<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII<br/> THE LAST OF THE VIGILANTES<br/> 1870</h2>
<p>As I have somewhere related, I began buying hides as far
back as 1855, but it was not until 1870 that this
branch of our business assumed such importance as to
require more convenient quarters. Then we bought a place
on the southeast corner of Alameda and Commercial streets,
facing sixty feet on Alameda and having a depth of one
hundred and sixty-five feet, where we constructed a hide-house
and erected a press for baling. We paid P. Beaudry eleven
hundred dollars for the lot. The relatively high price shows
what the Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad depot had done
for that section. In the days when hides were sent by sailing-vessels
to the East, a different method of preparing them for
shipment was in vogue. The wet hides having been stretched,
small stakes were driven into the ground along the edge of, and
through the skins, thus holding them in place until they had
dried and expanding them by about one-third; in this condition
they were forwarded loose. Now that transportation is more
rapid and there are tanneries in California, all hides are
handled wet.</p>
<p>In 1870, business life was centered on Los Angeles Street
between Commercial and Arcadia; and all the hotels were
north of First Street. Fort Street ended in a little bluff at a
spot now between Franklin and First streets. Spring Street
was beginning to take on new life, and yet there was but
one gas lamp along the entire roadway, though many were
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_409" id="Page_409">409</SPAN></span>
the appeals to add another lamp, "say, as far as First
Street!"</p>
<p>Sometime in January, a number of ladies of this city met
and, through the exertions of Mrs. Rosa Newmark, wife of
Joseph Newmark, formed the Ladies' Hebrew Benevolent Society.
Mrs. Newmark, as was once pointed out in a notable
open-air meeting of women's clubs (to which I elsewhere refer),
never accepted any office in the Society; but for years she was
untiring in her efforts in the cause of charity. The first officers
were: President, Mrs. W. Kalisher; Vice-President, Mrs. Harris
Newmark; Treasurer, Mrs. John Jones; Secretary, Mrs. B.
Katz; and Collector, Mrs. A. Baer. Three Counselors—Henry
Wartenberg, I. M. Hellman and myself—occasionally met with
the ladies to advise them.</p>
<p>Aside from the fact of its importance as the pioneer ladies'
benevolent organization instituted in Los Angeles, the Society
found a much-needed work to do. It was then almost impossible
to obtain nurses, and the duty devolved on members to
act in that capacity, where such assistance was required,
whether the afflicted were rich or poor. It was also their
function to prepare the dead for interment, and to keep
proper vigil over the remains until the time of burial.</p>
<p>During the year 1869 or 1870, as the result of occasional
gatherings in the office of Dr. Joseph Kurtz, the Los Angeles
Turnverein was organized with eleven members—Emil Harris
leading in the movement, assisted by Dr. Kurtz, Ed. Preuss,
Lorenzo Leck, Philip and Henry Stoll, Jake Kuhrts, Fred
Morsch, C. C. Lips and Isaac Cohn. Dr. Kurtz was elected
President. They fraternized for a while at Frau Wiebecke's
Garden, on the west side of Alameda near First Street, about
where the Union Hardware and Metal Company now stands;
and there, while beer and wine were served in the open air, the
Teutons gratified their love of music and song. Needing for
their gymnastics more enclosed quarters, the Turnverein rented
of Kalisher & Wartenberg the barn on Alameda Street between
Ducommon and First, used as a hide-house; and in that
rough-boarded shack, whose none too aromatic odors are still
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_410" id="Page_410">410</SPAN></span>
a souvenir to many a pioneer resident, the <i>Turners</i> swung and
vaulted to their heart's content. Classes were soon arranged
for boys; and the envy of all was the lad who, after numerous
risks to limb and neck, proudly topped the human pyramid.
Another garden of this period often patronized by the Turnverein
was Kiln Messer's, on First Street between Alameda
and the river.</p>
<p>The Post Office was moved this year from the corner of
North Main and Market streets to the middle of Temple
Block, but even there the facilities were so inadequate that
Wells Fargo & Company, in June, put up a letter-box at the
corner of Main and Commercial streets which was emptied
but once a day, at four o'clock in the afternoon, save on steamer
days when letters were taken out at half-past nine. One
other box was at the sole railroad depot, then at the corner of
Alameda and Commercial streets. The Post Office at that time
was also so miserably illuminated that citizens fumbled about
to find their letter-boxes, and ladies were timid about entering
the building at night. Postmasters were allowed small reserves;
and for some time in 1870 the Los Angeles Post Office was
entirely out of one- and two-cent stamps.</p>
<p>In February, the way was prepared for the first city directory
when the houses of Los Angeles were ordered to be numbered,
a public discussion of the need for a directory having taken
place the previous December. When the collaborators began
to collect names and other data, there were many refusals to
answer questions; but the little volume of seventy pages was
finally published in 1871.</p>
<p>Until 1870 Los Angeles had no bookbinder, all binding
having had to be sent to San Francisco; and a call was then
sent out to induce a journeyman to settle here.</p>
<p>On the fourteenth of February, Phineas Banning was married
to Miss Mary, daughter of Colonel J. H. Hollister—the
affair being the consummation of a series of courtly addresses
in which, as I have related, it was my pleasurable privilege
to play an intermediary part. As might be expected of one
who was himself an experienced and generous entertainer, the
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_411" id="Page_411">411</SPAN></span>
wedding was a social event to be long and pleasantly remembered
by the friends of the bride and groom. Mrs. Banning,
who for years maintained an attractive home on Fort Hill,
is now living on Commonwealth Avenue.</p>
<p>About this time, Colonel Isaac R. Dunkelberger came to
Los Angeles to live, having just finished his fifth year in the
army in Arizona, following a long service under Northern
banners during the Civil War. While here, the Colonel
met and courted Miss Mary Mallard, daughter of Judge
Mallard; and on February 26th, 1867, they were married.
For eight years, from March, 1877, Dunkelberger was Postmaster.
He died on December 5th, 1904, survived by his
widow and six children. While writing about this estimable
family, it occurs to me that Mary, then a little girl, was one
of the guests at my wedding.</p>
<p>Frank Lecouvreur, who was Surveyor of Los Angeles
County from 1870 until 1873, was a native of East Prussia
and like his predecessor, George Hansen, came to California
by way of the Horn. For a while, as I have related, he was
my bookkeeper. In 1877, he married Miss Josephine Rosanna
Smith who had renounced her vows as a nun. Ten years later
he suffered a paralytic stroke and was an invalid until his
death, on January 17th, 1901.</p>
<p>Once introduced, the telegraph gradually grew in popularity;
but even in 1870, when the Western Union company
had come into the field and was operating as far as the
Coast, service was anything but satisfactory. The poles between
Los Angeles and San Francisco had become rotten and
often fell, dragging the wires with them, and interrupting
communication with the North. There were no wires, up to
that time, to Santa Bárbara or San Bernardino; and only in
the spring of that year was it decided to put a telegraph line
through to San Diego. When the Santa Bárbara line was
proposed, the citizens there speedily subscribed twenty-two
hundred and forty-five dollars; it having been the company's
plan always to get some local stockholders.</p>
<p>As the result of real estate purchases and exchanges in the
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_412" id="Page_412">412</SPAN></span>
late sixties and early seventies between Dr. J. S. Griffin,
Phineas Banning, B. D. Wilson, P. Beaudry and others, a
fruit-growing colony was planned in April, when it was proposed
to take in some seventeen hundred and fifty acres of the
best part of the San Pasqual <i>rancho</i>, including a ten-thousand-dollar
ditch. A company, with a capital stock of two hundred
thousand dollars divided into four thousand shares of fifty
dollars each, was formed to grow oranges, lemons, grapes,
olives, nuts and raisins, John Archibald being President;
R. M. Widney, Vice-President; W. J. Taylor, Secretary; and
the London & San Francisco Bank, Treasurer. But although
subscription books were opened and the scheme was advertised,
nothing was done with the land until D. M. Berry and
others came from Indiana and started the Indiana Colony.</p>
<p>A rather uncommon personality for about thirty years was
Fred Dohs, who came from Germany when he was twenty-three
and engaged in trading horses. By 1870 he was managing
a barber shop near the Downey Block, and soon after
was conducting a string band. For many years, the barber-musician
furnished the music for most of the local dances and
entertainments, at the same time (or until prices began to be
cut) maintaining his shop, where he charged two bits for a
shave and four bits for a hair-cut. During his prosperity,
Dohs acquired property, principally on East First Street.</p>
<p>The first foot-bridge having finally succumbed to the
turbulent waters of the erratic Los Angeles River, the great
flood of 1867-68 again called the attention of our citizens to the
necessity of establishing permanent and safe communication
between the two sides of the stream; and this agitation resulted
in the construction by Perry & Woodworth of the first fairly
substantial bridge at the foot of the old Aliso Road, now Macy
Street, at an outlay of some twenty thousand dollars. Yet,
notwithstanding the great necessity that had always existed
for this improvement, it is my recollection that it was not consummated
until about 1870. Like its poor little predecessor
carried away by the uncontrolled waters, the more dignified
structure was broken up by a still later flood, and the pieces
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_413" id="Page_413">413</SPAN></span>
of timber once so carefully put together by a confident and
satisfied people were strewn for a mile or two along the river
banks.</p>
<p>'Way back in the formative years of Los Angeles, there
were suddenly added to the constellation of noteworthy local
characters two jovial, witty, good-for-nothing Irishmen who
from the first were pals. The two were known as Dan Kelly
and Micky Free. Micky's right name was Dan Harrington;
but I never knew Kelly to go under any other appellation.
When sober, which was not very frequent, Dan and Micky
were good-natured, jocular and free from care, and it mattered
not to either of them whether the morrow might find them
well-fed and at liberty or in the jail then known as the
Hotel de Burns: "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof"
was the only philosophy they knew. They were boon companions
when free from drink; but when saturated, they
immediately fought like demons. They were both in the
toils quite ten months of the year, while during the other two
months they carried a hod! Of the two, Micky was the most
irredeemable, and in time he became such a nuisance that the
authorities finally decided to ship him out of the country and
bought him a ticket to Oregon. Micky got as far as San Pedro,
where he traded his ticket for a case of delirium tremens;
but he did something more—he broke his leg and was bundled
back to Los Angeles, renewing here the acquaintance of both
the bartender and the jailer. Some years later, he astonished
the town by giving up drink and entering the Veterans's
Home. When he died, they gave him a soldier's honors and
a soldier's grave.</p>
<p>In 1870, F. Bonshard imported into Los Angeles County
some five or six hundred blooded Cashmere goats; and about
the same time or perhaps even earlier, J. E. Pleasants conducted
at Los Nietos a similar enterprise, at one time having four or
five hundred of a superior breed, the wool of which brought
from twenty-five to thirty-five cents a pound. The goat-fancying
Pleasants also had some twelve hundred Angoras.</p>
<p>On June 1st, Henry Hamilton, who two years before had
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_414" id="Page_414">414</SPAN></span>
resumed the editorship of the Los Angeles <i>Star</i>, then a weekly,
issued the first number of the <i>Daily Star</i>. He had taken into
partnership George W. Barter, who three months later started
the <i>Anaheim Gazette</i>. In 1872, Barter was cowhided by a
woman, and a committee formally requested the editor to
vamose the town! Barter next bought the <i>Daily Star</i> from
Hamilton, on credit, but he was unable to carry out his
contract and within a year Hamilton was again in charge.</p>
<p>At the beginning of this decade, times in Arizona were
really very bad. H. Newmark & Company, who had large
amounts due them from merchants in that Territory, were not entirely
easy about their outstanding accounts, and this prompted
Kaspare Cohn to visit our customers there. I urged him to
consider the dangers of the road and to abandon his project;
but he was determined to go. The story of the trip, in the
light of present methods and the comparative safety of travel,
is an interesting one, and I shall relate his experiences as he
described them to me.</p>
<p>He started on a Saturday, going by stage (in preference to
buckboard) from Los Angeles to San Bernardino, and from
there rode, as the only passenger, with a stage-driver named
Brown, passing through Frink's Ranch, Gilman's, White
River, Agua Caliente, Indian Wells, Toros, Dos Palmas,
Chuckawalla, Mule Springs and Willow Springs. H. Newmark
& Company had forwarded, on a prairie schooner driven
by Jesse Allen of Los Angeles, a considerable amount of
merchandise which it was their intention should be sold
in Arizona, and the freighting charge upon which was to
be twelve and a half cents per pound. In Chuckawalla, familiarly
called Chucky Valley, the travelers overtook Allen and
the stock of goods; and this meeting in that lonesome region
was the cause of such mutual rejoicing that Kaspare provided
as abundant an entertainment as his limited stores would
permit. Resuming their journey from Chuckawalla, the driver
and his companion soon left Allen and his cumbersome load
in the rear.</p>
<p>It was near Granite Wash, as they were jogging along in the
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_415" id="Page_415">415</SPAN></span>
evening, that they noticed some Indian fire signals. These
were produced by digging a hole in the ground, filling it with
combustible material, such as dry leaves, and setting fire to it.
From the smoldering that resulted, smoke was emitted and
sparks burst forth. Observing these ticklish warnings, the
wayfarers sped away and escaped—perhaps, a tragic fate.
Arriving at Ehrenberg on a Tuesday morning, Kaspare remained
there all night. Still the only passenger, he left the
next day; and it may be imagined how cheering, after the
previous experience, was the driver's remark that, on account
of the lonesome character of the trip, and especially the danger
from scalping Apaches, he would never have departed without
some company!</p>
<p>Somewhere between Granite Wash and Wickenberg, a
peculiar rattling revealed a near-by snake, whereupon Kaspare
jumped out and shot the reptile, securing the tail and rattles.
Changing horses or resting at Tyson's Wells, McMullen's and
Cullen's Station, they arrived the next night at Wickenberg, the
location of the Vulture Mines, where Kaspare called upon the
Superintendent—a man named Peoples—to collect a large
amount they owed us. Half of the sum was paid in gold bars,
at the rate of sixteen dollars per ounce, while the other half
we lost.</p>
<p>A niece of M. Kremer lived in Wickenberg, where her
husband was in business. She suffered a great deal from
headaches, and a friend had recommended, as a talisman, the
possession of snake rattles. Kaspare, with his accustomed
gallantry, produced the specimen which he had obtained and
gave it to the lady; and it is to be hoped that she was as permanently
relieved of her pain as so many nowadays are cured
of imaginary troubles by no more substantial superstitions.</p>
<p>Making short stops at Wilson's Station, Antelope Station,
Kirkland Valley, Skull Valley and Mint Valley, Kaspare reached
Prescott, some four hundred and thirty miles from San Bernardino,
and enquired after Dan Hazard, the ex-Mayor's
brother and one of our customers—who died about the
middle of the eighties—and learned that he was then on his
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_416" id="Page_416">416</SPAN></span>
way to St. Louis with teams to haul back freight for Levi
Bashford who, in addition to being an important trader, was
Government Receiver of Public Moneys. Kaspare decided to
remain in Prescott until Hazard returned; and as Jesse Allen
soon arrived with the merchandise, Kaspare had ample time
to sell it. Bashford, as a Government official, was not permitted
to handle such goods as matches and cigars, which bore
revenue stamps, but Kaspare sold him quantities of lard, beans,
coffee, sugar and other supplies. He sold the revenue-stamped
articles to Buffum & Campbell, the former of whom had once
been a well-known resident of Los Angeles. He also disposed
of some goods to Henderson Brothers, afterward prominent
bankers of Tucson and Globe, Arizona. In the meantime, Dan
Hazard returned and settled his account in full.</p>
<p>Kaspare remained in Prescott nearly four weeks. Between
the collections that he made and the money which he received
for the consigned merchandise, he had about thirteen thousand
dollars in currency to bring back with him. With this amount
of money on his person, the return trip was more than ever
fraught with danger. Mindful of this added peril, Kaspare kept
the time of his departure from Prescott secret, no one, with the
exception of Bashford, being in his confidence. He prepared
very quietly; and at the last moment, one Saturday afternoon,
he slipped into the stage and started for California. Brown was
again his companion as far as Ehrenberg. There he met Frank
Ganahl and Charles Strong, both soon to become Southern
Californians; and knowing them very well, their companionship
contributed during the rest of the trip not only pleasure
but an agreeable feeling of security. His arrival in Los Angeles
afforded me much relief, and the story of his adventures and
success added more than a touch of interest.</p>
<p>The first street-sprinklers in Los Angeles were owned and
operated about the middle of July by T. W. McCracken, who
was allowed by the Council to call upon residents along the
route for weekly contributions to keep the water wagon going.</p>
<p>I have told of the establishing of Hellman, Temple &
Company as bankers. In September, the first-named bought
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_417" id="Page_417">417</SPAN></span>
out his partners and continued, until 1871, as Hellman &
Company.</p>
<p>With the commencement of autumn, when the belief
prevailed that little or nothing could be done toward persuading
the Common Council to beautify the Plaza, a movement to
lay out and embellish the five-acre tract bounded by Hill and
Olive, and Fifth and Sixth streets, met with such favor that, by
the first week in October, some eight hundred dollars had been
subscribed for the purpose. On November 19th a public meeting
was held, presided over by Prudent Beaudry, Major H. M.
Mitchell serving as Secretary; and it was suggested to call the
proposed square the Los Angeles Park, and to enclose it, at a
cost of about five hundred dollars, with a fence. Another two
hundred dollars was soon made up; and the services of L.
Carpenter, who offered to plow the land prior to sowing grass-seed,
were accepted in lieu of a subscription. Both George
Lehman and Elijah Workman showed their public spirit
by planting what have since become the largest trees there.
Sometime later, the name was changed to Central Park,
by which it is still known.</p>
<p>The first hackney coach ever built in Los Angeles was
turned out in September by John Goller for J. J. Reynolds—about
the same time that the Oriental Stage Company
brought a dozen new Concord coaches from the East—and
cost one thousand dollars. Goller was then famous for elaborate
vehicles and patented spring buggies which he shipped
even to pretentious and bustling San Francisco. Before the
end of November, however, friends of the clever and enterprising
carriage-maker were startled to hear that he had failed
for the then not insignificant sum of about forty thousand
dollars.</p>
<p>Up to the fall of the year, no connection existed between
Temple and First Streets west of Spring; but on the first day of
September, a cut through the hill, effected by means of chain-gang
labor and continuing Fort Street north, was completed, to
the satisfaction of the entire community.</p>
<p>About the middle of October, a petition was presented to the
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_418" id="Page_418">418</SPAN></span>
Common Council calling attention to the fact that the Los
Angeles Water Company two years before had agreed to erect
a fountain on the Plaza; and declaring that the open place was
little short of a "scarecrow for visitors." The Company immediately
replied that it was ready to put up the fountain; and in
November the Council ordered the brick tank taken away.
At the beginning of August, 1871, the fountain began playing.</p>
<p>During the second marshalship of William C. Warren, when
Joe Dye was one of his deputy officers, there was great traffic
in Chinese women, one of whom was kidnaped and carried
off to San Diego. A reward of a hundred dollars was offered
for her return, and she was brought back on a charge of theft
and tried in the Court of Justice Trafford, on Temple Street
near Spring. During the trial, on October 31st, 1870, Warren
and Dye fell into a dispute as to the reward; and the quarrel
was renewed outside the courtroom. At a spot near the
corner of Spring and Temple streets Dye shot and killed
Warren; and in the scrimmage several other persons standing
near were wounded. Dye was tried, but acquitted. Later,
however, he himself was killed by a nephew, Mason Bradfield,
whose life he had frequently threatened and who fired the
deadly bullet from a window of the New Arlington Hotel,
formerly the White House, at the southeast corner of Commercial
and Los Angeles streets. Mrs. C. P. Bradfield, Bradfield's
mother and a teacher, who came in 1875, was the
author of certain text-books for drawing, published by A. S.
Barnes & Company of New York.</p>
<p>Failures in raising and using camels in the Southwest
were due, at least partially, to ignorance of the animal's wants,
a company of Mexicans, in the early sixties, overloading some
and treating them so badly that nearly all died. Later, Frenchmen,
who had had more experience, secured the two camels left,
and by 1870 there was a herd of no less than twenty-five on a
ranch near the Carson River in Nevada, where they were used
in packing salt for sixty miles or more to the mills.</p>
<p>On October 31st, the first Teacher's Institute held in Los
Angeles County was opened, with an attendance of thirty-five,
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_419" id="Page_419">419</SPAN></span>
in the old Bath Street schoolhouse, that center being selected
because the school building at Spring and Second streets,
though much better adapted to the purpose, was considered
to be too far out of town! County Superintendent W. M.
McFadden was President; J. M. Guinn was Vice-President;
and P. C. Tonner was Secretary; while a leader in discussions
was Dr. Truman H. Rose, who there gave a strong impetus
to the founding of the first high school.</p>
<p>Soon after this Institute was held, the State Legislature
authorized bonds to the amount of twenty thousand dollars
for the purpose of erecting another schoolhouse; and the
building was soon to be known as the Los Angeles High School.
W. H. Workman, M. Kremer and H. D. Barrows were the
building committee.</p>
<p>Mentioning educators, I may introduce the once well-known
name of Professor Adams, an instructor in French
who lived here in the early seventies. He was so very
urbane that on one occasion, while overdoing his polite
attention to a lady, he fell off the sidewalk and badly broke
his leg!</p>
<p>In a previous chapter I have spoken of a Frenchman named
Lachenais who killed a fellow-countryman at a wake, the
murder being one of a succession of crimes for which he finally
paid the penalty at the hands of a Vigilance Committee in the
last lynching witnessed here.</p>
<p>Lachenais lived near where the Westminster Hotel now
stands, on the northeast corner of Main and Fourth streets,
but he also had a farm south of the city, adjoining that of
Jacob Bell who was once a partner in sheep-raising with
John Schumacher. The old man was respectable and quiet,
but Lachenais quarreled with him over water taken from the
<i>zanja</i>. Without warning, he rode up to Bell as he was working
in his field and shot him dead; but there being no witnesses
to the act, this murder remained, temporarily, a mystery.
One evening, as Lachenais (to whom suspicion had been
gradually directed), was lounging about in a drunken condition,
he let slip a remark as to the folly of anyone looking for
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_420" id="Page_420">420</SPAN></span>
Bell's murderer; and this indiscretion led to his arrest and
incarceration.</p>
<p>No sooner had the news of Lachenais's apprehension been
passed along than the whole town was in a turmoil. A meeting
at Stearns's Hall was largely attended; a Vigilance Committee
was formed; Lachenais's record was reviewed and his death at
the hands of an outraged community was decided upon. Everything
being arranged, three hundred or more armed men, under
the leadership of Felix Signoret, the barber—Councilman in
1863 and proprietor of the Signoret Building opposite the Pico
House—assembled on the morning of December 17th, marched
to the jail, overcame Sheriff Burns and his assistants, took
Lachenais out, dragged him along to the corral of Tomlinson &
Griffith (at the corner of Temple and New High streets) and
there summarily hanged him. Then the mob, without further
demonstration, broke up; the participants going their several
ways. The reader may have already observed that this was
not the first time that the old Tomlinson & Griffith gate had
served this same gruesome purpose.</p>
<p>The following January, County Judge Y. Sepúlveda charged
the Grand Jury to do its duty toward ferreting out the leaders
of the mob, and so wipe out this reproach to the city; but the
Grand Jury expressed the conviction that if the law had
hitherto been faithfully executed in Los Angeles, such scenes
in broad daylight would never have taken place. The editor
of the <i>News</i>, however, ventured to assert that this report was
but another disgrace.
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_421" id="Page_421">421</SPAN></span></p>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />