 Section 1, Comprising Introductions, Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of 60 Years in Southern California, 1853-1913 by Harris Newmark. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by PJ Landau. 60 Years in Southern California, 1853-1913, containing the reminiscences of Harris Newmark, published in 1916 by Nickerbocker Press. A Quote from Macaulay. Every generation enjoys the use of a vast horde bequeathed to it by antiquity and transmits that horde, 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. At the hour of High Twelve on April the 4th, 1916, the sun shone into a room where lay the temporal abode for 81 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, signed M.H.N. and 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 Angelenio of the present and the future historian of Southern California. But as I had always led an active life of business or travel, and it 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 cooperation 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 principles and 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 postgraduate 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 advisor 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 mention in the text, which deal with Southern California and its past, and he also interviewed many pioneers, to each of whom I owe acknowledgement for ready and friendly cooperation. 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 30 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 recent ones are forgotten, and in as much 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 60 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, signed H. N. Los Angeles, December 31, 1915. Forward by historian Charles F. Lummis. 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 sidelines 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 Peeps, 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 armchair 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 eyewitness. 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 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 5,000 years. The world's greatest book is of course compulsory. But what is the interesting part of it? Why the stories of 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 archaeology 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, and to dating 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, Berenaldias, wrote for us 300 years ago when he was past 90 and toothless and angry because the historians didn't get it straight. The student of Spanish America has often to wish that there had been a Berenaldias 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 Cortes, 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 30 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 Fisk and Cous 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 naive conversational memoirs of a man who for more than 60 years could say of Southern California almost as truly as a neus 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 overtuned 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 peep's diary of Los Angeles and its tributary domain. Signed Charles F. Lummis. Chapter 1. Childhood and Youth, 1834-1853 I was born in Lobau, West Prussia, on the 5th of July, 1834, the son of Philip and Esther Neh Meyer Neumarck, 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, 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 Neumarck, 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 Nizhny 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 economic 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 Lobau making visits to Sweden and Denmark during the summer seasons from 1843 until the middle fifties and spending the long winters at home. Lobau was then as now of little commercial importance and until 1849 when I was 15 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 on the Kabul paved marketplace 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 seen both pleasing and acceptable to one of his temperament and liberal views illness finally compelled him to bid America adieu. 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 Phillip later known as JP Newmark having sometime 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 becoming 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 not withstanding 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 the vehicles were worse so that the entire first days run brought us only to lessen a small village about 12 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 to Ishtat 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 Ishtat after a voyage of 12 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 Ishtat we proceeded to Copenhagen where my father had intimate friends especially in the Lachman, Eichhel and Ruben families to whose splendid hospitality and unvarying kindness displayed whenever I visited their neighborhood I wished 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 Lobau 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 17 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 Lulee, Pite, Umea, Hernausand, Sundsvall, Söderham and Geffel 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 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 Torne 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 custom house where officers were 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 nearest 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 Torne 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 straight away 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 once 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, bears meat, milk and knekabrot the last a bread usually made of rye flour in which the bran has been preserved. All in all I was well pleased with this maiden trip and as it was then September I returned to Lobau to spend one more winter at home. Chapter 2 Westward Ho 1853 In April 1853 when I'd reached the age of 19 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'd 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 JP 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've 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 as 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 Lobau 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 Hall and far away from home in kindred with deep emotion my father bad me goodbye 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 state room 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 was also bound for Hall 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 godspeed 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'd 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 traveller'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 where have I right there was a semi-monthly 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 birth 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 immigration 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 engage one of the six first-class births in the saloon there was no second-class cabin or I might have traveled in that class and of steerage passengers the star king carried more than 800 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 Hall I have since seen in 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 Hall 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 accepting 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 had narrowly escaped being shot through the captain's careless handling of a derringer was I roused from a monotonous and half dreamy existence 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 sails set a furious squall struck her squarely in midships in an almost as short a time as it takes to relate the catastrophe our three masks 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 seamen 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 be calmed 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 masks and to prepare new sails for which we carried material for 12 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 28 1853 exactly 49 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 vendors in boats coming alongside and with sharpened appetites we made short work of a fine supper not withstanding 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 inspiring 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 lobao 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 china town 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 panama 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 kaspari kohn 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 than 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 pt barnham the showman were clamoring for both prohibition and equal suffrage end of section one section two consisting of chapter three of 60 years in southern california 1853 to 1913 by harris newmark this lever vox recording is in the public domain recording by pj landau chapter three new york nicaragua the golden gate 1853 on september 20 during some excitement due to the fear less 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 a steamer illinois as one of some 11 or 1200 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 demi john 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 marihuana 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 2000 miles or more between new york and san juan del norte or gray 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 bottom 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 those 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 steam boats which were by no means one quarter as large as the hermosa at present plying between los angeles harbour 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 50 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 neighbouring land was covered with gorgeous jungles and vegetation here i saw orange lemon and coconut 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 riverbank 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 900 men and women and children from northern climbs 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 900 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 the mall i have mentioned the demi john 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 innervating sun picture me then none too short and very lank astride a mule a big demi john 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 threefold 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 bad goodbye to the demi john and its exhilarating contents from this time on although i still displayed inexpertness in control his mule ship 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 in all we traversed about 12 miles on mule or horseback and finally arrived at 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 discomforted 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 very same day that i had arriving in san francisco the same day that i arrived and that therefore the shermons whose experience with the mules was nonetheless 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 wandel sur whose older portion much like san wandel 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 aerial 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 wandel 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 passerby 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 wandel sur the pacific terminal we were carried by natives through the surf to small boats and so transferred to the steamer cortex 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 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 upgraded 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 waited 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 countrymen heinrich schleeman 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 schleeman 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 burger 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 riche 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 where at 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 wrongdoing and perhaps it is no wonder that walker but the previous summer 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 meegh's 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 advanced 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 the safe was captured by the first vigilance committee and so much was meegh's 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 meegh's useful as he was to the society of his day finally ended his career by forging a lot of city script a great deal of which he sold to wt 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 31 stars were nailed to a rude pole was the eldorado the most luxurious gambling place and saloon in the west despite the existence nearby of the bella union the parker house and the empire music particularly native spanish or mexican heirs played its part there as well as other attractions and much of the life of the throbbing town centered on that locality it is my impression that the waterfront was then sandsome 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 goliath whose captain was salisbury hayley formerly a surveyor from santa barbara bound for los angeles and advertised to stop at monterey san luis abispo santa barbara and one or two other landings formerly of importance but now more or less forgotten there were no warbs 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 panama but a month or so later at midnight struck one of the anacapa islands now belonging to ventura county running dead onto 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 sidewheeler which made the voyage from san francisco to mausetlan in 1849 and certainly from the day in january of that same year when temple and alexander put on their four-wheeled vehicle costing one thousand dollars and the second in the country there was competition in transporting passengers to los angeles finneas banning augustus w tims jj tomlinson john goller david w alexander jose rubio and b a townshend 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 tims 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 a right as captain although 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 adhere to for lived commission and forwarding merchants were 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 pandaloons at least six inches too short of 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 15 wagons and nearly five times as many mules and had paid almost 30 000 for them i had once delivered the letter in which rich had stated that i had but a smattering of english 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 v gates 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 canon these roads never having been cared for and still less inspected were abominably bad and i've often wondered that during such contests there were not more accidents the stages were of the common western variety and four or 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 off 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 like 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 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 frontiersman 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 halfway house we changed horses and then we continued and approached los angeles by san pedro street which was a narrow lane possibly not more than 10 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 44 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 3700 domesticated indians among a population of a little over 4 000 whites and this mistake as to the typical burger 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 inhaled 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 and hodges was the proprietor my friend sam meyer now deceased but for 50 years or more treasurer of 42 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 it once recognized me by my costume which was anything but in harmony with southern california fashions of that time my brother jp 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 end of section two section three consisting of chapter four of 60 years in southern california 1853 to 1913 by harris newmark this leber vox recording is in the public domain recording by pj landau chapter four 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 30 dollars each month the charges for board at the bella union then enjoying a certain prestige through having been the official residents of pio pico when stockton took the city were too heavy and arrangements were made with a frenchman named john larou who had a restaurant on the east side of los angeles street about 200 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 larou or li ru 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 mazatlan 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 larou 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 a result of exposure at a fire on main street although larou was in no sense an eminent citizen it is certain that he was esteemed and mourned prior to his death he had bought 30 or 35 acres of land on which he planted a vineyard and an orange orchard and these his wife inherited in 1862 madame larou 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 galler continuing in business for over 20 years and adding greatly by industry and wise management to the dowry brought in by the thrifty widow i distinctly recall larou'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 migraine 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 phase john larou 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 hosts 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 larou'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 was about to leave when just then jacobi discovered that the small portions set before him could not possibly contain the three eggs he had supplied now jacobi was not only possessed of a considerable appetite but it is well a definite unwillingness to accept less than his due while larou 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 larou'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 thereafter 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 frasadas 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 there 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 then known by the euphonious title of cayedelos negros nigger alley and this alley was a thoroughfare not over 40 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 on what was later sanchez street and reached in an easterly direction to within 40 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 monti and ferro and managing other contrivances that parted the good natured and easygoing 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 monday with false money were tried before a special court made up of abel sterns and stefen 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 huan apablasa was among those who owned considerable property in china town 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 kye 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 stern's 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 lowly or 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 brett hart 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 philips and their redeeming characteristics as i have said my brother jp 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 jn padilla's adobe on the southeast corner of main and ricana 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 nickles 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 nickles cut about 15 feet using this property to a depth of some 30 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 and 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 listen 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 nickles was vainly endeavoring to dispose of 35 acre bargains at $35 each a feature of municipal cooperation with prospective settlers which was inaugurated august 13 1852 and repealed through dissatisfaction in 1854 nickles who with j s mallard and louis 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 greg nickles always claimed to be the first boy born april 24 1851 of american parents in los angeles nickles 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 reelection as mayor in 1856 1857 and 1858 in 1869 another son daniel b nickles of whom i shall speak was a participant in a fatal shooting afray here a still earlier survey than that of hancock was made by lieutenant edward o c later distinguished in the union army where singularly enough he was fighting with rose crayons 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 adobe's 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 33 inches was a standard in real estate measurements even after the advent of ord hancock and hansen who were followed by such surveyors as pj virgin recalled by virgin 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 accept the illumination from the few lanterns suspended in front of bar rooms and stores thoroughfares were all together on lighted in those nights of dark streets and still darker tragedies people rarely went out unless equipped with candle burning lanterns at least until camphene 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 camphene and finally with coal oil during which period of advancement lamps replace the cruder contrivances southern california from the first took an active part in state affairs edward hunter and charles e car were the assemblyman from this district in 1853 and the following year they were succeeded by francis melis and dr wilson w jones car was a lawyer who had come in 1852 hunter afterwards 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 domingo's 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 85 or 90 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 heinzelman'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 100 and more men under command of dr a w hope and included such well known early settlers as nickles jg downey s c foster augustin alvera juan sapovita hoarse bell m keller banning benjamin haze f l girado david alexander j l brent and isk ogre under the new order of things to following the adoption in 1849 of a state constitution county organization in los angeles was affected and by the time i declared myself for american citizenship several elections had been held benjamin haze was district judge in 1853 augustin alvera was finishing his term as county judge dr wilson w jones was county clerk and recorder two offices not separated for 20 years or until 1873 louis granger was county attorney henry hancock was surveyor francis mellis who succeeded don manuel garfias once the princely owner but bad manager of the san pasquale rancho was treasurer af 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 sack it 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 and spring street footnote in april 1872 jail street was officially named franklin street in addition to those mentioned there was a justice of the peace a san jero and a jailer antonio franco coronel had but recently succeeded nickles as mayor a s beard was marshal and tax collector judge william g driden was clerk c e car was attorney ignacio coronel was assessor and s r buckle was treasurer antonio 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 ignacio f coronel and by 1850 he was the first county assessor he lived at what is now alameda in seven streets and had a brother monwell 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 35 acre city lots i met him frequently and by 1859 i was well acquainted with him he then owed new mark kramer and company some money and offered toward liquidation of the debt 110 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 new mark kramer and 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 horsepower and treadmill in a vacant lot on spring street back of joseph newmark 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 an 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 labrea rancho bought at a very early date from a j roca 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 harasti the san francisco pioneer is now owned by his son george allen hancock george hansen to whose far reaching foresight we owe the a lesion park of today 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 percent interest per month then a very low rate there upon 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 anyone else he had the real management in fact of hancock second survey among others who were here i might mention the wheeler brothers colonel john osias 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 helo 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 whores z wheeler who came by way of the isthmus and later rose to be a praiser general of the imperial customs at yocahama and the two young men were soon conducting a general merchandise business in los angeles if i recollect a rite 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 andres picot's staff served as a ranger and in 1853 he organized the first military company in los angeles manuel rekena 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 rekena then al calde 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 rekena was elected a supervisor mrs rekena was a sister of mrs alexander bell and mrs james or santiago johnson and an aunt of henry and francis mellis and mrs jh lander rekena died on june 27th 1876 aged 74 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 morise kramer it is not surprising therefore that he became wells fargo and company's agent when much uphill work had to be done to establish their interests here he married a daughter of don pedro dominiz 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 reelected and by a larger majority shore was a democrat mentioned 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 vertemberg to america and then was stevensons regiment to california arriving in los angeles in 1847 or 1848 from here he went to sudders creek where he found a nugget of gold worth 800 for which he was offered land in san francisco later worth millions a tender which the vertemberger 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 froline mary urie from which union six children including two sons john and frank g schumacher were born the eldest daughter became mrs edward a pruce 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 70s the schumacher block being built as i've 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 fancy that it 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 figaroa street and this land he held with jacob bell who was assassinated as i shall relate by a frenchman named lachanez hanged in turn by an exasperated mob most political meetings of that period took place at the plaza home of don ignacio del valle first county recorder from 1841 don ignacio 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 new hall afterward selected by helen hunt jackson as the setting for some of the scenes in her novel romano and these possessions made him a man of great importance during his later life when he had abandoned his town residents del valle dwelt in gentile 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 roundhouse inside the room sat the election judges and clerks outside a window stood the jam of voters the windowsill 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 opponents 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 cremation 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 would not even consider 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 steamers 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 can find them in corrals usually in the neighborhood of boil 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 lj rose and there with the assistance of some friends he herded together about 100 docile though illegal voters most of whom were indians kept them all night and by supplying firewater 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 tomas 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 15 or 20 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 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 other equally anonymous phrase as an exception to the usual maneuver however the following witty announcement was once printed by an office seeker george and whitman not having been requested by quote many friends or solicited by quote 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 quincey adam stanley who in 1856 ran for sheriff against david w alexander and was county assessor in the mid 70s stanley was a very decent but somewhat over trusting individual and ignoring suggestions as to expenditures for votes two 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 50 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 tahatch p then in los angeles county about 30 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 the bearing decision of tahatch p had on the general result end of section three