas bubbled and splashed and overflowed. Again on the 14th of April, the 2nd of May, and the 20th of September of the following year, we were alarmed by recurring and more or less continuous shocks, which, however, did little or no damage. CHAPTER XIII. PRINCELY RANCHO DOMAINS. 1855 Of the wonderful domains granted to the Spanish dons, some were still in the possession of their descendants. Some had passed into the hands of the Argonauts, but nothing in the way of subdividing had been attempted. The private ownership of Los Angeles County in the early fifties, therefore, was distinguished by few holders in large tracts, one of the most notable being that of Don Abel Stearns, who came here in 1829, and who, in his early adventures, narrowly escaped exile or being shot by an irate Spanish governor. Eventually Stearns became the proud possessor of tens of thousands of acres between San Pedro and San Bernardino, now covered with cities, towns and hamlets. The site of the long beach of today was but a small part of his Alamitos Rancho, a portion of the town also including some of the Cerritos Acres of John Temple. Los Coyotes, La Abra, and San Juan Cajón de Santa Ana were among the Stearns Ranch's advertised for sale in 1869. Later I shall relate how this Alamitos land came to be held by Jotham Bixby and his associates. Juan Temple owned the Los Cerritos Rancho, consisting of some 27,000 acres, patented on December 27, 1867, but which I have heard he bought of the Nieto Ayres in the late 30s, building there the typical ranch house, later the home of the Bixby's, and still a feature of the neighborhood. Across the Cerritos, Stockton's weary soldiers dragged to their way, and there, or nearby, Carrillo, by driving wild horses back and forth in confusion, and so creating a great noise and dust, tricked Stockton into thinking that there were many more of the mounted enemy than he had at first supposed. By 1853, Temple was estimated to be worth, in addition to his ranch's, some 20,000 dollars. In 1816 Los Cerritos supported perhaps 4,000 cattle and great flocks of sheep, on a portion of the same ranch today, as I have remarked, Long Beach stands. Another citizen of Los Angeles who owned much property when I came, and who lived upon his ranch, was Francis Finia Fisk Temple, one of the first Los Angeles supervisors, a man exceptionally modest and known among his Spanish speaking friends as Templito, because of his five foot four stature. He came here by way of the horn, in 1841, when he was but nineteen years of age, and for a while was in business with his brother John, marrying Sr. Rita Antonia Margarita Workman. However, on September thirtieth, 1845, Francis made his home at La Merced Ranch, twelve miles east of Los Angeles, in the San Gabriel Valley, where he had a spacious and hospitable adobe after the old Spanish style, shaped something like a U, and about seventy by one hundred and ten feet in size. Around this house, later destroyed by fire, Temple planted twenty acres of fruit trees and fifty thousand or more vines, arranging the whole in a garden partly enclosed by a fence, the exception rather than the rule for even a country nebob of that time. Templito also owned other ranches many miles in extent, but Miss Fortune overtook him, and by the nineties his estate possessed scarcely a single acre of land in either the city or the county of Los Angeles, and he breathed his last in a rude sheepherder's camp in a corner of one of his famous properties. Colonel Julian Isaac Williams, who died some three years after I arrived, owned the celebrated Cugamonga and Chino ranches. As early as 1842, after a nine or ten years residence in Los Angeles, Williams moved to the Rancho del Chino, which included not merely the Santa Ana del Chino Grant, some twenty-two thousand acres originally given to Don Antonio Maria Lugo in eighteen forty one, but the addition of twelve to thirteen thousand acres granted in eighteen forty three two Williams, who became Lugo's son-in-law, making a total of almost thirty-five thousand acres. On that ranch Williams built a house famed far and wide for its spaciousness and hospitality, and it was at his hacienda that the celebrated capture of B. D. Wilson and others was affected when they ran out of ammunition. Williams was liberal in assisting the needy, even despatching messengers to Los Angeles on the arrival at his ranch of worn-out and ragged immigrants to secure clothing and other supplies for them, and it is related that on other occasions he was known to have advanced to young men capital amounting in the aggregate to thousands of dollars with which they established themselves in business. By eighteen fifty one Williams had amassed personal property estimated to be worth not less than thirty-five thousand dollars. In the end he gave his ranchos to his daughters as marriage portions, the Chino to Francesca, or Mrs. Robert Carlyle, who became the wife of Dr. F. A. McDougal, mayor, in eighteen seventy-seven to seventy-eight, and after his death Mrs. Jesseron, and the Cucamonga to Maria Merced, or Mrs. John Reigns, mother-in-law of ex-governor Henry T. Gage, who was later Mrs. Carrillo, Benjamin Davis Wilson, or Benito Wilson as he was usually called, who owned a good part of the most beautiful land in the San Gabriel Valley, and who laid out the trail up the Sierra Madre to Wilson's Peak, was one of our earliest settlers, having come from Tennessee via New Mexico in eighteen forty-one. In June eighteen forty-six, Wilson joined the riflemen organized against Castro, and in eighteen forty-eight, having been put in charge of some twenty men to protect the San Bernardino Frontier, he responded to a call from Isaac Williams to hasten to the Chino Rancho where, with his compatriots, he was taken prisoner. Somewhat earlier, I have understood about eighteen forty-four, Wilson and Albert Packard formed a partnership, but this was dissolved near the end of eighteen fifty-one. In eighteen fifty, Wilson was elected county clerk, and the following year he volunteered to patrol the hills and assist in watching for Garra, the outlaw, the report of whose coming was terrorizing the town. In eighteen fifty-three, he was an Indian agent for Southern California. It must have been about eighteen forty-five that Wilson secured control for a while of the Bella Union. His first wife was Ramona Yorba, a daughter of Bernardo Yorba, whom he married in February eighteen forty-four and who died in eighteen forty-nine. On February first, eighteen fifty-three, Wilson married again, this time Mrs. Margaret S. Herford, a sister in law of Thomas S. Herford. They spent many years together at Lake Vineyard, where he became one of the leading producers of good wine, and west of which he planted some twenty-five or thirty thousand raisin grape cuttings, and ten or twelve hundred orange trees, thus founding oak knoll. I shall have occasion to speak of this gentleman somewhat later. By the time that I came to know him, Wilson had accumulated much real estate, part of his property being a residence on Alameda Street, corner of Macy, but after a while he moved to one of his larger estates, where stands the present Shorb Station, named for his son-in-law and associate J. de Barth Shorb, who also had a place known as Mountain Vineyard. Don Benito died in March eighteen seventy-eight. Colonel Jonathan Trumbull Warner, master of Warner's Ranch, later the property of John G. Downey, and known from his superb statue of over six feet, both as one Jose Warner and as Juan Largo, Long John, returned to Los Angeles in eighteen fifty-seven. Warner had arrived in Southern California on December fifth, eighteen thirty-one, at the age of twenty-eight, having come west from Connecticut via Missouri and Salt Lake, partly for his health and partly to secure mules for the Louisiana market. Like many others whom I have known, Warner did not intend to remain, but illness decided for him, and in eighteen forty-three he settled in San Diego County, near the California border, on what, later known as Warner's Ranch, was to become, with its trail from old Sonora, historic ground. There, during the fourteen years of his occupancy, some of the most stirring episodes of the Mexican War occurred, during one of which, and since Espinoza's attack, Don Juan, having objected to the forcible searching of his house, he had his arm broken. There also Antonio Garra and his lawless band made their assault and were repulsed by Long John, who escaped on horseback, leaving in his wake four or five dead Indians. For this, said not for military service, Warner was dubbed Colonel, nor was there anyone who dared to dispute his right to the title. In eighteen thirty-seven Juan married Miss Anita Gale, an adopted daughter of Don Pio Pico, and came to Los Angeles, but the following year Mrs. Warner died. Warner once ran against E. J. C. Kuhn for the legislature, but after an exceedingly bitter campaign was beaten. In eighteen seventy-four, Warner was a Notary public and Spanish English interpreter. For many years his home was in and orchard occupying the site of the Burbank Theater on Main Street. Warner was a man of character and lived to a venerable age, and after a decidedly arduous life, he had more than his share of responsibility and affliction, even losing his sight in his declining years. William Wolfskill, who died on October 3, 1866, was another pioneer well established long before I had even thought of California. Born in Kentucky at the end of the eighteenth century of a family originally of Teutonic stock, if we may credit a high German authority, traced back to a favorite soldier of Frederick the Great, Wolfskill in eighteen thirty came to Los Angeles for a short time with Ewing Young, the noted beaver trapper. Then he acquired several leagues of land in Yolo and Solano counties, sharing what he had with his brothers, John and Mateo. Later he sold out, returned to Los Angeles, and bought and stocked the Rancho Lomas de Santiago, which afterward he disposed of to Flint, Bixby, and Company. He also bought of Corbett, Dibley, and Barker the Santa Anita Rancho, comprising between nine and ten thousand acres, and some twelve thousand beside. The Santa Anita he gave to his son, Louis, who later sold it for eighty-five thousand dollars. Besides this, Wolfskill acquired title to part of the Rancho San Francisco, on which New Hall stands, disposing of that, however, during the first oil excitement to the Philadelphia Oil Company at seventy-five cents an acre, a good price at that time. Before making the successful realty experiments, this hero of desert hardships had assisted to build soon after his arrival here, one of the first vessels ever constructed and launched in California. A schooner fitted out at San Pedro to hunt for sea otter. In January, eighteen-forty-one, Wolfskill married Donia Magdalena Lugo, daughter of Don José Ignacio Lugo of Santa Barbara. A daughter, Srita Magdalena, in eighteen-sixty-five, married Frank Sabici, a native of Los Angeles, who first saw the light of day in eighteen-forty-two. Sabici, by the way, always a man of importance in this community, is the son of Mateo and Josefa Franco Sabici. The mother, a sister of Antonio Franco Coronel, buried at San Gabriel Mission. J. E. Pleasants, to whom I elsewhere refer, first made a good start when he formed a partnership with Wolfskill in a cattle deal. Concerning Mateo, I recall an interesting illustration of early fiscal operations. He deposited thirty thousand dollars with S. Lazard and Company and left it there so long that they began to think he would never come back for it. He did return, however, after many years, when he presented a certificate of deposit and withdrew the money. This transaction bore no interest, as was often the case in former days. People deposited money with friends in whom they had confidence, not for the purpose of profit, but simply for safety. Elijah T. Moulton, a Canadian, was one of the few pioneers who preceded the forty-niners and was permitted to see Los Angeles well on its way toward metropolitan standing. In 1844 he had joined an expedition to California, organized by Jim Bridger, and having reached the western country, he volunteered to serve under Freemont in the Mexican campaign. There the hardships which Moulton endured were far severer than those which tested the grit of the average immigrant, and Moulton is, better days, often told how, when nearly driven to starvation, he and a comrade had actually used a remnant of the stars and stripes as a sain with which to fish, and so saved their lives. About 1850 Moulton was deputy sheriff under George T. Burrill, then he went to work for Don Louis Vignet. Soon afterward he bought some land near William Wolfskills, and in 1855 took charge of Wolfskills' property. This resulted in his marriage to one of Wolfskills' daughters who died in 1861. In the meantime he had acquired a hundred and fifty acres, or more, in what is now east Los Angeles, and was thus one of the first to settle in that section. He had a dairy for a while and peddled milk from a can or two carried in a wagon. Afterward Moulton became a member of the City Council. William Workman and John Rowland, father of William or Billy Rowland, resided in 1853 on La Puente Rancho, which was granted them, July 22, 1845, some four years after they had arrived in California. They were leaders of a party from New Mexico of which B. D. Wilson, Lemuel, Carpenter, and others were members, and the year following they operated with Pico against Miquel Torrena and Sutter, Workman serving as Captain and Rowland as Lieutenant of a company of volunteers they had organized. The ranch, situated about twenty miles east of Los Angeles, consisted of nearly forty-nine thousand acres and had one of the first brick residences erected in this neighborhood. Full title to this splendid estate was confirmed by the United States government in April 1867, a couple of years before Workman and Rowland, with the assistance of Cameron E. Tom, divided their property. Rowland, who in 1851 was supposed to own some twenty-nine thousand acres and about seventy thousand dollars' worth of personal property, further partitioned his estate three or four years before his death in 1873, among his nearest of kin, giving to each heir about three thousand acres of land and a thousand head of cattle. One of these heirs, the wife of General Charles Foreman, is the half-sister of Billy Rowland by a second marriage. John Reed, Rowland's son-in-law, was also a large land proprietor. Reed had fallen in with Rowland in New Mexico, and while there married Rowland's daughter Nieves. And when Rowland started for California, Reed came with him, and together they entered into ranching at La Puente, finding artisan water there in 1859. Thirteen years before, Reed was in the American Army and took part in the battle's fought on the march from San Diego to Los Angeles. After his death on the ranch in 1874, his old homestead came into possession of John Rowland's son William, who often resided there. And Rowland, later discovering oil on his land, organized at the Puente Oil Company. One forester and Englishman possessed the Santa Margarita Rancho, which he had taken up in 1864, some years after he married Dona Isadora Pico. She was a sister of Pio and Andres Pico, and there, as a result of that alliance, General Pico found a safe retreat while fleeing from Fremont into lower California. Forester for a while was a seaman out of San Pedro. When he went to San Juan Capistrano, where he became a sort of local alcalde, and was often called Don San Juan, or even San Juan Capistrano, he experimented with raising stock and became so successful as a ranchero that he remained there twenty years, during which time he acquired a couple other ranches in San Diego and Los Angeles counties, comprising quite sixty thousand acres. Forester, however, was comparatively land poor, as may be inferred from the fact that even though the owner of such a princely territory, he was assessed in 1851 on but thirteen thousand dollars in personal property. Later Don Juan lorded it over twice as much land in the ranches of Santa Margarita and Los Flores. His fourth son, a namesake, married seniorita, Josefa de Valle, daughter of Don Ignacio del Valle. Manuel Pedro Nazario and Victoria Dominguez owned in the neighborhood of forty-eight thousand acres of the choicest land in the south. More than a century ago, Juan Jose Dominguez received from the king of Spain ten or eleven leagues of land known as the Rancho de San Pedro, and this was given by governor de Sola after Juan Jose's death in 1822 to his brother Don Cristobal Dominguez, a Spanish officer. Don Cristobal married a Mexican commissioner's daughter and one of their ten children was Manuel, who, educated by wide reading and fortunate in a genial temperament and high standard of honor, became an esteemed and popular officer under the Mexican regime, displaying no little chivalry in the battle of Dominguez fought on his own property. On the death of his father, Don Manuel took charge of the Rancho de San Pedro, buying out his sister Victoria's interest of twelve thousand acres at fifty cents an acre, until in eighteen fifty-five it was partitioned between himself, his brother, Don Pedro, and two nephews, Jose Antonio Aguirre and Jacinto Rocha. One daughter, Victoria, married George Carson in eighteen fifty-seven. At his death in 1882, Dominguez bequeathed to his heirs twenty odd thousand acres, including Rattlesnake Island in San Pedro Bay. James A. Watson, an early-comer, married a second daughter, John F. Francis married a third, and Dr. Delamo married a fourth. Henry Dalton, who came here some time before eighteen forty-five, having been a merchant in Peru, owned the Asusa Ranch of over four thousand acres, the patent to which was finally issued in eighteen seventy-six, and also part of the San Francisco Ranch of eight thousand acres, allowed him somewhat later. Besides this he had an interest with Ignacio Palomarres and Ricardo Vejar in the San José Rancho of nearly twenty-seven thousand acres. As early as the twenty-first of May, eighteen fifty-one, Dalton, with keen foresight, seemed to have published a plan for the subdivision of nine or ten thousand acres into lots to suit limited ranchers. But it was some time before Duarte and other places, now on the above mentioned estates, arose from his dream. On a part of his property, Asusa, a town of the boom period, was founded some twenty-two miles from Los Angeles, and seven or eight thousand feet up the Asusa slope, and now other towns also flourished near these attractive foothills. One of Dalton's daughters was given in marriage to Luis, a son of William Wolfskill. Dalton's brother George, I have already mentioned as having likewise settled here. Of all these worthy dons, possessing vast landed estates, Don Antonio Maria Lugo, brother of Ignacio Lugo, was one of the most affluent and venerable. He owned the San Antonio Rancho, named I presume after him, and in eighteen fifty-six, when he celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday, was reputed to be the owner of fully twenty-nine thousand acres and personal property to the extent of seventy-two thousand dollars. Three sons, José María, José del Carmen, and Vicente Lugo, as early as eighteen forty-two, also acquired in their own names about thirty-seven thousand acres. Luis Ribodeau, a French-American of superior ability who, like many others, had gone through much that was exciting and unpleasant to establish himself in this wild, open country, eventually had an immense estate known as the Derupa Rancho, from which on September twenty-six, eighteen forty-six, during the Mexican War, B.D. Wilson and others rode forth to be neatly trapped and captured at that chino, and were the outlaw Irving later encamped. Riverside occupies a site on this land, and the famous Ribodeau Hill, usually spoken of as the Ribodeau Mountain, once a part of Luis Ranch, and today a mecca for thousands of tourists, was named after him. Many of the rancheros kept little ranch stores from which they sold to their employees. This was rather for convenience than for profit. When their help came to Los Angeles they generally got drunk and stayed away from work longer than the allotted time, and it was to prevent this as far as possible that these outlying stores were conducted. Luis Ribodeau maintained such a store for the accommodation of his hands, and often came to town, sometimes for several days, on which occasions he would buy very liberally anything that happened to take his fancy. In this respect he occasionally acted without good judgment, and if opposed would become all the more determined. Not infrequently he called for so large a supply of some article that I was constrained to remark that he could not possibly need so much, whereupon he would repeat the order with angry emphasis. I sometimes visited his ranch and recall in particular one stay of two or three days there, in 1857, when, after an unusually large purchase, Ribodeau asked me to assist him in checking up the invoices. The cases were unpacked in his ranch house, and I have never forgotten the amusing picture of the numerous little Ribodeau, digging and delving among the assorted goods for all the prizes they could find, and thus rendering the process of listing the goods much more difficult. When the delivery had been found correct, Ribodeau turned to his Mexican wife and asked her to bring the money. She went to the side of the room, opened a Chinese trunk such as every well to do Mexican family had, and sometimes as many as half a dozen, and drew there from the customary buckskin from which she extracted the required and rather large amount. These trunks were made of cedar, were godly painted, and had the quality of keeping out moths. They were therefore displayed with pride by the owners. Recently, on turning the pages of some ledgers in which Newmark Cramer and company carried the account of this famous ranchero, I was interested to find their full confirmation of what I have elsewhere claimed, that the now renowned Frenchman spelled the first syllable of his name R-O, and not R-U, nor yet R-O-U, as it is generally recorded in books and newspapers. I should refrain from mentioning a circumstance or two in Ribodeau's life with which I am familiar, but for the fact that I believe posterity is ever curious to know the little failings as well as the pronounced virtues of men who, through exceptional personality or association, have become historic characters, and that some knowledge of their foyables should not tarnish their reputation. Ribodeau, as I have remarked, came to town very frequently, and when again he found himself amid livelier scenes and congenial fellows, as in the late fifties, he always celebrated the occasion with a few intimates, winding up his befuddling bouts in the arms of Chris Fleur, who winked at his weakness, and good-naturedly tucked him away in one of the old-fashioned beds of the Lafayette Hotel, there to remain until he was able to transact business. After all, such celebrating was then not at all uncommon among the best of southern California people, nor, if gossip may be credited, is it entirely unknown today. Robert Hornbeck of Redlands, by the way, has sought to perpetuate this pioneer's fame in an illustrated volume, Ribodeau's Ranch in the Seventies, published as I am closing my story. Ribodeau's name leads me to recur to early judges and to his identification with the first court of sessions here, when there was such a sparseness even of Rancherias. Ribodeau then lived on his Yoruba domain, and not having been at the meeting of township justices which selected himself, and Judge Scott to sit on the bench, and enjoying but infrequent communication with the more people districts of southern California, he knew nothing of the outcome of the election until sometime after it had been called. More than this Judge Ribodeau never actually participated in a sitting of the court of sessions until four or five weeks after it had been almost daily transacting business. Speaking of ranches and of the Yoruba in particular, I may hear reprint and advertisement, a miniature tree and a house heading the following announcement in the southern Californian of June 20th, 1855. The subscriber, being anxious to get away from swindlers, offers it for sale one of the very finest ranchos or tracks of land that is to be found in California, known as the Rancher de Yoruba, Santa Ana River, in the county of San Bernardino. Bernardo Yoruba was another great landowner, and I am sure that in the day of his glory he might have traveled fifty to sixty miles in a straight line, touching none but his own possessions. His ranches, on one of which Pio Pigo Hild, from Santiago Arguella, were delightfully located where now stand such places as Anaheim, Orange, Santa Ana, Westminster, Garden Grove, and other towns in Orange County, then a part of Los Angeles County. This leads me to describe a shrewd trick. Schlesinger and Shrewinsky, traders in general, merchantized in 1853, when they bought a wagon in San Francisco, brought it here by steamer, loaded it with various attractive wares, took it out to the good-natured and easy-going Bernardo Yoruba, and weedled the well-known ranchero into purchasing not only the contents, but the wagon, horses, and harnesses well. Indeed, their ingenuity was so well rewarded that soon after this first lucky hit they repeated their success to the discomforture of their competitors, and if I am not mistaken, they performed the same operation on the Old Don several times. The Verdugo family had an extensive acreage where such towns as Glendale now enjoy the benefit of recent suburban development. Governor Pedro Fogues, having granted, as early as 1784, some 36,000 acres to Don Jose Maria Verdugo, which Grant was reaffirmed in 1798, thereby affording the basis of a patent issued in 1882 to Julio Verdugo at all, although Verdugo died in 1858. To this Verdugo rancho, Fremont sent Jesús Pico, the Mexican guide whose life he had spared, as he was about to be executed at San Luis Obispo, to talk with the Californians and to persuade them to deal with Fremont instead of Stockton. And there, on February 21st, 1845, Michael Torrena and Castro met. Near their also, still later, the celebrated Casa Verdugo, entertained for many years the epicures of Southern California, becoming one of the best-known restaurants for Spanish dishes in the state. Little by little, their Verdugo family lost all their property, partly through their refusal or inability to pay taxes, so that by the second decade of the 20th century, the surviving representatives, including Victoriano and Guillermo Verdugo, were reduced to poverty. Footnote. Julio Cristostino Verdugo died early in March 1915, supposed to be about 112 years old. And footnote. Recalling Verdugo and his son Rafael Ranch, let me add that he had 13 sons, all of whom frequently accompanied their father to town, especially on election day. On those occasions, Jay Lancaster Brent, whose political influence with the old man was supreme, took the Verdugo party in hand and distributed, through the father, 14 election tickets on which were impressed the names of Brent's candidates. Manuel Garfias, county treasurer a couple of years before I came, was another land baron, owning in his own names some 13 or 14,000 acres of the San Pascual Ranch. There, among the picturesque hills and valleys, where both Pico and Flores had military camps, now flourished the cities of Pasadena and South Pasadena, which include the land where stood the first house erected on the ranch. It is my impression that beautiful Altadena is also on this land. Ricardo Vejar, another magnate, had an interest in a wide area of rich territory known as the San Jose Ranch. Not less than 22,000 acres made up this ranch, which, as early as 1837, had been granted by Governor Alvarado to Vejar and Ignacio Palomares, who died on November 25, 1864. Two or three years later, Luis Arenas joined the two, and Alvarado renewed his grant tacking on a league or two of San Jose land, lying to the west and nearer the San Gabriel Mountains. Arenas in time disposed of his interest to Henry Dalton, and Dalton joined Vejar in applying to the courts for a partitioning of the estate. This division was ordered by the Spanish Alcalde six or seven years before my arrival, but Palomares still objected to the decision and the matter dragged along in the tribunals for many years, the decree finally being set aside by the court. Vejar, who had been assessed in 1851 for $34,000 worth of personal property, sold his share of the estate for $29,000 in the spring of 1874. It is a curious fact that not until the San Jose Rancho had been so cut up that it was not easy to trace it back to the original grantees, did the authorities at Washington finally issue a patent to Dalton, Palomares, and Vejar for their 22,000 acres which originally made up the ranch. The Machados, of whom there were several brothers, Don Agustín, who died on May 17, 1865, being the head of the family, had titled to nearly 14,000 acres. Their ranch, originally granted to Don Ignacio Machado in 1839 and patented in 1873, was known as La Bayona, and extended from the city limits to the ocean, and there, among other stock in 1860, were more than 2,000 head of cattle. The Picos acquired much territory. There were two brothers, Pio, who as Mexican governor had had wide supervision over land, and Andres, who had fought throughout the San Pascual campaigns until the capitulation at Cahuenga, and still later had dashed with spirit across country in pursuit of the murderers of Sheriff Barton. Pio Pico alone in 1851 was assessed for 22,000 acres as well as $21,000 in personal property. Besides controlling various San Fernando ranches, once under BH Lancaro's management, Andres Pico possessed La Abra, a ranch of over 6,000 acres for which a patent was granted in 1872, and the ranch Los Coyotes, including over 48,000 acres, patented three years later, while Pio Pico at one time owned the Santa Margarita and Los Flores Ranchos, and had in addition some 9,000 acres known as Paso de Bartolo. In his old age, the governor, who as long as I knew him had been strangely loose in his business methods and had borrowed from everybody, found himself under the necessity of obtaining some 30 or 40,000 dollars, even at the expense of giving to B. Cohn, W. J. Broderick, and Charles Proger a blanket mortgage covering all of his properties. These included the Pico House, the Pico Ranch on the other side of the San Gabriel River, the homestead on which has for some time been preserved by the ladies of Whittier, and property on Main Street north of Commercial, besides some other holdings. When his note fell due, Pico was unable to meet it, and the mortgage was foreclosed. The old man was then left practically penniless, a suit at law concerning the interpretation of the loan agreement being decided against him. Henry C. Wiley must have arrived very early, as he had been in Los Angeles some years before I came. He married a daughter of Andres Pico, and for a while had charge of his hen Fernando Ranch. Wiley served at one time as sheriff of the county. He died in 1898. The Rancho Los Nietos, or more properly speaking perhaps, the Santa Gertrudez, then whose soil, watered as it is by the San Gabriel River, none more fertile can be found in the world, included indeed a wide area extending between the Santa Ana and the San Gabriel Rivers, and embracing the Ford known as Pico Crossing. It was then in possession of the Carpenter family, Lemuel Carpenter having bought it from the heirs of Manuel Nieto, to whom had been granted in 1784. Carpenter came from Missouri to this vicinity as early as 1833, when he was but 22 years old. For a while he had a small soap factory on the right bank of the San Gabriel River, after which he settled on the ranch, and there he remained until November 6, 1859 when he committed suicide. Within the borders of this ranch today lie such places as Downey and Rivera. Francisco Sanchez was another early ranchero, probably the same who figured so prominently in early San Francisco, and it is possible that J. M. Sanchez, to whom in 1859 was re-granted the 4400 acres of the Potrero Grande, was his heir. There were two large and important landowners, second cousins known as José Sepolveda, the one Don José Andrés, and the other Don José Loretto. The father of José Andrés was Don Francisco Sepolveda, a Spanish officer to whom the San Vicente ranch had been granted, and José Andrés, born in San Diego in 1804, was the oldest of 11 children. His brothers were Fernando, José del Carmen, Dolores, and Juan María, and he also had six sisters. To José Andrés, or José as he was called, the San Joaquín Ranch was given, an enormous tract of land lying between the present Tustin, earlier known as Tustin City, and San Juan Capistrano, and running from the hills to the sea. While on the death of Don Francisco, the San Vicente ranch, later bought by Jones and Baker, was left to José del Carmen, Dolores, and Juan María. José, in addition, bought 1800 acres from José Antonio Yorba, and on this newly acquired property he built his ranch house. Although he and his family may be said to have been more or less permanent residents of Los Angeles, Fernando Sepolveda married a Verdugo, and through her became proprietor of much of the Verdugo Rancho. The fact that José was so well provided for, and that Fernando had come into control of the Verdugo acres, made it mutually satisfactory that the San Vicente ranch should have been willed to the other sons. The children of José Andrés included Miguel, Mauricio, Bernabe, Joaquín, Andrónico, and Ignacio, and Francesca, wife of James Thompson, Tomasa, wife of Francoico, Ramona, wife of Captain Salisbury Haley of the Seabird, Ascension, wife of Tom Mott, and Tranquilina. The latter, with Mrs. Mott and Judge Ignacio, are still living here. Don José Loretto, brother of Juan and Diego Sepolveda, father of Mrs. John T. LaFranco, and a well known resident of Los Angeles County in early days, presided over the destinies of 31,000 acres in the Palos Verdes Rancho, where Flores had stationed his soldiers to watch the American ship Savannah. Full patent to this land was granted in 1880. There being no fences to separate the great ranches, cattle roamed at will, nor were the owners seriously concerned, for every man had his distinct registered brand, and in proper season the various herds were segregated by means of rodeos, or round-ups of strayed or mixed cattle. On such occasions all of the rancheros within a certain radius drove their herds little by little into a corral designated for the purpose, and each selected his own cattle according to brand. After segregation had thus been affected they were driven from the corral followed by the calves, which were also branded in anticipation of the next rodeo. Such round-ups were great offence, for they brought all the rancheros and vaqueros together. They became the raison d'etre of elaborate celebrations, sometimes including horse races, bullfights, and other amusements, and this was a case particularly in 1861 because of the rains and consequent excellent season. The enormous herds of cattle gathered at rodeos remind me in fact of a danger that rancheros were obliged to contend with, especially when driving their stock from place to place. Indians stampeded the cattle whenever possible, so that in the confusion those escaping the vaqueros and straggling behind might the more easily be driven to the Indian camps, and sometimes covetous ranchmen caused a similar commotion among the stock in order to make thieving easier. While riding of ranches, one bordering on the other, unfenced and open, and the enormous number of horses and cattle, as well as men required to take care of such an amount of stock, I must not forget to mention an institution that had flourished as a branch of the judiciary in palmyra Mexican days that was on the wane when I arrived here. This was the Judgeship of the Plains, an office charged directly with the interests of the ranchmen. Judges of the Plains were officials delegated to arrange for the rodeos and to hold informal court in the saddle or on the open hillside in order to settle disputes among and dispense justice to those living and working beyond the pales of the towns. Under Mexican rule a judge of the Plains, who was more or less a law unto himself, served for glory and dignity, much as does an English justice of the peace. And the latter factor was an important part of the stipulation, as we may gather from a story told by the early Angelenos of the impeachment of Don Antonio Maria Lugo. Don Antonio was then a judge of the Plains, and as such was charged with having, while on horseback, nearly trampled upon Pedro Sanchez for no other reason than that poor Pedro had refused to uncover while the judge rode by, and to keep his hat off until his honor was unmistakably out of sight. When at length Americans took possession of Southern California, judges of the Plains were given less power, and provision was made for the first time for a modest honorarium in return for their travel and work. For nearly a couple of decades after the organization of Los Angeles under the incoming white pioneers, not very much was known of the vast districts inland and adjacent to Southern California, and one can well understand the interest felt by our citizens on July 17, 1855, when Colonel Washington of the United States surveying expedition to the Rio Colorado put up at the Belia Union on his way to San Francisco. He was bombarded with questions about the region lying between the San Bernardino mountain range and the Colorado, hitherto unexplored, and being a good talker readily responded with much entertaining information. In July 1855 I attained my majority, and having by this time a fair command of English, I took a more active part in social affairs. Before he married Margarita, daughter of Juan Bandini, Dr. J.B. Winston, then interested in the Belia Union, organized most of the dances, and I was one of his committee of arrangements. We would collect from the young men of our acquaintance, many enough to pay for candles and music, for each musician, playing either a harp, a guitar, or a flute, charged from a dollar to a dollar and a half for his services. Formal social events occurred in the evening of almost any day of the week. Whenever Dr. Winston or the young galants of that period thought it was time to have a dance, they just passed around the hat for the necessary funds, and announced the affair. Ladies were escorted to functions, although we did not take them in carriages or other vehicles, but tramped through the duster mud. Young ladies, however, did not go out with gentlemen unless they were accompanied by a chaperone, generally some antiquated female member of the family. These hops usually took place at the residence of Little Blair, opposite the Belia Union and north of the present post office. There we could have a sitting room, possibly 18 by 30 feet square, and while this was larger than any other room in a private house in town, it will be realized that after all the space for dancing was very limited. We made the best, however, of what we had. The refreshments at these improvised affairs were rarely more than lemonade and oil water. Many times such dances followed as a natural termination to another social observance transmitted to us, I have no doubt, by the romantic Spanish settlers here, and very popular for some time after I came. This good old custom was serenading. We would collect money as if for dancing, and in the evening a company of young men and chaperoned young ladies would proceed in a body to some popular girl's home where, with innocent gallantry, the little band would serenade her. After that, of course, we were always glad to accept an invitation to come into the house when the ladies of the household sometimes regaled us with a bit of cake and wine. Speaking of the social life of those early days, when warm stimulating friendships and the lack of all foolish cast distinctions rendered the occasions delightfully pleasant, may it not be well to ask whether the contrast between those simple and expensive pleasures and the elaborate and extravagant demands of modern society is not worth a sober thought? To be sure Los Angeles then was exceedingly small, and pioneers here were much like a large family in plain unpretentious circumstances. There were no such ceremonies as now. There were no 400, no 300, nor even 100. There was, for example, no flunky at the door to receive the visitor's card, and for the very good reason that visiting cards were unknown. In those pastoral pueblos days it was no indiscretion for a friend to walk into another friend's house without knocking. Society of the early days could be divided, I suppose, into two classes, the respectable and the evil element, and people who were honorable came together because they esteemed each other and liked one another's company. The goldfish of the present age had not yet developed. We enjoyed ourselves together and without distinction were ready to fight to the last ditch for the protection of our families and the preservation of our homes. In the fall of 1855 Dr. Thomas J. White, a native of St. Louis, and Speaker of the Assembly in the First California Legislature, convened at San Jose in December 1849, arrived from San Francisco with his wife and two daughters, and bought a vineyard next to Dr. Hoover's ten-acre place where, in three or four years, he became one of the leading wine producers. Their advent created quite a stir in the house, which was a fine and rather commodious one for the times, soon became the scene of extensive entertainments. The addition of this highly accomplished family was indeed quite an accession to our social ranks. Their hospitality compared favorably, even with California's open-handed and open-hearted spirit, and soon became notable. Their evening parties and other receptions were both frequent and lavish, so that the Whites quickly took rank as leaders in Los Angeles. While yet in Sacramento, one of the daughters who had fallen in love with E. J. C. Cuen, when the latter was a member of the White Party in crossing the Great Plains, married the Colonel, and in 1862 another daughter, Miss Jenny, married Judge Murray Morrison. A son was T. Jeff White, who named his place Casa Linda. In the late fifties, Dr. White had a drug store in the Temple Building on Main Street. It was long before Los Angeles had anything like a regular theater, or even enjoyed such shows as were provided by itinerant companies, some of which, when they did begin to come, stayed here for weeks. Although I remember having heard of one ambitious group of players styling themselves the rough-and-ready theater, who appeared here very early and gave sufficient satisfaction to elicit the testimony from a local scribe that, when Richmond was conquered and laid off for dead, the enthusiastic auditors gave the king a smile of decided approval. Minstrels and circuses were occasionally presented, a minstrel performance taking place sometime in the fifties in an empty store on Aliso Street, near Los Angeles. About the only feature of this event that is now clear in my memory is that Bob Carstley played the bones. He remained in Los Angeles and married, later taking charge of the foundry, which Stearns established when he built his Arcadia block on Los Angeles Street. An albino also was once brought to Los Angeles and publicly exhibited. And since anything out of the ordinary challenged attention, everybody went to see a curiosity that today would attract but little notice. Speaking of theatrical performances and the applause bestowed upon favorites, I must not forget to mention the reckless use of money and the custom, at first quite astounding to me, of throwing coins, often large, shining slugs upon the stage or floor, if an actor or actress particularly pleased the spend-thrift patron. In October 1855 William Abbott, who was one of the many to come to Los Angeles in 1853, and who had brought with him a small stock of furniture, started a store in a little wooden house he had acquired on a lot next to that, which later became the site of the Pico House. Abbott married Donia Merced Garcia, and good fortune favoring him, he not only gradually enlarged his stock of goods, but built a more commodious building in the upper story of which was the Merced Theater, named after Abbott's wife, and opened in the late sixties. The vanity of things mundane is well illustrated in the degeneration of this center of early historic effect, which entered a period of decay in the beginning of the eighties and as the scene of disreputable dances, before 1890 had been pronounced a nuisance. During the first decade under the American regime, Los Angeles gradually learned the value of reaching toward the outside world and welcoming all who responded. In 1855, as I have said, a brisk trade was begun with Salt Lake, through the opening up of a route, leading along the old Spanish trail to Santa Fe. Banning and Alexander, with their usual enterprise, together with WTB Sanford, made the first shipment in a heavily freighted train of 15 wagons drawn by 150 mules. The train, which carried 30 tons, was gone over four months. Having left Los Angeles in May, it returned in September. In every respect, the experiment was a success, and naturally the new route had a beneficial effect on Southern California trade. It also contributed to the development of San Bernardino, through which town it passed. Before the year was out, one or two express companies were placarding the stores here with announcements of rates to Great Salt Lake City. Banning, by the way, then purchased in Salt Lake the best wagons he had and brought here some of the first vehicles with spokes to be seen in Los Angeles. The school authorities of the past sometimes sailed on waters as troubled as those rocking the educational boards today. I recall an amusing incident of the middle fifties when a new set of trustees having succeeded to the control of affairs were scandalized, or at least pretended to be, by an action of their predecessors and immediately adopted the following resolution. Resolved that page seven of the school commissioner's record be pasted down on page eight so that the indecorous language written therein by the school commissioners of 1855 can never again be read or seen said language being couched in such terms that the present school commissioners are not willing to read such record. Richard Laughlin died at his vineyard on the east side of Alameda Street in or soon after 1855. Like William Wolfskill, Ewing Young, who fitted out the Wolfskill Party, and Moses Carson, brother of the better known kit, and at one time a traitor at San Pedro, Laughlin was a trapper who made his way to Los Angeles along the Gila River. This was a waterway of the Savage Apache country traversed even in 1854, according to the Lone Ferryman's statistics by nearly 10,000 persons. In middle life, Laughlin supported himself by carpentry and hunting. With the increase in the number and activity of the Chinese in California, the prejudice of the masses was stirred up violently. This feeling found expression particularly in 1855 when a law was passed by the legislature, imposing a fine of $50 on each owner or master of a vessel bringing to California anyone incapable of becoming a citizen. But when suit was instituted to test the acts of validity it was declared unconstitutional. At that time most of the opposition to the Chinese came from San Francisco, there being but few coolies here. Certain members of the same legislature led a movement to form a new state to be called Colorado and to include all territory south of San Luis Obispo, and the matter was repeatedly discussed in several subsequent sessions. Nothing came of it, however, but Kern County was formed in 1866 partly from Los Angeles County and partly from Tulare. About 5,000 square miles formerly under our county banner were thus legislated away and because the mountainous and desert area seemed of little perspective value we submitted willingly. In this matter, unenlightened by modern science and ignorant of future possibilities, Southern California, guided by no clear and certain vision, drifted and stumbled along to its destiny. End of Chapter 13