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Sixty Years in Southern California 1853-1913

<h2>CHAPTER XXII DROUGHTS—THE ADA HANCOCK DISASTER 1862-1863</h2> On the first of January, 1862, after an experience of about five years, I retired from the selling of clothing, which was never congenial to me; and as I had been buying hides and wool on a small scale since the middle of the fifties, I forthwith devoted myself to the commission business. Frenchmen from the Basque country, among whom were Miguel Leonis, Gaston Oxarart, Domingo Amestoy and Domingo Bastanchury, had commenced to appear here in 1858 and to raise sheep; so that in 1859 large flocks were brought into Southern California, the sheep commanding a price of three dollars and a half per head. My own operations, exceedingly small in the beginning, increased in importance, and by 1862 I was fairly equipped for this venture. Corn, barley and wheat were also then being raised, and I busied myself with these commodities as well. <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_372a.jpg" width-obs="210" height-obs="292" alt="" /> Eugene Meyer </div> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_372b.jpg" width-obs="209" height-obs="309" alt="" /> Jacob A. Moerenhout </div> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_372c.jpg" width-obs="233" height-obs="325" alt="" /> Frank Lecouvreur </div> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_372d.jpg" width-obs="242" height-obs="327" alt="" /> Thomas D. Mott </div> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_373a.jpg" width-obs="242" height-obs="329" alt="" /> Leonard J. Rose </div> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_373b.jpg" width-obs="233" height-obs="324" alt="" /> H. K. S. O'Melveny </div> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_373c.jpg" width-obs="232" height-obs="327" alt="" /> Remi Nadeau </div> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_373d.jpg" width-obs="246" height-obs="334" alt="" /> John M. Griffith </div> Most of the early sheepmen prospered and in time bought large tracts of land for their flocks, and with all of them I had dealings of more or less importance. Amestoy's career is worthy of particular mention as exemplifying the three cardinal virtues of business: honesty, application and frugality. He and his wife took in washing; and while the husband went from house to house, leading a horse with a large basket strapped to either side, to collect and deliver the clothes, the wife toiled at the tub. In the end, what they together had 311 saved became the foundation of their important investments in sheep and land. Pedro Larronde, another early sheepman, married the widow of his Basque fellow-countryman, Etchemendy, the tippling baker. Having regularly established a commission business, I brought consignments of varied merchandise from San Francisco on the semi-monthly steamer Goliah, whose Captain at one time was Robert Haley, and at another his brother Salisbury Haley, a brother-in-law of Tom Mott; and I disposed of them to small dealers with whom I thus became pretty well acquainted. These consignments were sold almost as soon as they arrived. I was careful to bring in only staple articles in the grocery line, and it was long before I appreciated the advantage of carrying sufficient stock to supply a regular demand. On the return trips of the steamer to San Francisco I forwarded such produce as I had accumulated. I do not recall any important changes in 1862, the declining months of which saw the beginning of the two years' devastating drought. The Civil War was in progress, but we were so far from the scene of strife that we were not materially affected. Sympathy was very general here for the Confederate cause, and the Government therefore retained in Wilmington both troops and clerks who were paid in a badly-depreciated currency, which they were obliged to discount at exorbitant rates, to get money at all; while other employees had to accept vouchers which were subject to a still greater discount. Notwithstanding these difficulties, however, pay-day increased the resources of the pueblo considerably. Hellman & Brother, a partnership consisting of I. M. and Samuel Hellman, dissolved, on January 2d, I. M. continuing in the dry goods business while Sam took the books and stationery. Another brother and associate, H. M. Hellman, a couple of years before had returned to Europe, where he died. If my memory is accurate, I. W. remained with I. M. Hellman until the former, in 1865, bought out A. Portugal. Samuel A. Widney, who later had a curio store, was for a while with Sam Hellman in a partnership known as Hellman & Widney. 312 On January 17th, Don Louis Vignes passed away in Los Angeles, at the age of ninety-one years. January also witnessed one of those typical scenes, in the fitting out of a mule- and wagon-train, never likely to be seen in Los Angeles again. Two hundred wagons and twelve hundred mules, mostly brought from San Francisco on steamers, were assembled for a trip across the desert to convey Government stores. M. J. Newmark became a partner, on February 1st, in the firm of Howard, Butterworth & Newmark, Federal and State Attorneys with offices in the Temple Building, Los Angeles, and Armory Hall, San Francisco; and it was considered at the time a rapid advance for a man of but twenty-three years of age. The Los Angeles Star of that date, in fact, added a word of good fellowship: "We congratulate friend Newmark on the association." The intimate relations characteristic of a small community such as ours, and the much more general effect then than nowadays of any tragical occurrence have already been described. Deep sympathy was therefore awakened, early in February, on the arrival of the steamer Senator and the rapid dissemination of the report that Dr. Thomas Foster, the ex-Mayor, had been lost overboard, on January 29th, on the boat's trip northward. Just what happened to Foster will never be known; in San Francisco it was reported that he had thrown himself into the sea, though others who knew him well looked upon the cause of his death as accidental. But slight attention was paid to the report, brought in by horsemen from San Bernardino on February 4th, that an earthquake had occurred there in the morning, until Captain Tom Seeley returned with the Senator to San Pedro and told about a seismic disturbance at sea, during which he struck the wildest storm off Point Concepción, in all his sea-faring experience. Sailors were then better all-round seamen than now; yet there was greater superstition in Jack Tar's mind, and such a storm made a deep impression upon his imagination. I have alluded to the dependence of Los Angeles on the 313 outside world, no better evidence of which, perhaps, can be cited than that on the twenty-second of February, George W. Chapin & Company of San Francisco advertised here to furnish servants and other help to anyone in the Southland. About the same time, San Bernardino parties, wishing to bore a little artesian well, had to send to the Northern metropolis for the necessary machinery. In October, 1860, as I have intimated, Phineas Banning took A. F. Hinchman into partnership, the firm being known as Banning & Hinchman, and they seemed to prosper; but on February 12th, 1862, the public was surprised at the announcement of the firm's dissolution. Banning continued as proprietor, and Hinchman became Banning's Los Angeles agent. Although cattle-raising was the mainstay of Southern California for many years, and gold-mining never played a very important part here, Wells Fargo & Co., during the spring, frequently shipped thousands of dollars' worth of gold at a time, gathered from Santa Anita, San Gabriel and San Fernando placers, while probably an equally large amount was forwarded out through other channels. I have already pointed to the clever foresight shown by Abel Stearns when he built the Arcadia Block and profited by the unhappy experience of others, with rain that flooded their property; but I have not stated that in elevating his new building considerably above the grade of the street, somewhat regardless of the rights of others, he caused the surplus water to run off into neighboring streets and buildings. Following the great storm of 1861-62, the City sued Stearns for damages, but he won his case. More than that, the overflow was a Godsend to him, for it induced a number of people to move from Mellus's Row to Arcadia Block at a time when the owner of vast ranches and some of the best town property was already feeling the pinch of the alternate dry and over-wet seasons. The fact is, as I shall soon make clear, that before Stearns had seen the end of two or three successive dry seasons yet to come, he was temporarily bankrupt and embarrassed to the utmost. By April, the walls and roof for the little Protestant Church 314 at Temple and New High streets had been built, and there the matter rested for two years, when the structure, on which the taxes were unpaid, was advertised for sale. We have seen that the first Jewish services here were held soon after the arrival of Joseph Newmark in 1854; under the same disadvantageous conditions as had hampered the Protestant denominations, Mr. Newmark volunteered to officiate on the principal holidays until 1862, when the Reverend Abraham Wolf Edelman arrived. Born at Warsaw in 1832, Rabbi Edelman came to America in 1851, immediately after he was married to Miss Hannah Pessah Cohn, and settled successively in New York, Paterson and Buffalo. Coming to California in 1859, he resided in San Francisco until 1862, when he was chosen Rabbi of the orthodox Congregation B'nai B'rith of Los Angeles, and soon attained distinction as a Talmudic scholar and a preacher. The first services under Rabbi Edelman were held in Stearns's, or Arcadia Hall; next, the Congregation worshipped in Leck's Hall on Main Street between Second and Third; and finally, through the courtesy of Judge Ygnácio Sepúlveda, the court room was used. In 1873 the Jews of Los Angeles erected their first synagogue, a brick building entered by a steep stairway leading to a platform, and located on the east side of Fort Street between Second and Third, on what is now the site of the Copp Building next to the City Hall. In 1886, when local Jewry instituted a much more liberal ritual, Rabbi Edelman's convictions induced him to resign. The purchase of a lot for a home on the corner of Sixth and Main streets proved a fortunate investment, later enabling him to enjoy a well-deserved comfort and to gratify his charitable inclinations. It is a strange coincidence that Reverend Edelman's first marriage ceremony was that which blessed Samuel Prager; while the last occasion on which he performed the solemn rites for the dead—shortly before his own death in 1907—was for the same friend. A. M. Edelman, the architect, and Dr. D. W. Edelman, both well-known here, are sons of the Rabbi. As late in the season as April, hail and snow fell in and near 315 Los Angeles. To the North of the city, the white mantle quite hid the mountains and formed a new and lower snow-line; while within the city, the temperature so lowered that at several intervals during the day, huge hail-stones beat against the window-panes—a very unusual experience for Angeleños. Because of political charges preferred against A. J. King, then Under Sheriff of the County, the latter, on April 10th, was arrested by Henry D. Barrows, United States Marshal, who had been appointed by President Lincoln, the year previous. Colonel Carleton, Commander of the Southern Military Division, however, soon liberated King. On the last day of the year, the Under Sheriff married the estimable Miss Laura C. Evertsen. Travelers to Europe have often suffered much annoyance through safe-conduct regulations, but seldom have Americans had their liberty thus restricted by their own authorities. Toward the middle of June, word was received in Los Angeles that, owing to the suspicion lest disloyalists were embarking for Aspinwall, all passengers for California via the Isthmus would be required to take out passports. Anticipating, by forty years or more, Luther Burbank's work, attention was directed, as early as 1862, to the possibility of eating the cactus and thus finding, in this half-despised plant of the desert, relief from both hunger and thirst. Half a century later, in 1913, Los Angeles established the cactus candy industry through which the boiled pulp of the bisnaga, often spoken of as the fishhook, barrel and nigger-head variety, is made deliciously palatable when siruped from ten to thirty days. Ygnácio Sepúlveda, declared by the Los Angeles Star "a young gentleman of liberal education, and good, natural endowments, already versed in legal studies," on September 6th was admitted to the District Court Bar. On January 18th, 1860, the first number of the Semi-Weekly Southern News appeared, containing advertisements in both English and Spanish. It was issued by C. R. Conway and Alonzo Waite, who charged twenty-five cents a copy, or seven 316 dollars a year. On October 8th, 1862, the title was changed to the Los Angeles Semi-Weekly News. In 1860, the Bella Union, as I have said, was under the management of John King, who came here in 1856; while in 1861 J. B. Winston & Company, who were represented by Henry Reed, controlled the hotel. In 1862 or 1863, John King and Henry Hammel were the managers. I have told of the purchase of the San Pasqual rancho by Dr. J. S. Griffin. On December 11th, Dr. and Mrs. Griffin for five hundred dollars sold to B. D. Wilson and wife some six hundred and forty acres of that property; and a few hours afterward the Wilsons disposed of two hundred and sixty-two acres for one thousand dollars. The purchaser was Mrs. Eliza G. Johnston, wife of General Albert Sidney Johnston. Mrs. Johnston at once built a neat residence on the tract and called it Fair Oaks, after the plantation in Virginia on which she had been born; and from this circumstance the name of the now well-known Fair Oaks Avenue in Pasadena is derived. At the time of her purchase Mrs. Johnston had hoped to reside there permanently; but the tragic fate of her son in the Ada Hancock disaster, following the untimely death of her husband at Shiloh, and the apparent uselessness of the land, led her to sell to Judge B. S. Eaton what to-day would be worth far more than thousands of acres in many parts of the Southern States. A curious coincidence in the relations of General Sumner, who superseded General Johnston, to the hero of Shiloh is that, later in the War, Sumner led a corps of Union troops at Fair Oaks, Virginia! Don Ygnácio Coronel, father of António Franco Coronel, and the early school patron to whom I have referred, died in Los Angeles on December 19th, aged seventy years. He had come to California in 1834, and had long been eminent in political councils and social circles. I recall him as a man of strong intellect and sterling character, kind-hearted and popular. Another effort, without success, to use camels for transportation over the California and adjacent sands, was made in 317 January, 1863, when a camel express was sent out from New San Pedro to Tucson. Elsewhere I have indicated the condition of the public cemetery. While an adobe wall enclosed the Roman Catholic burial-place, and a brick wall surrounded the Jewish resting-place for the dead, nothing was done until 1863 to improve the Protestant cemetery, although desecration went so far that the little railing around the grave of poor Mrs. Leck, the grocer's wife who had been murdered, was torn down and burned. Finally, the matter cried to Heaven so audibly that in January, Los Angeles Masons appropriated one hundred and fifty dollars, to be added to some five hundred dollars raised by popular subscription; and the Common Council having appointed a committee to supervise the work, William H. Perry put up the fence, making no charge for his services. About the middle of January word was received in Los Angeles of the death, at Baltimore, of Colonel B. L. Beall, commander for years of the Fort Tejón garrison, and active in the Mojave and Kern River campaigns. Death entered our home for the first time, when an infant daughter, less than a month old, died this year on February 14th. In February, the editor of the News advised the experiment of growing cotton as an additional activity for the Colorado Indians, who were already cultivating corn, beans and melons. Whether this suggestion led William Workman into cotton culture, I do not know; at any rate, late in November of the same year F. P. F. Temple was exhibiting about town some well-matured bolls of cotton raised on Workman's ranch, and the next spring saw in El Monte a number of fields planted with cotton seed. A year later, J. Moerenhout sent Los Angeles cotton to an exhibition in France, and received from across the water official assurance that the French judges regarded our product as quite equal to that grown in the Southern States. This gave a slight impetus to cotton-culture here and by January, 1865, a number of immigrants had arrived, looking for suitable land for the production of this staple. They soon 318 went to work, and in August of that year many fields gave promise of good crops, far exceeding the expectations of the experimenters. In the month of March a lively agitation on behalf of a railroad began in the public press, and some bitter things were said against those who, for the sake of a little trade in horses or draying, were opposed to such a forward step; and under the leadership of E. J. C. Kewen and J. A. Watson, our Assemblymen at that session, the Legislature of 1863 passed an act authorizing the construction of the Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad. A public meeting was called to discuss the details and to further the project; but once more no railroad was built or even begun. Strange as it seems, the idea of a railroad for Los Angeles County in 1863 was much too advanced for the times. Billed as one who had "had the honor of appearing before King William IV. and all the principal crowned heads of Europe," Professor Courtier held forth with an exhibition of magic in the Temple Theatre; drawing the usual crowd of—royalty-haters! In 1863, Santa Catalina was the scene of a gold-mining boom which soon came to naught, and through an odd enough occurrence. About April, Martin M. Kimberly and Daniel E. Way staked out a claim or two, and some miners agreed on a code of laws for operations in what was to be known as the San Pedro Mining District, the boundaries of which were to include all the islands of the County. Extensive claims, chiefly in Cherry and Joly valleys and on Mineral Hill, were recorded, and streets were laid out for a town to be known as Queen City; but just as the boom seemed likely to mature, the National Government stepped in and gave a quietus to the whole affair. With or without foundation, reports had reached the Federal authorities that the movement was but a cloak to establish there well-fortified Confederate headquarters for the fitting out and repair of privateers intended to prey upon the coast-wise traders; and on February 5th, 1864, Captain B. R. West, commanding the Fourth California Infantry, 319 ordered practically all of the miners and prospectors to leave the island at once. The following September the National troops were withdrawn, and after the War the Federal authorities retained control of a point on the island deemed serviceable for lighthouse purposes. In the spring of 1863, feeling ill, I went to San Francisco to consult Dr. Toland, who assured me that there was nothing serious the matter with me; but wishing to satisfy myself more thoroughly, I resorted to the same means that I dare say many others have adopted—a medical examination for life insurance! Bernhard Gattel, general agent of the Germania Life Insurance Company, at 315 Montgomery Street, wrote out my application; and on March 20th, a policy, numbered 1472, was issued, making me, since the fall of 1913, the oldest living policy-holder in the Southwest, and the twentieth oldest of the Germania's patrons in the world. Californians, during that period of the War when the North was suffering a series of defeats, had little use for greenbacks. At one time, a dollar in currency was worth but thirty-five cents, though early in April it was accepted at sixty-five, late in August at ninety, and about the first of October at seventy-five cents; even interest-bearing gold notes being worth no more. This condition of the money market saw little change until some time in the seventies; and throughout the War greenbacks were handled like any other commodity. Frank Lecouvreur, in one of these periods, after getting judgment in a suit against Deputy Surveyor William Moore, for civil engineering services, and being paid some three hundred and eighty-three dollars in greenbacks, was disconcerted enough when he found that his currency would command but one hundred and eighty dollars in gold. San Francisco merchants realized fortunes when a decline occurred, as they bought their merchandise in the East for greenbacks and sold it on the Coast for gold. Los Angeles people, on the other hand, enjoyed no such benefit, as they brought their wares from San Francisco and were therefore obliged to liquidate in specie. Among the worst tragedies in the early annals of Los Angeles, 320 and by far the most dramatic, was the disaster on April 27th to the little steamer Ada Hancock. While on a second trip, in the harbor of San Pedro, to transfer to the Senator the remainder of the passengers bound for the North, the vessel careened, admitting cold water to the engine-room and exploding the boiler with such force that the boat was demolished to the water's edge; fragments being found on an island even half to three-quarters of a mile away. Such was the intensity of the blast and the area of the devastation that, of the fifty-three or more passengers known to have been on board, twenty-six at least perished. Fortunate indeed were those, including Phineas Banning, the owner, who survived with minor injuries, after being hurled many feet into the air. Among the dead were Thomas W. Seeley, Captain of the Senator; Joseph Bryant, Captain of the Ada Hancock; Dr. H. R. Myles, the druggist, who had been in partnership, opposite the Bella Union, with Dr. J. C. Welch, an arrival of the early fifties who died in 1869; Thomas H. Workman, Banning's chief clerk; Albert Sidney Johnston, Jr.; William T. B. Sanford, once Postmaster; Louis Schlesinger and William Ritchie, Wells Fargo's messenger, to whom was entrusted ten thousand dollars, which, as far as my memory goes, was lost. Two Mormon missionaries, en route to the Sandwich Islands, were also killed. Still another, who lost not only his treasure but his life, was Fred E. Kerlin of Fort Tejón: thirty thousand dollars which he carried with him, in greenbacks, disappeared as mysteriously as did the jewelry on the persons of others, and from these circumstances it was concluded that, even in the presence of Death, these bodies had been speedily robbed. Mrs. Banning and her mother, Mrs. Sanford, and a daughter of B. D. Wilson were among the wounded; while Miss M. Hereford, Mrs. Wilson's sister and the fiancée of Dr. Myles, was so severely injured that, after long suffering, she also died. Although the accident had happened about five o'clock in the afternoon, the awful news, casting a general and indescribable gloom, was not received in town until nearly eight o'clock; when Drs. Griffin and R. T. Hayes, together with an Army surgeon 321 named Todd, hastened in carriages to the harbor where soldiers from Camp Drum had already asserted their authority. Many of the victims were buried near the beach at New San Pedro. While I was calling upon Mrs. Johnston to express my sympathy, the body of her son was brought in; and words cannot describe the pathos of the scene when she addressed the departed as if he were but asleep. In June the Government demanded a formal profession of loyalty from teachers, when Miss Mary Hoyt and Miss Eliza Madigan took the oath, but Mrs. Thomas Foster and William McKee refused to do so. The incident provoked bitter criticism, and nothing being done to punish the recalcitrants, the Los Angeles Board of Education was charged with indifference as to the allegiance of its public servants. During 1863 sectional feeling had grown so bitter on account of the War that no attempt was made to celebrate the Fourth of July in town. At Fort Latham, however, on the Ballona Ranch, the soldiers observed the day with an appropriate demonstration. By the end of July, troops had been sent from Drum Barracks to camp in the city—for the protection, so it was asserted, of Union men whose lives were said to be in danger, although some people claimed that this movement was rather for the purpose of intimidating certain leaders with known sympathy for the South. This military display gave Northerners more backbone; and on the twenty-sixth of September a Union mass-meeting was held on Main Street in front of the Lafayette Hotel. Eldridge Edwards Hewitt, a Mexican War veteran who came to California in 1849 to search for gold, arrived in Los Angeles on July 31st and soon went on a wild-goose chase to the Weaver Diggings in Arizona, actually tramping with luggage over five hundred miles of the way! After his return, he did odd jobs for his board, working in a stationery and toy store on Main Street, kept by the Goldwater Brothers, Joe and Mike, who had arrived in the early sixties; and later he entered the employ of Phineas Banning at Wilmington, with whom he remained until the completion of the Los Angeles & San Pedro 322 Railroad in 1870, when he became its Superintendent. When the Southern Pacific obtained control of that road in 1873, Hewitt was made Agent, and after the extension of the line from San Francisco he was appointed Division Superintendent. In that capacity he brought Senator Leland Stanford to me, as I shall elsewhere relate, to solicit H. Newmark and Company's patronage. It was in 1863 that Dr. J. S. Griffin, father of East Los Angeles, purchased two thousand acres in that section, at fifty cents an acre; but even at that price he was only induced to buy it by necessity. Griffin wanted sheep-pasture, and had sought to secure some eight hundred acres of City land along the river; but as this would prevent other cattle or sheep from approaching the water to drink, the Common Council refused Griffin's bid on the smaller area of land and he was compelled to buy the mesa farther back. It seems to me that B. D. Wilson, J. G. Downey and Hancock M. Johnston, General Johnston's son, also had something to do with this transaction. Both Downey and Griffin avenues derived their names from the association of these two gentlemen with that section. A smallpox epidemic which had started in the previous fall spread through Los Angeles in 1863, and owing possibly to the bad sanitary and climatic conditions much vigilance and time were required to eradicate it; compulsory vaccination not having been introduced (as it finally was at the suggestion of Dr. Walter Lindley) until the summer of 1876. The dread disease worked its ravages especially among the Mexicans and Indians, as many as a dozen of them dying in a single day; and these sufferers and their associates being under no quarantine, and even bathing ad libitum in the zanjas, the pest spread alarmingly. For a time fatalities were so frequent and the nature of the contagion so feared that it was difficult to persuade undertakers to bury the dead, even without funeral or other ceremony. Following the opening of the Owens River Mines this year, Los Angeles merchants soon established a considerable trade with that territory. Banning inaugurated a system of wagon-trains, each guarded by a detachment of soldiers. The San 323 Fernando mountains, impassable for heavy teaming, were an obstacle to regular trade with the new country and compelled the use of a circuitous route over poor roads. It became necessary, therefore, to consider a means of overcoming the difficulty, much money having already been spent by the County in an abortive attempt to build a tunnel. This second plan likewise came to naught, and it was in fact more than a decade before the Southern Pacific finally completed the famous bore. Largely because of political mistakes, including a manifestation of sympathy for the Southern Confederacy that drew against him Northern resentment and opposition, John G. Downey, the Democratic nominee for Governor, was defeated at the election in September; Frederick F. Low, a Republican, receiving a majority of over twenty thousand votes. In October, a peddler named Brun was murdered near Chino. Brun's brother, living at San Bernardino and subsequently a merchant of prominence there, offered two hundred dollars of his slender savings as a reward for the capture of the slayer; but nothing ever came of the search. In November the stern necessities of war were at last driven home to Angeleños when, on the ninth of that somber month, Don Juan Warner, Deputy Provost Marshal, appeared with his big blank books and began to superintend the registering of all able-bodied citizens suitable for military service. To many, the inquisition was not very welcome and, had it not been for the Union soldiers encamped at Drum Barracks, this first step toward compulsory enrollment would undoubtedly have resulted in riotous disturbances. I have frequently named Tom Mott, but I may not have said that he was one of the representative local Democratic politicians of his day. He possessed, indeed, such influence with all classes that he was not only elected Clerk of Los Angeles County in 1863, but succeeded himself in 1865, 1867 and 1869, afterward sitting in the State Assembly; and in 1876, he was appointed a delegate to the National Convention that nominated Samuel J. Tilden for the Presidency. His relations in 324 time with Stanford, Crocker, Huntington and Hopkins were very close, and for at least twenty-five years he acted as their political adviser in all matters appertaining to Southern California. Tall, erect and dignified, scrupulously attired and distinguished by his flowing beard, Tom was for more than half a century a striking figure in Los Angeles. A most brutal murder took place on November 15th on the desert not far from Los Angeles, but few days passing before it was avenged. A poor miner, named R. A. Hester, was fatally attacked by a border ruffian known as Boston Daimwood, while some confederates, including the criminals Chase, Ybarra and Olivas, stood by to prevent interference. In a few hours officers and citizens were in the saddle in pursuit of the murderous band; for Daimwood had boasted that Hester was but the first of several of our citizens to whom he intended to pay his respects. Daimwood and his three companions were captured and lodged in jail, and on the twenty-first of November two hundred or more armed Vigilantes forced the jail doors, seized the scoundrels and hung them to the pórtico of the old City Hall on Spring Street. Tomás Sanchez, the Sheriff, talked of organizing a posse comitatus to arrest the committee leaders; but so positive was public sentiment, as reflected in the newspapers, in support of the summary executions, that nothing further was heard of the threat. An incident of value in the study of mob-psychology accentuated the day's events. During the lynching, the clattering of horses' hoofs was heard, when the cry was raised that cavalry from Drum Barracks was rushing to rescue the prisoners; and in a twinkling those but a moment before most demonstrative were seen scurrying to cover in all directions. Instead, however, of Federal soldiers, the horsemen were the usual contingent of El Monte boys, coming to assist in the neck-tie party. Besides the murderers lynched, there was an American boy named Wood of about eighteen years; and although he had committed no offense more vicious than the theft of some chickens, he paid the penalty with his life, it having been the verdict of 325 the committee that while they were at it, the jail might as well be cleared of every malefactor. A large empty case was secured as a platform on which the victim was to stand; and I shall never forget the spectacle of the youth, apparently oblivious of his impending doom, as he placed his hands upon the box and vaulted lightly to the top (just as he might have done at an innocent gymnastic contest), and his parting salutation, "I'm going to die a game hen-chicken!" The removal of the case a moment later, after the noose had been thrown over and drawn about the lad's head, left the poor victim suspended beyond human aid. On that same day, a sixth prisoner barely escaped. When the crowd was debating the lynchings, John P. Lee, a resident of El Monte who had been convicted of murder, was already under sentence of death; and the Vigilantes, having duly considered his case, decided that it would be just as well to permit the law to take its course. Some time later, J. Lancaster Brent, Lee's attorney, appealed the case and obtained for his client a new trial, finally clearing Lee of the charges against him, so that, in the end, he died a natural death. I frequently saw Lee after this episode, and vividly recall an unpleasant interview years later. The regularity of his visits had been interrupted, and when he reappeared to get some merchandise for a customer at El Monte, I asked him where he had been. He explained that a dog had bitten a little girl, and that while she was suffering from hydrophobia she had in turn attacked him and so severely scratched his hands and face that, for a while, he could not show himself in public. After that, whenever I saw Lee, I was aware of a lurking, if ridiculous, suspicion that the moment might have arrived for a new manifestation of the rabies. Speaking of the Civil War and the fact that in Southern California there was less pronounced sentiment for the Union than in the Northern part of the State, I am reminded of a relief movement that emphasized the distinction. By the middle of November San Francisco had sent over one hundred and thirty thousand dollars to the United States Sanitary 326 Commission, and an indignant protest was voiced in some quarters that Los Angeles, up to that date, had not participated. In time, however, the friends of the Union here did make up a small purse. In 1863 interest in the old San Juan Capistrano Mission was revived with the reopening of the historic structure so badly damaged by the earthquake of 1812, and a considerable number of townspeople went out to the first services under the new roof. When I first saw the Mission, near Don Juan Forster's home, there was in its open doors, windows and cut-stone and stucco ruins, its vines and wild flowers, much of the picturesque. On November 18th, 1862, our little community was greatly stirred by the news that John Rains, one of Colonel Isaac Williams' sons-in-law and well known in Los Angeles, had been waylaid and killed on the highway near the Azusa rancho the night before. It was claimed that one Ramón Carrillo had hired the assassins to do the foul deed; and about the middle of February, 1863, a Mexican by the name of Manuel Cerradel was arrested by Thomas Trafford, the City Marshal, as a participant. In time, he was tried and sentenced to ten years in San Quentin Prison. On December 9th, Sheriff Tomás Sanchez started to take the prisoner north, and at Wilmington boarded the little steamer Cricket to go out to the Senator, which was ready to sail. A goodly number of other passengers also boarded the tugboat, though nothing in particular was thought of the circumstance; but once out in the harbor, a group of Vigilantes, indignant at the light sentence imposed, seized the culprit at a prearranged signal, threw a noose about his neck and, in a jiffy, hung him to the flagstaff. When he was dead, the body was lowered and stones—brought aboard in packages by the committee, who had evidently considered every detail—were tied to the feet, and the corpse was thrown overboard before the steamer was reached. This was one of the acts of the Vigilantes that no one seemed to deprecate. Toward the end of 1861, J. E. Pleasants, while overseeing one of Wolfskill's ranches, hit the trail of some horse thieves 327 and, assisted by City Marshal William C. Warren, pursued and captured several, who were sent to the penitentiary. One, however, escaped. This was Charles Wilkins, a veritable scoundrel who, having stolen a pistol and a knife from the Bella Union and put the same into the hands of young Wood (whose lynching I have described), sent the lad on his way to the gallows. A couple of years later Wilkins waylaid and murdered John Sanford, a rancher living near Fort Tejón and a brother of Captain W. T. B. Sanford, the second Postmaster of Los Angeles; and when the murderer had been apprehended and was being tried, an exciting incident occurred, to which I was an eye-witness. On November 16th, 1854, Phineas Banning had married Miss Rebecca Sanford, a sister of the unfortunate man; and as Banning caught sight of Wilkins, he rushed forward and endeavoured to avenge the crime by shooting the culprit. Banning was then restrained; but soon after, on December 17th, 1863, he led the Vigilance Committee which strung up Wilkins on Tomlinson & Griffith's corral gateway where nearly a dozen culprits had already forfeited their lives. 328 <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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