4 o '^ *5^^^ - 4 o ^ 
 
 
 / ft <r S 
 
 
 
 
 
THE HCPALD'S 
 
 HisTOpy or 
 
 LOS ANGELES CITY 
 
 BV 
 
 criarles Dwight Wlllard. 
 
 Decembeh, 1901. 
 
 Kingsley-Barnes & Neuner Co.. Publishers, 
 
 Los Angeles, Cal. 
 
 t^'^A % 
 
i UKO I 
 
 THF LIB«A»Y OF 
 
 CONGRESS. 
 Two Coptee Receiveo 
 
 JAN, 2^^^ 1902 
 
 CoPvutoHT ?»rrRv 
 
 CLASS ^ XXa N». 
 
 / -J. t 4 -) 
 COPY A. 
 
 L?ViL 
 
 Copyrighted 
 
 By CHARLES OWIGHT WILLARD, 
 
 December, 1901. 
 
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO 
 
 FLORENCE WILLARD 
 
 BY HER FATHER. 
 
xable: of ooNXEiN-rs. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I Sons of the Soil 9 
 
 II The Edge of the Spanish Empire 18 
 
 III ViaCrucis 28 
 
 IV How Governor Portola came to Ivos 
 
 Angeles 38 
 
 V The Banner of the Virgin 48 
 
 VI The Pueblo Plan 57 
 
 VII How Governor De Neve came to I^os 
 
 Angeles 66 
 
 VIII The Roster of 1781 76 
 
 IX The Mission System 87 
 
 X Eighteenth Century Eos Angeles 97 
 
 XI In the Spanish Province 106 
 
 XII Exit Spain 116 
 
 XIII The Pueblo Begins to Grow 126 
 
 XIV The Epoch of Revolutions 136 
 
 XV- The Ruin of the Missions 146 
 
 XVI The foreigner Arrives , 157 
 
 XVII Eocal Events of Mexican Rule 168 
 
 XVIII The Pastoral Age in California 179 
 
 XIX The Stars and Stripes 190 
 
 XX The Americans Enter Eos Angeles 201 
 
 XXI The Last Revolution in Eos Angeles 212 
 
 XXII Eos Angeles Regained 223 
 
 XXIII The Pueblo is made American 235 
 
 XXIV California Enters the Union 246 
 
 XXV The City Takes Shape 257 
 
 XXVI The Beginning of Things 268 
 
Contents. 
 
 XXVII lyos Ang-eles at its Worst 279 
 
 XXVIII Between Old and New 289 
 
 XXIX In War Times 299 
 
 XXX The Coming- of the Railway 310 
 
 XXXI The Epoch of the Boom 322 
 
 XXXII The Reorg-anization 333 
 
 XXXIII The Modern City 344 
 
 Index 355 
 
preifaoe:. 
 
 The career of a city contains as much g-ood mate- 
 rial, out of which an entertaining- history may be con- 
 structed, as does the life of an individual, or the de- 
 velopment of a nation ; but, for some reason, it has 
 come to pass in America that the preparation of city, 
 or '* local", history has usually fallen into the hands 
 of schemers who exploit the " prominent" citizen for 
 his biography, and throw in something" of a narrative, 
 merely as an apology for the book's existence. The 
 volume thus produced is a hug-e unwieldy affair, that 
 circulates only among- the hundred or two victims, and 
 is not read even by them, except as to the pages where 
 each one finds the story of his life set forth in a flam- 
 boyant and patronizing- style. It not infrequently 
 happens that in the history portion of these monstros- 
 ities there will be found evidence of careful, conscien- 
 tious work on the part of the (usually anonymous) 
 writer, but it is buried under such a mass of rubbish, 
 and the volume itself enjoys such a limited circula- 
 tion, that the judicious reader grieves to see such good 
 labor wasted. 
 
 The experience of I^os Angeles in the matter of 
 local history has been no different from that of other 
 American municipalities. Of these biographical 
 albums there has been no lack ; they have come in 
 cycles of every seven years. Two of these have been 
 — as far as the history portion is concerned— consider- 
 ably above the average standard. That of Thompson 
 & West, written by J. Albert Wilson, and appearing 
 in 1880, gave subsequent students cause of gratitude 
 for the amount of valuable material gathered together 
 and preserved. One published by the Chapman Com- 
 pany in 1900 contains a history written by that con- 
 scientious and devoted searcher in the local field, J. 
 M. Guinn, Secretary of the Los Angeles Historical 
 Society. Mr. Guinn's portion of the volume is an 
 
Preface. 
 
 admirable piece of work, but the 780 pages of biog- 
 raphy that accompany it contribute to the document a 
 weight of ten pounds — and very little else. 
 
 The present book is an attempt to supply in conven- 
 ient and portable shape the material facts in the 
 history of Los Angeles city. It contains nothing in 
 the form of paid or biographical matter (strange that 
 such a statement should be needed !), and it is offered 
 for sale at the bookshops on its merits as a book. The 
 writer lays no claim to any great amount of original 
 research, his work being chiefly that of collecting, 
 arranging and presenting in logical order the estab- 
 lished facts. As the volume employs only 80,000 
 words to cover a period of nearly a century and a half, 
 there is not much opportunity for detail work. It is, 
 however, carefully indexed. 
 
 The work was undertaken by the writer partly on 
 the suggestion of Mr. R. H. Chapman of the I^os 
 Angeles Herald, and it was published during the 
 months from July to December (1901) in the Sunday 
 magazine of that excellent journal. It is for that 
 reason called the Herald's History of Los Angeles. 
 
 The writer desires to express his thanks to the fol- 
 lowing : Miss Anna B. Picher of Pasadena, who read 
 the manuscript, and assisted in collecting the pictures, 
 and whose advice and suggestions were of great value; 
 Homer P. Earle of the Stanford Faculty, who also 
 read the manuscript ; Mrs. J. D. Hooker, whose beauti- 
 ful collection of Mission photographs (never before 
 published) were placed at the author's service ; Miss 
 Jones, librarian, and Miss Beckley, her assistant ; 
 Harry E. Brook, W. S. Hogabooni, Miss Bertha H. 
 Smith, J. M. Guinn, D. O. Anderson, G. G. Johnson, 
 C. C. Pierce, and Putnam «& Valentine. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 SONS OF THK soil.. 
 
 HE original name of Los Angeles was 
 Yang-na, and its population consisted 
 of about 300 human creatures 
 barely above the animal plane. They 
 were called Indians, a general term 
 bestowed by the discoverers of this continent 
 upon all aborigines, although those in Los An- 
 geles bore no more resemblance to the brave 
 and intellectual Iroquois and Tuscaroras than 
 the Turk does to his fellow-European in Lon- 
 don. They were undersized and squat in stat- 
 ure, of a dingy brown color, with small e5^es, 
 flat noses, high cheek bones and large mouths. 
 The general cast of their features was Asiatic 
 rather than Indian, and although the trivial 
 character of their institutions, and the meager- 
 ness of their language makes it quite impos- 
 sible to classify them ethnologically, it is evi- 
 dent that they are more nearly related to the 
 Alaskan and Aleutian tribes that crossed from 
 Asia when the northern rim of the continent 
 was yet unbroken by the sea, than to the dis- 
 tinctively American Indian of the eastern 
 coast and the interior valleys. 
 
 The center of Yang-na was somewhere 
 about the corner of Commercial and Alameda 
 streets and it straggled south as far as First 
 
10 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 street, and north to some point near Aliso. 
 California Indian villages had a habit of creep- 
 ing about, due to a peculiar, but, on the whole, 
 commendable practice of their residents. The 
 huts were small, insubstantial affairs, con 
 structed of light poles, bound together and in- 
 terlaced with twigs and tules. The dwellings 
 of the more fastidious were sometimes rough- 
 ly plastered with mud. Now when one of 
 these habitations was completely overrun 
 with parasitical insects of all sorts the house- 
 holder would order his wife to fill the place 
 with dry leaves and branches, and, having 
 himself secured a torch from the vanquech, or 
 temple, where the embers smouldered contin- 
 ually, but where women were not admitted, 
 he would then set fire to the house and cre- 
 mate its many-legged inhabitants. A new 
 dwelling was presently erected in the vicin- 
 ity of the old one ; sometimes it was built on 
 the same spot, as soon as the ashes were 
 cooled. 
 
 There were from 25 to 30 of these Indian 
 villages scattered about Los Angeles county, 
 the largest being at San Pedro or Wilmington, 
 which was said to contain 500 people. Prob- 
 ably 4000 of the aborigines were to be found in 
 the district bounded by the mountains, the 
 sea, and the San Gabriel river, this being one 
 of the most thickly settled portions of the 
 state. Each village was a tribe in itself, pos- 
 sessing its own chief, its specific manners and 
 
Sons of the Soil. 11 
 
 customs, and, in many cases, its own individ- 
 ual language. There were not many of tlie 
 missionaries that took pains to study the In- 
 dian tongue, but one who did so declared Ihat 
 there were seventeen absolutely distinct lan- 
 guages in Alta California, besides several him- 
 dred different dialects, some of the latter be- 
 ing, in effect, separate languages. A few hun- 
 dred words comprised the whole of their vo- 
 cabulary, and their talk seemed to the Span- 
 iards to be made up of gruntings and slob- 
 berings. 
 
 The people of Yang-na were probably on 
 friendly terms with the people of the neigh- 
 boring villages — at Pasadena, San Gabriel, 
 Cahuenga and Clearwater. They were too 
 timid and too indolent to fight unless the occa- 
 sion was urgent. When some foreign tribe or 
 combination of tribes undertook to enter and 
 seize their lands, they would fight like rats in 
 a trap, for to leave their homes meant death. 
 They had bows and arrows that were well 
 made, and their marksmanship seemed to the 
 Spaniards extraordinary, but it was probably 
 no better than that of most savages. There 
 were sometimes bitter feuds between adjoin- 
 ing tribes that lasted for many generations, 
 but actual conflict seems to have been rare, a 
 peculiar ceremonial of cursing and extrava- 
 gant threats being substituted, as less danger- 
 ous and perhaps quite as gratifying. Captured 
 enemies after a real battle were put to death 
 with dreadful tortures. 
 
12 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 Chieftainship was hereditary, and carried 
 with it the power to practice polygamy, which, 
 considering the extremely fragile nature of 
 the marriage vow, must have been of little ad- 
 vantage, even from the savage point of view, 
 except that it gave the chief more household 
 drudges, and allowed him to maintain a higher 
 degree of dignity. The older men of the vil- 
 lage were the chief's counselors, and met with 
 him in the temple to discuss questions of 
 state, which latter consisted, for the most part, 
 in setting the date for the next general rabbit 
 hunt, and arranging for the initiation of some 
 newly grown-up youth into the tribe. Decis- 
 ion on many of these matters was likely to be 
 left to the sorcerers, who formed a distinct 
 aristocratic class, quite as powerful as the 
 chief himself, and passed down their crude and 
 disgusting rites from one generation to an- 
 other. These were the spiritual guides and 
 physical guardians of the tribe, and it is diffi- 
 cult to say which was the worse, their religion 
 or their therapeutics. The primeval curse of 
 the savage lies not so much in his poverty as 
 in his superstition — in the imfortunate perver- 
 sions of his vacant mind. 
 
 The head of their scheme of religious be- 
 lief was a demi-god named Chinigchinich, 
 from whom the order of priests or sorcerers 
 was descended. Most of the legends connect- 
 ed with this being have been transmitted to 
 us through the memoranda left by Padre Ger- 
 
Sons of the Soil. 13 
 
 onimo Boscana, who lived at San Juan Capis- 
 trano during the first quarter of the nineteenth 
 century, but the later historic criticism has de- 
 cided that either the good father drew some- 
 what on his imagination, or else he was im- 
 posed upon by the Indians from whom he se- 
 cured his alleged facts. The close resemblance 
 of the cosmogony which he outlines to that of 
 the ancient Greeks does not occur in any other 
 savage religion, and the delicate strain of 
 transcendentalism that runs through the leg- 
 ends, as the padre presents them, is entirely 
 out of keeping with the known limitations on 
 the Indians' intellect. The practical worship 
 of this divinity consisted of dances and slow 
 rhythmical jumpings about the sacred place or 
 vanquech. The sick were treated with lugu- 
 brious incantations, to which were added some 
 simple remedies. Rheumatism was treated 
 with blisters made by nettles. Inflammation 
 was met by blood-letting and the fever patient 
 received a huge bolus of wild tobacco. The 
 sweathouse was applied for lumbago, and also 
 as a general tonic, and to get rid of vermin. 
 
 The male inhabitants of Yang-na went en- 
 tirely naked, when the weather was warm, 
 and even on the coldest days of the year the 
 only garment likely to be worn was a cloak of 
 badly-tanned rabbit skins. The women were 
 partially covered, and were not without some 
 sense of modesty. Paint was liberally used on 
 the bodies of both sexes. As the houses were 
 
14 History of Los Angeles, 
 
 not built to withstand the wind and rain, these 
 people must have suffered to some extent from 
 inclement weather, although not as severely 
 as the savages in less favored climates. Mor- 
 tality among them bore a close approximation 
 to the birth rate, and the population of Yang- 
 na varied little in number from year to year, 
 or, for that matter, from century to century. 
 The check on increase lay, however, not so 
 much in death from disease as in prospective 
 famine, which always operates as a natural de- 
 terrent on births among savage peoples. It 
 must be remembered that this region is by no 
 means luxuriant in its natural state. It does 
 not teem with animal and vegetable life as the 
 tropics do. Its rainfall is uncertain, and its 
 soil not extraordinarily rich. The California 
 Indian sowed nothing and cultivated nothing. 
 If, through the graciousness of nature, he was 
 nevertheless permitted to reap, he had not 
 even the judgment carefully to bestow what 
 he gathered, but after gorging himself to re- 
 pletion, he allowed the remainder to go to 
 waste. He found various edible seeds, among 
 them wild barley. He soaked and baked the 
 roots of the flag. Acorns he dried and ground 
 to powder, and filtered out the bitter by allow- 
 ing water to trickle through. This served him 
 as a kind of flour, but when the Spaniards tried 
 it, in some of their starving times, it made 
 them very ill. The Indians killed deer, coy- 
 otes, squirrels and snakes for food, and they 
 
Sons of the Soil. IS 
 
 caught fish. The flesh was eaten raw, or near- 
 ly so. Grasshoppers and even grubworms 
 were devoured in dry years. 
 
 The Indian man looked upon himself as 
 a hunter and warrior ; any other occupation 
 than these — unless he was a sorcerer and prac- 
 ticed medicine — he regarded as beneath his 
 dignity. At rare intervals he would go with 
 the tribe on a short expedition in search of 
 seeds and acorns, but that was rather in the 
 nature of a civic function, and was preliminary 
 to a special feast. The daily round of food 
 was supposed to be provided by the women, 
 who went on long marches over the fields and 
 through the woods, laboriously hunting where 
 others had already gleaned before them. She 
 ground the acorns in a stone mortar, and rolled 
 the seeds' on a metate. She built the fire, 
 cooked the cakes, and then went to summon 
 her husband, who was drowsing in the warm 
 sunshine, or playing ''takersia" in the level 
 plain near the village. 
 
 The games and amusements were restrict- 
 ed to the men, although women participated in 
 some of the semi-religious dances. The favor- 
 ite pastime, which is named above, was played 
 in a space about 30 feet square. One man 
 rolled a ring about three inches in diameter 
 across the course, and another, his opponent in 
 the sport, undertook to throw a wand five feet 
 long through it, as it rolled. If he succeeded 
 in doing so, without stopping the ring, he was 
 given one point. Three points constituted the 
 
16 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 game. Another favorite pursuit was to knock 
 a small, hard, wooden ball several hundred 
 yards with a stick that had a knob at the end, 
 which would seem to provide the modern game 
 of golf with an ancient though none too credit- 
 able origin. It is said the players grew so ex- 
 cited at times over this pursuit that they 
 would even stake their wives on the achieve- 
 ment of a good score, which, considering the 
 special utility of the creatures, would indicate 
 a remarkable degree of enthusiasm for the 
 game. 
 
 The people of Yang-na had no form of 
 writing nor hieroglyphics. Their artifects are 
 of limited variety and simple construction, and 
 are all of the stone age. One of the finest col- 
 lections of these ever gathered may be seen 
 in the west gallery of the Chamber of Com- 
 merce in Los Angeles. It is the work of Dr. 
 F. M. Palmer, and was obtained, for the most 
 part, in the Channel islands, where the natives 
 were more energetic and ingenious than on 
 the mainland. A careful examination of these 
 six large cases of artifects, which were gath- 
 ered and arranged with the trained judgment 
 of the ethnologist, while it recalls the extreme 
 simplicity of the life led by our predecessors, 
 at the same time impresses us with astonish- 
 ment at their patience and skill in working so 
 difficult a substance as stone. 
 
 Dirty, ignorant and degraded as the Cali- 
 fornia Indian was, there are still some things 
 to be said in his favor. His first behavior to- 
 
Sons of the SolL 17 
 
 ward his white visitor was that of the kindly 
 host, offering him such food and shelter as he 
 had at his command. This seems to have 
 been done not through fear, but in good humor 
 and admiration. Christianized Indians testi-. 
 fied afterwards that when they first saw the 
 Spaniards they believed them to be gods. A 
 rude shock to this idea came when they be- 
 held the strangers wantonly killing the birds, 
 for these poor savages argued that no power 
 which could create life would wish thus to de- 
 stroy it. Only when driven to extremity by re- 
 peated outrage did the Indian attack the sol- 
 diery, and the padres traveled about among 
 them without fear. 
 
 It is interesting to consider to what extent 
 the condition of these people — degraded even 
 below the average of their kind — was due to 
 climatic environment. The California Indian 
 did not build a warm wigwam, because few 
 days in the year were inclement; and he did 
 not cultivate the soil, nor store away grain, be- 
 cause there was no season, like the eastern 
 winter, when nature entirely deserted him. 
 His immediate successor, the Spaniard, fol- 
 lowed the same easy and dreamful life, not- 
 withstanding the many centuries of civiliza- 
 tion that had been placed to his credit ; and it 
 yet remains to be seen what effect the eternal 
 spring softness of this climate will have on 
 the life and character of the Anglo-Saxon, 
 when it comes to the test of successive genera- 
 tions. 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 THE KDGK OF THK SPANISH KMPIRK. 
 
 HEN the fact for which Columbus 
 had contended — that the earth was 
 a globe — became finally established 
 in men's minds, and navigators from 
 all the leading European nations 
 were out on the ocean, discovering and claim- 
 ing strange lands, his holiness the pope, the 
 senior power of Christendom and the represen- 
 tative of Peace on Earth, endeavored to settle 
 all disputes over the titles to new territory by 
 dividing the world with a great meridian circle 
 drawn one hundred leagues west of the Azores. 
 All the globe west of the line was to belong to 
 Spain, and all the globe east of it was to go to 
 Portugal. This arrangement, which had at 
 least the advantage of extreme simplicity, was 
 somewhat disturbed by the English, Dutch and 
 French, who took possession of the Eastern 
 portion of the North American continent, and 
 of a few islands here and there ; but the pious 
 and adventurous Spaniards certainly did their 
 best toward carrying out the pope's program. 
 During the sixteenth century they overran 
 nearly all of South America, and the islands of 
 the Mexican gulf; and on the northern conti- 
 nent they set up a stable government in Mex- 
 ico, and by exploration and to some extent by 
 
The Edge of the Spanish Empire. 19 
 
 actual occupation they secured control of about 
 two-thirds of the present area of the United 
 States. Whatever may have been the mistakes 
 and the misfortunes of that country since those 
 days, Spain is entitled to rank in history as the 
 discoverer and the conqueror of the new west- 
 ern world. 
 
 The history of California begins in the his- 
 tory of Mexico, for, of all the explorers that 
 visited the state prior to its colonization, only 
 one. Sir Francis Drake, came from European 
 waters ; the others came up from Mexico. And 
 the settlement of the country, which was finally 
 undertaken with the authority of Spain, was ac- 
 complished through Mexico, of which country 
 California, upper and lower together, consti- 
 tuted a province. 
 
 Hernando Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico, 
 landed at Vera Cruz in 1519, and within a few 
 years had established a government that was 
 felt from the isthmus to the Rio Grande. In 
 1524 he describes California in a report to the 
 king of Spain, as an island of great wealth, 
 abounding in pearls and precious gems. It is 
 inhabited, he says, by women only. The origin 
 of this strange idea undoubtedly lay in the ro- 
 mance, *'Las Sergas de Esplandian," which was 
 published in Spain about 1510, and which seems 
 to have enjoyed a run of popular favor, much as 
 a successful novel might in these days. It is 
 purely a work of fiction, and the writer de- 
 scribes his imaginary island which is called 
 California, as located somewhere to the right of 
 
20 History of Los Angeles, 
 
 India. This island, the story says, is entirely 
 peopled with black women, having a queen 
 named Califia. They use no metal but gold. 
 Copies of this work undoubtedly found their 
 way across the Atlantic, and formed, at last, 
 the basis of one of those persistent rumors of 
 wealth that floated about the ears of the Span- 
 iards, and led them on into the wilderness. In 
 the case of California, the story of gold hap- 
 pened to be true, but it was not for the Span- 
 iards to profit by it. 
 
 Up to the year 1862, the origin of the name 
 California was the basis of a great deal of 
 learned discussion. Many explanations were 
 offered and imaginary etymologies were sup- 
 plied for the word. It remained for Edward 
 Everett Hale, the author of ''The Man Without 
 a Country," to set all doubts at rest, and trace 
 the name to its veritable source in the romance, 
 "Las Sergas." 
 
 In 1534 Cortes sent an expedition in search 
 of the gold of this wonderful island. The ves- 
 sels were skirting the mainland, along the gulf 
 of Lower California, when a mutiny broke out. 
 A part of the company seized one of the ships, 
 and, crossing to the peninsula, landed at a point 
 about ninety miles north of Cape San Lucas, 
 where afterwards a Spanish settlement was lo- 
 cated and named La Paz. The leader in this 
 affair was Fortuno Ximenes, who is entitled to 
 be recorded as the discoverer of Lower Cali- 
 fornia. A year later Cortes came up the gulf 
 himself, and, landing at La Paz, formally took 
 
The Edge of the Spanish Empire. 21 
 
 possession of the country. Four years later, in 
 I539> he sent Ulloa with orders to sail around 
 the island, as it was supposed to be, and to dis- 
 cover, if possible, the passage, back to Atlantic 
 waters. Just as the English, French and Dutch 
 navigators, working along our eastern coast, 
 were constantly on the lookout for the fabled 
 "Northwest Passage," which would give them 
 a shorter way across to India, so the Spaniards 
 on the Pacific coast made their way into every 
 bay and river mouth, hoping always to discover 
 the ''Straits of Anian," which were recorded on 
 all the charts of the time as crossing this con- 
 tinent somewhere to the north of the limit of 
 exploration. 
 
 Ulloa did not find the desired passage, but 
 he came to the head o^ the gulf, and explored 
 the pearl fisheries, which, for over two hundred 
 years afterwards, enriched the Spanish court 
 favorites to whom they were granted as mo- 
 nopolies. He came back to Cape San Lucas, 
 and worked north on the western coast to the 
 middle of the peninsula.. 
 
 In the 3^ear that Cortes returned to Spain, 
 1540, the viceroy, Mendoza, sent two vessels 
 under Alarcon to the head of the gulf, and they 
 managed to sail some distance up the Colorado 
 river. It is not improbable that Alarcon came 
 near enough to California to catch a glimpse of 
 the country, and he is regarded by some writ- 
 ers as the discoverer of the state. 
 
 A great expedition had been planned by 
 Mendoza and Alvarado to go up the Colorado 
 
22 History of Los Angeles. . 
 
 in search of the treasure which was supposed 
 to exist somewhere in the interior, but the re- 
 turn of some of the people who had explored 
 this region dissipated the viceroy's hopes in 
 that direction. He had the fleet that had been 
 prepared for this scheme still on his hands, and 
 more to keep it busy than for any definite pur- 
 pose, he sent Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, a navi- 
 gator whose bravery had been tested in many 
 shipwrecks and battles on the Spanish Main, 
 with instructions to sail up the California coast 
 as far north as practicable, keeping always a 
 sharp lookout for the ''Straits of Anian." He 
 had two boats, the San Salvador and the Vic- 
 toria, short, top-heavy affairs, on which no 
 modern sailor would risk his life. With these 
 he set sail from Navidad, on the western coast 
 of Mexico, June 2J, 1542, just fifty years after 
 the discovery of America. 
 
 Cabrillo is the Christopher Columbus of 
 California. When he passed Cedros island, 
 which is about the middle of the peninsula, he 
 entered upon a stretch of waters as full of 
 strange and terrible possibilities as those that 
 lay before the intrepid Genoese when he went 
 forth into the broad Atlantic with his three 
 little boats. For all that Cabrillo knew the sea 
 on which he sailed might presently terminate 
 in a huge sink or maelstrom, and the shores 
 where he was expected to land and make ex- 
 plorations might be peopled with hideous mon- 
 sters. The utter commonplaceness of the events 
 of his voyage makes it seem a small achieve- 
 
The Edge of the Spanish Empire. 23 
 
 ment now, but we may be permitted, neverthe- 
 less, to pause and admire his courage, as he 
 ventures out into the unknown. 
 
 In the month of September he entered the 
 bay of San Diego, and the soil of California 
 bore for the first time the impress of a Euro- 
 pean foot. The record does not inform us who 
 led the way ashore, but it requires no great 
 strain on the imagination to suppose that it was 
 Cabrillo himself. 
 
 The Indians at San Diego were friendly, ex- 
 cept that their suspicions seem to have been 
 excited by the attempt to land a hunting party 
 at night, when they fired on the boat and 
 wounded two sailors. At no place in his many 
 landings along the coast does Cabrillo seem to 
 have had much trouble with the natives. After 
 a short stay at San Diego, he sailed north to 
 San Pedro bay, which he named the Bay of 
 Smokes, from the great clouds of smoke that 
 hovered over the mainland ; the Indians of Wil- 
 mington were evidently engaged in one of their 
 great rabbit hunts, in which they burned ofi^ the 
 dry grass, to drive in the game. Here he landed 
 to obtain water, and he probably climbed the 
 hills back of where San Pedro now stands, that 
 he might obtain a view of the country inland. 
 If he did so, he was able on a clear day to see 
 the site of Los Angeles. This was over 350 
 years ago, and more than two centuries were 
 destined to pass before the white men should 
 come down into this valley. 
 
24 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 Winter was now at hand, and with it came 
 storms and head winds. He visited the islands 
 of the channel, and on one of them met with a 
 fall that broke his arm. The trip further north 
 was made under hard conditions ; and after 
 working up the coast as far as San Francisco, 
 though he did not enter the bay, he returned to 
 the island of San Miguel, opposite Santa Bar- 
 bara, where the explorer finally died from the 
 unsuccessful surgery practiced on his broken 
 arm. He was buried m the shifting sand of the 
 harbor afterwards called Cuyler's, in San Mi- 
 guel, and if any sign was left to mark his grave 
 it has long since disappeared. 
 
 With his latest breath Cabrillo urged his 
 chief lieutenant, the pilot Ferrelo, to continue 
 the exploration to the north. His wish was 
 respected, and the San Salvador and Victoria 
 under their new commander went up the coast 
 a second time, but as they passed Cape Mendo- 
 cino they were driven back by storms. Ferrelo 
 then returned to Mexico and made his report to 
 the viceroy. This was in 1543. 
 
 In 1579 Francis Drake sailed along the coast 
 of California in the famous Golden Hind, then 
 two years out from Plymouth, England. 
 
 He had been overhauling the Spanish gal- 
 leons in the West Indies and on the Mexican 
 coast, and had taken so much treasure — so his 
 chaplain says — that he used the silver to ballast 
 his ship. His fleet of five having been re- 
 duced to one, he had no desire to meet with 
 
The Edge of the Spanish Empire. 25 
 
 any of the Spanish men-of-war that might be 
 prowHng about in Atlantic waters, so he was 
 making his way westward around the globe. 
 
 He anchored in the bay north of San Fran- 
 cisco, now called by his name, evidently failing 
 to recognize in the Golden Gate the entrance to 
 a great'harbor. As his ship drew only 13 feet, 
 the upper bay would answer to his description 
 of "a fit and convenient harborough." Here he 
 remained 36 days, finding the Indians friendly 
 and the climate pleasant. He named the coun- 
 try New Albion, and claimed it for his queen. 
 Several of the ''gentlemen adventurers" of Eng- 
 land visited Lower California, following in the 
 wake of the Golden Hind, but they accom- 
 plished nothing beyond a few successful rob- 
 beries, and the claims set up by Drake were 
 allowed to lapse. 
 
 It is not impossible that the visit of Drake 
 and the other Englishmen to this coast may 
 have stimulated Philip II of Spain to plan to 
 tighten his hold on the Calif ornias. In 1596, 
 the viceroy, acting under direct instructions 
 from the monarch, sent Sebastian Viscaino 
 with three ships to go on with the work that 
 Cabrillo had so bravely begun, more than fifty 
 years before. He sailed from Acapulco to La 
 Paz, where he became involved in difficulties 
 with the Indians that caused him to abandon 
 the expedition. The nature and cause of these 
 difficulties is indicated by the fact that when 
 he started as:ain, this time with two vessels in 
 
26 History of Los Angeles^ 
 
 the year 1602, he ordered the death penalty for 
 any soldier that should cause a disturbance 
 among the Indians. 
 
 His journey was in a considerable degree a 
 replica of that of Cabrillo. Like the former 
 explorer, he met with stormy weather, and was 
 finally turned back when he had worked his 
 way a little north of Cape Mendocino. He ex- 
 plored the port of Monterey, but placed it on 
 his chart too far north by two degrees. He 
 changed the names of the islands of the chan- 
 nel, from those bestowed by Cabrillo to the 
 ones they now bear, even robbing his prede- 
 cessor of the poor honor that lay in the title 
 Rodriguez (Cabrillo's middle name) on his is- 
 land grave. 
 
 Viscaino transmitted to the king an account 
 of his visit to California, in which he declared 
 that the country was rich and fertile and admir- 
 ably adapted to colonization, and he urged that 
 he be allowed to undertake an expedition for its 
 permanent settlement. The king hesitated to 
 grant the required powers, but finally did so, 
 in 1606. Before the plan could be carried out, 
 however, Viscaino died, and it was abandoned. 
 
 Now follows a period of one hundred and 
 sixty years, during which no more white men 
 came to California. In that time the thirteen 
 colonies were planted on the Atlantic coast, 
 waxed strong and were preparing to revolt 
 from the mother country. England passed 
 through the revolutions that cost Charles his 
 
The Edge of the Spanish Empire. 27 
 
 head and James his throne. Germany endured 
 the horrid struggle of the thirty-years' war, 
 and witnessed the rise to power of Frederick 
 the Great. France was sinking lower and lower 
 under the rapacious and imbecile line of Bour- 
 bon, and Spain, once the ruler of the seas, was 
 priest-governed and impoverished. There was 
 no more wealth to be wrung from the new 
 world — therefore it was neglected and almost 
 forgotten. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 VIA CRUCIS. 
 
 g.^1 HILIP II of Spain, whose rule ex- 
 9^ tended through 40 years of the period 
 of most active exploration and ac- 
 quisition in the western hemisphere, 
 received from the pope the significant 
 title of "His Most Catholic Majesty"; and all 
 his successors on the throne down to the pres- 
 ent have cherished this phrase as part of their 
 official name. It must be admitted that the 
 title has not been misplaced, for no country on 
 the globe has been more rigidly faithful to the 
 church of Rome than Spain. It was the origi- 
 nator of the inquisition ; in Spain the church 
 was the largest owner of property, and the 
 priesthood outnumbered all other professions 
 and intelligent occupations combined. It was 
 natural, therefore, that the colonial system of 
 this country should be permeated with the re- 
 ligious idea, and that a large part of the work 
 of organizing the new territory should be 
 turned over to the hierarchy. 
 
 This work possessed lively attraction for 
 the young and ardent members of the priest- 
 hood, because the new country was peopled 
 with heathen, whose souls seemed to be crying 
 out for salvation. The order of the Jesuits, 
 founded by Ignatius Loyola in 1540, threw it- 
 
Portrait of Father Junipero Serka Copyrighted by Schumacher 
 
Via Crucis. 29 
 
 self with boundless enthusiasm into the new 
 missionary fields, and no corner of the earth 
 was too remote, and no tribe of savages too 
 fierce for the Jesuit to enter, bearing the stand- 
 ard of the cross. The conquering soldier came 
 first, it is true, but his act of "taking posses- 
 sion" was little more than a formality. The 
 real work of colonization, of controlling and 
 organizing the Indians and of producing at 
 least a semblance of civilized order, fell to the 
 priest. 
 
 The Californias, upper and lower, were at 
 the extreme northwestern edge of the great 
 Spanish empire, and the tide of colonization, 
 which flowed slowly across the new world, 
 reached them last of all. In the first period of 
 conquest great quantities of wealth were 
 drawn from the western continents, and poured 
 into the lap of Spain, and with this increase of 
 fortune came an undermining of the moral, and 
 finally of the material, forces of the country. 
 The energetic and progressive artisan class, 
 from which colonists for a new country would 
 naturally come, had died out in Spain. 
 
 One viceroy after another was sent out 
 from the mother country to govern the prov- 
 ince of Mexico, and at times a "visitador gen- 
 eral" was delegated to make a tour of the terri- 
 tory, and transmit a special report to the king. 
 A long line of mediocre monarchs were occu- 
 pying the throne. Efforts at colonization by 
 the government were fitful. The Spanish sol- 
 diers intermarried with the native women of 
 
30 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 Mexico, and the halfbreeds, or mestizos, in- 
 creased in number. Gradually paganism died 
 out, and the spiritual rule of the church was 
 accepted. 
 
 A few colonies had been established by the 
 government in Lower California, but they 
 were too far from the base of supply to con- 
 tinue successfully. Only those established by 
 the church, where the natives were controlled 
 by religious awe, as well as physical force, 
 managed to survive. It was discovered that 
 the Jesuits were most successful in establish- 
 ing permanent locations among the Indians, 
 and in the last years of the seventeenth century 
 the whole of the territory of Lower California 
 was turned over to them to manage as they 
 saw fit. It was not a very promising piece of 
 country — dry and sterile, and peopled with a 
 race of savages quite as degraded as those fur- 
 ther north on the Pacific coast. By this time 
 the Spanish government had become impov- 
 erished, and could afiford no funds for the un- 
 dertaking. In the decree of February 5, 1697, 
 whereby the plan of the Jesuits for coloniza- 
 tion was adopted, it was agreed that the royal 
 treasury was not to be called upon to meet any 
 of the expense. This led to the establishment 
 of the famous 'Tious Fund," which, within the 
 memory of the present generation, formed the 
 basis of some remarkable international litiga- 
 tion. 
 
 The leaders in the movement were two 
 priests named Kino and Salvatierra. They 
 
Via Crucis. 31 
 
 went about Spain enthusiastically describing 
 this beautiful land, where thousands of heathen 
 waited to be led into the church. Contribu- 
 tions to the fund began to flow in, the first one 
 being $10,000 from the congregation of a 
 church where Salvatierra had preached, and 
 the second, $20,000, from an individual Span- 
 iard. A wealthy nobleman and his wife made 
 wills, leaving their entire fortune to the fund, 
 and others followed their example. The money 
 was well invested, and only the income was 
 used — after the expense of establishment was 
 defrayed. It was not long before some of the 
 missions began to be self-supporting. 
 
 Salvatierra and Kino confined the?r work to 
 Lower California, where they founded a com- 
 plete system of missions, numbering finally 
 sixteen in all. One of their fellow-laborers, the 
 Padre Ugarte, seems to have possessed a ver- 
 itable g^enius for what mig-ht be called the 
 worldly portion of the work, teaching the In- 
 dians all the trades — even to that of ship-build- 
 ing — and accomplishing marvelous results with 
 pitifully poor material. By the middle of the 
 eighteenth century the scheme of organization 
 had run its course to practical completion ; that 
 is, the Indians of the peninsula were largely 
 under the control of the missions; a full com- 
 plement of buildings, both for religious and 
 temporal purposes had been erected at each lo- 
 cation, and the church was pre-eminent 
 over the whole system of government. There 
 were a few rebellions, but on the whole the 
 
32 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 Indians were tractable, and were a few steps 
 nearer civilization. 
 
 These matters have a direct bearing on the 
 history of Alta California in two ways : First, 
 in the fact that the "Pious Fund" raised by the 
 Jesuits was used to defray the expenses of the 
 work in Alta California, and, second, in the 
 fact that the Franciscans, when they came to 
 found missions in this state, had immediately 
 before them, as a model, the institutions al- 
 ready existing in the lower peninsula. 
 
 About this time the feeling against the Jesu- 
 its, which had been slowly spreading through- 
 out Christendom, culminated in their expulsion 
 from several Catholic countries, as they had 
 already been driven out of Protestant states. 
 In 1759 Carlos III, the ablest of all the kings 
 of Spain, came to the throne. During his reign 
 of twenty-nine years that country made the 
 first genuine progress it had accomplished 
 since the days of Ferdinand and Isabella. He 
 gathered about him wise advisers, and among 
 these were several that believed the govern- 
 ment to be too much under the influence of the 
 priests. The Jesuit played the same part in the 
 religious system that the party boss does in our 
 politics, and the wave of reform reached him 
 first of all. In 1767 an order was promulgated 
 expelling the Jesuits from Spain and all her 
 colonies. All temporalities held in their name 
 were ordered to be seized for the crown. How- 
 ever justifiable this decree may have been with 
 reference to the Jesuits of the mother country, 
 
Via Crucis. 33 
 
 it was certainly a harsh and cruel act as applied 
 to the padres who had labored faithfully for 
 over half a century on the arid soil of L.ower 
 California, and who, as they left the missions, 
 where they had grown old in the service, were 
 followed by crowds of weeping Indians. 
 
 The American religious outposts were to be 
 placed in the hands of the two orders that were, 
 next to the Jesuits, most active in missionary 
 work — the Franciscans and Dominicans. It 
 was at first proposed that the Lower California 
 missions should be divided equally between the 
 two orders, but later — at the suggestion of 
 Father Junipero Serra — it was decided that, to 
 avoid all possibility of friction, the Dominicans 
 should be placed in charge of the Lower Cali- 
 fornia institutions, while the Fransicans 
 should be allowed the honor of beginning the 
 work in the new territory. 
 
 The order of St. Francis was one of the old- 
 est and most popular of the many priestly fra- 
 ternities. It was founded in 1209 by an Italian 
 monk, a preacher of extraordinary fervency 
 and persuasiveness, who was subsequently can- 
 onized as St. Francis of Assisi. Its adherents 
 were sworn to poverty and extreme simplicity 
 of life. The dress was originally a coarse gray 
 serge robe, tied with a hempen rope. Later on 
 some portions of the order changed from gray 
 to brown. The foundation principles were hu- 
 mility, voluntary mendicancy and abhorrence 
 of controversy. The members desired to be 
 known as peacemakers, and their influence was 
 
34 History of Los Angeles, 
 
 generally for harmony and for the existing or- 
 der in temporal affairs. In this respect they 
 differed materially from the Jesuits, who, as we 
 have seen, had achieved an unenviable reputa- 
 tion in Europe for intrigue and mischief-mak- 
 ing. 
 
 The Franciscan order grew with great ra- 
 pidity from its founding, and by the end of the 
 thirteenth century had over 200,000 members. 
 At the time the order was placed in charge of 
 Alta California it had over 8000 colleges and 
 convents scattered about the world. Their 
 headquarters on this continent lay at the col- 
 lege of San Fernando, in the City of Mexico. 
 Here a great majority of the padres that were 
 sent to California for service in the missions 
 received their education, and to this institution 
 were referred all difficulties and all matters of 
 serious importance regarding the missions. 
 
 Junipero Serra has appropriately been 
 called the "Eighteenth Century St. Francis." 
 There is little doubt that had his career fallen 
 five hundred years earlier his supreme devotion 
 of purpose and his heroic efforts to advance the 
 cause of the church which have been rewarded 
 by canonization. He was born in the island of 
 Majorca in 1713. His parents were laboring 
 people, but he was given an education that fit- 
 ted him for the priesthood ; and because of his 
 exceptional abilities a professorship of theology 
 was bestowed upon him. From his early boy- 
 hood he had yearned to undertake the career 
 of a missionary; and when, in 1749, word came 
 
Via Cruets. 35 
 
 from the College of San Fernando that recruits 
 were wanted to work among the savages and 
 half-breeds of Mexico he enthusiastically vol- 
 unteered for the service. His friend Palou ac- 
 companied him, and the two were fellow-AVork- 
 ers and intimates through all the California 
 campaign. 
 
 When Serra's ship arrived at Vera Cruz 
 there were no pack animals to convey the re- 
 cruits to the City of Mexico, so he set out on 
 foot, unwilling, in his fiery zeal, to wait for 
 proper means of conveyance. During this trip 
 overland he contracted an ulcer in his leg that 
 tormented him through the remainder of his 
 life, but which he endured with the fortitude 
 of a martyr. During the first nine years after 
 his advent to Mexico he served at the lonely 
 mission of Sierra Gordo, where he gathered a 
 large congregation, and where he built a splen- 
 did church structure. Without doubt, his ex- 
 perience with the Indians at this place, both m 
 spiritual and in worldly affairs, was of great 
 service to him in his subsequent labors in Cali- 
 fornia. 
 
 The priests of the college of San Fernando 
 noted the success that Brother Junipero had 
 achieved at Sierra Gordo, and determined to 
 try him in a new field. He was summoned to 
 the City of Mexico and put over a congregation 
 which was made up not of untutored Indians, 
 but of the wealthiest and most refined people of 
 the district. Crowds flocked to hear him, and 
 
36 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 his zealous preaching is said to have brought 
 many to repentance. 
 
 In 1768, when the order to expel the Jesuits 
 from the missions of Mexico was carried 
 into effect, Junipero Serra was appointed presi- 
 dent of the California district. This included 
 Upper and Lower California, although as yet 
 no establishment had been located north of the 
 peninsula. 
 
 Whether it was the report on the expulsion 
 of the Jesuits from this region, or the news 
 that the Russians were working down the Pa- 
 cific coast from the north that aroused the king, 
 or whether it was merely the outgrowth of his 
 natural energy and desire to promote the wel- 
 fare of his country, is not known, but about 
 this time Carlos III issued instructions to Mar- 
 quez de Croix, the viceroy of Mexico, and to 
 Jose de Galvez, the visitador general, or inspec- 
 tor, to undertake the colonization of Upper 
 California, the government to act in conjunc- 
 tion with the priestly orders. Galvez, who was 
 entrusted with powers second only to those of 
 the king himself, went over to Loreto in Lower 
 California, to direct the expeditions to the new 
 country, and Father Junipero Serra repaired to 
 the same spot. They were both men of tireless 
 energy, and both possessed the same consis- 
 tency of purpose; therefore they worked well 
 together. They had at their disposal three ves- 
 sels, the San Carlos, the San Antonio and the 
 San Jose, all appropriatel}^ named for the pious 
 
Via Crucis. 37 
 
 work they were about to undertake. There 
 were available, besides the ships, a couple of 
 hundred soldiers, a score of artisans and a few 
 priests. Supplies were to be obtained from the 
 missions in Lower California. It was decided 
 that there should be four expeditions — two by 
 land and two by sea — each independent of the 
 others, and that all should meet at the port 
 described by Cabrillo and Viscaino, which we 
 know now as San Dieg-o. These preparations 
 were made near the close of the year 1766. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HOW GOVERNOR PORTOLA CAMK TO 
 I.OS ANGKLKS. 
 
 HE unpleasant task of expelling the 
 Jesuits from the chain of missions they 
 had established in Lower California 
 was committed to Capt. Caspar de Por- 
 tola, who landed at Cape San Lucas 
 with a small detachment of soldiers 
 in October of 1767, to begin the work. 
 He was made governor of both the Cal- 
 ifornias, and in the expedition that was 
 presently begun for the occupation of 
 the northern territory, he represented both the 
 military and the civil features of the govern- 
 ment, subject, of course, to the orders of the 
 visitador general, Jose de Galvez. 
 
 Portola was a good-hearted and popular 
 man, not without considerable natural shrewd- 
 ness, and he performed his duty toward the 
 Jesuits with gentleness and sympathy. There 
 was no resistance on their part, and no out- 
 breaks among the Indians. The treasure, 
 which it was supposed the padres had laid 
 away, failed to come to light, and Portola re- 
 ported to Galvez that it was quite impossible 
 that the simple agricultural pursuits of the 
 missions should have yielded any great wealth. 
 Nevertheless, he assured Serra that these es- 
 
How Governor Portola Came to Los Angeles. 39 
 
 tablishments were fairly well stocked with cat- 
 tle and provisions, and that enough could 
 easily be spared to supply the expedition to 
 the north. Serra himself, in the year 1768, 
 made a tour through the missions of the penin- 
 sula, of which he was now president, and in- 
 spected their stock of ecclesiastical parapher- 
 nalia, on which he proceeded to levy for the 
 new institutions that he was planning to found. 
 
 Captain Rivera y Moncada, who subse- 
 quently filled an important function in the 
 founding of the pueblo of Los Angeles, was 
 appointed chief of the commissary department 
 of the expedition, and was sent out to make a 
 round of the missions, for the purpose of col- 
 lecting cattle and stores, and was ordered to 
 work toward the north, that he might be ready 
 early in 1769 for the general movement into 
 new territory. He had been the local com- 
 mander for several years at Loreto, and was 
 well posted on the geography and the climatic 
 conditions of the country. He was therefore 
 a most valuable man in the work, all the other 
 leaders being strange to the region. 
 
 The headquarters of the undertaking were 
 at La Paz and Loreto. Here through the last 
 six months of 1768, Galvez, Serra and Portola 
 toiled and planned, until by the first of the fol- 
 lowing year everything was ready. In Janu- 
 ary of 1769 — the year in which the history of 
 California begins — the San Carlos put to sea, 
 loaded with stores and carrying sixty-two peo- 
 
40 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 pie. Of these twenty-five were soldiers in com- 
 mand of Lieutenant Pedro Pages, who later 
 held the office of governor of California, and 
 the remainder were, for the most part, sailors 
 and artisans. 
 
 In Pebruary the second expedition by sea 
 started — the San Antonio, which, although it 
 set sail a month later than the San Carlos, ar- 
 rived at San Diego three weeks before its pre- 
 decessor. Galvez's instructions to the com- 
 manders were that they should keep out to sea 
 until they sighted the islands of the channel, 
 and should then work down the coast to the 
 bay of San Diego. It is difficult to realize that 
 the San Antonio, which made the best time of 
 the two, consumed sixty days in doing a dis- 
 tance that would now seem to call for less than 
 a week of sailing. In the case of the San Car- 
 los, however, the delay is easily explained in 
 the one dreadful word — scurvy. This disease, 
 which was at that time a common visitor on 
 shipboard and in prisons and camps, was due 
 to impure water, monotonous fare, uncleanli- 
 ness and bad sanitation. It has very nearly 
 passed out of existence among civilized people 
 in these days, and it is not easy to appreciate 
 what a terror it once had for all who followed 
 the sea. The water casks on the San Carlos 
 were leaky, and the springs of Cedros island, 
 where the vessel stopped to replenish, yield- 
 ed water that proved unwholesome. By the 
 time San Diego was reached the disease had 
 taken possession of the crew. 
 
5anRafae 
 3anFhanci5co 
 
 ShOWINQ LOCATION OF 
 ALL TME M155ION5 
 
 i5anra&arD3ra 
 
 v.© 5an Suenaventura 
 SanVernandoo . 
 <Pv V-_^U)5^ELE5o5an5ernardino 
 
 SanbMonicr^ o^anQabriel 
 5an Pedro ^ 
 
 5anJuanCapi5l"raao 
 o San Luis Rey 
 oPala 
 San Dieqo Mission 
 " 5an Diego 
 
 3an Pablo 
 
How Governor Portola Came to Los Angeles. 41 
 
 The first of the land expeditions was un- 
 der the command of Rivera, who had collected 
 a quantity of horses, cows, mules and general 
 supplies from the Lower California missions. 
 He set out for the north in March of 1769, and 
 arrived at San Diego in the middle of May, 
 By this time the people from the ships had 
 constructed a camp and hospital on shore, and 
 the crew of the San Antonio were taking care 
 of the crew of the San Carlos, all of whom were 
 now afflicted with the scurvy. About sixty 
 deaths occurred, to the great demoralization 
 of the whole company. 
 
 On the first of July the last of the land 
 forces arrived, Governor Portola in command, 
 accompanied by Father Junipero Serra. The 
 delay had been occasioned partly by their stop- 
 ping to found a new mission in Lower Califor- 
 nia and partly by Serra's inability to travel, 
 owing to the condition of his ulcerated legf. 
 He refused to allow the Indians to carry him 
 in a litter, because he was unwilling to cause 
 them such a labor, and he would not be left be- 
 hind. At last a muleteer applied the same poul- 
 tice that he would have used on an animal and 
 the leg was made enough better for the padie 
 to go on. This incident is set down at full 
 length in the narrative in much the same wav 
 that a miracle would be recorded. 
 
 Galvez had issued instructions to the sol- 
 diers that the Indians should be treated with 
 kindness, and he threatened severe punish- 
 
42 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 ment to all that failed to comply with this or- 
 der. It was believed that little gifts of brown 
 sugar and of cloth and beads would please the 
 natives and induce them to accept Christian- 
 ity — that is, submit to the form of baptism, as 
 their brethren had done in Mexico and Lower 
 California. The cloth and the beads were 
 found to be acceptable, particularly the former, 
 but the sugar was declined, or if taken at all, 
 was merely carried to the bushes and buried 
 there. The same treatment was accorded all 
 other articles of food that were offered to the 
 Indians, the reason being that they connected 
 the sickness so prevalent among the first Span- 
 iards that arrived with their diet ; and this fear 
 of European food clung to the Indians for 
 some time, and, with regard to the brown su- 
 gar, was never entirely removed. 
 
 It had been intended that the expeditions 
 should be reorganized at San Diego, and that 
 one of the ships and half the land forces should 
 go north to Monterey, and there found a mis- 
 sion at the upper end of the territory, with 
 San Diego as the limit on the lower end. Be- 
 tween these two points a series of institutions 
 were to be established. But the havoc wrought 
 by the scurvy interfered with this plan, and 
 compelled the immediate return of one of the 
 ships to Lower California for additional sailors 
 — there being scarcely enough left to work one 
 ship — and also for supplies. The San Antonio 
 started back July 14, two weeks after the ar- 
 
How Governor Portola Came to Los Angeles. 43 
 
 rival of Portola. In the meantime Galvcz, as 
 though anticipating the wants of his colonists, 
 had dispatched the third member of his little 
 fleet at Loreto, the San Jose, well-filled with 
 provisions and articles for the use of the set- 
 tlers, and manned by a complete crew. What 
 became of it? No one ever knew. No storm 
 ever washed it ashore on the California coast, 
 nor was it ever sighted on the high seas. Prob- 
 ably its crew became infected with the scurvy, 
 like those of San Carlos, and after drifting 
 about aimlessly for a time, it may have foun- 
 dered in some storm and sunk in the open sea. 
 Immediately after the departure of the San 
 Antonio southward, Portola started north with 
 an expedition of sixty-four persons, made up 
 of soldiers, mule-drivers, a few Lower Califor- 
 nia Indians, and two priests. One of the latter, 
 Father Crespi, kept a daily record of the jour- 
 ney, which has come down to us in the docu- 
 ments collected and treasured by Serra's 
 friend, Palou. With the expedition were two 
 future governors of the territory. Pages and 
 Rivera. Junipero Serra did not accompany 
 them, partly because his lame leg rendered 
 such a trip difficult and dangerous, and partly 
 because he wished to establish the mission at 
 San Diego, and begin on the work of convert- 
 ing the Indians. The good father chafed, no 
 doubt, under the delay and the interference to 
 his plans which had been brought about by 
 the prevalent sickness of the camp. 
 
44 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 The purpose of the expedition led by Por- 
 tola was to find the Bay of Monterey and es- 
 tablish an outpost there, to be held until Father 
 Junipero should arrive and found a mission in 
 due form. The round trip from San Diego to 
 Monterey consumed over six months. It could 
 now be made by rail in about three days. The 
 party averaged from eight to fifteen miles a 
 day, with frequent rests. Their route lay along 
 the coast, except where the broadening of the 
 valleys allowed them to make their way in- 
 land without the risk of losing their bearings. 
 
 On the nineteenth day after leaving San 
 Diego, to wit, on the second of August, this 
 party of white p,eople crossed the Los Angeles 
 river at about the point where the Buena Vista 
 street bridge is now located, and passed around 
 the hills of Elysian park, and out into the 
 Cahuenga valley. It is not improbable that 
 they came up toward the center of the modern 
 city, and it was doubtless somewhere near the 
 Plaza that they met with a party of Indians 
 from the village of Yang-na. Father Crespi 
 records the fact that the savages came out to- 
 ward them with loud howling, but that they 
 made no really hostile demonstration. On the 
 contrary, they showed their good will by offer- 
 ing their visitors handfuls of seeds, which the 
 latter refused, for the reason, the padre says, 
 that "they had no place to bestow them," but 
 perhaps also because they were a little suspi- 
 cious of the Indians' motives. The savages 
 
Photo by Crandall 
 Arrangement of Mission Bells at Santa Isabel 
 
How Governor Portola Came to Los Angeles. 45 
 
 were evidently displeased at the rebuff, for 
 when the seeds were refused they threw them 
 contemptuously on the ground. 
 
 Now the second day of August is, in the 
 calendar of the Roman Catholic church, the 
 special feast day of Our Lady of the Angels, 
 that is to say, the Virgin Mary. As the party 
 passed along through this unknown country, 
 they made the most of the explorer's privilege 
 to bestow names on the various features of 
 the landscape, and also upon each spot in which 
 they camped. The Spaniard being an individ- 
 ual who is rarely in a hurry, has a fondness 
 for long and sonorous titles. The modern 
 hidalgo, or Spanish gentleman, usually has half 
 a dozen family names fastened together with a 
 "Y" or an occasional ''De" and in his original 
 geographical titles he was no less prodigal. 
 For example, when the party came upon the 
 Santa Ana river, several days before they 
 reached Los Angeles, they decided, for some 
 reason, to name it after the Saviour of men. 
 Now an American or an Englishman would 
 have felt this to be somewhat sacrilegious, 
 but if he had been compelled to do 
 it, he would probably have called the 
 stream merely the "J^sus river." The 
 name bestowed by Father Crespi was 
 "El Rio del Dulcisimo Nombre de Jesus," 
 the River of the Sweetest Name of Jesus. 
 While they were encamped on its banks, a 
 series of light earthquakes took place, and it 
 
46 History of Los A^igeles. 
 
 was decided to incorporate this fact in the 
 name, and it was finally called "The River of 
 the Sweetest Name of Jesus of the Earth- 
 quakes." Still it is not much of a river. In 
 the eastern states it would be called a creek — 
 or worse yet, a ''crick." The Los Angeles river 
 was named the Porciuncula, after a little 
 stream in Italy that was dear to the heart of 
 St. Francis ; and the spot which the Indians 
 called Yang-na was named from the second of 
 August feast day, Nuestra Senora de Los An- 
 geles. Twelve years later, when Governor 
 Felipe de Neve founded a city there, he pre- 
 fixed the word 'Tueblo" to the title already 
 on record, and it struggled along under that 
 name, until the Americans took possession 
 and chopped it down to the last two words ; 
 and now these seem to be in a fair way to be 
 telescoped into L'sangl's. 
 
 Governor Portola and his party continued 
 their way northward, with the sea on their left 
 hand, until they came to the bay of Monterey, 
 which they failed to recognize as the perfect 
 harbor described by Viscaino. As they ram- 
 bled about the adjoining country, in the search 
 for Monterey, a small detachment under the 
 lead of a lieutenant named Ortega, afterwards 
 the founder of the Ortega family of Santa Bar- 
 bara, came in sight of the bay of San Fran- 
 cisco, which one might suppose would have 
 satisfied their desire for a harbor ; but they had 
 been sent out by Galvez to found a settlement 
 
How Governor Portola Came to Los Angeles. 47 
 
 at Monterey, and they proposed to obey orders. 
 At length they abandoned the search, and re- 
 turned to San Diego, passing for a second time 
 through the Los Angeles region, this time by 
 way of Pasadena and over the San Gabriel 
 river. The party were footsore and almost 
 without supplies, and Father Crespi records 
 with gratitude the hospitable treatment ac- 
 corded them by the Indians of the Hahamog-na 
 tribe in that vicinity. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE) BANNER OF THE VIRGIN. 
 
 HE Mission of San Diego was formally 
 dedicated on the i6th of July, 1769, 
 by Jimipero Serra and his attendant 
 priests, just as Portola was leaving 
 for Monterey. It is, therefore, the 
 oldest of the establishments founded 
 by the Franciscans in California. The loca- 
 tion was in the vicinity of the camp, in what 
 is now called the Old Town. The beginning 
 was not auspicious. No Indians presented 
 themselves to be converted ; on the contrary, 
 they regarded the ceremonial with suspicion 
 and disdain. The discharge of musketry, 
 which had frightened the savages in the begin- 
 ning, was treated with indifference when they 
 found that it brought them no harm ; and they 
 hung about the camp, incessantly begging for 
 cloth, and stealing any article that was not 
 carefully guarded. At last matters came to a 
 crisis. Several of the Indians entered the camp 
 where the sick lay, and undertook to tear the 
 clothing from the beds. They were driven 
 out by force, whereupon the}^ returned in con- 
 siderable numbers with bows and arrows and 
 began open warfare. Obedient to the warn- 
 ings of Galvez, the soldiers refrained from fir- 
 ing directly at the Indians, until a volley of 
 
The Banner of the Virgin. 49 
 
 arrows killed one European and wounded sev- 
 eral others. Then they shot into the crowd, 
 with a slaughter that terrified the savages into 
 immediate submission. 
 
 From their account of the case, the Span- 
 iards do not appear to have been at all to 
 blame, but the result of the bloodshed was 
 disastrous to the kindly intentions of the 
 padres. It gave the soldiers an excuse to 
 adopt harsh and often outrageous measures 
 toward the Indians, and it put off, for an in- 
 definite period, all possibility of winning them 
 over to the standard of the church. A whole 
 year passed before a single conversion was ac- 
 complished. 
 
 Early in 1770 Governor Portola returned 
 to San Diego, with the disappointing informa- 
 tion that he had been unable to find the bay 
 of Monterey, and had effected no settlement in 
 the north. We may suppose that Serra was 
 grieved and annoyed, particularly when Por- 
 tola came to describe the place that he admit- 
 ted bore some resemblance to Monterey, and 
 which the mariners who had remained at San 
 Diego declared must be the spot that was 
 sought. The distress of the ardent founder of 
 missions became still more acute, when Por- 
 tola presently announced that unless relief 
 came from the peninsula by the middle of 
 March, he proposed to take the entire coni- 
 pany back to Loreto and abandon the expedi- 
 tion. 
 
 What happened then reads like a leaf from 
 
so History of Los Angeles. 
 
 the early days of the Christian era — the days 
 of saints and of frequent minor miracles. Tha 
 exact time for departure was set, and Father 
 Serra and his fellow priests prayed without 
 ceasing that something might happen to pre- 
 vent the governor from carrying out his threat. 
 Argument, entreaty, and even tears had proved 
 unavailing to shake his purpose. Finally, 
 when the last hours of respite were passing, 
 a sail was seen far out at sea, going 
 north. Four days later the San An- 
 tonio came into the bay of San Diego. It 
 had been laden with stores at Loreto by 
 Galvez, and dispatched with orders to go north 
 to Monterey, where the visitador general sup- 
 posed a settlement had been located. Landing 
 at the Channel islands for water, they learned 
 from the Indians that Portola and his party 
 had returned to the south. 
 
 Here was an interesting succession of 
 chances that might, by the turn of a day, have 
 completely changed the history of California. 
 Had the San Antonio passed San Diego in the 
 night, unseen, or had it delayed at Loreto a 
 day or two longer, San Diego would have been 
 abandoned, and Galvez perhaps have reported 
 to the king that the occupation of Upper Cali- 
 fornia was difficult and unprofitable. The 
 Russians were already working down from 
 Alaska, and a little later the English made fur 
 settlements around Vancouver. It is not im- 
 possible that, had the Spaniards retreated from 
 the country in 1770, some other nation would 
 
The Banner of the Virgin. 51 
 
 presently have taken possession, from whose 
 hold California could not have been so easily 
 wrested as it was from that of the Spaniards' 
 legatee — the Mexicans. 
 
 The return of the San Antonio with ample 
 provisions convinced Portola that Galvez was 
 thoroughly in earnest about the settlement at 
 Monterey. Two expeditions were immediately 
 planned ; one by sea, the San Antonio, with 
 Serra on board, and one on shore with Portola 
 in command, accompanied by Pages, the future 
 governor, and Father Crespi, the faithful keep- 
 er of the diary of travels. Again the natives 
 of Yang-na turned out to witness the passage 
 of white men through their domain — and a 
 very uneasy sort of a person they must have 
 considered Portola, to be eternally wandering 
 up and down the coast in this fashion. When 
 the San Antonio arrived at Monterey, the land 
 party had been on the ground two weeks, and 
 a permanent camp was established on the 
 shore. Here, on the 3rd of June, 1770, the 
 second California mission was founded in the 
 name of San Carlos Borromeo, although it was 
 commonly spoken of as the Mission of Mon- 
 terey. 
 
 The account which is given us in detail of 
 the ceremonial is probably applicable, with a 
 few small changes, to all the mission foundings 
 of the period. A rude altar was constructed, 
 and several of the bells brought from Lower 
 California were hung in a framework of 
 branches erected near by. Then all the Euro- 
 
52 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 peans assembled, the Indians surveying the 
 performance a few hundred yards away. 
 Chimes were rung upon the bells, and the con- 
 gregation kneeled. Dressed in complete vest- 
 ments, Father Serra asked a blessing and con- 
 secrated the place, while the hymn "Veni 
 Creator Spiritus" was chanted. The cross was 
 elevated and adored, holy water was sprinkled 
 about, and mass was celebrated at an altar 
 above which hung a banner painted to repre- 
 sent the Virgin Mary. In the absence of in- 
 strumental music there were salvos of mus- 
 ketry. Junipero Serra then preached a ser- 
 mon, in which he exhorted those to whom the 
 care of the mission was about to be com- 
 mitted that they should labor faithfully for 
 the conversion of the heathen in their juris- 
 diction, and uphold the noble traditions of the 
 Franciscan order. Prayers were offered to the 
 Virgin and the ceremonial closed with the 
 chanting of the "Te Deum Laudamus." 
 
 Messengers were dispatched to report to 
 Galvez and also to the viceroy in Mexico the 
 success of the enterprise in the founding of the 
 two missions of Monterey and San Diego. The 
 San Antonio presently set sail for San Bias, 
 then the principal port on the west coast of 
 Mexico, carrying Governor Portola, who now 
 turned over to Pedro Pages the charge of af- 
 fairs in California, as its military governor. 
 This ends all connection of Portola with the 
 enterprise of colonizing Upper California. 
 
 When the San Antonio returned, it brought 
 
The Banner of the Virgin. tz 
 
 ten more priests from the college of San Fer- 
 nando in Mexico, and a load of fresh supplies. 
 Orders were sent to Serra to proceed with the 
 founding of more missions — or perhaps it 
 would be more correct to say that consent was 
 given to his wishes in that respect. The new- 
 comers rested for a time at Monterey with 
 Serra and Crespi, and were instructed in the 
 work they were to undertake. It was decided 
 to select a point midway between Monterey 
 and San Diego, and locate a mission there. 
 Again, between that point and San Diego, an- 
 other should be placed. To this latter. Padres 
 Somera and Cambon were assigned, and when 
 the San Antonio went south, it carried them 
 as far as San Diego. 
 
 The third mission to be founded was San 
 Antonio de Padua, which was situated about 
 sixty miles south of Monterey, and was another 
 link in the chain of stopping places on the land 
 route. The ceremony was performed by Serra 
 himself, on the 14th of July, 1771. 
 
 San Gabriel was the fourth mission to come 
 into existence. While Father Junipero was 
 busy founding San Antonio, and advising with 
 the new padres there, Somera and Cambon 
 set out from San Diego on the 6th of August, 
 1771, with a mule train of supplies, fourteen 
 soldiers, and four muleteers, or helpers. 
 
 It had been intended to locate the mission 
 on the river described in a previous chapter 
 as the "River of Jesus of the Earthquakes," 
 which we now know as the Santa Ana, but the 
 
54 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 fathers were not pleased with the site for some 
 reason, perhaps because they preferred higher 
 ground. They went on until they came to the 
 river that Portola had called the San Miguel, 
 but which we now call the San Gabriel. Here 
 they selected a site, about three miles south 
 of the present location, in the midst of a fertile, 
 well-wooded plain covered with shrubbery 
 and flowers. Among the latter, the padres 
 found what they called "wild Castilian roses." 
 
 The Indians appeared in great numbers 
 and with what the padres took to be hostile 
 demonstrations ; but when the banner of the 
 Virgin was raised before them, according to 
 the account given by the priests, it received 
 immediate homage from the savages, who 
 knelt and offered their necklaces to the beauti- 
 ful painted image. The apparent submission, 
 however, was probably a mixture of astonish- 
 ment — for they had never beheld a picture be- 
 fore — with a fear of witchcraft. 
 
 The acting governor, Pedro Pages, did not 
 accompany the expedition, owing to the fact 
 that a number of desertions had taken place 
 among the soldiers at San Diego, and general 
 demoralization and disorder prevailed. He 
 was engaged in a struggle to re-establish dis- 
 cipline. The soldiers that acted as a guard to 
 the San Gabriel party were commanded by 
 some petty officer, who seems to have exer^ 
 cised very little control over them. The formal 
 founding of the mission occurred September 
 8, 1 77 1, and just a month later a serious con- 
 
The Banner of the Virgin. 55 
 
 flict took place between the Indians and the 
 soldiers, owing to the latter's gross maltreat- 
 ment of the native women. According to the 
 statements afterwards made by the padres, it 
 was the custom of the soldiers to ride into the 
 neighboring Indian villages, lasso the females 
 and drag them to the camp. The Indians finally 
 attacked the mission, but their chief being 
 slain in the fight, they begged for peace. Then 
 the same condition ensued that existed at San 
 Diego; the padres were unable to induce the 
 Indians to come to the church, or to present 
 themselves for baptism. As the only samples 
 of the finished product of Christian civilization 
 shown them were the cruel and licentious sol- 
 diers, it is not surprising that they hesitated to 
 accept the doctrine. 
 
 Shortly after the breaking out of hostilities, 
 Pages came up from San Diego with a body of 
 soldiers and a pack train, on his way north 
 to assist in the founding of some more mis- 
 sions. He remained at San Gabriel several 
 months, during which time things were some- 
 what reduced to order. 
 
 The first building constructed was of wood, 
 plastered with adobe and roofed with tules. It 
 measured forty-five feet long by eighteen wide, 
 and was surrounded by a palisade, the latter 
 of such weak construction as to be practically 
 worthless. This building came to be called 
 the "Mision Vieja," or old mission, when the 
 modern site was selected a few years later. 
 The exact spot on which the first buildings 
 
56 History of Los Angeles, 
 
 were located is not known with certainty. 
 There were some adobe ruins on the Garvey 
 ranch which were for a long time pointed out 
 as remnants of the first building, but as it was 
 built of wood, and as Chapman, who came to 
 San Gabriel in 1818, has declared these ruins 
 to be from an old ranch house that he remem- 
 bers there, it may as well be admitted that nq 
 vestige now remains of the ''Mision Vieja," 
 and its exact location will probably never be 
 known. The record gives us no reason for the 
 change of site, but it is probable that the 
 padres, who had set up their establishment on 
 the bank of the San Gabriel in the summer 
 time when the water was low, were frightened 
 at the sudden rise during the winter rains, and 
 thought best to move back a few miles to con- 
 struct the permanent buildings. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THK PUE:bI,0 plan. 
 
 T THE very time that Great Britain 
 was learning through her experience 
 with thirteen rebellious provinces 
 how colonists must be treated to be 
 held in allegiance, Spain was ma- 
 turing her plans for the settlement of the pres- 
 ent state of California, and was falling into 
 the same set of errors that Great Britain had 
 made; the only point of contrast being that 
 "His Most Catholic Majesty" went several de- 
 grees further to the wrong than did the En- 
 glish monarch. The saving grace of the Span- 
 ish system of colonization was that it was 
 largely a matter of theory. It was never car- 
 ried out as planned, else it could not have 
 lasted even as long as it did. 
 
 The one purpose that, actuated Spain in the 
 establishing of colonies was to secure some di- 
 rect and immediate advantage to herself. The 
 welfare of the colonist was considered, to be 
 sure, and considered with great care and par- 
 ticularity, but it was merely with reference to 
 his producing value for the crown. The new 
 territory was supposed to belong to the king, 
 and to be subject to his direct control without 
 interference from the cortes — the Spanish rep- 
 resentative body. So far was this theory car- 
 
58 Histo7y oj Los Angeles. 
 
 ried in the case of the early CaHfornia colonists 
 that they were given no title to the lands they 
 obtained, but were treated as mere sojourners 
 thereon, at the king's pleasure, having no right 
 to give a mortgage or to transfer the occupancy 
 without his consent. Right to live in the col- 
 onies was restricted to the aborigines and to 
 Spanish subjects, the privilege of the former 
 being of a doubtful and precarious nature. 
 With reference to California, it was especially 
 decreed that any foreigner who entered the ter- 
 ritory did so at the forfeit of his life. The in- 
 stitutions of the original owners of land in the 
 Spanish colonies — whether Indians, Aztecs or 
 Incas — were treated as though they did not ex- 
 ist. They were absolutely ignored. In this, 
 Spain differed radically from Rome, whose ex- 
 ample in most other respects she followed — 
 for the Romans based their colonial strength 
 on an adroit mingling of their own laws and 
 customs with those of the conquered nations. 
 Although the church was allowed to lead 
 the Avay into the wilderness, and bring the sav- 
 ages to Christian civilization, it was never in- 
 tended that any temporal advantage should 
 accrue to that institution in return for its work. 
 Fundamentally the policy was imperial, not 
 ecclesiastical. The mission system, as it pres- 
 ently shaped itself — a scheme of paternal gov- 
 ernment among the Indians, with all the fruits 
 of their industrial effort passing into the hands 
 of the church — was something that the Span- 
 ish king never contemplated when he sent the 
 
The Pueblo Plan. 59 
 
 Franciscans into California, and something 
 that his successors were taking active steps to 
 bring to an end at the time when the territory 
 slipped out of their control. Although he was 
 as faithful a Catholic as any of his subjects, 
 Carlos III kept a watchful eye on the priest- 
 hood. He was ready to concede the highest 
 spiritual authority to the church, but in tem- 
 poral matters he would brook no infringement 
 of his imperial power and dignity. The theory 
 on which the California missions rested was 
 that they were mere temporary religious out- 
 posts, whose function it was to bring the sav- 
 ages to the Christian faith. No definite time 
 limit was set upon them, but it was generally 
 assumed that ten years would be sufficient to 
 carry out the contemplated work, and that 
 then, the Indians all being baptized as good 
 Christians, the missions would become paro- 
 chial institutions, of the same rank and char- 
 acter as the churches in other portions of the 
 realm. 
 
 The scheme failed to come out in this 
 shape, because the Franciscans found it neces- 
 sary in the practical work of Christianizing the 
 natives to take on some elements of temporal 
 authority, and having once assumed this, they 
 never found the exact moment when it seemed 
 to be possible — or at least desirable — to lay it 
 down. 
 
 Now if the mission was to be a mere acces- 
 sory of the government, it was evident that 
 there must be some form of colonial develop- 
 
60 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 ment distinct from that ; and this came in two 
 forms, the pueblo and the presidio. The first 
 of these was, in theory, purely civil — the town 
 — and the other purely military — the fort. As 
 the plan worked out, however, each partook in 
 some measure of the properties of the other. 
 The pueblo was under a semi-military rule, for 
 the reason that one of the purposes of its ex- 
 istence was to supply provisions for the army ; 
 the presidio, on the other hand, was finally 
 surrounded by a town made up of retired sol- 
 diers and their families, and of people who 
 sought the safety and the trade that came 
 through the presence of the military. Monte- 
 rey, San Francisco, Santa Barbara and San 
 Diego were the presidial towns ; and the three 
 regularly established pueblos were San Jose, 
 Los Angeles and Branciforte, or, as it came to 
 be called later, Santa Cruz. Towns also natu- 
 rally came into existence in the vicinity of the 
 missions, but these were regarded as accidents, 
 not as part of the general plan. 
 
 The year after the establishment of the mis- 
 sion of San Gabriel, 1772, Father Junipero Ser- 
 ra founded San Luis Obispo, the fifth of the 
 series, and the work having now advanced to a 
 point where he felt it could be left alone for a 
 time, the conquerer of the wilderness journeyed 
 to the City of Mexico, to confer with the new 
 viceroy, Bucareli. A conflict had already be- 
 gun between the military authority, represent- 
 ed by Fages, and the Franciscans ; and Serra 
 wished to have the lines drawn more closely as 
 
The Pueblo Plan. 61 
 
 to their respective powers. Bucareli seems to 
 have arrived at the conclusion that the difficul- 
 ty was due in some measure to the bad judg- 
 ment of his military representative, for he 
 straightway removed Fages and put in his 
 place Rivera — the same officer that had taken 
 charge of the commissary in the first expedi- 
 tions. A suggestion of Serra's that a new land 
 route to California be opened by way of So- 
 nora and the Colorado river was adopted, and 
 an experienced Mexican officer named Anza 
 was sent through that way. A mission post 
 was presently established on the Colorado river 
 which a few years later met with a tragical fate. 
 In 1774 Serra returned to California with in- 
 creased authority and renewed hope and en- 
 thusiasm, and set about preparing for the 
 establishment of more missions. He found that 
 the Franciscans in Lower California were in- 
 volved in a quarrel with the governor of that 
 province, De Barri, who possessed a nominal 
 jurisdiction over Alta California, and it is very 
 probable that he asked Bucareli to make a 
 change there as he had in the upper territory. 
 At all events Bucareli removed De Barri, as he 
 had Fages, and to him there succeeded one of 
 the most remarkable and interesting characters 
 of this whole period, a man second only to 
 Serra himself in force, energy and foresight, 
 Felipe de Neve, the founder of Los Angeles. 
 
 ^ In 1775 the Indians of the San Diego dis- 
 trict attacked the mission, and set it on fire. 
 Father Jaume and two artisans were killed, and 
 
62 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 all the buildings were destroyed. There is no 
 evidence that the Indians had been ill-treated 
 by the soldiers, nor did the investigation, which 
 was presently carried on by Rivera, reveal any 
 special cause for complaint on their part, other 
 than that the padres were baptizing their breth- 
 ren. The outbreak seems to have sprung from 
 the erratic impulse of a crowd. It struck terror 
 into the hearts of the missionaries all over the 
 state, and tightened the lines of discipline in 
 the camps and around the Indian villages. 
 
 This affair led to a falling out between Ri- 
 vera and the Franciscans, in consequence of 
 which the former was removed from his posi- 
 tion. He insisted upon entering the church 
 edifice at San Diego and dragging thence an 
 Indian who, he asserted, had participated in 
 the rebellion, but whom the fathers regarded 
 only as a fugitive seeking the sacred privilege 
 of sanctuary. For this violation of the laws of 
 the church Rivera was excommunicated. He 
 chose to make light of this for a time, but at 
 last it began to prey upon his mind, until there 
 was a rumor among his soldiers that he was 
 going mad. In 1776 the new governor, Felipe 
 de Neve, was ordered to make his headquarters 
 at Monterey, and to send Rivera south to Lor- 
 eto. The next year the change was effected,] 
 with Monterey as the capital of the two Cali- 
 fornias. It was now only eight years since the] 
 founding of the upper territory, but GalvezJ 
 v.ho was a member of the king's colonial coun- 
 cil, had come to believe that its development] 
 
The Pueblo Plan. 63 
 
 would soon surpass that of Lower California, 
 and for that reason it was given the prefer- 
 ence. 
 
 De Neve came up by land, inspecting the 
 missions as he passed along, and studying the 
 needs of the country. He arrived at Monterey 
 in February of 1777, and the first boat that 
 went south carried a report to his superior of 
 what he had seen and what he desired to rec- 
 ommend. The missions of San Francisco and 
 San Juan Capistrano had been established in 
 1776, and that of Santa Clar^ in 1777 just be- 
 fore the governor's arrival. This made eight 
 in all. The governor advised that three more 
 missions be located on the Santa Barbara chan- 
 nel at the center of the chain, and that one of 
 these be made also a presidio. The sites se- 
 lected were those subsequently occupied bv 
 the missions of Purisima (near Point Concep- 
 cion), San Buena Ventura and Santa Barbara. 
 The latter place was, in accordance with the 
 advice of De Neve, made the militarv head- 
 quarters for all the central portion of the state. 
 
 The new governor was a thoroughly busi- 
 ness-like individual, and the practice which 
 prevailed — even after eight years of occupancy 
 — of bringing all the supplies for the presidios 
 by vessel from San Bias struck him as absurd, 
 especially in view of the reported fertility of 
 the California land. Before leaving Lower 
 California, he had explained to the viceroy that 
 the only way to remedy this state of affairs 
 was to import settlers to till the fields, gather- 
 
64 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 ing them into cities for the sake of safety and 
 to make Hfe in the wild country more endur- 
 able. The process of settlement recommended 
 by De Neve, and subsequently employed, was 
 entirely different from that followed on the 
 eastern coast, and throughout the middle 
 west of America. In California the town or 
 pueblo was made the unit of settlement ; else- 
 where in the union, the country received the 
 pioneers, and the cities did not come into ex- 
 istence until the farming land was largely tak- 
 en up. The California system showed the in- 
 fluence of Rome, coming down through the 
 ancient province of Spain. The Roman empire 
 was a city governing the territory that sur- 
 rounded it, and throughout its provinces a sim- 
 ilar system was employed ; the city governed 
 the country. Therefore it did not occur to De 
 Neve to import settlers to go on farms. He 
 must bring in people to found cities. 
 
 In his tour of the state, he noted two sites 
 of striking beauty and fertility, each supplied 
 with plenty of water and surrounded by open, 
 level country. These were the site called 
 Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles, on the Rio 
 Porciuncula, and a location near the mission of 
 Santa Clara, on the river Guadalupe, which has 
 since become one of the most famous fruit dis- 
 tricts of the world. At the latter site he found- 
 ed the city of San Jose, named for Jose de Gal- 
 vez, the original patron of California, as well 
 as for the saint of that name. The settlers 
 numbered sixty-six persons in all — fourteen 
 
The Pueblo Plan. 65 
 
 families, the heads of which were, for the most 
 part, retired soldiers from Monterey and San 
 Francisco, special care being exercised to se- 
 lect those that knew something about agri- 
 culture. The date of the establishment of this 
 first California pueblo is November, 1777, and 
 it thus precedes by four years the pueblo of 
 the south, Los Angeles. The plan pursued in 
 the allotment of lands, and the treatment of 
 settlers was very nearly identical with that em- 
 ployed later at Los Angeles, and the descrip- 
 tion given in the next chapter will do for both 
 cities. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 GOVKRNOR DK NE^VK COMKS 
 TO LOS ANGKLKS. 
 
 ERETOFORE the governor of Califor- 
 nia had reported to the viceroy direct, 
 but about the time that De Neve was 
 sent to the capital at Monterey a new 
 arrangement went into effect, where- 
 by the northwestern provinces of Mexico, in- 
 cluding the two Californias, were joined in one 
 district under a commandant general. The 
 first to occupy this position was Teodoro de 
 Croix, nephew of the De Croix who had been 
 viceroy when Galvez was sending the expedi- 
 tions into California. He was a man of energy 
 and progressive ideas, and he seems to have 
 reposed a large amount of confidence in Colonel 
 Felipe de Neve — and wisely. The latter was 
 fitted by natural inclination to be a jurist and a 
 lawgiver. His state papers are, for the time 
 and circumstances of their production, models 
 of fairness, prudence and foresight. He found 
 the governmental system of California in con- 
 fusion, with the representatives of the church, 
 the army and the civil authority continuously 
 working at cross purposes. During the seven 
 years of his administration — five of which 
 were spent in Alta California — he codified the 
 existing laws and rulings with regard to these 
 
Governor De Neve Comes to Los Angeles. 67 
 
 provinces, and drew up a detailed plan for their 
 military and civil government, touching in 
 some degree, moreover, on the relation of the 
 church to other elements of authority. 
 
 As was stated in the preceding chapter, the 
 project for the founding of civil settlements 
 was an important feature of De Neve's plan. 
 The reason which he set forth in his first com- 
 munication to De Croix on this subject, viz., 
 that of producing supplies for the consumption 
 of the army, was doubtless not the only ele- 
 ment in his calculations. While preserving al- 
 ways a friendly and courteous attitude toward 
 the Franciscans, he saw far enough along the 
 line of policy they were pursuing to compre- 
 hend that it would never produce a legitimate 
 industrial community, such as the colony need- 
 ed for permanei)t prosperity. Being a man 
 with some education, as well as a high degree 
 of intelligence, he was probably not unfamiliar 
 with the development that was taking place on 
 the Atlantic coast, where the settlements 
 founded by the English had increased in wealth 
 and population to such a degree that they 
 were now demanding for themselves the right 
 of self-government; and he felt that if Spain 
 ^>^;Was to hold its own in the final struggle for ter- 
 " *^%k ritory it must people the country with some- 
 
 ll-thin^ better than a horde of timid and childish 
 
 % savages. 
 
 1^ Immediately after the founding of San Jose, 
 
 g the governor set about preparing for the city 
 ,^^1. in the south. He readily obtained the enthus- 
 
68 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 iastic co-operation of De Croix, who transmit- 
 ted to Galvez the recommendation of De Neve, 
 and by Galvez they were transmitted to Carlos 
 III. When they came back from Spain they 
 were in the form of a royal regulation, or or- 
 der, and the new ruler of California was com- 
 mended for his energy and good judgment. 
 All this consumed time, and it was not until 
 1781 that the actual founding of Los Angeles 
 took place. It was, therefore, the first legally 
 ordained city of California, San Jose being 
 rather in the nature of an informal, preliminary 
 experiment. 
 
 The greatest difficulty with which De Neve 
 had to contend — an almost insuperable one, as 
 the subsequent history of the colony showed — 
 lay in securing the right kind of material for 
 citizenship. The whole policy of Spain for 
 three hundred years had tended to drive out or 
 destroy the progressive artisan class — the 
 sturdy, independent yeomanry that had made 
 England great on land and sea. There is rea- 
 son to believe that De Neve was not pleased 
 with the conduct of the ex-soldiers at San Jose ; 
 at all events when he came to establish Los 
 Angeles he preferred to experiment in a new 
 field, and he asked De Croix to send him some 
 agricultural people from Mexico. Orders were 
 dispatched to Captain Rivera at Loreto to come 
 over to the mainland and secure twenty-four 
 settlers with their families to form the new 
 city in California. The requirements were that 
 they should be healthy and strong, and men of 
 
Governor De Neve Comes to Los Angeles. 69 
 
 good character and regular lives, that they 
 might set a good example to the natives. There 
 must be among the number a mason, a black- 
 smith and a carpenter. Female relatives 
 should be encouraged to accompany them, with 
 a view to marriage with the bachelor soldiers 
 already in California. The term for which all 
 were obligated was ten years. 
 
 The proposition that Rivera was empow- 
 ered to make to the possible settlers, in accord- 
 ance with the plan laid down in the regulations, 
 was a fairly liberal one — vastly more liberal, in 
 fact, than any that was ever offered to colon- 
 ists on the Atlantic coast. Each settler was to 
 be given enough land to engage his personal 
 labor, though no extensive land grants were at 
 this time contemplated. It was not his to mort- 
 gage or sell, but he owned it through life, and 
 at death it descended to his children on the 
 same terms. But this was not all. In addition 
 to the land, each settler was to receive an al- 
 lowance of $116.50 per annum, for the first two 
 years, and $60.00 for each of the next three 
 years, these sums to be paid in clothing and 
 other necessary articles at cost prices. Each 
 one was to receive, moreover, two horses, two 
 mares, two cows and a calf, two sheep, two 
 goats, a mule, a yoke of oxen, a plow point, a 
 spade, a hoe, an axe, a sickle, a musket and a 
 leathern shield. Breeding animals were to be 
 provided for the community, and also a forge, 
 an anvil, crowbars, spades, carpenters' tools, 
 
70 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 etc. The cost of all these articles was to be 
 charged against the recipients, to be paid for at 
 the end of five years in stock and supplies taken 
 at the market price for the consumption of the 
 army. 
 
 The regulations drawn up by De Neve pro- 
 vided that the pueblo which these settlers were 
 to occupy should contain four square leagues, 
 or thirty-six square miles ; and the original 
 boundaries of Los Angeles measured six miles 
 each way. Near the center of this area there 
 was to be a plaza, measuring 275 by 180 feet, 
 around which building lots should be assigned 
 the settlers, 11 1 by 55 feet in size. About half 
 a mile from this plaza a series of fields were to 
 be laid out, each containing about seven acres, 
 and the settler was entitled to two of these for 
 cultivation. He had, besides, a community 
 right in the general area, both within and with- 
 out the city, for pasturage. 
 
 Such were the privileges and the opportun- 
 ities that Rivera was authorized to present to 
 the people of Sonora and Sinaloa, along the 
 west coast of Mexico, to induce them to come 
 to California. The reputation of the Spanish 
 government as paymaster not being first-class, 
 he was advised by De Croix to explain specific- 
 ally that funds had been set aside out of the 
 royal treasury to meet these obligations ; and 
 as an earnest of good faith the first payment 
 was made in advance. By this means, he was 
 enabled to enter into a final contract with those 
 who would agree to come, and to punish as de- 
 
Governor De Neve Comes to Los Angeles. 71 
 
 serters any that took the king's money and then 
 failed to respond to the call. 
 
 Rivera was, without doubt, an excellent 
 man for an undertaking of this kind. Having 
 been in charge of the commissary for several 
 expeditions, he knew the country and under- 
 stood its people, and having served eight years 
 in Upper California, he was probably well 
 equipped with the usual stock of adjectives 
 to describe its beauties and the excellence of 
 its climate. There is, we believe, no case on 
 record of any one living in California eight 
 years without becoming enamored of its cli- 
 mate. Then there was a particular reason 
 why Rivera should do his best to please De 
 Croix at this piece of work. De Neve had ac- 
 cepted the governorship of California rather 
 under protest, and his resignat'on was now on 
 file with the commandant general. He had 
 cause to hope that his influence at the Span- 
 ish court would procure him a more exalted 
 position — a hope that was presently realized. 
 Rivera was next in rank, and the position was 
 now, under the new arrangement of provinces, 
 of much greater importance than when for- 
 merly held by him. 
 
 We may therefore assume that the cap- 
 tain exerted himself to the utmost to secure 
 the required number of settlers, and to make 
 the best possible selection of material. He 
 consumed nearly a year in the work. Never- 
 theless, the net result of his labors was not the 
 twenty-four families demanded, but twelve, 
 
72 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 and of these there was one that probably never 
 came to Los Angeles at all. While the writer 
 naturally hesitates to say anything that can 
 be construed as a reflection upon the "first 
 families of Los Angeles," historical verity re- 
 quires the fact to be set down that Rivera, at 
 the end of his search, seems to have taken 
 what he could get, rather than to have selected 
 what he desired. A list of these people will 
 be given presently, together with some partic- 
 ulars about them, and the reader may judge 
 for himself. 
 
 It was in the beginning of the year 1780 
 that Rivera crossed over from Loreto to Sina- 
 loa, and it was not until a year and t vo months 
 later, March, 1781, that his settlers arrived at 
 Loreto to undertake the trip to the new coun- 
 try. They were in charge of Lieutenant Jose 
 Zuniga; for Rivera was to go north with the 
 live stock and supplies, accompanied by some 
 soldiers that he had enlisted, by the new route 
 across the Colorado river. Zuniga and his 
 party arrived at San Gabriel on the 18th of 
 August, and they were quartered some dis- 
 tance from the mission — probably at the old 
 buildings — for the reason that one of the col- 
 onists was just recovering from the smallpox, 
 and a temporary quarantine seemed advisable. 
 
 Now comes the end of poor Rivera. Two 
 years before this time, a small settlement had 
 been established by the Spaniards on the Col- 
 orado river, and two churches were founded 
 there, under the special patronage of the com- 
 
Governor De Neve Coiues to Los Angeles. 73 
 
 mandant general, De Croix. These latter were 
 in the nature of an experiment, for they dif- 
 fered radically from the missions of the Cali- 
 fornias, in the respect that padres were forbid- 
 den to direct the industrial efforts of the In- 
 dians, or to exercise any form of temporal au- 
 thority over them. De Croix, like many other 
 civil and military officers of the provinces, 
 viewed with mistrust the increasing power of 
 the priestly orders, and he proposed to try here 
 a system that was more in accord with what 
 he considered the legitimate function of the 
 church. He was most unfortunate, however, 
 in the locality that he selected for his experi- 
 ment, the Colorado, or Yuma, Indians being 
 fiercer and more treacherous than those nearer 
 the coast. 
 
 Letters written to De Croix by the priests 
 stationed in this district were full of forebod- 
 ings of disaster, but the commandant trans- 
 lated these to mean that the restrictions on 
 the temporal powers of the padres had ruffled 
 their pride. When Rivera arrived at the set- 
 tlement with his train of cattle, he laughed at 
 the fears of the fathers. He judged these In- 
 dians by those he had known along the coast, 
 and, as if to show his contempt for the warn- 
 ings, he sent all his soldiers on ahead, except 
 a small bodyguard, and even turned back the 
 detachment that the governor had sent down 
 from San Gabriel to meet him. 
 
 On the 17th of July the Indians attacked 
 the settlement and the churches, slew all the 
 
74 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 men except five, and captured the women and 
 children, whom they held for ransom. The 
 number killed is estimated at forty-six, among 
 whom was Rivera, who died fighting bravely. 
 Three months later De Neve sent an expedi- 
 tion into the district headed by Pedro Pages, 
 now returned to California as a lieutenant- 
 colonel. The captives were ransomed, as it 
 was found impracticable to attack the Indians. 
 The attempt to colonize the Colorado river 
 district was, however, abandoned. 
 
 Much as he regretted the disaster, De 
 Neve saw in it no reason for postponing the 
 foundation of the pueblo of Los Angeles. On 
 the 4th day of September, 1781, therefore, the 
 expedition set out from San Gabriel, the gov- 
 ernor leading the way in person, followed by 
 a detachment of soldiers bearing aloft the 
 banner of Spain. Then came the settlers, 
 forty-four persons in all, eleven being men, 
 eleven women, and twenty-two children of all 
 ages. The plaza had already been laid out, 
 and the boundaries fixed for the building lots 
 that faced it. As they neared the selected spot 
 a procession was formed, made up of the sol- 
 diers, with the governor at their head, the 
 priests from San Gabriel, accompanied by their 
 Indian acolytes, then the male settlers, and, 
 lastly, the women and the children, the former 
 bearing a large banner with the Virgin Mary 
 painted upon it. We may suppose this banner 
 to have been loaned by the mission authori- 
 ties, and it may have been the same one that 
 
Governor De Neve Coynes to Los Angeles. 75 
 
 had so miraculously brought the natives to 
 submission when Padres Somera and Cambon 
 first met them on the banks of the San Gabriel, 
 ten years before. 
 
 The procession marched slowly and im- 
 pressively around the plaza, followed, no 
 doubt, by the wondering gaze of the Indians 
 from Yang-na, who had assembled for the 
 event. When the circuit was completed the 
 priests asked a blessing on the new city 
 that was about to come into existence. 
 Then Governor Felipe de Neve delivered 
 a formal speech to the settlers, of which 
 no report has come down to us, but which we 
 may safely assume was full of excellent advice 
 to the citizens, and of glowing prophecy for 
 the pueblo's future. Prayers and a benediction 
 from the padres concluded the ceremony, 
 which was probably the most extensive and 
 the most impressive that was ever held over 
 the founding of an American city. The com- 
 parison is easily made, for the reason that 
 probably not more than a half a dozen Amer- 
 ican cities ever enjoyed the distinction of be- 
 ing really founded. The great majority of 
 them merely happened. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THB ROSTKR OF 1781. 
 
 HE demands of tradition and of imperial 
 dignity having been satisfied by this 
 ceremonial, the practical work of city 
 building was begun. The plaza, 
 which had been laid out by De Neve's 
 orders a few days before, was an oblong space, 
 with its corners turned toward the four car- 
 dinal points of the compass, the longer sides 
 running northwest and southeast. The reason 
 alleged for this apparent violation of the natu- 
 ral laws of direction was that by this arrange- 
 ment the winds would not sweep directly 
 through the streets. This would involve a 
 stupid assumption on the part of the governor 
 or of some one else in authority, that the winds 
 were accustomed carefully to consult the com- 
 pass before they started out to blow. The 
 present writer does not believe this to have 
 been the real reason for the plan ; and he may 
 perhaps be pardoned a slight digression on this 
 point, as it raises an important issue of archi- 
 tecture and health. 
 
 The streets of the original Los Angeles 
 ran northeast and southwest, and southeast 
 and northwest. The modern city has shifted 
 from this a few degrees, but it is still consid- 
 erably out of plumb. The city of Santa Bar- 
 

 L 
 
 
 
 
 
 F 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 
 K 
 
 
 
 
 
 M 
 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 H 
 
 
 
 
 \ 
 
 D 
 
 
 
 
 \ 
 
 E 
 
 
 
 
 Original Plan of the Pueblo From Bancroft 
 
 P— Plaza. A B C— Public Building-s. 
 
 The lots around the Plaza are the homes of the first set- 
 tlers. The lots between the river and the ditch are the culti- 
 vated lands of the settlers. 
 
The Roster of 1781. 77 
 
 bara is exactly "on the bias," and others of the 
 older cities of Spanish America were laid out 
 on this same plan, although some sections of 
 them, built in later years, have grown entirely 
 away from it. People from the eastern states 
 are accustomed to speak of this arrangement 
 as "peculiar" and "awkward," and they point 
 with- pride to their own cities, which are as 
 severely accurate and regular as a demonstra- 
 tion in Euclid. It is true that ninety-nine out 
 of every hundred cities in the eastern states 
 have their streets running to the cardmal 
 points, the exceptions being those places — like 
 Boston — that were never actually laid out, but 
 that "just grew." To defend and to praise this 
 plan, however, shows the easy triumph of con- 
 ventionality over logic and good sense. The 
 most charming guest that the householder can 
 ever hope to bring into his home is the sun- 
 shine, for it drives away disease, and instills 
 cheerfulness and good health. Now if the 
 streets are laid out exactly "on the bias," this 
 glorious visitor can find his way, in his daily 
 course, to every room in the house. If the 
 streets are drawn straight with the points of 
 the compass he is forever shut out from one- 
 fourth of the domicile. Especially is this true 
 in the great cities, where the buildings are 
 huddled together in indecent proximity. Had 
 the city of Chicago, for example, been orig- 
 inally planned to lie as Santa Barbara does, 
 who can say how many thousand lives might 
 have been saved from the baleful ruin of diph- 
 
78 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 theria and pneumonia, and how much suffering 
 from rheumatism and neuralgia might have 
 been avoided? 
 
 It is not unreasonable to suppose that De 
 Neve, with his extraordinary grasp of detail 
 and his keen insight, comprehended this law 
 of health and sanitation, and planned the loca- 
 tion of Los Angeles in accordance therewith. 
 
 The original plaza must not be confounded 
 with the existing park called by that name, al- 
 though the latter grew, in a way, out of the 
 former. The two tracts would touch, if marked 
 out on the map, only at one corner, that is, at 
 the northwest corner of the present plaza. The 
 latter is an almost square piece of land, lying 
 between Main and Los Angeles and Marches- 
 sault and Plaza streets. The ancient plaza be- 
 gan at the southeast corner of Marchessault 
 and Upper Main (or San Fernando, as it has 
 lately been named), near the Church of Our 
 Lady of the Angels ; its boundary continued 
 along the east line of Upper Main almost to 
 Bellevue, thence across to the east line of New 
 High street, thence to the north line of Mar- 
 chessault, and thence back to the starting 
 point. 
 
 Most of that area, save what is used for 
 streets, is at the present time covered with 
 adobes, and it has been so covered as far as 
 the memory of man runs back. How did the 
 first plaza come to be thus occupied, and by 
 what peculiar chance have we this modern 
 plaza near to the other, and yet not of it? 
 
The Roster of 1781. 79 
 
 There is no definite record of how this oc- 
 curred, but it is not difficult to trace a prob- 
 able course of events leading up to such a re- 
 sult. When the building lots around the plaza 
 were assigned to the settlers, the land at the 
 southeastern end, which is the tract covered 
 by the modern park, was kept for public build- 
 ings and for a church. Land was so plentiful 
 at that time that few people took the trouble 
 to secure titles, and the boundaries esablished 
 by such deeds as were executed were often of 
 the vaguest character. The early adobe build- 
 ings were not very substantial, and when the 
 first residences of the settlers around the plaza 
 went to pieces the new structures were pushed 
 forward a little into the open space. We know 
 this was true, for complaint was made from 
 time to time that the plaza lines were becom- 
 ing obliterated, and that its land was being 
 seized by the adjoining owners. The warnings 
 issued by the ayuntamiento, o • city council, 
 were unheeded, and the gradual hitching for- 
 ward process went on, each one endeavoring 
 to outdo his neighbor, until none of the old 
 plaza was left to tell the tale. 
 
 There still remained, however, the space in 
 front of the southeastern side, which had been 
 used for the guard house, the granaries, and the 
 council room. While the house builders did 
 not hesitate to steal the park, they scarcely 
 ventured to push the city out of the land it 
 had in active use. Early in the century the 
 church was located about where it now is, and 
 
80 History of Los Angeles, 
 
 we may suppose that the space directly in front 
 was kept open from a sense of decent religious 
 observance. At all events, when people began 
 to obtain titles from the ayuntamiento — a prac- 
 tice which did not begin until about 1830 — 
 that body was careful not to give away the 
 land to the southeast of the square, and out of 
 that has grown the little plaza park of today. 
 
 There were eleven families to be provided 
 with building lots about the original plaza, and 
 at the rate of four locations to the side, three 
 sides were occupied, leaving the fourth for pub- 
 lic use, as we have said. We are not told of the 
 exact process by which these sites were as- 
 signed, but as the fields for cultivation were 
 drawn for by lot, it is reasonable to suppose 
 that the same practice was employed in the 
 division of the building sites. This being 
 rather a delicate matter, it was probably at- 
 tended to before Governor De Neve left the 
 pueblo that day in September. 
 
 A map has come down to us showing the 
 exact location of most of the settlers. Three 
 are left in doubt, because they had moved out, 
 by request, before the map was made. 
 
 Beginning at the western corner (New High 
 and Marchessault), and making a circuit of 
 three sides of the ancient plaza, let us see how 
 the homes of the first families were located, and 
 what sort of people they were that occupied 
 them. 
 
 First, at the corner fronting New High 
 street came the home of Pablo Rodriguez, an 
 
The Roster of 1781. 81 
 
 Indian, twenty-five years of age. His family 
 consisted of an Indian wife and one child. 
 Next adjoining was the home of Jose Vanegas, 
 an Indian, twenty-eight years old, with an 
 Indian wife and one child. He was the first to 
 hold the office of alcalde, or mayor, in the 
 pueblo, being elected to that honor in 1788, 
 and re-elected in 1796. 
 
 Next to the house of Vanegas a narrow 
 street cut across at right angles to the plaza 
 front, and then came Jose Moreno, a mulatto, 
 twenty-two years of age, his wife a mulattress. 
 This couple had no children. The fourth lo- 
 cation on that side was taken by Felix or An- 
 tonio Villavicencio, a Spaniard, aged thirty, 
 with an Indian wife and one child. Around 
 the north corner was an L-shaped lot, oc- 
 cupied originally by one of the expelled set- 
 tlers. Next came two lots across from and 
 facing the public side, which were taken by 
 the two other banished families. The exact 
 order of these three is not known, but they 
 are described as follows : Jose de Lara, a 
 Spaniard, fifty years of age, with an Indian 
 wife and three children ; Antonio Mesa, a 
 negro, thirty-eight years of age, with a mulat- 
 tress wife and five children. At the east cor- 
 ner was another L-shaped lot, taken by Basilio 
 Rosas, an Indian, sixty-eight years old, mar- 
 ried to a mulattress with six offspring. 
 
 Coming now to the front that corresponds 
 to Upper Main street, we have first Alejandro 
 Rosas, an Indian, nineteen years of age, whose 
 
82 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 wife is described as a ''Coyote Indian" — which 
 does not sound very promising — with no child- 
 ren. Next came a vacant lot, the^. a narrow 
 street, and then the home of Antonio Navarro, 
 a mestizo, i. e., Spanish-Indian halfbreed, 
 whose wife was a mulattress with three child- 
 ren. Lastly, coming back to the side of the 
 public land, we have the residence of Manuel 
 Camero, a mulatto, aged thirty years, with a 
 mulattress wife and no children. He was 
 elected regidor, or councilman, in 1789. 
 
 Cataloguing this extraordinary collection 
 of adults by nationality or color, we have : 
 two Spaniards, one mestizo, two negroes, eight 
 mulattoes and nine Indians. The children a^-e 
 even more mixed, as follows : Spanish-Indian, 
 four ; Spanish-negro, five ; negro-Indian, eight ; 
 Spanish-negro-Indian, three; Indian two. 
 Thus the only people of unmixed Caucassian 
 race in the whole company were two Spanish 
 men, on the purity of whose blood frequent 
 aspersions were cast ; and the only members 
 of the coming generation with regular an- 
 cestry were the two Indian children. 
 
 There was one more member of this inter- 
 esting party, a certain Antonio Miranda, who 
 fell out by the wayside, at Loreto, and who 
 probably never came to California. This is in 
 one way regrettable, for we may believe, from 
 the title bestowed upon him in the original 
 catalogue, that he out-freaked all the rest. He 
 is recorded in the list as a "Chino," which 
 does not signify that he was a Chinaman, as 
 
The Roster of 1781. 83 
 
 many writers have erroneously stated, but 
 that he was a mysterious tangle of all kinds 
 of available ancestry — "compounded of many 
 simples," as Jacques says of his melancholy — 
 and that his hair was curly. He had no wife 
 extant, so the data is not at hand on which to 
 form even a rough estimate as to what his one 
 child was like. However, it suffices for us to 
 note the facts that Miranda was no: a China- 
 man, and that he was not of the Los Angeles 
 party. A very fair ethnological composite was 
 achieved, without the assistance of a *'Chino." 
 No information has reached us concerning 
 the trades or lines of business of the various 
 settlers, save that Navarro was a tailor. If 
 Rivera obeyed orders in making his selection 
 there was a blacksmith in the colony, and also 
 a carpenter and a mason, but we do not know 
 which members of the party filled these roles, 
 nor, indeed, are we entirely sure they were 
 filled. Little else is known of these early set- 
 tlers beyond the few facts set down above. 
 If there are any descendants of them now 
 living in California, they are not known as 
 such. The Los Angeles directory of 1901 fails 
 to show anybody by the name of Vanegas, or 
 Villavicencio, or Rosas, or Navarro, or Ca- 
 mero, and only one Mesa. The names Rod- 
 riguez and Moreno, which are common every- 
 where in Spanish America, occur respectively 
 five and twenty-six times in the directory. 
 
 In the letters of the padres, these early set- 
 tlers are generally referred to in terms of pity 
 
84 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 and contempt. It was originally intended by 
 De Neve that they should enjoy a form of self- 
 government by choosing their own mayor and 
 councilmen (alcalde and regidores), but no 
 election was held during the first seven years, 
 the town being under the guidance of a petty 
 military official, who came afterwards to be 
 called a "comisionado." Evidently the 
 founder of Los Angeles and his successors in 
 the governorship felt that people of such a 
 sort could not be trusted to look after their 
 own affairs. 
 
 Work began with the building of houses 
 around the plaza. The regulations required 
 that within five years each settler must be pro- 
 vided with a substantial residence built of 
 adobe ; but the first houses were made of light 
 stakes driven into the ground, with poles 
 stretched across for the framework, the whole 
 thatched with tules and plastered with mud, 
 much after the fashion of the Indian "wicky- 
 ups." These were a sufficient protection 
 against the rains of the first season, and before 
 the wet months came again a number of adobe 
 dwellings had been finished. 
 
 The next undertaking was a communal one 
 — the construction of a ditch to supply the 
 pueblo with water for irrigation and for do- 
 mestic use. A small dam was run out into the 
 river at about the point where the Buena 
 Vista street bridge now stands, and the water 
 was carried over the line of the modern city 
 zanja — the ''zanja madre" — to the fields, which 
 
The Rodriguez Palms Photo by Maude 
 
The Roster of 1781. 85 
 
 lay along lower Alameda street, occupying 
 the ground where the lumber yards and China- 
 town now are. Here a planting was made of 
 wheat, maize and vegetables, and a palisade 
 was constructed to keep off the cattle and the 
 thieving Indians. This palisade was presently 
 replaced by an adobe wall, which enclosed 
 the houses and some of the fields. 
 
 During the first few years, those of the 
 colonists who desired to attend church on Sun- 
 day were compelled to travel all the way to 
 San Gabriel; but in 1784 a chapel was con- 
 structed near the corner of Buena Vista street 
 and Bellevue avenue. Other public structures 
 completed in the first years were -the town 
 house, the guard house, and the granary. 
 
 Before the city was six months old it was 
 discovered that Rivera had made a sad mistake 
 in some of the settlers he had selected; and 
 Jose de Lara, the Spaniard, and the two ne- 
 groes, Antonio Mesa and Luis Quintero, were 
 formally expelled on the ground that they 
 "were useless to the pueblo and to them- 
 selves." They went out, taking with them 
 their families, and the number was thus re- 
 duced by sixteen. Some years later Navarro, 
 the tailor, was expelled for the same reason. 
 He took up his abode in San Francisco, but a 
 descendant of his was living in Los Angeles 
 in 1840. 
 
 In 1785 Jose Francisco Sinova, who had 
 resided in California several years, applied for 
 admission to the pueblo, and was taken in on 
 
86 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 the same terms as the original settlers. By 
 this time two of the sons of Basilio Rosas had 
 grown up to citizenship, and Juan Jose Do- 
 minguez, a Spaniard, had joined the little col- 
 ony. The latter was given a special land 
 grant by Governor Fages, De Neve's succes- 
 sor, including what was afterwards known as 
 the San Pedro, or Dominguez rancho, which 
 has descended through his brother, Sergeant 
 Cristobal Dominguez, to the heirs of that fam- 
 ily at the present time. He is, therefore, the 
 first tangible link between the ancient city and 
 the modern. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THK MISSION SYSTKM. 
 
 T THE time of the founding of Los 
 Angeles, in the year 1781, there were 
 eight mission establishments in Cali- 
 fornia. Within the next four years 
 three more were added, making 
 eleven in all that came into existence under 
 the supervision of Father Junipero Serra. San 
 Buenaventura was founded in 1782. Santa 
 Barbara and Purisima (near Lompoc in Santa 
 Barbara county) were not founded until after 
 the death of Serra, which took place in 1784, 
 but as most of the details of their establish- 
 ment had been planned by him, it is right that 
 they should be included in the list of the eleven 
 missions of Junipero Serra. The period cov- 
 ered by this work was about sixteen years. 
 
 In the three decades that followed ten more 
 missions were founded, making twenty-one in 
 all. No one of these was farther than a day's 
 journey from the coast. They covered a 
 stretch of seven hundred miles, averaging 
 about an easy day's journey from one another. 
 Through the first half century of California's 
 existence these institutions occupy the center 
 of the historical stage, the other elements — 
 civil, military, communal or individual — serv- 
 ing rather as accessories than as independent 
 
88 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 actors. To obtain, therefore, a correct per- 
 spective for the little pueblo of Los Angeles, 
 whose founding we have just described, it 
 will be necessary to examine into the unique 
 social-religious system that was above and 
 around it. 
 
 Although this system was in full operation 
 from San Diego to San Francisco less than a 
 lifetime ago, with its long chain of prosperous 
 institutions involving directly and indirectly 
 about fifty thousand human beings, no rem- 
 nants of it now remain, save the half-crumbled 
 ruins of the buildings. These being, for the 
 most part, constructed not of stone or of brick, 
 as are the churches of Europe, but of half- 
 baked clay, their ultimate complete destruc- 
 tion is only a matter of a few years' time, un- 
 less individual or government enterprise inter- 
 venes to protect them. A local organization of 
 Southern California, the "Landmarks Club," 
 has checked the ruin of San Juan Capistrano 
 and San Fernando, and is now devoting its en- 
 ergies to San Luis Rey. Such of the buildings 
 as are in proper condition and are suitably 
 located are used for parochial institutions by 
 the Roman Catholic church. Santa Barbara 
 and San Gabriel are examples of establish- 
 ments that have been in almost continuous 
 use for church purposes since their founda- 
 tion. 
 
 Unfortunately many of the missions 
 were located in districts that are now too 
 sparsely settled to support them as churches, 
 
The Mission System. 89 
 
 and these have gone into utter ruin. San An- 
 tonio de Padua, for example, which, not more 
 than ten years ago was a handsome, sub- 
 stantial structure, having been preserved for 
 church use up to that time, is now nothing 
 but a stretch of ragged clay wall, which the 
 rain and sun and wind will, in a few years 
 more, completely obliterate. 
 
 Of the human elements that entered mto 
 the system, the remnants are even fewer. The 
 original Spanish Franciscans are gone — a few 
 German Franciscans have taken their places. 
 The Roman church is here — as it is every- 
 where — but it holds now only a share ot the 
 population, where in the mission days it held 
 all except the few roving Indians oi the foot- 
 hills. But the thirty thousand savage con- 
 verts, the neophytes that gathered around 
 the missions and served the fathers both as 
 congregation for their spiritual ministrations 
 and as toilers in the industrial development of 
 the country — they have disappeared entirely 
 as a class and almost utterly at a race. In the 
 prosperous days of San Gabriel it embraced 
 within the system of its industrial operations 
 nearly two thousand Indians, and now not 
 more than half a dozen Indian families can be 
 found in that vicinity. Not only has the mis- 
 sion system itself departed, but the elements 
 that entered into it seem to have been de- 
 stroyed, root and branch. 
 
 Institutions that are planned for perma- 
 nency and pass away usually rank as failures, 
 
90 History of Los Angeles, 
 
 but the Franciscan missions of California 
 were not as utterly valueless as the wreck of 
 them would indicate. Their projectors had a 
 certain purpose in view, viz., the Christianiz- 
 ing and civilizing of the Indians — a worthy- 
 purpose, it must be conceded ; and if they man- 
 aged to accomplish it, or if they came as near 
 to success as others engaged in the same work 
 elsewhere, then the mission system is not to 
 be hastily condemned as a failure, notwith- 
 standing the fact that it exists no longer, and 
 its materials have fallen into decay. 
 
 The question of the value of the missions^ 
 and the wisdom and justice of their treatment 
 of the Indians, has given rise to a great amount 
 of controversy, with a variety of resultant 
 opinions. The phrase "to civilize the savages" 
 is easily written and glibly uttered, but when 
 its full meaning is considered it will be found 
 to contain one of the greatest of human prob- 
 lems. It is of about the same order as the 
 squaring of the circle, or the achievement of 
 perpetual motion. The frontier proverb that 
 "the only good Indian is a dead Indian" puts 
 into rough and brutal form the experience of 
 the English-speaking peoples that about the 
 only way to civilize savages is to put an end 
 to their existence. This may be done by the 
 swift and simple process of slaughter, or by 
 the slower and more complex plan of driving 
 them from their lands into inevitable starva- 
 tion. If neither of these plans is available, 
 there still remain the white man's deadly 
 
The Mission System. 91 
 
 vices. Now to make a fair judgment of the 
 system employed by the padres with the Cali- 
 fornia Indians — a judgment which with most 
 of us will labor under the unsympathy of an 
 alien blood and a different religious belief — 
 it might be well to use as a basis of compari- 
 son our own treatment of the Indians during 
 a similar period of our development. Where 
 are the Indian tribes that formerly held the 
 land east of the Mississippi? Are they civil- 
 ized or are they obliterated? Or, if the matter 
 be brought nearer home, will the comparison 
 be more favorable if we inquire into our meth- 
 ods with the Mission Indians, after California 
 became part of the union? It is a heart-break- 
 ing story that has been told only too well by 
 Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson in "Ramona" and 
 *'A Century of Dishonor." Plainly these com- 
 parisons are out of the question.. But while 
 the Anglo-Saxon will plead guilty to his own 
 failure to civilize the savages, and will even 
 admit that he and they cannot live in the same 
 neighborhood without the latter coming to 
 destruction, yet he does not hesitate to pass 
 judgment on the efforts of others. The Ameri- 
 can historians that have handled the mission 
 question have generally condemned the system 
 employed by the padres with the Indians, al- 
 though certainly no one of them would claim 
 that the Anglo-Saxon has ever done the work 
 any better. 
 
 The process by which the mission system 
 came into existence was a logical one. A 
 
 \ 
 
92 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 couple of priests, accompanied by a small 
 squad of soldiers go into a strange country, 
 peopled only by savages, but having great agri- 
 cultural and industrial possibilities. Of these 
 possibilities the priests are thoroughly cogni- 
 zant, by reason of the resemblance between 
 the climate of the new country and that of their 
 own. The demands of religion must be con- 
 sidered first, and for that purpose a church 
 building is to be constructed. Who will do 
 the work? The soldiers will not; the priests 
 alone cannot, and there are none others save 
 the savages. The padres oflfer the natives 
 little gifts of cloth and beads, and when their 
 good will is established ask for their assistance 
 in the work of erecting the church. This is 
 frequently offered without the asking. Next 
 comes the planting of crops for the support 
 of the padres and of such of the natives as 
 have worked faithfully at the building, for the 
 Indian in his native state is always close to 
 starvation. The cattle which the padres have 
 brought with them must be cared for, so a 
 few of the Indians are taught to ride horses and 
 to serve as vaqueros. In the meantime the 
 work of baptism and instruction in the rites of 
 the church goes on, a little slowly at first, but 
 more rapidly as the Indians learn that no harm 
 comes of it. A series of buildings are con- 
 structed, not only for church work and the 
 use of the priests, but also to harbor the 
 Christian Indians, the neophytes, as they are 
 called, who, having lost caste among their own 
 
The Mission System. 93 
 
 people for doing the manual labor of the white 
 man, must be cared for by the padres and kept 
 from backsliding into savagery. In this way 
 the industrial system is gradually built up, 
 each undertaking laid upon its predecessor 
 with inevitable logic and seeming necessity. 
 
 It is to be doubted whether any form of civ- 
 ilization could have been worked out among 
 these savages that did not rest upon some sort 
 of an industrial base. Had the padres con- 
 fined themselves, as De Croix and other civil 
 governors advised, to the purely spiritual side 
 of the work, and had the savages been allowed 
 to continue in their indolence and degrada- 
 tion, the religious instruction must have fallen 
 on ears that would not hear. The Indians 
 would inevitably have become involved in con- 
 flict with the soldiers, from whom the padres 
 with difficulty protected them, even under the 
 mission regime ; the savages would have grown 
 fiercer and more crafty, and in the end would 
 have proved a barrier to the advance of civili- 
 zation, instead of assisting its progress. The 
 doctrine that the Evil One is always at hand 
 to find work enough for the idle, applies as 
 well to the savages as to the civilized man. 
 The fathers understood this ; there was plenty 
 of work to be done, and they could see no 
 reason why the Indian should not do his share. 
 
 In the minds of these simple, earnest sol- 
 diers of the church a law was a law, and was to 
 be obeyed. Both religion and worldly wisdom 
 required that the Indian should be controlled 
 
94 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 and made to work; and the padres did not al- 
 low any idle question of sentiment to interfere 
 with this policy. If discipline was necessary 
 they were prepared to administer it. They 
 found the savages to be very like children, 
 and the only form of discipline then in vogue 
 for the child was the rod. If the Indian would 
 not work he was starved and flogged. If he 
 ran away he was pursued and brought back. 
 His condition was not exactly that of a slave, 
 as is sometimes charged. He was not sold 
 from hand to hand, nor separated from his fam- 
 ily, nor denied a considerable degree of lib- 
 erty, if he did not abuse it by bad behavior; 
 neither was he treated with wanton cruelty, 
 nor put to death, except for some capital crime. 
 His condition was rather that of an appren- 
 tice bound to service for an indefinite period 
 of years, and subject to the forms of discipline 
 that were practiced upon apprentices all over 
 the world at that time. He had stated hours 
 of labor, usually not exceeding seven in the 
 day, to which must be added three hours for 
 religious exercises. His food and clothing 
 were coarse and none too plentiful, but such as 
 they were they improved upon the nakedness 
 and semi-starvation of savagery. The condi- 
 tions of life for the mission Indian varied, of 
 course, greatly with the personal characteris- 
 tics of the padres in charge of the estaolish- 
 ment. Some of the superiors were hard and 
 even cruel, and others kind and gentle. Some 
 were successful in maintaining order without 
 
The Mission System. 95 
 
 much punishment, and others believed in the 
 lash for all offenses. At worst, the Indian's 
 lot was somewhat better than slavery; at best 
 it was happy though not very, agreeable. 
 
 It happens that on the question of the pad- 
 res' treatment of the Indians we have plenty 
 of other testimony than that of the priests 
 themselves. The civil and military authorities 
 were ready at all times to criticise the methods 
 of the padres, and the reports filed with the 
 viceroy and the commandant general by the 
 governors show that affairs at the missions 
 were subjected to a close scrutiny. It was 
 hardly to be expected that any system of dis- 
 cipline could be maintained over tens of 
 thousands of ignorant savages without afford- 
 ing occasional instances of harsh treatment or 
 injustice. 
 
 The mission system may be properly 
 charged with the mistake of over-discipline, 
 which brought two bad results ; the one of oc- 
 casional cruelty to the Indians and the otTier — 
 more serious in the long run — of failing to 
 make the natives independent and self-sup- 
 porting. It remains to be proved, however, 
 whether any form of policy would have accom- 
 plished the latter object. The charge that 
 there was great mortality among the Indians 
 under this system is true, but a large death 
 rate is to be expected whenever savages are 
 required to change from out-of-door freedom 
 and nakedness to the civilized form of life. 
 
 On the other hand, it must be recorded to 
 
96 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 the credit of the mission system that order was 
 estabHshed and maintained among a horde 
 of degraded savages scattered along six 
 hundred miles of frontier; that the men were 
 taught agriculture, irrigation, cattle-raising, 
 leather-working, carpentry, milling, building, 
 blacksmithing, the care of horses, and many 
 other useful pursuits ; and the women were 
 taught to cook and sew and weave, and were 
 protected through girlhood and decently mar- 
 ried to men of their own race or to the Span- 
 iards ; that an industrial community was cre- 
 ated in each mission center, to redeem the land 
 from an otherwise complete worthlessness and 
 sloth ; that the padres, almost without excep- 
 tion, led moral lives, setting an example of de- 
 cency and sobriety not only to the Indians, but 
 also to the white settlers ; and, lastly, that the 
 whole mission undertaking was founded m the 
 beginning on a conscientious devotion to the 
 teachings of Christ, and was carried on by the 
 fathers with sincere motives, and according to 
 their best judgment. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 KIGHTKKNTH-CKNTURY I.OS ANGKlvES. 
 
 HE provisions under which each set- 
 tler received his allotment of a build- 
 ing site and a piece of farming land 
 was that within three years he should 
 have a good adobe house constructed 
 and the land cleared and that within five years 
 he should have some chickens, a fair crop of 
 corn or wheat growing and a good farm equip- 
 ment. Not until the five years had passed was 
 he to receive anything like a title to his land, 
 and even then he would not be allowed to sell 
 or mortgage, the king being the real owner 
 and the colonist rather in the nature of a 
 lessee. 
 
 There is reason to believe that these con- 
 ditions were not entirely complied with by all 
 the colonists ; nevertheless, De Neve's succes- 
 sor. Pages, in 1786, thought best to issue the 
 so-called titles, and he sent Jose Arguello, af- 
 terwards governor of the province, to perform 
 this service. Arguello appointed two witness- 
 es from the guard of soldiers at Los Angeles, 
 one of them being Corporal Vicente Felix, who 
 was an important factor in the city's affairs at 
 this time. Summoning all the settlers to his 
 presence, Arguello presented each one of the 
 nine with: First, a deed to his house lot; sec- 
 ond, a deed to his farm land; and third, a 
 
98 Histo7-y of Los Angeles. 
 
 branding iron, by which he was to distinguish 
 his stock from the others'. These nine settlers 
 were the original eleven, minus De I^ara, Mesa 
 and Quintero, expelled for general uselessness, 
 and plus Sinova, the emigrant picked up in 
 California. Twenty-seven documents were 
 thus distributed, for a description of each 
 branding iron went with the implement, all 
 signed by Arguello and his witnesses, and 
 adorned with the "X, his mark," of the settler, 
 for not one of the nine could write. In the 
 case of the house lots, each location was de- 
 scribed with reference to the plaza, showing 
 that a rough survey had been made, and a map 
 was filed with Arguello's report to the gov- 
 ernor of the transaction. The location of the 
 fields is left somewhat vague, the assumption 
 being that each one knew about where his own 
 land was, anyhow. 
 
 During the next four years considerable in- 
 crease took place in the population, the new- 
 comers being chiefly soldiers who had served 
 out their time. Some of these were married 
 to Indian wives, but others were attracted to 
 Los Angeles, no doubt, by the fact that a num- 
 ber of girls were growing up in the families 
 there, who would in time be ready for mar- 
 riage. By 1790 the number of households had 
 increased from nine to twenty-eight, with a 
 total population of 139. All of the original set- 
 tlers who had received titles from Arguello re- 
 mained, except one. Rosas, who had departed 
 for San Jose. On the other hand, Los An- 
 
Eip;hteenth- Century Los Angeles. 99 
 
 geles had received one emigrant from San 
 Jose, a certain Sebastian Alvitre, who, for 
 nearly twenty years, enjoyed the reputation 
 of being the worst man in the province of Cal- 
 ifornia. Most of the reports from the com- 
 isionado at Los Angeles to the governor, 
 during this period, contain somewhere the in- 
 teresting item of news that Alvitre is in jail 
 again. 
 
 Among the names of the twenty new set- 
 tlers there are several that are now common 
 in Los Angeles ; such, for example, as Figue- 
 roa, Garcia, Dominguez, Pico, Reyes, Ruiz, 
 Lugo, Sepulveda and Verdugo. 
 
 No selection of an alcalde seems to have 
 been made prior to 1788. Corporal Vicente 
 Felix acted as general manager of the colony 
 and arbiter of all disputes up to that time. 
 The settlers found fault with him continually, 
 and on one or two occasions formal complaint 
 was lodged with the governor, but no change 
 was made ; on the contrary, Felix was present- 
 ly given the title of "comisionado," and ad- 
 vised by the governor to make it his business 
 to see that the laws were obeyed and good or- 
 der maintained, although the pueblo had by 
 this time an alcalde and two regidores, or 
 councilmen, who were supposed to be the local 
 administrative, judicial and legislative au- 
 thority. 
 
 Jose Vanegas, one of the original settlers, 
 was the first alcalde, Jose Sinova the second, 
 and Mariano Verdugo the third. The list from 
 
100 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 1790 to 1800 runs as follows : Francisco 
 Reyes, Jose Vanegas (re-elected), Manuel 
 Arellano, Guillermo Soto, Francisco Serrano 
 and Joaquin Higuera. Through all these ad- 
 ministrations Felix continued to hold author- 
 ity, as the real representative of the governor, 
 and the court of last appeal. Theoretically, 
 the pueblo was entitled to local self-govern- 
 ment, but practically it was under military 
 control — that is, as far as it was controlled at 
 all. 
 
 The records of the pueblo during this epoch 
 are decidedly meager. In 1790 the fact is 
 noted in the reports that the colonists of Los 
 Angeles grew a larger crop of grain than any 
 of the missions except San Gabriel. The 
 amount is given as 4500 bushels, which does 
 not seem large when it is divided by the num- 
 ber of heads of families — say 150 bushels to 
 the settler. Most of this was corn. In 1796 
 it was nearly twice as large. By 1800 the crop 
 had increased so far beyond local needs that 
 a proposition was made by the pueblo to sup- 
 ply 3400 bushels of wheat annually for the 
 market at San Bias at a price of $1.66 per 
 bushel. This is especially significant in view 
 of the fact that De Neve had advocated the 
 founding of the pueblo because wheat was 
 being imported from San Bias to supply the 
 soldiers in California. In 1797 there was a 
 drought, and only 2700 bushels were grown. 
 About this time the governor sent down word 
 that land must be assigned to every head of 
 
Eighteenth- Century Los Angeles. 101 
 
 a family in Los Angeles, and that each one 
 must be required to do his share of the culti- 
 vation. Fences were ordered constructed, so 
 that cattle would not get into the grain, and 
 each settler was compelled to subscribe three 
 bushels a year to make up a fund for the city's 
 improvement. 
 
 Horses and cattle increased with consid- 
 erable rapidity. In 1790 there were 3000, and 
 in 1800, 12,500. Sheep numbered 1700. A 
 provision in the original regulations of the 
 pueblo as drawn up by De Neve forbade the 
 ownership of more than fifty cattle by any one 
 person. This was for the purpose of prevent- 
 ing monopoly. It seems to have suffered the 
 usual fate of legislation of that order, and was 
 never observed. It had developed by this 
 time that a man might have an abundance of 
 cattle and yet be poor. In the annals of San 
 Gabriel mission, in the year 1795, it is recorded 
 that a man who was known to be the owner 
 of 1000 horses came over from the pueblo to 
 beg for a piece of cloth to make a shirt, as 
 there was none to be had in Los Angeles. In 
 an official price list published by Governor 
 Fages we find the value of an ox or cow put 
 at $5 ; of a sheep, $1 to $2 ; of a chicken, 25 
 cents ; of a mule, $14 to $20, and of a well 
 broken horse at $9. An attempt was made 
 during Fages' time to arbitrarily fix the price 
 of wheat at $1 a bushel. The value of horned 
 cattle could hardly have been so great at this 
 time as it was a quarter of a century later, 
 
102 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 when the Yankee traders began to frequent 
 the coast to buy up hides and tallow. 
 
 During the decade from 1790 to 1800 the 
 population of Los Angeles increased from 
 thirty to seventy families, from 140 people to 
 315. By this time it had become the custom 
 to send the superannuated and invalided sol- 
 diers from the various presidios to Los An- 
 geles to end their days in its mild climate. In 
 the census of 1790 there is a division of citi- 
 zens by age, and out of eighty adults nine were 
 over 90 years old, which is an extraordinary 
 percentage. This same census gives the divi- 
 sion of nationality as follows : Spanish, ']2 ; 
 Indians, 7; mulattoes, 22 \ mestizos, 30. The 
 increase in the number of Spanish (which 
 probably includes those of Spanish descent 
 born in America) shows the large part now 
 played by the army in the colonization ; for the 
 soldiers detailed in California up to this time 
 were largely brought over from Spain, where- 
 as the colonists from Mexico were, as we have 
 seen, of mixed descent. 
 
 Los Angeles at the end of the eighteenth 
 century consisted of about thirty small adobe 
 houses, twelve of which were clustered around 
 an open square, and the remainder huddled in 
 the vicinity, without much system as to loca- 
 tion. The houses were near together, not be- 
 cause land was scarce or valuable, but for so- 
 ciability and for mutual protection against 
 thieving Indians. Most of the new houses 
 were to the southwest of the plaza, where are 
 
Eighteenth-Century Los Angeles. 103 
 
 now Buena Vista and Castelar streets. To the 
 north and east lay the lower land, and the 
 space reserved for the public buildings. These 
 latter consisted of a town house, where all the 
 public business was transacted; a public gran- 
 ary, a jail, and the barrack, where the small 
 detachment of the army that was assigned to 
 Los Angeles: Vicente Felix, the comisionado, 
 and his three or four men, had their head- 
 quarters. 
 
 The houses were one-story affairs, fre- 
 quently containing but one room. The roofs 
 were constructed of poles, thatched with tules, 
 and at first plastered with mud; later brea 
 was discovered in the fields to the west of the 
 town and used for roofing material, as it is to 
 this day. As the rafters had but little slope, 
 considerable rain must have found its way into 
 the houses in wet weather. Glass was un- 
 known, the small windows closing with a shut- 
 ter, if at all. The few pieces of furniture were 
 crudely constructed of poles and strips of raw- 
 hide. 
 
 No attempt was made to keep the yards 
 about the houses in decent sanitary condition, 
 much less to make them beautiful. There 
 were no flowers nor shade trees, except here 
 and there a sycamore, that may have escaped 
 the searchers for firewood, or a few wild blos- 
 soms in the springtime. Cattle were slaugh- 
 tered for food right in the house yards, and the 
 remains of the carcasses thrown about. The 
 sole scavengers were dogs and chickens and 
 
104 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 the birds provided by nature for that purpose. 
 In the summer time the roads and paths about 
 the houses were deep in dust, which every 
 passing horseman stirred up for the wind to 
 drive through open windows and doors. 
 
 There does not appear to have been any 
 planting of fruit trees until near the end of 
 the century, when Governor Borica sent word 
 to the authorities that orchards and vineyards 
 should be set out and protected from cattle by 
 fences and walls. The irrigating ditch was 
 frequently neglected, until there was danger 
 at one time that everything would dry up and 
 die ; so the governor ordered extensive and 
 permanent repairs to be made. A great deal 
 of the hard labor of the farms and households 
 was done by Indians, who had been half civil- 
 ized and half educated at the mission of San 
 Gabriel, and who found life at the pueblo 
 easier and more entertaining. Some of these 
 worked the farms on shares, which gave the 
 settlers plenty of time to attend cock fights 
 and play the guitar. 
 
 The padres who came over from San 
 Gabriel to take charge of the religious wel- 
 fare of the citizens complained bitterly of the 
 idle and worthless lives led by most of their 
 parishioners. There was no school in Los An- 
 geles, nor any attempt at instruction of the 
 young. In 1784 an ex-soldier named Vargas 
 opened a school in San Jose, and a few years 
 later he was summoned to San Diego by a 
 raise in salary — $250 a year was the improved 
 
Eighteenth- Centtiry Los Angeles 105 
 
 figure— but Los Angeles did not put in a bid. 
 A mail was carried to and from Mexico once 
 a month, covering a distance of 3000 miles over 
 the Camino Real or King's Highway, but as 
 almost none of the settlers could read or write 
 postal facilities were little used. There was 
 a good deal of disorder of a mild type — 
 drunkenness, quarreling and occasional fights 
 — but murder seems not to have been frequent. 
 The soldiers acted as policemen, and a guard 
 was maintained night and day. 
 
 Foreign vessels were not allowed to visit 
 the coast, and there was very little trade or 
 commerce of any kind. Such as there was 
 remained largely in the hands of the padres at 
 San Gabriel, and was carried on through the 
 port of San Pedro, where some years later a 
 warehouse was constructed for the use of the 
 mission. 
 
 This description seems to be carrying us 
 back into the Middle Ages, and yet it was only 
 one hundred years ago, in the administrations 
 of Washington and of John Adams, the time of 
 Pitt and Burke, and of Napoleon and Goethe. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 IN THE SPANISH PROVINCE. 
 
 ELIPE DE NEVE was too valuable a 
 man to be allowed to remain long 
 in charge of so remote and unimport- 
 ant a province as California, and with- 
 in a year from the founding of Los 
 Angeles, in 1782, he was transferred to a higher 
 position. He presently succeeded De Croix 
 as commandant general of the "Internal Prov- 
 inces," an office independent of and very nearly 
 equal to that of the viceroy of Mexico. Un- 
 fortunately, he died a few months after reach- 
 ing this coveted honor. As the founder of Los 
 Angeles city, and the first independent gov- 
 ernor of California, he w^ould be entitled to a 
 prominent place in the locality's history, what- 
 ever his attainments ; but the fact that he was 
 a man of exceptional brilliancy and force, 
 whose judicial powers and administrative skill 
 were recognized at an early age by his gov- 
 ernment, will cause us, more than a century 
 later, to revere his memory and to regret the 
 untimely death that ended his career. 
 
 In the same year, 1784, died the other great 
 man of this epoch and region — Father Juni- 
 pero Serra. He had reached the age of 67, 
 having labored zealously in California since 
 1768, during which time he had established 
 and thoroughly organized the mission system 
 
In the Spanish Province. 107 
 
 of the province. He had many of the quaUties 
 of the soldier, the statesman, and the industrial 
 leader, as well as those of the evangelist. 
 When the smaller men — Rivera, De Barri and 
 Fages — obstructed his path he brushed them 
 aside; but in De Neve he had to contend with 
 an individuality as powerful as his own. In 
 spite of the guarded language with which De 
 Neve, in his state papers, handles all matters 
 relating to the missions, and in spite of the 
 calm dignity of his demeanor towards the 
 padres, it is evident that he was entirely con- 
 scious of the churchman's disposition to en- 
 croach on the confines of the civil authority, 
 and his eye was ever on Serra as their leader. 
 An incident that took place in 1779 with 
 reference to Serra's exercise of the power of 
 confirmation illustrates so admirably the char- 
 acter of these two men, and shows so plainly 
 the attitude they held towards each other, 
 that it is well worth relating. The adminis- 
 tering of the rite of confirmation, i. e., the ac- 
 ceptance of converts into the church, was lim- 
 ited, both by ecclesiastical and civil law to the 
 bishops. Although ranking as president of the 
 California system of missions, Father Junipero 
 was not a bishop, but he obtained by special 
 arrangement through the college of San Fer- 
 nando, Mexico, and the viceroy, the authority 
 to confirm ; and he proceeded to exercise it 
 upon great numbers of Indians. It may have 
 been that De Neve questioned the wisdom of 
 receiving these ignorant savages into church 
 
108 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 membership, or it may have been that he re- 
 garded this as a usurpation of power on the 
 part of Serra, which it was his duty to inquire 
 into ; at all events, finding no record anywhere 
 of the granting of such a privilege, he wrote 
 a courteous letter to Serra, asking him the 
 source of his authority. Serene in the con- 
 sciousness that he was well within the law, 
 and actuated, perhaps, by a very human wish 
 to humiliate the governor, Serra paid no at- 
 tention to the summons and continued with the 
 ceremony of confirmation. Thereupon De Neve 
 issued an order suspending all future confirma- 
 tions, and in a letter entirely free from animus 
 or personal feeling, he reported to De Croix, 
 the commandant general of the provinces, 
 what he had done. De Croix learning, in the 
 meantime, either from the viceroy or from the 
 College of San Fernando, that Serra had in his 
 possession the documents showing his right to 
 confirm, wrote to the ecclesiastic, and in- 
 structed him to deliver them to De Neve, and 
 put an end to the controversy. But Serra had 
 taken occasion to send the documents down to 
 the College of San Fernando. Why? Our 
 admiration for this conqueror of the wilder- 
 ness is so great that we hesitate to accuse him 
 of a trivial or ignoble act, yet his conduct 
 through this whole aflfair is exactly that of a 
 man seeking by every small device to put a 
 conspicuous humiliation upon a rival in power. 
 If that was his purpose he certamly failed, be- 
 cause De Neve was too great as a man, and 
 
t^^^^P M '^^i 
 
 
 
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 w' 
 
 
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 » V. R.I)EL V. P. E lUNIPERO SER|^A 
 
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 ;. ■ • i 
 
 Frontispiece from the "Vida,'' of Padre Francisco Palou' 
 Vknkkahle Paoke Junipero Sekk.a 
 
In the Spanish Province. 109 
 
 too dignified as a ruler to notice the effort. 
 In due course of time the papers were re- 
 turned and submitted to the governor; where- 
 upon he withdrew his order, acting both then 
 and thereafter with even, unruffled courtesy 
 toward Serra and the other priests. 
 
 De Neve's successor was Pedro Pages, a 
 frank, good-hearted soldier, of no great intel- 
 lectual attainments, but conscientious in the 
 discharge of his duty. He served from 1782 to 
 1790. It will be remembered that Pages ac- 
 companied the first expedition sent out by 
 Galvez to colonize California, and that he suc- 
 ceeded Portola as military ruler of the upper 
 province. His removal from that position was 
 caused through the influence 01 Serra, and it 
 was scarcely necessary for De Neve to warn 
 him, as he did in a formal state document, that 
 the civil authority must be protected from the 
 encroachment of the priests. He was, how- 
 ever, by no means so well qualified to hold his 
 own in controversy with the padres as was De 
 Neve, a fact which is well illustrated in the 
 circumstances that attended the founding of 
 Santa Barbara and Purisima missions. 
 
 These establishments had been planned by 
 Serra, and would have been founded before 
 the close of De Neve's term but for the dis- 
 agreement between the governor and the pad- 
 res regarding them. De Neve's estimate of the 
 mission system shows in his desire to establish 
 pueblos and permanent fortified camps, and in 
 his determined efforts at civil colonization. 
 
110 History of Los*,Angeles. 
 
 He seems to have regarded this industrial de- 
 velopment among the Indians, with its 
 hierarchical foundation, with suspicion and dis- 
 trust, and although he manifested no hostility 
 toward the establishments that already existed 
 he was loth to assist in the upbuilding of new 
 ones. He offered no objection to San Buena- 
 ventura, which was part of the original plan 
 devised before his administration, but his in- 
 fluence was felt through the commandant gen- 
 eral and the viceroy in the arrangements for 
 the other two missions of the channel — Santa 
 Barbara and Purisima. The regulations drawn 
 up for the founding and management of these 
 two institutions provided that the natives were 
 not to be brought in from their villages by 
 force, nor were they to be kept at the mission, 
 except for a limited term and a few at a time. 
 This was, in effect, an interdiction on the 
 whole industrial scheme — which the Francis- 
 cans would not tolerate, their contention being, 
 as we have seen in a previous chapter, that un- 
 less they could control the daily life of the In- 
 dians it was impossible to civilize them. De 
 Neve agreed to provide plenty of soldiers to 
 shield the fathers from harm, and he expressed 
 some well-bred doubts as to the eflicacy of a 
 conversion that could be achieved only 
 through material means. In the end, there 
 was a deadlock, which is possibly what De 
 Neve anticipated and desired. The padres re- 
 fused to serve at the new establishments, and 
 
In the Spanish Province. Ill 
 
 the governor maintained his position, in spite 
 of their refusal. 
 
 But when Pages was governor, and after 
 the death of De Neve, the question was re- 
 opened, and by some means the padres car- 
 ried the day. In 1786 the two new missions 
 were founded, and their plan of operation was 
 exactly like that of the other establishments. 
 The issue was never raised again, and all of 
 the ten remaining missions followed the orig- 
 inal plan. 
 
 The successor of Pages, on the latter's res- 
 ignation in 1790, was Jose Antonio Romeu, 
 who served as governor only two years, dur- 
 ing most of which he was an invalid. During 
 his administration two more missions were es- 
 tablished, making thirteen in all. The new 
 establishments were Santa Cruz and Soledad, 
 the latter situated about thirty-five miles south 
 of Monterey. On his death, and after a short 
 interregnum, came Diego de Borica, who held 
 the office until the beginning of the nineteenth 
 century. He was a prudent, politic man, fa- 
 mous for his wit and comradeship, but indus- 
 trious and capable. His attitude toward the 
 padres and the mission system, while not par- 
 taking of the far-sighted doubcs of De Neve, 
 was no less independent and firm. He was 
 also an advocate of the pueblo plan of coloniza- 
 tion, and the Villa of Branciforte was founded 
 near Santa Cruz mission during his adminis- 
 tration. 
 
112 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 On the death of Serra, Fermin Francisco 
 Lasuen succeeded to the presidency of the mis- 
 sions. Point Fermin at San Pedro was named 
 in his honor, a fact that should set at rest the 
 question of its spelling, which has been vari- 
 ously written by map-makers and govern- 
 ment engineers as Fermin, Firmin and Firmen. 
 After the death of Serra, mission development 
 was allowed to flag somewhat during the ad- 
 ministration of Pages and Romeu, but shortly 
 after Borica came into ofhce it was taken up 
 with new vigor. In 1797 three missions were 
 founded, San Jose, San Juan Bautista and 
 San Miguel. The following year two more 
 were added, San Fernando, near Los Angeles, 
 and San Luis Rey in the San Diego district. 
 This made a total of eighteen. All of these 
 institutions were in a fairly prosperous condi- 
 tion, averaging about six hundred and fifty In- 
 dians and three thousand cattle to each estab- 
 lishment. At the end of Borica's term the mis- 
 sions were producing an aggregate of 75,000 
 bushels of grain, of which about three-fifths 
 was wheat. There was much complaint at 
 this time of the ill treatment of the Indians 
 by the padres, which, in some cases, was 
 clearly substantiated, and the necessary reform 
 followed. 
 
 In his effort to found the new pueblo of 
 Branciforte — named in honor of the viceroy 
 then administering the government of Mexico 
 — Borica was confronted by the same difficulty 
 
In the Spanish Province. ]l3 
 
 that beset De Neve, and his enterprise met 
 with even a poorer degree of success than his 
 predecessor's. It was one thing to draft ex- 
 tensive regulations for the governing of a 
 pueblo, but quite another to find the people to 
 occupy it. We do not know that Borica ever 
 paid a visit to Los Angeles, but he certainly 
 inspected San Jose, which was only a short 
 distance from the capital at Monterey; and 
 he was probably not much impressed with the 
 outlook there, for he announced his purpose 
 to build adobe houses for the settlers at Bran- 
 ciforte before they were asked to emigrate 
 thither, lest they should follow the example 
 of the colonists at the other pueblos and live 
 in miserable tule-thatched huts. The mother 
 country being involved in a war at this time 
 he was obliged to devote all his energies to the 
 coast defense, and the projected architectural 
 greatness of Branciforte failed to come to pass. 
 A few settlers were secured from Mexico, of 
 about the same type as those of San Jose and 
 Los Angeles, but the new pueblo presently be- 
 came a refuge for transported convicts and 
 other birds of the same feather, and in the 
 end achieved the worst reputation of all the 
 settlements of early California. 
 
 One of the chief difficulties in the coloniza- 
 tion of California was the absence of women. 
 Men came as soldiers and adventurers, but no 
 women came, save those that were already 
 married to the settlers of the pueblos. Gov- 
 
114 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 ernor Borica repeatedly urged the viceroy to 
 send a shipload of healthy, respectable young 
 women to become the wives of the male set- 
 tlers. The request was never complied with, 
 whence we may infer either that women were 
 scarce in Mexico or that they were unwilling 
 to experiment with this extra hazardous form 
 of the matrimonial lottery. 
 
 The Spanish land grant system in Califor- 
 nia had its beginning about the time of the 
 founding of Los Angeles, and the first tracts 
 taken up were in the vicinity of that city. 
 Shortly after Fages became governor, appli- 
 cation was made to him for a grant of land 
 to be used for stock-raising, and he applied 
 to the commandant general for instructions. 
 He was told that he might give land to individ- 
 uals in areas not to exceed three leagues 
 square, so located as not to interfere with the 
 rights of any existing mission or pueblo. The 
 grantee was obliged to improve the place and 
 put stock upon it, and to set up landmarks 
 showing its extent. Under this arrangement, 
 in 1784, the San Rafael ranch was granted to 
 Jose Maria Verdugo, a tract which was de- 
 scribed as across the river and four leagues 
 distant from Los Angeles. In the same year 
 Manuel Nieto received all the land between 
 the Santa Ana and the San Gabriel rivers, 
 from the sea to the hill land. The adjoining 
 tract on the east side of the Santa Ana was 
 given to Antonio Yorba in 1810. In 1784 Fages 
 
In the Spanish Province. 115 
 
 granted to Juan Jose Dominguez the tract 
 along the ocean at San Pedro and up the es- 
 tuary half way to Los Angeles. Lastly, at 
 about the same time, the Enema ranch, a tract 
 northwest of the city, was granted to Fran- 
 cisco Reyes, but this was later, in 1797, taken 
 away from him and given to the new mission 
 of San Fernando, founded at that time. The 
 fact that the Encina grant was revoked with- 
 out any apparent protest on the part of its 
 owner, notwithstanding that he had made im- 
 provements upon it, evidences the uncertainty 
 of the tenure as well as the small value at- 
 tached to land at that time. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 BXIT SPAIN. 
 
 HE FIRST decade of the nineteenth 
 century, which was for Europe a time 
 of storm and stre^3, was for California 
 a period of complete calm and quiet, 
 and for Los Angeles — as far as the 
 record shows — almost utter oblivion. During 
 the second decade of the century, when peace 
 and order were restored in Europe, the 
 troubles of Californi? ];egan, culminating in 
 182 1 in the revolution that made this a Mexi- 
 can, instead of a Spanish province. 
 
 The Napoleonic wars, which tore the map 
 of Europe to tatters, were scarcely noticed in 
 this far-off corner of the world, and yet some 
 of the effects that followed those wars bore 
 heavily upon California. Although Napoleon 
 was for a considerable period in complete con- 
 trol of Spain, with his brother Joseph on the 
 throne, the performances of the Corsican 
 were regarded only with horror and aversion 
 by the Spaniards in California, and prayers 
 were regularly offered for the restoration of 
 Fernando to his rightful possessions. But 
 when the monster was safely caged, and the 
 frightened monarchs were creeping back to 
 their seats, the king of Spain returned to find 
 the ancient colonial empire undermined by 
 neglect and tottering to its fall. By 1810 the 
 
Photo by Pierce 
 Statue of Padke Junipeko Serra— Erected at Monterey 
 
Exit Spain. 117 
 
 rebellion, of Mexico was well under way, and 
 by 1815 the spirit of revolt had spread up and 
 down the South American coast. At the end 
 of the second decade of the century it was 
 practically all over, and Spain's American pos- 
 sessions were reduced to Cuba and a few 
 smaller islands. 
 
 On the resignation of Borica in 1800, Jose 
 Joaquin de Arrillaga succeeded him as gov- 
 ernor of California, and his rule extended 
 through to 1814. He was a man of fair abili- 
 ties and good intentions, but he lacked in en- 
 ergy and perseverance. It is charged against 
 him by some writers on this period that he 
 was dominated by the padres, but this does not 
 seem to be borne out either by his deeds or his 
 utterances, although he exerted himself some- 
 what more than his predecessors to keep on 
 good terms with the mission authorities. 
 There was ample justification for this policy 
 in the conditions that had now come to pre- 
 vail, for the wealth, energy and industry of the 
 whole province seemed to center in these insti- 
 tutions. The pueblos had been in existence a 
 quarter of a century, and their development 
 seemed to have come to a dead halt. In the 
 ten years from 1800 to 1810 the population of 
 Los Angeles increased only from 315 to 365. 
 Its flocks and herds diminished during that 
 period, and its crops showed no particular im- 
 provement. Conditions at San Jose were even 
 less promising, and as for Branciforte, it would 
 
118 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 appear from the accounts that come down to us 
 from all sources that the more it gained in 
 population the more disreputable and worth- 
 less it became. The pueblo plan of coloniza- 
 tion apparently was not a success. 
 
 The missions, on the other hand, continued 
 to increase in people and in the fruits of their 
 toil. There were now about 20,000 Indians at 
 work in these establishments under the guid- 
 ance of padres who were as thrifty and intelli- 
 gent in temporal matters as they were devout 
 and conscientious in spiritual. Each mission 
 was a veritable hive of industry, and the com- 
 bined products of the whole system, small at 
 first but presently increasing, represented 
 whatever of wealth and prosperity there was to 
 the credit of the province. The time was now 
 almost at hand when this was to be demon- 
 strated by an unquestionable form of proof: 
 viz., the missions were to support the govern- 
 ment of the province. Possibly Arrillaga fore- 
 saw this contingency, and was preparing for it. 
 At all events he interfered but little with the 
 affairs of the padres, and in all his acts seemed 
 to favor the mission plan of government for 
 the natives. 
 
 The events of the decade, 1800 to 1810, that 
 are of record relating to Los Angeles, are so 
 brief and meager as easily to be told. In 
 1805 the first American ship, so far as known, 
 came to San Pedro. It was the Lelia Byrd, 
 Captain Shaler, which in previous years had 
 
Exit Spain. 119 
 
 hovered about the coast, and after a trip to the 
 Hawaiian islands now returned to California 
 and ran into tlie harbor of Avalon, in Catalina. 
 In his account of the voyage Shaler says that 
 he found the island inhabited by about one 
 hundred and fifty Indians, who were very 
 friendly. After repairing his vessel he came 
 across to San Pedro, where he obtained sup- 
 plies in the shape of hogs and sheep, paid for 
 in Yankee manufactured products. This was 
 probably the first tastQ the people of Los An- 
 geles had of the contraband trade, for all trade 
 with foreign ships was contrary to law. But 
 from this time forth Yankee traders came 
 often to San Pedro, at first in search of otter 
 skins — an animal that has since been practi- 
 cally extermniated in this region — and later 
 for hides and tallow. 
 
 Another mission was founded in 1804, this 
 being the nineteenth. It was located at Santa 
 Ines, in Santa Barbara county. About this 
 time there was some discussion over the estab- 
 lishment of a mission on Catalina island, but 
 a severe attack of the measles among the In- 
 dians of the channel left Catalina almost with- 
 out population, and the project was abandoned. 
 
 In 1806 a new form of agricultural industry 
 was taken up, in the growing of hemp, an ar- 
 ticle for which there was a good demand from 
 Spain. It was found that the labor required for 
 its culture could be readily obtained from the 
 Indians, and many of the colonists at the pueb- 
 
120 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 los and presidios abandoned wheat and took up 
 hemp. The product rapidly increased from 
 only 1850 pounds in 1806 to 12,500 in 1807, 
 89,000 in 1808 and 120,000 in 1810. By this 
 time the crop was paying the growers over 
 $20,000 a year, which was an enormous sum for 
 the time and the region. Suddenly the demand 
 ceased and nearly 100,000 pounds of the last 
 crop was thrown back on the hands of the 
 growers. The revolution had broken out in 
 Mexico; Spanish trade was interrupted, and 
 the colonists lacked the energy and intelligence 
 to open new opportunities for its transporta- 
 tion. In the midst of the furore over hemp- 
 growing, which prevailed more actively at Los 
 Angeles than anywhere else in the province, 
 an interesting question of the legal status of the 
 neophyte as a laborer developed — a sort of a 
 California Dred-Scott case. The settlers had 
 obtained one hundred neophytes from the mis- 
 sion of San Juan Capistrano to labor in their 
 hemp fields, but they were, for some reason, 
 recalled by the mission authorities. The Los 
 Angeles people thereupon besought their al- 
 calde to issue a writ commanding that the neo- 
 phytes be turned over to them, and the afifair 
 thus came up to the governor and the presi- 
 dent of the missions. It was held that the col- 
 onists had no right to the labor of the neo- 
 phytes, if it was against their will to work at 
 Los Angeles, which it must have been assumed 
 was the cause of their return to San Juan. It 
 
Exit Spain. 121 
 
 was furthermore held that the neophytes were 
 entitled to religious instruction and care, which 
 they could not receive at the pueblo. 
 
 During this decade there was some trouble 
 between the San Fernando padres and the peo- 
 ple of Los Angeles on the question of the use 
 of the water of the Los Angeles river. The 
 padres were accused of diverting some of the 
 water by means of a dam above the Cahuenga. 
 It was held by the governor that all the water 
 in the river belonged to the colonists, and that 
 if the dam constructed by the padres interfered 
 with the pueblo's supply it must be removed. 
 
 In 1805 there was a pest of locusts that de- 
 stroyed a large part of the crop ; and in 1807, 
 and again in 1809, there was a dry season. Al- 
 though weather reports were sent in from vari- 
 ous parts of the province to the governor, and 
 were made matters of record, it is impossible 
 to say what the actual rainfall was, because 
 rain guages were then unknown in this region. 
 
 Through most of this period Sergeant Ja- 
 vier Alvarado acted as comisionado and main- 
 tained order as best he could. His reports 
 show that gambling, drunkenness, and all 
 forms of bad behavior were largely on the in- 
 crease. Each year an alcalde and two regi- 
 dores were elected, the three forming a sort of 
 a town council that enjoyed considerable dig- 
 nity, but not much power. 
 
 We come now to the period from 1810 to 
 1820, which was the era of the rebellion in 
 
122 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 Mexico, culminating at last in the overthrow 
 of the Spanish power and the establishment of 
 the Mexican empire with Iturbide at its head, 
 this to be followed almost immediately by the 
 Mexican republic. Through this long contest 
 California sided with Spain against the rebels, 
 giving the mother country, however, no as- 
 sistance, save an insubstantial moral support. 
 The yoke of Spain had never rested very 
 heavily upon the Spanish province. The sup- 
 pression of commerce and of business enter- 
 prise brought about by Spain's antiquated and 
 illiberal methods, while it strikes the modern 
 reader as quite intolerable, was a matter of 
 small consequence to these idle and thriftless 
 people. The higher officials and the padres 
 were, almost without exception, Spaniards by 
 birth, and conservatives by training and incli- 
 nation. A few seditious documents found 
 their way into the province, but they were 
 promptly seized and destroyed ; and until the 
 official announcement finally reached Mon- 
 terey that the revolution was complete, no one 
 of consequence in California believed that the 
 rebels could succeed. 
 
 There was, however, one very tangible 
 piece of evidence presented, by which these 
 far-off loyalists might have known that some- 
 thing serious was happening. The pay and 
 supplies for the army, for the padres and for 
 the governor and his civil staff came to a sud- 
 den end with the year 1811, and in spite of a 
 
Exit Spain. 123 
 
 vast amount of hoping and longing and pray- 
 ing, they never came again. The annual pay 
 roll of the army and civil list in California 
 footed up to nearly $80,000, to which must be 
 added supplies sent each year, or purchased 
 from the missions with drafts on the Spanish 
 authorities at Mexico, at a cost of $20,000 
 more. The total sum, therefore, was over 
 $100,000. The revenues of the country 
 amounted to barely $12,000, which was used 
 in its entirety for other forms of local expense. 
 The province was still on the wrong side of 
 the ledger, as far as Spain was concerned. 
 
 This was the beginning of an era of hard 
 times for California, and they grew harder 
 and more desperate as the years passed with 
 no relief. Even the Spanish trading vessels 
 failed to come to the coast, fearing the Mexi- 
 can and South American privateers, and the 
 only chance for Californians to sell their pro- 
 ducts, or to buy what they needed, was 
 through contraband trade with foreigners. 
 This was the commencement of open com- 
 merce with American ships. 
 
 Something had to be done to supply the 
 army with food, and the local government 
 with cash, so the governor turned to the mis- 
 sions. They had plenty of wheat and live 
 stock, and not a little coin put away in their 
 strong boxes. He would pay for everything 
 with drafts on Spain through the Mexican of- 
 fice, to be presented whenever this war with 
 
124 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 the rebels was over. The padres objected and 
 complained a good deal at first, but in the end 
 they came to regard it as a proper sacrifice to 
 their patriotism and their veneration for "His 
 most Catholic majesty." At the close of the 
 epoch, the good padres held over $400,000 
 worth of drafts — utterly valueless save as me- 
 mentoes of a duty bravely performed. 
 
 In 1814 Arrillaga died and was succeeded 
 by Pablo Vicente de Sola, a Spaniard and an 
 officer of the royal army. Although Spain 
 could not afford to pay her soldiers nor pro- 
 vide supplies, she was still able to fill the of- 
 fices of the province. Of all the Spanish gov- 
 ernors of California, Sola was the one least 
 qualified for the work, and the position came 
 to him at a time when it was surrounded by 
 difficulties. He was ill-natured, peevish and 
 fussy, and was possessed of an exalted idea of 
 his own importance. 
 
 In 1818 a hostile movement was under- 
 taken against California, coming not from the 
 rebels of Mexico, but from a privateer of 
 Buenos Ayres, where also there was a rebel- 
 lion in progress against Spain. The expedi- 
 tion, which consisted of two vessels, was led 
 by a Frenchman named Bouchard, who was 
 generally spoken of by the Californians as a 
 pirate. He attacked Monterey, which he cap- 
 tured and destroyed. Three of his men were 
 there taken prisoners, one of whom was 
 Joseph Chapman, the first American resident 
 
Exit Spain. 125 
 
 of the Los Angeles region. Bouchard then 
 came south, landing near Santa Barbara, 
 where he sacked the Ortega ranch house, and 
 at San Juan Capistrano, where he visited the 
 mission and captured some wine and brandy. 
 This ended the episode, which was Cal'fornia's 
 only active experience with the rebellion. 
 
 In the month of March, 1822, a vessel ar- 
 rived from Mexico, bringing official notice to 
 the governor that the Spanish power was at 
 an end in Mexico, and that Iturbide was on 
 the throne as emperor. Sola immediately 
 summoned a gathering of the principal offi- 
 cers of California, including the president of 
 the missions. It was decided to take the oath 
 of allegiance to the new government, and 
 await further developments. Spain had been 
 practically dead, as far as California was con- 
 cerned, for ten years, and the change of gov- 
 ernment involved no disturbance in material 
 affairs, and probably but little shock to the 
 sentiments of the people of the province. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THK PUKBI^O BEGINS TO GROW. 
 
 OTWITHSTANDING the hard times 
 inflicted upon California by the Mexi- 
 can rebellion, the pueblo very nearly 
 doubled its population in the decade 
 from 1810 to 1820, and in the next 
 decade very nearly doubled again. In 1810 
 there were about 350 people in and around Los 
 Angeles, and by 1830 this number had grown 
 to over 1200. The holders of land grants in 
 the vicinity of the pueblo regarded themselves 
 as citizens, and, indeed, they were under 
 the jurisdiction of the town council, or ayun- 
 tamiento, with reference to their local affairs. 
 In this respect Spain and Mexico followed the 
 ancient Roman custom, whereby the town 
 governed the surrounding country. 
 
 This growth came largely from the natural 
 increase of families. Life in the pueblo, al- 
 though primitive, and without many elements 
 of luxury, or even of comfort, from a modern 
 point of view, had the one great advantage 
 that starvation was well nigh impossible, even 
 to the most improvident. There was an abund- 
 ant supply of land for cultivation, and Indian 
 laborers were cheap and plentiful. Cattle 
 roamed over the plains in such vast numbers 
 that the price of meat was almost nothing. 
 On the ranches it was not required of a man 
 
The Pueblo Seisins to Grow. 127 
 
 that he should actually work to obtain sub- 
 sistence ; all that was necessary was that he 
 should "hang around." Under such easy con- 
 ditions of life there would be a natural ten- 
 dency toward a rapid increase of population 
 and large families, or at least a large birth 
 rate, was the rule in California during this pe- 
 riod. This was, however, partially offset by 
 the extremely unsanitary methods of living 
 that prevailed, the absence of medical knowl- 
 edge, and the frequent incursions of smallpox 
 and other malignant disorders. 
 
 Los Angeles still continued to serve as the 
 "Soldiers' Home" of this military district, al- 
 though, as the army was now recruited largely 
 from the province, there was no gain of Span- 
 ish population from this source. The only im- 
 migration received from Mexico was of a most 
 unsatisfactory character. A shipload of 
 foundlings and orphaned children from the 
 asylums in the City of Mexico was accepted in 
 Los Angeles without any serious objection, 
 but when the viceroy, and afterwards the 
 Mexican republic authorities undertook to 
 make this region a dumping ground for crim- 
 inals, and introduced "transportation to the 
 Californias" as a form of punishment for the 
 worst oflfenses, the various governors pro- 
 tested with great vigor; and while they were 
 not able to prevent the occasional shipment of 
 a few undesirable characters, the practice was 
 never carried out on a wholesale scale. Those 
 who did come, however, devoted their perm- 
 
128 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 cious energies to the work of demoralizing the 
 whole community, and the success they 
 achieved must have given them a high degree 
 of satisfaction. 
 
 Land for actual cultivation, either in or 
 near the pueblo, was to be had almost for the 
 asking, and yet a list of land owners and of 
 landless persons in Los Angeles district made 
 out by the local authorities in 1816 shows that 
 a considerable element of the population was 
 entirely willing to get along without assuming 
 the burden of ownership. Out of a total of 
 ninety-one heads of families seven were own- 
 ers of large ranches or grants in the vicinity 
 of the city; twenty were bona fide land own- 
 ers in the pueblo, and twenty-four worked the 
 commons. The latter had claims which, in 
 due course of time, matured into ownership. 
 This left forty to be entered as landless. Of 
 these, twenty-five are said to work for others 
 on their land, and the remaining fifteen sim- 
 ply existed. They are oppressed by no acres 
 of their own, neither will they toil for anyone 
 else. Happy fifteen ! It is a hard commen- 
 tary on the character of the city's poulation 
 at that time that four-ninths, or nearly one- 
 half, lacked the energy to attempt farming on 
 their own account, even under such favorable 
 conditions, and that one-sixth had to be 
 classed as no account at all. 
 
 Among land owners at this time we find 
 only one of the original settlers of Los An- 
 geles, Manuel Camero, the mulatto. There 
 
The Pueblo Begifis to Grow. 129 
 
 is a son of Navarro, the tailor, and a descend- 
 ant of Basilio Rosas. The names of the other 
 original colonists fail to appear anywhere in 
 the list. This is only thirty-five years after the 
 founding of the pueblo. 
 
 The instructions issued by Borica, near 
 the close of the century, that the colonists 
 should set out vines and fruit trees, seem to 
 have been obeyed, at least as far as vines were 
 concerned, for by 1817 there were over 100 
 acres of vineyard in and about the pueblo, 
 and the manufacture of wine and brandy had 
 begun on a considerable scale. Indeed, a few 
 years later, the mission authorities complained 
 to the governor that the citizens were being 
 demoralized by this pursuit, as their local pa- 
 triotism and their desire to patronize home in- 
 dustry caused them to consume a large part 
 of the product, and drunkenness was in a fair 
 way to be set up as a civic virtue. 
 
 In the year 1817 appears the first record of 
 a school in Los Angeles city. It is possible 
 that instruction may have been attempted for 
 a short period prior to this time, but evidently 
 not with much success, or some one would 
 have made note of the fact. Governor Sola 
 believed in education, and promoted the es- 
 tablishment of schools in all parts of the 
 province. Not content with organizing a 
 boys' school at Monterey, he even established 
 a school for girls, which was a radical depart- 
 ure that must have caused a vast amount of 
 wonder and foreboding. 
 
130 History of Los Afigeles. 
 
 The school at Los Angeles lasted only 
 about a year, to be followed by a vacation of 
 ten years. It was in charge of a retired sol- 
 dier named Maximo Pina, who received $140 
 a year for his services. We have no detailed 
 description of the school or of its master, but 
 it is reasonable to suppose that it was of the 
 same general character as the schools in the 
 other towns at this time. Those at Monterey 
 were fully described by some of the scholars 
 after they had grown to manhood. The pic- 
 ture they present is a horrible one, but there 
 is no reason to suppose it overdrawn. The 
 teacher was almost invariably an old soldier, 
 brutal, drunken, bigoted, and, except that he 
 could read and write, ignorant. The school 
 room was dark and dirty, and the pupils all 
 studied aloud. The master's ferule was in 
 constant use, even for blots on the writing pa- 
 per or mistakes in reading. Serious offenses, 
 such as laughing aloud or playing truant, or 
 failure to learn the doctrina (catechism), were 
 punished by use of the scourge, a bundle of 
 hempen cords, sometimes having small iron 
 points fastened into the ends of the lashes. 
 It was a horrible instrument, that drew blood, 
 and, if used with severity, left a scar for life. 
 The only volumes used for reading were the 
 books of religious formulae, which the pupils 
 used cordially to hate all through their later 
 life, for the torments of scourging they re- 
 called. 
 
 In most of the Roman Catholic countries 
 
The Pueblo Begins to Grow. 131 
 
 of Europe, schools were first organized 
 through the church, and throughout the 
 middle ages the clergy were almost the only 
 learned class. It is a matter for natural com- 
 ment and surprise that in the half century of 
 mission activity in California nothing was 
 done by the Franciscans for the cause of edu- 
 cation. Why were no schools for the colon- 
 ists opened at any of the misions, or, if that 
 were not feasible, why did not the padres, who 
 were, for the most part, fairly well educated, 
 exhibit some interest in the schools opened by 
 the settlers in the pueblos? Their attitude on 
 this important question seems not only repre- 
 hensible, but it is even difficult to explain. We 
 may suppose that the padres considered their 
 undivided energies were due to the Indians, 
 for whose conversion the order had set up 
 these establishments in the wilderness; but 
 such reasoning does not, of course, justify 
 their attempt to ignore the chousands of peo- 
 ple of their own race and nationality that had 
 come into the province. 
 
 The year 1812 was signalized by a series 
 of earthquakes all over California. The roof 
 of the principal church building at San Juan 
 Capistrano fell in, crushing forty neophytes. 
 This structure, although large and imposing, 
 was probably not built to stand much of a 
 strain. The buildings at Purisima were de- 
 stroyed, and at San Gabriel some small damage 
 was done. Los Angeles escaped uninjured, 
 there being no two-story buildings as yet. 
 
132 History of Los Atigeles. 
 
 In 1815 there was an excessive rainfall and a 
 flood. The Los Angeles river left its bed and 
 moved over toward the pueblo, running along 
 San Fernando street to Alameda, and thence 
 past the town. In 1825 came a still greater 
 flood, when the river returned to its original 
 channel — its present course — leaving an un- 
 derground flow that came up in marshy 
 springs on the Avila place, near the present 
 site of the Kerckhofif-Cuzner mills. The worst 
 part of the freshet came in the night time, and 
 the roar of the water so terrified the people 
 that they left their homes and went up on the 
 hills above Buena Vista street. Prior to 1825 
 there had been considerable woodland between 
 the city and the ocean, which the flood de- 
 stroyed by cutting a definite channel for the 
 river and draining the marshland where the 
 trees grew. 
 
 In 1812 work was begun on a substantial 
 and permanent church structure for the city of 
 Los Angeles, which was located somewhere 
 east of the Plaza. The formal laying of the 
 corner stone took place in 1814, but when the 
 river left its channel in 181 5 the governor ad- 
 vised that the location be changed to higher 
 ground, and the site of the present Plaza 
 church was chosen, it being city ground, ad- 
 joining the original Plaza, and in close prox- 
 imity to the other public structures. Here in 
 1818 the church building was begun, 500 cat- 
 tle being subscribed by the citizens to defray 
 the expense. At $5 apiece, this would amount 
 
The Pueblo Begins to Grow. 133 
 
 to $2500 in cash, which, considering the low 
 price of labor, ought to have carried the work 
 well toward completion. We note in the rec- 
 ords, however, that the governor took over 
 the cattle to be used as supplies by the army, 
 and agreed in return to include the construc- 
 tion of the church in his next year's budget of 
 expense. As the territorial government was 
 entirely bankrupt, and was dependent on the 
 missions for support that was half charity and 
 half blackmail, this plan of Sola's presents in 
 itself just ground for suspicion; and the latter 
 is increased by the fact that operations on the 
 church came to a sudden standstill the next 
 year, nor were they renewed until the padres, 
 in response to an appeal from the president of 
 the missions, subscribed seven barrels of bran- 
 dy, worth $575, to the building fund. In 1821 
 the work halted again, and a second appeal 
 was made to the padres, and more brandy 
 was subscribed. A number of cash subscrip- 
 tions were made by the well-to-do colonists 
 in all parts of the state, after Governor Sola 
 had set the example. The conversion of the 
 brandy into cash, drink by drink, was accom- 
 plished with the enthusiastic co-operation of 
 the citizens of the pueblos. December 8, 182:^, 
 the building was dedicated with appropriate 
 ceremony. The present Plaza church struc- 
 ture was built in 1861 out of the original struc- 
 ture. 
 
 The change from a royal province to a ter- 
 ritory in the Mexican republic meant very lit- 
 
134 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 tie to the people of Los Angeles. There were 
 a few slight changes in their political institu- 
 tions — theoretical, rather than actual. Cali- 
 fornia was now entitled to a representative in 
 the Mexican national assemblage, to be elected 
 by a local legislative body. Sola, who was anx- 
 ious to be rid of the governorship, was chosen 
 to represent the state in Mexico, and Luis Ar- 
 guello was elected to fill the gubernatorial of- 
 fice. Los Angeles was represented in this — 
 which we may call the first legislature of Cal- 
 ifornia — by Jose Palomares. In the second ses- 
 sion, Jose Antonio Carillo, also of Los Ange- 
 les, was made a member. Palomares was 
 / probably elected by the people, and Carillo 
 V appointed by the body itself. 
 
 The Los Angeles ayuntamiento was en- 
 larged by the addition of a syndico — treasurer 
 and counselor — and a secretary. These, in ad- 
 dition to the alcalde and the two regidores, 
 made a deliberative-administrative body of 
 five. It was to be known hereafter as "Muy 
 Ilustre" (very illustrious), and was to be sur- 
 rounded with dignity and ceremonial. A gen- 
 tle hint was presently thrown out to the comi- 
 sionado that under the new order of things he 
 lagged superfluous on the municipal stage, but 
 it seems to have failed to take with Guillermo 
 Cota, who was in charge of the local military. 
 A clash of authority soon took place, the ques- 
 tion of who was who went up to the governor, 
 and he proceeded to rap the "very illustrious" 
 over the knuckles. Order must be maintained 
 
The Pueblo Begins to Grow. 135 
 
 ill the pueblo, and the governor's representa- 
 tive should not be interfered with. A compro- 
 mise was at last effected, by choosing Cota as 
 the alcalde. Thus the civil authority finally 
 absorbed the military. 
 
 Whether it was due to the spirit of revolu- 
 tion in the air, or to the increasing importance 
 of local offices, about this time Los An- 
 geles began to have trouble in municipal poli- 
 tics, with frequent election disturbances. In 
 1826 the election was ruled illegal, and ordered 
 to be held over again ; and in 1830 the returns 
 were thrown out, on the ground that all the 
 candidates were 'Vagabonds, drunkards and 
 worse." Slow and stupid as the government 
 of Spain had been, it was at least stable and 
 dignified. That of Mexico, on the contrary, 
 changed so constantly that it made itself ri- 
 diculous. In the era of revolution and local 
 disturbance that was now beginning, Califor- 
 nia merely followed the example of the home 
 government. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE EPOCH OF REVOLUTIONS. 
 
 ALIFORNIA was a Mexican terrltory 
 about a quarter of a century. The 
 new oath of allegiance was adminis- 
 
 tered on the nth of April, 1822, and 
 
 on the 7th of July, 1847, the American flag 
 went up over the old fortress at Mon- 
 terey. During that period, eight regu- 
 larly appointed governors administered the 
 affairs of the territory (not to men- 
 tion half a dozen irregular and self- 
 appointed ones), and their terms varied from 
 six months to six years. If we except the 
 first of the list, Arguello, who was really in- 
 herited from the Spanish regime, every one of 
 these governors had to contend with local re- 
 bellions during his term, and three were driven 
 out of the country by revolution. One of the 
 eight was a usurper, who seized the government 
 without the shadow of a claim, rebelled from 
 Mexico, set up an independent state of Cali- 
 fornia, and was not only pardoned by the Mex- 
 ican authorities, but, in the end, was regularly 
 appointed to the position and allowed to serve 
 out a considerable term. 
 
 To understand the disturbed condition of 
 California during this epoch, it is necessary to 
 bear in mind the demoralization that prevailed 
 in the governing country, through its incessant 
 revolutions and political plotting. Although 
 
The Epoch of Revolutions. 137 
 
 California took no direct part in Mexican poli- 
 tics, but made haste to swear allegiance to 
 whatever power came out on top, there was a 
 natural undermining of the respect for author- 
 ity, and a disposition to follow the bad example 
 set at headquarters. 
 
 Party lines were drawn to some extent in 
 California. The party division that prevailed 
 in Mexico was modeled after that of 
 the United States; which was logical 
 enough, considering that the Mexican 
 constitution was based on the Amer- 
 ican. The names, however, were not exactly 
 the same. The opposing parties in Mexico 
 were the Federalists and Centralists, the 
 former representing the liberal idea, with a 
 considerable element of local self-government, 
 and the latter the conservative, with a strong 
 central government, a large army, and a lean- 
 ing to the Roman Catholic church. In Cali- 
 fornia the great majority of the people were 
 Federalists. Too far from the capital to par- 
 ticipate in the home government, they were 
 naturally in favor of local institutions, and of 
 the party that would cherish them. 
 
 The pueblo of Los Angeles was the storm- 
 center for revolutions during this period. 
 Most of the plots for the overthrow of one 
 governor and the setting up of another had 
 their birthplace in Los Angeles, and the chron- 
 ic conspirators who, at irregular intervals, 
 would work up a new scheme for making trou- 
 ble, were, with a few exceptions, residents of 
 
138 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 Los Angeles. There were two reasons for 
 this — one was that Los Angeles was the largest 
 town in the territory, with a population whose 
 idleness prompted it to mischief ; and the other 
 was that the southern metropolis was possessed 
 of an idea that it ought to be made the capital 
 of the state, and its failure to achieve the 
 coveted honor kept it discontented and uneasy. 
 In 1835, it succeeded in obtaining an order from 
 the Mexican congress that the capital should 
 be moved from Monterey to Los Angeles, and 
 the latter place was given the formal rank of 
 ciudad, or city, but the decree was not carried 
 out until in 1845. 
 
 As we shall have occasion in the story of 
 Los Angeles to refer to many of the governors 
 of this epoch, and as the revolutions form an 
 important part of the local narrative, this 
 chapter will be devoted to brief enumeration 
 of the eight Mexican governors, their terms, 
 and the revolutions thereof. 
 
 On the ist of February, 1825, Arguello was 
 removed from office by the Mexican govern- 
 ment, having administered the afifairs of the 
 territory with honesty and good judgment for 
 nearly three years. He was followed by Jose 
 Maria Echeandia, a man of small ability, but 
 apparently possessed of good intentions. 
 Echeandia undertook to move the capital to 
 San Diego by the process of residing in that 
 place himself. At the beginning of Lis term, 
 he ordered the archives brought down from 
 Monterey, and in spite of the opposition of 
 
The Epoch of Revolutions. 139 
 
 Arguello, the command was obeyed. He con- 
 tended that San Diego was the central point 
 of the territory of the two Californias; but 
 his real object in making the change was to 
 live in a warmer climate at the southern end 
 of the state. This snub to Monterey was re- 
 sented by the people of that region, and in 
 1829, when a rebellion was started there by 
 an embezzling office-holder named Herrera, 
 and an ex-convict named Solis, it received 
 some countenance. Governor Echeandia 
 came up from the south with 150 men and met 
 the conspirators near Santa Barbara. The 
 battle was bloodless, as were most of the en- 
 gagements of this period, and the rebels fled. 
 The leaders were captured and exiled to 
 Mexico, and Echeandia served the rest of his 
 term in peace. 
 
 In 1831 Echeandia was removed,much to his 
 disgust, to make room for a political adven- 
 turer from Mexico named Manuel Victoria, 
 who, in his brief term of one year, succeeded 
 in getting himself thoroughly hated for his ar- 
 rogance and cruelty. He began by expelling 
 Jose Antonio Carrillo and Don Abel Stearns, 
 two respected citizens of Los Angeles, from the 
 territory. He refused to assemble the legisla- 
 ture, or to submit any of his acts to the leading 
 men for their opinion and advice. In Novem- 
 ber, 183 1, a manifesto was issued, containing 
 the names of Pio Pico, Juan Bandini and Jose 
 Antonio Carrillo, calling upon the people to 
 rise and dispose of Victoria. About 200 men 
 
140 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 from San Diego and Los Angeles marched 
 northward to meet the governor, who was com- 
 ing down from Santa Barbara with all the men 
 he could gather at that place — only thirty. The 
 little armies met near San Fernando. A per- 
 sonal altercation took place between Captain 
 Romualdo Pacheco of the Santa Barbara party 
 and Jose Maria Avila, a prominent man of Los 
 Angeles, and in the fight both were killed and 
 Victoria wounded in the face. The governor 
 was taken to San Gabriel, where he made a 
 will, leaving the conduct of affairs to Echean- 
 dia, who was still living at San Diego. In the 
 meantime, the legislative body of the territory 
 had elected Pio Pico to be temporary governor 
 until the Mexican authorities should be heard 
 from. To get Victoria out of the state, for he 
 was now quite ready to go, a fund was raised, 
 to which Los Angeles contributed $125, on the 
 understanding that it should be repaid by San 
 Diego. It never was repaid, however, although 
 frequent efforts were made by the Los Angeles 
 ayuntamiento to collect the money. 
 
 Pio Pico does not count as a regular gov- 
 ernor at this time; it was understood that he 
 was to hold merely during the interregnum. 
 Nevertheless, the brief period of his adminis- 
 tration was long enough for two other gov- 
 ernors to claim the seat — Echeandia on the 
 south and Zamorano on the north, at Monterey. 
 There was no actual fighting, although the 
 armies at one time came within sight of each 
 other. 
 
Tower of Santa Barbara Mission 
 
The Epoch of Revolutions. 141 
 
 In the spring of 1832, Jose Figiieroa was ap- 
 pointed to succeed the luckless Victoria. He 
 was the best of all the governors sent up from 
 Mexico, and he managed to hold the office dur- 
 ing three years with only one rebellion, and 
 that a trifling affair. A few gambling vaga- 
 bonds of the Los Angeles district assembled at 
 the ranch house of Los Nietos, in the spring 
 of 1835, and drew up the customary pronuncia- 
 mento, but they failed to secure a decent fol- 
 lowing, were seized, thrown into jail, and final- 
 ly sent out of the country. 
 
 In the fall of that year Figueroa died, and 
 there followed him, after a short interregnum, 
 the worst governor that California ever had, 
 Mariano Chico, a Mexican politician who had 
 to be "taken care of" by the administration 
 then in power. He was a coarse, ignorant fel- 
 low, of violent temper, filled with hatred of 
 foreigners, and contemptuous of local institu- 
 tions and customs. He began his administra- 
 tion with a row with the people of Los An- 
 geles. A citizen by the name of Feliz had been 
 deserted by his wife, and when he undertook 
 to bring her back, he was set upon and killed 
 by the woman and the man with whom she had 
 eloped. The murderers were captured and 
 thrown into jail in Los Angeles, but a mob 
 broke open the place, took them out, and, after 
 a hasty trial, shot them to death. This is the 
 first instance in California of the lynching of 
 white malefactors. Indians were sometimes 
 treated after this fashion for running off stock. 
 
142 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 Now it happened that the man who had been 
 killed was a fellow countryman of Chico, and 
 the governor flew into a terrible rage against 
 the people of Los Angeles. He ordered the 
 arrest of the principal officers of the city, and 
 threatened them with death. His courage 
 seems to have failed him at the critical moment 
 of the trial, however, and they were all par- 
 doned with a reprimand. 
 
 When Chico had been in office about six 
 months, and had succeeded in alienating all 
 classes of society, he had an undignified alter- 
 cation with the principal alcade of Monterey, a 
 very popular man, whom he insulted and then 
 degraded from office. The next day the capital 
 began to fill up with armed and mounted men. 
 Day by day they increased in number, coming 
 from greater and greater distances, until the 
 place was invested with a band that seemed 
 ready to take control at a moment's notice. 
 Chico understood what it meant; he came from 
 a country of revolutions, and when the legisla- 
 ture suggested that as more soldiers were need- 
 ed for him to maintain order, perhaps he had 
 better go back to Mexico and get some, he lost 
 no time in taking the hint. 
 
 Gutierrez, being next in command, under- 
 took to manage affairs until a new governor 
 should be appointed ; but the taint of the policy 
 of Chico hung over his actions, and before two 
 months had passed a new revolution was under 
 way. It was led by a young man named Juan 
 Bautista Alvarado, who, at this time, was an 
 
The Epoch of Revolutions. 143 
 
 accountant in the custom house, and was the 
 idol of the native element. Gutierrez had in- 
 sulted and threatened the youth, using the 
 manner of language that he had learned from 
 Chico — and with the same result as befell 
 the latter. Alvarado went out among the peo- 
 ple and soon gathered a small army, with 
 which he descended upon Monterey and drove 
 Gutierrez into the presidio. The governor had 
 removed all the powder from the armory, so he 
 thought himself free from artillery attack, but 
 Alvarado's men opened a number of musket 
 cartridges, and, using the powder thus ob- 
 tained, they managed to put a ball through the 
 roof over the governor's head. He promptly 
 capitulated, and went the way of Chico. 
 
 Alvarado was rather a unique character. 
 He was born in Monterey, and at the time of 
 his revolutionary experience was 2.J years of 
 age. His success in waging war against the 
 incumbent seems to have been accepted by all 
 the Californians as a legitimate title to the gov- 
 ernorship, and in December, 1836, he formally 
 entered upon the duties of the office. As he 
 could not claim to represent Mexico, whose ap- 
 pointee he had driven from the territory, he an- 
 nounced himself governor of the "Free and 
 sovereign state of California." But this effort 
 at independence proved to be only a flash in 
 the pan. The people looked askance at it, and 
 there were immediate mutterings of rebellion 
 in the direction of Los Angeles. The ayunta- 
 miento of that city presently came out with a 
 
144 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 Statement to the effect that while they were 
 ready to accept Alvarado as governor,his term 
 should last only until Mexico could appoint, 
 and, moreover, that a recent declaration of the 
 governor in favor of independence and of toler- 
 ation for other religions than that of the Ro- 
 man Catholic church was entirely at variance 
 with their views. , 
 
 Alvarado hastily gathered a force of men 
 and marched south to San Fernando. A con- 
 ference was held with the Los Angeles forces, 
 and Alvarado accepted the conditions laid 
 down by the rebels. What he wanted at the 
 time was to get himself firmly seated in the 
 chair of the governorship, and then the future 
 might take care of itself. In October of the 
 same year, 1837, news came that Carlos An- 
 tonio Carrillo had been appointed governor. 
 Alvarado refused to turn over the capital to 
 him, and when Carrillo raised an army at Los 
 Angeles and San Diego, and started for the 
 north, the governor sent his chief of staff south 
 with a considerable force to intercept them. 
 The battle — so-called — took place at San 
 Buenaventura; one man was killed and the 
 southern army was routed. The engagements 
 of these revolutionary times consisted chiefly 
 in the discharge of artillery at safe range. Car- 
 rillo abandoned his claims, and the Mexican au- 
 thorities seem to have decided that the easiest 
 way to get rid of Alvarado was to accept him 
 as governor. Possibly they figured that the 
 Californians would soon tire of him, and throw 
 
The Epoch of Revolutions. 145 
 
 liim out; but if this was their idea, they were 
 wrong, for he served his term of five years with 
 credit to himself and advantage to the territory. 
 
 Alvarado resigned of his own accord in Jan- 
 uary, 1842, and was succeeded by Emanuel 
 Micheltorena, a Mexican general, who was 
 chiefly noted for the infamous gang of cut- 
 throats and adventurers that he brought up 
 with him in the guise of soldiers. They were 
 popularly known as ''Micheltorena's Lambo." 
 These creatures became at length intolerable, 
 and a revolution started in the north, with Al- 
 varado at its head, to drive them out of the 
 country. This culminated in another of the 
 bloodless battles, the location being at Ca- 
 huenga — for Los Angeles had taken an active 
 part in the final uprising. Micheltorena left 
 the country, by request, in February, 1845, 
 having served as governor three years. 
 
 The last of the governors under Mexican 
 rule was Pio Pico of Los Angeles, who held 
 the office until the American occupation. He 
 was involved in constant difficulties with Cas- 
 tro, the commander of the military forces, but 
 no revolution took place during his brief ad- 
 ministration, save that of the change of control 
 from Mexico to the United States. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THK RUIN OF THK MISSIONS. 
 
 HE MOST important event of the per- 
 iod of the Mexican governors was the 
 destruction of the mission system. 
 This took place in the year 1834, dur- 
 ing the administration of Figueroa. 
 The dissipation of the mission properties fol- 
 lowed hard upon the overthrow of the system, 
 and by the time of the American occupation 
 the ruin was complete. 
 
 In spite of the demands made upon the 
 missions for supplies and money for the army, 
 during the period of the rebellion from Spain, 
 the establishments continued to prosper, and 
 when the Mexican governors cast about them 
 for means to run the territorial government, 
 they could find no better plan than to follow 
 the example of their Spanish predecessors. 
 The Mexican congress was very liberal with 
 its promises and appropriations, but the treas- 
 ury was always empty. Government by revo- 
 lution is an expensive luxury. At one time 
 every cent that could be raised was required to 
 put down a rebellion, and a little later, the 
 other side being then in power, the money was 
 all needed to pay off the patriots who had 
 just saved the country. So California was left 
 to look out for itself. There was some revenue 
 from the customs duties, but it fell far short of 
 
The Ruin of the Missions. 147 
 
 the sum required to maintain the army and 
 the civil list. The missions made up the defi- 
 cit, which varied in amount from $30,000 to 
 $50,000 a year. 
 
 One would suppose that the authorities, 
 both in California and Mexico, would be dis- 
 posed to look with extreme leniency upon an 
 institution possessed of such hard-cash vir- 
 tues ; that they would, in other words, hesitate 
 to kill the fowl that laid the golden ^^g. That 
 this view was held by the first governors un- 
 der the Mexican rule is shown in their treat- 
 ment of the padres who refused to take the 
 oath of allegiance. When word was sent to 
 Mexico that Sarria, the president of the mis- 
 sion system, had declined the oath, orders 
 came promptly back to send him down to be 
 tried for treason. In one way and another 
 this order was evaded, together with the in- 
 structions that came later from the home gov- 
 ernment calling for the expatriation of all 
 priests who were not loyal to the Mexican re- 
 public. The priests denied that they were dis- 
 loyal, in the sense of wishing evil to the exist- 
 ing government, but they objected to the oath, 
 on the ground that they were made to promise 
 to bear arms against the enemies of Mexico, 
 which was contrary to their clerical vows. And 
 more than one of them declared that he was 
 tired of taking so many oaths of allegiance to 
 the changing forms of government in Mexico, 
 and that the whole performance seemed friv- 
 olous and undignified. In the end several of 
 
148 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 the padres were sent out of the country, but 
 only those whose opposition to the new order 
 of things was open and vehement. 
 
 "We cannot send these priests away," said 
 Echeandia, the second of the Mexican govern- 
 ors, ''because we shall then have nobody to 
 manage the missions, which are the basis of 
 our supplies." 
 
 But while the padres had this advantage 
 over the local government, that they were 
 needed as producers, the governors had on 
 their part a most effective weapon in the threat 
 of secularization or the seizure of the temporal 
 possessions of the missions. In 1813, when the 
 territory was still under Spanish control, the 
 cortes, or national assembly of the mother 
 country, passed an act declaring that the mis- 
 sions of California should be converted into 
 parish institutions : that is, mere churches for 
 spiritual instruction, with no industrial fea- 
 tures. This decree was never carried out, and 
 its legality, after the transfer to Mexico, might 
 be questioned, but it was a suggestion to the 
 padres of what would come to pass if they 
 failed to support the local government. 
 
 Arguello, the first of the Mexican govern- 
 ors, complained, in 1825, in a report to the 
 Mexican authorities, that the Indians were 
 practically slaves, and that no progress was 
 being made in bringing them nearer to civili- 
 zation. This latter statement was probably 
 true. The Indians had been living under tbfe 
 mission system now for about half a century. 
 
The Ruin of the Missions. 149 
 
 While they were an improvement over the or- 
 iginal savages from an industrial point of view, 
 as they toiled faithfully under the guidance of 
 the padres, and produced large crops, they 
 were far from being civilized, and had made 
 no progress in the last quarter of a century. 
 Possibly as a result of Arguello's com- 
 ments instructions were issued to his success- 
 or, Echeandia, to make a careful study of the 
 condition of the Indians, and to report to the 
 home government on the question of seculari- 
 zation. 
 
 Echeandia saw fit to exceed his authority, 
 and, not content with a mere report, he drew 
 up and made public in California a plan for 
 the emancipation— as he regarded it— of the 
 Indians. In 1830 he had this plan adopted by 
 the California legislature (diputacion), but as 
 neither that body nor the governor had any 
 authority to carry it out, it was never put into 
 practice. Some of its more important provis- 
 ions were incorporated in the plan adopted in 
 1834 by Figueroa, under instructions from the 
 Mexican congress. 
 
 The publication of Echeandia's scheme_ for 
 taking the Indians away from the missions 
 and establishing them in pueblos showed the 
 padres very clearly what they were to expect. 
 Several who were then in trouble over the 
 question of the oath of allegiance hastily left 
 the country, but the majority determined to 
 stay and fight it out. It is charged that even 
 at this early date they began to regulate the 
 
150 History of Los Angeles. \ 
 
 affairs of the missions with a view to the prop- 
 erty ultimately passing into alien hands — that 
 they sold off stock where they had an oppor- 
 tunity, or converted it into hides and tallow. 
 It is certain that they followed this policy to a 
 considerable extent in the last year or two, 
 before the decree of secularization finally went 
 into effect. They would scarcely have been 
 human had they failed to do so. It is to be re- 
 corded to their credit, however, that they 
 made no effort to get the money thus obtained 
 out of the country, but used it either for the 
 purchase of supplies for the Indians, or laid it 
 by against the time they saw was soon com- 
 ing, when the mission properties would fail to 
 support them and their wards. 
 
 Victoria, who succeeded Echeandia, was 
 friendly to the padres and the mission system. 
 He denounced the proposed plan of seculariza- 
 tion as a scheme to despoil these useful estab- 
 lishments and dissipate their property. 
 
 There is little doubt that when Figueroa 
 was^ sent to California by the Mexican author- 
 ities he understood what was expected of him, 
 and that he was himself a sincere advocate of 
 the plan of secularization. He was an honor- 
 able man, however, and, as a rule, clear- 
 headed, and it is safe to say that if he could 
 have foreseen the rascality this plan would 
 bring into play — the destruction of the In- 
 dians and the demoralization of the forces of 
 the church — he would never have given it 
 countenance. 
 
The Ruin of the Missions. 151 
 
 The Mexican congress passed the first for- 
 mal decree of secularization in 1833. The 
 missions were to become parish churches, 
 their property, with the exception of a small 
 tract, 600 feet square, to be divided among the 
 Indians and any other settlers that might 
 choose to take it up. Provision was made for 
 a bishop for the territory. The expense of 
 maintaining these churches and the bishopric 
 was to be met by drafts on the "Pious Fund." 
 
 It will be remembered that when the 
 Jesuits founded the missions of Lower Califor- 
 nia, in the latter part of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, they raised a considerable fund for their 
 maintenance. The investments of this fund 
 passed into the hands of Mexico, with the suc- 
 cess of the rebellion from Spain. The annual 
 income of the fund at this time was about $50,- 
 000, but no payments had been made to the 
 California missions since about 1810. To draw 
 on a fund originally subscribed for missionary 
 work to pay for parish establishments was evi- 
 dently illegal, but not more so than the fre- 
 quent borrowing from this fund by the Mexi- 
 can government, and its ultimate complete 
 confiscation. 
 
 Figueroa transmitted the decree of the 
 Mexican congress to the local legislature with 
 a message in which he declared his belief 
 that the missions were ''intrenchments of 
 monastic despotism." The governor had a 
 strong humanitarian sentiment, and was pos- 
 sessed, moreover, of some Indian blood; and 
 
152 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 the stories he had heard of the harsh treat- 
 ment of the neophytes by the padres aroused 
 in him a bitter prejudice. He little suspected 
 how much worse a fate he was preparing for 
 the unhappy Indians. 
 
 The first decree was found to be incom- 
 plete, and a year later the Mexican congress 
 acted again, and the CaUfornia legislature fol- 
 lowed. Commissioners were appointed for 
 each of the missions, whose duty it was to 
 take an inventory of the stock, utensils and 
 real estate of each, to inform the Indians that 
 they were free, to distribute the land among 
 the neophytes much after the manner in 
 which it was distributed to the settlers of the 
 pueblos, and to appoint in each establishment 
 a major-domo, who should see that the Indians 
 were kept in order, and their rights respected 
 by the padres. Seed corn and farming uten- 
 sils were to be given to the Indians, and they 
 were to be urged to go to work and support 
 themselves. 
 
 The commissioners set out in the month of 
 August, 1834, and, under th^ir stupid, and fre- 
 quently corrupt, mismanagement, the mar- 
 velous mission system of California, which 
 it had taken half a century of industry, self- 
 sacrifice and pious devotion to build up, was, 
 within an incredibly short period of time, 
 thrown down and broken to fragments. It is 
 perhaps questionable whether any plan could 
 have been devised by which the Indians, 
 
The Ruin of the Missions. > 153 
 
 whose daily life and occupation had been con- 
 trolled by the padres as though they were chil- 
 dren, could have been made independent and 
 self-reliant, but scarcely any policy could 
 have been worse than the one adopted. The 
 commissioners, instead of asking the advice 
 and co-operation of the padres, treated the lat- 
 ter as though they were a band of robbers, 
 whose booty was about to be wrenched away. 
 The Indians were called together, and in- 
 formed with dramatic gusto that they were 
 free, and might go where they pleased— a 
 privilege which they translated to mean idle- 
 ness and debauchery. Thousands of them 
 ran away to the mountains and relapsed into 
 savagery. Others wandered about from one 
 mission to another, and finally brought up in 
 the towns or on the ranches, where they 
 worked for small pay, part in cash and part in 
 brandy. The effort to form them into pueblos 
 was an almost complete failure. If land was 
 given them they made haste to sell or mort- 
 gage it, and to put the proceeds into liquor. 
 And all this was due not so much to the innate 
 depravity of the race, nor to the teaching of 
 the padres — incomplete and impolitic as that 
 may have been— as it was to the shock of the 
 sudden release from all bonds of restraint, and 
 to the poverty and wretchedness that fol- 
 lowed. 
 
 The property of the missions, the stock, 
 lands, utensils, and finally the buildings them- 
 selves, all melted away through the combined 
 
154 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 incompetency and corruption of the adminis- 
 trators. The cattle were slaughtered in great 
 numbers, or were driven off to neighboring 
 ranches; the lands were sold at low figures or 
 given out in grants. The industrial buildings 
 were looted, and then left to fall into decay. 
 
 The census of the later years of mission rule 
 showed for the twenty-one establishments 
 (San Rafael, 1817, and San Francisco Solano, 
 1823, are now to be added to the list) a total 
 of 30,000 neophytes, 420,000 cattle, 60,000 
 horses and mules, 320,000 sheep and hogs, and 
 an annual product of about 40,000 bushels of 
 grain. At San Gabriel, which was one of the 
 richest of the missions, there were nearly 100,- 
 000 cattle, and in two years none were left. 
 The plain for miles in every direction was cov- 
 ered with the rotting carcasses, so that a pesti- 
 lence was feared. 
 
 Left to themselves, and utterly dazed at the 
 fall of the establishments in which they had 
 been reared, the Indians planted no crops ; and 
 the government, which had come to depend 
 upon the mission supplies, found itself in an 
 awkward case. The commissioners declared 
 that nothing could be done with the Indians 
 except through coercion, and thus presently 
 there came to be a tacit understanding that the 
 major-domos, or overseers, were somehow to 
 bring the neophytes back to their industrious 
 ways. This meant a renewal of the flogging 
 practices at which the authorities had mani- 
 fested so much horror when the mission sys- 
 
The Ruin of the Missions. 155 
 
 tern was in force. Then came dreadful stories 
 of Indians beaten to death, and of women and 
 children allowed to starve, of the frequent 
 shooting down of Indians by the white colon- 
 ists, and of misery and degradation all along 
 the line of the once prosperous establish- 
 ments. 
 
 In 1839 Governor Alvarado appointed Wil- 
 liam E. P. Hartnell, an American, to make the 
 round of the missions, report on their condi- 
 tion, and advise what should be done. His 
 report is a sorrowful document. Barely one- 
 eighth of the Indians are left, he estimates, liv- 
 ing in or about the missions — which means 
 that 25,000 of them had disappeared. While 
 he makes no direct charges of corruption 
 against the commissioners, it is plainly evident 
 that he understands what wholesale robbery 
 had been committed. In the matter of the 
 flogging he suggests that the curates, or resi- 
 dent padres, be allowed to take charge of that 
 — an interesting admission. His investiga- 
 tion finally brought him to such utter dis- 
 couragement that after a year and a half of 
 service he begged the governor to relieve him 
 from the work. 
 
 A few years later, when Pio Pico, the last 
 of the Mexican governors, was beginning his 
 short and troubled term, an order was issued 
 for the sale of the last remnants of the mission 
 properties, to meet, in most cases, the demands 
 of creditors — for, in addition to robbing them 
 of everything that was tangible, the commis- 
 
156 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 sioners had actually broug-ht the establish- 
 ments out in debt — and all the buildings, ex- 
 cept those in active use for church purposes, 
 were sold to the highest bidder. With this 
 last melancholy flicker the mission system of 
 California, which was one of the most unique 
 and remarkable institutions ever founded on 
 the American continent, went out in the dark- 
 ness of utter ruin. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THK FORKIGNKR ARRIVKS. 
 
 HE SPANISH theory of the colony: 
 that it existed solely for the use and 
 benefit of the mother country, was ex- 
 emplified in the laws respecting for- 
 eigners. Neither China nor Japan, in 
 the years of their greatest exclusiveness, was 
 more tightly closed to outsiders than was Cali- 
 fornia in the years of Spanish rule. This pol- 
 icy did not prevail in Spain itself. Strangers 
 possessed of satisfactory passports from their 
 own countries might travel at will within her 
 boundaries. The dependencies, however, were 
 guarded with a jealous eye, evidently in the 
 fear that they might be enticed from their al- 
 legiance to the mother country. 
 
 Little difficulty was experienced in main- 
 taining this policy with regard to California 
 during the first forty or fifty years of Spanish 
 occupancy, for the reason that there was no 
 inducement for foreigners to attempt to visit 
 the country. It was entirely out of the regular 
 line of ocean travel, and great deserts and 
 hostile tribes of Indians shut it off from the 
 people of the new republic to the east. At rare 
 intervals an American vessel would be seen 
 along the coast — about once in ten vears. Gov- 
 ernor Pedro Pages, who succeeded De Neve, 
 the founder of Los Angeles, was greatly dis- 
 
158 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 turbed in 1787 by the presence of a boat which 
 he thought was "owned by General Waugh- 
 engton" — such being his idea of the spelHng 
 of our first president's name. English and 
 French explorers, coming with the official 
 recognition of the home government of Spain, 
 were afforded every courtesy, but all traders 
 were warned to keep away from the coast. 
 
 This rule of absolute exclusion was broken 
 at last in 1814, when John Gilroy, an English- 
 man, landed from a trading vessel and an- 
 nounced his intention of remaining. He was 
 little more than a boy, and perhaps for that 
 reason his presence was not regarded with 
 much apprehension. He declared himself a 
 Catholic, and asked to be entered as a citizen 
 of the country. In 1820 his request was for- 
 mally granted, and he married into a Califor- 
 nia family. Shortly afterward Philip James, 
 an American, was received under the name of 
 Felipe Santiago ; and an Irishman was entered 
 with the very un-Irish name of Juan Maria. 
 In 1816 an American schooner was driven into 
 Santa Barbara, and the captain and five sailors, 
 after a brief period of imprisonment, were re- 
 ceived as citizens. 
 
 The first American to settle in the vicinity 
 of Los Angeles was Joseph Chapman, whom 
 the native Californians called ''Jose el Ingles." 
 He came with Bouchard, the privateer, whose 
 capture of Monterey has been described in an 
 earlier portion of this narrative. He was at 
 first treated as a prisoner of war, but, proving 
 
The Foreigner Arrives. 159 
 
 himself useful — for he was a man of extraordi- 
 nary ingenuity and resource — he was freed and 
 accepted into citizenship. He married Guada- 
 lupe Ortega, of the Santa Barbara family, 
 whose ranch house was destroyed by Bouch- 
 ard. Stephen C. Foster, who was a promi- 
 nent man in Los Angeles at the time the Amer- 
 icans took possession of California, and who 
 died recently in this city, was accustomed to 
 tell an interesting and romantic story of the 
 capture of Chapman at Santa Barbara, and of 
 his rescue from death by Guadalupe, but 
 this was pure imagination with the person that 
 originated it, for Chapman left the Bouchard 
 party of his own accord at Monterey. Padre 
 Zalvidea of San Gabriel, who was one of the 
 cleverest industrial managers developed by the 
 mission system, early recognized the possibil- 
 ities of the versatile stranger, and made a 
 friend and co-worker of him. He built for 
 Zalvidea the first successful water power grist- 
 mill to be operated in California. Attempts 
 had been made before, but the water wheel al- 
 ways threw moisture all over the grist. The 
 Yankee Chapman introduced the bevel gearing 
 to get around this difficulty. The mill was 
 slow, but it was a great improvement over 
 hand grinding, or the mill which the horse 
 turned. 
 
 Chapman and the Indians, working under 
 his direction, prepared most of the timbers that 
 were used in the construction of the Church of 
 Our Lady of the Angels, on the Plaza, and as 
 
160 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 these same timbers were used in the remodel- 
 ing of 1861, his work still stands for the service 
 of the present generation. In 183 1 Chapman 
 took charge of the construction of a schooner 
 for the padres at San Gabriel, to be used in the 
 business of otter hunting. With the aid of 
 the Indians he prepared various parts and 
 fitted them together in the workshops of the 
 mission. They were then carried down to the 
 ocean at San Pedro, put together again, and 
 the boat was launched amid great rejoicing. 
 While this craft was scarcely suitable in ap- 
 pearance and speed for international racing, 
 perhaps, it served well the purpose for which 
 it was constructed, and was the second boat to 
 be built in California. Chapman died in 1849, 
 after thirty years of active and serviceable life. 
 A descendant of his still resides in this county. 
 The Americans who now occupy this region 
 are entitled to pride themselves on the fact 
 that the first one of their people to come on the 
 ground was a man who exemplified in his 
 energy, skill and integrity, the very best qual- 
 ities of the national character. 
 
 When the republic of Mexico assumed con- 
 trol of California it adopted, without much 
 change, the Spanish rule with regard to for- 
 eigners. But a new factor had entered in the 
 shape of foreign trade, which, during the 
 latter years of the revolution, had be- 
 come a necessity, all Spanish trade hav- 
 ing ceased, and there being none from 
 Mexico to take its place. Presently the 
 
The Foreigner Arrives. 161 
 
 American trading companies that bought the 
 hides and tallow from the missions found it 
 necessary to establish local agencies at Mon- 
 terey, the capital ; and in the decade from 1820 
 to 1830 a number of Americans became settlers 
 on this basis, with no one seemingly disposed 
 to object. 
 
 During this same period there came into 
 California the first overland travelers — the 
 advance guard of the great army of immigra- 
 tion that was presently to overwhelm and take 
 possession of the country. Although this was 
 only 75 years ago, there was at this time 
 a great strip of country beginning a short dis- 
 tance back from the Pacific coast and running 
 nearly a thousand miles to the east, covering 
 more than one-fourth of the present area of 
 the United States, that was practically unex- 
 plored. There were no maps nor charts for 
 the traveler's guidance, and no protection from 
 the attack of warlike savages, save in one's 
 ability to defend himself. On that side the 
 Californians had thought themselves im- 
 pregnable, and when the first overland par- 
 ties arrived, the shock of astonishment and 
 anger was to them almost like a presentiment 
 of the inevitable. They had become entirely 
 accustomed to the foreigners entering by the 
 sea. They welcomed them as traders and tol- 
 erated them as citizens. But the foreigners 
 creeping in over the mountains were enemies, 
 whose advent was fiercely resented. 
 
 The first party consisted of fifteen trappers, 
 
162 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 under the command of Jedediah S. Smith, who 
 came down the Colorado river from Salt Lake 
 to San Gabriel and Los Angeles in 1826. They 
 were promptly ordered out of the country, but 
 became scattered, and several of them re- 
 mained, although their leader went back. In 
 1828 a party of eight, led by Sylvester Pattie, 
 a Kentuckian, and later by his son, James O. 
 Pattie, came into California by way of New 
 Mexico and Arizona, arriving first at San Di- 
 ego. Three members of the party settled in 
 Los Angeles, Nathaniel Prior, Richard Laugh- 
 lin and Jesse Furguson. They had passports 
 from the American authorities, but Governor 
 Echeandia received them with great harsh- 
 ness. According to the account given by the 
 younger Pattie, and subsequently published 
 in book form, he tore up the passports and 
 threw the trappers into prison. The elder Pat- 
 tie died while in confinement, and the younger 
 was liberated after nearly a year in jail, when 
 it was discovered that he knew how to per- 
 form vaccination. The other members of the 
 party were also freed. Prior, a silversmith, 
 married one of the Sepulveda family, and was 
 for many years active in Los Angeles affairs. 
 Laughlin, a joiner, owned a vineyard east of 
 Alameda street. Furguson had a store on 
 Main street, near the Plaza, during 1828 and 
 1829, and then went to Lower California to 
 live. 
 
 About this time came George Rice and 
 John Temple. They opened a store for gen- 
 
The Foreigner Arrives. 163 
 
 eral merchandise on the spot where the Dow- 
 ney block now stands — then the extreme 
 southern Hmit of the town. Temple was a 
 leading commercial and financial man of Los 
 Angeles — an older brother of F. P. F. Temple 
 of the Temple & Workman bank. His part- 
 nership with Rice ceased in 1831, a'nd from 
 that time until 1845 he conducted the store 
 alone. In 1857 he built the southern portion 
 of the Temple block. Two years later he built 
 on the site where the Bullard block now stands 
 a building which he intended for a market 
 house and theater, but which was finally pur- 
 chased by the county to use as a court house. 
 He died in San Francisco in 1866. John Tem- 
 ple was a native of Massachusetts; he mar- 
 ried Dona Rafaela Cota in 1830. 
 
 In 1827 came J. D. Leandry, who for a time 
 conducted a store on the south side of the 
 Plaza. He afterwards purchased the ''Los 
 Coyotes" ranch, dying in 1842. 
 
 The famous Abel Stearns — universally 
 called "Don Abel Stearns" — came in 1828. 
 The title "Don" was bestowed by Americans, 
 as well as Californians, upon a few of the earl- 
 iest immigrants who had married into the fam- 
 ilies of the country, and who were so thor- 
 oughly identified with the Spanish population 
 as to seem to the later comers to be like na- 
 tives. Don Abel was a man who would have 
 made his mark at any time and in any com- 
 munity. He began with merchandising in a 
 store located where the Baker block now 
 
164 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 stands, and where later he erected a home so 
 large and elegant that it was called by the 
 people of the town *'the palace of Don Abel 
 Stearns." He had a natural talent for making 
 money, and there was no line of business in 
 which he did not, at one time or another, take 
 a hand. At his death he was the largest indi- 
 vidual landowner — not in number of acres, 
 but in valuation — in the southern half of the 
 state. He married Dona Arcadia, daughter of 
 Don Juan Bandini. After the death of Don 
 Abel she married Col. R. S. Baker, who died 
 several years ago. She is still living and in 
 control of large property interests in and 
 around Los Angeles. 
 
 On Christmas day, 1828, the American brig 
 Danube was wrecked at San Pedro, and Los 
 Angeles received several settlers from the 
 crew. One of these was Samuel Prentiss, who 
 afterward engaged in otter hunting on Cata- 
 lina island, and died there in 1856. Another 
 was John Groningen, or Juan Domingo, as he 
 was generally known among Californians who 
 found difficulty with the pronunciation of his 
 German name. He married a Feliz, and ac- 
 quired a large vineyard at the corner of First 
 and Alameda streets. Pie purchased from the 
 city the original site of Yang-na, the Indian vil- 
 lage, and expelled the few savages that still 
 remained in that vicinity. The place had be- 
 come a sink-hole of filth and iniquity, and its 
 clearance was a necessity. 
 
 As Groningen was the first German, so 
 
The t'oreigner Arrives. • 165 
 
 Louis Bouchette was the first Frenchman. He 
 had a vineyard on Macy street, and a house 
 near the site of the Baker block. Another 
 Frenchman coming at about the same time, 
 1831, was Jean Vignes, who owned the Aliso 
 vineyard. 
 
 William Wolfskill, a Kentucky trapper, ar- 
 rived in Los Angeles overland in 1831. He 
 married into the Lugo family, and, securing a 
 large tract of land to the southeast of town — 
 since known as the Wolfskill ranch, or Wolf- 
 skill tract — he set it out to vines. There were 
 at this time a few orange trees at each of the 
 missions in the southern part of the state, and 
 Wolfskill determined to raise the fruit on a 
 larger scale. He therefore laid out two acres 
 of his ranch in 1841 to oranges, and is entitled 
 to be known as the pioneer American orange 
 grower of California. In i860 he had over 100 
 acres in oranges. 
 
 James, or Santiago, McKinley, a Scotch- 
 man, came in 183 1, and engaged in business 
 until 1846. He took a hand in several of the 
 revolutions. 
 
 Jonathan Trumbull Warner, known as 
 Juan Jose Warner, arrived in Los Angeles in 
 1831, overland. He was a native of Connecti- 
 cut, and for a space of over sixty years he 
 holds an important place in the history of this 
 region, not only because he was active in poli- 
 tical and industrial affairs, but also because 
 he was an observant man, and possessed the 
 faculty of recording what he saw and heard. 
 
166 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 In 1840 he returned to the east for the purpose 
 of urging the construction of a railway to the 
 Pacific coast. He was one of the earliest ad- 
 vocates of that project. He lived for many 
 years on his ranch in San Diego county, but 
 the latter part of his life was spent at his resi- 
 dence in this city, located on the site of the 
 Burbank theater. He died in 1895. 
 
 The pioneers of 1832 were Juan Isaac Wil- 
 liams, a trapper, who married into the Lugo 
 family, and for a long time owned the Chino 
 ranch ; and Lemuel Carpenter, who established 
 a soap factory on the road to San Gabriel. 
 Those of 1833 were Santiago Johnson, an Eng- 
 lishman, who conducted a ranch in the vicin- 
 ity of San Pedro, and Jacob P. Leese, who car- 
 ried on a merchandise business in Los Ange- 
 les for several years and then went north. 
 
 In 1834 came Hugo Reid, a Scotchman, 
 who married an Indian woman of the San Ga- 
 briel mission. In 1852 he contributed to the 
 Los Angeles Star an important series of arti- 
 cles on Indian manners and customs. In 1835 
 Henry Melius, who appears in Dana's *'Two 
 Years Before the Mast," settled in Los Ange- 
 les, whither he was followed, four years later, 
 by his brother Francis. Both were in the firm 
 of Melius, Howard & Co. Henry served as 
 Mayor of Los Angeles in i860. 
 
 In 1835 came Leon I. Prudhomme, a 
 Frenchman, who acquired the Cucamonga 
 ranch. In 1836 John Marsh, a physician, set- 
 tled in Los Angeles. His letters on the coun- 
 
The Foreigner Arrives. 16*7 
 
 try were published in Missouri and Michigan 
 newspapers, and stimulated immigration. In 
 the same year came John Forster, an English- 
 man, who married the sister of Pio Pico, and 
 who purchased the ex-mission ranch of San 
 Juan Capistrano. He died in 1884. 
 
 In 1841 the first notable immigration party 
 arrived in Los Angeles, starting from Pennsyl- 
 vania. Among its 40 members were several 
 who were afterward active in local affairs. 
 John Rowland, who settled at Puente ; Wm. 
 Workman, B. D. Wilson and D. W. Alexan- 
 der. F. P. F. Temple came in this same year. 
 From this time on Americans began to come 
 in by the overland routes in considerable num- 
 bers. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 I^OCAL KVKNTS OF MEXICAN RUI.E. 
 
 URING this period of its history Los 
 Angeles was generally known as 
 "The Pueblo"— its full title, El Pu- 
 eblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de 
 Los Angeles — being used only on 
 official documents. There was a short time 
 during which an effort was made to change the 
 name to Santa INI^aria, as the theory seems to 
 have prevailed that the name of the saint, as 
 well as her title, was used in the original name 
 of the town — thus, El Pueblo de Nuestra Se- 
 nora, Santa Maria, la Reina de Los Angeles. 
 There may have been a feeling that the origi- 
 nal name was not quite long enough for the 
 dignity to which the place was now attaining 
 as a revolutionary center. In 1827 Los Ange- 
 les had a narrow escape from an official change 
 of name, but not to Santa Maria, however. 
 The Mexican authorities complained that the 
 name of the California city was frequently con- 
 fused with that of the Puebla de Los Angeles, 
 the capital of the Mexican state of Puebla, and 
 the California legislature reported back advis- 
 ing that the name be changed to Villa Victor- 
 ia de la Reina de Los Angeles, the purpose evi- 
 dently being to call it Victoria in everyday use. 
 At the same time it was proposed to change 
 the name of the territory from California to 
 
Local Events of Mexican Rule. 169 
 
 Aloctezuma. The reason for this does not ap- 
 pear. Fortunately the whole proposition was 
 pigeon-holed in Mexico, and Los Angeles was 
 allowed to hold its unique title. There are 
 plenty of Victorias in the country, but only 
 one Los Angeles. The first American settlers 
 had the habit of calling the place "Angeles" — 
 without the *'Los." 
 
 Cosme Pena, who served as prefect of the 
 southern district of California during part of 
 the administration of Alvarado, introduced a 
 new variation of the name. He had a great 
 deal of trouble with the residents of the city, 
 who were at that time in a condition of chron- 
 ic tumult. In his letters to the governor Pena 
 was accustomed to write the name "Los Di- 
 ablos" instead of Los Angeles. 
 
 The period from 1830 to 1840 does not show 
 as rapid a growth of population as the two pre- 
 ceding decades, but there was material im- 
 provement in a commercial way, and a prom- 
 ise of future growth in the arrival of active, 
 enterprising men from the country east of the 
 Rockies. In 1833 it was estimated that there 
 were in all about 200 families living in the 
 pueblo. An approximate census for the whole 
 district now included in Los Angeles county, 
 taken in 1833, gives 1675 white and 553 In- 
 dians. In 1836 there were said to be 40 for- 
 eigners living in the region, of whom 30 were 
 Americans. Thus it will be seen that while 
 the Americans were prominent as a class 
 through their individual activity they did not, 
 
170 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 as yet, contribute much to the increase of pop- 
 ulation. There was no longer any coloniza- 
 tion from Spain or Mexico, although extensive 
 schemes were broached at times for immigra- 
 tion from the latter country. The elimination 
 of the missions as an industrial factor de- 
 creased the local capacity for self-support, and 
 that probably affected the increase of popula- 
 tion. 
 
 The new-coming Americans seem to have 
 been brought under the same spell of fascina- 
 tion that affects visitors to Southern Califor- 
 nia even to this day, making residents of those 
 that thought to be merely sojourners. In spite 
 of their isolated position in the world, and the 
 foreign language and customs which they met 
 here, the first Americans in California seem to 
 have been well satisfied with their lot, and to 
 have readily accustomed themselves to the sur- 
 roundings. Almost without exception they 
 married women of the Spanish-American fam- 
 ilies, and the marriages proved to be happy 
 for both parties. The California women dis- 
 covered that the foreigners — particularly those 
 from the republic — made good husbands. It is 
 generally conceded by those that study and 
 compare national characteristics that the 
 American man possesses a fair allowance of 
 what may be called the domestic virtues. He 
 enjoys his home, and wants it to be livable. 
 He takes pride in his wife and children, and 
 sees to it that they have the best his income 
 will provide. 
 
Local Events of Mexican Rule. 171 
 
 While the original Spanish settlers had 
 been, many of them, men of force and indus- 
 try, a new generation was growing up that 
 had enjoyed little opportunity for education, 
 and whose ideas of life had been demoralized 
 by the ease with which a fair competence could 
 be obtained through the labor of the Indians. 
 Instead of devoting their energies to the im- 
 provement of their estates — for so the great 
 ranches of the older families may be termed — 
 they wasted their time in frivolous pursuits, 
 and in trifling political intrigues. Amiable, 
 polite and superficially unselfish, they made 
 delightful companions, but for the serious, 
 practical affairs of life — of which matrimony 
 is certainly one — they were not to be com- 
 pared with the Americans ; and the young 
 women of the best families made this discov- 
 ery early, and took it to heart. 
 
 The newcomers were required to swear al- 
 legiance to Mexico, and, if they proposed to 
 marry into a California family, to accept 
 Catholicism. These demands were usually 
 fulfilled with cheerful alacrity. The Mexican 
 government was a shadowy affair, which the 
 Americans believed would in time fade away 
 entirely, and be succeeded by the solid reality 
 of their own republic. As for the religion, by 
 the time a man had made his way to this far- 
 off corner of the world, all churches seemed 
 very much alike to him; and it was the Cath- 
 olic church or none, for no other existed. As 
 a rule, the California fathers and mothers were 
 
172 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 glad enough to secure American husbands for 
 their daughters, and objection seldom had to 
 be overcome. One interesting, and rather ro- 
 mantic, exception was the case of Henry 
 Fitch and Dona Josefa, daughter of Joaquin 
 Carrillo of San Diego, which, as it has a bear- 
 ing* on the history of the Church of Our Lady 
 at the plaza, may be briefly told here. 
 
 Fitch was a dashing young American 
 sailor, who came to California in 1826, and in 
 1827 became engaged to Dona Josefa. Her 
 parents seem to have been in doubt as to the 
 wisdom of the alliance, but, after two years 
 of waiting, a reluctant consent was granted, 
 and preparations were made for the wedding. 
 At the last moment the uncle of the bride re- 
 fused to serve as a witness, and interposed 
 such vigorous objection that the off dating 
 padre was afraid to proceed. He showed a 
 very human sympathy for the pair, how- 
 ever, and suggested that there were other 
 countries where no such difficulty would be 
 met. An elopement was planned, in which 
 Pio Pico, a cousin of the bride, assisted. The 
 marriage was performed in South America, 
 and the couple returned to the coast a little 
 more than a year later, accompanied by a 
 third party, to wit, an infant son. An ecclesi- 
 astical court was summoned to meet at San 
 Gabriel, and Don Enrique was tried for vio- 
 lating the laws of the church and the terri- 
 tory; and the question of whether he was 
 legally married or not was passed upon. The 
 
Local Events of Mexican Rule. 173 
 
 case awakened a great deal of interest, as may 
 be imagined, and the international mar- 
 riage question was discussed in every 
 household. The court finally decided 
 that the marriage was valid, but, "con- 
 sidering the great scandal which Don 
 Enrique has caused in this province," he was 
 condemned ''to give, as a penance and repara- 
 tion, a bell of at least fifty pounds weight for 
 the church at Los Angeles, which now has 
 barely a borrowed one." And that is how 
 the church on the plaza secured its first bell. 
 During the last half of the decade— after 
 the year 1835— Los Angeles enjoyed the 
 empty honor of being the capital of the terri- 
 tory. This was accomplished by Jose An- 
 tonio Carrillo, an active citizen of Los An- 
 geles, and an indefatigable plotter, who was 
 serving in the Mexican congress at that time. 
 The announcement of the proposed change 
 brought out a fierce protest from the people 
 of Monterey, in which some very pointed re- 
 marks were made. Among other things, it 
 was declared that Monterey was a larger city 
 than Los Angeles — which was certainly not 
 true — and that its people were more moral 
 and better cultured. It was asserted that 
 Monterey had the better climate, and that its 
 soil was more fertile; and in proof of Mon- 
 terey's general superiority over Los Angeles, 
 It was said that at the former place "women, 
 plants and useful animals are more produc- 
 tive." A much more effective argument than 
 
174 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 any comparison of the merits of the two cities 
 lay in the fact that Monterey was provided 
 with suitable buildings for the use of the gov- 
 ernment, whereas Los Angeles had nothing of 
 the kind. On one or two occasions, when a 
 governor had visited the pueblo, great diffi- 
 culty was experienced in finding a place for 
 him to stay, while he transacted public busi- 
 ness. And now, as often as the Los Angeles 
 ayuntamiento demanded to know why the 
 order of the Mexican congress was not 
 obeyed, and the seat of government removed, 
 the territorial authorities always responded 
 with a polite inquiry as to whether Los An- 
 geles had provided the necessary public build- 
 ings. With this retort the discussion usually 
 came to an abrupt end, for there were no 
 philanthropists in the pueblo in those days, 
 and the territorial treasury being always 
 empty of funds, the dilemma seemed a hope- 
 less one. 
 
 It was not until 1826 that San Pedro was 
 recognized as a port, and provision made for 
 the collection of revenue. Prior to that time 
 all business done between Los Angeles and 
 the ocean was practically smuggling. Even 
 after the port was established, as the collector 
 lived at Los Angeles, more than twenty miles 
 away from the water front, the temptation to 
 evade the payment of duties was very strong. 
 During the years from 1826 to the American 
 occupation, Catalina was a favorite resort for 
 smugglers, and some of the most prominent 
 
Local Events of Mexican Rule. 175 
 
 citizens of Los Angeles were believed to take 
 part in the contraband trade. Don Abel 
 Stearns built a large warehouse at San Pedro 
 in the early thirties, and when his political 
 enemies could find no other convenient 
 method to annoy him, they would bring in a 
 charge of smuggling and demand that the 
 warehouse be torn down. Don Abel managed 
 to hold his own against them, however, and 
 invariably escaped with a verdict of "not 
 proved." 
 
 The coming of numerous bands of trappers 
 through by the southwestern route finally re- 
 sulted in the opening of trade between Los 
 Angeles and Arizona and New Mexico. The 
 blankets made in New Mexico were of a su- 
 perior quality and much in demand, not only 
 for bedding, but also for personal wear. The 
 serape was the overcoat of the period. The 
 California horses and mules were superior to 
 those raised further east ; and the exchange of 
 blankets for stock was advantageous both 
 ways. Presently the Arizonans found it 
 cheaper to steal the stock than to trade for it, 
 and in 1835 the ayuntamiento of Los Angeles 
 passed some resolutions calling upon the local 
 alcaldes along the line between the pueblo 
 and the border to require parties driving 
 horses and mules out of the territory to show 
 a bill of sale. By this method the stealing 
 was diminished but not entirely broken up. 
 
 In 1836 the question of titles to town lots 
 was agitated, chiefly for the reason that dis- 
 
176 History of Los Angeles, 
 
 ptites as to ownership were becoming more 
 common. Up to this time no written titles 
 had been granted except those to the first few 
 settlers, which were of doubtful value, by rea- 
 son of their limitations. Anyone who wished 
 a piece of land, either for building a house or 
 for cultivation, applied to the ayuntamiento, 
 and received oral permission to go ahead and 
 do whatever he pleased, as long as he did not 
 interfere with his neighbors. Boundaries were 
 vague, and, if no fence or wall had been con- 
 structed, were subject to constant dispute. In 
 the year 1836 the ayuntamiento began the 
 practice of giving written titles, and a notice 
 was issued calling upon all who held land in 
 the pueblo to file a claim describing the exact 
 location, and have it accepted and endorsed by 
 the authorities. As the city was thus far en- 
 tirely without a plan, its streets being unde- 
 fined, crooked and irregular, great difficulty 
 was experienced in locating and describing the 
 individual boundaries. The people, moreover, 
 were indolent and neglectful, and, after re- 
 peated calls, many had failed to respond. 
 
 The total of the yearly receipts of the mu- 
 nicipality in these days was something under 
 $1000, of which about half came from the tax 
 on liquors, and the remainder from fines. The 
 treasury was always empty, and there were 
 continual complaints that the salary of the 
 city's officers were unpaid. Practically no at- 
 tempt was m.ade at municipal improvement, 
 except that the irrigation ditch was generally 
 
Local Events of Mexican Rule. 177 
 
 kept in order. Indians were punished for 
 drunkenness by being put to work on the 
 ditch, and the supply of malefactors of this 
 kind was inexhaustible. There was no light- 
 ing of streets at night, except that each 
 keeper of a tavern or wine-shop was required 
 to hang a lantern in front of his place. In 
 1836 the filthiness of the city was so great that 
 crows and other carrion birds were attracted 
 to it in vast numbers, constituting a veritable 
 pest. A voluntary contribution was called for 
 by the ayuntamiento to pay for the expense of 
 killing them off. In this same year a decree 
 was passed that no man should keep more 
 than two dogs, and that both of these should 
 be securely tied. What to do with the super- 
 fluous ones was a question. The treasury 
 was as usual ; but the second alcalde came for- 
 ward — limping a little, perhaps — and offered 
 to provide at his own expense the necessary 
 poison. 
 
 In 1839 an incident took place which, 
 though trivial in itself, added to the general 
 unpopularity from which the town suffered 
 throughout the territory. Don Cosme Pena 
 had been appointed by Governor Alvarado 
 prefect of the southern district, with head- 
 quarters at Los Angeles. There being no 
 other place offered for his use, he had an of- 
 fice in the residence of Don Abel Stearns, and 
 the flag of the Mexican republic fluttered from 
 the top of a pole in front of the house. One 
 Sunday, when Pena was out of the city, a 
 
178 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 party of fifteen young men pulled down this 
 flag, and then, by way of added insult, slaugh- 
 tered a calf at the flag pole. The explanation 
 offered by the citizens of the affair was that 
 Stearns was accustomed to use the pole as a 
 hitching post for cattle that were presently to 
 be slaughtered, and that the flag was removed 
 and the calf killed as a mark of their dis- 
 approval of Pena's choice of headquarters. In 
 the territory generally it was taken as an in- 
 sult to the national emblem. Pena resigned in 
 anger, and the governor fined each member of 
 the ayuntamiento $io, and compelled twenty 
 citizens who had signed a letter to him on the 
 subject to pay $5 apiece for their rashness. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THK PASTORAL AGE IN CALIFORNIA. 
 
 HE EARLY Californian presents the 
 most picturesque and distinctly- 
 unique type that appears in our na- 
 tional history; and his life, prior to its 
 modification by contact with the peo- 
 ple of the United States, is extraordinarily ro- 
 mantic and interesting. It is quite probable 
 that the modern American, if suddenly trans- 
 planted into the California of 1830, would find 
 much that was disagreeable, and perhaps also 
 some things that would excite his horror and 
 disgust. He would, on the other hand, find 
 not a little to enjoy, and a great deal to won- 
 der at and admire. At the root of it all he 
 would discover a principle so radically differ- 
 ent from that on which he endeavors to base 
 his own life policy, that the whole scheme 
 would seem to him an almost hopeless puzzle. 
 Asking himself constantly the question: Why 
 do these people do these foolish things? he 
 would see no wisdom in the answer: Because 
 it is the custom of the country, as it was for- 
 merly the custom of our ancestors in Spain. 
 
 For example, nothing distressed the first 
 American visitors more than to observe the 
 way the Californians yoked the oxen for work 
 in the fields, or for draft purposes on the road. 
 Instead of the weight being put upon the neck 
 
180 History of Los Angeles, 
 
 and shoulders, it was thrown directly upon the 
 horns. The poor creatures showed by their 
 lifting and twisting of the head that they were 
 suffering pain, and the limit of their strength 
 and endurance was quickly reached ; they were 
 by no means as efficient as they would have 
 been if properly yoked. But when the visitor 
 called attention to the cruelty and the wasted 
 energy in this system, he received always the 
 same answer : That it was so done in Spain. 
 
 This admiration of the Mexicans for the 
 mother country, even after they had passed 
 out from under its control, was almost without 
 limit. Though not always expressed in words, 
 it showed in their intense conservatism. They 
 were totally ignorant of the change that had 
 taken place in the relative position of Spain 
 and other European countries, whereby it was 
 no longer a great and powerful empire, but a 
 tottering ruin. That country was to them still 
 the Spain of Ferdinand and Isabella, of Charles 
 V and Philip II. Those who could read were 
 an insignificant fraction of the total, but even 
 for the educated there were no books, news- 
 papers or periodicals. We may go further, and 
 say that had all the means been at hand for 
 enlightenment, it would still have required 
 many generations of knowledge to have re- 
 moved the hereditary self-complacency — the 
 innocent and almost modest pride, that is an 
 essential part of the Spanish character. 
 
 Lacking a word to exactly correspond to 
 our ''civilized," the first Spaniards used the 
 
The Pastoral, [Age in California. 181 
 
 phrase, "La gente de razon" — people who can 
 reason — to distinguish them from the Indians, 
 whom they regarded as little else than brutes. 
 There were, at the time of the American occu- 
 pation, about 4000 native Californians of this 
 order, and about 1500 of these were in Los An- 
 geles or its vicinity. A very small percentage 
 were pure-blooded Spaniards, although few 
 were ready to admit that they were anything 
 else. Cases were rare in which whole families 
 emigrated from Spain, or Spanish soldiers sent 
 back for their wives or sweethearts to come 
 over, and the extremely small number of wo- 
 men from the mother country is the clearest 
 evidence of the mixed character of the popula- 
 tion. In the early history of Mexico many ne- 
 groes were brought into that country, and, as 
 we have seen, there was some element of negro 
 blood among the first settlers of Los Angeles. 
 As a rule, however, the mixture was Spanish 
 and Indian in varying proportions. The com- 
 bination was not a fortunate one, when to the 
 haughtiness and conservatism of the Spaniard 
 was added the ignorance and indolence of the 
 Indian. That the results were no worse in the 
 composite character is due partly to the favor- 
 able influence of the Catholic church, and part- 
 ly to the natural conditions of the country that 
 made life simple and easy. 
 
 The higher class Californian, whose blood 
 was nearly if not entirely Spanish, was gener- 
 ally the owner of a huge ranch, tens of thou- 
 sands of acres in extent, covered with cattle. 
 
182 History of Los Angelei>. 
 
 The offices of the territory, and most of those 
 of the municipalities, were filled from this 
 class. Their characteristics were the same as 
 we know them today among the few remain- 
 ing representatives of the old order. They 
 were elegant of manner, dignified, hospitable, 
 generous to a fault, honorable and just, as far 
 as their limited knowledge of the world admit- 
 ted. It takes a wise man to be a just one. If, 
 for example, at the time of the American oc- 
 cupation, some of the Californians were guilty 
 of questionable transactions in the matter of 
 land titles and government claims, it was rath- 
 er through their failure to understand the tech- 
 nicalities of our law, and their desire to do 
 as they thought the Americans did, than from 
 any actual wish to defraud. But, on the other 
 hand, the original Californians of the better 
 class were not lacking in faults. They were 
 seldom good business men — one might almost 
 say never — they were utterly unprogressive, 
 they were given to political plotting and 
 scheming, they were vain of their personal ap- 
 pearance, and too often were what in the 
 south is called "trifling" and in New England 
 "shiftless." The last characteristic was on so 
 grand a scale as almost to be invested with a 
 dignity of its own. From the beginning of the 
 American invasion it was only too plainly evi- 
 dent that this class would never be able to 
 hold its own against the superior shrewdness 
 and determination of the Anglo-Saxon. 
 
 The lower class Californian forms by no 
 
The Pastoral Age in California. 183 
 
 means so pleasing a picture. In numbers he 
 exceeded the others more than ten to one. 
 He had something of the dignity and the gen- 
 erosity of his superior, but lacked his self-con- 
 trol. Indolent, reckless, entirely without edu- 
 cation, addicted to drink, and purposeless in 
 his occupations, we can only wonder that his 
 race continued through half a dozen genera- 
 tions, down to its improved condition of the 
 present day. 
 
 Although generated from a different set 
 of causes, the conditions in California before 
 the American occupation were not unlike those 
 of the south before the war. The actual labor 
 of the country was performed by the Indians, 
 who were held in servitude, and may be com- 
 pared to the negro slaves of the southern 
 states. The upper class Spaniards may be 
 compared in an industrial sense to the slave- 
 holders of the south (although they regarded 
 the institution of slavery with abhorrence) ; 
 and, finally, the lower class Californians may 
 be likened to the poor whites of the slave 
 states, despising labor, as the latter did, and 
 existing somehow on the overflow of the gen- 
 eral prosperity. The comparison is hardly fair 
 to the Californian, however, for the poor white 
 was spiritless and weak, whereas the other 
 was full of pride, and was not without energy 
 in certain directions. 
 
 Life in California, during this period, is in- 
 separably bound up with the horse. As soon 
 as children could walk, they were taught to 
 
184 History of Los A7igeLes, 
 
 ride, and by the time they were grown they 
 were at home not merely in the saddle, but all 
 over the horse, whether he were saddled and 
 bridled, or was naked and wild from the herd. 
 Horses were so cheap as to be practically val- 
 ueless. At times it was found necessary to kill 
 them off in great numbers. No attempt was 
 made to breed them to any points of excel- 
 lence, nor were they trained with the skill and 
 good judgment that horsemen now employ. 
 The average Californian had so many animals 
 at his disposal that he paid little attention to 
 any one in particular. They rode their horses 
 recklessly, and were thoughtless about matters 
 of food and drink and care. Fine trappings for 
 the horse were highly esteemed, and one of the 
 few manual industries held in great regard in 
 California, as it had been in Spain, was leather 
 working, an industry that has been handed 
 down in improved form to the present genera- 
 tion. 
 
 The industrial pursuit:!, of these people con- 
 sisted of agriculture, on a very limited scale, 
 of the manufacture of a few articles in com- 
 mon use, and of the raising of cattle for hides 
 and tallow. The latter was a business that 
 largely took care of itself, and it was prac- 
 ticed on a grand scale. Once a year there was 
 a rodeo, or round-up, when the cattle of a dis- 
 trict were gathered together by vaqueros, and 
 new stock was branded with the mark of the 
 owner. Special officers, called "jueces del 
 campo," or judges of the plain, were present 
 
The Pastoral Age in California, 185 
 
 at these gatherings to decide all disputes of 
 ownership. This office was continued for a 
 time even under American rule. The rodeos 
 usually took place in the spring or early sum- 
 mer, and were occasions of great merry-mak- 
 ing, large feeding and deep drinking, so that 
 even the most indolent were willing to forego 
 their habitual rest to take part and help. In 
 the autumn of the year the annual killing took 
 place. Hides brought an average of $2 apiece, 
 and tallow sold at from 6 to 8 cents a pound! 
 On a large ranch there would be perhaps 1000 
 cattle ready for the slaughter, which would 
 brmg the owner $10,000 to $15,000 in cash or 
 trade — usually in trade, for coin was scarce. 
 It has been estimated that when the pastoral 
 system of California was at its height, there 
 were 1,200,000 cattle on the ranches. The an- 
 nual exportations of hides and tallow averao-ed 
 over $250,000. The cattle were of an inferior 
 grade, lean, wild, and of little value for do- 
 mestic purposes. Butter, cheese, and even 
 milk, were rarities. The beef from these ani- 
 mals was tough, stringy and tasteless. 
 
 The sheep were a "scrub" breed, with short, 
 coarse wool, and their flesh was seldom used 
 for food. Hogs were raised in small numbers, 
 but the "gente de razon" disdained the use of 
 pork, except in the form of lard for cooking, 
 and the Indians regarded it with suspicion.' 
 The early Californians seem to have devoted 
 very little thought or energy to the pleasures 
 of the table. Travelers among them speak in 
 
186 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 the highest terms of their hospitahty, but are 
 chary of comphments on their cooking. In 
 most places it was left to Indian women, who 
 were everywhere the house servants, and their 
 ideas on the culinary art were decidedly 
 crude. In spite of the monotonous and indi- 
 gestible fare, good health seems to have been 
 the rule among the Californians, and sickness 
 the exception — which was fortunate, because 
 doctors were practically unknown. 
 
 California agriculture consisted in the rais- 
 ing of wheat, corn and grapes — the latter for 
 the making of wine and brandy. Enough grain 
 was raised for local necessities, but none for 
 export. The plow was a clumsy wooden aftair, 
 generally shod with a piece of iron. Wheat 
 was threshed by driving mares over it, as it 
 lay heaped upon the ground. The straw was 
 then raked off, and the grains winnowed out 
 by hand. There were good vineyards at the 
 missions and in Los Angeles, but few any- 
 where else. The missions also had fruit trees 
 and vegetable gardens, but until the Ameri- 
 cans came these were not to be found in the 
 towns — to any extent — nor on the ranches. 
 
 Very little manufacturing of any sort was 
 carried on outside the missions, and the work 
 at those institutions was only such as could 
 be accomplished by ignorant savages under 
 the training of the padres. Coarse blankets, 
 the simpler articles of leather make (including 
 a poor quality of shoes), a coarse meal, soap, 
 tiles for roofing, brandy and wine about com- 
 
The Pastoral Age in California. 187 
 
 plete the list. Nearly all articles of wearing 
 apparel, furniture, and even the better grade 
 of leather goods, were imported, at first from 
 Mexico, later from the United States and for- 
 eign countries. The only means of convey- 
 ance, other than the backs of horses, was the 
 carreta, which was a huge, clumsy creation, 
 with two immensely thick and solid wooden 
 wheels that turned on wooden axles, and were 
 sometimes — but not always — lubricated with 
 soft soap. 
 
 The California man was rather vain of his 
 personal appearance, and lavished a great deal 
 of attention and money upon his dress. An 
 outfit such as would be worn by a wealthy 
 rancher on any special occasion was likely to 
 cost anywhere from $500 to $1000. Every ar- 
 ticle of his dress would be imported, and the 
 Yankee skipper could be depended upon to 
 charge him all that the traffic would bear. The 
 trading business on the coast was expected to 
 pay several hundred per cent on each transac- 
 tion. The hats were from South America, 
 with a stiff, horizontal brim, and a conical 
 crown. A black silk handkerchief was usually 
 tied around the head, under the hat. This was 
 a Spanish custom, and it still prevails in the 
 mother country. The overcoat was the sarape, 
 a blanket of fine or coarse grade, according as 
 the owner was able to pay. It had a hole near 
 the center, through which the head was in- 
 serted. As a rule, this garment was striped 
 with bright colors, and either woven thick like 
 
188 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 a blanket, or of double cloth. Those made of 
 cloth, and provided with a rich embroidered 
 collar, were called mangas. There was a short 
 jacket of silk, or figured cloth, a white em- 
 broidered shirt, tied with a silk handkerchief 
 for a cravat, a vest of silk or damask, and a 
 pair of pantaloons, open from the knee down 
 on the outer seam, which was trimmed with 
 buttons and gold braid. Sometimes short 
 breeches of velvet or velveteen, dark blue or 
 crimson in color, were worn, and below them, 
 long white stockings. The shoes were of buff- 
 colored leather. Around the body was a silk 
 sash of bright hue. When on horseback, the 
 Californian wore leggings, especially if he had 
 on knee breeches, and these were bound with 
 handsome clasps or garters. 
 
 The woman's dress was not so elaborate 
 nor gaudy, although as expensive as her hus- 
 band's purse would stand. It usually con- 
 sisted of a bodice of silk, with short embroid- 
 ered sleeves. A bright silk sash was worn 
 loosely about the waist, and the skirt below 
 was elaborately flounced. The shoes were of 
 satin or velvet. Over the shoulders, and fre> 
 quently over the head as well, the rebozo, a 
 long dark scarf of silk or cotton, was worn, 
 and arranged with a great deal of grace and 
 expression. The hair of the younger women 
 was usually plaited in two long braids fast- 
 ened together at the ends with ribbon ; that of 
 the older women was more often done up with 
 a comb. 
 
Photo by Crandall 
 Statue of San Lris Rey— Carved by Indians 
 
The Pastoral Age in California. 189 
 
 The amusements of these people consti- 
 tuted a large and an important part of their 
 life. They came together from great distances 
 to attend fiestas, which were celebrations ex- 
 tending through several days and nights, or 
 fandangos, which were dance parties. Social 
 life was on an informal basis. No invitations 
 were issued to these gatherings, other than a 
 general notice, and almost everyone in the ad- 
 joining country was expected to come. One 
 pleasing fact to be set down in this connection 
 is that there were almost none of those dis- 
 tressing feuds, or life-long enmities, that are 
 so often to be found among primitive peoples, 
 and sometimes, we may add, among those of a 
 presumably higher civilization. Dueling was 
 almost unknown, and homicides rare. The 
 faults of the early Californians were not of the 
 savage and brutal order, but were rather the 
 outgrowth of qualities that are not far re- 
 moved from virtues. It is but a short and 
 easy step from generosity to prodigality, from 
 good humor to shiftlessness, and from socia- 
 bility to indolence. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THK STARS AND STRIPES. 
 
 HE HISTORY of the United States 
 prior to 1861 is largely a history of 
 the slavery question. Not only were 
 all internal political events affected 
 in some measure by this issue, but 
 even the foreign policy did not escape its bale- 
 ful influence. When the Missouri compromise 
 set a definite limit, as w^as supposed, to the 
 spread of slavery to the north, the acquisition 
 of more territory to the south and southwest 
 was necessary to the slave-holding interest, so 
 that it might maintain an equilibrium with its 
 opponents. Our relations with the Mexican 
 republic were controlled, almost from the be- 
 ginning, by this salient fact, and out of it 
 finally came the war of 1846-8, and the acqusi- 
 tion of California, Arizona and New Mexico. 
 There were, of course, other considerations 
 that entered into the impulse for war, when 
 the time came for its actual declaration. A 
 great majority of the people of the north, as 
 well as of the south, believed that the "Mani- 
 fest Destiny" of the republic required that it 
 should extend through on even lines from 
 ocean to ocean. In due course of time this 
 sentiment might have led to the purchase of 
 this territory, and would certainly have 
 aroused active and forcible opposition to its 
 
The Stars and Stripes. 191 
 
 seizure by any foreign power; but the Union 
 would scarcely have been drawn into a de- 
 liberate war for conquest — which the Mexican 
 war undoubtedly was — on a mere desire for 
 expansion, nor would the opportunity for that 
 war have been provided had not a potent 
 cause existed in the political situation. 
 
 The final appeal to arms grew out of the 
 annexation of Texas to the United States. 
 While still a Spanish dependency Texas had 
 been colonized by numerous parties of Amer- 
 icans ; and during Mexican rule it filled rapidly 
 with emigrants, chiefly from the southern 
 states. In 1836, when the Mexican republic 
 was in the midst of one of its periodic revolu- 
 tions, the Texans declared themselves inde- 
 pendent, and asked to be admitted to the 
 American Union. The proposition was, of 
 course, declined, as its acceptance would have 
 constituted an act of deliberate and inexcus- 
 able aggression ; but Mexico contended that 
 the Americans constantly gave aid and com- 
 fort to the rebels. Unable to win back its 
 revolted province, Mexico, nevertheless, re- 
 fused to acknowledge its independence. 
 
 In the eight years following, the offer of 
 Texas to come into the American Union stood 
 open, and was discussed at each session of 
 congress. It was well understood, both in the 
 United States and in Mexico, that the accept- 
 ance of the offer meant war. There was, it 
 is true, an element in Mexico that favored let- 
 ting Texas go, because it feared that the out- 
 
192 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 come of a conflict with the United States 
 would be the loss of California and the neigh- 
 boring territory, but those holding that view 
 were in the minority. 
 
 The continuous strain under which the 
 two countries rested is revealed in the incident 
 of the raising of the American flag at Monte- 
 rey by Commodore Jones in 1842. This oc- 
 curred four years before actual war broke 
 out, and while Micheltorena was governor of 
 California. England was believed to have her 
 eye on the province, which was to be taken in 
 exchange for fifty million dollars' worth of 
 Mexican securities held by British citizens. 
 France had been sending numerous exploring 
 parties into the country. The weakness of 
 Mexico made it possible that California might 
 easily be wrested from her grasp, and the Eu- 
 ropean powers were believed to be ready to 
 seize it on the first opportunity. Instructions 
 had been issued to the American naval com- 
 manders of the Pacific, that in the event of 
 war breaking out over the Texas difficulty, 
 they were to hasten to Monterey and raise tht 
 American flag. 
 
 Under this condition of afifairs, Commo- 
 dore Jones was lying in the harbor of Callao, 
 Peru, with the Pacific squadron, when a ru- 
 mor reached him that hostilities had begun be- 
 tween the two nations. At the same time the 
 British squadron lying in the harbor left in 
 haste, without divulging its course. The 
 American commander jumped at the conclu- 
 
The Stars and Stripes. 193 
 
 sion that the English were about to seize Cal- 
 ifornia, and promptly sailed for the north. 
 October 19th he came into the harbor of Mon- 
 terey, and although he found no British ves- 
 sels there he proceeded to carry out his de- 
 sign. Landing a force of 400 sailors and ma- 
 rines, he took possession of the town, no re- 
 sistance being offered, and raised the Stars 
 and Stripes over the fort. There the flag 
 waved for a day, and then the commodore re- 
 ceived information that convinced him he had 
 made a mistake. He promptly withdrew the 
 American ensign, ran up the tricoloi n its 
 place, and expressed a willingness to apolo- 
 gize and make suitable reparation. 
 
 Governor Micheltorena was at Los Ange- 
 les, slowly making his way northward from 
 Mexico with the ragged, thieving army that 
 afterward brought him so much trouble. 
 Thither Commodore Jones repaired, bringing 
 his fleet to San Pedro. When Micheltorena 
 heard of the capture of Monterey, he issued a 
 furious proclamation, in which he declared 
 that he would shed his last drop of blood in 
 defense of his country, but his wrath cooled 
 when he received a letter of apology from 
 Jones, accompanied by an offer of reparation. 
 The governor's idea of what was proper and 
 adequate reparation and the commodore's idea 
 did not coincide exactly. There was a streak 
 of thriftiness in Micheltorena's character that 
 came to light on this occasion. He announced 
 that the wounded feelings of himself and his 
 
194 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 countrymen could be soothed only by a dona- 
 tion from Jones of 50 uniforms for the army, a 
 set of band instruments and $15,000 in cash. 
 The commodore declined to consider this re- 
 quest, saying that the damages would have 
 to be settled by the respective governments. 
 The two principals to the controversy met on 
 amicable terms at the residence of Don Abel 
 Stearns, and a grand ball was given in honor 
 of the Americans. Commodore Jones ordered 
 a special salute to be given the Mexican flag 
 at San Pedro, and in this way the incident 
 came to a pleasant ending. 
 
 Four years later, when war was immi- 
 nent, although not yet declared. Captain John 
 C. Fremont, of the U. S. Topographical Engi- 
 neers, entered California overland, with an ex- 
 ploring party that consisted of 61 men, most 
 of whom were trappers and experienced 
 mountaineers. Fremont was a unique figure 
 on the national stage and his relation to the 
 affairs of California, during the period of con- 
 quest, was subsequently made the basis of 
 so much bitter partisan discussion that it is 
 difficult, even at this remote period, to arrive 
 at a just judgment on his conduct. While 
 there were numerous individual acts commit- 
 ted by him that are open to criticism, if tried 
 by modern standards, two material points of 
 defense may be urged in his behalf : First, his 
 youth, imbued with an enthusiastic and ag- 
 gressive Americanism, and, second, the secret 
 but easily divined instructions under which 
 
The Stars and Stripes. 195 
 
 he worked, coming through his father-in-law, 
 Senator Benton, direct from the administra- 
 tion. Without doubt. President Polk and his 
 cabinet beHeved that a war with Mexico was 
 inevitable, and they were ready to welcome 
 any reasonable excuse that should start the 
 train. We do not have to assume that Fre- 
 mont was specifically instructed to pick a 
 quarrel with Mexico in California. It was 
 enough that he should have had conveyed to 
 him, even in vague terms, the administra- 
 tion's willingness to fight ; his intense and al- 
 most reckless loyalty would do the rest. The 
 censure that seems to be his must, therefore, 
 be passed higher up — it belongs, in fact, with 
 the majority of the American people, whose 
 sentiment at this time Fremont most thor- 
 oughly typified. 
 
 It was in the month of January of the 
 eventful year 1846 that Fremont entered the 
 state and encamped in the Sacramento valley. 
 He came immediately in person to Monterey, 
 and, accompanied by Thomas O. Larkin, the 
 United States consul, he called on General 
 Castro, the military head of the California 
 government, Pico then being governor with 
 his headquarters at Los Angeles. The nego- 
 tiation was oral, and its terms afterward a 
 matter of dispute. Fremont explained that 
 his purpose was one of scientific exploration, 
 and Castro seems to have given a kind of con- 
 sent to his remaining. The commandant was 
 very much astonished a few weeks later to 
 
196 History of Los Angeles, 
 
 find that Fremont had brought his men over 
 on the coast range, and was encamped near 
 San Juan Bautista mission, only 30 miles from 
 the capital at Monterey. 
 
 The party was not molested, however, un- 
 til there were numerous complaints of horse- 
 stealing, and a charge that several of Fre- 
 mont's men had behaved in an insulting man- 
 ner toward the daughter of a prominent Cali- 
 fornian in the vicinity. There is no evidence 
 that any of these charges were true, but the 
 commandant believed them, and he ordered 
 Fremont to leave the territory. For answer, 
 the American threw up earthworks around his 
 camp, and raised the Stars and Stripes. This 
 was, in effect, an act of war, and one for which 
 it is quite impossible to find an adequate de- 
 fense, except on the theory that Fremont had 
 been sent into the country for the deliberate 
 purpose of making trouble. It seems to have 
 occurred to the young captain that perhaps 
 he was going ahead too fast, for when Castro 
 assembled an army of 200 men at San Juan 
 Bautista, Fremont and his backwoodsmen 
 slipped out in the night and made away to the 
 north. 
 
 Fremont was accustomed to speak with 
 extreme bitterness of Castro, who, he said, 
 welcomed him to the state and then expelled 
 him by force. Some months later, when Com- 
 modore Stockton, U. S. N., was issuing a proc- 
 lamation to the Californians, announcing the 
 American occupation, and was casting about 
 
The Stars and Stripes. 197 
 
 for a reasonable cause for this policy, the news 
 of the war between the nations not having 
 been received as yet, Fremont suggested that 
 his expulsion from the territory constituted an 
 adequate ''casus belli," and Stockton incor- 
 porated a savage reference to it in the docu- 
 ment. It was indeed a cause of war — but to 
 Mexico and not to the United States. In 
 driving out armed and rebellious foreigners, 
 Castro merely acted as a loyal officer should 
 act; his mistake, if any, was in allowing Fre- 
 mont and his party to enter at all. 
 
 This took place in the month of March, 
 T846. In April, Lieutenant A. H. Gillespie ar- 
 rived at Monterey with private dispatches for 
 Fremont, and, learnino: that he was on his 
 way to Oregon, started off in pursuit. What 
 the nature of these dispatches was has never 
 been made public, but their effect on Fremont 
 was to cause him immediately to return to the 
 Sacramento valley, and establish a camp ne^x 
 the mouth of the Feather river. This confirms 
 the theory that Fremont was sustained, and 
 even urged on, by the administration at Wash- 
 ington. 
 
 By this time the policy of insolence and 
 aggression on the part of the Americans had 
 borne its inevitable fruit in a feeling of re- 
 sentment, suspicion and hatred on the part of 
 the Californians, and a thousand rumors sped 
 over the territory, generated out of these sen- 
 timents, and then in turn increasing them. It 
 was said that 10,000 American immigrants 
 
198 History of Los Angeles, 
 
 were on their way to California with the 
 avowed purpose of taking possession of the 
 country; that the Cahfornians were preparing 
 to rise and massacre the Americans without 
 mercy; that the British were about to seize 
 the territory; and that the home government 
 of Mexico was in a condition of absolute an- 
 archy. In the midst of this confusion, a hand- 
 ful of adventurous spirits, living in and 
 around Sonoma, decided on the impulse of the 
 moment, that the shortest road to order and 
 good government lay in following the exam- 
 ple of Texas — for the Americans of the terri- 
 tory to revolt from Mexico, set up a republic 
 of their own, and then ask for annexation to 
 the United States. They were few in number, 
 uncertain of purpose, without a competent 
 leader, and but for the fact that the war be- 
 tween the Union and Mexico happened in the 
 very nick of time to extricate taem from their 
 dilemma, they would have paid dearly for 
 their folly; but, despite all this, the Bear Flag 
 incident goes down to history as an important 
 and exciting chapter of the California narra- 
 tive. 
 
 The conspirators presented their plan to 
 Fremont, but while he was perhaps willing 
 enough to see anything done that would widen 
 the breach between the two countries, as an 
 officer in the American army he could not par- 
 ticipate in a movement of active rebellion 
 against a nation with which the United States 
 was not yet at war. The leaders in the affair 
 
The Stars and Stripes. 199 
 
 consulted with him from time to time, and 
 when the rebelhon was fairly on its feet, he 
 allowed himself to become considerably iden- 
 tified with it. By that time, however, news 
 had reached him that fighting had begun along 
 the Texas frontier between the American and 
 Mexican armies, and that a declaration of war 
 would soon follow. 
 
 On the morning of June 14, 1846, the party 
 of revolutionists, 32 in number, entered the 
 little towm of Sonoma, took General Vallejo 
 and several others prisoners, and seized the 
 fort, which contained cannon, muskets and 
 other government property. There was no 
 fighting, either then or at any time during the 
 affair, although two Americans were captured 
 and put to death by the Californians, in return 
 for which three Californians were slaughtered 
 by the Americans. 
 
 When the Mexican ensign was hauled 
 down from the fort at Sonoma, it was decided 
 that the new republic must have a flag, and 
 the bear was used as the central figure of a 
 hastily constructed design. The name chosen 
 was *'The California Republic." 
 
 The absence of any one commanding fig- 
 ure soon threw affairs into confusion. Wm. 
 B. Ide, who was nominally the leader, lacked 
 pretty much everything that enables a man to 
 direct the actions of others. Finally, early in 
 July, when the so-called republic had been in 
 existence less than three weeks, the whole 
 party placed themselves in the hands of Fre- 
 mont, on the understanding that he was to 
 
200 History of Los Angeles, 
 
 get them out of the difficulty as best he could. 
 Fortunately, just at this time, the news came 
 that Commodore Sloat had entered the harbor 
 of Monterey, and had taken possession of the 
 entire territory in the name of the United 
 States. This brought an abrupt end to the 
 Bear Flag movement, and transformed those 
 whom the Californians regarded as desper- 
 ate rebels, and who regarded themselves as 
 brave revolutionists, into what history regards 
 as hare-brained enthusiasts. 
 
 Actual hostilities between the United 
 States and Mexico broke out in April, 1846, 
 but the news did not reach Washington for 
 nearly three weeks, this being before the days 
 of transcontinental railways and the telegraph. 
 On May 13th war was declared, but no 
 knowledge of that fact reached the Pacific 
 coast until August 12th. Early in June, how- 
 ever, Commodore Sloat, lying in the harbor of 
 Mazatlan, had news of the opening of hostili- 
 ties from which he knew a declaration of war 
 must come, and, proceeding in accordance 
 with general instructions which he had re- 
 ceived some time before, he hurried north to 
 Monterey, entering that port on the 2nd of 
 July. He spent several days inquiring into 
 the condition of affairs in California, where 
 he found no news of the fighting had yet pen- 
 etrated, and on the 7th of July he made up his 
 mind to go ahead with his plan to seize the 
 country, deeming it better, as he said, to be 
 censured for "doing too much rather than too 
 little." 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THK AMKRICANS KNTKR LOS ANGKlyKS. 
 
 ASTRO was at Santa Clara at the time 
 of Commodore Sloat's arrival at 
 Monterey, engaged in an effort to 
 raise men to put down the Bear Flag 
 rebellion. The relations between 
 Governor Pico and himself were, at this time, 
 strained almost to the point of civil war. The 
 former was, indeed, assembling a force, osten- 
 sibly to assist in maintaining order, but really 
 for the purpose of attacking Castro, whom he 
 charged with usurpation of civil power. The 
 correspondence that passed between the two 
 becomes almost ludicrous, when read in the 
 light of subsequent events, but each took his 
 part with the utmost seriousness, Pico stand- 
 ing upon his dignity as governor of the terri- 
 tory, and demanding that Castro take no step 
 of importance without consulting him, and 
 Castro bombastically vowing to shed his last 
 drop of blood in defense of his country, but 
 wisely keeping out of the way of the Ameri- 
 cans with his pitiful force of 200 ill-equipped 
 men. Later in the month the two representa- 
 tives of Mexican rule came together in the 
 south, and made a feeble effort to rally their 
 forces against the Americans, but as each was 
 suspicious of the other, concert of action was 
 impossible. A generation of habitual plotting 
 
202 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 and revolutions had rendered the CaHfornians 
 useless to themselves and to one another. 
 
 On the 7th of July, 1846, Commodore Sloat 
 landed his men at Monterey, and raised the 
 Stars and Stripes over the fort. The local com- 
 mandant offered no opposition, merely putting 
 himself on record with the statement that he 
 was overpowered by a superior force. The 
 commodore then issued a proclamation, 
 couched in temperate and conciliatory lan- 
 guage, in which he declared that California 
 would henceforth be American territory — al- 
 though what authority he had to make that 
 statement does not appear — and that the CaH- 
 fornians themselves would be the ones most 
 benefited by the change, as they would come 
 under a stable government, where revolutions 
 were unknown and where life, property, and 
 the right to religious freedom would be se- 
 cure. He assured them that the limitations on 
 commerce would be removed, and that the val- 
 u>* of real estate and of all California products 
 would be advanced. He urged all local officers 
 to continue with their duties, until the govern- 
 ment of the territory could be definitely ar- 
 ranged and he promised that no private prop- 
 erty should be taken for public use without 
 just return. 
 
 Within the next few days the flag was 
 raised at Yerba Buena (San Francisco), So- 
 noma, Sutter's Fort (Sacramento district), 
 Santa Cruz and San Jose. This completed the 
 conquest of the northern part of the state, and 
 
The Americans Enter Los Angeles. 203 
 
 no difficulty was experienced either then or 
 later in holding it under American rule. The 
 real war of conquest in California was all in 
 the southern portion, with Los Angeles, which 
 was the capital, as its chief agitator. 
 
 About the middle of the month Commo- 
 dore Stockton arrived ; and as Sloat was in 
 bad health and anxious to return to Wash- 
 ington, he placed Stockton in command and 
 sailed to the south. For some reason Stockton 
 seemed to feel that it was incumbent upon 
 him to follow Sloat's example and issue a proc- 
 lamation, although the latter had said all that 
 was needed on the subject of the relation of 
 the Californians to the new authority. Stock- 
 ton, however, succeeded in saying a good many 
 things that were better left unsaid ; his missive 
 contained a violent attack on Castro, whom he 
 called a usurper that was to be expelled from 
 the country by force. His threatening, ill- 
 humored language was well calculated to stir 
 up disorder rather than to allay discontent. 
 
 Fremont's original party had now grown 
 to such proportions that it was mustered into 
 regular service as the "Battalion of California 
 Volunteers," with Fremont as major, and Gil- 
 lespie as captain. On the 26th day of July, this 
 command was sent to San Diego with instruc- 
 tions to work north to Los Angeles, so as to 
 meet in that vicinity with Stockton's sailors 
 and marines, who would come up from San 
 Pedro. The purpose of this movement was to 
 cut off Castro and his army from escape to the 
 
204 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 south. Fremont landed at San Diego July 
 29th, and on the 13th of August met Stockton 
 and his men just outside of Los Angeles. 
 
 Meantime, what had been transpiring in 
 the City of the Angels? News of all these 
 great events — the expulsion of Fremont, the 
 Bear Flag rebellion, the capture of Monterey, 
 and the approach of Stockton and the Califor- 
 nia battalion had been brought to the pueblo, 
 and now last of all came Castro himself with 
 his remnant of an army. Through most of 
 this period the territorial legislature or a 
 piece of it, had been in session. As fast as new 
 disasters were reported, this body would pass 
 resolutions denouncing the authors thereof, 
 and calling upon the people to rise and arm 
 themselves and resist to the last. The gover- 
 nor undertook to do his part by issuing proc- 
 lamations of the same tenor. But the people 
 did not rise. There was no money in the treas- 
 ury to provide arms and uniforms, and no 
 army organization worthy of the name. More- 
 over, there was a large element of the popula- 
 tion made up of Americans and their friends, 
 and including also many of the shrewdest and 
 most progressive of the native Californians, 
 who appreciated that the best thing that could 
 happen to the territory was for it to be ab- 
 sorbed by the American republic. While these 
 men hesitated to declare themselves in favor 
 of the invaders, they certainly could not be de- 
 pended upon to resist them. 
 
 Just at this juncture there appeared in Los 
 
Thk Cokkidok at San Fernando 
 
ThelAmericans Enter Los Angeles. 205 
 
 Angeles a Catholic priest named Eugene Mc- 
 Namara, who had a scheme that he declared 
 would extricate California from all its trou- 
 bles; and the legislature devoted a week's time 
 to its consideration, clinging to it evidently as 
 a sort of forlorn hope. He claimed to represent 
 an English colonization company that was pre- 
 pared to send 10,000 Irish emigrants into the 
 territory, provided a land grant of 27,000 
 square miles be given for their use. The theory 
 on which the scheme rested was that if an 
 English company held a grant of this magni- 
 tude — 270 miles by 100 would be a huge slice 
 out of the state — it might result in interference 
 on the part of the British nation with the plans 
 of the Americans. The hope was futile, for 
 McNamara represented nothing but a firm of 
 irresponsible London speculators, who wanted 
 a land grant to serve as a claim against the 
 Americans when the latter should take the 
 country. The deed was given, the land being 
 a large part of what is now known as the San 
 Joaquin valley, but it was not signed until a 
 few days after Sloat raised the flag at Monte- 
 rey, whereby it was of no value whatever. 
 
 In the last days of July a definite plan for 
 the organization of an army was adopted and 
 a call was issued for all men of suitable age to 
 bear arms to assemble in Los Angeles and be 
 enrolled. Only a few responded. The total 
 forces of Pico and Castro probably did not 
 amount to much over 200 men, although the 
 
206 History of Los Angeles, 
 
 Americans at the time believed them to be six 
 or eight times that number. 
 
 On the nth of August, 1846, Stockton and 
 his 400 men started up from San Pedro drag- 
 ging their cannon by hand. Two days were 
 consumed in making the march. He encamped 
 on the mesa, about three miles southeast of 
 the city, and waited for Fremont. While 
 here a rumor reached him that Castro and 
 Pico had fled to the south, accompanied by a 
 considerable band of horsemen. On the 13th 
 Fremont and the California battalion came up, 
 and the combined forces marched into the city. 
 There was no opposition nor even a manifesta- 
 tion of ill-will. The officers of the territorial 
 government went into hiding, but, with the ex- 
 ception of Castro and Pico, they were either 
 captured or surrendered themselves within the 
 next few days. Castro had fled to Mexico. 
 Pico was concealed at the ranch of his brother- 
 in-law, Don Juan Forster, and he made his way 
 over the border about a month afterward. 
 
 Permanent headquarters were established 
 for the American government in an old adobe, 
 where the St. Charles Hotel now stands, on 
 North Main street, and Captain Gillespie and 
 a garrison of fifty men were stationed there. 
 
 Stockton remained about two weeks in Los 
 Angeles, during which time he formulated a 
 plan for the civil government of California, and 
 announced his intention of appointing Fremont 
 as governor. He did not actually put the plan 
 in force at this time, however. He wrote a 
 
The America7is Enter Los Angeles, 201 
 
 long and rather boastful report of his success 
 in conquering the new territory, and sent it 
 back to the national authorities by Kit Carson, 
 the famous scout, who had accompanied Fre- 
 mont through the whole of his recent adven- 
 turous course — a conspicuous and interesting 
 character of this period. Stockton and his sail- 
 ors then returned to San Pedro, and sailed for 
 Monterey. Fremont and his battalion went 
 north by land. Both the commanders were en- 
 tirely confident that there would be no further 
 difficulties, and that California was now safely 
 under the flag of the republic. 
 
 They did not appreciate, however, the ca- 
 pacity of the ancient pueblo for making trou- 
 ble. Revolution had become a habit with its 
 residents, and the quiet of good order was 
 distasteful and fatiguing. It is not improbable 
 that the rule of Captain Gillespie was some- 
 what lacking in diplomacy and consideration. 
 The failure of the Californians to stand for a 
 conflict had caused them to be rated as cow- 
 ards by the American soldiers; and Gillespie 
 and his men no doubt showed insolent and un- 
 warranted contempt for the people in their 
 charge. He refused to allow the Californians 
 to gather in friendly reunions, such as they 
 were accustomed to hold, would not allow li- 
 quor to be sold except on his special permis- 
 sion ; and on slight pretexts — so it is charged — 
 he would order leading citizens to be arrested 
 and brought before him, that he might humili- 
 ate them by his arrogance. These statements 
 
208 History of Los Ayigeles. 
 
 are no doubt subject to considerable discount, 
 and it may be that no man, however disc.reet 
 and well-disposed, would have pleased these 
 people as a ruler — for they did not wish to be 
 ruled; but the unanimous testimony of the 
 American residents of Los Angeles, at this 
 time, was that Gillespie made bad business of 
 his authority, and that he was largely to blame 
 for what happened. 
 
 There was a band of wild young men in 
 the pueblo, headed by Serbulo Varela, who 
 played at revolution and plotted for sport. 
 They called one of their number "governor," 
 and managed to annoy Gillespie and his men, 
 while they kept discreetly out of reach. On 
 the night of September 22nd this gang, consist- 
 ing of perhaps twenty youths, surrounded the 
 old adobe where the Americans were, and 
 feigned an attack by beating drums and dis- 
 charging muskets in the air. The soldiers sup- 
 posed it was a genuine attack, as perhaps the 
 Californians intended it should be later, and 
 they fired into the crowd, wounding one man 
 in the foot. The next day Gillespie arrested a 
 number of the leading men of the town, none 
 of whom had participated in the affair of the 
 night before, and threw them into prison; 
 whereupon a revolt started in good earnest. 
 Gillespie and his men managed to retreat from 
 their exposed position in the adobe to one of 
 the hills above and to the west of the city, and 
 there they constructed a fort of sandbags. A 
 courier was dispatched to the north to apprise 
 
The Americans Enter Los Angeles. 209 
 
 Stockton of the dangerous position in which 
 they were placed; for the number of CaHfor- 
 nians in arms was increasing daily, and al- 
 though the Americans had successfully beaten 
 off every attack so far, it was only a matter of 
 a very short time when their supplies would be 
 exhausted. 
 
 The courier, who was known as "J^^^^ ^^^^" 
 CO," or ''Lean John," his true name being John 
 Brown, made the trip to Monterey, 462 miles, 
 in the extraordinary time of fifty-two hours, 
 changing horses at frequent intervals, but tak- 
 ing no sleep by the way. One horse was shot 
 beneath him, as he passed the suburbs of Los 
 Angeles. This ride was long talked of by the 
 early American settlers of the state. 
 
 Stockton had, before leaving for the north, 
 organized a local militia company of twenty 
 Americans under the command of B. D. Wil- 
 son. They had been scouring the country in 
 search of Castro, but failing to find him they 
 were now in the San Bernardino mountains, 
 hunting for bears. Gillespie sent word to them 
 to come to his aid, but the Californians, antici- 
 pating the plan, met them at the Chino ranch, 
 and a fight ensued which is called the "Battle 
 of Chino," although little more than a skirmish. 
 Three of the Americans were wounded, and 
 one of the Californians, a popular young man 
 of good family, was killed. Varela, the origi- 
 nator of the revolt, led the Californians, and 
 he gave his word to Wilson that if he would 
 surrender he and his men should not be 
 
210 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 harmed. The Americans thereupon gave them- 
 selves up, but so great was the anger of the 
 Californians over the death of their compatriot 
 that they were restrained only with the utmost 
 diihculty from slaughtering Wilson and the 
 whole company. 
 
 The capture of these men discouraged Gil- 
 lespie, for there was no hope of succor from 
 Stockton within two or three weeks. When 
 General Flores, who had now taken charge of 
 the military operations of the Californians, 
 proposed that he leave the city with all the 
 honors of war, Gillespie gladly accepted the 
 terms, and on the 30th of September he made 
 his way to San Pedro. 
 
 There was an understanding that he should 
 be allowed to carry his field pieces as far as the 
 water front, but that there he was to surren- 
 der them to the Californians. Gillespie violat- 
 ed the spirit of this undertsanding, for he 
 spiked the guns, knocked ofif their breech knobs 
 and flung them into the water at low tide. Sev- 
 eral years later these cannon were rescued by 
 B. D. Wilson, and hauled back to Los Angeles. 
 Wilson at that time had a large store at the 
 corner of Main and Commercial streets, where 
 the Farmers and Merchants' bank now stands ; 
 he put the cannon in the gfround at the corner, 
 as mementoes of his narrow escape from death 
 in the war. Two of them are still there, and 
 the other two are now to be seen in front of the 
 Broadway entrance of the courthouse. 
 
 Gillespie was about to start north on an 
 
The Americans Enter Los Angeles. 211 
 
 American merchant ship that was lying in the 
 harbor, when Captain Mervine arrived, most 
 opportunely as it seemed, with the frigate Sa- 
 vannah. On the 7th of October 350 men from 
 the frigate, together with Gillespie's detach- 
 ment, undertook to get up from San Pedro to 
 Los Angeles, and the battle of Dominguez 
 ranch took place, on the evening of that day 
 and the morning of the next. The Californians 
 were not numerous, but they were all mounted, 
 and they had a fieldpiece, which they used with 
 good effect. When the Americans charged 
 and attempted to capture it, the Californians 
 galloped off, dragging it after them with their 
 reatas. At length when six of the Americans 
 had been slain, and a number wounded they 
 gave up the fight and retired to San Pedro. The 
 men slain in the battle were buried on Dead 
 Man's Island, at the mouth of San Pedro har- 
 bor. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THK LAST RKVOLUTION IN LOS ANGKLBS. 
 
 HE rebellion had now gained a good 
 headway, and had spread all over the 
 southern portion of California, with 
 Los Angeles, the ancient home of rev- 
 olutionary movements, for its head- 
 quarters. At Santa Barbara the American 
 force consisted of nine men under Lieutenant 
 Talbot. Manuel Garfias was sent up from the 
 pueblo to drive them out, but they, learning of 
 his approach, contrived to escape into the San- 
 ta Inez mountains, in order to evade parole. 
 The Californians set fire to the brush to dis- 
 lodge them, but they escaped over the ridge, 
 and, striking out across the desert, came down 
 finally into the San Joaquin valley. By this 
 roundabout way, suffering terrible hardships, 
 and with many exciting adventures, they came 
 through to Monterey. One of these men was 
 Elijah Moulton, who still lives, and has a res- 
 idence in East Los Angeles. San Diego was 
 also taken by the Californians, but they held 
 i-. for a short time only. 
 
 The sentiment throughout the southern 
 country in favor of the revolt was practically 
 unanimous, although a few natives, like. Juan 
 Bandini of San Diego, and his brother-in-law, 
 Arguello, favored the Americans, because 
 they represented a strong government; and 
 
The Last Revolution in Los Angeles. 213 
 
 all the resident Americans were doubtless 
 hopeful that California would become part of 
 the Union, however wary they may have been 
 of expressing their sentiments. An army was 
 mustered, which was at no time larger than 
 500, the great difficulty being not so much to 
 secure men as to arm them. The country was 
 raked over for weapons of every kind. There 
 were a few old muskets and pistols, and one 
 ancient four-pounder cannon that had former- 
 ly stood in front of the guardhouse on the 
 plaza to be used in firing salutes. When Stock- 
 ton took Los Angeles, in August, this gun had 
 been hauled to the garden of Dona Inocencia 
 Reyes, on Alameda street, and by her it was 
 ordered buried. While the men were lament- 
 ing the fact that they had no artillery. Dona 
 Inocencia produced this cannon, and they in 
 their gratitude named it the ''Woman's Gun." 
 It is now in the National Museum at Washing- 
 ton. 
 
 But the worst difficulty with which the 
 revolutionists had to contend was the lack of 
 powder. There was a small amount of good 
 powder stored in Los Angeles, of which they 
 immediately possessed themselves. The pa- 
 dres at San Gabriel had been accustomed to 
 manufacture the article, and a knowledge of 
 the method was supposed to be held there yet. 
 A quantity of powder was ordered from the 
 San Gabriel factory, but whether the formula 
 had been forgotten or whether some one of 
 the makers was friendly to the Americans and 
 doctored the compound, is not known, but it 
 
214 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 was a failure in the field. Guns that were 
 loaded with it were altogether too deliberate 
 about going off. 
 
 In the battle of Dominguez ranch, which 
 was described in the last chapter, the Califor- 
 nians had just enough good powder for one 
 charge in the gun that they hauled about with 
 reatas — the "Woman's Gun." They maneu- 
 vered for the most favorable opportunity, and 
 then put in the charge, that shot doing almost 
 the entire execution that was accomplished 
 during the battle. 
 
 Jose Maria Flores was elected governor 
 and chief of command, with Jose Antonio Car- 
 rillo, an habitual revolutionist, second, and 
 Andres Pico, the late governor's brother, as 
 third. The legislative body was called togeth- 
 er, and such officers of the old government as 
 remained on the ground were reinstated in 
 their former positions. All of the principal 
 men — Flores, Carrillo, Pico and others, had 
 been admitted to parole, and hence were in 
 danger of being shot if captured. Their justi- 
 fication, as they claimed, lay in the fact that 
 Gillespie had thrown them all into prison, 
 which absolved them from their allegiance and 
 nullified the parole. 
 
 The Flores regime lasted from the middle 
 of September until the following January — 
 less than four months — but even that short 
 period could not be passed without an attempt 
 at a revolution — a wheel within a wheel — and 
 this, too, at the time when the Americans were 
 
The Last Revolution in Los Angeles. 215 
 
 closing in on the city. In December Flores 
 was seized, deposed from power, and thrown 
 into jail as a traitor. The difficulty arose out 
 of his threat to send the Americans captured 
 on the Chino ranch to Mexico for safe-keep- 
 ing. Several of them, particularly B. D. Wil- 
 son, had powerful friends through marriage 
 connections. From the interior of the jail 
 Flores saw things somewhat dififerently, and 
 declared his entire willingness to have the 
 Chino prisoners remain in the country. 
 
 A day or two after the affair at the Domin- 
 guez ranch, Commodore Stockton arrived at 
 San Pedro with about 800 men. Had he then 
 made a quick dash for Los Angeles he could 
 easily have taken it, there being few to op- 
 pose, and they so badly equipped. The Cali- 
 fornians, however, led by Carrillo, moved 
 their cavalry about over the adjoining hills 
 with a rapidity that gave an impression of 
 great numbers, and this effect was heightened 
 by the droves of loose horses they urged be- 
 fore them. In his reports Stockton speaks of 
 the enemy as having 800 cavalry. Through the 
 whole rebellion the Americans proceeded un- 
 der the idea that the Californians had at least 
 2000 men in arms. Before the occupation the 
 Americans had been taught to believe that the 
 Californians were cowardly, and that they 
 could not be induced to fight. The recent ex- 
 periences in and around Los Angeles had 
 opened their eyes to some dangerous qualities 
 in the native cavalry, and they were presently 
 
216 History of Los Angeles, 
 
 to have a much severer lesson in the battle of 
 San Pasqual. After waiting several days at 
 San Pedro, with no improvement of the out- 
 look, Stockton sailed away for San Diego, in- 
 tending to begin his attack from that place. 
 
 The commodore had left Fremont in Mon- 
 terey, under instructions to follow as soon as 
 possible, with such recruits as he had secured. 
 Fremont started south by water, but, learning 
 that no horses were to be had at San Pedro, 
 and that the entire country was up in arms, he 
 thought best to return to Monterey, increase 
 the size of his command, and go south by land, 
 taking with him ample supplies and plenty of 
 animals. This consumed time, and it was not 
 until the middle of November that he left 
 Monterey, and he arrived at Los Angeles too 
 late to be of service in the active part of the 
 campaign. On his way south he captured 
 Jesus Pico, a cousin of the late governor, who 
 had taken the parole, but was discovered in 
 arms. Fremont ordered him to be put to 
 death, but finally pardoned him, on the tearful 
 implorations of his wife and children. This 
 act of clemency did a good deal to restore bet- 
 ter feeling between the Californians and the 
 Americans. 
 
 In the meantime a detachment of the 
 American army was makine its way across the 
 continent under General Stephen W. Kearny, 
 who had left Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, with 
 1600 men, and a full equipment of animals and 
 supplies, in the month of June, 1846. As he 
 
The Last Revolution in Los Angeles. 217 
 
 came through Arizona and New Mexico Kear- 
 ny raised the Stars and Stripes at every place 
 of importance that he passed, and left a num- 
 ber of garrisons. On his way he had fallen in 
 with Kit Carson, the famous scout who had 
 been with Fremont's party, and was now on his 
 mission to carry the news to Washington. 
 From him Kearny learned that Stockton had 
 taken complete possession of California, the 
 rebellion having broken out since his depart- 
 ure. Acting on this information, Kearny did 
 not hesitate to distribute his force along the 
 hne as he came through, until he had only 121 
 left in the command. He induced Carson to 
 commit his dispatches to some one else, and 
 turn back with him. This was a fortunate 
 move on Kearny's part, for Carson's services 
 were presently to be in great demand. 
 
 Early in December the party crossed the 
 Colorado river, and presently was met by a de- 
 tachment of twenty men under Captain Gilles- 
 pie, whom Stockton had sent out to act as an 
 escort into San Diego. As they came to a 
 stream called the San Bernardo they learned 
 that General Andres Pico was encamped near 
 the Indian village of San Pasqual. By this 
 time the soldiers had heard of the rebellion, of 
 the driving out of the Los Angeles garrison, 
 and the defeat at Dominguez, and all were 
 eager for a chance to meet the enemy. Carson 
 had assured them that the Californians were 
 cowards and would not stand against a de- 
 termined attack, and there was probably a dis- 
 
218 History of Los Afigeles. 
 
 position among Kearny's men to show Gilles- 
 pie and his following that the rebels would cut 
 a sorry figure when the regulars fell upon 
 them. 
 
 Early in the morning of December 5, 1846, 
 as the Americans were riding along in the bed 
 of the San Bernardo, near the village of San 
 Pasqual, which is thirty-eight miles northeast 
 of San Diego, they suddenly came upon Pico 
 and about eighty Californians, all mounted 
 and armed with lances. The lance used by the 
 Californians was about eight feet long, light, 
 strong and furnished with a sharp blade at the 
 point. It was a very effective weapon for a 
 short-range combat. 
 
 The Americans were badly strung out, and 
 in no condition for a fight. Their guns and 
 pistols were wet with the morning dew, and 
 refused to discharge. The mounts were tired 
 and ill-fed, many of them mules that had re- 
 cently been pressed into service and were hard 
 tc manage. There was every reason why the 
 force, if its commander had used average mil- 
 itary intelligence, should have been kept out of 
 a battle, and by a little maneuvering it might 
 easily have been avoided. The moment the 
 Californians came in sight, however, Captain 
 Johnson, who led the van, seemed to have lost 
 all control over himself, and he dashed for- 
 ward with a yell, followed by the small party 
 of a dozen men, who were in advance of the 
 main body of the Americans. 
 
 A moment later Johnson lay on the ground, 
 
The Last RevoltUion in Los Angeles, 219 
 
 shot through the head, and several of his men 
 were wounded. The Americans fell back in 
 confusion, until the next detachment came up, 
 which consisted of about fifty dragoons under 
 Captain Moore. Then the Californians 
 wheeled and galloped away. 
 
 Instantly the whole party of Americans 
 started in pursuit, and the race lasted for half 
 a mile of running. By this time the Ameri- 
 cans were scattered and spread out, owing to 
 the unevenness of the ground, and to the fact 
 that those mounted on mules could not keep 
 up with those mounted on horses. Looking 
 back and discovering the state of things, Pico 
 halted his men, turned them about, and the 
 real battle began. 
 
 It proved very serious for the Americans 
 and although generally recorded as a victorv 
 for that side, by reason of their holding the 
 field, while the others finally retreated, it was 
 in effect a defeat, and a bad one. In an in- 
 credibly short space of time eighteen Ameri- 
 cans lay dead, stabbed by lances, and as many 
 more were severely wounded. Of the enemy 
 few were hurt, and none were killed. The ex- 
 traordinary percentage of Americans killed 
 and wounded, out of the number engaged 
 makes the battle unique in the country's his- 
 tory Surgeon John S. Griffin, whose account 
 ot^ the affair was that of an intelligent eye- 
 witness, declares that not more than fifty of 
 the Americans ever saw the enemy, and cer- 
 
220 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 tainly not more than that number were actu- 
 ally engaged in the fight, and yet thirty-seven 
 were either killed or wounded. 
 
 Toward the close of the affair an effort was 
 made to get one of the howitzers into action, 
 but the mules attached to it became fright- 
 ened and ran away, and the piece fell into the 
 hands of the enemy. 
 
 Captain Moore, who led the second charge, 
 was killed, and General Kearny and Captain 
 Gillespie were both severely cut with lances. 
 The wounded were in the care of Dr. Grififin, 
 who afterward became a citizen of Los An- 
 geles, and was for more than a quarter of a 
 century its leading physician. He was also a 
 large land owner, controlling at one time most 
 of the present site of Pasadena and of East 
 Los Angeles, and he was one of the founders 
 of the present Avater system of the city. 
 
 The effect of this engagement was to badly 
 demoralize the forces of General Kearny. 
 Their opinion of the valor and the fighting 
 Qualities of the Californians underwent an en- 
 tire change, and althoupfh the number of men 
 still ready for service probably exceeded those 
 of the command of Pico, they did not venture 
 out of the camp which they had hastily thrown 
 up. It was cold and wet, and the provisions 
 were eivine out. Then it w?= "^^^t Kit Carson 
 came to the front. Accompanied by Lieuten- 
 ant Beale of the regular army, and an Indian, 
 
The Last Revolution in Los Angeles. 221 
 
 he crept past the enemy by night and suc- 
 ceeded in getting to San Diego. 
 
 Stockton immediately sent reinforcements 
 to Kearny, consisting of 200 marines, and with 
 this escort the overland company managed to 
 get through to the coast, 
 
 Stockton had come to San Diego, after his 
 brief stay at San Pedro, in the last days of 
 October. He experienced considerable diffi- 
 culty in getting into the bay with his flagship, 
 the Congress, and at one time very nearly had 
 it aground, but finally managed to get over 
 the bar into the harbor. Although the Amer- 
 icans still held nominal control of San Diego, 
 the condition of affairs on shore was not very 
 promising. The Californian men had all es- 
 caped into the interior, taking with them the 
 horses and cattle, and leaving the women and 
 children for the Americans to support or to let 
 starve. Numerous foraging parties were at 
 once dispatched into the country, to bring in 
 stock, for horses were necessary to Stockton's 
 plan for an expedition to the north by land. 
 Some of these were successful, and brought in 
 not only a plentiful supply of fresh meat, but 
 also horses enough to fit out a cavalry com- 
 pany made up of sailors. The efforts of the 
 latter to ride without putting both arms 
 around the horses' necks afforded the camp 
 plenty of amusement. 
 
 It was on one of these raids after stock 
 that the Bandini flag incident took place. Cap- 
 
222 History of Los AngeLe^. 
 
 tain Hensley, who had been sent down into 
 Lower California, was returning in triumph 
 with 500 cattle and 140 horses and mules, 
 which he had obtained from Juan Bandini, an 
 enthusiastic sympathizer with the American 
 cause. He was accompanied by Bandini and 
 his family, who were making their way to San 
 Diego. The American officer was expressing 
 his regret that he had no flag with which to 
 march into camp with his booty in proper 
 style, when Juan Bandini's wife, who was the 
 daughter of the former governor, Arguello, 
 offered to construct one. Three of her chil- 
 dren were playing about, one dressed in white, 
 one in blue, and one in red. Ordering these 
 dresses changed for others, she hastily cut out 
 and stitched together the red and white stripes 
 and the white stars on the blue field. Two of 
 these children afterwards became residents of 
 Los Angeles, and many members of the Ban- 
 dini family in the next generation now live in 
 and about this city. The story is a pretty one, 
 and as it is vouched for by credible eye-wit- 
 nesses, we may believe it to be true. This was 
 the first American flag ever made in California. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 I.OS ANGE)I,KS REJGAINKD. 
 
 HE American force which set out from 
 San Diego to capture Los Angeles 
 consisted of about 500 men, nine- 
 tenths of whom were Stockton's sail- 
 ors and marines, and the remainder 
 Kearny's dragoons. The commission under 
 which Kearny had been sent to California 
 made him military governor of the territory, 
 thus superseding Stockton, as well as Fre- 
 mont, whom Stockton had proposed to make 
 civil governor. The commodore seems to have 
 understood that Kearny's authority went be- 
 yond his own, for he offered, as soon as Kear- 
 ny came into camp from San Pasqual, to turn 
 over the control of affairs to him. The latter 
 was, however, suffering from a wound, or he 
 may have thought it only courtesy to allow 
 Stockton to continue with the work of prepar- 
 ation. 
 
 At all events he certainly declined the com- 
 mand at that time. But when the expedition 
 was ready to start, December 29, 1846, Kearny 
 asked who was to take charge, and, on being- 
 told by Commodore Stockton that Lieutenant 
 Rowan had been appointed, he announced that 
 he would prefer to occupy that position him- 
 self. Stockton thereupon appointed him to the 
 command. 
 
224 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 This was the beginning of an undignified 
 controversy between the two commanders, 
 which presently involved many of the officers 
 stationed in Los Angeles, and at last brought 
 Fremont to a court-martial in Washington. 
 There is no doubt that of the two principals to 
 this affair, Stockton's behavior was the more 
 reprehensible, for the military governorship 
 certainly lay with Kearny, and not with the 
 commodore ; but, on the other hand, there was 
 a lamentable lack of judgment shown by Kear- 
 ny in all his acts, and a seeming desire to 
 make trouble rather than to smooth over diffi- 
 culties. 
 
 When the party had been on the march a 
 few days they were met by Julian Workman 
 and Charles Flugge of Los Angeles, who had 
 been sent out by the Californians to negotiate 
 for a temporary cessation of hostilities. They 
 bore a letter from Flores, in which he asserted 
 that news had been received from Mexico that 
 the war with the United States was at an end, 
 and that satisfactory terms of settlement were 
 now being negotiated. He suggested that un- 
 der the circumstances it might be well to wait 
 and see whether bloodshed in California could 
 not be averted. 
 
 When Stockton read this letter — he seems 
 to have ignored Kearny in the matter, al- 
 though the latter was theoretically in com- 
 mand — he returned answer orally that he had 
 released Flores on a parole of honor, in spite 
 
Los Angeles Regained. 225 
 
 of which he was now in arms ; therefore if he 
 caught him he would shoot him, but would 
 have no further dealings with him. 
 
 On the 8th of January, eleven days having 
 been consumed on the march, the party came 
 to the San Gabriel river, and prepared to cross, 
 just north of the place where the bridge of the 
 Santa Fe railroad to Orange now spans the 
 stream. At this spot, which is situated about 
 ten miles southeast of Los Angeles, the battle 
 of San Gabriel was fought. The Californians 
 had mustered all their forces — a total of 500 
 mounted men — and with four pieces of artil- 
 lery were posted in an advantageous position 
 on high ground, a quarter of a mile back from 
 the river. The Americans sent forward their 
 artillery, and were about to drag it across the 
 stream, when some one warned Kearny that 
 there was quicksand in the river, and that the 
 cannon would be lost. There was a momen- 
 tary halt, and some confusion, for the roar of 
 the enemy's guns was already heard. Stock- 
 ton rode up, and was told by Kearny what 
 was the matter. ''Damn the quicksand," 
 shouted Stockton, 'T^nng up those guns.'* 
 Kearny fell back, and allowed Stockton to di- 
 rect affairs. The cannon were hurried across, 
 and no quicksand was encountered. 
 
 A heavy cannonading was begun by the 
 Americans, under cover of which the troops 
 waded the river, and, climbing up on the high- 
 er ground, formed into squares to resist the 
 
226 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 attack of cavalry. The Californians charged, 
 but were unable to stand the fire, and fell 
 back. Presently the whole line of the enemy 
 began to give way in a slow and orderly re- 
 treat. They continued to fire their cannon at 
 intervals as they fell back, until they were en- 
 tirely out of range. 
 
 The engagement lasted only about an hour 
 and a half. The Americans lost two killed and 
 eight wounded. The loss of the Californians 
 was about the same. Had the latter possessed 
 powder of any value the American loss would 
 undoubtedly have been much greater. The 
 Americans advanced, with their band playing 
 ''Hail Columbia," and took up the ground that 
 Flores had occupied before the battle opened, 
 and here encamped for the day and the fol- 
 lowing night. 
 
 On the morning of January 9, 1847, the 
 Americans advanced toward Los Angeles and 
 came upon the enemy about noon, three miles 
 south of the city. There was a long-range ar- 
 tillery duel, in which neither side effected 
 much damage on the other. The Americans 
 formed a large hollow square, with the bag- 
 gage in the center, and advanced slowly for 
 about four hours, driving the enemy before 
 them. Three times Flores ordered his cavalry 
 to charge, but when they came within a few 
 hundred feet of the American line they encoun- 
 tered a fire so severe that they were compelled 
 to withdraw. Stockton had five men wounded, 
 
Los Angeles Regained. 227 
 
 but none killed. At about 4 o'clock the enemy 
 gave up the struggle and retreated. The 
 Americans crossed the Los Angeles river, and 
 encamped for the night within sight of the 
 pueblo. 
 
 Next morning, January loth, a small dele- 
 gation of citizens v^aited on Stockton and in- 
 formed him that the Californian army had fled, 
 and that the people were prepared to surren- 
 der the city without resistance, if they could 
 have an agreement that their lives and prop- 
 erty would be respected. They were evidently 
 in fear that the place was to be sacked. Stock- 
 ton assured tham that no injury would be done 
 peaceable citizens, and they went away. In 
 spite of these friendly advances on the part of 
 the rebellious city, the Americans proceeded 
 slowly and with great caution. About noon 
 they came to the plaza. The streets were 
 filled with people, some few of whom showed 
 their disapproval by curses and shaking of 
 fists. The hills above were crowded with 
 horsemen, who fled at the approach of sol- 
 diers sent to dislodge them. 
 
 The band played its repertoire of national 
 and popular airs, and the Californians forgot 
 their anger and crowded to listen. Gillespie 
 led the way to the old adobe on Main street, 
 which he had formerly occupied as headquar- 
 ters, and asked permission himself to run up 
 the colors which he had been compelled to 
 haul down some four months before. The per- 
 mission was granted him, and the men cheered 
 
228 History of Los Angeles, 
 
 lustily as they saw the flag restored to its ac- 
 customed spot. Los Angeles was once more 
 an American city, and this time it was des- 
 tined permanently to remain so. 
 
 A strong detachment of artillery was 
 placed on the hill directly above the city, and 
 the chief topographical engineer of General 
 Kearny's division was instructed to prepare 
 plans for a fort in that location. Before this 
 work had advanced very far Kearny left the 
 city, and Lieutenant J. W. Davidson of the 
 First United States Dragoons was ordered to 
 enlarge the plan and begin the work. This 
 was finally completed by July 4th of that year, 
 1847, ai^d was named Fort Moore. It was on 
 the hill above the present Broadway tunnel. 
 
 Looking about for a place in which to es- 
 tablish his headquarters, as he entered the 
 town, Stockton discovered a large, well-fur- 
 nished house, with its doors open and appar- 
 ently quite unoccupied. It was the residence 
 of Dona Encarnacion Abila, at 14, 16, 18 OH- 
 vera street. This building is still to be seen 
 standing (1901), although now in very bad re- 
 pair. Olivera is a small street running out 
 from the plaza, north of Marchessault. Fear- 
 ing lest the vengeance of the American sol- 
 diery might fall upon the inhabitants of the 
 pueblo, the Senora Abila had left the house in 
 charge of a young man, and escaped into the 
 country; and he, attracted by the playing of 
 the band, had left it unguarded and standing 
 open. Here Stockton made his headquarters 
 
Los Angeles Regained. 229 
 
 during his stay, to the great discomfiture, no 
 doubt, of the loyalist owner of the property. 
 General Fremont secured for his use, and that 
 of the civil government wrhich he established, 
 a series of low adobes that occupied the space 
 where the engine-house now stands, on the 
 southeast corner of the plaza. Adjoining 
 these to the west was the residence of J. A. 
 Carrillo, pretentious for its day, on the spot 
 where the Pico house, now called the National 
 hotel, was afterward constructed. 
 
 On the day that Stockton and Kearny en- 
 tered Los Angeles, Fremont, coming down 
 from the north, encamped at San Fernando. 
 He had made the march slowly, acting on re- 
 peated messages from the commodore, who 
 advised the utmost caution. Santa Barbara 
 was retaken as he passed, and garrisoned 
 against further attack. Learning that the Cal- 
 ifornian army was encamped on the Verdugo 
 lanch, Fremont sent out Jesus Pico, the man 
 whose life he had spared, to confer with the 
 rebels. 
 
 After the battle on the mesa, on the Qtii of 
 January, the Californians scattered, many of 
 them laying down their arms and returning to 
 their homes. Flores, mindful of the threat of 
 Stockton that he would put him to death if 
 captured, took a small escort and escaped over 
 the border into Mexico. The command was 
 transferred to Andres Pico, with J. A. Carrillo 
 second in authority, and they were advised by 
 the escaping leader to yield on the best terms 
 
230 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 possible. Two days later Jesus Pico came into 
 the rebel camp and announced that Fremont 
 was at hand with a large force; and he urged 
 the Californians to surrender to him, rather 
 than to Stockton, in the hope that they might 
 secure better conditions. 
 
 On the 13th of January, 1847, articles of 
 capitulation were ratified between the Califor- 
 nians and Fremont, at the Cahuenga ranch 
 house, only a few miles out of Los Angeles. It 
 was agreed that the Californians should sur- 
 render their artillery and "public arms," and 
 should take the parole not to assist in carry- 
 ing on war against the United States. Such as 
 preferred to go out of the territory into Mexico 
 would be allowed to depart, and those that re- 
 mained were to be pardoned for their partici- 
 pation in the rebellion, irrespective of whether 
 they had been under parole or not. Until a 
 treaty of peace should be signed between the 
 United States and Mexico, no resident of Cali- 
 fornia was to be compelled to take the oath of 
 allegiance. The "public arms" thus secured 
 amounted to a handsome total of six muskets, 
 and two diminutive cannon — the "Woman's 
 Gun" and one other. 
 
 The evidence is clear that Fremont knew 
 of the occupation of Los Angeles by Stockton 
 at the time he entered into this agreement 
 with the Californians; and it was afterwards 
 charged by his enemies — of which he had al- 
 ways a flourishing crop — that he overstepped 
 the bounds of his authority in making terms 
 
Los Angeles Regained. 231 
 
 with the belligerents almost in the very pres- 
 ence of his superior. It was an infraction of 
 military etiquette, to say the least, but it did 
 not displease Stockton, who was, on the con- 
 trary, rather relieved to have the matter thus 
 taken out of his hands. He had repeatedly 
 threatened to put to death Flores and others 
 who had broken their parole, and such sever- 
 ity, if actually carried out, would have made 
 the complete pacification of the country diffi- 
 cult, if not impossible. Fremont had provided 
 him a way out of an awkward dilemma. 
 
 There may have been another reason why 
 Stockton was well satisfied with Fremont's 
 course in this matter. The tendency toward 
 disagreement and mutual suspicion that had 
 always been rife among the Californians, and 
 which was indigenous to the southern pueblo, 
 seems by this time to have thoroughly infected 
 the Americans, and the row between Stockton 
 and Kearny was assuming serious proportions. 
 The former may have been the more ready 
 to overlook any seeming irregularity in Fre- 
 mont's conduct in the hope of obtaining his 
 support in the controversy. 
 
 On the day of the surrender at Cahuenga, 
 Fremont sent on his second in command to 
 Los Angeles, with instructions to find out 
 w^hich of the two — Stockton or Kearny — was 
 in authority. He found that each claimed to 
 be the civil and military governor of the state, 
 although they each admitted privately that as 
 
232 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 soon as peace was restored in the territory 
 they intended to make Fremont civil governor. 
 Kearny based his claim on the fact that he 
 had been commissioned by the national gov- 
 ernment to take entire charge of affairs, his 
 instructions bearing a later date than any held 
 by Stockton. As a matter of fact, this claim 
 was entirely valid, and Stockton's position was 
 untenable. The latter held that Kearny's in- 
 structions were based on a theory that a state 
 of war existed in California, and that the coun- 
 try was in alien hands, whereas, before Kear- 
 ny had come to the state the Americans had 
 secured complete control, and a civil govern- 
 ment was practically in operation. To this he 
 added the argument that when Kearny had 
 first arrived at San Diego and was offered 
 the reins of authority by Stockton he had de- 
 clined to accept them. 
 
 Fremont's emissary dodged the whole 
 question by making his report to both claim- 
 ants, and when Fremont himself came into the 
 pueblo the next day he made an official call 
 upon each of them, and waited for develop- 
 ments. 
 
 On the i6th of January the matter came to 
 a direct issue upon Kearny's sending instruc- 
 tions to Stockton to proceed no further in the 
 formation of a civil government for the terri- 
 tory. Stockton refused to obey, and issued an 
 order removing Kearny from command of the 
 troops. For the purpose of putting Fremont 
 
Los Angeles Regained. 233 
 
 on record, Kearny sent word to him not to 
 make certain contemplated changes in his bat- 
 tahon. He then sent for Fremont, and urged 
 him to come over to his side, assuring him 
 that he would make him governor in return. 
 But Fremont was loyal to Stockton, to whom 
 he felt himself indebted, and he refused to be 
 led away by a bribe. He sent a formal com- 
 munication to Kearny to the effect that until 
 the latter and Stockton settled their differences 
 as to their respective authority he would be 
 compelled to take his orders, as before, from 
 Commodore Stockton. 
 
 A day or two later, finding himself utterly 
 ignored in the plans of Stockton and Fremont 
 for the governing of the territory, Kearny ad- 
 dressed a note to the commodore, in which he 
 said that to avoid further discussion and dis- 
 agreement, which would bring scandal upon 
 the powers they represented, he would with- 
 draw for the present to San Diego, and await 
 further instructions from Washington. On 
 January i8th he left Los Angeles with his dra- 
 goons and marched south. 
 
 January 19th Stockton issued to Fremont 
 his commission as civil governor of the state, 
 a position which he held about fifty days, al- 
 though his technical right to it is open to ques- 
 tion. Stockton offered the place of secretary 
 of state to Gillespie, but the latter preferred 
 to be major of the battalion. An order was is- 
 sued, convening a legislative council, which 
 
234 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 was to contain, among others, ex-governor Al- 
 varado, Juan Bandini and his brother-in-law, 
 Santiago Arguello, and Thomas O. Larkin, the 
 American consul, who had been captured early 
 in the rebellion, and was held as a prisoner 
 in Los Angeles through the whole affair. But 
 this gathering never came together, for early 
 iti March Colonel Richard B. Mason arrived 
 with new instructions from the national gov- 
 ernment that left no doubt as to the pre-emi- 
 nence of Kearny's military and civil author- 
 ity. Stockton was no longer in command on 
 the coast, having been succeeded by Commo- 
 dore Shubrick, and the latter at once recog- 
 nized Kearny as governor of the state. Fre- 
 mont came up to Monterey, whither Kearny 
 had repaired, and he also admitted the author- 
 ity of Kearny. About this time Fremont and 
 Colonel Mason, who was Kearny's chief of 
 staf¥, and who was subsequently appointed 
 governor, became involved in a quarrel, out of 
 which came a challenge to a duel. The affair 
 of honor never took place, owing to the inter- 
 vention of General Kearny. Fremont was or- 
 dered to Washington, where he was tried be- 
 fore a court-martial for disobedience and con- 
 duct prejudicial to good order and military dis- 
 cipline. After a long and tempestuous trial 
 he was found technically guilty, and recom- 
 mended to the clemency of the president. But 
 Fremont declined to accept the verdict as a 
 just one and resigned from the army. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THK PUE:bLO is MADK AMKEICAN. 
 
 OS ANGELES was under military rule 
 from January of 1847, when the 
 Americans took possession of the 
 city for the second time, to August, 
 1848 — a period of nineteen months. 
 During the time of his quasi-governorship, 
 Fremont kept his headquarters at Los Ange- 
 les, because it had been the capital under the 
 Mexican administration, but as soon as Gener- 
 al Kearny came to be recognized as governor, 
 he sent for the archives and had' them brought 
 up to Monterey. This put a final quietus on 
 the long-cherished ambition of the southern 
 city. 
 
 On the first of March Kearny sent instruc- 
 tions to Fremont to muster out his battalion, 
 and report in person at Monterey. Colonel P. 
 St. George Cooke, who was in command of a 
 battalion of Mormon volunteers from Mis- 
 souri, was appointed to succeed Fremont in 
 charge of affairs at Los Angeles. Through the 
 disbanding of the California Battalion, a regi- 
 ment which Fremont had gathered in Califor- 
 nia, Los Angeles gained a number of settlers. 
 The Mormon command came up from San 
 Luis Rey, in San Diego county, where it had 
 been stationed, and encamped in Los Angeles. 
 These were the men that did most of the work 
 
236 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 on the fort. They had it nearly completed 
 when they were summoned to Monterey, to be 
 mustered out. Colonel Cooke was succeeded 
 in the month of May by Colonel J. B. Steven- 
 son, of the New York regiment of volunteers. 
 This regiment, like the Mormon battalion, had 
 been enlisted on the understanding that when 
 the war came to an end, the men were to be 
 paid off in California, and allowed to remain 
 there. Thus the conflict between the United 
 States and Mexico brought many settlers to 
 California. 
 
 The presence of so large a body of soldiers 
 in Los Angeles, varying from 300 to 1000, had 
 the effect not only of finally demolishing all 
 plans for rebellion against the new authority, 
 but also of rapidly initiating the Spanish city 
 into American manners and customs. The up- 
 per class Californians, those whose blood was 
 largely or entirely Spanish, and who had ed- 
 ucation and a property interest, adapted them- 
 selves in dignified fashion to the new order. 
 When the state constitutional convention met 
 / in 1849, J. A. Carrillo and Manuel Dominguez 
 V were elected delegates from Los Angeles, as 
 representing the progressive Spanish-Ameri- 
 can element. W. M. Gwin, who was afterward 
 United States senator, happening to remark, 
 in the course of his argument on some point, 
 that the constitution of the state was not 
 framed so much for the original inhabitants of 
 the territory as for the newcomers of American 
 birth, Carrillo was on his feet in an instant, 
 
The Pueblo is Made American. 237 
 
 declaring that he considered himself and his 
 fellow-Californians just as true and patriotic 
 Americans as any members of that body ; and 
 the remark brought out long and enthusiastic 
 applause. But in the lower class of Califor- 
 nians the same adaptability to new conditions 
 did not develop. There were no rebellions, al- 
 though rumors to that effect were incessant; 
 but the presence of the Americans, or "grin- 
 gos," as they came now to be called, was more 
 and more resented, and, in the end, acting upon 
 a bad example set by the Americans them- 
 selves, a great amount of lawlessness sprang 
 up among this class. 
 
 Colonel Stevenson found his position by no 
 means an easy one, although his difficulties 
 were identical with those of the governor and 
 all others in authority in the state, who were 
 attempting to apply American ideas of justice 
 and civic improvement, through the awkward 
 medium of old Spanish laws. Mason's instruc- 
 tions to his subordinates had been to inter- 
 fere as little as possible with the civil affairs. 
 They were to keep order and assist in the ad- 
 ministration of the laws as they existed. This 
 was by no means as easy as it sounds. Ques- 
 tions were constantly coming up, as between 
 the military and civil authorities, and on sev- 
 eral occasions things came to a complete dead- 
 lock. 
 
 In the year 1847, ^" ayuntamiento had been 
 chosen in Los Angeles that was made up en- 
 tirely of native-born Californians. They were 
 
238 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 informed by Colonel Stevenson that they 
 might go on with the government of the city, 
 just as before, w^ith the one limitation that 
 they were not to give away or sell any of the 
 pueblo real estate. The "Very Illustrious" 
 body continued to hold meetings, after its an- 
 cient custom, observing its traditional formali- 
 ties with all the more pomp and circumstance 
 by reason of the fact that the Americans were 
 looking on. In the month of June of that year 
 the records show that one of the regidores, or 
 councilmen, was fined $io for impoliteness to- 
 ward another member. A month or two later 
 the second alcalde caused the arrest of Varela, 
 the same who had raised the tumult and driven 
 out Gillespie and started the rebellion a 3^ear 
 before. Colonel Stevenson, for some reason, 
 set him free ; whereupon the alcalde resigned, 
 and the ayuntamiento left his place vacant as 
 a standing protest. 
 
 This experience and several others of a 
 similar character led Stevenson to suggest to 
 the governor that he appoint at least one 
 Americafi in the next ayuntamiento, and he, 
 acting upon this advice, notified the people of 
 Los Angeles that Stephen C. Foster, who had 
 come to the coast with the New York regi- 
 ment as their interpreter, and who for nearly 
 half a century was destined to play an active 
 part in the city afifairs, was to be alcalde. This 
 was, of course, an assumption of authority on 
 the party of the governor to which he could 
 lay no legal claim. It was, in fact, a war 
 
The Pueblo is Made Amei-ican. 239 
 
 measure, and it seems to have been seriously 
 resented by the citizens of native birth. The 
 out-going alcalde refused to comply v^ith cus- 
 tom and swear in his successor, Foster, and 
 Stevenson cut the Gordian knot by swearing 
 him in himself. The other members of the 
 ayuntamiento all resigned, and Foster and 
 Don Abel Stearns, who had been elected 
 sindico, or city attorney and tax collector, ran 
 the government for a time. 
 
 They seem to have conducted the city's 
 affairs very successfully. A chain gang was 
 established and put to work on the dam, or 
 headworks on the river, and on the irrigating 
 ditch, both of which had fallen into disrepair. 
 Several small Indian settlements within the 
 pueblo, which were haunts of vice and filth, 
 were demolished, and their inhabitants driven 
 out — a harsh but probably salutary measure. 
 Vagrants were brought to time, and some reg- 
 ulation of the liquor traffic was attempted. 
 
 In December of 1848, notice was issued for 
 an election of a new ayuntamiento, but the 
 people paid no attention to it ; whereupon the 
 governor announced that the present officers 
 would continue to hold until the voters of Los 
 Angeles made up their minds to elect success- 
 ors for them. In May of the following year, 
 1849, the governor learned that the fit of sulks 
 was over, and he issued another order for an 
 election. This time a considerable vote was 
 cast. The ayuntamiento chosen was made up 
 of Californians, except that John Temple was 
 
240 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 elected sindico. By 1850 the prejudice against 
 admitting Americans to a share of the local 
 government seems to have died out, for Abel 
 Stearns was chosen first alcalde that year, 
 with D. W. Alexander and B. D. Wilson also 
 members of the ayuntamiento. Although the 
 Americans continued for many years to be in 
 the minority at the polls, they were always, 
 after this, adrnitted to more than their propor- 
 tion of the loc*al offices. 
 
 In the year 1847, Los Angeles being still 
 a military post and full of soldiers, a great cel- 
 ebration was held of the Fourth of July. This 
 was the first recognition of Independence Day 
 in the old Spanish pueblo. Col. Stevenson is- 
 sued a proclamation, in which he called for a 
 celebration of the day, to be combined with 
 the dedication of the fort, now nearly com- 
 pleted. The troops under his command were 
 instructed to make ready for the affair, and to 
 put up the best showing that was possible. 
 "Circumstances over which we have no con- 
 rol," says Col. Stevenson in his proclamation, 
 "have prevented the command at this post be- 
 ing completely uniformed, but each officer will 
 appear on the Fourth with the perfect equip- 
 ments of his corps, as far as he has them ; and 
 most perfect cleanliness as well in arms and 
 accoutrements as in person will be required of 
 all." 
 
 At sunrise the national salute was fired 
 and the colors displayed for the first time at 
 the fort. At 10 o'clock the soldiers marched 
 
The Pueblo is Made American. 241 
 
 through the town and up to the summit of the 
 hill, where they formed a hollow square and 
 listened to the reading of the Declaration of 
 Independence. This was translated into Span- 
 ish by Stephen C. Foster, for the benefit of the 
 large crowd of Cah'fornians who Ldd srathered 
 to witness the celebration. Prof. J. M. Guinn 
 of the Los Angeles Historical Society, who 
 has written an entertaining description of tlie 
 event, suggests that possibly, as the Califor- 
 nians sat on their horses and listened to the 
 fierce denunciation of King George in the fa- 
 mous document, though they were not able to 
 comprehend quite what it was all about, they 
 could recognize a pronunciamento when they 
 heard it, and they knew from experience that 
 a revolution must follow, and they smiled, no 
 doubt, at the thought that they would soon 
 behold the gringos falling upon one another in 
 a row among themselves. 
 
 The fort, or "field works," as the procla- 
 mation calls it, was then dedicated and named 
 in honor of Captain Benjamin D. Moore of the 
 First United States Dragoons, who fell in the 
 battle of San Pasqual. Stevenson speaks of 
 him as "a perfect specimen of an American 
 officer, whose character for every virtue and 
 accomplishment that adorns a gentleman was 
 only equaled by the reputation he had ac- 
 quired in the field for his gallantry as an offi- 
 '^er and a soldier." The honor of raising the 
 flag for the first time over the fort was grant- 
 ed to Lieutenant Davidson, who had taken 
 
242 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 charge of the work almost from the beginning. 
 During the Civil War he attained to the rank 
 of major general. The flagpole consisted of 
 two tree trunks brought down from the San 
 Bernardino mountains by a special expedition 
 sent out for that purpose, and spliced togeth- 
 er, making a shaft of about 150 feet in length. 
 The colors flying from this, on the top of the 
 high hill, could be seen for miles in every di- 
 rection. All traces of the fort and the famous 
 old flagpole have long since disappeared. 
 
 Through the whole of the year 1847 there 
 were frequent rumors of intended attacks by 
 the Mexicans as well as of rebellious plottings 
 on the part of Californians, but these do not 
 appear to have had any substantial basis. 
 Mexico had its hands full with the Americans 
 on its own soil, and the appeals of Flores and 
 Pico received little attention. The native Cal- 
 ifornians were accustomed to whisper among 
 themselves about the return of Flores, leading 
 a great army, and the flight of the Americans ; 
 but they never seriously contemplated rebel- 
 lion on their own account. Nevertheless, Col- 
 onel Stevenson, as was perhaps natural from 
 his lack of acquaintance with the Spanish 
 character, and his ignorance of the true state 
 of affairs in Mexico, gave ear to these rumors, 
 and, like a careful soldier, was never off his 
 guard. The construction of Fort Moore was 
 really due to a fear of attack from Mexico. 
 
 On the night of December 7, 1847, ^ fright- 
 ful disaster occurred as an indirect conse- 
 
The Pueblo is Made American. 243 
 
 quence of these persistent rumors. On the af- 
 ternoon of that day an old woman resident of 
 Los Angeles called at the headquarters of Col- 
 onel Stevenson, which were located on the 
 spot where the Ferguson livery stable now 
 stands, nearly opposite the Baker block, and 
 informed him that there was a plot on foot 
 to attack the guardhouse that night and cap- 
 ture the city, slaying or driving out all Amer- 
 icans. If there was any plot of that descrip- 
 tion, and if the whole affair was not a fabric of 
 the old woman's imagination, it certainly did 
 not involve any number of people nor any citi- 
 zens of responsibility. However, Colonel 
 Stevenson thought best to take no chances. 
 He doubled the sentries at the guardhouse, 
 which was on the west side of New High 
 street, in the rear of the St. Elmo site. The 
 men were all nervous and on the alert, and 
 when, about midnight, one of them saw a cow 
 off in the darkness he mistook it for a horse- 
 man and fired. The guard turned out, and 
 everything was put in readiness for an attack. 
 When the mistake was discovered, arms were 
 restored to the racks, and the men were pre- 
 paring to return to their beds. Then an ar- 
 tilleryman, who had lighted a fuse ready to 
 discharge a fieldpiece, if that should be ne- 
 cessary, threw it, only half extinguished, into 
 an ammunition chest. The explosion that fol- 
 lowed shook the entire city and brought the 
 population all out of their homes. The guard- 
 house was blown to fragments, some of the 
 
244 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 roof timbers landing clear over into Main 
 street. Four men were killed outright, and 
 twelve were seriously injured. The guard- 
 house was immediately rebuilt of adobe. 
 
 The first American legislature of Califor- 
 nia, which met late in the year 1849, ^^^ con- 
 tinued in session until April of 1850, divided 
 the state into twenty-seven counties, one of 
 which was named Los Angeles. Its boundar- 
 ies included part of Kern, all of San Bernar- 
 dino, part of Riverside, and all of Los Angeles 
 and Orange. Roughly speaking, it included 
 all north of the old limits of San Diego county 
 to the Tehachapi range, from the ocean to the 
 Colorado river, except that the modern coun- 
 ties of Santa Barbara and Ventura then 
 formed the county of Santa Barbara. The 
 first election in this county took place April 
 I, 1850. Three hundred and seventy-five votes 
 were cast. Augustin Olivera was elected 
 county judge. He was originally a resident of 
 the City of Mexico, but he had been living in 
 California since 1834. B. D. Wilson was elect- 
 ed county clerk; Benjamin Hayes, attorney; 
 J. R. Conway, surveyor; Manuel Garfias, 
 treasurer; Antonio F. Coronel, assessor; Ig- 
 nacio Del Valle, father of R. F. Del Valle of 
 Los Angeles, county recorder; George T. Bur- 
 rill, sheriff; Charles B. Cullen, coroner. The 
 preponderance of Americans wil be noted by 
 the reader. 
 
 The first assessment taken in this huge 
 district showed that it contained real estate 
 
The Pueblo is Made American. 245 
 
 to a total value of $748,606; improvements, 
 $301,947; and personal property valued at 
 $1,183,898. The disproportionate size of the 
 last item is explained by the fact that land 
 was considered of small value, and stock, ^N\^.\\ 
 v^hich the county was at this time fairly well 
 filled, was, of course, included in the personal 
 property. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 CALIFORNIA ENTERS THE UNION. 
 
 HUS far the history of Los Angeles 
 city has been so intimately connected 
 with the history of the whole terri- 
 tory of California that the narrative 
 has, of necessity, often strayed out- 
 side the local limits. Los Angeles was not 
 only the largest and most prosperous city of 
 Spanish and Mexican California, but it was 
 also the most considerable political factor of 
 the territory, a leader in all plots and rebel- 
 lions, and for a time the capital. But now, 
 under American rule, the relation of the city 
 to the state undergoes a change. Los Angeles 
 presently ceases to be the largest center of 
 population in the territory. The little town of 
 Yerba Buena, which had recently been re- 
 christened San Francisco, and which at the 
 time of the American occupation contained 
 perhaps a thousand people, is suddenly flooded 
 with a great wave of immigration, as a result 
 of the discovery of gold, so that Los Angeles 
 becomes little more than a village in compar- 
 ison. Other towns besides San Francisco 
 spring up in the northern part of the state, 
 rivaling the southern city in size, and surpass- 
 ing it, for the time being, in business activity. 
 The political center of the state shifts to the 
 north, where is the largest body of voters and 
 
California Enters the Union. 247 
 
 the greatest property interest. Under the 
 American system, moreover, the city, as such, 
 has no longer any status in the poHtical affairs 
 of the territory. Its residents have votes as 
 individuals, but the municipality exerci&es no 
 power save in its own local limits. 
 
 But before leaving the wide field of the 
 state for the narrower one of the city, it may 
 not be amiss to complete the narration in brief 
 form, down to California's admission into the 
 Union. Upon the departure of Kearny, as told 
 in the preceding chapter, Colonel Richard B. 
 Mason acted as military and civil governor of 
 the territory, his term extending from May 31, 
 1847, to April 12, 1849 — ^ period of about two 
 years. He made his headquarters at Monte- 
 rey, the ancient capital. The war in Mexico, 
 which had begun in 1846, by Taylor's invasion 
 over the border from Texas, continued 
 through 1847, with Scott's march from Vera 
 Cruz across to the City of Mexico, which he 
 took and occupied on the 14th of September 
 of that year. This ended the conflict, the re- 
 public of Mexico acknowledging its hopeless 
 defeat. A treaty of peace was entered into at 
 Guadalupe-Hidalgo, a little town near the 
 Mexican capital, on February 2, 1848, which 
 finally went into effect May 30th of that year. 
 In this treaty all of Alta California, New Mex- 
 ico and Texas were ceded to the United 
 States, for the sum of $15,000,000, to be paid 
 in annual installments of $3,000,000 each. By 
 the payment of this money the United States 
 
248 History oj Los A?igeles. 
 
 undertook to palliate, in some degree, its of- 
 fense in waging war of aggression. The sum 
 paid was, of course, quite inadequate to the 
 value of the territory even as computed at that 
 time. 
 
 The boundaries of Alta California had nev- 
 er been accurately defined, either as to the 
 east, where it touched the other Mexican ter- 
 ritory, called New Mexico, or to the north and 
 northeast, where it touched the domain of the 
 American Union. It included, however, the 
 whole of the present state of California, Ne- 
 va^ and Utah, the territory of Arizona, and 
 fragments of Colorado and Wyoming. Its 
 status, until such time as congress should or- 
 ganize it under some form of government, or 
 until it should be accepted as a state, with a 
 government of its own making, was that of 
 a conquered province under military rule. 
 
 The admission of California to statehood 
 marks an important milestone in the history 
 of the nation. It constituted the grand crisis 
 — the turning point in the struggle between 
 the slave power and its opponents. Thus far, 
 through a series of compromises engineered 
 chiefly by Henry Clay, the number of slave 
 states taken into the Union exactly equaled 
 the number of free states. They had come in 
 as pairs, one from the north and one from the 
 south, and thus an equilibrium was maintained, 
 in the senate, at least. The controversy was 
 growing more bitter with each new phase, and 
 like the ghost of Banquo, to which it was con- 
 
California E7iters the Union, 249 
 
 stantly compared, it would not "down." To ad- 
 mit California as a free state, with no territory 
 at hand out of which to construct a slave state 
 meant a serious disturbance of the existing ar- 
 rangement. Every move in connection with 
 the territorial government was, therefore, 
 closely watched by both factions at Washing- 
 ton, for as the territory was bent so was the 
 state likely to be inclined. 
 
 When congress met in December, 1848, 
 President Polk called attention, in his annual 
 message, to the fact that no form of govern- 
 ment had yet been provided for California, 
 which was particularly unfortunate in view of 
 the rapid increase of population following the 
 discovery of gold. The question had come up 
 in the previous session, soon after the ratifica- 
 tion of the treaty of Gaudalupe Hidalgo, and 
 the acquisition of the territory. It had arisen 
 through a resolution introduced into the house 
 by David Wilmot of Pennsylvania, and known 
 in American history as the "Wilmot Proviso." 
 It was an effort to attach to the bill appro- 
 priating the first installment of the $15,000,000 
 purchase money, a provision that none of the 
 territory thus obtained should be open to slave 
 holding. A fierce struggle had been precipi- 
 tated. The provision passed the house and 
 failed in the senate, but the expression of public 
 sentiment called out by the controversy 
 showed the slave-holding element in congress 
 that California, if admitted, would be a free 
 state. The south, therefore, resisted the effort 
 
250 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 to give it a territorial government, hoping to 
 postpone the day of its entrance to the Union. 
 
 President Polk's recommendation of state- 
 hood immediately reopened the old quarrel, 
 and it continued with great bitterness through 
 the session. As March 4th drew near, marking 
 the end of the administration, the factions be- 
 came positively hysterical. Regret was fre- 
 quently expressed that California had ever 
 been obtained from Mexico, and the suggestion 
 was made in genuine earnest that it be given 
 back. The finding of gold, which made a terri- 
 torial government necessary, was charac- 
 terized as a misfortune. Secession was threat- 
 ened by the south, and was received with con- 
 temptuous taunts by the north. But in the end 
 nothing was done for Calffornia, and the mili- 
 tary rule continued. 
 
 Mason proved to be an excellent governor 
 for the territory, through these troublous and 
 difficult times. He was firm, just, kindly and 
 discreet. Although possessed of a keen sense 
 of order, he managed to endure the confusion 
 and anarchy with philosophic calmness, for the 
 space of two years. But when the gold excite- 
 ment was thrown in, as a wild and fearful cli- 
 max to it all, he begged to be recalled. There 
 were, of course, no general laws, no state gov- 
 ernment, and no local institutions save those of 
 the Spanish-Mexican regime. Hostilities hav- 
 ing ceased, military rule in the towns was not 
 practical. It was neither best for the people, 
 nor likely to insure their good will. The 
 
California Enters the Union. 251 
 
 alcaldes and ayuntamientos were therefore 
 ordered to continue the administration of jus- 
 tice and of local affairs under the old Span- 
 ish law. As the Americans began to ar- 
 rive in larger numbers, these offices were fre- 
 quently filled from their ranks, and the new- 
 comers found great difficulty in conducting 
 affairs under the Mexican laws. Up to this 
 time there had been no such thing in Califor- 
 nia as a trial by jury. There was no warrant 
 for the institution under Spanish or Mexican 
 law; but as soon as the Americans took pos- 
 session, they demanded that this constitutional 
 right be recognized, and it was recognized in 
 most cases. On the other hand, when a certain 
 priest, who was sued for breach of contract, 
 took refuge behind the Spanish law, which 
 gave him special privilege as an ecclesiastic, 
 Governor Mason refused to admit his claim. 
 The governor's theory of the situation seems to 
 have been that while the Spanish laws were to 
 hold in the main, until the national government 
 should act, the people could not be deprived 
 of inherent rights they enjoyed under the con- 
 stitution of the United States. Although him- 
 self a military man, he would not allow inter- 
 ference by the soldiers with the local govern- 
 ments. On one occasion Colonel Stevenson, 
 who was in command at Los Angeles, under- 
 took to forbid the carrying out of a decision of 
 the alcalde ; but Mason ordered him to with- 
 draw from his position, and allow the city au- 
 thorities to arrange their own affairs. 
 
252 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 In July, 1848, Pio Pico returned to Califor- 
 nia. Although the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidal- 
 go had been ratified two months before, no 
 news of the fact had yet reached the coast, ex- 
 cept that it was known the document was un- 
 der consideration. Pico came to Los Angeles, 
 and Stevenson immediately wrote to Mason 
 that the former governor was still claiming au- 
 thority, and asked what was to be done. Pico 
 also wrote to Mason, saying that ''as the Mex- 
 ican governor of the territory," he would be 
 glad to co-operate with Mason in establishing 
 harmonious relations between the Cahfornians 
 and the Americans. It is quite probable that 
 his use of the expression "as Mexican gover- 
 nor" was merely an awkward way of describ- 
 ing his former status. It is certain that he had 
 neither expectation nor desire to make trouble. 
 There were frequent rumors at this time of 
 contemplated rebellions, and the language of 
 the ex-governor was unfortunate. Stevenson 
 was ordered to arrest and imprison Pico, but 
 within a few days came news of the final ac- 
 ceptance by both countries of the treaty, and 
 on his making suitable explanations and apolo- 
 gies, Don Pio was set free. 
 
 In January of 1848 an event took place in 
 California which ranks in our national history 
 in the same class of importance with the sign- 
 ing of the Declaration of Independence and the 
 firing on Fort Sumter — and that was the dis- 
 covery of gold at Coloma, on the American riv- 
 er, near Sacramento. The stream of wealth that 
 
California Enters the Union. 253 
 
 presently began to pour out of the state en- 
 riched and built up the north, whose free en- 
 terprises naturally absorbed most of it, until 
 that section was ready, ten years later, to en- 
 ter upon a long and frightfully expensive war 
 for the maintenance of the Union, and exterm- 
 ination of slavery. This is a great economic 
 fact that serves as a cornerstone to the unique 
 fame of California. 
 
 The presence of gold in California had been 
 known for half a century, and the metal had 
 been obtained in commercial quantities in the 
 southern part of the state. In 1842 a Califor- 
 nian named Lopez found some fragments of 
 the precious metal, when digging foi wild on- 
 ions in the San Francisquito canyon, about 
 thirty-five miles northwest of Los Angeles. A 
 small furore of placer mining then broke out in 
 Los Angeles, and numbers of claims were 
 staked out ; Don Abel Stearns estimated that 
 $6000 to $8000 was secured annually for four 
 years. After that the work was intermittent, 
 and finally was abandoned almost entirely. 
 
 The real discovery of gold in California was 
 accomplished by James W. Marshall, a carpen- 
 ter in the employ of John A. Sutter. The latter 
 was a Swiss, who had acquired considerable 
 land in the Sacramento valley, and owned a 
 store and several mills in that region He was 
 constructing a saw mill on the American river, 
 and Marshall, who was something of a mill- 
 wright, was in charge of the work. In the tail- 
 race of this mill, Marshall found some small 
 
254 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 fragments of a bright yellow metal, which he 
 believed to be gold. He showed them to Sut- 
 ter, who begged him to keep it a secret until 
 the mill was finished. The story of the dis- 
 covery soon leaked out, however, and spread 
 to vSan Francisco. People began to flock to the 
 American river, but finding that the Feather, 
 Yuba, Bear and other streams were quite rich, 
 they spread out over the Sacramento valley, 
 finding gold almost everywhere. By the sum- 
 mer of 1848 San Francisco was very nearly de- 
 serted, and Los Angeles had lost much of its 
 American population, and some of its Califor- 
 nian. Ten million dollars' worth of the pre- 
 cious substance was taken out in the first year. 
 
 In 1849 came the great wave of immigration 
 from the eastern states, carrying over 80,000 
 people, and bringing the total population of the 
 state up to and beyond the hundred thousand 
 mark. Of these a little more than half came 
 by land, the remainder by the ocean. In that 
 year $40,000,000 of gold was taken out, and 
 the next year, 1850, $50,000,000; then came two 
 years of $60,000,000 each, and the next year, 
 greatest of all, $65,000,000. 
 
 The ""ailure of congress to provide any form 
 of territorial government for California, and 
 the evidence showing in the debates Jiat state- 
 hood was not to be gained without a hard 
 struggle, roused the people ot American birth 
 who had come to live in the region to the ne- 
 cessity of acting for themselves. It was de- 
 cided to take the unusual but emphatic course 
 
California Enters the Union. 255 
 
 of forming a state constitution, electing officers 
 and starting off the whole machinery of gov- 
 ernment, exactly as though the state had been 
 admitted, and then demanding of congress that 
 it be allowed a place in the Union. As early 
 as December, 1848, before the second failure 
 of congress to act, meetings were held in San 
 Jose and San Francisco, to agitate this plan, 
 and when General Bennett Riley, who had 
 been appointed by President Polk to succeed 
 Colonel Mason as governor, arrived in Monte- 
 rey, in April of 1849, the people were ready to 
 act. He wisely determined to make the move- 
 ment an official one, and on June 3rd issued a 
 proclamation for an election to be held on the 
 first of August, for delegates to a constitution- 
 al convention. This gathering came together 
 in Monterey September ist. Los Angeles was 
 represented by four delegates, San Francisco 
 by eight, and other places in proportion, to a 
 total of seventy-three delegates. The Los An- 
 geles men were Abel Stearns, J. A. Carrillo, 
 Stephen C. Foster, and Manuel Dominguez. 
 Hugo Reid came from San Gabriel. A state 
 constitution was adopted, made up of elements 
 of the constitutions of several eastern states 
 welded together. The provision that slavery 
 should not exist in the state passed unani- 
 mously, without discussion,thus destroying the 
 last hope that the slave-holding element in 
 congress had of establishing that peculiar in- 
 stitution in California. 
 
 An election to ratify this constitution, and 
 
256 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 for the choice of national and state officers un- 
 der its provisions, was called for November 13, 
 1849. At this election Peter H. Burnett was 
 chosen governor and Edward Gilbert and Geo. 
 Wright representatives. On the 15th of De- 
 cember the legislature met and chose John C. 
 Fremont and Wm. M. Gwin United States sen- 
 ators. 
 
 These quasi-representatives and senators 
 started immediately for Washington, where 
 congress was in session, and where they found 
 that the admission of California was the chief 
 topic of discussion. Henry Clay was endeav- 
 oring to make it the basis of a new series of 
 compromises. Calhoun was demanding that 
 the territory be cut in two, and the lower half 
 kept for slavery. All understood that to admit 
 California as a free state, without a slave state 
 to accompany it, meant a disturbance of the 
 equilibrium so carefully built up in half a cen- 
 tury of compromising, and each faction braced 
 itself for a terrible struggle. The fight was 
 bitter, fierce and determined. The slave-holding 
 element finally went down, though not without 
 a formal protest, in which the threat of seces- 
 sion was made and attempted to be entered 
 upon the record of the senate. The bill admit- 
 ting California finally passed, was signed by the 
 president and became a law September 9, 1850. 
 News of the event reached California October 
 i8th, and was received with great rejoicing. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THK CITY TAKKS SHAPE. 
 
 N IMPORTANT point of difference 
 between the Spanish made-to-order 
 city and the American accidental city 
 is that the former possesses all of its 
 site on a communal basis, while the 
 latter has no land of its own except such as it 
 may purchase. The pueblo of Los Angeles 
 under De Neve's regulations was to own all 
 the land about the plaza for a distance of three 
 miles in each direction, making a square six 
 miles to the side, or thirty-six square miles in 
 the whole area. The original settlers were 
 given each a small building lot and a tract of 
 fourteen acres for cultivation, and the few ad- 
 ditional settlers that came during the first 
 year were held to be entitled to the same privi- 
 lege. Several hundred acres were given out in 
 this way — scarcely more than one per cent of 
 the 23,040 acres of the whole tract. The re- 
 mainder belonged to the city, to dispose of as 
 it saw fit. 
 
 Contrast this situation with that of the 
 average American city which has its begin- 
 ning in the natural drawing together of popu- 
 lation in some spot that is favorable for local 
 1)usiness. The people own the land on which 
 they build their homes, acquiring by purchase 
 from those who had formerly held it for farm- 
 
258 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 ing or other purposes. The city owns nothing 
 until it has attained a size that makes the pur- 
 chase of land for municipal use a necessity; 
 and then as a rule it buys sparingly, for al- 
 though the price of land may be low, the city's 
 finances will not admit of heavy investment. 
 Thus it happens that many cities of the east 
 ern states have been compelled to use a larg( 
 element of the revenue raised by taxation in 
 the purchase of land for school, park and other 
 municipal purposes, and are, nevertheless, al- 
 ways cramped for room. There are some in- 
 stances, particularly among cities in the mid- 
 dle west, where far-sighted officials have urged 
 the municipality, early in its career, into the 
 acquirement of large tracts of land, of which 
 later generations have reaped the benefit. A 
 notable example of this type is Chicago, which 
 not only owns a chain of parks running 
 through the city, but also has large tracts of 
 so-called "school land," some of which is in the 
 very heart of the business district, and is occu- 
 pied by valuable buildings on a 99-year lease- 
 hold. If that city's affairs were always admin- 
 istered on an honest and equitable basis, if its 
 government were made a matter of plain busi- 
 ness, after the English method, instead of a po- 
 litical amusement, after the American, Chicago 
 would be the city that enjoys the lowest taxes 
 and the highest municipal privileges of any in 
 the Union. 
 
 But to return to Los Angeles and its mag- 
 nificent patrimony of broad acres. After the 
 
The City Takes Shape. 259 
 
 original settlers had received all that their 
 contracts called for — given them not by the 
 pueblo, but by the governor — then the city 
 began giving away building sites to all that 
 asked them for actual use, and small tracts, 
 rarely exceeding ten acres, to those that wished 
 to carry on agriculture. No written title 
 passed, nor was there any definite marking of 
 limits. Probably no record was kept of these 
 transactions — certainly none has descended to 
 us. A man's title to his property lay in his oc- 
 cupancy of it, either by actual residence or by 
 tilling. If he moved off, or ceased to cultivate 
 it, any one could take possession by "denuncia- 
 tion." This prevented the holding of land for 
 mere speculative purposes, and tended to con- 
 centrate the city in a limited area. The out- 
 lying districts were left intact in the hands of 
 the city. The time came presently when the 
 necessity for definite boundaries and written 
 titles to ownership dawned on the people of 
 Los Angeles, and, as has been related earlier 
 in this work, the ayuntamiento required all 
 owners to present their claims for ratification 
 by that body. This was the beginning of mod- 
 ern land titles in Los Angeles, for the titles 
 granted to the original settlers by the governor 
 had all been lost by this time, and the owner- 
 ship of the ill-defined building lots and agri- 
 cultural fields had passed into other hands, 
 either by inheritance or through the process of 
 denunciation. The only case in which a writ- 
 ten title had been given by the ayuntamiento 
 
260 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 was that of J. A. Carrillo, in 1821, who peti- 
 tioned for "a parcel of land containing forty 
 varas (iii feet) front and sixty (166 feet) 
 deep, bounded with Dona Encarnacion Urqui- 
 dez, Don Francisco Sepulveda, and near the 
 new church which is now in course of erec- 
 tion." The tract referred to is the one where 
 the Pico house (National hotel) now stands, 
 near the plaza. Note the vague character of 
 the description. No consideration is men- 
 tioned in the deed. The regular practice of 
 granting titles by the ayuntamiento did not be- 
 gin until more than ten years later, and by that 
 time property began to have some money val- 
 ue — but not much. For ordinary building lots 
 — such as those along Main street or Aliso, 
 the price charged by the ayuntamiento was 
 **dos reales per front vara." A real was 12^/2 
 cents and a vara 33 1-3 inches, which would 
 make the value of the property about 8 cents a 
 front foot. A building site usually had about 
 100 feet of frontage, and it would not be diffi- 
 cult to locate many pieces that sold in the 
 '40s for $8, and are now worth more than $100,- 
 000. 
 
 The phraseology used in defining the city 
 in the original regulation was a little vague, as 
 to whether it was to be four leagues square or 
 four square leagues. The former meant 
 twelve by twelve miles, or 144 square miles, 
 the latter six by six, or thirty-six square miles. 
 Up to the time of the American occupation, no 
 one had raised the question of the exact boun- 
 
The City Takes Shape, 261 
 
 dary, but it came up now at the same time with 
 the general question of land titles all over the 
 territory. The Americans were not satisfied 
 with the hap-hazard forms of title customary 
 among the easy-going Californians. They fore- 
 saw the time when land would have a definite 
 and an increasing value. No survey of the 
 state had ever been made by the Spanish or 
 Mexican authorities, although all grants of 
 land, outside the pueblos, were supposed tG 
 emanate from the governor. When a Califor- 
 nian had obtained his grant of land he went 
 to the alcalde nearest the tract, who, on the 
 payment of a small fee, provided a man who 
 called himself a surveyor, but whose only tools 
 were a rope 50 varas long (140 feet) and a 
 couple of pins which could be stuck in the 
 ground without dismounting from horseback. 
 The rope sagged and stretched, and was given 
 direction merely by a careless sighting. The 
 deed required that landmarks should be set up, 
 but that formality was often waived. When 
 the measurement was completed, the alcalde 
 signed the deed, and the title was then regard- 
 ed as complete. 
 
 In 1851 an act passed the congress of the 
 United States, providing for a board of three 
 commissioners, with a secretary and a law 
 agent, the latter skilled in Spanish, to pass on 
 ail matters of title in the new acquisitions. The 
 board began its sessions in San Francisco De- 
 cember, 1851, and continued for five years. It 
 held one brief session in Los Angeles, in the 
 
262 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 autumn of 1852. Of the 813 claims presented 
 to this body, 591 were finally confirmed and 
 203 rejected. The board did not complete the 
 work of settling ail land claims, but it settled 
 a large number of them, and it gathered the 
 material by which they could be finally settled 
 in the district courts. 
 
 It will be readily understood that the work 
 of this board could not be carried on without 
 arousing a considerable amount of resentment 
 among the Californians, who found themselves 
 dispossessed of property to which they be- 
 lieved they had a perfectly valid claim. But 
 the situation was one that called for a day of 
 judgment some time, and the inevitable con- 
 sequence of long-continued carelessness in 
 business matters is that the innocent must suf- 
 fer as well as the guilty. There had been no 
 little fraud in the granting of land under the 
 Mexican regime, and an incredible amount of 
 inaccuracy. The verdict of history seems to 
 be that the commissioners were honest men, 
 who performed a very difficult task with 
 shrewdness and painstaking care. More than 
 that; it does not appear that they allowed 
 themselves to be governed by too great a de- 
 votion to technicality, but endeavored in each 
 case to get at the real intention of the author- 
 ity granting the land, and judge the issue on 
 its merits in equity. This, however, is not the 
 estimate of the commission that was formed by 
 most of the Californians. They and their de- 
 scendants, even to this day, will maintain that 
 
The City Takes Shape. 263 
 
 the whole proceeding was a dehberate plot to 
 rob them of their lands, to take back into the 
 public domain hundreds of thousands of acres 
 that were owned by individual Californians, 
 many of whom were stripped of their holdings 
 by the commission. 
 
 The pueblo of Los Angeles followed the ex- 
 ample of many of the ranch owners, and pro- 
 ceeded to make its claims as wide as possible 
 in the hope of getting the more in the final set- 
 tlement. Its demand was put in with the com- 
 mission for four leagues square, or 144 square 
 miles. The case of Los Angeles, like many 
 others, did not receive final settlement before 
 the board, but when it was at last passed upon 
 by the courts the area was fixed at four square 
 leagues or thirty-six square miles. 
 
 At the time of the American occupation, 
 and even down to 1853, more than 80 per cent 
 of all this great expanse belonged to the city 
 itself. Private ownership covered merely the 
 area in the immediate vicinity of the plaza, and 
 along the foothills m a narrow strip from 
 Buena Vista street bridge to First street, and 
 east as far as the river. Today all that re- 
 mains in the possession of the city is a few 
 hundred acres along the river, known as Ely- 
 sian park, and some arroyo and river wash 
 land — tracts that were considered of so little 
 value that they were somehow "left over." 
 Even the pieces that the city has devoted to 
 parks, like Westlake and Eastlake and others, 
 were either purchased by the city or were ben- 
 
264 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 efactions — one of the latter being the enor- 
 mous tract of Griffith park, which Hes a httle 
 way beyond the city's Hmits to the west. The 
 land in use for school purposes and for public 
 buildings has, with one or two small excep- 
 tions, been acquired by purchase. All the 
 great expanse, where lie now ten thousand 
 homes, and many blocks of business buildings 
 was once city property, and was sold for tri- 
 fling amounts, and much of it actually given 
 away in large tracts — and this outrage was 
 committed not during the administration of the 
 careless Californians, but after the occupation 
 by thrifty Americans. 
 
 It is an almost heart-breaking thought — 
 the "what-might-have-been." Great foresight 
 was not required, for the land did not need to 
 be purchased. It was already owned by the 
 city. All that was needed was a small frac- 
 tion of intelligence in the sale of it — the with- 
 holding of pieces here and there, of every oth- 
 er lot in favorable tracts, and of occasional ten- 
 acre divisions for parks. Had this policy been 
 pursued, Los Angeles might be today the rich- 
 est municipality of its size in the Union. That 
 such folly could have been committed as to 
 save practically nothing out of the whole area 
 is almost incredible, but it is true. 
 
 The first survey of the city, and the making 
 of a plan of its streets, was accomplished by 
 Lieutenant E. O. C. Ord (afterward, during 
 the Civil War, raised to the rank of a major- 
 general) in August of 1849. Before the Amer- 
 
The City Takes Shape. 265 
 
 icans came to Los Angeles the need for a sur- 
 vey to lay out streets for future growth was 
 frequently discussed, and the crookedness and 
 irregularity of the city, as far as it had extend- 
 ed, was spoken of with regret. Reforms were 
 attempted at various times, and people were 
 urged to move back from the plaza, and to 
 cease stopping up the embryo streets. But 
 these good efforts came to naught. There 
 were no competent surveyors in the territory, 
 and the citizen who had once gained possession 
 of a prominent place for his house was loth to 
 move back and surrender it to public use. 
 
 The ayuntamiento of 1849, which contained 
 several Americans, proposed to Governor Ma- 
 son that he should send down an army engi- 
 neer to survey the pueblo, in order that the 
 titles might be perfected and descriptions 
 made clear before the land commission should 
 begin its work, for by that time the plan for a 
 land commission had been bruited about. Ord 
 was offered $3000 in cash, or his choice of 
 building sites to the number of ten, and about 
 160 acres of land in the farming districts of 
 the city. He took the cash. The land would 
 now probably be worth several millions of dol- 
 lars. The area covered in his "Plan de la Ciu- 
 dad de Los Angeles" is now bounded by Pico 
 street on the south, by Pearl street and the 
 hills on the west, by the river on the east, and 
 by the San Fernando street depot on the north. 
 He seems to have assumed without question 
 that the natural growth of the city would be in 
 
266 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 a southwesterly direction, as the hills shut it 
 off to the west and north, and the river and 
 low lands interfered to the east. Doubtless the 
 older residents explained to him how, prior to 
 1825, the river had flowed through Alameda 
 street. 
 
 The two most ancient streets of the city 
 that are now in existence are Aliso and Spring. 
 The former was the ending of the road from 
 San Gabriel, and originally led out into the 
 Plaza, but was stopped at Los Angeles street 
 by the enterprising house builders early in the 
 century. Spring street was the road into the 
 Cahuenga and to the north, although it did not 
 follow the route of the present Spring street 
 beyond First. At the junction by the Nadeau 
 it started across lots, passing Fourth and Hill, 
 and skirting the foothills until it reached mod- 
 ern Ninth street, where it turned to the west, 
 and then to the north to Cahuenga pass. The 
 line of the old road is sketched upon Ord's map. 
 The part which we now call North Spring was 
 originally called Charity street, because, being 
 far out of town, it was occupied by poor peo- 
 ple, dependent upon others for support. Ord 
 transferred this name to Grand avenue, and 
 that street continued with this title until 1886, 
 when the City Council listened to the plaint 
 of many people who were tired of the incessant 
 joke about their "living on charity," and the 
 name was finally banished from the city's 
 streets. 
 
 Broadway was named Fort street, after the 
 
The City Takes Shape. 267 
 
 fort built the year before Ord's survey, which 
 looked down the street from the hill to the 
 north. The change of name was made in 1889. 
 Figueroa street appears as the Street of the 
 Grasshoppers. Buena Vista is Eternity street, 
 because of the cemetery. Castelar is the Street 
 of the Bull, for that is where the bullfights 
 were formerly held. What we call Yale was 
 then the Street of the Hornets. 
 
 The names are given on the Ord plan both 
 in Spanish and English, and the name Spring 
 is put into Spanish as Primavera, showing that 
 it was for the season, and not for any spring of 
 water. Temple street was not cut through at 
 this time, and, indeed, there was no public 
 thoroughfare running west out of Main and 
 Spring, all the way from the Plaza to Franklin 
 street. 
 
 Note to Chapter XXV. — The exact area of the city 
 as determined by the appeal from the settlement of the 
 commission was 17,172.37 acres. The Spanish league 
 on which the city's claim was based was a variable 
 quantity (as was also the vara) ranging with the lo- 
 cality from 2.634 rniles to 4.214 miles. The square league 
 was generally figured at 4,428.4 acres. The author 
 does not attempt to go into the complications of these 
 varying forms of measurement, and the figures given 
 in the text are merely approximations. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THK BEJGINNING OF THINGS. 
 
 NEW city was now coming into ex- 
 istence in Los Angeles — an Ameri- 
 can growth grafted upon a Spanish 
 stock. Had it been located in an ac- 
 cessible part of the nation, the change 
 from the old order to the new would have been 
 rapid, for the region presented then, as it does 
 now, many natural advantages to attract a de- 
 sirable population. The climate was just as 
 favorable in 1850 as it is today, and the soil 
 just as productive ; but between Los Angeles 
 and the eastern states was a great gulf of dis- 
 tance and danger, that only the most intrepid 
 would venture to cross. The discovery of 
 gold, which brought 80,000 people to the north- 
 ern part of the state in one year, affected the 
 southern part only in a reflex way. In the dec- 
 ade from 1850 to i860, several thousand of the 
 Arq-onauts drifted down from San Francisco, 
 some of them with a little capital acquired in 
 the diggings, but more of them penniless ; and 
 some of both kinds located permanently in Los 
 Angeles. Then there were also those who left 
 the eastern states in the expectation of mining 
 for gold, but were dissuaded by the bitter stor- 
 ies of failure that came to their ears, and they 
 turned their course to the south, where they 
 were told men grew rich quickly in raising 
 stock. 
 
The Beginning of Things. 269 
 
 But the total number of all that made their 
 way mto this far-oif corner of the new terri- 
 tory was not large, and of those who came 
 many returned soon to the east, for they found 
 their hopes of sudden wealth were idle. On a 
 superficial view, the region had but little to 
 offer the new-comer. A small amount of com- 
 merce had sprung up between Los Angeles and 
 Arizona, and later there was trade with the 
 rnining camps of Nevada and Utah, and across 
 the mountains to the San Joaquin valley, and 
 over the desert to Inyo county. The old pue- 
 blo was a station on the route from Texas and 
 the southern states into California, and not a 
 few of the gold-seekers came through that way. 
 Except for these small sources of revenue, 
 whatever means the people of Los Angeles en- 
 joyed came out of the territory that immedi- 
 ately surrounded them. The extraordinary 
 producing capacity of the soil under the favor- 
 ing semi-tropic climate had not yet been dis- 
 covered. It was known to the padres and a 
 few others, but rather as a theory than as a 
 practical fact. The first Americans found that 
 the Californians grew almost nothing, and they 
 assumed that the reason must lie in the natura'l 
 deficiency of the country. It was fit for noth- 
 ing but the raising of stock, they thought— 
 for that was the only use to which the Califor- 
 nians had put it. Now the raising of stock 
 would not employ great numbers of people, nor 
 would it support a considerable population. 
 Hence during the next thirty years of its exist- 
 
270 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 ence, from 1850 to 1880, the growth of Los An- 
 geles was slow. This meant that it remained, 
 during most of that period, a Spanish-Ameri- 
 can rather than an American city. 
 
 The first American census, taken in 1850, 
 showed the population of the city to be 1610, 
 and of the county 3530. The number was, no 
 doubt, abnormally small, owing to the prev- 
 alence of the gold excitement, which drew 
 hundreds of men away to the mines. But for 
 that, the census would probably have shown 
 over 3000 in the city. The next enumeration 
 by the government, that of i860, showed 4399 
 in the city and 11,333 in the county. The gain 
 was made for the most part in the first years 
 of the decade, when the mining excitement had 
 died down, and the gold-seekers came south in 
 search of homes. In the next decade, from 
 i860 to 1870, there was very little increase. The 
 census of 1870 gave the city a population of 
 5614, and the county 15,309. This small 
 growth was not due to the Civil War, which 
 added rather than subtracted from the popu- 
 lation. There was but little enlistment from' 
 Los Angeles on either side in the great con- 
 flict, so the loss was not great ; and on the oth- 
 er hand, at the close of the war, many ex-Con- 
 federates whose homes had been destroyed 
 made their way to the Pacific coast, that they 
 might begin life anew in happier surroundings. 
 The failure to advance was due to the apparent 
 inability of the country to support a larger 
 population. By this time the Central and Un- 
 
The Beginning of Things. 1*1\ 
 
 ion Pacific rail connection with the east had 
 been estabhshed, but the line was not as yet 
 extended to the southern portion of the state. 
 A regular system of steamers plied between 
 Los Angeles and San Francisco, giving the 
 southern city a part of the advantage of the 
 new opening to the east. Still it did not grow. 
 Twenty years after the American occupation 
 it was in spirit and customs and even in popu- 
 lation largely a Mexican town. It is now a 
 thoroughly American city, with a few faint 
 traces of Spanish origin. The change began in 
 the latter '70s, and was completed within ten 
 years. 
 
 In the first period of transition, from 1848 
 to 1855, niany of the institutions that make up 
 the foundation of our American life came into 
 being in Los Angeles — unknown before that 
 time. Of trial by jury, and the equality of all 
 before the law, we have already spoken, as 
 being decreed by the authorities of the state. 
 Schools, newspapers, churches and municipal 
 improvements were purely local matters, for 
 the people of Los Angeles to settle for them- 
 selves. The newcomers attacked them with 
 the traditional energy of Americans; but 
 whether it was due to certain qualities of the 
 climate that it pleases people to term "enervat- 
 ing," or to the doubtful example set them by 
 their predecessors, it must be admitted that 
 the good beginning was but languidly fol- 
 
272 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 lowed up, through the period next interven- 
 ing. 
 
 Schools were not unknown during the Mex- 
 ican regime in Los Angeles, but in the sixty- 
 six years from the founding of the city to the 
 American occupation, there was a total of 
 about ten years of school. These years were 
 scattered along at irregular intervals, the long- 
 est stretch of continuous instruction being the 
 school maintained from 1838 to 1844 by Don 
 Ignacio Coronel, the father of Mayor Antonio 
 F. Coronel. The teacher usually received a 
 small salary from the ayuntamiento, averag- 
 ing about $15 a month, and in addition was 
 entitled to whatever fees the pupils were will- 
 ing to pay for tuition. Most of the teachers 
 were poorly educated, and their schools at- 
 tracted few pupils. The teacher was occasion- 
 ally summoned before the ayuntamiento, to 
 explain why there had been no school for the 
 past week or so, and his answer usually was 
 that the pupils had all run away. Don Ig- 
 nacio Coronel was a well educated man of ex- 
 cellent family, and his school accomplished 
 good work. His daughter, Soledad, assisted 
 him at times. The location of this school was 
 at the Coronel residence on Los Angeles 
 street, near Arcadia, part of the time, and later 
 at one of the plaza church buildings. 
 
 In 1844 a school was opened under the 
 patronage of Governor Micheltorena, who 
 promised $500 from the state funds to its aid. 
 
The Beginning of Things. TlZ 
 
 It was in charge of Ensign Guadalupe Medina, 
 an officer of the Mexican army, who was said 
 to be expert in the latest educational methods. 
 He introduced a plan by which the older 
 pupils were to teach the younger, and in this 
 way the membership of the school was 
 brought up to over too, with only one regular 
 this school. 
 
 In 1850, after some Americans came into 
 the ayuntamiento, a school committee was ap- 
 pointed out of the membership of that body, 
 but great difficulty was experienced in finding 
 any suitable teacher. This was at the time 
 when the city was in the throes of the gold 
 fever, and men were scarce. Hugh Owens fi- 
 nally agreed to establish a school for $50 a 
 month, on the understanding that not more 
 than six boys were to be sent free by 
 the city. This school continued a few 
 months. In November of 1850 Rev. 
 Henry Weeks proposed to the city coun- 
 cil that he be assisted in establishing 
 a school for both boys and girls by a 
 subsidy of $150 a month. In return for this 
 sum he agreed to give his own and his wife's 
 services, and to provide the necessary school 
 accommodations. This school opened in Jan- 
 uary, 1851, and lasted under that arrange- 
 ment until 1853, when all subsidies ceased, and 
 schools were made free. In August, 1852, a 
 tax of 10 cents per $10 of valuation was lev- 
 ied for school purposes, and the next year three 
 
274 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 commissioners of public schools were selected 
 by the council, one of whom, the chairman, 
 was made ex-officio superintendent of schools. 
 In 1855 there were 753 children of school age 
 in the city, but the average daily attendance 
 was only fifty-two. Most of the children of 
 American parentage were sent, but the na- 
 tive Californians either disapproved of the 
 school because it was an American institution, 
 or they were utterly indifferent to the advant- 
 ages of education. 
 
 Stephen C. Foster who was elected mayor 
 in 1854, was a graduate of Yale college, and 
 took a lively interest in the education of the 
 youth. He urged that permanent school build- 
 ings be erected, and that a regular system, 
 similar to that used in Eastern cities, be 
 adopted. The council met this suggestion by 
 making him superintendent of schools, as well 
 as mayor, and with his administration the 
 modern educational system of Los Angeles 
 had its beginning. The first schoolhouse was 
 erected in 1855, ^^ the corner of Spring and 
 Second, where the Bryson block now stands. 
 It cost about $6000. The second was on Bath 
 street, a thoroughfare which was afterwards 
 absorbed by the opening of Main street north 
 from the plaza. 
 
 When the Americans took possession of 
 Monterey in 1846 they found a font of type 
 which had been used occasionally by the Cali- 
 fornia authorities to print official documents. 
 
The Beginning of Things. 275 
 
 Although one letter was lacking in the alpha- 
 bet of the Spaniard the Americans, nothing 
 daunted, seized upon the type and began the 
 publication of a newspaper which they called 
 "The Californian." It was maintained 
 throughout the earlier period of the occupa- 
 tion. The missing letter, W, was produced 
 by putting two V's together. 
 
 The first newspaper in Los Angeles was 
 called ''La Estrella," "The Star," the first 
 number of which, printed in both Spanish and 
 English, appeared May 17, 1851. In the pre- 
 ceding October Theodore Foster had applied 
 to the city council for a piece of ground suit- 
 able for a newspaper office, and had suggested 
 a location near the city jail, on Main street. 
 He seems to have had a presentiment that a 
 large amount of news was likely to originate 
 in that vicinity. The matter of a donation 
 of a piece of land for such a purpose aroused 
 a good deal of debate. Few of the Califor- 
 nians had ever seen a newspaper, and the de- 
 scription supplied by their American neigh- 
 bors who had enjoyed some experience with 
 the institution in Eastern states was not en- 
 tirely reassuring. Finally the donation was 
 agreed to, but the words "for this once only" 
 were attached to the resolution, and the site 
 selected by Mr. Foster was denied him. He 
 was given instead a piece no feet square 
 fronting the zanja on Los Angeles street, be- 
 tween Commercial and Arcadia, on the spot 
 
276 History of Los Angeles, 
 
 where the Foy harness shop now stands. 
 Here a two-story adobe building was erected 
 and a four-page, five-column weekly paper be- 
 gan to appear, bearing the names of John A. 
 Lewis and John McElroy as publishers. Its 
 subscription price was $io a year. The press 
 was a Washington Hoe, which had been 
 brought around the Horn in the first days of 
 the gold excitement. This machine was sold 
 to Phineas Banning in 1864, who took it to 
 Wilmington to start a paper there. In 1870 
 it was sold to the "Anaheim Gazette," and 
 that paper, which is still enjoying a prosper- 
 ous career, was printed from it until 1878, 
 when a fire ended the story of the Star press. 
 The Spanish portion of the "Star" was 
 presently segregated from the English and 
 given the name of "El Clamor Publico." In 
 1851 William H. Rand became a partner in the 
 "Star," and remained with it for several years. 
 He subsequently returned East, became the 
 foreman in the "Chicago Tribune" printing 
 office and, in company with Andrew McNally, 
 founded the famous publishing house that 
 bears their names. Changes too place from 
 time to time in the firm publishing the "Star"; 
 J. S. Waite and WilHam A. Wallace entered 
 and departed, and the paper finally came to be 
 owned by Henry Hamilton, an able and prac- 
 tical newspaper man, who conducted it from 
 1856 to 1864. He was an ardent sympathizer 
 with the Confederate cause, and refusing to 
 
The Beginning of Things. TJ*1 
 
 moderate his utterances in spite of frequent 
 warnings from the authorities, he was at last 
 ordered to cease editorial connection with the 
 paper. In 1868 he returned to the work and 
 continued in charge, with one or two inter- 
 missions, until 1873. In that year the ''Star" 
 passed into the hands of Major Ben C. Tru- 
 man, who had been secretary to President 
 Johnson, and who is now living in Los An- 
 geles. Hamilton was a man of scientific 
 tastes and made considerable study of the bot- 
 any of the country. At his solicitation Hugo 
 Reid, who had lived among the Californian 
 Indians, contributed a series of articles to the 
 ''Star" on the latter's habits and customs, con- 
 taining information of considerable value. 
 The "Star" continued under Truman's man- 
 agement until 1877, becoming a daily in 1873. 
 It finally came into the hands of the Rev. A. 
 M. Campbell, who was succeeded by the 
 sheriff, and in 1879 ^^^ paper passed out of 
 existence. 
 
 "El Clamor Publico" ceased publication in 
 1859. No other Spanish paper was attempted 
 until 1872. 
 
 In 1854 the "Southern Californian" ap- 
 peared. Don Andres Pico was one of the 
 owners, and its demise, which took place be- 
 fore it was two years old, is said to have left 
 him $10,000 poorer in money, whatever gain 
 he may have made in other directions. The 
 plant was taken by J. J. Warner to be used in 
 
278 History o/ Los Angeles. 
 
 publishing the "Southern Vineyard," which 
 began in 1858 and ran two years, merging into 
 the "Los Angeles News." The "News" was 
 changed to a daily in 1867, and continued until 
 1873, when it gave up the ghost. Of the more 
 modern journals, those that are now on the 
 ground, an account will be given later in this 
 work. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIl. 
 
 I.OS ANGKLISS AT ITS WORST. 
 
 HE people of Los Angeles seem, from 
 the very beginning, to have adopted 
 the principle that whatever they under- 
 took to do they must do thoroughly. 
 During the Spanish regime their chief 
 purpose was to avoid work ; and indolence was 
 practiced until it became almost an art. Prob- 
 ably there was at that time no city within the 
 boundaries of the Union where more work was 
 permanently left undone than at Los Angeles. 
 In the quarter of a century of Mexican rule 
 the pueblo leads as the great rallying point for 
 revolutions. Here again a comparison with 
 other cities of the United States need not be 
 feared. When California was brought under 
 American rule, however, revolutions became 
 dangerous and impracticable. If the city was 
 to continue to be pre-eminent, it must be for 
 some other characteristic than political turbu- 
 lence. 
 
 This brings us to the darkest chapter in 
 the history of Los Angeles ; for, during the 
 period from 1850 to 1870, it was undoubtedly 
 the toughest town of the entire nation. Dur- 
 ing most of this time it contained a larger per- 
 centage of bad characters than any other city, 
 and for its size had the greatest number of 
 fights, murders, lynchings and robberies. This 
 
280 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 long era of violence and contempt for law had 
 its culmination in 1871, in the brutal slaughter 
 of nineteen Chinamen and the looting of China- 
 town by a mob of 500 men. The number of 
 lynchings during this period (not including the 
 Chinamen) is estimated at thirty-five, which 
 is more than four times the number credited to 
 the famous vigilance committees of San Fran- 
 cisco. In addition to the executions that were 
 done in the name of order, if not of law, there 
 were legal hangings about twice a year. As to 
 the number of killings, it is impossible to make 
 an estimate, as no record was kept. There is 
 no complete file of the earliest volumes of the 
 newspapers, all having been destroyed in a 
 fire in 1880, but such copies as are still in ex- 
 istence contain here and there brief items, two 
 or three lines in length, that show by the very 
 absence of comment what the state of things 
 Avas. A murder which in these days would be 
 given half a page of newspaper space, with 
 pictures of the victim and all his family, and 
 a lurid diagram of the spot and its surround- 
 ings, was dismissed with a few short sen- 
 tences, accompanied by no comment. The Los 
 Angeles News of March 2, 1866, contains these 
 three items, for example : 
 
 "The verdict of the coroner's jury on the 
 body of Seferino Ochoa returned that he came 
 to his death by the discharge of a gun loaded 
 with powder and balls." 
 
 "A party of Salt Lake and Montana team- 
 sters had a lively row in the Monte on Men- 
 
Los Angeles at its Worst. 281 
 
 day night; several shots were fired, from the 
 effects of which one man died." 
 
 "A shooting affray occurred recently be- 
 tween Mr. T. Baldwin and Mr. Adam Linn. 
 Mr. Baldwin was shot through the heart, but 
 unloaded his pistol before he expired, dying 
 without speaking. Mr. Linn was uninjured." 
 
 The Southern Californian of March 7, 1855, 
 remarks : 
 
 "Last Sunday night was a brisk night for 
 killing. Four men were shot and killed and 
 several wounded in shooting affrays." 
 
 This lawlessness had its beginning in the 
 years that California was without a regular 
 government — the interregnum between Mexi- 
 can and American authority. The semi-mili- 
 tary government that prevailed through part 
 of this time served to hold things in check, 
 but it was withdrawn before the new authority 
 was firmly in its seat. The changed order 
 brought inevitable confusion in the effort to 
 accommodate Spanish law to American cus- 
 toms and Spanish customs to American law, 
 and this confusion was suddenly confounded 
 by the arrival of a hundred thousand new- 
 comers in the state — the gold hunters. In 
 such a vast number, coming for such a pur- 
 pose, it was to be expected that representatives 
 of the criminal and desperate classes should 
 be included. When the vigilance committees 
 of San Francisco and the northern mining 
 camps began to drive these bad characters out, 
 
282 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 many of them drifted south to Los Angeles, 
 and the latter city soon took on the character 
 of a frontier town of the toughest type. 
 
 The situation was more complicated in Los 
 Angeles than in most other portions of the 
 state, because of the presence in that city of 
 many hundred native Californians of the low- 
 est class. These were idle, shiftless and ad- 
 dicted to drink, but up to the time of the Amer- 
 ican occupation they had not shown contempt 
 for the law, nor were they given to crimes of 
 violence. The change of government seemed 
 to bring a radical change in the character of 
 many of these men. It may have been that 
 they were merely imitative, and that they 
 were imdertaking to do as they saw the Amer- 
 ican frontier outlaws doing ; or it may have 
 been that having lost their country and — many 
 of them — their vague claims to land, they be- 
 came desperate, and defied all authority; at 
 all events, a large percentage of the killings re- 
 corded for this period, particularly the murders 
 done for money, are to be charged to the na- 
 tive Californians, and many of the fiercest and 
 most reckless highwaymen were of this class. 
 
 Another element in the population that 
 rendered the maintaining of order difficult was 
 the Indian. About two thousand natives who 
 had either been brought up at the missions or 
 had sometime been under their influence, so 
 that they were not wholly wild, were living in 
 and around Los Angeles. During the week 
 they worked on the ranches and vineyards and 
 
Los Angeles at its Worst. 283 
 
 on Saturday, having secured their pay, much 
 of it in brandy, they repaired to the city to in- 
 dulge in a frantic carouse. Their favorite ren- 
 dezvous was a small street between Arcadia 
 and the plaza, where Los Angeles street now 
 is. ''Nigger alley" — as it was called — was sur- 
 rounded by low drinking places, and was the 
 home of crime and disorder. The Indians 
 fought incessantly among themselves, and 
 without much interference on the part of the 
 authorities ; but they seldom raised their 
 hands against the whites, or if they did they 
 were shot down without mercy. When they 
 were all drunk, which happened usually within 
 twelve hours after their discharge from the 
 ranches, they were gathered into a corral back 
 of the present location of the Downey block. 
 On Monday morning they were sold ofif, like 
 so many slaves, the employer agreeing to pay 
 the fine in return for the next period of ser- 
 vice. The Indian received only a dollar or 
 two for his week's work, part of that in brandy. 
 This condition of affairs lasted until the In- 
 dians were all dead, and they went out rapidly 
 under such a hideous system. 
 
 The city was run on the so-called "wide- 
 open" plan, no attempt being made to control 
 the liquor traffic, and gambling accepted as a 
 matter of course. A law-abiding. God-fearing 
 element existed, and at times exerted itself ag- 
 gressively, but the supply of desperate charac- 
 ters seemed to be inexhaustible ; when one lot 
 was run out of the place, a new detachment ap- 
 
284 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 peared, and permanent reform was deemed 
 hopeless. The police force of the city was in 
 charge of an officer known as the city mar- 
 shal, who had several regular deputies that 
 were entitled to fees, but in times of special 
 difficulty he called on the citizens generally 
 to aid him. When the Star printing establish- 
 ment came into existence, its first job of print- 
 ing was to prepare for the use of the marshal 
 one hundred white ribbon badges, bearing in 
 Spanish and English the legend "City Police: 
 Organized by the Council of Los Angeles, July 
 12, 1851," which were to be used on a law and 
 order Committee of One Hundred. Two of the 
 marshals of this period were killed in office, 
 and those who ventured to do their duty had 
 plenty of interesting experiences. Companies 
 of armed vigilantes were formed from time to 
 time, generally under the name of ''Rangers." 
 The authorities shut their eyes to the lynch- 
 ings, few of which were unjustifiable. On one 
 occasion the mayor, Stephen C. Foster, re- 
 signed to head a lynching party. This was 
 the extreme case of a murderer, whose guilt 
 was without question and who was likely to 
 be freed by a technicality by the supreme 
 court. 
 
 The county was represented in the work of 
 maintaining order by its sherifiF; and three of 
 these officers were killed during this period. 
 The circumstances connected with the slaying 
 of SheriflF Barton show what a deplorable con- 
 dition of affairs existed at the time, although 
 
Los Angeles at its Worst. 285 
 
 his death led to a temporary improvement. A 
 number of the worst characters in the city had 
 been driven out by a vigilance committee, but 
 they remained in the neighborhood, robbing 
 travelers and committing murder if they met 
 with resistance. In January, 1857, Sheriff 
 Barton gathered a posse of five men, and went 
 to the Sepulveda ranch in search of these ban- 
 dits. The gang proved to be much larger 
 than he had supposed, most of them native 
 Californians, and all well armed and mounted. 
 There was a fight, in which the sheriff and 
 three of the posse were killed, the other two 
 escaping back to the city. This brought mat- 
 ters to a crisis, and the law and order people 
 of Los Angeles rose in a body to make a thor- 
 ough job of clearing the country of the bad 
 element. They began by hunting through the 
 city for all suspicious characters, and about 
 fifty were arrested and thrown into jail. The 
 country was then scoured in search of the 
 gang that had killed Barton ; General Andres 
 Pico led the posse. The robbers scattered, and 
 some of them took to the mountains, but they 
 were nearly all captured. Over fifty were 
 lodged in jail, and eleven were hung, some by 
 the committee and others through due process 
 of law. This cleared the atmosphere for ri 
 time. 
 
 The most terrible page in this dark chap- 
 ter of the city's history is that on which is re- 
 corded the massacre of the Chinamen. The 
 Los Angeles of today is so far removed from 
 
286 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 anything like mob sentiment, its population, 
 90 per cent of which comes from the older 
 eastern states, is so thoroughly conservative 
 and law-abiding, that it is hard to understand 
 how, only thirty years ago, such a horrible 
 outrage came to be committed in the city. 
 As a mere exhibition of mob rule, however, it 
 was no worse than has been seen since that 
 period in various eastern cities, notably Cin- 
 cinnati, Pittsburg, Kansas City and St. Louis. 
 If the number of lives taken was greater than 
 in any of these latter instances, that may be 
 accounted for by the fact that in those days 
 nearly everyone in Los Angeles was accus- 
 tomed to go armed, and knew how to shoot to 
 kill, and by the further fact that public senti- 
 ment at the time placed a very low estimate 
 on the value of the life of a Chinaman. This 
 is not offered in extenuation of the crime, but 
 merely to help explain something that seems 
 at first sight difficult of comprehension. 
 
 The affair took place on the 24th of Octo- 
 ber, 1871, and succeeded the great Chicago 
 fire as a topic of news most under discussion 
 throughout the country. This was for many 
 thousand eastern people their first introduc- 
 tion to Los Angeles, and the incongruity of 
 the name as the location for such an awful 
 deed was frequently commented upon. The 
 riot grew out of a war between rival Chinese 
 societies — or ''tongs" — that had been in prog- 
 ress for several days, one faction shooting 
 across "Nigger alley" at the other from time 
 
Los Angeles at its Worst. 287 
 
 to time. A city policeman attempting to make 
 an arrest met with resistance, and summoned 
 to his aid a well-known citizen, named Robert 
 Thompson. Some Chinamen concealed in a 
 building on the corner of Arcadia street and 
 "Nigger alley" shot through the door and mor- 
 tally wounded Thompson. He was carried to 
 an adjoining drug store, and died within an 
 hour. 
 
 The fatal shot had been fired just at dusk. 
 By night time a great crowd of angry men had 
 gathered in the alley and surrounded the build- 
 ing. Several of the Chinamen undertook to es- 
 cape, but were shot down or captured and 
 hung. The mob finally broke open the building, 
 which the Chinamen had barricaded on the 
 inside, and dragged eight Chinamen out into 
 the street, where they were beaten and kicked 
 and pulled about with ropes tied around their 
 necks, and finally taken over to a corral on 
 New High street back of the Downey block 
 and hanged to a high cross-bar above its gate. 
 This was about 9 o'clock in the evening. 
 
 In the meantime a gang of thieves and 
 toughs who had joined the mob for purposes 
 of plunder made the most of the confusion to 
 break open several stores belonging to China- 
 men who could not be supposed to have had 
 any part in the murder of Thompson. Some 
 seized the goods and began to carry them off, 
 while others wrecked the buildings and the 
 store fixtures. All Chinamen that came into the 
 
288 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 hands of the mob were dragged out into "Nig- 
 ger alley" and hung or shot to death. The 
 crowd was beside itself with rage against the 
 race, and spared neither youth nor old age. 
 Two of the victims were very young boys, and 
 one, an old physician, a man of good education, 
 who begged for his life and offered over $2000 
 in money to those who had captured him. The 
 money was taken, but he was hanged with the 
 rest. The amount of cash taken by the mob 
 was estimated at $40,000. 
 
 There were in all nineteen Chinamen put 
 to death, some with great cruelty. The afifair 
 lasted only about an hour. News of what was 
 going on had by this time spread over the 
 town, and a party of brave and law-abiding 
 citizens, accompanied by the sheriff, went 
 down into Chinatown and compelled the mob 
 to desist. A few arrests were made, and when 
 the grand jury met, indictments were found 
 against 150 persons for participation in the 
 massacre. Only six of these were convicted 
 in the trial that followed, and they, after a 
 short imprisonment, were given their freedom 
 on a technicality. The jury severely censured 
 the officers of the city and county for neglect- 
 ing their duty. From the evidence taken af- 
 terward it was established that only one of the 
 nineteen Chinamen killed was concerned in 
 the original conflict between the "tongs." The 
 guilty parties had all made their escape be- 
 fore the mob came on the scene. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIIl. 
 
 BKTWE:KN OI.D AND NBW. 
 
 HE story of Los Angeles from 1850 
 to 1880 is largely one of slow indus- 
 trial development, and a narration of 
 that order is best handled in epochs. 
 A division into decades may be an ar- 
 bitrary one, but it is convenient and will be 
 employed through the next three chapters of 
 this work. 
 
 Many of the principal events of the period 
 from 1850 to i860 have already been narrated, 
 for the epoch is one of considerable local im- 
 portance in marking the commencement of the 
 new order of things. There were also sundry 
 happenings of minor note, that have to be re- 
 corded as part of the city's history, although 
 their number and variety may make this narra- 
 tive somewhat disjointed in places. 
 
 The year 1850 saw the beginning of the 
 Protestant church in Los Angeles. The Rev. 
 J. W. Brier, a Methodist minister, who was 
 passing through the city on his way to the 
 northern part of the state, held the first Prot- 
 estant services that ever took place in Los An- 
 geles, on a Sunday in June, 1850. It was in a 
 private residence located where the Bullard 
 block now stands, and where for many years 
 afterward the county court house stood. In 
 
290 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 1853 the Rev. Adam Bland was sent to Los An- 
 geles by the California conference of the Meth- 
 odist Episcopal church to organize a church. 
 He made use of an adobe building on Main 
 street near the Baker block. There he preached 
 for two years, and his wife taught a girls' 
 school in the same building. Others succeeded 
 him, but in 1858 the field was abandoned for 
 eight years. 
 
 The next Protestant sect to come to Los 
 Angeles was that of the Presbyterians. In No- 
 vember, 1854, Rev. James Woods of that faith, 
 held services in a little carpenter shop' near the 
 corner of Main street and the plaza. A year 
 later a regular church was organized with Mr. 
 Woods as pastor, and services were held in 
 the first court house, which stood where the 
 People's store now is, on Spring and Franklin 
 — a building that was for many years after 
 i860 used as the city jail. In 1856 the moral 
 development of Los Angeles was abandoned 
 by the Presbyterians as hopeless, and was not 
 taken up again until 1859, when a movement 
 started to have Protestant services of a general 
 character, there not being enough of any one 
 sect to maintain a church. The Rev. W. E. 
 Boardman acted as pastor. It was decided to 
 erect a church structure, and a lot was secured 
 at the southwest corner of Temple and New 
 High, where the steps now lead up to the 
 court house. A brick building was begun, but 
 before it was finished Mr. Boardman left the 
 city, and the meetings were abandoned. The 
 
Between Old and New. 291 
 
 building was finally turned over to the Rev. 
 Elias Birdsall, an Episcopal clergyman, who 
 had been officiating for a small body of that 
 faith that met in Odd Fellows hall in the Dow- 
 ney block. Episcopal services were first 
 held in the city in 1857, and a parish was or- 
 ganized in that year, but it continued only a 
 short time. 
 
 The Baptist church began in the year 1861, 
 although occasional services were held during 
 the '50s, the first being by a Mr. Freeman in 
 
 1853. The first Jewish services were held in 
 
 1854. The first congregation was organized by 
 Rabbi A. W. Edelman, whose long term of ser- 
 vice lasted until 1886. 
 
 The abandonment of this field by the 
 clergymen of the various Protestant sects dur- 
 ing the later '50s, while it may not be entirely 
 creditable to their devotion to the service, 
 gives some indication, nevertheless, of the 
 moral darkness that hung over the city at that 
 time. The Catholic church continued its min- 
 istrations, of course, but few of the Americans 
 attended its services. The "Star" commented 
 upon the departure of the Presbyterian preach- 
 er in these terms : "To preach week after 
 week to empty benches is certainly not en- 
 couraging, but if, in addition to that, a minister 
 has to contend against a torrent of vice and im- 
 morality which obliterates all traces of the 
 Christian Sabbath — to be compelled to endure 
 blasphemous denunciations of his divine Mas- 
 ter, to live where society is disorganized, relig- 
 
292 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 ion scoffed at, where violence runs riot, and 
 even life itself is unsafe — such a condition of 
 affairs may suit some men, but it is not calcu- 
 lated for the peaceful labors of one who follows 
 unobtrusively the footsteps of the meek and 
 lowly Savior." 
 
 The Masonic order came into existence in 
 Los Angeles in 1854 with Los Angeles Lodge, 
 No. 42. The next year came the Odd Fellows, 
 Los Angeles Lodge, No. 35. The Hebrew Be- 
 nevolent Society was organized in 1854; the 
 French Benevolent Society in i860. The Teu- 
 tonia Concordia, afterward Turnverein, was 
 started in 1859. In that same year there was a 
 series of lectures given by the Los Angeles 
 Mechanics Institute ; the Library Association 
 started a small reading-room at the corner of 
 Court and North Spring street, and an agricul- 
 tural society came into existence. These three 
 organizations perished when the Civil War 
 broke out. 
 
 The first hospital for the sick was opened 
 in 1858 in a private house by some Sisters of 
 Charity from Maryland. This was the begin- 
 ning of the "Sisters' Hospital," which now oc- 
 cupies a large building on Bellevue avenue. 
 The Catholic Orphan Asylum was founded in 
 1856. St. Vincent's college for boys began in 
 1855. The decade was one of considerable de- 
 velopment in the local Catholic church. 
 
 Los Angeles was incorporated as a city in 
 1851. During this decade the mayors were 
 elected annually, and the list runs as follows: 
 
Between Old and New. 293 
 
 A. P. Hodges, 1850; B. D. Wilson, 1851 ; J. G. 
 Nichols, 1852; A. F. Coronel, 1853; Stephen 
 C. Foster, 1854; Thos. Foster, 1855; Stephen 
 C. Foster, 1856, four months ; J. G. Nichols, 
 1856-7-8; D. Marchessault, 1859; Henry Mel- 
 ius, i860. 
 
 In 1852 the city began to give away the 
 land in the southwestern section of the city in 
 35-acre tracts to all who would agree to make 
 improvements. In 1855 the land south of Pico 
 street to the western and southern boundaries 
 of the city was surveyed in 35-acre pieces by 
 Henry Hancock. Two years later A. Walde- 
 mar made a similar survey for the portion 
 north of Pico to the western boundary. 
 
 In 1848, of 103 proprietors of farms in the 
 city, only eight were "gringos," i. e., not native 
 Californians. Three years later, of the thirteen 
 principal property owners in the county, six 
 were Americans and they owned 135,000 out of 
 500,000 acres, and $306,000 out of $500,000 of 
 personal property. In 1858, out of forty-five 
 principal property owners in the county, 
 twenty-five were American and twenty Cali- 
 fornian. The two largest individual taxpayers 
 were Abel Stearns, $186,000, and John Temple, 
 $89,000. During most of the 50's interest was 
 5 per cent a month, and the Californians were 
 easy borrowers. In 1856 the city's real estate 
 was assessed at $187,582, and the improve- 
 ments at $457,535- 
 
 The average annual income to the people of 
 the county from the sale of cattle during this 
 
294 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 period was between $250,000 and $500,000, the 
 latter figure being reached only one year, 1856. 
 Next to cattle raising, the production of grapes 
 was the most lucrative form of industry. In 
 1849 ^^^ 1850 grapes sold for I2^c a pound 
 on the vine, to be shipped to San Francisco, 
 where they retailed at any price. In 1858 there 
 were loio acres in vines, and a few years later 
 3000. In 185 1 about a thousand gallons of wine 
 were shipped from Los Angeles. Soon after 
 this the northern counties began to grow 
 grapes and make wine, so the shipments to San 
 Francisco diminished ; but in 1855 exportation 
 to the eastern market began. In 1857, 21,000 
 boxes of grapes, or nearly a million pounds, 
 and 250,000 gallons of v/ine were shipped out. 
 By i860 the shipments of wine had increased 
 to 66,000 cases. 
 
 In 1856 the yield of oranges was estimated 
 at 400 boxes, or a little more than one carload. 
 Wm. Wolfskin, who had the principal orchard, 
 declared that he had received $100 apiece in- 
 come from several of his trees. By i860 it was 
 estimated that there were 2500 trees in the 
 state, of which three-fourths were in and 
 around Los Angeles. 
 
 Iron working and wagon making began in 
 Los Angeles with John Goller, who arrived in 
 the city by way of Salt Lake in 1849. The 
 charge for shoeing a horse at that time was 
 $16. There was a great scarcity of iron, and 
 Goller sent out on the roads traveled by the 
 emigrants for old abandoned tires, and worked 
 
Between Old and New. 295 
 
 them up into horseshoes. When he finally 
 managed, after many difficulties, to construct 
 a wagon, he kept it a long time before he found 
 a purchaser. Compared with the carreta it 
 looked insubstantial, and was regarded with 
 suspicion by the Californians. 
 
 The making of brick was begun by J. D. 
 Hunter in 1852, and the first structure built of 
 them was at Third and Main ; the second was a 
 jail building. In 1858 over two million brick 
 were sold for a number of improvements that 
 were either under way or were projected, such 
 as the Temple market house, aftervv^ard taken 
 over by the county for $40,000, to be used as a 
 court house, the southern portion of the Tem- 
 ple block, the brick flouring mill of Stearns h 
 Scott, now the Capitol Milling Co., and the Ar- 
 cadia block on Arcadia and Los Angeles. 
 
 In 1854 the first brewing establishment was 
 set up in Los Angeles, and a tannery started. 
 In 1855 the first flouring mill began operations, 
 and in that same year the culture of bees was 
 undertaken by O. W. Childs, who is said to 
 have paid $100 for one hive and swarm brought 
 down from San Francisco. In 1850 the first 
 drug store was established by Dr. Osborne, 
 who came to Los Angeles from New York. He 
 was presently succeeded in the business by 
 John G. Downey, who afterwards became one 
 of the wealthiest men of the region and served 
 as governor of the state. 
 
 April 15, 1851, the first child of American 
 parentage on both sides was born in Los An- 
 
296 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 geles : John Gregg Nichols, whose father, a 
 year later, was elected to the mayoralty. 
 
 In 1855 came the Kern river gold excite- 
 ment. There was a great rush from the north- 
 ern diggings and from Los Angeles city into 
 Tulare county, where it was reported that vast 
 quantities of gold had been discovered. There 
 was, however, very little gold to be obtained in 
 the San Joaquin valley, and many of the disap- 
 pointed miners and adventurers drifted down 
 to Los Angeles, where they contributed a new 
 element to the prevailing lawlessness of the 
 time. Partly as a result of the Kern river ex- 
 citement a new interest sprang up in the San 
 Gabriel mines, and at one time Los Angeles 
 bid fair to have a gold furore of its own. 
 
 In 1852 the "Sea Bird" began making reg- 
 ular trips three times a month between San 
 Francisco and San Pedro, and in that same 
 year D. W. Alexander and Phineas Banning 
 put in a stage line from the coast to the city. 
 In 185 1 Alexander had brought in from Salt 
 Lake ten heavy freight wagons, the first ever 
 seen in Los Angeles. In 1853 a train of four- 
 teen wagons and sixty-eight mules were 
 brought in from Chihuahua at a cost of $23,000. 
 J. L. Tomlinson put in an opposition line to 
 that of Alexander & Banning in 1853, and for 
 many years there was active competition in 
 freight and passenger business, and the teams 
 raced against each other on the way to the 
 city. 
 
Between Old and New. 297 
 
 The passenger fare from San Francisco to 
 San Pedro in the early 50's was $45, and freight 
 was $25 a ton. The fare from San Pedro to 
 Los Angeles was $10, but competition finally 
 brought it down to $2.50, and even below that 
 for a short time. Freight from San Pedro was 
 from 50 cents to $1 a hundredweight — about 
 what is now charged from New York to Los 
 Angeles. In 1855 freighting began between 
 Los Angeles and Salt Lake, which had in- 
 creased by 1859 to a considerable business. 
 This ceased, of course, when the railroad con- 
 nection was established between the Mormon 
 city and San Francisco. In 1858 some experi- 
 ments were carried on by the national govern- 
 ment in the use of camels for freighting be- 
 tween Los Angeles and Arizona, but the plan 
 was not a success. 
 
 In 1850 the Bella Union, now the St. 
 Charles, on North Main street, was the only 
 hotel. In 1856 the United States (not the mod- 
 ern building) was constructed on Main and 
 Requena streets. Shortly afterwards the La- 
 fayette opened in a building that was the pre- 
 decessor of the modern St. Elmo. In 1856 
 Ramon Alexander, an eccentric French sailor, 
 began the construction of the "Round House," 
 a peculiar affair built in imitation of a resi- 
 dence he had seen in South Africa. It was lo- 
 cated at the corner of Third and Main streets, 
 and in the later 50's was transformed into a 
 
298 History oj Los Angeles. 
 
 saloon, with a garden to the rear of it, run- 
 ning through to Spring street. 
 
 The vote of Los Angeles in 1856 was 522 
 for Fremont, the Republican candidate, against 
 722 for Buchanan, Democrat. Much of the 
 vote that went to Fremont was influenced by 
 personal consideration. His residence in Los 
 Angeles and on the coast had given him many 
 friends in the vicinity. Four years later Lin- 
 coln received only 356 votes, against 703 for 
 Breckenridge, 494 for Douglas (total Demo- 
 cratic 1 197), and 201 for Bell. 
 
 In 1849 2. special water department of the 
 city government was organized, for at that 
 time the city owned and operated its own wa- 
 ter system. In 1857 Wm. Dryden was given a 
 franchise to supply water drawn from the 
 springs located on the land in the vicinity of 
 the old Southern Pacific depot on San Fer- 
 nando street, which was raised by means of a 
 water wheel in the zanja. A brick reservoir 
 was constructed in the plaza and some iron 
 pipe was laid along Main and Los Angeles 
 streets. This system was maintained until 
 1861. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 IN WAR TIME. 
 
 URING the period from i860 to 1870 
 Los Angeles fell back into its Spanish- 
 American habit of standing still. Some 
 progress was made ; the city was a lit- 
 tle larger, and perhaps a little better 
 behaved at the end of the period than at the 
 beginning, but the advance was not to be com- 
 pared with that of the preceding ten years, 
 nor with what is usually achieved in such a 
 length of time in an American city. The popu- 
 lation was increased by about a thousand peo- 
 ple, but the percentage of gain was scarcely 
 that of the average throughout the country, 
 showing that there was not much immigration 
 from the east. The assessment roll doubled, 
 rising to a total of over $2,000,000 in 1870, and 
 there was some enlargement of the city's re- 
 sources in the adding of new industries. On 
 the other hand, that which had been from the 
 beginning of the Spanish occupation of the 
 territory the chief pursuit of the people — cat- 
 tle-raising — received a severe setback by 
 droughts, and, in fact, very nearly ceased to 
 exist. 
 
 California was, before the war, a Demo- 
 cratic state, and it contained a very consider- 
 able southern element that favored slavery 
 and upheld the doctrine of state rights to its 
 
300 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 farthest limit. One of the senators of the 
 state, Mr. Gwin, made the assertion in Wash- 
 ington that if the South seceded California 
 would go with it. When called to account for 
 this utterance he modified it to the extent of 
 saying that if the Union came to be split up, 
 California would start a Pacific coast republic 
 of its own. After the war had begun this man 
 left the state to enter the diplomatic service of 
 the Confederacy. When things came to a 
 straight-out issue, it was discovered that the 
 Union men. Democrats and Republicans to- 
 gether, were strongly in the majority in the 
 state ; but during the years 1859, i860 and 1861 
 there was room for doubt as to which side Cal- 
 ifornia would espouse. The southern element 
 was particularly strong in the lower end of 
 the state, as will be seen from the fact that 
 Los Angeles county gave Breckinridge twice 
 as many votes as it gave Lincoln, and nearly 
 twice as many as it gave Douglas, who repre- 
 sented the northern or Union democracy. 
 
 Just before the war an effort was made to 
 cut the state in two at the line north of San 
 Luis Obispo and Kern counties, evidently 
 with the design of securing another piece of 
 slave territory. The state legislature of 1859 
 passed an act authorizing an election to be 
 held in the southern counties, to vote on the 
 question of separating from the rest of the 
 state and forming a territorial government of 
 their own, under the name ''Colorado." The 
 election was held, and more than two-thirds 
 
In War Time. 301 
 
 of the vote was in favor of separation. Up to 
 this time no state in the Union had ever suf- 
 fered a division, and when the plan was 
 broached in Washington it was found to in- 
 volve a number of legal and political compli- 
 cations. Before the separation could be con- 
 summated the war broke out and the matter 
 was laid aside, and presently forgotten. 
 
 In 1861 the man who afterwards became fa- 
 mous as Major General W. S. Hancock was 
 sent to Los Angeles by the national govern- 
 ment to see that the stores and arms which 
 had been gathered there met with no misfor- 
 tunes. The dutiful sons of southern states 
 were constantly passing through Los Angeles 
 at this time, on their way to join the Confed- 
 erate army, and on account of the turbulence 
 that had always prevailed in that city there 
 were grave fears that the rebellious element 
 might get the upper hand. Upon his arrival 
 in Los Angeles Hancock called upon the Los 
 Angeles Guards, a local organization of loyal 
 young men, to protect the government prop- 
 erty, and they responded in a way to set at 
 rest all question of how Los Angeles would 
 stand during the contest. The flag was hoisted 
 over the court house, Hancock made a stirring 
 speech to the assembled people, and in the 
 evening of that day a public banquet was held, 
 at which patriotic toasts were delivered. 
 
 There were occasional expressions of dis- 
 loyalty during the progress of the war, that the 
 local representatives of the government found 
 
302 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 it necessary to rebuke, although extreme meas- 
 ures were never employed. At one time 
 the order was issued forbidding soldiers to en- 
 ter the Bella Union and the United States ho- 
 tels, because of the attitude of their proprie- 
 tors toward the Union cause. In 1863 the au- 
 thorities became suspicious that the alleged 
 working of mines on Catalina island was mere- 
 ly a scheme to establish headquarters there for 
 Confederate privateers, and the island was 
 closed to the public for a time. There is no 
 evidence, however, that this theory rested on 
 any substantial basis. It was a period of false 
 mining "booms" — that of Catalina with the 
 rest. In i860 and 1861 considerable mining 
 development was undertaken in the mountains 
 north of Los Angeles, and for a year or two 
 Wells-Fargo was shipping out nearly $12,000 
 a month in gold. 
 
 The telegraph line which had been con- 
 structed between San Francisco and the east 
 was extended to Los Angeles in i860, and $100 
 a month was subscribed by citizens for daily 
 dispatches that should keep them posted on 
 the events of the war. The principal papers 
 of this period were the "Star" and the "News," 
 the latter becoming a daily in 1869, and con- 
 tinuing publication till 1873, when it suspend- 
 ed. Both were Democratic in politics, the 
 "Star" decidedly on the "copperhead" order. 
 The Republican party made considerable 
 gains, however, voting 555 for Lincoln in 1864, 
 as against 744 for McClellan. Four years later 
 
/« War Time. 303 
 
 the vote in the county was 748 for Grant 
 against 1236 for Seymour. 
 
 The mayors of this period were : D. Mar- 
 chessault, 1861 to 1864, and again in 1867; Jose 
 Mascarel, 1865 ; C. Aguilar, 1866, 1868 to 1869, 
 and Joel Turner, 1869 to 1871. The term was 
 now lengthened to two years. An important 
 change in the school system was effected in 
 1866, when the office of superintendent was 
 made appointive instead of elective. In 1869 
 the position was filled for the first time by a 
 professional and experienced teacher. In 1865 
 the census showed 1009 children of school age, 
 but of these only 331 attended the public insti- 
 tutions. The remainder were divided about 
 equally between the private schools and the 
 streets. 
 
 The industrial development of this epoch 
 was affected in a considerable degree by the 
 erratic behavior of the rainfall. In 1862 the 
 year opened with one of the greatest floods Cal- 
 ifornia has ever known, which carried away all 
 the water service erected by the city and by 
 private individuals, and damaged many hun- 
 dred acres of orchard and farms. The period 
 was, as a whole, however, one of under-average 
 rainfall. The total for the ten years was only 
 a little over ninety inches, or an average of 
 nine per annum. In the season 1862-63 only 
 four inches fell, and that was badly distributed, 
 and in the following year there was little more 
 than a trace. Cattle were slaughtered by the 
 thousand, and died of starvation by the tens 
 
304 History of Los Angeles, 
 
 of thousands. Vast herds were auctioned off 
 at 37^/^ cents a head to be killed. The cattle 
 industry received a blow from which it never 
 recovered, and during the first years after the 
 drought there was nothing to take its place as 
 a producer of revenue for the country. Gov- 
 ernor Downey advocated the raising of sheep, 
 and as the grade of the flocks had been im- 
 proved since the American occupation of the 
 country, wool presently became a staple. 
 
 In 1868 there was another great flood. 
 Again all the apparatus for city water ser- 
 vice was carried away. The San Gabriel river 
 changed its course from the old to the new 
 bed, and a great area of good farming country 
 was utterly ruined. In the seasons 1869-70 and 
 1870-71 there was very little rainfall — a total 
 of only ten inches for the whole period. This 
 succession of floods and of dry times gave very 
 little encouragement to those who were experi- 
 menting in horticulture, and small progress 
 was made. In 1867 there were about 9000 or- 
 ange trees in bearing. By 1870 the assessment 
 showed 34,000 fruit and nut trees of all kinds 
 in the county. A considerable planting of 
 walnut trees began during the latter years of 
 this decade. 
 
 About 1865 a movement began among the 
 owners of large grants to cut them up into 
 small farming tracts and place them on the 
 market. In 1868-69 there was considerable ac- 
 tivity in real estate transactions in and around 
 Los Angeles. The price of good farming land, 
 
In War Time. 305 
 
 which had been from $3 to $5 an acre, began 
 to rise a Httle. After the death of John Tem- 
 ple, in 1866, a number of real estate transac- 
 tions took place in closing up his estate which 
 will give some idea of values at the time. The 
 Cerritos ranch was sold to the Bixbys for 
 $125,000, 27,000 acres, including the present 
 site of Long Beach. Twenty-two lots, 50 feet 
 each, on Spring street, scattered along from 
 First street to Fourth, sold for $50 apiece. The 
 Temple block property, including the southern 
 part of the building, brought $10,000. In 1863 
 over 2000 acres, forming the best part of what 
 is now called Fast Los Angeles, was sold by 
 the city authorities for $1014.75, o^ 5^ cents an 
 acre, to Dr. John S. Griffin. 
 
 In 1868 George Hansen made a survey for 
 the city of the tract now called Boyle Heights, 
 cutting it up into thirty-five-acre tracts. In 
 the same year the district along the river now 
 covered by Elysian park and the adjoining 
 lands was surveyed by Mr. Hansen. A year 
 later the section lying to the south of the Ely- 
 sian hills and west of the Ord survey was sur- 
 veyed and prepared for occupation. 
 
 In 1869 a considerable amount of building 
 was under way. Up to that time there were no 
 three-story buildings in the town, and the only 
 two-story structures were the Bella Union, the 
 United States Hotel, the Lafayette (now St. 
 Elmo), Bell's block (or Melius row), Stearns' 
 block (the Arcadia, which is still standing), 
 the old court house, a portion of the Temple 
 
306 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 block, and several stores on Los Angeles and 
 Main streets. The Pico house was begun in 
 1869 on the site of the old Carrillo residence. 
 J. A. Carrillo, the famous politician and man of 
 affairs, had passed away in 1862. Work began 
 on the Roman Catholic cathedral in 1869 at the 
 location which was first selected on Main 
 street between Fifth and Sixth. It was after- 
 wards changed to Main street near Second, 
 and the present structure was begun there in 
 1871. St. Vincent's college building on Broad- 
 way and Sixth was begun in 1866. 
 
 The first bank in Los Angeles was opened 
 in 1868 under the title of Alvinza Hayward & 
 Co., with a capital of $100,000. John G. Dow- 
 ney was one of the partners. In the same year 
 the banking house of Hellman, Temple & Co. 
 was organized, with a capital of $125,000. In 
 1871 these two institutions united, forming 
 the Farmers and Merchants bank of today. 
 The Temple & Workman bank came into ex- 
 istence in 1872. 
 
 In 1867 the manufacture of gas was begun. 
 
 Agitation in favor of the construction of a 
 railroad from San Pedro to Los Angeles com- 
 menced early in this decade, and the purpose 
 was finally achieved, and the railway started 
 into operation, in the fall of 1869. 
 
 The leader in this movement was Phineas 
 Banning, who owned the stage and freighting 
 line between Los Angeles and the seashore, 
 and was largely interested in Wilmington and 
 
In War Time. 307 
 
 the land surrounding that place. He served as 
 member of the California senate from 1865 to 
 1868. In 1863 a bill passed the legislature au- 
 thorizing the county of Los Angeles to issue 
 bonds to the amount of $100,000, and the city 
 to issue to the amount of $50,000, the proceeds 
 to be used in subscriptions to the stock of the 
 proposed railway line. It took about five years 
 of active missionary work to arouse public sen- 
 timent to a point where there was any prospect 
 of carrying such an issue of bonds, and by that 
 time it had been decided that the amount pro- 
 posed was insufficient. In 1868 a new bill 
 passed the legislature raising the figures to 
 $150,000 for the county and $75^000 for the city, 
 or a total of $225,000. The unprogressive ele- 
 ment of the community, including, as is usual 
 in such cases, some of the heaviest taxpayers, 
 fought the scheme with great persistence, de- 
 claring that it would bankrupt the county, and 
 that about two trains a month would carry all 
 the freight the railroad would ever secure. The 
 issue turned on whether the road could be 
 made to pay expenses, or would prove a con- 
 stant drain on the county. Within a few years 
 after the opening of the road it was running 
 hfty cars of freight and passengers a day in 
 and out of Los Angeles. The vote on the 
 bonds stood 397 for and 245 against. The rail- 
 way went into operation in November, 1869. 
 Its freight schedule was simple enough, the 
 principle items being: Dry goods, $6 per ton ; 
 
308 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 groceries, $5 per ton ; empty pipes, $1 each. 
 Passengers were charged $1.50 from the ves- 
 sel to Wilmington and $1 additional to the 
 city. The road was profitable from the very 
 beginning. 
 
 The frequent floods of this period, with the 
 consequent destruction of the various city wa- 
 ter systems, served to discourage the authori- 
 ties from attempting permanent municipal ope- 
 ration of the water supply, and propositions 
 of all kinds looking to private control of this 
 utility were offered and considered during the 
 decade. In 1861 water "script" — an easily ne- 
 gotiable form of municipal obligation — was is- 
 sued to the amount of $15,000, and a year later 
 the city petitioned the legislature to be al- 
 lowed to issue bonds to the amount of $25,000 
 to construct a water system. In 1862 a contract 
 was let to Jean L. Sainsevain to build a dam, 
 flume and other works for $18,000. In 1865 the 
 city leased this system to D. W. Alexander for 
 four years at a rental of $1000 a year. He 
 transferred the lease to Sainsevain, who con- 
 tinued the work for three years, during which 
 time he put down wooden service pipes as far 
 as Third street. These were not a success, as 
 they rotted and leaked at the joints. In 1868 
 Sainsevain sold out to Dr. John S. Griffin, Pru- 
 dent Beaudry and Solomon Lazard, and they 
 made a proposition to the council to lease the 
 whole system for fifty years, which was pres- 
 ently changed to a plan to buy the whole plant 
 
In War Time. 309 
 
 for $10,000, on the understanding that they 
 were to expend $200,000 in betterments, in re- 
 turn for which they were to have a perpetual 
 franchise to take ten inches of water from the 
 river to be sold to the citizens. This proposi- 
 tion came within one vote of carrying the coun- 
 cil, in spite of great opposition from the peo- 
 ple, who were unwilling that the last hope of a 
 public water system should be destroyed. 
 
 Finally in 1868 bids were received on a 
 thirty-years contract to provide the city with 
 water; and Griffin and his associates offered 
 $1500 a year for the privilege, agreeing also to 
 effect the necessary betterments, to which was 
 added the construction of an ornamental foun- 
 tain in the plaza. At the end of the period the 
 plant was to be bought by the city at a price 
 to be fixed by arbitrators. There were several 
 other bids, but this one was the most advan- 
 tageous to the city. Had the matter ever been 
 presented to the people, it would probably 
 have been refused acceptance, as two council- 
 men, elected just at that time to fill vacancies, 
 were both avowed opponents of the plan. It 
 was carried through the council and went into 
 effect July 22, 1868. The $1500 a year rental 
 to the city was presently cut to $400 a year 
 by a compliant council. This contract expired 
 in 1898, and after much litigation the city pur- 
 chased the plant for $2,000,000 — a figure which 
 was doubtless far beyond the wildest imagina- 
 tion of the council of 1868. 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 THK COMING OF THE^ RAII^WAY. 
 
 HE long period of slow growth and of 
 stagnation for Los Angeles was now 
 at an end. It had taken ninety years 
 to accumulate a population of 5000, 
 and in the next succeeding score 
 of years a marvelous transformation was 
 to take place. The changes of the first 
 decade, that from 1870 to 1880, were not 
 entirely unexpected. Those of the second, 
 from 1880 to 1890, exceeded the wildest proph- 
 ecies. That the building of a railway into 
 Los Angeles connecting it with the eastern 
 states should cause its population to increase 
 100 per cent was not surprising; but that the 
 building of a second road should cause the in- 
 creased number to multiply 500 per cent — a 
 total advance from 5000 to 50,000 in twenty 
 years, or from 5000 to over 100,000 in thirty 
 years — that was a marvel that no one could 
 be expected to foresee. 
 
 The immediate success that was achieved 
 by the railroad from Wilmington to the city, 
 not only in the freight and passengers it car- 
 ried, but also in the impetus it gave to numer- 
 ous lines of industry in the county, encour- 
 aged the people of this region to cast about 
 for further opportunities of the same kind. 
 The famous railway operator, Thomas A. 
 
The Coming of the Railway. 311 
 
 Scott, who was pushing out into the southwest 
 across Texas, had projected a line through 
 CaHfornia from Yuma to San Diego. He pro- 
 posed to bring this north along the coast, if 
 suitable inducements were offered by Los An- 
 geles. At the same time the owners of the 
 Central Pacific were building southward, and 
 by 1872 were well down into the San Joaquin 
 valley. That region of the state already con- 
 tained a number of settlements or towns, some 
 of which numbered from 500 to 1000 people. 
 As the road drew near these it demanded a 
 free right of way and, in most cases, a bonus 
 of some description. Where this was refused 
 the line was run some distance from the town, 
 and a new population center established. Most 
 of the towns thus abandoned were ruined, or 
 were compelled to move bodily to the new lo- 
 cation. Two exceptions to the rule were 
 Bakersfield and Visalia, which have managed 
 to hold their own in spite of the snub. It 
 must not be supposed that the policy of the 
 road in this matter contained any element of 
 malevolence. The issue was one of business ; 
 the question for the town to determine being 
 whether it needed the road, and for the road 
 whether it needed the town. 
 
 The people of Los Angeles had the object 
 lesson of the San Joaquin valley towns before 
 Ihem, when the railroad reached the moun- 
 tains at the southern end of that region and 
 paused to ask what the ancient pueblo would 
 do. Did the people of Los Angeles desire the 
 
312 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 railway connection with San Francisco and 
 the east sufficiently to be willing to pay 5 per 
 cent of the assessed valuation of all land and 
 improvements in their county, or would they 
 prefer to see the new road turn to the east 
 along the mountains and pass Los Angeles 
 by on the other side? 
 
 Five per cent on the assessed valuation of 
 $12,000,000 would be $600,000. There was 
 also an item of sixty acres to be given for 
 depot purposes at some advantageous location 
 within the city limits. As with the road to 
 the water front, there was again great diver- 
 gence of opinion. The Texas Pacific scheme 
 of Scott was in the air, but had not been pre- 
 sented as yet in the form of a definite proposi- 
 tion. The Southern Pacific, on the other hand, 
 was ready to begin work immediately. An 
 understanding was reached between represen- 
 tatives of the railroad and the city that, if the 
 people would vote to ratify the plan, the city 
 and county would give the stock that they 
 held in the San Pedro line, and donate the 
 necessary sixty acres, and also issue 7 per 
 cent twenty-year bonds in the sum of $377,000, 
 making a total of $610,000 of subsidy; and in 
 return for this the railroad was to build down 
 through the Soledad canyon into the city and 
 out to the east to San Bernardino, to connect 
 ultimately with the Texas Pacific at Yuma. 
 To win the concurrence of the people of the 
 southeastern part of the county, the region 
 since set ofif to make Orange county, it was 
 
The Coming of the Railway. 313 
 
 agreed that a branch Hne should be construct- 
 ed to Anaheim. 
 
 The matter was put to a vote, after a year's 
 active discussion, in November, 1872, and it 
 carried by a good majority. There were many 
 intelligent men and large taxpayers who de- 
 clared that the county was hazarding all its 
 future in this enormous obligation, but the 
 dismal alternative of being left out of the rail- 
 way development of the state compelled them 
 to vote in favor of the bonds. Before half the 
 period for which the securities were to run 
 had elapsed, the county assessment had in- 
 creased from $12,000,000 to $35,000,000, and 
 at the end of the twenty years the valuation 
 was nearly $100,000,000. The burden, there- 
 fore, did not prove to be very serious. 
 
 The construction of a railway over the 
 great Tehachapi pass, and through the moun- 
 tains of San F'ernando was a slow and labori- 
 ous undertaking, and it was not until four 
 years after the proposition carried that the 
 trains began running between San Francisco 
 and Los Angeles. The ceremony of driving 
 the golden spike was held at Soledad, Septem- 
 ber 6, 1876. Three hundred and fifty citizens 
 of Los Angeles went up from the pueblo to 
 meet fifty residents of San Francisco, who 
 came down to celebrate the union of the two 
 cities. San Francisco was than a little larger 
 than Los Angeles is at present, while Los An- 
 geles was about the size of Pomona. There 
 were speeches full of hope and good fellow- 
 
314 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 ship, and then the whole party repaired to 
 Los Angeles, where a banquet was given at 
 Union hall in the Jones block, at which a con- 
 siderable amount of wine was consumed. The 
 old Spanish pueblo was at last in touch with 
 the great American system of progress and 
 activity. 
 
 Scarcely was one road out into the world 
 completed, when agitation was begun for a 
 second. This was to be known as the Los An- 
 geles and Independence railroad, with one 
 terminus at Santa Monica, where it was be- 
 lieved a good harbor could be constructed, and 
 the other at the town of Independence in Inyo 
 county, the center of a district which was then 
 believed to be of great promise, but which 
 has never attained the expected development 
 because of a lack of transportation facilities. 
 It was confidently hoped that after this much 
 of the road was built, it would go on to Salt 
 Lake City. The largest stockholder wai J. 
 P. Jones, who afterwards became United 
 States senator from Nevada. Local capital 
 was interested to some extent The line from 
 Santa Monica was constructed in 1875, a^<^ 
 a substantial wharf was built at its ocean ter- 
 minus. The hard times that swept over the 
 country after the failure of Jay Cooke and 
 the Black Friday episode made it impossible 
 to secure funds to carry out the extension to 
 the north, and the plan was abandoned. The 
 Santa Monica branch was sold in 1878 to the 
 Southern Pacific company, which proceeded 
 
The Coming of the Railway. 315 
 
 to take down the wharf, as it interfered with 
 business at San Pedro. 
 
 The immediate effect of all this railway 
 projection and construction, from the San Pe- 
 dro line in 1869 through to the Southern Pa- 
 cific connections and the Santa Monica line 
 in 1875 ^^<^ 1876, was to produce considerable 
 activity in all forms of industrial development. 
 As is usual in such cases, anticipation ran 
 rather ahead of the actual event and was fol- 
 lowed by depression when the extravagant 
 hopes were not realized. The dry years and 
 the unfavorable money conditions in the east 
 helped to complicate matters. By the year 
 1875 the bank panic which had been spreading 
 across the country struck Los Angeles. One 
 of the banks — the Temple & Workman — was 
 in an unsound condition, owing to the reckless 
 and extravagant policy of its chief owner, F. 
 P. F. Temple, who was a younger brother of 
 John Temple. The other two were on a solid 
 basis, but as the railway connection to San 
 Francisco had not been established, and as 
 it would take about a week to get word to 
 the city and bring money back, it was agreed 
 that all three should close their doors for a 
 time. For two of the banks this suspension 
 was of brief duration, but for the Temple & 
 Workman bank it was permanent, and the 
 loss of the depositors was complete. This bad 
 failure wrought serious demoralization to the 
 development that was just beginning in Los 
 Angeles, turning confidence and hope into 
 
316 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 doubt and discouragement. Nearly half a 
 score of years passed before the evil effects 
 of the disaster were entirely dispelled. 
 
 There was some agricultural advance dur- 
 ing the decade, for the growing of wheat be- 
 gan on a considerable scale in the San Fernan- 
 do, and the acreage in corn increased greatly. 
 There was some planting of fruit trees, but 
 the mistaken idea still prevailed that enormous 
 quantities of water must be applied to the tree 
 to make it bear in the dry climate, and only 
 those nearest to the streams ventured into hor- 
 ticulture. In 1877 J- De Barth Shorb declared 
 that he had sold his orange crop from seven 
 acres for $7000. These went chiefly to the 
 San Francisco market. In 1877 Wm. Wolf- 
 skill shipped the first carload of oranges to the 
 eastern market. They were landed in 
 St. Louis in good condition after a month in 
 transit. The carrying charge was $500. The 
 chief product of the region was now wine, of 
 which 1,329,000 gallons were shipped in 1875. 
 In 1874 fruit drying began on a small scale. 
 In 1878 a pavilion for the holding of horticul- 
 tural fairs was built on Temple street. 
 
 The growing confidence in the future of 
 the city showed in the establishment in 1873 
 of a chamber of commerce. The first meeting 
 was held in the courthouse August i, with 
 Governor Downey presiding and J. M. Griffith 
 acting as secretary. One hundred names were 
 enrolled. Among the first directors chosen 
 
The Coming of the Railway, 317 
 
 was M. J. Newmark, who recently served a 
 term as president of the modern chamber of 
 commerce. The organization started out 
 briskly, but was discouraged by the bank fail- 
 ure and the dry years, and about 1877 it gave 
 up the ghost. One piece of work to 
 which it particularly applied itself dur- 
 ing its existence was the securing of 
 the first appropriation for the improve- 
 ment of San Pedro harbor — the sum of 
 $150,000 — which was used toward a project 
 devised by Col. G. H. Mendell of the United 
 States army engineering corps. The indefat- 
 igable Banning included the building of a 
 harbor at San Pedro among the labors he had 
 allotted to himself to accomplish for Los An- 
 geles, and by long agitation had succeeded in 
 getting the matter in shape to be acted upon 
 in congress. The project called for a total 
 expenditure of $425,000, and contemplated 
 getting about fifteen feet of water at low tide 
 on the bar. The appropriation was afterward 
 doubled, and a total of sixteen feet gained. 
 Toward the end of this decade the harbor be- 
 gan to be serviceable for vessels of light draft. 
 The subdivision of the large Mexican land 
 grants in the vicinity of Los Angeles contin- 
 ued actively, and hundreds of small ranches 
 from forty to two hundred acres in extent 
 were established in the county. Settlements 
 began to spring up. One of the most notable 
 of these was the Indiana colony, which came 
 
318 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 to be known as Pasadena a year or two after 
 its founding. Another was Pomona, which, 
 as its name indicates, was designed as a fruit- 
 growing colony. The popularity of Santa 
 Monica as an ocean resort began shortly after 
 the building of the Los Angeles and Independ- 
 ence road. The population of the county as a 
 whole increased from 15,309 to 33,881 in the 
 ten years from 1870 to 1880^ which was even 
 a larger rate of growth than was shown by 
 the city. Its assessed valuation went up from 
 $7,000,000 to $18,000,000. 
 
 The doubling of population in the city led 
 to the developing of new residence districts, 
 and the increase of business brought some ac- 
 tivity in building. In 1873 East Los Angeles 
 was laid out and a year or two later was 
 placed on the market and settled up with 
 homes. In 1876 a similar development began 
 in Boyle Heights. Small bridges were built 
 down in the river bottom, one at Downey 
 avenue, opposite East Los Angeles, and one 
 at Aliso street, opposite Boyle Heights. Dur- 
 ing this decade Prudent Beaudry and J. W. 
 Potts spent nearly $175,000 in improving the 
 western hill section, grading streets and put- 
 ling in an extensive water system. The dis- 
 trict they improved was chiefly along Temple 
 and Second streets, and is now given up for 
 the most part to oil derricks, but it was, dur- 
 ing the '70s and '80s, one of the best resi- 
 dence districts of the city. In 1874 the first 
 
The Coming of the Railway, 319 
 
 city railroad was built, the "Sixth and Spring 
 street" line, about two and a half miles in 
 length. A year later the Main street line was 
 constructed, and that was followed presently 
 by the line to East Los Angeles. 
 
 The assessment of the city's property in- 
 creased from $2,000,000 to $7,000,000 during 
 this period. In 1871 the Downey block was 
 built, and in 1872 the northern portion of the 
 Temple block, to be used as the Temple and 
 Workman bank. It was afterward used by the 
 Los Angeles County bank. In 1874 about 
 $300,000 was expended for business buildings. 
 In 1876 the Baker block was built, the most 
 elegant structure of its time not only for Los 
 Angeles, but for all the state outside of San 
 Francisco. This was a period of frequent 
 fires, but an efficient fire department was 
 finally organized, with a good steam fire en- 
 gine. 
 
 The newspapers of the city that now ex- 
 ist began publication during this epoch, the 
 Evening Express in 1871, with Ben C. Tru- 
 man and H. C. Austin as its earliest editors, 
 and the Herald in 1873, under the manage- 
 ment of C. A. Storke, who now lives in Santa 
 Barbara. Both of these papers presently 
 came to be owned and edited by J. D. Lynch, 
 with whom J. J. Ayres was afterwards asso- 
 ciated as a partner. In 1875 the Mirror, which 
 was the weekly edition of the Times daily, 
 
320 History of Los Angejei^. 
 
 was founded. The Times came into existence 
 in 1881. 
 
 The mayors of this period were C. Agui- 
 lar, 1871-72; J. R. Toberman, 1873-74, 1879-82; 
 P. Beaudry, 1875-76; A. F. McDougal, 1877- 
 78. The county continued to be democratic 
 in politics, giving, in 1872, Greeley 1227 and 
 O'Connor 650 against Grant 1312. In 1876 
 the vote stood Tilden 3616 to Hayes 3040. 
 
 In 1873 the high school building was con- 
 structed on the hill where the courthouse now 
 stands. The first teachers' institute was held 
 in 1870. The percentage of school attend- 
 ance, which was only 6 per cent in 1865, and 
 only 20 per cent in 1870, rose to 37 per cent 
 in 1880. In 1890 it was 63. In 1873 the Li- 
 brary association raised, by subscription, 
 funds enough to open a small library and 
 reading room in the Downey block, which 
 was supported in its running expenses by a 
 small city tax. Books were either donated or 
 were purchased with funds from entertain- 
 ments and other semi-public sources of reve- 
 nue. 
 
 A considerable moral improvement took 
 place during this epoch, influenced to some ex- 
 tent by a reaction after the wild excesses that 
 culminated in the Chinese riot in 1871. In 
 1870 there were no drinking places in the city 
 — to 5000 population. Now, thirty-five years 
 later, there are 200 drinking places to over 
 100,000 population. This was the time of the 
 
The Coming of the Railway. 321 
 
 greatness of Vasqtiez, California's most fa- 
 mous bandit, who ranged the state with his 
 band from 1863 to 1874, making his headquar- 
 ters generally in the southern region. His 
 record of murders and robberies exceeds that 
 of Jack Shepard or Dick Turpin. He was cap- 
 tured in the Cahuenga in 1874 and hanged the 
 next year. 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 THE^ EPOCH OFiJTHEJ BOOM. 
 
 HE word ''boom" is a convenient bit of 
 slang that arrived at the opportune 
 moment to supply a lack in the lan- 
 guage, and, having proved its useful- 
 ness, it is likely to v^in a permanent 
 position — just as many other expressions of 
 similar origin have done, whose dignified 
 place in the language is now above question. 
 The word was first used to imitate the sound 
 of an explosion, then it came to mean an ex- 
 plosion, and in the later 70's it began to be 
 used to describe any state of sudden and ex- 
 traordinary activity in a business or, more 
 often, in a town. It superseded the word 
 "bubble," which had done service since the 
 da3^s of John Law. 
 
 While there is no other expression in the 
 language that is available to describe the pe- 
 culiar phenomenon that took place in Los 
 Angeles and Southern California in the years 
 from 1885 to 1888, still there is a secondary 
 meaning to *'boom" that does not apply to 
 the case of Los Angeles city. The word car- 
 ries with it inevitably a conception of some 
 form of utter collapse that must follow. An 
 explosion is supposed to leave ruin in its 
 wake. No such catastrophe occurred in the 
 
The Epoch of the Boom. 323 
 
 case of Los Angeles. There was a cessation of 
 the unnatural activity, but no general disaster 
 and no permanent injury to the city.^ Eastern 
 people frequently ask the question: "Has Los 
 Angeles recovered from its boom yet?" as 
 though the event had been something in the 
 nature of a misfortune or a disease. There 
 were many residents of the city who, during 
 the boom and immediately afterward, were dis- 
 posed to take this same view of it; but now, 
 fourteen years after the close of the affair, they 
 are able to see it in a better perspective, balanc- 
 ing the small amount of evil it wrought against 
 the large amount of good, and they generally 
 admit that the violent shaking up was just 
 what was needed to bring the old pueblo out 
 of its natural lethargy, and to recognize it as 
 a vigorous, progressive and thoroughly Amer- 
 ican city. 
 
 There were two distinct phases of the 
 boom — the first a development and the second 
 a craze. The whole movement had its origin 
 in a sudden influx of population brought on by 
 a railway war. The arrival of great numbers 
 of people of a good, industrial class, most of 
 them provided with some money for invest- 
 ment, naturally led to a rapid increase in real 
 estate values, and stimulated building and the 
 general development of the resources of the 
 country. Thus far the activity was legitimate 
 and wholly beneficial. Had the changes been 
 proportioned on a moderate scale, or had they 
 
324 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 come with reasonable speed, all might have 
 gone well to the very end, without even indi- 
 vidual misfortune to cloud the record. But 
 the change was neither moderate nor gradual 
 — it was enormous, and it came with lightning 
 rapidity. Men became dazed and staggered at 
 the sight and many of them completely lost 
 their bearings. They saw improbable things 
 happening, and they went on to expect the 
 impossible. A few of the older residents of 
 the town were bitten with the madness, but 
 it affected, for the most part, only the new- 
 comers. While few men of real wealth or of 
 large business experience were seriously 
 attacked, it took entire possession of many 
 that were of small or imaginary means. This 
 was the secondary phase of the boom — its 
 most interesting and picturesque chapter, 
 perhaps, but not the one that bears on the 
 real history of the city. 
 
 When the Southern Pacific railway was 
 completed into Los Angeles, that city had its 
 first transcontinental line to the eastern 
 states; when the Southern Pacific was com- 
 pleted through to Yuma, where it met the 
 Texas Pacific, Los Angeles had its second line 
 to the east. Trains over this new connection 
 began running in 1883, and great things were 
 expected to follow. There was a feeling that 
 the southern line belonged to Los Angeles, as 
 the northern belonged to San Francisco ; and 
 that one would develop the southern city as 
 
The Epoch of the Boom. 325 
 
 the other had the northern. During the first 
 year of the decade of the 8o's there was some 
 increase of population and considerable de- 
 velopment of the farming country tributary to 
 Los Angeles, but the rate of increase was no 
 greater than it had been in the preceding de- 
 cade. The Nadeau was built in 1882, the tall- 
 est and most pretentious structure in the city, 
 but its location on First and Spring was con- 
 sidered too far out of town to make it desir- 
 able for hotel purposes, and it was rented for 
 offices and apartments. In 1883 the stores 
 began to creep along Spring street to Second, 
 and a few went beyond, among the residences. 
 By 1884 business had become fairly brisk, but 
 there was no such influx of new people as had 
 been expected from the building of the sec- 
 ond railway. The passenger fare one way 
 from the Mississippi river country was still in 
 the vicinity of $100, with the round trip at 
 $150. In 1885 the round-trip fell to $125, and 
 early in 1886 to $100. The ''personally con- 
 ducted" excursion began to be popular — 
 trainloads made up in eastern cities and taken 
 through Los Angeles, San Diego, San Fran- 
 cisco and the northern points of interest. 
 
 In November of 1885 the Atchison, Topeka 
 and Santa Fe company completed its line 
 through the Cajon, and began to operate in- 
 dependently of the Southern Pacific. This is 
 the date usually given for the beginning of 
 the boom. The Santa Fe road began to ad- 
 
326 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 vertise their new territory, and the Southern 
 Pacific, which thus far had not given it spe- 
 cial attention, presently followed suit. The 
 display of Southern California oranges at the 
 Cotton Exposition in New Orleans in 1884 
 took the premium over Florida fruit, which 
 was an eye-opener to many Californians, as 
 well as to easterners, and a great planting of 
 citrus trees began. In 1886 the shipments of 
 fruit to the east amounted to 150,000 boxes, 
 which would be a little over 400 cars, as or- 
 anges are now measured, or 500 carloads in 
 those days. 
 
 Through the winter of 1885-86 the country 
 was filled with tourists as it had never been 
 before, and among them were many who de- 
 cided to remain and make their homes in Los 
 Angeles. This was the beginning of a new 
 element in the population of the city, and one 
 that was destined to play an important part 
 in its sudden advance. These people had 
 come heretofore as isolated specimens, so to 
 speak, but now they came as a class — people 
 of means, who sought a place to live where 
 they could be free from the incessant struggle 
 with the elements. Frequently there was 
 some member of the family who was in feeble 
 health, or who showed a tendency to con- 
 sumption. These newcomers bought property 
 on the hills, or to the southwest of the city, 
 paying prices which seemed preposterous to 
 the old-timers who had seen those dry acres 
 
The Epoch of the Boom. 327 
 
 go a-begging; and they built pretty homes 
 and planted shade trees and rose gardens and 
 lawns. 
 
 The possibilities of Southern California as 
 a health resort had been heralded by many 
 newspaper correspondents and magazine 
 writers who had visited the country; and a 
 book published by the Harpers early in the 
 70's, written by Charles Nordhoff, set forth in 
 glowing terms the benefit that the mild cli- 
 mate wrought in cases of consumption. This 
 volume had a wide circulation all through the 
 Eastern states, and many thousand people af- 
 flicted with that disease were brought to Los 
 Angeles, Santa Barbara and San Diego in 
 consequence. Most of these were far ad- 
 vanced toward death. The country was ill- 
 provided with hospitals, and its hotels were 
 crude affairs, without heated rooms or other 
 comforts. The invalids who were too far gone 
 for recovery died, but those with whom the 
 disease had merely secured a foothold were, 
 as a rule, saved, and they wrote home advis- 
 ing others situated as they had been to come 
 to Southern California. 
 
 In constructing its various lines through 
 Southern California the Santa Fe company 
 had come into the ownership of considerable 
 land, and it was interested — and so were some 
 of its leading officials — in many townsites and 
 development enterprises along the route. It 
 v/as therefore desirous of bringing immigrants 
 
328 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 into the country. The settlement of the va- 
 cant lands was needed to produce freight 
 along the line, where there was as yet almost 
 no business to be had. The policy of the com- 
 pany was to put passenger rates as low as 
 practicable, and war between it and the 
 Southern Pacific was not long in beginning. 
 Through 1886 the rates fell constantly, until 
 they reached $25 for one way, around which 
 figure they hovered for nearly a year, and 
 for a short time they went down to $5, and 
 for one day to $1. In 1887 they began to go 
 up again, and in 1888 the war gradually died 
 out, and the modern rates were established. 
 
 In the months when the low rates pre- 
 vailed, a great flood of people poured through 
 Southern California. The passenger capacity 
 of the railroads was stretched to the utmost, 
 regular trains being divided into numerous 
 sections, and special excursions running in at 
 the rate of three to five a day. Hotels and 
 boarding houses filled to overflowing, and the 
 demand for houses to rent was far in advance 
 of the supply. Los Angeles was the center of 
 this new activity, and the price of city proper- 
 ty began to go up with great swiftness. Prior 
 to the boom the best business property was 
 not valued over $300 per front foot. A good 
 residence lot could be had for from $400 to 
 $600, although in a few favored sections it 
 might cost $1000. Within a space of three 
 years there was an average permanent ad- 
 
The Epoch of the Boom, 329 
 
 vance of about 300 per cent. Many blocks 
 changed suddenly from residence to business, 
 and others adjoining them began to have a 
 speculative value as future business property. 
 Thousands of acres of farms within the city 
 limits were laid out in residence tracts, and 
 sold off to people that proposed to make Los 
 Angeles their home. In the beginning such 
 lots were to be had at $200 to $300, which 
 yielded a handsome profit to the owner, as he 
 got five city lots out of an acre of ground that 
 cost him originally perhaps $50. The possi- 
 bilities involved in the subdivision of farming 
 land into residence lots presently began to 
 dawn on the owners of the outer city prop 
 erty, but, although large tracts were thrown 
 on the market, the increase of population was 
 so rapid that the prices steadily advanced. 
 
 In addition to the tourists and settlers, 
 the cheap excursions brought another class, 
 to wit, the speculators. Some of these were 
 genuine real estate operators, who had the 
 capital to make improvements in their pur- 
 chases, always, however, with a view to re- 
 tailing at a profit ; others — and they consti- 
 tuted the greater number — were entirely im- 
 pecunious, but possessed of unlimited assur- 
 ance, and they had acquired more or less ex- 
 perience through the booming of other towns. 
 Many of these came from Kansas and Iowa, 
 where booms had been in progress for several 
 years ; and the tactics that had been used with 
 
,?30 History of Los Angeles, 
 
 success in the middle west were now employed 
 on the Pacific coast. These were the men 
 who committed, or were the cause of, most of 
 the follies and the frauds of the boom. Few 
 of them achieved any permanent success. The 
 great majority left the city when the episode 
 was over, and are now utterly lost to view. 
 
 The opportunity for speculation within the 
 city limits was limited, and there was too 
 much that was solid and tangible in the ac- 
 tual advance of values to make the field at- 
 tractive to the imaginative promoter. The 
 real absurdities of the boom were not perpe- 
 trated in Los Angeles city property, which 
 advanced for the most part in a steady, even 
 ratio and did not fall back perceptibly when 
 the influx of new people was checked. One 
 evidence of this shows in the assessment of 
 the years during and after the boom. In 1886, 
 before the advance had well begun, the 
 city was assessed at $18,000,000. In 1887 »* 
 rose to $28,000,000. In 1888 it was $39,000,- 
 000, in 1889, $46,000,000. By this time the 
 boom was at an end, but the next year the 
 city showed $49,000,000. In 189 1 it was $46,- 
 000,000. A variation of 6 per cent, which is 
 all that shows between the heights of the 
 boom and the lowest year following it, may 
 safely be attributed to a change of assessors. 
 Such variations frequently occur. The ad- 
 vance of values halted for a few years, but 
 there was no "reaction" or falling back. 
 
 But the county outside of the city shows a 
 
The Epoch of the Boom. 331 
 
 different side to the story. Here, and in 
 Southern CaHfornia generally, was where the 
 professional operator and the crazy, irre- 
 sponsible '"boomer" held full sway. Farm 
 property which had been worth $20 or $30 an 
 acre, and which under favorable conditions of 
 improved railway connection and a larger 
 home market might be worth $100 an acre, 
 was exploited as orange land that would yield 
 $1000 an acre per annum in that fruit, and was 
 sold at from $300 to $500. Some of it was cut 
 up into ''choice villa" tracts, and, with some 
 trifling improvements, and a good deal of 
 boasting about its 'View," was sold at $800 to 
 $1000 an acre. But the promoter's swiftest 
 road to fortune lay in the townsite. From 
 Los Angeles city to the San Bernardii>o coun- 
 ty line is thirty— six miles, and in this distance 
 twenty-five townsites were laid out. As they 
 averaged over a mile square, it may be said 
 that the entire distance was one continuous 
 townsite. It was much the same with other 
 roads, and branches of roads, and projected 
 roads. A few of these towns were bona fide 
 railway stations, or farming district centers, 
 where there was a bare possibility of a moder- 
 ate growth with some small value to the in- 
 side lots, but in the great majority of cases 
 they were mere paper towns whose lots pos- 
 sessed no value whatever. The assessment 
 figures for the county outside the city show 
 what was happening in those years of folly. 
 In 1836, $32,000,000; in 1887 it nearly doubled. 
 
332 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 $62,000,000; the next year $63,000,000. Then 
 came the awakening; in 1889 it was $47,000,- 
 000, and in 1890 it fell clear back to a figure 
 below that with which the boom had started, 
 $20,000,000. Here was where the only reac- 
 tion from the boom was to be found. 
 
 The money lost in this change of values — 
 which was not as much as it might seem from 
 these figures — came chiefly from inexperi- 
 enced people of limited means, of whom some 
 had just come to the country to settle, and 
 were talked into foolish investments, and 
 others were merely passing through the region 
 as tourists, and thought to profit in a little 
 speculation. Incredible as it may seem, the 
 lots in the silly towns were nearly all sold. 
 One scoundrel disposed of $50,000 worth of 
 lots in towns located on the top of the moun- 
 tains where in all probability no human foot 
 will ever tread. Many Los Angeles people 
 were tempted into unwise speculations, but 
 few of them were permanently injured in the 
 affair. Enormous amounts of money changed 
 hands. The recorded real estate transfers of 
 1887 aggregated $100,000,000, and probably 
 not more than half the operations of the year 
 were ever entered up. There is no real estate 
 boom in history that is to be compared with 
 this, either in gross magnitude or in sudden 
 contrasts of values. We have noted in vari- 
 ous other instances that when Los Angeles 
 has undertaken to accomplish a thing, it has 
 done the work very thoroughly. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 the: rkorganization. 
 
 HE boom folly touched high-water 
 mark in the summer of 1887, and it 
 came to a sudden end late in the fall 
 of that same year. Some of the real 
 estate brokers of that period claim to 
 be able to locate the exact day and almost the 
 hour when the tide turned, and eagerness to 
 buy was suddenly replaced by a wild frenzy 
 to sell at any price. There was, however, no 
 single event that formed the dividing line be- 
 tween the rise and the fall. During the latter 
 months of the boom time, the banks of Los 
 A^ngeles, which had — let it be recorded to 
 their credit — exercised great caution through 
 the whole episode, began to refuse to loan 
 money on property outside the city, no mat- 
 ter what its supposed value, and to use as 
 their basis of valuation for city property its 
 price before the boom. Presently it became 
 almost impossible to obtain money from the 
 banks for real estate transactions of any kind. 
 There was no combination among them, but 
 the leading financier of the city, Mr. I. W. 
 Hellman, marked out an ultra conservative 
 policy for the bank over which he presided, 
 and the others were entirely willing to follow 
 his lead. Perhaps this of itself and alone 
 
334 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 might not have sufficed to smish the boom; 
 but as the winter months approached, and the 
 crowd of easterners that was expected failed 
 to appear, the courage of those who had been 
 holding up the market began to ebb, and they 
 started out quietly to unload. In a short time 
 everybody was unloading, and then there was 
 no more boom. 
 
 The non-appearance of the eastern tourists, 
 who had for three years filled the hotels to 
 overflowing, was a matter of profound aston- 
 ishment to the Southern Californians. The 
 latter had made great preparation for the en- 
 tertainment of their guests by constructing a 
 number of huge wooden hotels in inaccessible 
 places all over the region. Finally it began to 
 dawn on the people of Los Angeles that cli- 
 mate alone would not permanently attract 
 people of the tourist class. The entertain- 
 ment of guests is a business that must be 
 practiced with shrewdness and diligence. The 
 first essential is good hotels, of which South- 
 ern California had none at that time. Other 
 essentials are facilities for pleasant traveling 
 about and opportunity for sport and entertain- 
 ment. Now Southern California at the time 
 of the boom was not a pleasant place to visit, 
 although the boom itself was a curiosity well 
 worth seeing. The climate was on its best be- 
 havior during the winters of 1886-87 and 1887- 
 88, and the weather was perfect, but that was 
 about all there was to be said in favor of the 
 
The Reorganization. 335 
 
 country. Tourists are, for the most part, peo- 
 ple of wealth, and it is their happy privilege 
 to indulge in fads, which they may change as 
 often as they choose. Southern Cahfornia was 
 for two seasons a fad. The moment it became 
 common, and ''everybody" was going there, it 
 was dropped and forgotten. Not until nearly 
 ten years later did the tourists begin to come 
 again in large crowds. At the present time 
 their number is probably several times as 
 great as that of the liveliest year of the boom. 
 There were, however, others besides tour- 
 ists who had been coming to Los Angeles. 
 These were the people that proposed to make 
 their homes in Southern California. The fail- 
 ure of the real estate boom was not a matter 
 that concerned them very deeply. They were 
 attracted by the climate or by the horticul- 
 tural possibilities of the region. The south- 
 ern counties had a population of 64,000 in 
 1880, which by 1890 had increased to 201,000. 
 Here were 137,000 new people, mostly from 
 the states of the middle west, full of energy 
 and courage, and entirely equal to the task 
 of conquering the arid wilderness. Irrigation 
 systems were established, and hundreds of 
 thousands of fertile acres set to trees. By 
 1890 the citrus fruit crop had grown to nearly 
 a million boxes, yielding the growers over a 
 dollar a box on the tree. Deciduous fruits, 
 nuts, olives, wine and raisin grapes were 
 planted, the area in wheat and barley in- 
 
336 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 creased greatly, small fruits were grown and 
 canneries started up, and presently a beet su- 
 gar factory began operations on a large scale. 
 Of all this farming country, Los Angeles was 
 the commercial center and the chief depot of 
 supplies. 
 
 Los Angeles had now suddenly changed 
 from a very old city to a very young one. Its 
 population in 1880 was 11,000 and in 1890 was 
 50,000. Of this latter number, it may safely 
 be estimated that more than three-fourths had 
 not been living in the city more than four 
 years. People who had come to Los Angeles 
 in the 70's, and had been accustomed to re- 
 gard themselves as new-comers, suddenly dis- 
 covered that they were in the class of old set- 
 tlers, and that they and others of earlier 
 epochs had shrunk to an insignificant minor- 
 ity. Just as the Spaniards had wrenched the 
 country away from the aboriginal tribes, and 
 as the first Americans had succeeded in shoul- 
 dering the Californians out of the control of 
 affairs, so now this overwhelming horde of 
 new arrivals took possession of the land, and 
 proceeded to make things over to their own 
 tastes. There was some confusion at first, 
 but in a surprisingly short space of time a re- 
 adjustment was effected, with the new-comers 
 very completely in the saddle. Their pur- 
 chases of business and residence property 
 were largely to the southwest of the center 
 of the city, and a great building activity be- 
 
The Reorganization. 337 
 
 gan in that direction. When the boom was 
 coming to an end, the paving of streets was 
 begun; for up to that time the business por- 
 tion was deep in mud through the winter 
 months and in dust through the summer. 
 There had been a small sewer system which 
 did not extend beyond Fifth street. It was 
 first extended piece by piece over the business 
 district, and out to Tenth street, and then by 
 a huge bond issue it was made to take in near 
 ly the whole of the residence section as well. 
 The new city hall on Broadway and the court- 
 house on the hill were both begun just at the 
 close of the boom, and a few years later the 
 federal building was constructed. 
 
 Up to 1888 the street car system of the 
 city consisted of a few decrepit horse cars on 
 rather rickety tramways. In that year a con- 
 solidation of most of the independent sys- 
 tems was effected, and work was begun on 
 the construction of a cable plant with three 
 large power houses. In 1890 an electric sys- 
 tem was built, which was finally consolidated 
 with the cable and all put under electricity. 
 The last horse car disappeared from the city 
 in 1897, when the Main street line, which had 
 not been part of the consolidation, adopted 
 the new power. In 1898 the syndicate that 
 controls the street car systems of San Fran- 
 cisco purchased the Los Angeles lines, with 
 the exception of the system owned by W. S. 
 Hook and the Temple street line, and made 
 
338 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 many improvements. The city at present en- 
 joys the privilege of genuine street car com- 
 petition, and its residence section is thor- 
 oughly covered with branch lines, both sys- 
 tems being admirably managed. 
 
 In 1888 the people of Los Angeles became 
 much elated at the prospect of securing a new 
 transcontinental line to the east through Salt 
 Lake City. A franchise was secured for a 
 railway to run along the east bank of the river, 
 which, it was announced, was to provide the 
 Union Pacific with terminal facilities, it be- 
 ing the intention of that road to build across 
 Nevada to Los Angeles. The line from Salt 
 Lake City was begun and carried through 
 Utah, but a change occurring in the manage- 
 ment and policy of the Union Pacific, the 
 plan was abandoned and the hope of a Salt 
 Lake connection was deferred for twelve 
 years. The franchise for a road along the 
 east bank was taken up by a party of St. Louis 
 capitalists, who built a system running from 
 Pasadena and Glendale through the city to 
 San Pedro, which they called the Terminal. 
 This system was sold in 1900 to Senator W. 
 A. Clark, who is now constructing the line 
 from Salt Lake to Los Angeles. It is be- 
 lieved that the connection will be established 
 within two years of the present writing 
 (1901). 
 
 During and immediately after the time of 
 the boom, numerous branch lines were con- 
 
The Reorganization. 339 
 
 structed by the Santa Fe and Southern Pa- 
 cific throughout the whole region of South- 
 ern California. Most important of these were 
 the direct line to San Diego along the coast, 
 which was completed by the Santa Fe in 1891, 
 and the line to Santa Barbara of the Southern 
 Pacific, which was built in 1887. The latter 
 has since been made part of a through line 
 by the coast connecting San Francisco and 
 Los Angeles. Both these two transcontinen- 
 tal system? which, before the boom, were 
 housed in Los Angeles in wretched little 
 sheds, are now provided with large, well built 
 depots ; that of the Southern Pacific was built 
 in 1888, and that of the Santa Fe m 1893. 
 
 Thus the material welfare of the city, from 
 whatever point it is examined, will be found 
 to have greatly benefited through the boom. 
 On the social and moral side, however, there 
 was at first the appearance of a decided loss. 
 Among the new people who came to the city 
 during the height of the boom, the speculative 
 and adventurous class, while not in the ma- 
 jority perhaps as far as numbers went, were 
 always the most conspicuous. They lost no 
 time in asserting themselves in all public and 
 social matters, and for a time something like 
 anarchy prevailed. Here were 40,000 or 50,- 
 000 people suddenly gathered together from 
 all parts of the Union, in utter ignorance of 
 one another's previous history. A great 
 amount of money was passing rapidly from 
 
340 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 hand to hand, and a great city was in embryo. 
 It was the golden opportunity of the fakir and 
 humbug and the man with the past that he 
 wanted forgotten. The native Californian 
 and the early pioneer were hospitable, large 
 hearted and unsuspicious. They were for a 
 time easy prey, but having been repeatedly 
 imposed upon, they became doubtful of all 
 new-comers. Commercial and social life in 
 Los Angeles during the later 8o's was full 
 of startling uncertainties. The man with 
 whom you were doing business every day 
 might be an ex-convict — or he might be one 
 whom, the stripes were destined to ornament 
 some time in the future. The people who had 
 bought the house across the street might be 
 man ied — or they might have neglected that 
 formality, owing to the existence of prior 
 partnerships "back east." A man who came 
 within one vote of being elected chief of po- 
 lice is now in the California penitentiary for 
 life. Another, who was concerned in many 
 of the largest boom enterprises, has since 
 served two penitentiary terms in other states. 
 Another who was a bank president and the 
 owner of a daily paper, recently fled out of 
 the Union with the police at his heels. One 
 who occupied a popular pulpit in Los An- 
 geles during the boom has since become fam- 
 ous as a professional polygamist — confiding 
 widows with money being his specialty. The 
 list of swindlers, embezzlers and confidence 
 
The Reorganization. 341 
 
 men of that period would be a long one, if 
 anybody should undertake to set it forth in 
 full. 
 
 Immediately at the close of the boom the 
 sifting out process began. The professional 
 scalawags left of their own accord when the 
 field was found to be worked out. The un- 
 professional ones were easily detected and 
 disposed of. The adventurers and adventur- 
 esses and the people with the scaly records 
 met the usual fate of their kind — they be- 
 trayed themselves and were found out. Grad- 
 ually a new society was formed, a little colder 
 and more discriminating, perhaps, than that 
 of the first pioneers, but felicitous in its com- 
 bination of the old and new elements. The 
 morals of the city which had gone back a 
 few degrees during the confusion of the boom 
 were brought up to the standard of the best 
 American cities. In 1889 the gambling houses 
 were all closed, and a couple of years later a 
 Sun<iay closing ordinance for saloons went 
 into effect. Poker dens, where strangers were 
 taken in and fleeced, continued for some 
 years, but they are now so thoroughly under 
 the ban that they are operated only with 
 great secrecy and on a small scale. The Sun- 
 day closing law was evaded for a time, but 
 at present it is very thoroughly enforced. 
 During the boom, when the city had a pop- 
 ulation of 50,000, the county jail averaged 250 
 to 300 occupants. Ten years later, with a 
 
342 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 population twice as large, the jail averaged 
 less than lOO occupants — a most remarkable 
 contrast. 
 
 In the early 8o's the subject of state divis- 
 ion was agitated anew, chiefly because the 
 laws that dealt with riparian rights were 
 suited to the needs of the miners of the north 
 rather than to the irrigationists of the south. 
 It was contended that the interests of the two 
 sections of the state were so radically differ- 
 ent that a separation must be effected. In 
 1881 a mass meeting was held in Los Angeles 
 at which a report was drawn up in the shape 
 or a series of questions addressed to the leading 
 attorneys of the city, asking them what steps 
 were necessary to bring about the division. 
 The reply, signed by eight attorneys, was to 
 the effect that the action taken by the legisla- 
 ture in 1859, followed as it was by the favor- 
 able vote of the southern counties, was still 
 in eifect, and that the new territory could 
 proceed to organize and ask for admission to 
 the Union. A circular was then issued call- 
 ing for delegates from each county to meet 
 in convention at Los Angeles, September 8, 
 1881. This gathering came together on the 
 appointed date, all of the counties being rep- 
 resented. Resolutions were passed favoring 
 state division, but it was decided to take no 
 active steps until the population of the new 
 district was large enough to insure its recep- 
 tion as a state. In 1888 the subject was again 
 
The Reorganization. 343 
 
 called up in a mass meeting at Hazard's pa- 
 vilion in Los Angeles, and General Vandever, 
 who represented the Sixth district in con- 
 gress, introduced a bill attempting a division 
 of the state. The meeting was slimly attend- 
 ed, and little enthusiasm was shown. The 
 Vandever bill was never reported back from 
 committee. 
 
 September 5, 1881, the founding of the city- 
 was celebrated with a great procession which 
 circled the plaza, much as the procession of 
 De Neve had done 100 years before. The 
 5th was taken instead of the 4th through the 
 error of a local historian. 
 
 The mayors of the period from 1880 to 
 1890 were: J. R. Toberman, 1879-1882; C. E. 
 Thoni, 1883-4; E. F. Spence, 1885-6; W. H. 
 Workman, 1887-8; John Bryson, four months 
 in 1889; H. T. Hazard, 1889-1892. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIIl. 
 
 THK MODKRN CITY. 
 
 HE decade from 1890 to 1900 was one 
 of steady, even growth and develop- 
 ment for Los Angeles, the population 
 increasing from 50,000 to 102,000, 
 and the assessed valuation of prop- 
 erty advancing from $50,000,000 to $70,000,- 
 000. The wave of hard times which swept 
 over the Union in 1893-6 did not pass by Los 
 Angeles, but its ravages were not serious. 
 One advantage that the city derives from its 
 somewhat isolated position is that of com- 
 parative independence in its commercial in- 
 terests. Hard times affected the market value 
 of some Southern California products and di- 
 minished the amount of tourist travel ; four 
 banks in the city closed their doors in the 
 panic of 1893, one of which failed disgrace- 
 fully; another retired from business with 
 honor and credit, and the other two soon re- 
 sumed with new strength. There were sev- 
 eral mercantile failures, none of them of any 
 considerable size. For a time the city was 
 worried by the presence of a number of un- 
 employed men, chiefly in the building trades. 
 In 1895, in spite of the hard times, the build- 
 ing permits had aggregated $5,000,000, and 
 great numbers of workmen were attracted to 
 the only city in the Union that seemed to be 
 
The Modern City. 345 
 
 holding its own. The next year the permits 
 fell to $2,700,000 and in 1898 they were only 
 $2,100,000. As times were still bad all over 
 the country, the men thus thrown out of em- 
 ployment were unable to get away, and pro- 
 vision had to be made for them. Funds were 
 raised by public subscription, and the men 
 w( re put to work on the parks. Business gen- 
 erally, however, held its own fairly well 
 through this troublous time. In 1892, before 
 the panic, the bank clearances for the year 
 were $39,000,000. In 1893 they were $45,000,- 
 000. In 1894 they were $44,000,000, in 1895, 
 $57,000,000; in 1896, $61,000,000. This shows 
 how the city continued to expand, in spite 
 of the bad times. 
 
 An important event in the industrial de- 
 velopment of the region was the establish- 
 ment of the present chamber of commerce of 
 Los Angeles in 1888. This institution differs 
 somewhat from those that bear a similar name 
 in other cities, in the extent and variety of 
 the work it undertakes. Its membership is 
 not confined to men in active business, but 
 includes all who are interested in the advance- 
 ment of the city. It has 1000 members, and 
 almost from its inception has been endowed, 
 through the far-sighted liberality of the 
 wealthy and progressive men of the city, with 
 sufficient funds to carry on an active cam- 
 paign of advertising and of local development. 
 The chamber's first meetings were held in 
 
346 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 the old board of trade building on First and 
 Broadway, which has since been torn down. 
 In 1889 ^ permanent exhibit of Southern Cal- 
 iiornia products was opened over the Mott 
 market on Main street, between First and 
 Second. In 1894 the organization moved to 
 its present quarters at Fourth and Broadway, 
 in a building designed especially for its use. 
 j-vCcently it purchased a piece of property on 
 Broadway, between First and Second streets, 
 where its permanent home will probably be 
 erected during the coming year. 
 
 When the chamber of commerce began 
 work, which was just at the close of the boom, 
 the industrial conditions of the region were 
 in very bad shape. The city had entirely out- 
 grown the country ; the farming land had been 
 overrun with townsites ; much of it was in 
 the hands of non-residents, who were holding 
 it for speculation instead of for use ; and so 
 large a percentage of those actually engaged 
 in husbandry were either ignorant of the 
 whole art or v/ere utterly inexperienced as 
 to local conditions of soil and climate, that 
 the results were far from satisfactory. A 
 primary object of the chamber in the estab-- 
 lishment of the display of local products was 
 to enable the farmers to compare their work 
 and thus gain by one another's experience in 
 this new strange country. For this same pur- 
 pose citrus fairs were held during the years 
 from 1890 to 1895. One of these fairs, that of 
 
The Modem City. 347 
 
 1891, was sent to Chicago and exhibited to an 
 attendance of 120,000 people in the old expo- 
 sition building on the lake front. These fairs 
 and the display made at Chicago in the Co- 
 lumbian exposition helped to stimulate orange 
 culture, and to regulate and improve the in- 
 dustry. Other lines of horticulture and of 
 farming were encouraged and assisted, and at 
 the end of a few years the industrial situation 
 had been reorganized on a substantial basis. 
 Manufacturing had begun in various lines 
 that were allied to the agricultural develop- 
 ment — beet sugar, fruit canning and crystalliz- 
 ing, making of pipe for irrigation, etc. 
 
 A great amount of work was done by the 
 chamber of commerce in making the possibil- 
 ities of the Southern California region known 
 in the eastern states with a view to attracting 
 immigration ; and the extraordinary increase 
 in population during the decade from 1890 to 
 1900, an increase that is still actively in prog- 
 ress, shows how successfully the designs were 
 carried out. This advertising was of all kinds, 
 the distribution of printed matter, the use of 
 space in magazines and newspapers, and, most 
 important of all, the sending of large and 
 striking exhibits to the great fairs of the coun- 
 try. At the Columbian exposition in Chicago 
 in 1893, the Midwinter fair in San Francisco 
 in 1894, the Cotton expositon in Atlanta in 
 1896, the Transmississippi exposition at Oma- 
 ha in 1808 and the Pan-American at Buffalo 
 
348 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 in 1901, the chamber had independent exhib- 
 its that attracted wide attention. It also par- 
 ticipated on a smaller scale in numerous dis- 
 plays in Europe and America. 
 
 No new railways were constructed into 
 Los Angeles during this period, but an event 
 of great commercial significance was the be- 
 ginning of work on the deep-water harbor at 
 San Pedro. As the original project for the 
 improvement of the inner harbor for vessels 
 of light draft drew toward its completion, ag- 
 itation began for the construction of a seawall 
 from Point Fermin out into the exterior bay, 
 to protect an area which could be used as a 
 harbor for the largest ocean going vessels. 
 The total sum expended on the interior im- 
 provement was about $900,000, and the depth 
 of water attained would admit vessels draw- 
 ing seventeen and eighteen feet. It was, and 
 is, used chiefly for the lumber and coal trade 
 of the coast, but was not practicable for the 
 ocean commerce that was seeking outlet and 
 inlet through this region. There being no 
 deep-water harbor nearer than San Francisco 
 on the north — 500 miles — and San Diego on 
 the south — 100 miles — there was need of a 
 harbor of refuge and a harbor of naval neces- 
 sities at this point. The engineering author- 
 ities of the government conceded the just^'ce 
 of the claim, and in 1891 a report was sub- 
 mitted to congress by a board of army en- 
 gineers appointed to examine the coast from 
 
The Modern City. 349 
 
 Orange county to Santa Barbara, with a view 
 to determining the best point for the construc- 
 tion of a harbor, and this report was une- 
 quivocally in favor of San Pedro. 
 
 In 1892 the first effort was made to secure 
 an appropriation from congress to begin thf, 
 work, but it was defeated through the declara- 
 tion of the chief engineer of the Southern Pa- 
 cific that no harbor could ever be constructed 
 at San Pedro. It was decided to appoint a 
 special commission of five eminent army en- 
 gineers to review the work of the first board 
 and report on the comparative merits of Santa 
 Monica, Redondo and San Pedro. This body 
 visited the locality and made a thorough in- 
 vestigation, and their report was in favov of 
 San Pedro. But the Southern Pacific was 
 still not satisfied, claiming that the war de- 
 partment had favored San Pedro chiefly 
 through a desire to be consistent. All efforts 
 to secure an appropriation for that place were 
 resisted, and for several years the commercial 
 men of the city were divided into two camps, 
 for Santa Monica with the Southern Pacific, 
 and for San Pedro against the Southern Pa- 
 cific. 
 
 Finally, in 1896, a bill was introduced in 
 the house of representatives appropriating 
 $2,900,000 for a deep-water harbor at Santa 
 Monica. There was a general feeling among 
 the people of Los Angeles that the interest of 
 the Southern Pacific in the Santa Monica 
 
350 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 project was because a harbor there would 
 be exclusively controlled by that corporation, 
 whereas a harbor at San Pedro would be 
 open to competition. The Terminal road, 
 which had extensive holdings at San Pedro, 
 and the Santa Fe road, which was believed to 
 be disinterested except in so far as the ques- 
 tion of location might affect the general wel- 
 fare of the region, were both determined in 
 their opposition to the Santa Monica plan, as 
 were also the two senators of the state and 
 the congressman of the district. So many pro- 
 tests from authoritative sources against the 
 proposed improvement were forwarded to 
 Washington, accompanied by demands that it 
 be changed to San Pedro, that the item was 
 struck out of the house bill, and Los Angeles 
 was left, as in previous years, with no appro- 
 priation for deep-water work. When the mat- 
 ter came up in the senate, Stephen M. White, 
 who was a resident of Los Angeles, and a 
 member of the senate committee on commerce, 
 demanded that the money be appropriated for 
 San Pedro, and when that was refused, that 
 the whole question of location be left to a 
 third board of engineers, one of whom should 
 be from the navy, one from the coast survey 
 and the other three from civil life. The com- 
 merce committee refused this compromise, 
 and put back in the bill the appropriation for 
 Santa Monica. The fight was then carried to 
 the floor of the senate, and at the end of a 
 
77?^ Modern City. 351 
 
 long struggle, Mr. White's plan was adopted. 
 The new board reported in favor of San Pe- 
 dro, and the work was begun in 1899, after 
 two years of most extraordinary and unac- 
 countable delay. 
 
 When this work, which is the construction 
 of a seawall 8500 feet long, is completed, Los 
 Angeles will have at its ocean gateway a 
 harbor that is admirably adapted for refuge 
 and for most naval necessities, and is not with- 
 out great value for commercial purposes; but 
 to make it entirely serviceable for the latter 
 it will be necessary to dredge out the inner 
 harbor for several thousand feet along the 
 docks. When that is done Los Angeles will 
 possess one of the finest harbors in the coun- 
 try, and will take its share of the Oriental com- 
 merce that is destined to come to the Pacific 
 coast. 
 
 The bank deposits of Los Angeles, which 
 before the boom were $3,000,000 or $4,000,- 
 000, rose during the boom to $12,000,000; for 
 a brief time they fell back to $9,000,000, but 
 since then the rise has been almost continuous, 
 until now they aggregate about $25,000,000. 
 Annual clearances are now 400 per cent larger 
 than they were ten years ago, which is a strik- 
 ing evidence of the growth of general business. 
 The orange industry, which had its start in 
 the orchard of William Wolfskill in Los An- 
 geles in the 50's, has grown to mammoth pro- 
 portions. To deliver the crop in the east a 
 
352 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 trainload must start every hour of the work- 
 ing day through more than half the year. The 
 gross receipts in the eastern market aggregate 
 about $15,000,000. The region covered by 
 this industry extends from San Diego to Santa 
 Barbara, but most of the area is commercially 
 tributary to Los Angeles. The oil industry 
 of Southern California also centers at Los An- 
 geles, the product averaging three or four 
 millions per annum, most of which is mined 
 in the immediate vicinity of the city. In the 
 years 1899 and 1900 Los Angeles passed 
 through a veritable oil boom, with a vast 
 amount of trading in securities of doubtful 
 value. The sinking of many hundred wells 
 stimulated manufacturing and business of all 
 kinds, and although the first enthusiasm of 
 the discovery has worn off, the industry is 
 believed to be only in its beginning. 
 
 The other principal sources of income to 
 Los Angeles, besides the two mentioned 
 above, are : Its wholesale trade, which covers 
 all Southern California, most of Arizona and 
 extends well into the San Joaquin valley, the 
 miscellaneous products of surrounding farms, 
 such as hay, grain, vegetables, fruits, etc., the 
 local manufactures, which since oil has been 
 supplied as a cheap fuel, have undergone a 
 great increase, the expenditure of travelers, 
 who are entertained by tens of thousands 
 every winter, and lastly, a great amount of 
 money brought in by the never-ending stream 
 
The Modern City. 353 
 
 of new-comers. These are people whose pur- 
 pose it is to make their homes in Los Angeles; 
 they buy property and build houses and put 
 money into new enterprises for the develop- 
 ment of the country. As long- as the climate 
 holds good, this source of supply seems likely 
 to be limitless. It must be noted, moreover, 
 that Los Angeles contains a large element of 
 the retired class, whose incomes are spent in 
 the city, but are derived from investments in 
 the eastern states. 
 
 In the midst of the boom Los Angeles 
 adopted a new charter (1889), but the docu- 
 ment was faulty in providing too many elec- 
 tive offices and in failing to definitely locate 
 responsibility. The city government, while 
 far from bad, is by no means up to the stand- 
 ard that the city is entitled to enjoy, consid- 
 ering the unusual character of its population. 
 There is no such percentage of foreign ele- 
 ment as is to be found in most American cities, 
 neither is there an illiterate or impoverished 
 element. On the other hand, the exception- 
 ally large proportion of people of comfortable 
 means who have the time that they might 
 devote to the duties of citizenship, gives an op- 
 portunity such as few cities enjoy for a high 
 quality of local government. Three attempts 
 have been made to give the city a new and 
 adequate charter, but all have been defeated. 
 
 The mayors of the city during the latter 
 period were: T. E. Rowan, 1892-4; Frank 
 Rader, 1894-6; M. P. Snyder, 1896-8; Fred 
 
354 History of Los Angeles. 
 
 Eaton, 1898-1900, and M. P. Snyder at the 
 present time. On national and state issues tiie 
 city is generally Republican, although througn 
 a combination of silver Republicans and Dem- 
 ocrats Mr. Bryan's forces carried the city in 
 1896, while the county went the other way by 
 a small majority. In 1900 both city and coun- 
 ty went heavily Repubhcan. In local elec- 
 tions. Democrat and Republican alternate in 
 the office of mayor, while the majority of the 
 council is almost always Republican. 
 
 At the present writing, the summer of 1901, 
 the city is growing with greater rapidity than 
 at any time in its history, if we except the one 
 or two years of the boom, when it added a 
 hundred per cent every few months. That 
 the population of 100,000 in 1900 is compound- 
 ing at the rate of 10 per cent per annum the 
 school census shows clearly enough, and the 
 increase of business is on even a greater ratio 
 than that of population. The southwestern 
 region of the United States will support at 
 least one great city, and all doubt as to where 
 that city will be located is now at an end. Tiic 
 little pueblo that Governor De Neve founded 
 120 years ago, in order that grain for the army 
 might be raised in California instead of im- 
 ported from Mexico, has at last grown to be 
 the active, prosperous city of his dreams. That 
 it should some day become one of the great 
 metropolitan centers of the nation is not a 
 dream, but the natural outgrowth of existing 
 conditions. 
 
I N D e: X 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Abila, Encarnation 228 
 
 Alarcon 21 
 
 Alexander, D. W 167, 240, 296, 306 
 
 Alexander, Ramon 297 
 
 Al varado, Javier 121 
 
 Alvarado, Juan Bautista 142 to 145, 155, 169, 177, 234 
 
 Alvitre, Sebastian 97 
 
 Anza 61 
 
 Arguello, Jose 97, 98 
 
 Arg-uello, Luis 134, 136, 138, 148, 212 
 
 Arg^uello, Santiago 234 
 
 Arizona 175, 190, 217, 248, 269, 352 
 
 Arrillago, Joaquin de 117, 118, 124 
 
 Avila, Jose Maria 140 
 
 Ayuntamiento 134, 237, 238 
 
 Baker, R. S 164 
 
 Bandini, Arcadia 164 
 
 Bandini, Juan 139, 164, 212, 221, 234 
 
 Banning-, Phineas 276, 296, 306, 317 
 
 Barton, Sheriff 284, 285 
 
 Bear Flag Incident 198 to 201 
 
 Beaudry, Prudent 308, 318, 320 
 
 Boom Times 322 to 342 
 
 Borica 104, 111, 112, 113, 129 
 
 Boscana i 13 
 
 Bouchard 124, 125 
 
 Bouchette, I^ouis 165 
 
 Boundaries of Ivos Angeles 70, 257, 267 
 
 Boyle Heights 305 
 
 Branciforte 60, 111, 112, 113, 117 
 
 Bucareli 60 
 
 Burnett, Peter H 256 
 
 Business Blocks in Los Angeles 163, 165, 243, 283, 287, 
 
 289, 291, 295, 305, 319 
 
 Cabrillo, Juan Rodriguez 22, 24, 26 
 
 Cahuenga 11, 44, 121, 145, 230, 266, 321 
 
356 Index. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 California....l9 to 21, 39, 62, 64, 66, 68 to 71, 87, 100, 102, 
 106, 113, 114, 116, 125, 127, 131, 135 to 145, 
 147, 152, 156 to 158, 160, 161, 190, 200, 207, 
 212, 246 to 256, 300 
 
 Cambon 53, 75 
 
 Camels for freighting- 297 
 
 Camino Real 105 
 
 Cannon, The Historic 210 
 
 Capital at Ivos Angeles 173, 174 
 
 Carlos III 32, 59, 68 
 
 Carpenter, I^emuel 166 
 
 Carrillo, Carlos Antonio 144 
 
 Carrillo, Dona Josefa 172 
 
 Carrillo, Joaquin 172 
 
 Carrillo, Jose Antonio....l34, 139, 173, 214, 215, 229, 236, 
 
 260, 305 
 
 Carson, Kit 207, 217, 220 
 
 Castro 195, 200 to 206 
 
 Catalina 119,164,175, 302 
 
 Cathedral 305 
 
 Cattle Trade 185, 299, 303 
 
 Cerritos Ranch 305 
 
 Chamber of Commerce of I^os Angeles... 16, 316, 345 to 
 
 348 
 
 Chapman, '*E1 Ingles" 56, 125, 158, 159, 160 
 
 Childs, O.W 295 
 
 Chico, Mariano 141, 142, 143 
 
 Chinese Massacre 285 to 288 
 
 Chinigchinich 12 
 
 Chino, Battle of 209 
 
 Chino Ranch 166 
 
 Church of Our I^ady 78, 85, 132, 133, 159, 160, 172 
 
 Clearwater 11 
 
 Colonial System of Spain 57, 58, 113, 114, 135 
 
 Colorado 248 
 
 Colorado River 21, 61, 72, 73, 74 
 
 Comisionado 84, 99, 121, 134 
 
 Constitutional Convention 255 
 
 Cooke, P. St. George 245, 236 
 
 Confirmation Controversy 107, 108 
 
 Coronel, A. F 244, 272, 293 
 
Index. 357 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Coronel , Ig-nacio 272 
 
 Cortes, Hernando 19 to 21 
 
 Cota, Guillermo 134, 135 
 
 Crespi 43, 44, 47, 51 
 
 Croix, Marques de 36 
 
 Croix, Teodoro de 66, 67, 68, 70, 71, 73, 93, 106, 108 
 
 Dana, R. H 166 
 
 Danube , Brig- 164 
 
 Davidson, J. W 228, 241 
 
 Dead Man's Island 210 
 
 De Barri 61 
 
 Del Valle, Ig-nacio 244 
 
 Del Valle, R. F 244 
 
 De Neve, Felipe 46, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 
 
 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76,80,84, 86, 
 100, 101, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 
 111, 343, 354 
 
 Division of State 300,342 
 
 Doming-o, Juan 164 
 
 Dominguez , Cristobal 86 
 
 Dominguez, Juan Jose 86, 115 
 
 Dominguez Ranch Battle 211, 214 
 
 Doming-uez, Manuel 236 
 
 Dominicans 33 
 
 Downey, John G 295, 304, 306 
 
 Drake, Sir Francis 19, 24, 25 
 
 Dress of Californians 187, 188 
 
 Dryden, Wm 298 
 
 East lyos Ang-eles 305, 318, 319 
 
 Echeandia, Jose Maria 138, 139, 148, 149, 162 
 
 El Clamor Publico 277 
 
 Elysian Park 44, 263 
 
 Encina Ranch 115 
 
 Explosion in Guard House 242 to 244 
 
 Fages, Pedro... 40, 52, 54, 55, 60, 61, 74, 86, 97, 101, 107, 
 
 109, 111, 114, 157, 158 
 
 Farmers and Merchants Bank 210, 306 
 
 Felix, Vicente 97, 99, 100, 103 
 
358 Index. 
 
 PAQS 
 
 Perg-uson, Jesse 162 
 
 Fermin, Point 112, 348 
 
 Ferrelo 24 
 
 Fig^ueroa, Jose 141, 146, 151 
 
 Fitch, Henry 172, 173 
 
 Flaco, Juan 209 
 
 Flag-, First American 222 
 
 Floods 132, 303, 304 
 
 Flores, General 210, 214, 215, 224, 226, 229, 242 
 
 Flugge, Chas 224 
 
 Forster, Juan 167 
 
 Fort Moore 228, 240, 241, 242, 266 
 
 Foster, Stephen C...159, 238, 239, 241, 255, 274, 284, 293 
 
 Founding of I^os Angeles 75 
 
 Franciscans. ...33, 34, 48, 59, 60, 61, 62, 67, 87 to 96, 109, 
 
 110, 112, 131, 146 to 156 
 
 Fremont, John C 194 to 200, 203, 206, 207, 216, 224, 
 
 229 to 235, 256, 298 
 
 Galvez, Jose de..36, 38, 39, 40, 41, 46, 48, 50, 51, 52, 62, 64 
 
 Garfias 212, 244 
 
 Gillespie, A. H..197, 206 to 211, 214, 217, 218, 220, 227, 233 
 
 Gilroy, John : 158 
 
 Gold, Discoveries 252, 253, 254, 296, 302 
 
 Golden Hind 24 
 
 Goller, John 294 
 
 Griffin, John S 219, 220, 305, 308, 309 
 
 Griffith Park 264 
 
 Groningen, John 164 
 
 Guinn, J. M, 241 and preface 
 
 Gutierrez 142, 143 
 
 Gwin, W. M 236, 256, 300 
 
 Hale, Edward Everett 20 
 
 Hancck, Henry 293 
 
 Hancock, W. S 301 
 
 Hansen , Geo 305 
 
 Hartnell, Wm. E. P 155 
 
 Hayward, A. & Co., Bank 306 
 
 Hayes, Benjamin 244 
 
 Hemp-Growing 119, 120 
 
Index. 359 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Henley, Capt 222 
 
 Herrera 139 
 
 Hotels in Ivos Ang^eles 206, 297, 302, 305, 325 
 
 Hunter, J. D 295 
 
 Ide, Wm, B 199 
 
 Indians ...9 to 17, 23, 42, 44, 47, 48, 49, 51, 54, 55, 62, 67, 
 73, 89 to 96, 102, 104, 107, 110, 120, 148 to 156, 
 159, 664, 166, 177, 181, 183, 282, 283 
 
 Iturbide 122, 125 
 
 Jackson, Mrs. Helen Hunt 91 
 
 James, Philip 158 
 
 Jesuits 28, 33 
 
 Johnson, Capt 218 
 
 Johnson, Santiag-o 166 
 
 Jones, Commodore 192, 194 
 
 Jones, J. P 314 
 
 Judges of the Plain , 184 
 
 Kearney, Stephen W 216 to 235, 247 
 
 Kino 30, 31 
 
 I/andmarks Club 88 
 
 Ivand Titles 79, 80, 97, 114, 176, 182, 259, 260, 261, 262 
 
 I^a Paz 20, 25, 39 
 
 Ivarkin, Thos. 194, 234 
 
 I/as Serg-asde Bsplandian 19 
 
 Ivasuen, Fermin Francisco 112 
 
 Ivaugh 1 in , Richard 162 
 
 Leandry, J. D 163 
 
 Leese, Jacob P 166 
 
 Lelia Byrd 118 
 
 Ivoreto 36, 39, 43, 50, 51, 62, 68, 72, 82 
 
 lyos Ang-eles & Independence Ry 314 
 
 lyos Angeles County 244, 318, 331 
 
 Ivos Angeles River 46, 64, 121, 132 
 
 Los Diablos 169 
 
 Los Nie tos 141 
 
 Lower California 10, 30, 36, 61, 62, 70 
 
 Lynchings 280, 284 
 
360 Index. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Marshall, John W 253 
 
 Maria Juan 158 
 
 Marsh, John 166, 167 
 
 Mason, Col. R. B 234, 247, 250, 251, 252, 255 
 
 Masonic Order 292 
 
 Mayors of I^os Angeles 293, 303, 320, 343, 354 
 
 McKinley, Santiago 165 
 
 McNamara, Eugene 205 
 
 Melius, Henry 166, 293 
 
 Mendell, G. H 317 
 
 Mendqza 21 
 
 Mervine 210 
 
 Mexico 18, 66, 68, 70, 102, 106, 113, 114, 122 to 125, 
 
 134 to 137, 144, 146, 147, 148, 150, 151, 160, 
 180, 181, 190, 200 
 
 Micheltorena, Emanuel 145, 192,193, 272 
 
 Merinda, Antonio 82, 83 
 
 Mission System 48, 51, 58, 59, 61, 62, 67, 73, 87 to 96, 
 
 104, 107, 109, 110, 123, 131, 146 to 156, 170 
 
 Moctezuma 169 
 
 Monterey. .26, 44, 46, 48, 49,50, 51, 52, 53, 60, 62, 63, 65, 
 66, 124, 129, 130, 138 to 143, 158, 173, 174, 192, 
 193, 195, 196, 197, 200, 701, 202, 209, 212, 216, 
 235, 247, 255, 274 
 
 Moore, Capt 219,220, 228, 241 
 
 Mormon Battalion 235, 236 
 
 Moulton, Elijah..... 212 
 
 Name of Eos Angeles 168 
 
 Nevada 248, 269 
 
 New Albion 25 
 
 New Mexico 217, 248 
 
 " News" 278, 280, 302 
 
 Newspapers in Eos Angeles 275 to 278, 280, 281, 284, 
 
 290, 302, 319, 320 
 
 Nieto, Manuel 114 
 
 Nigger Alley 283, 286, 287 
 
 Nordhoff, Chas 327 
 
 Odd Fellows 292 
 
 Oil Industry 352 
 
Index. 361 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Oraneres 165, 294, 304, 316, 326, 336, 351 
 
 Ord, E. C. 264, 265, 266, 267 
 
 Orteg-a 46, 125, 159 
 
 Osborne, Dr 295 
 
 Pacheco, Romualdo 140 
 
 Palmer, F. M 16 
 
 Palomares, Jose 134 
 
 Palou 35, 43 
 
 Pasadena 11, 47, 318, 338 
 
 Pastoral Age 179 
 
 Pattee, Sylvester and James O 162 
 
 Pena, Cosme 169, 177, 178 
 
 Phillip II 25, 28 
 
 Pico, Andres 214, 217, 229, 277, 285 
 
 Pico House 229, 260, 305 
 
 Pico, Jesus 216, 229 
 
 Pico, Pio...l39, 140, 145, 155, 172, 195, 201, 204, 205, 206, 
 
 242, 252 
 
 Pina, Maximo 130 
 
 Pious Fund 31, 32, 151 
 
 Plaza 44, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, 80, 84, 102, 132, 162 
 
 Polk, President 195, 249, 250 
 
 Pomona 313, 318 
 
 Population of I^os Ang-eles....98, 102, 117, 126, 169, 270, 
 
 299, 310, 336, 344, 354 
 
 Porciuncula 46, 64 
 
 Portola, Gaspar de 38, 39, 41, 43, 46, 48 to 52 
 
 Potts, J. W 318 
 
 Prentiss, Samuel 164 
 
 Presidential Elections Vote... 298, 300, 302, 303, 320, 354 
 
 Prior, Nathaniel 162 
 
 Protestant Churches in Eos Angeles 289 to 291 
 
 Prudhomme, Eeon J 166 
 
 Puebla, Mexico 168 
 
 Pueblo System 57 to 60, 63, 64, 65, 67, 69, 70, 80, 97, 
 
 100, 103, 112, 126, 153, 257 
 Purisima 63, 87, 109, 110, 111, 131 
 
 Ramona 91 
 
 Rangers 284 
 
362 Index, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Reid, Hug-o 166, 277 
 
 Revolutions- 136, 145 
 
 Reyes, Dona Inocentia 213 
 
 Reyes, Francisco 99, 100, 115 
 
 Rice, G-eoro^e 162 
 
 Riley, D. B 254 
 
 Rivera y Moncada 39, 41, 61, 62, 68 to 74, 107 
 
 Romeu, Jose Antonio Ill 
 
 Rowland, John 167 
 
 Round House 297 
 
 Russians 36, 50 
 
 Sacramento 194, 197, 202 
 
 Sainsevain, J. L< 308 
 
 Salt I^ake 162, 297, 338 
 
 Salvatierra 30, 31 
 
 San Antonio (boat) 36, 40, 42, 50, 52, 53 
 
 San Antonio de Padua 53 
 
 San Bernardo 218, 312 
 
 San Buena Ventura 63, 87, 144 
 
 San Carlos (boat) 36, 39, 40, 41, 43 
 
 San Carlos Borromeo 51 
 
 San Dieg-o...23, 37, 41, 44, 47 to 50, 52, 53, 54, 60, 61, 62, 
 
 88, 104, 138, 139, 140, 144, 162, 204, 212, 216, 
 
 217, 218, 221, 222, 223, 232, 233, 235, 244, 
 
 325 327 339 352 
 
 San Fernando... '...r..!. 88, 112, 115, 121, 140, 144, 229, 298 
 
 San Fernando Colleg-e... 35, SZ, 107, 108 
 
 San Francisco... 24, 25, 46, 60, 63, 65, 88, 208, 247, 255, 
 268, 296, 297, 302, 312, 313, 324, 339 
 
 San Francisco Solano 154 
 
 San Gabriel 11, S3, 54, 55, 72 to 75, 88, 89, 101, 104, 
 
 105, 140, 154, 160, 162, 166, 172, 213, 225 
 
 San Gabriel River 10, 54, 304 
 
 San Joaquin Valley 269, 296, 311, 452 
 
 Santa Inez 119 
 
 San Jose 60, 64, 65, 67, 68, 99, 104, 112, 113, 117, 202 
 
 San Jose (boat) 36, 43 
 
 San Juan Bautista 112, 196 
 
 San Juan Capistrano 62, 88, 120, 125, 131, 167 
 
 San lyuis Obispo 60, 300 
 
Index. 363 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sanguis Rey 88, 112, 235 
 
 San Miguel, island 24 
 
 San Mig-uel 112 
 
 San Pasqual 216, 220, 241 
 
 San Pedro 10, 23, 105, 112, 118, 119, 160, 164, 166, 
 
 174, 175, 193, 203, 206, 210, 211, 215, 216, 
 296, 297, 317, 338, 348, 349, 350 
 
 San Pedro & Los Angeles Ry 306, 307, 308, 310 
 
 San Rafael 154 
 
 San Rafael Ranch 114 
 
 San Salvador 24 
 
 Santa Ana River 45, 53 
 
 Santa Barbara.... 24, 60, 63, 76, 87, 88, 109, 110, 111, 125, 
 139, 140, 158, 159, 212, 229, 327, 339, 
 352 
 
 Santa Clara 62, 64, 201 
 
 Santa Cruz 60, 111, 202 
 
 Santa Fe Ry 325, 327, 339, 350 
 
 Santa Maria 168 
 
 Santa Monica 314, 349, 350 
 
 Santiago, Felipe 158 
 
 Sarria 147 
 
 Schools in Los Angeles... 129, 130, 131, 272 to 274, 303, 
 320 
 
 Scott, Thos. A 311, 312 
 
 Seabird 296 
 
 Secularization of Missions 146 to 156 
 
 Sepulveda 99, 260 
 
 Serra, Junipero 34 to 52, 60 to 63, 87, 106 to 112 
 
 Serrano, F rancisco 100 
 
 Settlers of Los Angeles 80 to 83, 85, 86, 98, 99, 128, 
 
 129 
 
 Ship building 160 
 
 Shorb, J. De Barth 316 
 
 Shubrick , Commodore 234 
 
 Sisters' Hospital 292 
 
 Slave labor of Indians 120, 152, 153 
 
 Sloat, Commodore 200 to 203 
 
 Smith, Jedediah S 162 
 
 Sola, Pablo Vicente de 124, 125, 129, 133, 134 
 
 Soledad Ill 
 
364 Index. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Solis 139 
 
 Sotnera 53, 75 
 
 Sonoma 199, 202 
 
 Southern Pacific Railway 270, 271, 324, 328, 339, 
 
 349, 350 
 
 Spain 18, 25, 27, 29, 30, 45, 57, 64, 67, 70, 74, 
 
 106 to 125, 135, 146, 157, 179, 180 
 
 Spanish- American character 183 
 
 <' Star " 275 to 277, 284, 291, 302 
 
 Stearns, Don Abel 139, 163, 164, 175,177,194,239, 
 
 240, 253, 255, 293 
 
 Stevenson, J. B 236 to 240, 242,243, 251, 252 
 
 St. Francis of Assisi 33, 34, 46 
 
 Stockton, Commodore 196, 203, 204, 206, 207, 210, 
 
 213, 215, 216, 217, 221, 223 
 to 233 
 
 Streetcars 319,337 
 
 Streets of Los Angeles 9, 76 to 78, 80, 85, 103, 132, 
 
 162, 164, 228, 260, 265, 266, 
 267, 369, 274, 275, 283, 287, 
 290, 293, 297, 298, 305, 306, 
 319, 325, 337 
 St. Vincent's College 292 
 
 Telegraph to Los Angeles 302 
 
 Temple and Workman Bank 306, 315, 319 
 
 Temple, E. P. F 163, 167 
 
 Temple, John 162, 163, 239, 293, 306, 315 
 
 Terminal Ry 338,350 
 
 Texas 191, 247, 269 
 
 Texas Pacific Ry 311, 312, 324 
 
 Thompson , Robert 287 
 
 Tomlinson, J. L 296 
 
 Treaty of Guadaloupe-Hidalgo 247, 249 
 
 Trial by jury 251 
 
 Turn verein 292 
 
 Ugarte 31 
 
 Ulloa 21 
 
 Utah 248,269 
 
 Varela, Serbulo 208, 209 
 
 Vallejo 199 
 
Index. 365 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Vanegas, Jose 81, 99, 100 
 
 Vasquez, The Bandit 321 
 
 Verdug-o, Mariana 99, 114 
 
 Victoria (boat) 24 
 
 Victoria, Manuel 139, 140, 141, 150 
 
 Vig-nes, Jean 165 
 
 Villa, Victoria 168 
 
 Viscaino, Sebastian 25, 26, 46 
 
 Waldemar, A 293 
 
 Warner, J. J 165, 166, 277 
 
 Water System 121, 298, 308, 309 
 
 White, Stephen M 350 
 
 Williams, Juan Isaac 166 
 
 Wilming-ton 10, 306, 308 
 
 Wilson, B. D 167, 209, 210, 215, 240, 244, 293 
 
 Wolfskin, Wm 165, 294, 316, 351 
 
 Woman's Gun 213,214, 230 
 
 Workman, Julian 224 
 
 Workman, Wm 167 
 
 Ximenes, Fortuno 20 
 
 Yang-na 9, 17, 44, 46, 51, 164 
 
 Yerba Buena 202, 246 
 
 Yorba, Antonio 114 
 
 Zalvidea 159 
 
 Zanja Madre 84 
 
 Zamorano 140 
 
 Zuniga, Jose 72 
 
NOTE. - POINTS OF HISTORIOAL 
 I NTEIREISX. 
 
 The visitor to I^os Angeles who reads this volume, 
 and who finds himself interested in the city's history, 
 should not fail to visit the exhibit room of the Cham- 
 ber of Commerce. In the gallery he will find the col- 
 lection of Indian artifects made by Dr. F. M. Palmer. 
 In a room of the gallery is the Coronel collection, 
 which is an admirable exposition of early Spanish- 
 American life. The interesting exhibit of the Pasa- 
 dena Art Ivoan Association will be found on the main 
 floor of the Chamber. At the County Court House 
 is the admirable collection of the Ivos Angeles His- 
 torical Society. It is hoped that some time all these 
 collections will be gathered into a fireproof library, 
 museum and art building, a conspicuous lack at the 
 present time in I^os Angeles, that it remains for some 
 wealthy man to fill. 
 
 At the Court House may be seen two of the historic 
 cannon, near the Broadway entrance ; the other two 
 may be seen at the corner of Commercial and North 
 Main streets. The Plaza should be visited, and the 
 Church of Our lyady, facing the Plaza. 
 
 The Missions of San Gabriel, San Fernando and 
 San Juan Capistrano should be visited by the stranger 
 who is interested in the city's history. He should, in 
 conclusion, send a check for any sum from one dollar 
 up to Mr. Chas. F. I/ummis, the President of the 
 I^andmarks Club, the organization that is working 
 to preserve the old mission buildings from utter ruin. 
 
9f It 
 
 9 
 
 EXTRA ILLUSTRATION 
 or CALIFORNIANA 
 
 There are special exhibits of Ramona and of the 
 
 9( 4 
 
 E At the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce may 3 
 
 9f be seen a number of examples of extra illustration ^ 
 
 ^ of books on California topics by the following au- ji$ 
 
 2 thors : Wm. Henry Bishop, Helen Hunt Jackson, ^ 
 
 •* Charles Dudley Warner, Jessie Benton Fremont, ^ 
 
 ^ Bret Harte, Clarence King, John Muir, Charles 
 
 ^ Frederic Holder, Margaret Collier Graham, Chas. j^ 
 
 2 F. Lummis, Charles Dwight Willard. ^ 
 
 :Sf This work is done with the sanction of the va- Jt 
 
 ^ rious publishing houses : Harper & Bros., Century j^ 
 
 ?[ Co., Chas. Scribners' Sons, Houghton, Mifflin Co., 5 
 
 J* Little, Brown & Co., and Kingsley-Barnes & Neuner It 
 
 J Co. 5 
 
 ^ History of Los Angeles City. ^ 
 
 ^ For information concerning extra illustration and J0 
 
 ^ binding for the above authors, address -a 
 
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