 Chapter 5. Lawyers and Courts. 1853 In the primitive fifties there were but comparatively few reputable lawyers in this neighborhood, or was there perhaps sufficient call for their services to ensure much of a living to many more? To a greater extent even than now, attorneys were called judge, and at the time were, of I write, the most important among them were Jonathan R. Scott, Benjamin Hayes, J. Lancaster Brent, Myron Norton, General Ezra Drown, Benjamin S. Eaton, Cameron E. Tom, James H. Lander, Louis Granger, Isaac Stockton, Keith Ogier, Edward J. C. Cuen, and Joseph R. Gitchell. In addition to these there was a lawyer named William G. Dryden of whom I shall presently speak, and one Kimball H. Dimmick, who was largely devoted to criminal practice. Scott, who had been a prominent lawyer in Missouri, stood very high both as to physique and reputation. In addition to his great stature he had a splendid constitution and wonderful vitality, and was identified with nearly every important case. About March 1850 he came here and overland immigrant, and was made one of the two justices of the peace who formed with the county judge on June 24th, the first court of sessions. He then entered into partnership with Benjamin Hayes, continuing in joint practice with him until April 1852, after which he was a member successively of the law firms of Scott and Granger, Scott and Lander, and Scott Drown and Lander. Practicing law in those days was not without its difficulties, partly because of the lack of law books, and Scott used to tell in his own vehement style how on one occasion, when he was defending a French sea captain against charges preferred by a rich Peruvian passenger, he was unable to make much headway because there was but one volume, Kent's commentaries, in the whole Pueblo that threw any light, so to speak, on the question, which lack of information induced Alcalde Stearns to decide against Scott's client. Although the captain lost, he nevertheless counted out to Scott in shining gold pieces the full sum of $1,000 as a fee. In 1859, a daughter of Scott married Alfred Beck Chapman, a graduate of West Point who came to Los Angeles and fought to hone as an officer, about 1854. Chapman later studied law with Scott, and for twenty years practiced with Andrew Glassel. In 1863, Chapman succeeded MJ Newmark as city attorney, and in 1868 he was elected district attorney. If I recollect rightly, Scott died in the sixties, survived by Mrs. Scott, a sister of both Mrs. J. S. Mallard and Mrs. J. G. Nichols, and a son, J. R. Scott, admitted in 1880, to practice in the Supreme Court. Hayes was district judge when I came, and continued as such for ten or twelve years. His jurisdiction embraced Los Angeles, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Barbara Counties, and the latter section then included Ventura County. The judge had regular terms in these districts and was compelled to hold court at all of the county seats. A native of Baltimore, Hayes came to Los Angeles on February 3, 1850, followed on St. Valentine's Day, 1852, by his wife, whose journey from St. Louis via New Orleans, Havana, and Panama consumed forty-three days on the steamers. He was at once elected the first county attorney, and tried the famous case against the Irving Party. About the same time, Hayes formed his partnership with Scott. In January, 1855, and while district judge, Hayes sentenced the murderer Brown, and in 1858 he presided at Pancho Daniele's trial. Hayes continued to practice for many years and was known as a jurist of high standing, so on account of his love for strong drink, court on more than one occasion had to be adjourned. During his residence here, he was known as an assiduous collector of historical data. He was a brother of both Ms. Louisa Hayes, the first woman public school teacher in Los Angeles, later the wife of Dr. J. S. Griffin, and Ms. Helena Hayes, who married Benjamin S. Eaton. Judge Hayes died on August 4, 1877. Brent, a native of the South, was also a man of attainment, arriving here in 1850 with a fairly representative, though inadequate, library, and becoming in 1855 and 1856 a member of the state assembly. He had such wonderful influence as one of the democratic leaders that he could nominate at will any candidate, and being especially popular with the Mexican element could also tell a good story or two about fees. When trouble arose in 1851 between several members of the Lugo family and the Indians, resulting finally in an attempted assassination and the narrow escape from death of Judge Hayes, who was associated with the prosecution of the case, several of the Lugos were tried for murder, and Brent, whose defense led to their acquittal, received something like $20,000 for his services. He was of a studious turn of mind and acquired most of Hugo Reed's Indian library. When the Civil War broke out, Brent went south again and became a Confederate Brigadier General. Brent Street bears his name. Norton, a Vermonter, who had first practiced law in New York, then migrated west and had later been a prime mover for and a member of the First California Constitutional Convention and who was afterwards Superior Court Judge at San Francisco, was an excellent lawyer, when sober, and a good fellow. He came to the coast in the summer of 1848, was made First Lieutenant and Chief of Staff of the California Volunteers, and drifted in 1852 from Monterey to Los Angeles. He joined Bean's Volunteers and in 1857, delivered here a flowery Fourth of July oration. Norton was the second county judge succeeding Agustín Alvera and living with the latter's family at the Plaza, and it was from Norton's court of sessions in May 1855 that the dark-skinned Juan Flores was sent to the state prison, although few persons suspected him to be guilty of such criminal tendencies as he later developed. Norton died in Los Angeles in 1887, and Norton Avenue recalls his life and work. Judge Hayes' successor, Don Pablo de la Guerra, was born in the Presidio of Santa Barbara in 1819, a member of one of the most popular families of that locality. Although a Spaniard of the Spaniards, he had been educated in an Eastern College and spoke English fluently. Four times he was elected State Senator from Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo, and was besides a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1849. In 1863, he was a candidate for district judge when a singular opposition developed that might easily have led, in later years at least, to his defeat. A large part of the population of Santa Barbara was related to him by blood or marriage, and it was argued that if elected, de la Guerra in many cases would be disqualified from sitting as judge. On January 1, 1864, however, Don Pablo took up the work as district judge, where Hayes surrendered it. Just as de la Guerra in 1854 had resigned in favor of Hunter before completing his term as United States Marshal, so now toward the end of 1873, de la Guerra withdrew on account of ill health from the district judgeship, and on February 5, 1874 he died. Drowne was a lawyer who came here a few months before I did, having just passed through one of those trying ordeals which might easily prove sufficient to destroy the courage and ambition of any man. He hailed from Iowa, where he had served as Brigadier General of Militia, and was bound up the coast from the Isthmus on the steamer independence when it took fire off lower California and burned to the water's edge. Drowne, being a good swimmer and a plucky fellow, said his wife adrift on a hen coop and then put off for shore with his two children on his back. Having deposited them safely on the beach, he swam back to get his wife. But a brutal fellow passenger pushed the fainting woman off when her agonized husband was within a few feet of her. She sank beneath the waves, and he saw his companion go to her doom at the moment she was about to be rescued. Though broken in spirit, Drowne on landing at San Pedro came to Los Angeles with his two boys and put his best foot forward. He established himself as a lawyer, and in 1858 became district attorney, succeeding Cameron E. Tom, and it was during his term that Pancho Daniele was lynched. In 1855, too, Drowne instituted the first Los Angeles Lodge of Odd Fellows. Drowne was an able lawyer, eloquent and humorous and fairly popular, but his generosity affected his material prosperity, and he died at San Juan Capistrano on August 17, 1863, none too blessed with this world's goods. Dimmick, who at one time occupied an office in the old temple block on Main Street, had rather an eventful career. Born in Connecticut, he learned the printer's trade. Then he studied law and was soon admitted to practice in New York, and in 1846 he sailed with Colonel J. D. Stevenson in command of Company K, landing six months later at the picturesquely named Yerba Buena, on whose slopes the bustling town of San Francisco was soon to be founded. When peace with Mexico was established, Dimmick moved to San Jose, after which with Foster, he went to the convention whose mission was to frame a state constitution and was later chosen judge of the Supreme Court. In 1852, after having revisited the East and been defrauded of practically all he possessed by those to whom he had entrusted his California affairs, Dimmick came to Los Angeles and served as justice of the peace, notary public, and county judge. He was also elected district attorney, and at another time was appointed by the court to defend the outlaw, Pancho Daniel. Dimmick's practice was really largely criminal, which frequently made him a defender of horse thieves, gamblers, and desperados, and in such cases one could always anticipate his stereotyped plea. Gentlemen of the jury, the district attorney prosecuting my client is paid by the county to convict this prisoner whether he be guilty or innocent, and I plead with you gentlemen in the name of impartial justice to bring in a verdict of not guilty. Through the help of his old time friend, Secretary William H. Seward, Dimmick toward the end of his life was appointed attorney for the southern district of the United States in California, but on September 11, 1861 he suddenly died of heart disease. Eaton, another prominent representative of the bar, came from New England as early as 1850, while California government was in its infancy, and life anything but secure. And he had not been here more than a few months, when the maneuvers of Antonio Garra, Agua Caliente's chief, threatened an insurrection extending from Tulare to San Diego, and made necessary the organization, under General J. H. Bean, of volunteers to allay the terror-stricken community's fears. Happily the company's chief activity was the quieting of feminine nerves. On October 3, 1853, Eaton was elected district attorney, and in 1857 county assessor. Later, after living for a while at San Gabriel, Eaton became a founder of the Pasadena Colony, acting as its president for several years, and in 1876 he was one of the committee to arrange for the local centennial celebration. Frederick Eaton, several times city engineer and once in 1899 to 1900, mayor of Los Angeles, is a son of Benjamin Eaton and his first wife, Helena Hayes, who died a few years after she came here, and the brother of Mrs. Hancock Johnston. He reflects no little credit on his father by reason of a very early effective advocacy of the Owens River Aqueduct. Under his administration, the city began this colossal undertaking, which was brought to a happy consummation in the year 1913 through the engineering skill of William Mulholland, Eaton's friend. In 1861, Judge Eaton married Miss Alice Taylor Clark of Providence, Rhode Island, who is still living. While I'm upon this subject of lawyers and officialdom, a few words regarding early jurists in court decorum may be in order. In 1853, Judge Dryden, who had arrived in 1850, was but a police justice, not yet having succeeded Demick as county judge, and at no time was his knowledge of the law and things pertaining thereto other than extremely limited. His audacity, however, frequently sustained him in positions that otherwise might have been embarrassing, and this audacity was especially apparent in Dryden's strong opposition to the criminal element. He talked with the volubility of a gatling gun, expressing himself in a quick nervous manner, and was besides very profane. One day he was trying a case when Captain Cameron E. Tom, who had first come to Los Angeles in 1854 as the representative of the national government to take testimony before Commissioner Burrill, was one of the attorneys. During the progress of the case, Tom had occasion to read a lengthy passage from some statute book. Interrupting him, the judge asked to see the weighty volume. When having searched in vain for the citation, he said in his characteristic jerky way, I'll be blank, Dan, Mr. Tom, if I can find that law, all of which recalls to me a report once printed in the Los Angeles Star concerning this same jurist and an inquest held by him over a dead Indian. Justice Dryden and the jury sat on the body. The verdict was, death from intoxication or by the visitation of God. Dryden, who was possessed of a genial personality, was long remembered with pleasure for participation in 4th of July celebrations and processions. He was married, I believe, in 1851, only one year after he arrived here to Señorita Dolores Nieto, and she having died, he took as his second wife in September 1868, another Spanish lady, Señorita Anita Dominguez, daughter of Don Manuel Dominguez. Less than a year afterward, on September 10, 1869, Judge Dryden himself died at the age of 70 years. Tom, by the way, came from Virginia in 1849 and advanced rapidly in his profession. It was far from his expectation to remain in Los Angeles longer than was necessary, and he has frequently repeated to me the story of his immediate infatuation with this beautiful section and its cheering climate and how he fell in love with the quaint little pueblo at first sight. Soon after he decided to remain here, he was assigned as associate counsel to defend Pancho Daniel after the retirement of Columbus Sims. In 1856, Tom was appointed both city and district attorney and occupied the two positions at the same time, an odd situation which actually brought it about during his tenure of offices that a land dispute between the city and the county obliged Tom to defend both interests. In 1863, he was a partner with A. B. Chapman, and 20 years later, having previously served as state senator, he was elected mayor of the city. Captain Tom married two sisters, first choosing Miss Susan Henrietta Hathwell, and then sometime after her death leading to the altar Miss Bell Cameron Hathwell, whom he had named and for whom, when she was baptized, he had stood godfather, a man ultimately affluent he owned, among other properties, a large ranch at Glendale. Footnote Tom died on February 2, 1915. End of footnote Another good story concerning Judge Dryden comes to mind, recalling a certain sheriff. As the yarn goes, the latter presented himself as a candidate for the office of sheriff, and in order to capture the vote of the native element, he also offered to marry the daughter of an influential Mexican. A bargain was concluded, and as a result, he forthwith assumed the responsibilities and dangers of both shrieval and matrimonial life. Before the sheriff had possessed this double dignity very long, however, a gang of horse thieves began depredations around Los Angeles. A posse was immediately organized to pursue the Desperados, and after a short chase, they located the band and brought them into Los Angeles. Imagine the sheriff's dismay, when he found that the leader was none other than his own brother-in-law, whom he had never before seen. To make the story short, the case was tried, and the prisoner was found guilty, but owing to influence, to which most juries in those days were very susceptible, there was an appeal for judicial leniency. Judge Dryden therefore, in announcing the verdict said to the sheriff's brother-in-law, the jury finds you guilty as charged, and then proceeded to read the prisoner a long and severe lecture, to which he added, but the jury recommends clemency. Accordingly, I declare you a free man, and you may go about your business. Thereupon someone in the room asked, what is his business, to which the judge, never flinching, shouted, horse-stealing, sir, horse-stealing. Lander was here in 1853, having come from the east the year previous. He was a Harvard College graduate. There were not many on the coast in those days, and was known as a good office practitioner. He was, for some time, in fact, the bar's choice for court commissioner. I think that, for quite a while, he was the only examiner of real estate titles. He was certainly the only one I knew. On October 15, 1852, Lander had married Senorita Margarita, a daughter of Don Santiago Johnson, who was said to have been one of the best known businessmen prior to 1846. Afterward, Lander lived in a cottage on the northeast corner of 4th and Spring Streets. This cottage he sold to I. W. Helman in the early 70s for $4,000, and Helman, in turn, sold it at cost to his brother. On that lot, worth today, probably a million dollars, the H. W. Helman building now stands. Lander died on June 10, 1873. Granger was still another lawyer who was here when I arrived. He having come with his family, one of the first American households to be permanently established here in 1850. By 1852, he had formed a partnership with Jonathan R. Scott, and in that year attained popularity through his Fourth of July oration. Granger was, in fact, a fluent and attractive speaker which accounted perhaps for his election as city attorney in 1855, after he had served the city as a member of the Common Council in 1854. If I recollect a right, he was a candidate for the district judgeship in the 70s, but was defeated. Oger, a lawyer from Charleston, South Carolina, came to California in 1849 and to Los Angeles in 1851, forming a partnership on May 31 of that year with Don Manuel Clemente Rojo, a clever, genial native of Peru. On September 29, Oger succeeded William C. Farrell, the first district attorney. In 1853, he joined the voluntary police, and later served for some years as United States District Judge. He died at Holcomb Valley in May 1861. Oger Street, formerly Oger Lane, was named for him. Rojo, after dividing his time between the law and the Spanish editorial work on the Star, wandered off to lower California and there became a quote, sub-political chief. Cuen, a native of Mississippi and a veteran of the Mexican War, came to Los Angeles in 1858 with the title of Colonel, after Fiasco followed his efforts in the southern states to raise relief for the filibuster Walker, on whose expedition Al Cuen, a brother, had been killed in the battle at Rivas, Nicaragua, in June 1855. Once a practitioner at law in St. Louis, Cuen was elected California's first attorney general, and even prior to the delivery of his oration before the Society of Pioneers at San Francisco in 1854, he was distinguished for his eloquence. In 1858, he was superintendent of Los Angeles City Schools. In the 60s, Cuen and Norton formed a partnership, settling on an undulating tract of some 450 acres near San Gabriel, including the ruins of the old Mission Mill, and now embracing the grounds of the Huntington Hotel. Cuen repaired the house, and converted it into a cozy and even luxurious residence, calling the estate ornamented with gardens and fountains, El Molino, a title perpetuated in the name of the present suburb. Cuen was also a member of the state assembly, and later district attorney. He died in November 1879. Gitchell, United States district attorney in the late 50s, practiced here for many years. He was a jolly old bachelor and was popular, although he did not attain eminence. Isaac Hartman, an attorney, and his wife, who were among the particularly agreeable people here in 1853, soon left for the East. Volney E. Howard came with his family in the late 50s. He left San Francisco where he had been practicing law, rather suddenly, and at a time when social conditions in the city were demoralized, and the citizens, as in the case of the people of Los Angeles, were obliged to organize a vigilance committee. William T. Coleman, one of the foremost citizens of his city, led the Northern Movement, an M.J. Newmark, then a resident of San Francisco, was among those who participated. Howard, who succeeded William T., afterward General Sherman in leading the law and order contingent, opposed the idea of mob rule, but the people of San Francisco, fully alive to the necessity of wiping out the vicious elements, and knowing how hard it was to get a speedy trial and an honest jury, had little sympathy with his views. He was accordingly ordered out of town, and made his way first to Sacramento, then to the South. Here, with Cuen as their neighbor, Howard and his talented wife, a lady of decidedly blue-stocking tendencies, took up their residence near the San Gabriel Mission, and he became one of the most reliable attorneys in Los Angeles, serving once or twice as county judge, and on the Supreme Court bench, as well as in the state constitutional convention of 1878 and 1879. Speaking of the informality of courts in the earlier days, I should record that jurymen and others would come in coatless, and especially in warm weather, without vests and collars, and that it was the fashion for each juryman to provide himself with a jackknife and a piece of wood, in order that he might whittle the time away. This was a recognized privilege, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that if he forgot his piece of wood, it was considered his further prerogative to whittle the chair on which he sat. In other respects, also, court's solemnity was lacking. Judge and attorneys would frequently lock horns, and sometimes their disputes ended violently. On one occasion, for example, while I was in court, Columbus Sims, an attorney who came here in 1852, threw an ink stand at his opponent during an altercation. But this contempt of court did not call forth his disbarment, for he was later found acting as attorney for Pancho Daniele, one of Sheriff Barton's murderers, until sickness compelled his retirement from the case. As to panel service, I recollect that while serving as juror in those early days, we were once locked up for the night, and in order that time might not hang too heavily on our hands, we engaged in a sociable little game of poker. Sims is dead. More than ink stands were sometimes hurled in the early courts. On one occasion, for instance, after the angry disputants had arrived at a state of agitation, which made the further use of canes, chairs, and similar objects tame and uninteresting, revolvers were drawn, notwithstanding the Marshal's repeated attempts to restore order. Judge Dryden, in the midst of the melee, hid behind the platform upon which his judgeships bench-rested, and, being well out of the range of the threatening irons, yelled at the rioters, quote, shoot away, damn you, and to hell with all of you, end quote. After making due allowance for primitive conditions, it must be admitted that many and needless were the evil's incident to court administration. There was, for instance, the law's delay, which necessitated additional fees to witnesses and jurors, and thus materially added to the expenses of the county. Juries were always a mixture of incoming pioneers and natives. The settlers understood very little Spanish, and the native Californians knew still less English, while few or none of the attorneys could speak Spanish at all. In translating testimony, if the interpreter happened to be a friend of the criminal, which he generally was, he would present the evidence in a favorable light, and much time was wasted in sifting biased translations. Of course, there were interpreters who doubtless endeavored to perform their duties conscientiously. George Thompson Burrill, the first sheriff, received $50 a month as court interpreter, and Manuel Clemente Rojo translated testimony as well, officials, I believe, to have been honest and conscientious. While alluding to court interpreters and the general use of Spanish during at least the first decade after I came to California, I am reminded of the case of Joaquin Carrillo, who was elected district judge in the early 50s to succeed Judge Henry A. Teft of Santa Barbara, who had been drowned near San Luis Obispo while attempting to land from a steamer in order to hold court. During the 14 years when Carrillo held office, he was constantly handicapped by his little knowledge of the English language, and the consequent necessity of carrying on all court proceedings in Spanish, to say nothing of the fact that he was really not a lawyer. Yet I am told that Carrillo possessed common sense to such a degree that his decisions were seldom set aside by the higher courts. Sheriff Burrill had a brother, S. Thompson Burrill, who was a lawyer and a justice of the peace. He held court in the Padilla building on Main Street, opposite the present site of the Bullard Block, and adjoining my brother's store, and as a result of this proximity, we became friendly. He was one of the best-dressed men in town, although when I first met him, he could not have been less than sixty years of age. He presented me with my first dog, which I lost on account of stray poison. Evil, dispossessed, or thoughtless persons with no respect for the owner, whether a neighbor or not, and without the slightest consideration for pedigree, were in the habit of throwing poison on the streets to kill off canines, of which there was certainly a superabundance. Ignacio Sepulveda, the jurist and a son of Jose Andrés Sepulveda, was living here when I arrived, though but a boy. Born in Los Angeles in 1842, he was educated in the East, and in 1863 admitted to the bar. He served in the state legislature of the following winter, was county judge from 1870 to 1873, and district judge in 1874. Five years later, he was elected superior judge, but resigned its position in 1884 to become Wells Fargo and Company's representative in the city of Mexico, at which capital for two years he was also American Charged Affair. There, to my great pleasure, I met him, bearing his honors modestly, in January 1885, during my tour of the Southern Republic. Sepulveda Avenue is named for the family. Footnote, after an absence of thirty years, judge Sepulveda returned to Los Angeles in 1914, and was heartily welcomed back by his many friends and admirers. End of footnote. Horace Bell was a nephew of Captain Alexander Bell, of Bell's Row, and as an early comer to Los Angeles, he joined the volunteer-mounted police. Although for years an attorney and journalist, in which capacity he edited the porcupine, he is best known for his reminiscences of a ranger, a volume written in a rather breezy and entertaining style, but certainly containing exaggerations. This reference to the rangers reminds me that I was not long in Los Angeles when I heard of the adventures of Joaquin Murrieta, who had been killed but a few months before I came. According to the story's current, Murrieta, a nephew of Jose Maria Valdez, was a decent enough sort of fellow who had been subjected to more or less injustice from certain American settlers, and who was finally bound to a tree and horse-whipped after seeing his brother hung on a trumped-up charge. In revenge, Murrieta had organized a company of bandits, and for two or three years had terrorized a good part of the entire state. Finally, in August 1853, while the outlaw and several of his companions were off their guard near the Tejon Paso, they were encountered by Captain Harry Love, and his volunteer-mounted police organized to get him dead or alive. The latter killed Murrieta and another desperado known as Three-Fingered Jack. Immediately, the outlaws were dispatched. Their heads and the deformed hand of Three-Fingered Jack were removed from the bodies and sent by John Sylvester and Harry Bloodsworth to Dr. William Francis Edgar, then a surgeon at Fort Miller. But a flood interfering, Sylvester swam the river with his barley sack and its gruesome contents. Edgar put the trophies into whiskey and arsenic when they were transmitted to the civil authorities as vouchers for a reward. Bloodsworth died lately. Daredevil's of a less malicious type were also resident among us. On the evening of December 31st, 1853, for example, I was in our store at eight o'clock, when Felipe Reim, often called Reim or even Reim, gloriously intoxicated and out for a good time, appeared on the scene, flourishing the ubiquitous weapon. His celebration of the New Year had apparently commenced, and he was already six sheets in the wind. Like many another man, Felipe, a very worthy German, was good-natured when sober, but a terror when drunk, and as soon as he spied my solitary figure, he pointed his gun at me, saying at the same time in a vigorous native tongue, Treat or I shoot. I treated. After this pleasing transaction, amid the smoky obscurity of Ramon Alexander's saloon, Felipe fired his gun into the air and disappeared. Startling as a demand like that might appear today, no thought of arrest then resulted from such an incident. The first New Year's Eve that I spent in Los Angeles was ushered in with the indiscriminate discharging of pistols and guns. This method of celebrating was, I may say, a novelty to me, and no less a surprise, for of course I was unaware of the fact that when the city was organized three years before, a proposition to prohibit the carrying of firearms of any sort, or the shooting off of the same, except in defense of self-home or property, had been stricken from the first constitution by the committee on police, who reported that such an ordinance could not at that time be enforced. Promiscuous firing continued for years to be indulged in by early Angelinos, though frequently condemned in the daily press. And such was its effect upon me that I soon found myself peppering away at a convenient adobe wall on commercial street, seeking to perfect my aim. Chapter 6. Merchants and Shops. 1853 Trivial events in a man's life sometimes become indelibly impressed on his memory, and one such experience of my own is perhaps worth mentioning as another illustration of the rough character of the times. One Sunday, a few days after my arrival, my brother called upon a tonsorial celebrity, Peter Biggs, of whom I shall speak later, leaving me in charge of the store. There were two entrances, one on Main Street, the other on Rakena. I was standing at the Main Street door unconscious of impending excitement, when a stranger rode up on horseback, and without the least hesitation or warning, pointed a pistol at me. I was not sufficiently amused to delay my going, but promptly retreated to the other door, where the practical joker astride his horse, had easily anticipated my arrival, and again greeted me with the muzzle of his weapon. These maneuvers were executed a number of times, and my ill-concealed trepidation only seemed to augment the diversion of a rapidly increasing audience. My brother returned in the midst of the fun, and asked the jolly joker what in hell he meant by such behavior, to which he replied, oh, I just wanted to frighten the boy. Soon after this incident, my brother left for San Francisco, and his partner, Jacob Rich, accompanied by his wife, came south and rented rooms in what was then known as Mellis's Row, an adobe building for the most part one story, standing alone with a garden in the rear, then occupying about three hundred feet on the east side of Los Angeles Street, between Aliso and First. In this row, said by some to have been built by Barton and Nordholt in 1850 for Captain Alexander Bell, a merchant here since 1842, after whom Bell Street is named, and by others claimed to have been the headquarters of Fremont in 1846, there was a second story at the corner of Aliso, provided with a large veranda, and there the Bell and Mellis families lived. Francis Mellis, who arrived in California in 1839, had married the niece of Mrs. Bell, and Bell, having sold the building to Mellis, Bell's Row became known as Mellis's Row. Finally, Bell repurchased the property, retaining it during the remainder of his life, and the name was again changed. This famous stretch of adobe, familiarly known as the Row, housed many early shopkeepers, such as Furner and Krauschar, General Merchants, Calisher and Wartenberg, and Bachmann and Bauman. The coming to Los Angeles of Mr. and Mrs. Rich enabled me to abandon LaRue's restaurant as I was permitted to board with them. Nonetheless, I missed my brother very much. Everything at that time indicating that I was in for a commercial career, it was natural that I should become acquainted with the merchants then in Los Angeles. Some of the tradesmen, I dare say, I have forgotten, but a more or less distinct recollection remains of many, and to a few of them I shall allude. Temple Street had not then been opened by Bodrian pots, although there was a little cul-de-sac extending west from Spring Street, and that the junction of what is now Spring in Temple Streets, there was a two-story adobe building in which D. W. Alexander and Francis Mellis conducted a general merchandise business, and at one time acted as agents for Mellis and Howard of San Francisco. Mellis, who was born in Salem, Massachusetts, February 3, 1824, came to the coast in 1839, first landing at Santa Barbara, and when I first met him, he had married Adelaide, daughter of Don Santiago Johnson, and our fellow townsman James J. Mellis, familiarly known as Plain Jim, was a baby. Alexander and Mellis had rather an extensive business in the early days, bringing goods by sailing vessel around Cape Horn, and exchanging them for hides and tallow which were carried back east by the returning merchantmen. They had operated more or less extensively even some years before California was seated to the United States, but competition from a new source forced these well-established merchants to retire. With the advent of more frequent, although still irregular, service between San Francisco and the South, and the influx of more white people, a number of new stores started here bringing merchandise from the northern market, while San Francisco buyers began to outbid Alexander and Mellis for the local supply of hides and tallow. This so revolutionized the methods under which this tradition-bound old concern operated that by 1858 it had succumbed to the inevitable, and the business passed into the hands of Johnson and Allinson, a firm made up of Charles R. Johnson, soon to be elected county clerk, and Horace L. Allinson. Most of the commercial activity in this period was carried on north of First Street. The native population inhabited Sonoratown for the most part a collection of adobes named after the Mexican state whence came many of our people. There was a contingent from other parts of Mexico and a small sprinkling of South Americans from Chile and Peru. Among this Spanish-speaking people quite a business was done by Latin American storekeepers. It followed, naturally enough, that they dealt in all kinds of Mexican goods. One of the very few white men in this district was José Mascarel, a powerfully built French sea captain and master of the ship that brought Don Luis Vignas to the Southland, who settled in Los Angeles in 1844, marrying an Indian woman. He had come with Prudhomme and others, and under Captain Hensley had taken part in the military events at San Bartolo and the Mesa. By 1865, when he was mayor of the city, he had already accumulated a number of important real estate holdings, and owned with another Frenchman Juan Barry, a baker, the block extending east on the south side of Commercial Street from Maine to Los Angeles, which had been built in 1861 to take the place of several old adobes. This, the owners later divided, Mascarel taking the southeast corner of commercial and Maine streets and Barry the southwest corner of commercial and Los Angeles streets. In the 70s, I.W. Hellman bought the Mascarel corner, and in 1883, the farmers and merchants bank moved to that location, where it remained until the institution purchased the southwest corner of 4th and Maine streets for the erection of its own building. Andres Ramirez was another Sonora town merchant. He had come from Mexico in 1844, and sold his general merchandise in what for a while was dubbed the Street of the Mades. Later this was better known as Upper Maine Street, and still later it was called San Fernando Street. Louis Abarca was a tradesman and a neighbor of Ramirez. Prosperous until the advent of the pioneer, he little by little became poorer, and finally withdrew from business. Juan Bernard, a native of French Switzerland, whose daughter Mary D. Bautier, now an important landowner, came to California by way of the horn in search of the precious metal preceding me to this land of sunshine. For a while he had a brickyard on Buena Vista Street, but in the late 70s, soon after marrying Senorita Susana Machado, daughter of Don Agustin Machado, he bought a vineyard on Alameda Street, picturesquely enclosed by a high adobe or brick wall, much after the fashion of a European chateau. He also came to own the site of the Natick House, a clever linguist and a man of attractive personality. He passed away in 1889. An American by the name of George Walters lived on Upper Maine Street, among the denizens of which locality he was an influential person. Born at New Orleans as early as 1809, Walters had trapped and traded in the Rocky Mountains, then teamed for a while between Santa Fe and neighboring points. Near the end of 1844 he left New Mexico in company with James Waters, Jim Beckwith, and other travelers finally reaching Los Angeles. Walters, who settled in San Bernardino, was at the Chino Ranch with B.D. Wilson and Louis Rubidot when so many Americans were made prisoners. Julian Chavez, after whom Chavez Street is named, was here in 1853. If he was not native born, he came here at a very early day. He owned a stretch of many acres, about a mile northeast of Los Angeles. He was a good honest citizen and is worthy of recollection. Ramon Alexander, a Frenchman often confused with David Alexander, came to Los Angeles before 1850, while it was still a mere Mexican village. Pioneers remember him especially as the builder of the long famous roundhouse on Main Street, and as one who also for some time kept a saloon near Recaina Street. Alexander's wife was Señorita Valdez. He died in 1870. Antoine Labarie was another Frenchman here before the beginning of the 50s. He continued to live in Los Angeles till at least the late 70s. A fellow countryman, B. Du Bourdieu, had a bakery in Sonoratown. Philip Reim, the good-natured German to whom I have referred, had a little store and saloon before I came, called Los Dos Amigos, as the proprietor of which he was known as Don Felipe. Nor was this title a miss, for Felipe married a native woman, and German though he had been, he gradually became like so many others who had made it in the same way, more and more Californian in manners and customs. A month after I arrived here, John Bain, who had a grocery business at the northeast corner of First and Los Angeles streets, retired. He had come to Los Angeles from Baden in 1848, and after forming one or two partnerships, had sold out to Lorenzo Lek, a German dain, who reached here in November 1849, and whose son, Henry Fonder Lek, married a daughter of Tom Mott, and is living near San Juan Capistrano. Lek opened his own store in 1854, and despite the trials to which he was to be subjected, he was able in 1868 to pay John Schumacher $3,000 for a lot on Main Street. Lek had a liking for the spectacular, and in the November previous to my arrival was active, as I had been told, with Golar and Nordhold, in organizing the first political processions seen in Los Angeles. The election of Pierce was the incentive, and there were gorgeous transparencies provided for the event. It was on this occasion that a popular local character, George the Baker, burned himself badly while trying to set off the diminutive canon, borrowed from the Spanish Padre for the event. In the one-story adobe of Mascarelle and Berry on the corner of Commercial and Main Streets, now the site of the United States National Bank, an Irishman named Samuel G. R. Buckle, who had come here in 1850 and was associated for a short time with S. Lazard, conducted a dry goods store. From 1852 to 1856, R. Buckle was city treasurer. In the same building and adjoining R. Buckles, John Jones, father of Mrs. J. B. Lancersham and M. G. Jones, carried on a wholesale grocery business. Jones had left England for Australia when 47 years old and a year later touched the coast of California at Monterey and came to Los Angeles. Twice a year, Jones went north in a schooner for the purpose of replenishing his stock, and after making his purchases and having the boat loaded, he would return to Los Angeles. Sometimes he traveled with the round-bellied, short and jolly Captain Morton, who recalled his illustrious prototype, Wuder van Twiller, so humorously described by Washington Irving as exactly five feet six inches in height and five feet six inches in circumference. Sometimes he sailed with Captain J. S. Garcia, a good-natured seaman. During his absence, the store remained closed, and as this trip always required at least six weeks, some idea may be obtained of the sleepy hollow methods then prevailing in this part of the West. In 1854 or 1855, Jones, who was reputed to be worth some $50,000, went to San Francisco and married Miss Doria Dayton, and it was generally understood that he expected to settle there, but having been away for a couple of years, he returned to the city of the Angels, this being one of the first instances within my observation of the irresistible attraction of Los Angeles for those who have once lived here. It is my recollection that Jones bought from John G. Downey, the Cristobal Aguilar home, then occupied by W. H. and Mrs. Perry, a building the more interesting since it was understood to have served long in the past and before the American occupation as a calaboso or jail and to have had a whipping post supposed to have done much service in keeping the turbulent inclined natives quiet. How many of the old adobes may at times have been used as jails, I am unable to say, but it is also related that there stood on the hill west of the plaza another quartel after the home of B. S. Eaton, where Fred, later mayor of Los Angeles, was born. Like Felix Bachman and others, Jones entered actively into trade with Salt Lake City, and although he met with many reverses, notably in the loss of Captain Morton's Laura Bevan, which sank carrying down a shipload of uninsured goods, he retired well to do. John, sometimes called Juan Temple or Jonathan, as he used to sign himself in earlier years, who paid the debt of nature in 1866, and after whom Temple Street is named, was another merchant having a store upon the piece of land, later the site of the Downey block, and now occupied by the post office, which from 1849 to 1866 was in charge of my friend Don Ignacio Garcia, his confidential business agent. Garcia imported from Mexico both Serapes and Rebosos, and as every Mexican man and woman required one of these garments, Temple had a large and very lucrative trade in them alone. Following the death of Temple, Garcia continued under Hinchman, the executor of the estate, until everything had been settled. It was really far back in 1827 when Temple came to Los Angeles, started the first general merchandise store in town, and soon took such a lead in local affairs that the first vigilance committee in the city was organized in his store in 1836. Toward the fifties he drifted south to Mexico, and there acquired a vast stretch of land on the coast, but he returned here and was soon known as one of the wealthiest, yet one of the stingiest men in all California. His real estate holdings in or near Los Angeles were enormous, but the bad judgment of his executor cost him dear, and valuable properties were sacrificed. After his death, Temple's wife, who once accompanied her husband to Paris, and had thus formed a liking for the livelier French capital, returned to France with her daughter, later Donia Ahuria to live, and A. F. Hinchman, Temple's brother-in-law who had been superintendent of Santa Barbara County Schools, was appointed administrator. Hinchman then resided in San Diego, and was intensely partial to that place. This may have prejudiced him against Los Angeles, but whatever the cause, he offered Temple's properties at ridiculous prices, and some of the items of sale may now be interesting. The present site of the government building, embracing, as it then did, the forty-foot street north of it, was at that time improved with an adobe building covering the entire front and running back to New High Street, and this adobe, known after Temple's death as the Old Temple Block, Hinchman sold for fifteen thousand dollars. He also disposed of the New Temple Block, including the improvement at the south end, which I shall describe, for but sixteen thousand dollars. I remember quite well that Ignacio Garcia was the purchaser, and that, tiring of his bargain in a couple of weeks, he resold the property to John Temple's brother, Francisco, at cost. Hinchman, for fourteen thousand dollars, also disposed of the site of the present Bullard Block, where on Temple had erected a large brick building, the lower part of which was used as a market, while the upper part was a theatre. The terms in each of these three transactions were a thousand dollars per annum, with interest at ten percent. He sold to the Bixby's the Cerritos Rancho, containing twenty-six thousand acres for twenty thousand dollars. Besides these, there were eighteen lots, each one hundred and twenty by three hundred and thirty feet, located on Fort Street, now Broadway, some of which ran through to Spring, and others to Hill, which were bought by J. F. Burns and William Buffham for one thousand and fifty dollars, or fifty dollars each for the twelve inside, and seventy-five dollars each for the six corner lots. Returning to the Fort Street lots, it may be interesting to know that the property would be worth today, at an average price of four thousand dollars per foot, about nine million dollars. Eugene Meyer purchased one of the lots on the west side of Fort Street, running through to Hill, one hundred and twenty by three hundred and thirty feet in size, for the sum of one thousand dollars, and I paid him a thousand dollars for sixty feet and the same depth. In eighteen seventy-four, I built on this site the home occupied by me for about twelve years, after which I improved both fronts for F. L. Blanchard. These two blocks are still in my possession. The Broadway building is known as Blanchard Hall. Blanchard, by the way, a comer of eighteen eighty-six, started his Los Angeles career in A. G. Bartlett's music store, and has since always been closely identified with art movements. He organized the system of cluster streetlights in use here, and was an early promoter of Good Roads. Charles L. Doocomman was here in business in eighteen fifty-three, he and John G. Downey having arrived together three years before. According to the story still current, Doocomman, with his kit and stock as a watchmaker, and Downey with his outfit as a drugist, hired a caretta together to transport their belongings from San Pedro to Los Angeles. But the caretta broke down, and the two pilgrims to the city of the angels had to finish their journey afoot. Doocomman's first store, located on Commercial Street between Maine and Los Angeles, was about sixteen by thirty feet in size, but it contained an astonishing assortment of merchandise, such as hardware, stationery, and jewelry. Perhaps the fact that Doocomman came from Switzerland, then even more than now the chief home of watchmaking, explains his early venture in the making and selling of watches. However that may be, it was to Charlie Doocommans that the bankrupt merchant Moreno, later sentenced to fourteen or fifteen years in the penitentiary for robbing a Frenchman, came to sell the Frenchman's gold watch. Moreno confessed that he had organized a gang of robbers after his failure in business, and had murdered even his own lieutenants. Doocomman, pretending to go into a rear room for the money, slipped out of the back door and gave the alarm. Doocomman's store was a sort of curiosity shop containing many articles not obtainable elsewhere, and he was clever enough, when asked for any rarity, to charge all that the traffic would bear. I wonder what Charlie Doocomman would say if he could return to life, and see his sons conducting a large modern wholesale hardware establishment, on an avenue never thought of in his day, were once stretched acres of fruit and vines. Doocomman Street commemorates this pioneer. Osrow W. Child, who came to Los Angeles in November 1850, was for a while in partnership with J. D. Hicks, the firm being known as Childs and Hicks. They conducted a tin shop on Commercial Street in a building about twenty by forty feet. In 1861, H. D. Barrows joined them, and hardware was added to the business. Somewhat later, the firm was known as J. D. Hicks & Company. In 1871, Barrows bought out the Childs & Hicks interests, and soon formed a partnership with W. C. Furry, although the latter arrived in Los Angeles only in 1872. When Barrows retired, Furry continued alone for several years. The W. C. Furry Company was next organized, with James W. Hellman as the active partner of Furry, and with Simon Meyer the meatpacker, and brother of the brewer, and J. A. Graves as stockholders. Hellman, in time, succeeded this company, and continued for himself. When Childs withdrew, he went in for importing and selling exotic trees and plants, and made his home place in more modern days known as the Huntington Purchase, and running from Maine to Hill, and eleventh to twelfth streets, wonderfully attractive to such tourists as then chanced this way. He also claimed to be the pioneer floriculturist of Los Angeles County. Toward the end of his life, Childs erected on Main Street, south of First, a theater styled an opera house, and later known as the Grand, which was popular in its time. Childs Avenue bears the family name. Lebat Brothers had one of the leading dry goods houses, which, strange as it may seem, they conducted in a part of the Abel Stearns home, corner of Maine and Arcadia Streets, now occupied by the Baker Block. Their establishment, while the most pretentious, and certainly the most specialized of its day in town, and therefore patronized by our well-to-do people, would nevertheless make but a sorry appearance in comparison with even a single department in any of the mammoth stores of today. Jacob Elias was not only here in 1853 in partnership with his brother under the firm name of Elias Brothers, but he also induced some of his friends in Augusta, Georgia, to migrate to California. Among those who came in 1854 were Pollock, whose given name I forget, and LC, better known as Clem Goodwin. The latter clerked for a while for Elias Brothers, after which he associated himself with Pollock, under the title of Pollock and Goodwin. They occupied premises at what was then the corner of Aliso Street and Nigger Alley, and the site some years later of P. Bodry's business when we had our interesting contest, the story of which I shall relate in due time. Pollock and Goodwin continued in the general merchandise business for a few years, after which they returned to Augusta. Goodwin, however, came back to California in 1864, a Benedict, and while in San Francisco, accidentally met Louis Pulaski, who was then looking for an opening. Goodwin induced Pulaski to enter into partnership with him, and the well-known early clothing house of Pulaski and Goodwin was thus established in the Downey Block. In 1867, they bought out I. W. Hellman and moved over to the southeast corner of Commercial and Main Streets. Goodwin sold out to Pulaski in 1881, when the firm became Pulaski and Sons. In 1883, Sam Isidore and Myer L. Pulaski bought out their father, and in time, Pulaski brothers also withdrew. Goodwin became Vice President of the Farmers and Merchants Bank. Pulaski died in 1900, Goodwin having preceded him a short time before. Goodwin left his wife some valuable property, and as they were without issue, she so richly endowed the children's hospital at her death that the present building was made possible. The Lanfranko brothers, Juan, T., and Mateo, came from Genoa, Italy by way of Lima, Peru, and New York, once they crossed the plains with James Lick, the carpenter, later so celebrated, and they were both here in business in 1853. Juan, a small capitalist or petty rentier living where the Lanfranko building now stands opposite the Federal Building, while Mateo kept a grocery store on Main Street, not far from Commercial. In 1854, Juan added to his independence by marrying Senorita Petra Pilar, one of 14 children of Don Jose Loretto Sopovita, owner of the Palazverdes Rancho, the celebration of the nuptials in dancing and feasting lasting five days. It was at that ranch that a great stampede of cattle occurred, due to fright when the pioneer sulky imported by Juan Lanfranko from San Francisco, and then a strange object was driven into their midst. About 1861 the first Lanfranko building was erected. Mateo died on October 4, 1873, while Juan passed away on May 20, 1875. His wife died in 1877. A daughter married Walter Maxwell, a second daughter became the wife of Walter S. Moore, for years Chief of the Fire Department, and still another daughter married Arthur Brentano, one of the well-known Paris and New York booksellers. Solomon Lazard and Maurice Cramer, cousins of about the same age and natives of Lorraine, were associated in 1853 under the title of Lazard and Cramer, being located in a storeroom in Mellis's Row, and I may add that since nearly all of the country development had taken place in districts adjacent to San Gabriel El Monte in San Bernardino, travel through Aliso Street was important enough to make their situation one of the best in town. Lazard had arrived in San Francisco in 1851, and having remained there about a year, departed for San Diego, where it was his intention to engage in the dry goods business. Finding that there were not enough people there to maintain such an establishment of even moderate proportions, Lazard decided upon the advice of a seafaring man whom he met to remove his stock, which he had brought from the northern town to Los Angeles. He told me that he paid fifty-six dollars steamer fare from San Francisco to San Diego, and that the freight on his merchandise cost him twenty dollars a ton. Among his native friends, Lazard was always known as Don Solomon, and being popular, he frequently acted as floor manager at Balls and Fandangos. Lazard is still living at the good old age of eighty-seven years. Cramer also reached here in 1852. In time Timoteo Wolfskill, a son of William Wolfskill, bought Cramer's interest and the firm name became Lazard and Wolfskill. Each of these worthy pioneers in his day rendered signal service to the community, Lazard serving as councilman in 1862, and I shall have occasion therefore to refer to them again. Abe Lazard, a brother of Solomon, who had spent some years in South America, came in the late fifties. Dr. E. M. Lazard is a son of S. Lazard. While speaking of San Diego, I may remark that it was quite fifteen years before the interesting old Spanish settlement to the south, with which I had no business relations, attracted me, and as I was no exception, the reader will see how seldom the early settlers were inclined to roam about merely for sightseeing. In 1853 M. Norton and E. Greenbaum sold merchandise at the southwest corner of Los Angeles and commercial streets, when Jacob, J. L., an early supervisor and city treasurer, 1863-64, and Moritz Morris, councilman in 1869-70, were competitors. In time Jacob returned to Germany where he died. Herman Morris, a brother, was a local newspaper reporter. Jacob Letter was another rival who removed to Oakland. Still another dealer in General Merchandise was M. Michaels, almost a dwarf in size who emigrated to South America. Casper Berend, father-in-law of John Kahn, a man prominent in many movements who arrived in 1851, was another commercial street merchant. Still other early merchants whom I somewhat distinctly recall were Israel Fleischmann and Julius Sickle, who had a glassware, crockery, and hardware business, and L. Lasky on commercial street. Thomas D. Mott, father of John Mott, the attorney who was lured to California by the gold fever of 1849, and to Los Angeles, and to Los Angeles, three years later, by the climate I met on the day of my arrival. His room adjoined my brother's store, so that we soon formed an acquaintance ship which ripened in the course of time into a friendship that endured until the day of his death. In the early sixties he was the proprietor of a livery stable on Main Street opposite the Stearns' home. He was very fond of hunting, being an expert at dropping a bird on the wing, and frequently went dove-shooting with his friends, all of which, insignificant as it may at first appear, I mention for the purpose of indicating the neighborhood of these operations. The hunting-ground covered none other than that now lying between Main and Olive Streets from about Sixth Street to Pico, and teeming today as the reader knows with activity and life. There Sportsman hunted, while more matter-of-fact burgers frequently went with sides to cut grass for their horses. Prudent Bodri, a native of Quebec destined to make and lose several fortunes, was here when I came, having previously been a merchant in San Francisco, when staple articles such as Common Tax, selling at $16 a package, commanded enormous prices. Two or three times, however, fire obliterated all his savings, and when he reached Los Angeles, Bodri had only about a thousand dollars worth of goods, and two or three hundred dollars in cash. With these assets, he opened a small store on Main Street opposite the Abel Stearns' home, and again favored by the economic conditions of the times, he added to his capital very rapidly. From Main Street, Bodri moved to Commercial, forming partnerships successively with a man named Brown, and with one Le Mait. As early as 1854, Bodri had purchased the property at the northeast corner of Aliso Street and Nigger Alley for eleven thousand dollars, and this he so improved with the additional investment of twenty-five thousand dollars, that he made his now elongated adobe bring him in an income of a thousand a month. As stated elsewhere, Bodri went to Europe in 1855, returning later to Montreal, and it was not until 1861 or later that he came back to Los Angeles and re-engaged in business. This time, in his own building, where until 1865 he thrived, withdrawing, as I shall soon show, in the beginning of 1866, Bodri Avenue recalls this early and important man of affairs. David W. Alexander, Phineas Banning's enterprising partner in establishing wagon trains, was here when I came, and was rather an influential person. In Irishman by birth, he had come to California from Mexico by way of Salt Lake, in the early 40s, and lived for a while in the San Bernardino country. From 1844 to 1849, John Temple and he had a store at San Pedro, and still later he was associated in business with Banning, selling out his interest in 1855. In 1850, Alexander was president of the First Common Council of Los Angeles, being one of the two members who completed their term. In 1852, he visited Europe, and in September 1855 he was elected sheriff of the county, bringing to his aid the practical experience of a ranger. Before keeping store, Alexander had farmed for a while on the Rincon Rancho. He continued to hold a large extent of acreage, and in 1872 was granted a patent to over 4,000 acres in the Providencia, and in 1874 to nearly 17,000 acres in the Tahunga Rancho. George C. Alexander, David's brother, was postmaster at San Pedro in 1857. The hazards arrived in 1853 with a large family of children, Captain A. M. Hazard, having made his way with ox teams from the east via Salt Lake on a journey which consumed nearly two years. At first they took up a claim about four miles from Los Angeles, which was later declared government land. The eldest son, Daniel, was employed by Banning as a teamster, traveling between Los Angeles and Yuma, but later he set up in the teaming business for himself. George W. Hazard became a dealer in Sadlery in Ricanus Street, and taking an active interest in the early history of Los Angeles, he collected at personal sacrifice souvenirs of the past, and this collection has become one of the few original sources available for research. Footnote, George Hazard died on February 8, 1914. End footnote. In 1889 Henry T. Hazard, after having served the city as its attorney, was elected mayor, his administration being marked by no little progress in the town's growth and expansion. Henry, who married a daughter of Dr. William Geller, and after whom Hazard Street is named, is the only one of the brothers who survives. Sam Meyer, who met me as related when I alighted from the stage, was another resident of Los Angeles prior to my coming. He had journeyed from Germany to America in 1849, had spent four years in New Orleans, Macon, and other southern cities, and early in 1853 had come to California. On Main Street, south of Ricanus, I found him with Hilliard Lowenstein in the dry goods business, and undertaking they continued until 1856, when Lowenstein returned to Germany to marry a sister of Meyer. Emanuel Lowenstein, one of the issue of this marriage and a jolly charitable fellow, is well known about town. On December 15, 1861, Meyer married Miss Johanna, daughter of S.C. and Rosalia Davis, and the same year formed a partnership with Davis in the crockery business. After two and a half years of residence in Germany, Lowenstein returned to Los Angeles. Meyer, so long identified with local Freemasonry, died in 1903. A daughter married Max Lowenthal, the attorney. Footnote, Mrs. Meyer died on September 4, 1914, and a footnote. Baruch Marx, one of the very few people yet living who were here when I arrived, is now about ninety-one years of age, and still a resident of Los Angeles. He was with Louis Schlesinger, who lost his life when the Ada Hancock was destroyed, and Hyman Tischler, in the general merchandise business in 1853 at Mellis's Row, the firm being known as B. Marx and Company, and having prospered, he went to Berlin. There, after the Franco-Prussian War when much disaster befell speculators, he lost most of his means, and greatly reduced in resources, he returned to Los Angeles. Since then, however, he has never been able to retrieve his fortune. Luckily, he enjoys good health, even being able at his advanced age, as he told me recently, to shave himself. Footnote, Marx died on July 9, 1914, and footnote. In 1851, Herman Schlesinger reached Los Angeles and engaged in the dry goods business with Tobias Scherwinsky. In 1855, Moritz Schlesinger, Herman's brother, came here and clerked for the firm. In 1857, Schlesinger and Scherwinsky, having made approximately $14,000, which they divided, sold out to Moritz Schlesinger and returned to Germany. A few years later, Scherwinsky lost his money, and coming back to California, located in San Diego, where he died. Schlesinger remained in Germany, and died there about 1900. Collins Waddams had a general store on the northeast corner of Main and Commercial Streets, a piece of property afterward bought by Charlie Duke common. At another time, Waddams and Foster were general merchants who, succeeding to the business of Foster and McDougal, were soon followed by Douglas Foster and Waddams. Clerking for this firm when I came was William W. Jenkins, who left for Arizona years afterwards, where he led an adventurous life. Henry G. Yarrow, often called Cuatro Ojos, or Four Eyes, from the fact that he wore a pair of big spectacles on a large hooked nose, was an eccentric character of the fifties and later. He once conducted a store at the southwest corner of Los Angeles and Recana Streets, and was the jevney of his day insofar as he dealt in superior and exceptional commodities generally not found in any other store. In other respects, however, the comparison fails, for he kept the untidiest place in town, and his stock was fearfully jumbled together, necessitating an indefinite search for every article demanded. The store was in a little low room in an adobe building about twenty feet long and ten feet wide, with another room in the rear where Yarrow cooked and slept. He was also a mysterious person, and nobody ever saw the inside of this room. His clothes were of the commonest material. He was polite and apparently well-bred, yet he never went anywhere for social intercourse, nor did he wish anyone to call upon him except for trade. Aside from the barest necessities he was never known to spend any money, and so he came to be regarded as a miser. One morning he was found dead in his store, and for some time thereafter, people dug in his backyard searching for the earnings believed to have been secreted there, but not a cent of his hoard was ever found. There were all kinds of rumors, however, respecting Yarrow. One was to the effect that he was a scion of a noted English family, and that disappointment in love had soured and driven him from the world, while another report was that his past had been somewhat shady. Nobody apparently knew the truth, but I personally believe that Yarrow was honest, and know that when at one time, despite his efforts he failed in business, he endeavored to settle his debts upon the most honorable basis. Charles Hale, later associated with M. W. Childs, had a tin shop, just where Stern's Arcadia block now stands. This shop stood on elevated ground, making his place of business rather difficult of access, from which the reader will gain some idea of the irregular appearance of the landscape in early days. Hale in time went to Mexico, where he was reported to have made a fortune. August Ulyard arrived with his wife on the last day of December 1852, and rented a house near the plaza. In competition with Joseph Lalong, who had established his Jenny Lind bakery a couple of years previous, Ulyard opened a bake shop, making his first bread from yeast which Mrs. Ulyard had brought with her across the plains. There had been nothing but French bread in Los Angeles up to that time, that Ulyard began to introduce both German and American bread and cake, which soon found favor with many. Later he added freshly baked crackers. After a while he moved to the site of the Nadek House at the southwest corner of Main and First Streets, and once he owned the southwest corner of Fifth and Spring Streets, on which the Alexandria Hotel now stands. Having no children of their own, Ulyard and his wife adopted first one and then another until eventually they had a family of seven. Picturing these unpretentious stores, I recall a custom long prevalent here among the native population. Just as in Mexico, a little lump of sugar called a pilon, or something equally insignificant, was given with even the smallest purchase, so here some trifle called a pilon was thrown in to please the buyer, and if a merchant neglected to offer such a gratuity, the customer was almost certain to ask for it. Among the meat handlers there were several sento brothers, but those with whom I was more intimately acquainted were Jean and Louis, father of Louis sento, the present French consul, both of whom, if I mistake not, came about the middle of the fifties. They engaged in the sheep business, and later Louis had a packing-house of considerable importance located between Los Angeles and Santa Monica, where he also owned over a thousand acres of valuable land, which he sold sometime before his death. They were very successful, and sento's street bears their name. Jean died in 1903 and Louis a few years later. Refugio Boteo was another wholesale cattle and meat dealer. Arthur Mackenzie Dodson, who came here in 1850, and later married Miss Reyes, daughter of Nassario Dominguez, conducted a butcher shop and one of the finest grocery stores. He was also the first to make soap here. For a while Dodson was in partnership with John Benner, who during a quarter of a century went in business for himself in the old Temple Adobe on Main Street, built up an important trade in the handling of meat. James H. Dodson is Arthur's son. Santiago Boyo also kept a small grocery. Hog Bennett was here in the middle fifties. He raised and killed Hogs, and cured the ham and bacon which he sold to neighboring dealers. Possessed as he was of an unusual sense of rectitude, I esteemed Francisco Solano, father of Alfred Solano, for his many good qualities. He was in the butcher business in Sonoratown, and was prosperous in the early fifties. An odd little store was that of Madame Salendi, who came to California in 1849 on the same vessel that brought Lorenzo Lech. She had a butcher shop, but rather curiously she was also a money lender. I believe that Jack Yates was here in 1853. He owned the first general laundry located on Los Angeles Street between First and Recaina, and conducted it with success and profit for many years until he succumbed to the competition of the Chinese. Yates' daughter, Ms. Mary D., married H.J. Woolochot at one time, a prominent financier. More than once, in recording these fragmentary recollections, I have had occasion to refer to persons who at one time or another were employed in a very different manner than in a later period of their lives. The truth is that in the early days one's occupation did not weigh much in the balance, provided only that he was honorable and a good citizen, and pursuits lowly today were then engaged in by excellent men. Many of the vocations of standing were unknown, in fact, fifty or sixty years ago, and refined and educated gentlemen often turned their attention to what are now considered humble occupations. Chapter 7. In and near the Old Pueblo. 1853. About the time when I arrived, Assessor Antonio F. Coronel reported an increase in the city and county assessment of over eight hundred and five thousand dollars, but the number of stores was really limited, and the amount of business involved was in proportion. The community was like a village, and such was the provincial character of the town that instead of indicating the location of a store or office by number, the advertiser more frequently used such a phrase as, opposite the Bella Union, near the express office, or vis-a-vis to Mr. Temples. Nor was this of great importance. Change of names and addresses were frequent in business establishments in those days, an indication perhaps of the restless spirit of the times. Possibly because of this uncertainty as to headquarters, merchants were indifferent toward many advertising aids considered today rather essential. When I began business in Los Angeles, most of the storekeepers contended themselves with signs, rudely lettered or painted on unbleached cloth and nailed on the outside of the adobe walls of their shops. Later their signs were on bleached cloth and secured in frames without glass. In 1865 we had a painted wooden sign, and still later many establishments boasted of letters in gold on the glass doors and windows. So too when I first came here merchants wrote their own billheads and often did not take the trouble to do that, but within two or three years afterward they began to have them printed. People were also not as particular about keeping their places of business open all day. Proprietors would sometimes close their stores and go out for an hour or two for their meals or to meet in a friendly game of billiards. During the monotonous days when but little business was being transacted, it was not uncommon for merchants to visit back and forth and to spend hours at a time in playing cards. To provide a substitute for a table, the window sill of the thick adobe was used, the visitor seating himself on a box or barrel on the outside while the host within at the window would make himself equally comfortable. Without particular rising it is safe to state that the majority of early traders indulged in such methods of killing time. During this period of miserably lighted thoroughfares before the arrival of many American families, those who did not play cards and billiards in the saloons met at night at each other's stores, where on an improvised table they indulged in a little game of draw. Artisans too were among the pioneers. William H. Perry, a carpenter by trade, came to Los Angeles on February 1st, 1853, bringing with him and setting up here the first stationery steam engine. In May 1855, seeing an opportunity to expand, he persuaded Ira Gilchrist to form a partnership with him under the name of W. H. Perry and Company. A brief month later, however, so quickly did enterprises evolve in early Los Angeles, Perry gave up carpentering and joined James D. Brady in the furniture business. Their location was on Main Street between Arcadia and the Plaza. They continued together several years until Wallace Woodworth, one of Tom Mott's horsemen who went out to avenge the death of Sheriff Barton, bought out Brady's interest when the firm became Perry and Woodworth. They prospered and grew in importance, their specialty being inside cabinet work. And on September 6, 1861, they established a lumberyard in town with the first regular saw and planing mills seen here. They then manufactured beehives, furniture, and upholstery, and contracted for building and house furnishing. In 1863, Stephen H., brother of Tom Mott, joined the firm. Perry and Woodworth were both active in politics, one being a councilman, the other a supervisor. The latter, a democratic leader going as a delegate to the convention that nominated General Winfield S. Hancock for the presidency. Their political affiliations indeed gave them an influence which, in the awarding of contracts, was sufficient to keep them supplied with large orders. Woodworth's demise occurred in 1883. Perry died on October 30, 1906. Nells Williamson, a native of Maine and a clever fellow, was another carpenter who was here when I arrived. He had come across the planes from New Orleans in 1852 as one of a party of twenty. In the neighborhood of El Paso de Aguila, they were all ambushed by Indians, and eighteen members of the party were killed. Williamson and Dick Johnson, afterward a resident of Los Angeles, being the two that escaped. On a visit to Kern County, Nells was shot by a hunter who mistook him for a bear, the result of which was that he was badly crippled for life. So long as he lived, and he approached ninety years, Nells, like many old timers, was horribly profane. Henry Penelon, a fresco painter, was here in 1853, and was recognized as a decorator of some merit. When the old plaza church was renovated, he added some ornamental touches to it. At a later period, he was a photographer, as well as a painter. Among the blacksmiths then in Los Angeles was a well-known German, John Goller, who conducted his trade in his own shop, occupying about one hundred feet on Los Angeles Street, where the Los Angeles Sadlery Company is now located. Goller was an immigrant, who came by way of the Salt Lake route, and who, when he set up as the pioneer blacksmith and wagon maker, was supplied by Lewis Wilhart, who had a tannery on the west side of the river with both tools and customers. When Goller arrived, iron workers were scarce, and he was able to command pretty much his own prices. He charged sixteen dollars for shoeing a horse, and used to laugh as he told how he received nearly five hundred dollars for his part in rigging up the awning in front of a neighboring house. When in 1851 the court of sessions ordered the sheriff to see that fifty lances were made for the volunteer rangers, Goller secured the contract. Another commission which he filled was the making for the county of a three-inch branding iron with the letters L.A. There being little iron in stock, Goller bought up old wagon tires, cast away on the planes, and converted them into various utensils, including even horseshoes. As an early wagon maker he had rather a discouraging experience, his first wagon remaining in his hands a good while. The natives looked upon it with inquisitive distrust, and still clung to their heavy caretas. He had introduced however more modern methods, and gradually he established a good sale. Afterward he extended his field of operations, the late sixties finding him shipping wagons all over the state. His prosperity increased, and Mullally, Porter, and Ayers constructed for him one of the first brick buildings in Los Angeles. A few years later Goller met with heavy financial reverses, losing practically all that he had. I have stated that no care was given to either the streets or sidewalks, and a daily evidence of this was the confusion in the neighborhood of John's shop, which together with his yard was one of the sights of the little town, because the blacksmith had strewn the footway, and even part of the road, with all kinds of piled up material, to say nothing of a lot of horses invariably waiting there to be shod. The result was that passers-by were obliged to make a detour into the often muddy street to get around and past Goller's premises. John Ward was an Angelino who knew something of the transition from heavy to lighter vehicles. He was born in Virginia and took part in the Battle of New Orleans. In the thirties he went to Santa Fe, in one of the earliest prairie schooners to that point. Thence he came to Los Angeles for a temporary stay, making the trip in the first carriage ever brought to the coast from a Yankee workshop. In 1849 he returned for permanent residence, and here he died in 1859. D. Anderson, whose daughter married Jerry Newell, a pioneer of 1856, was a carriage maker, having previously been in partnership with a man named Burke in the making of pack saddles. After a while, when Anderson had a shop on Main Street, he commenced making a vehicle somewhat lighter than a road wagon and less elaborate than a carriage. With materials generally purchased for me, he covered the vehicle, making it look like a hearse. A newspaper clipping Evidence's Anderson's activity in the middle seventies, quote, a little shaky on his pins but cordial as ever, end quote. Carriages were very scarce in California at the time of my arrival, although there were a few, Dona Bell Stearns possessing the only private vehicle in Los Angeles, and transportation was almost entirely by means of saddle horses, or the native capacious caretas. These consisted of a heavy platform, four or five by eight or ten feet in size, mounted on two large solid wheels, sawed out of logs, and were exceedingly primitive in appearance, although the owners sometimes decorated them elaborately, while the wheels moved on coarse wooden axles affording the traveler more jounce than restful ride. The caretas served indeed for nearly all the carrying business that was done between the ranchos in Los Angeles, and when in operation the squeaking could be heard at a great distance, owing especially to the fact that the air being undisturbed by factories or noisy traffic, quiet generally prevailed. So solid were these vehicles that in early wars they were used for barricades, and the making of temporary corrals, and also for transporting cannon. This sharp squeaking of the careta, however, while penetrating and disagreeable in the extreme, served a purpose, after all, as the signal that a buyer was approaching town, for the vehicle was likely to have on board one or even two good-sized families of women and children, and the keenest expectation of our little business world was consequently aroused, bringing merchants and clerks to the front of their stores. A couple of oxen, by means of ropes attached to their horns, pulled the caretas, while the men accompanied their families on horseback, and as the roving oxen were inclined to leave the road, one of the riders, wielding a long-pointed stick, was kept busy moving from side to side, prodding the wandering animals, and thus holding them to the highway. Following these caretas there was always from twenty-five to fifty dogs barking and howling as if mad. Some of the caretas had awnings and other tasteful trimmings, and those who could afford it spent a great deal of money on saddles and bridles. Each caballero was supplied with a reyata, sometimes misspelled riyata, or leather and rope, one end of which was tied around the neck of the horse, while the other, coiled and tied to the saddle when not in use, was held by the horseman when he went into a house or store, for hitching posts were unknown, with the natural result that there were many runaways. When necessary the reyata was lowered to the level of the ground to accommodate passers-by. Riders were always provided with one or two pistols to say nothing of the knife, which was frequently a part of the armament, and I have seen even sabers suspended from the saddles. As I've remarked, Dona Bell Stearns owned the first carriage in town. It was a strong but rather light and graceful vehicle, with a closed top, which he had imported from Boston in 1853 to please Dona Arcadia, it was said. However that may be, it was pronounced by Dona Bell's neighbors the same dismal failure, considering the work it would be called upon to perform under California conditions, as these wise-acres later estimated the product of John Goller's carriage shop to be. Speaking of Goller reminds me that John Schumacher gave him an order to build a spring wagon with a cover in which he might take his family riding. It was only a one-horse affair, but probably because of the springs and the top, which afforded protection from both the sun and the rain, it was looked upon as a curiosity. It is interesting to note in passing that John H. Jones, who was brought from Boston as a coachman by Henry Melis, while Mrs. Jones came as a seamstress for Mrs. Melis, and who for years drove for Abel Stearns, left a very large estate when he died, including such properties as the northeast corner of Fifth and Spring Streets, the northwest corner of Main and Fifth Streets, where for several years he resided, and other sites of great value. And it is my recollection that his wage as coachman was the sole basis of this huge accumulation. Stearns, as I mentioned elsewhere, suffered for years from financial troubles. And I have always understood that during that crisis, Jones rendered his former employer assistance. Mrs. Fremont, the general's wife, also owned one of the first carriages in California. It was built to order in the east and sent around the horn, and was constructed so that it could be fitted up as a bed, thus enabling the distinguished lady and her daughter to camp wherever night might overtake them. Shoemakers had a hard time establishing themselves in Los Angeles in the fifties. A German shoemaker, perhaps I should say a Schumachermeister, was said to have come and gone by the beginning of 1852, and less than a year later, Andrew Lehmann, a fellow countryman of John Bain, arrived from Bodden and began to solicit trade. So much, however, did the general's stores control the sale of boots and shoes at that time that Lehmann used to say it was three years before he began to make more than his expenses. Two other shoemakers, Morris and Weber, came later. Slaney Brothers in the late sixties opened the first shoe store here. In connection with shoemakers and their lack of patronage, I'm reminded of the different footgear worn by nearly every man and boy in the first quarter of a century after my arrival, and the way they were handled. Then shoes were seldom used, although clumsy brogons were occasionally in demand. Boots were almost exclusively worn by the male population, those designed for boys usually being tipped with copper at the toes. A dozen pair of different sizes came in a case, and often a careful search was required through several boxes to find just the size needed. At such times the dealer would fish out one pair after another, tossing them carelessly onto the floor, and as each case contained odd sizes that had proven unsaylable, the none too patient and sometimes irassable merchant had to handle and re-handle the slow-moving stock. Some of the boots were highly ornamented at the top and made a fine exhibit when displayed by means of strings passing through the bootstraps in front of the store. Bootjacks, now as obsolete as the boots themselves, are also an institution of that past. Well out in the country where the capital milling company's plant now stands, and perhaps as successor to a still earlier mill built there by an Englishman, Joseph Chapman, who married into the Ortega family since become famous through a meal-sea Ortega, who in 1898 successfully began preserving California chilies, was a small mill run by water known as the Eagle Mills. This was owned at different times by Abel Stearns, Francis Melis, and J. R. Scott, and conducted from 1855 to 1868 by John Turner, who came here for that purpose, and whose son William, with Fred Lamberne, later managed the grocery store of Lamberne and Turner on Aliso Street. The miller made poor flour indeed, though probably it was quite equal to that produced by Henry Dalton at the Azusa, John Rowland at the Puente, Michael White at San Gabriel, and the Theodore Brothers at their old mill in Los Angeles. The quantity of wheat raised in Southern California was exceedingly small, and whenever the raw material became exhausted, Turner's supply of flour gave out, and this indispensable commodity was then procured from San Francisco. Turner, who was a large-hearted man and helpful to his fellows, died in 1878. In the seventies the mill was sold to J. D. Deeming, and by him to J. Low, who still controls the corporation, the activity of which has grown with the city. Half a year before my coming to Los Angeles, or in April 1853, nearly 25,000 square miles had been lopped off from Los Angeles County to create the county of San Bernardino, and yet in that short time the Mormons, who had established themselves here in 1851 as a colony on attractive land purchased from Diego Sepulveda and the three Lugos, José del Carmen, José María and Vicente, and consisting of about 35,000 acres, had quite succeeded in their agricultural and other ventures. Copying somewhat the plan of Salt Lake City, they laid out a town a mile square with right-angled blocks of eight acres and irrigating sanjas parallel to the streets. In a short time they were raising corn, wheat, some of it commanding five dollars a bushel, barley, and vegetables, and along their route of travel by way of the Mormon metropolis were coming to the Southland many substantial pioneers. From San Bernardino Los Angeles drew her supply of butter, eggs, and poultry, and as three days were ordinarily required for their transportation across what was then known as the desert, these products arrived in poor condition, particularly during the summer heat. The butter would melt and the eggs would become stale. This disadvantage however was in part compensated for by the economical advantage of the industry and thrift of the Mormons and their favorable situation in an open fertile country for they could afford to sell us their produce very reasonably. Fifteen cents a dozen for eggs and three dollars a dozen for chickens, well satisfying them. San Bernardino also supplied all of our wants in the lumber line. A lumber yard was then a prospect, seven or eight years elapsing before the first yard and planing mill were established, and this necessary building material was pedaled around town by the Mormon teamsters who after disposing of all they could in this manner bartered the balance to storekeepers to be later put on sale somewhere near their stores. But two towns broke the monotony of a trip between Los Angeles and San Bernardino and they were San Gabriel Mission and El Monte. I need not remind my readers that the former place, the oldest and quaintest settlement in the county, was founded by Father Junipero Serra and his associates in 1771 and that thence radiated all of their operations in this neighborhood. Nor that in spite of all the sacrifice and human effort matters what this beautifully situated mission were in a precarious condition for several decades. It may be less known however that the mission fathers excelled in the cultivation of citrus fruits and that their chief competitors in 1853 were William Wolfskill and Louis Vinius, who were also raising seedling oranges of a very good quality. The population of San Gabriel was then principally Indian and Mexican, although there were a few whites dwelling some distance away. Among these, J. S. Mallard, afterward Justice of the Peace and father of the present city assessor, Walter Mallard, carried on a small business and Mrs. Laura Cecilia Evertson, mother-in-law of an old pioneer, Andrew J. King, whose wife is the talented daughter, Mrs. Laura Evertson King, also had a store there. Still another early storekeeper at the quaint settlement was Max Lazard, nephew of Solomon Lazard, who later went back to France. Another pioneer to settle near the San Gabriel River was Louis Phillips, a native of Germany who reached California in 1850 by way of Louisiana, and for a while did business in a little store on the Long Wharf at San Francisco. Then he came to Los Angeles, where he engaged in trade. In 1853 he bought land on which, for ten years or until he removed to Spadra, where Mrs. Phillips still survives him, he tilled the soil and raised stock. The previous year Hugo Reed, of whom I often heard my neighbors speak in a complementary way, had died at San Gabriel where he had lived and worked. Reed was a cultured Scotchman, who though born in the British Isles, had a part as a member of the convention in making the first constitution for California. He married an Indian woman and in his leisure hours studied the Indians on the mainland and Catalina, contributing to the Los Angeles Star, a series of articles on the aborigines still regarded as the valuable testimony of an eyewitness. This Indian wife of the scholarly Reed reminds me of Nathan Tuch, who came here in 1853, having formerly lived in Cleveland where he lost his first wife. He was thoroughly honest, very quiet and genteel and of an affectionate disposition. Coming to California in San Gabriel, he opened a little store and there he soon married a full-blooded squaw. Notwithstanding however the difference in their stations and the fact that she was uneducated, Tuch always remained faithful to her and treated her with every mark of respect. When I last visited Tuch and his shop, I saw there a homemade sign reading about his follows. This store belongs to Nathan Tuch, now 73 years old. When he died his wife permitted his burial in the Jewish cemetery. Michael White was another pioneer who divided his time between San Gabriel and the neighborhood that came to be known as San Bernardino, near which he had the Rancho Muscopiabi. Although drifting hither as long ago as 1828, he died in the late 80s without farm, home, or friends. Cyrus Burdick was still another settler who, after leaving Iowa with his father and other relatives in December 1853, stopped for a while at San Gabriel. Soon young Burdick went to Oregon, but being dissatisfied he returned to the mission and engaged in farming. In 1855 he was elected Constable. A year later he opened a store at San Gabriel which he conducted for eight or nine years. Subsequently the Burdicks lived in Los Angeles at the corner of First and Fort Streets on the site of the present Tahoe building. They also owned the northeast corner of Second and Spring Streets. This property became the possession of Fred Eaton through his marriage to Miss Helen L. Burdick. Fielding W. Gibson came early in the 50s. He had bought at Sonora, Mexico, some 550 head of cattle, but his vaqueros kept up such a regular system of sidetracking and thieving that by the time he reached the San Gabriel Valley he had only about one seventh of his animals left. Fancying that neighborhood he purchased 250 acres of land from Henry Dalton and located west of El Monte, where he raised stock and broom corn. El Monte, a name by some thought to refer to the adjacent mountains but actually alluding to the dense willow forests then surrounding the Hamlet, the oldest American settlement in the county, was inhabited by a party of mixed immigrants, largely Texans and including Ira W. Thompson who opened the first tavern there and was the postmaster when its post office was officially designated Monte. Others were Dr. Obed Macy and his son Oscar, of whom I speak elsewhere, Samuel M. Heath and Charlotte Gray who became John Rowland's second wife, the party having taken possession in the summer of 1851 of the rich farming tract along the San Gabriel River, some 11 or 12 miles east of Los Angeles. The summer before I came, 40 or 50 more families arrived there, and among them were A. J. King, afterward a citizen of Los Angeles, Dr. T. A. Hayes, William and Ezekiel Rubautum, Samuel King, A. J. King's father, J. A. Johnson, Jacob Weil, A. Maddox, A. J. Horn, Thomas A. Gary who acquired quite a reputation as a horticulturalist, and Jonathan Tibbets spoken of in another chapter. While tilling the soil, these farmer folks made it their particular business to keep wigs and later Republicans out of office, and slim were the chances of those parties in El Monte and vicinity, but correspondingly enthusiastic were the receptions given democratic candidates and their followers visiting there. Another important function that engaged these worthy people was their part in the lynchings which were necessary in Los Angeles. As soon as they received the cue, the Monte boys galloped into town, and being by temperament and training through frontier life, used to dealing with the rougher side of human nature, they were recognized disciplinarians. The fact is that such was the peculiar public spirit animating these early settlers, that no one could live and prosper at the Monte, who was not extremely virile and ready for any daredevil emergency. David Lewis, a supervisor of 1855, crossed the continent to the San Gabriel Valley in 1851, marrying there in the following year a daughter of the innkeeper Ira Thompson, just referred to. Thompson was a typical Vermonter and a good popular fellow who long kept the overland stage station. Sometime in the late fifties, Lewis was a pioneer in the growing of hops. Jonathan Tibbets, who settled at El Monte the year that I came to Los Angeles, had so prospered by 1871 that he left for the mines in Mojave County, Arizona, to inaugurate a new enterprise, and took with him some twenty thousand pounds of cured pork and a large quantity of lard which had been prepared at El Monte. Samuel M. Heath was another El Monte pioneer of 1851. He died in 1876, kindly remembered by many poor immigrants. H. L. J. S. and S. D. Thurman were farmers at El Monte, who came here in 1852. E. C. Parrish, who arrived in 1854, and became a supervisor, was also a ranchman there. Other El Monte folks, afterward favorably spoken of, were the Hoyts, who were identified with early local education. Dr. Obed Macy, father of Mrs. Sam Foy, came to Los Angeles from the island of Nantucket, where he was born, by way of Indiana, in which state he had practiced medicine, arriving in Southern California about 1850 and settling in El Monte. He moved to Los Angeles a year later, and bought the Bella Union from Winston and Hodges, where were opened the Alameda baths, on the site of the building later erected by his son Oscar. There Dr. Macy died on July 9, 1857. Oscar, a printer on the Southern Californian, had set type in San Francisco, swung a minor's pick, and afterward returned to El Monte where he took up a claim which in time he sold to Samuel King. Macy Street recalls this pioneer family. The San Fernando and San Juan Capistrano missions, and Aua Caliente, were the only other settlements in Los Angeles County then. The former, famous by 1854 for its olives, passing into history both through the activity of the mission fathers, and also the renowned set to between Michel Torrena and Castro, when after hours of canonating and grotesque swinging of the would-be terrifying reata, the total of the dead was a single mule. Then, or somewhat subsequently, General Andrés Pico began to occupy what was the most pretentious adobe in the state, formerly the abode of the Padres, a building 300 feet long and 80 feet wide, with walls four feet thick. In 1853 there was but one newspaper in the city, a weekly known as La Estrella de Los Angeles, or the Los Angeles Star, printed half in Spanish, half in English. It was founded on May 17, 1851 by John A. Lewis and John McElroy, who had their printing office in the lower room of a small wooden house on Los Angeles Street, near the corral of the Bella Union Hotel. This firm later became Lewis, McElroy, and Rand. There was then no telegraphic communication with the outside world, and the news ordinarily conveyed by the sheet was anything but important. Indeed, all such information was known each week by the handful of citizens in the little town, long before the paper was published, and delays in getting mail from a distance, in one case the post from San Francisco to Los Angeles, being underway no less than 52 days, led to Lewis giving up the editorship in disgust. When a steamer arrived, some little news found its way into the paper, but even then, matters of national and international moment became known in Los Angeles only after the lapse of a month or so. The admission of California to the Union in 1850, for example, was first reported on the coast six weeks after Congress had voted in California's favor, while in 1852 the deaths of Clay and Webster were not known in the West until more than a month after they had occurred. This was a slight improvement, however, over the conditions in 1841, when it used to be said no one West of the Rockies knew of President Harrison's demise until over three months and a half after he was buried. Our first Los Angeles newspaper was really more of an advertising medium than anything else, and the printing outfit was decidedly primitive, though the printers may not have been as badly off as were the typos of the Californian. The latter, using type picked up in a Mexican cloister, found no W's among the Spanish letters and had to set double V's until more type was brought from the cannibal or sandwich islands, which reminds me of Jose de la Rosa, born in Los Angeles about 1790, and the first journeyman to set type in California, who died over 100 years old. But if the estrella made a poor showing as a newspaper, I have no doubt that to add to the editor's misfortunes, the advertising rates were so low that his entire income was but small. In 1854, the star and its imprenta, as it was then styled, were sold to a company organized by James S. Waite, who a year later was appointed postmaster of the city. Speaking of the star, I should add that one of its first printers was Charles Myers Jenkins, later City San Jero, who had come to California a mere stripling with his stepfather, George Dalton Sr. The post office, too, at this time, was far from being an important institution. It was located in an adobe building on Los Angeles between Commercial and Arcadia streets, and Dr. William B. Osburn, sometimes known as Osborn, who came to California from New York in 1847 in Colonel Stevenson's regiment, and who had established a drug store, such as it was, in 1850, had just been appointed postmaster. A man who, in his time, played many parts, Osburn had half a dozen other irons in the fire besides politics, including the interests of a floral nursery and an auction room, and as the postmaster was generally away from his office, citizens desiring their mail would help themselves out of a soapbox, subdivided like a pigeon house, each compartment being marked with a letter, and in this way the city's mail was distributed. Indifferent as Dr. Osburn was to the postmaster ship, which of course could not have paid enough to command any one's exclusive services, he was rather a clever fellow, and somewhat naturally, perhaps, for a student of chemistry, is said to have made as early as August 9, 1851, and in connection with one Moses Searles, a pioneer house and sign painter, the first daguerreotype photographs produced in Los Angeles. For two years or more, Dr. Osburn remained postmaster, resigning his office on November 1, 1855. While he was a notary public, he had an office in Keller's building on Los Angeles Street. J. H. Blonde was another notary, he had an office opposite the Bella Union on Main Street. Osburn died in Los Angeles on July 31, 1867. No sooner had I arrived in San Francisco than I became aware of the excitement incidental to the search for gold, and on reaching Los Angeles I found symptoms of the same fever. That year, as a matter of fact, recorded the highest output of gold, something like $65 million worth being mined. And it was not many months before all was bustle, in and about our little city, many people coming and going, and comparatively few wishing to settle, at least until they had first tried their luck with the pick and pan. Not even the discovery of gold in the San Feliciano Canyon, near Newhall in the early 40s, for I believe the claim is made that Southern Californians, while searching for wild onions, had the honor of digging out in the despised cow counties, the first lump of the coveted metal, had set the natives so agog. So that while the rush to the mines claimed many who might otherwise have become permanent residents, it added but little to the prosperity of the town, and it is no wonder that for a while the local newspapers refused to give events the notice which they deserved. To be sure, certain merchants among them dealers in tinware, hardware, and groceries, and those who catered especially to miners, carrying such articles as gold washers, canteens, and camp outfits, increased their trade. But many prospective gold seekers on their way to distant diggings, waited until they got nearer the scene of their adventures before buying tools and supplies, when they often exhausted their purses in paying the exorbitant prices which were asked. Barring the success of Francisco Garcia, who used gangs of Indians and secured in the one year 1855 over $60,000 worth of gold, one nugget being nearly $2,000 in value, the placer gold mining carried on in the San Gabriel and San Francisco canyons was on the whole unimportant, and what gold dust was produced at these points came to Los Angeles without much profit to the toiling miners, so that it may be safely stated that cattle and horse raising, of which I shall speak in more detail, were Southern California's principal sources of income. As for the gold dust secured, San Francisco was the clearinghouse for the coast, and all of the dust ultimately found its way there until sometime later, Sacramento developed and became a competitor. Coming as I did from a part of the world where gold dust was never seen, at least by the layman, this sudden introduction to sacks and bottles full of the fascinating yellow metal produced upon me as the reader may imagine, another one of those strange impressions, fixing so indelibly my first experiences in the new, raw, and yet altogether romantic world. End of section six