USA > California > Los Angeles County > An historical sketch of Los Angeles county, California. From the Spanish occupancy, by the founding of the mission San Gabriel Archangel, September 8, 1771, to July 4, 1876 > Part 1
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01067 2191
AN
HISTORICAL SKETCH
-
LOS ANGELES COUNTY,
CALIFORNIA.
From the Spanish occupancy, by the Founding of the Mission San Gabriel Archangel, September 8, 1771, to July 4, 1876.
PUBLISHED BY LOUIS LEWIN & Co., No. 14 SPRING STREET.
LOS ANGELES, CAL .: MIRROR PRINTING, RULING AND BINDING HOUSE. 1876.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by -
! LOUIS LEWIN & Co.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
1131956
INTRODUCTORY.
To the Literary Committee of the Los Angeles Centennial Celebration :
GENTLEMEN : We, the Committee appointed by you to prepare an His- torical Review of Los Angeles City and County, from the earliest settlement to the present time, have prepared, and present to you this sketch. The field has been so extensive-embracing a period of more than a century-that we have been necessarily forced to pass over the ground hastily, and no doubt have omitted much of interest; yet, so far as in our power lies, we have endeavored to make the sketch worthy of the subject and of the occasion. Drawing our information from many sources, some of it recorded, but much unrecorded, narratives and personal reminiscences falling directly from the lips of survivors of that older generation, now rapidly passing away-persons who in recounting these tales of the past, may with pride, like Æneas, say "et quorum pars magna fui," we have sifted and compared reports and dates, until we believe the narrative will be found in the main correct.
If this sketch meet your approval and the approbation of the public, and if it should be the instrument of rescuing from oblivion a portion of the early history of our country, and, especially, if it may be the means of adding only one more tie to the bond that makes us, of whatever blood or kin, citizens of one common home, brothers by adoption, children of one fatherland, we shall feel that our labor has beem amply repaid.
J. J. WARNER, BENJ. HAYES, J. P. WIDNEY,
Committee.
LOS ANGELES, July 4th, 1876.
LOS ANGELES COUNTY
CENTENNIAL HISTORY.
CHAPTER I.
LOS ANGELES COUNTY FROM SEPTEMBER 8TH, 1771, TO AUGUST, 1846
LOS ANGELES COUNTY includes within its present bounda- ries the sites of three Roman Catholic Missions, which were founded in the following order, and named San Gabriel Archangel, September 8th, 1771, San Juan Capistrano, in 1776, and San Fernando, in 1797. The Mission of San Gabriel was at first planted on the margin of the San Gabriel River, some four or five miles southeasterly from its present site. This river had previously received the name of "Temblores " (earthquakes), from the missionaries or the soldiers who had traveled over the country from San Diego to Monterey. No exten- sive or permanent improvements were made at that place, and it was not long before its present site was selected. The Mission of San Juan Capistrano was also at first located some miles northeasterly from the present location, and at the foot of the mountain. The place of its first location is still known, as is also that of San Gabriel, as La Mision Vieja (old Mission). The founders of these missions, as well as those of all the twenty-one missions established within the limits of the State of California, were natives of Spain, and Friars of the Order of San Francisco, and were sent to the field of their labors by the College of San Fernando, in the City of Mexico, which college belonged to the Franciscan Order of Friars.
The unbroken series of failures, which for more than one hundred and fifty years attended the oft recurring attempts of the civil and military power of New Spain, supplemented by a number of individual efforts by men of wealth and power, to reduce the natives of Peninsular California to the domination of Spain, to convert them to Christianity, to found colonies and establish military posts among them, as well as the barrenness of the country itself, caused the Government of New Spain to abandon an enterprise which was undertaken in& 1534 by the conqueror of Mexico, Hernando Cortez, in person.
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While contemplating -about 1690-its withdrawal from any further effort for the reduction of California, the Government of New Spain sub- mitted to the Society of Jesuits-an Order of the Roman Catholic Church- proposals for the subjugation and conversion to Christianity of the natives, and the consequent extension of Spanish authority over the people and country of Peninsular California by that Society.
The proposals were accepted, and the first few missionaries (accompanied by five soldiers and a commanding officer, furnished by the government), sent forth by that Society, to accomplish a work which had alike baffled the power of the Government of New Spain and individual efforts, landed on the eastern shore of the Peninsula in 1697. In the space of forty-eight years from the time the pioneers of this religious enterprise stepped upon the shores of this sterile land, fourteen prosperous missions were established throughout the Peninsula, and the whole Indian population, a small portion of which, inhabiting its eastern shore, had successfully withstood the attacks of the military forces of the Government of New Spain, were reduced to the control of the Jesuit Missionaries, and subjection to the Spanish power.
The success which crowned the labors of the Jesuit Missionaries in Peninsular California, stimulated the Franciscan Order of the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico, to attempt a like work along the shore of the Pacific Ocean from the Peninsula acrtherly. This enterprise was approved of and assisted by the Government of New Spain, and was also fostered and encouraged by zealous Christians and philanthropists of Mexico, who donated large sums of money and estates to aid in its prosecution.
The first expedition, sent to this new field of labor by the College of San Fernando, was in three detachments-two of which were to proceed up by land over the Peninsula, and the other, in three vessels, to go by water. Each detachment was accompanied by a small military force, which force numbered, in all, four companies. That portion of the expedition which went by water, embarked at San Blas, and, after calling at Loreto, a penin- sular port, sailed from thence for San Diego and Monterey. These vessels, the San Carlos, the San Antonio, and the San Joseph, were the transports of the detachment sent by water. Two of these vessels, called packet boats, only reached San Diego; the other, the San Joseph, was never heard from after leaving Loreto. The San Antonio arrived at San Diego on the 11th of April, and the San Carlos on the 1st of May, 1769. The two detachments by land reached San Diego, on May 14th, and the other July 1st, of the same year. The land detachments brought two hundred head of neat cattle, a number of horses and mares, sheep, goats, and hogs, with which to stock the country they were on their way to subdue and occupy.
The Missionary Friars were under the control of a President, who directed when and where a mission should be established, and designated the Friar or Friars that should have charge of it. The President was ap- pointed by the Principal of the College, or Convent, of San Fernando, and was himself a Friar, and came to California with the first expedition. He had the general supervision of the missions, and changed the resident Friars from mission to mission as his judgment dictated.
The commander of the military force which accompanied these Mis- sionaries was Gaspar de Portala, a captain of cavalry, who was appointed Governor of California by the Viceroy of New Spain, and he and his successors for many years held the offices of Governor and Commanding General of California.
It was not contemplated, either by the Government of New Spain or the Directory of the College of San Fernando, that the missions to be estab- lished should remain permanently as missions, but that at the expiration of ten years from the founding of each and every mission, it should be con- verted into a municipal organization, known as a Pueblo, and that the prop- erty created and acquired by the mission, during the term of its continuance, should vest in the inhabitants of the political organization. It soon became evident, to both the ecclesiastic and political authorities, that at the end of the ten years the neophytes of a mission-the converted Indians-would be in- competent to form a political organization, or to rightly use and manage the property accumulated by the mission ; and, consequently, no steps were taken
CENTENNIAL HISTORY.
while California was subject to Spain, nor for more than fifty years after the establishment of the first mission in Calfornia, to convert them into Pueblos.
In less than sixty years from the founding of the Mission of San Gabriel, . the herds of neat cattle, bands of horses, and flocks of sleep and goats, of the three missions of this county, covered the major part of the land in Los Angeles County, and all that part of San Bernardino County lying south and west of the San Bernardino Mountain Range. The number of Indian con- verts in these three missions was, in 1802, two thousand six hundred and seventy-four. In 1831, when these missions had reached their highest pros- perity, the number of neophytes was more than four thousands. By the labor of the subjugated and converted Indians the missionaries planted orchards and vineyards, and cultivated large fields of corn, wheat, barley, beans and other food vegetables. As soon after the founding of a mission as its cir- cumstances would permit, a large pile of buildings in the form of a quad- rangle, composed in part of burnt brick, but chiefly of sun-dried ones, was crected around a spacious court. A large and capacious church, which usu- ally occupied one of the outer corners of the quadrangle, was a necessary and conspicuous part of the pile. In this massive building, covered with red tile, was the habitation of the Friar, rooms for guests, and for the major- domos and their families, hospital wards, store-houses and granaries, rooms for the carding, spinning, and weaving of woolen fabrics, shops for black- smiths, joiners and carpenters, saddlers, shoemakers, and soap-boilers, and cellars for storing the product (wine and brandy) of the vineyards. Near the habitation of the Friar, and in front of the large building, another build- ing, of similar materials was placed and used as quarters for a small number-about a corporal's guard-of soldiers, under command of a non- commissioned officer, to hold the Indian neophytes in check, as well as to protect the mission from the attacks of hostile Indians. The soldiers at each mission also acted as couriers, carrying from mission to mission the corres- pondence of the government officers and the Friars. These small detach- ments of soldiers, which were stationed at each mission, were furnished by one or the other of the military posts at San Diego or Santa Barbara, both of which were military garrisons. At an early period in the history of San Gabriel, a water-power mill, for grinding wheat, was constructed and put in operation in front of and near the mission building. At a later period, a new grist mill was built by the mission, and placed about two miles west of the mission proper. This was also operated by water-power. The building in which was placed this mill now forms a part of the residence of E. J. C. Kewen, Esq. A water-power saw mill was also built by this mission, and was located near the last mentioned grist mill. These were the only mills made or used in California, either for grinding or sawing, in which water was the motive power, or in which a wheel was used, for more than half a century after the founding of the first mission in continental California, In these two grist mills the revolving mill stone was upon the upper end of a vertical shaft, and the water-wheel upon the lower end, so that the revolution of the stone was no more frequent than that of the water-wheel.
In 1831, the minister at San Gabriel, Friar Sanchez, aided and encouraged Wm. Wolfskill, Nathaniel Prior, Richard Laughlin, Samuel Prentice, and George Yount (all Americans), to build a schooner at San Pedro, which was employed, by the Americans named, in the hunting of sea otter. The same year, or in the preceding year, Friar Sanchez purchased a brig which was employed in commerce between this coast and the ports of Mexico and South America.
Of the products or manufactures of those missions, during the sovereignty of Spain over California, very little was exported, being mostly consumed by those who belonged to the mission or by the inhabitants of the Town of Los Angeles, and the stock breeders in the country adjacent.
Such was the patience, the energy, the business capacity, and tact with which the Friars controlled and managed the Indians, and the general affairs of the missions, that in a few years, with some supplies which-while the power of Spain was undisturbed in Mexico-were annually sent them from the Port of San Blas, by their Convent in the City of Mexico, their grana- ries and storehouses were filled to overflowing, and :he intervening country,
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LOS ANGELES COUNTY
from mission to mission, was covered with live stock, and their shepherds and herders were counted by hundreds. Although in the annual lists of stock and of agricultural products made out by the Friars, the number was much less, it was estimated by the.most competent judges that the number of neat cattle belonging to the three missions, in 1831, exceeded one hundred thousand, with sheep and horse kind in full proportion.
After the independence of Mexico, 1821, the discharged soldiers and their offspring, who desired to obtain land upon which to breed cattle, began to agitate the matter of the conversion of the missions into towns, and in 1824, the Mexican Congress enacted a law under which, in 1828, the Execu- tive of the Mexican Government issued regulations for the disposal of the public lands. The conversion of the missions into towns did not meet with the approbation and hearty approval of the Friars in charge of the missions, and the transition was so slow, and attended with so many obstacles, that only the Mission of San Juan Capistrano reached the condition of being dressed in the swaddling clothes of a political organization. The control and manage- ment of the neophytes, and the temporalities of the missions, were taken from the Friars about 1835 and given to secular officers, called administra- tors, who were appointed by the Governor of California.
When the Friars became convinced that the conversion of the missions into towns was determined upon by the Mexican Government, the prudent and economical management of the missions, which hitherto had been the practice, became, during the last few years in which they were under their control, wasteful. Under the far more improvident management of the secular officers, the personal effects of the missions rapidly diminished, and those buildings, which had been reared by the toil and labor of thousands of Indian converts, and which had so heavily taxed the powers of the Friars, and had been their pride and their glory, were not long in giving evidence of neglect. The artificial water courses, which had been constructed under the direction of the Friars, to conduct water to the gardens, orchards, fields, and vineyards, for irrigation, were neglected, their hanks broken and rendered useless for the conveyance of water. The orchards and vineyards were left without irrigation or proper cultivation. Groves of olives were barbarously felled and converted into firewood. Fruit orchards and vineyards were left unprotected by fence from the inroads of cattle, until in 1846 hardly a vestige of the vines, which had covered scores of acres of land, was left remaining. The orange orchard of San Gabriel, and a fragment of the vineyard and olive grove of San Fernando, still remain, as living witnesses of the energy and untiring industry of those zealous Friars who, coming into a country full to overflowing with ignorant, savage barbarians, changed them into patient, docile laborers, and in less than fifty years filled the country with fruitfulness.
Subsequent to the establishment of the missions, and before the close of that century, the Spanish Government, acting through the commanding officer of California, did, at different periods of time, grant four large tracts of land lying in this county to four individuals. The area of these tracts was from ten to twenty, or more, square leagues each. They were granted to the following persons, who had come to California as soldiers, and who had been discharged or retired from active service on account of their age or other causes. The Nietos Tract, embracing all the land between the Santa Ana and San Gabriel Rivers, and from the sea to and including some of the hill land on its northeastern frontier, was granted by Governor Pedro Fages to Manuel Nieto, in 1784. The Santiago de Santa Ana Tract, a large area lying along the Santa Ana River, on its casterly side, and extending from tide water to and some miles within the hill lands, was granted to Antonio Torba in July, 1810. The San Rafael Tract, lying on the left bank of' the Los Angeles River, and extending to the Arroyo Seco, was granted by Gov- ernor Pedro Fages October 20th, 1784, and the grant was reaffirmed by Gov- ernor Borica January 12th, 1798, to Jose Maria Verdugo. The San Pedro Tract, lying along the ocean, and the estuary of San Pedro, was granted to Juan Jose Dominguez by Pablo Vicente Sola, December 31st, 1822.
The dates of these grants are taken from " Hoffman's Reports of Land Cases," but some of the dates are undoubtedly erroneous. This " Report of
CENTENNIAL HISTORY.
Land Cases " says the grant to Antonio Yorba was made by Jose Figueroa July 1st, 1810. The only Figueroa who held the office of Governor of Cali- fornia, or who in the whole history of California issued grants of lands, was General Jose Figueroa, who was appointed in April, 1833, and reached Mon- terey, California-having come by water-in January, 1833. Consequently, he could not have made a grant of land in California in 1810. There is much circumstancial testimony tending to show that both the Yorba and Dominguez grants were made during the past century. Antonio Maria Lugo, a prominent citizen of Los Angeles, giving testimony in the District Court, at Los Angeles, in 1857, said his age was seventy-six years; that he remembered the Pueblo of Los Angeles as early as 1785. That he had known the Verdugo, or San Rafael Ranch, since 1790. That Verdugo had had his ranch since 1784, and that it, "San Rafael," was the third oldest ranch in the county-the Nietos and the Dominguez being the oldest. During the first quarter of the present century, the Santiago de Santa Ana Ranch was uni- versally kuown, among the people inhabiting this county, as one of the oldest ranchos, and there are many good reasons for the belief that its founding was contemporary with that of San Rafael. There is no room to doubt the statement that a grant of the Santiago de Santa Ana Tract, to Jose Antonio Yorba, was made in 1810 by Jose Joaquin de Arrillaga, but in a partition suit in the District Court, for this county, a few years ago, for the partition of that tract of land among the heirs and claimants, testimony was introduced which showed that the original occupant of that tract was N. Grijalva, who, as also his wife, died, leaving only two children, both daugh- ters. That one of these daughters married Jose Antonio Yorba, and the other Juan Pablo Peralta, and it is far more probable that the former of these two latter persons obtained a new or confirmed grant from Arrillaga, in 1810, than that Grijalva should have established himself upon the tract without having obtained a grant from the Governor. As Governor Borica, in 1798, issued to Jose Maria Verdugo a new or confirmatory grant of the Tract of San Rafael, which had been granted to Verdugo by Governor Fages, in 1784, so it is probable that the first title papers for San Pedro and Santiago de Santa Ana had disappeared, or were not presented to the United States Land Commissions for California. In this partition suit the Court recog- nized the claim of the Peraltas as descendants of the original proprietor of the land. Don Manuel Dominguez, one of the present proprietors of the San Pedro Ranch, states positively that the grant of that tract was made in 1784.
The Friars abstained, and the owners of live stock were prohibited by the government, from killing any female animals. This restraining policy had the effect of rapidly increasing the live stock of the country. The indi- viduals, to whom the before mentioned grants of land were made, rapidly increased their live stock, so that before the termination of the first quarter of the present century, their almost boundless lands were covered with cattle and horses.
As early as 1825, the number of neat cattle and horse kind had increased so much, that the pasturage of the country embraced in this county was insufficient for its support, and that of the wild horses, of which there were tens of thousands which had no claimant, and which in small bands, each under its male leader, roamed over their respective haunts, consuming the herbage, and enticing into their bands the horses and brood mares of the stock breeders. To relieve themselves from these losses, the rancheros con- structed large pens (corrals), with outspreading wings of long extent from the doorway, into which the wild horses were driven in large numbers and slaughtered. At a later period, and when the number of neat cattle had been somewhat lessened, the wild horses were driven into such pens and reduced to domestication.
The social and political history of this county, for the first half century or more, from the founding of the missions, are alike barren of any notice- able event. In the physical history, the most remarkable was the occurrence of an earthquake on the morning of the 8th ot December, 1812. This day was the yearly feast day (la Purisima) of the Catholic Church, in commemo- ration of the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary. The earthquake
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LOS ANGELES COUNTY
happened at the hour of the morning mass. The Church of the Mission of San Juan Capistrano, a large stone building, which had been built but a few years (the roof of which was an arch, and of stone), in which were congregated a large number of the neophytes, was so severely shaken that the roof, except that portion over the transept, fell upon the worshipers, killing about thirty, and injuring a much larger number.
In 1825, the rivers of this county were so swollen that their beds, their banks, and the adjoining lands were greatly changed. At the date of the settlement of Los Angeles City, a large portion of the country, from the cen- tral part of the city to the tide water of the sea, through and over which the Los Angeles River now finds its way to the ocean, was largely covered with a forest, interspersed with tracts of marsh. From that time until 1825, it was. seldom, if in any year, that the river discharged, even during the rainy season, its waters into the sea. Instead of having a river-way to the sea, the waters spread over the country, filling the depressions in the surface, and forming lakes, ponds, and marshes. The river water, if any, that reached the ocean, drained off from the land at so many places, and in such small volumes, that no channel existed until the flood of 1825, which, by cutting a river-way to tide water, drained the marsh land and caused the forests to disappear.
The flood of 1832 so changed the drainage, in the neighborhood of Compton and the northeastern portion of the San Pedro Ranch, that a num- ber of lakes and ponds, covering a large area of the latter ranch, lying north and northwesterly from Wilmington, which to that date had been permanent, became dry in a few years thereafter. From 1825 until January, 1867, the San Gabriel and Los Angeles Rivers united at a point northerly from the dwelling house on the Cerritos Ranch, and flowing past the house on the west, emptied into the San Pedro estuary southwest of that dwelling house. The San Gabriel River, in the flood of 1867, left its bed at a point near where it struck the northern line of the Ranchito, and cut a new water-way through the central part of that ranch and the Santa Gertrudes and Alamitos Ranchos to the sea, east of the dwelling house on the latter ranch.
While statements respecting the existence of gold in the earth of Cali- fornia, and its procurement therefrom have been made and published as historical facts, carrying back the date of the knowledge of the auriferous character of this State as far as the time of the visit of Sir Francis Drake to this coast, there is no evidence to be found, in the written or oral history of the missions, the acts and correspondence of the civil or military officers, or in the unwritten and traditional history of Upper California, that the exist- ence of gold, either with ores or in its virgin state, was ever suspected by any inhabitant of California previous to eighteen hundred and forty-one; and, furthermore, there is conclusive testimony that the first known grain of native gold dust was found upon or near the San Francisco Ranch, about forty-five miles westerly from Los Angeles City, in the month of June, 1841. This dis- covery consisted of grain gold fields-known as placer mines-and the auriferous fields, discovered in that year, embraced the greater part of the country drained by the Santa Clara River, from a point some fifteen or twenty miles from its mouth to its sources, and easterly beyond them to Mount San Bernardino.
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