USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > A history of California and an extended history of Los Angeles and environs, Biographical, Volume II > Part 2
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After coming to Los Cerritos other extensive properties were acquired from time to time by Mr. Bixby and by the firm in which he was half-owner and managing partner. Some of these consist of sixteen thousand acres of Los Palos Verdes rancho situated on the coast be- tween Redondo and San Pedro, six thousand acres of farming lands in Los Alamitos rancho near the beet sugar factory, seven thousand acres of the rancho Santiago de Santa Ana ly- ing between Santiago creek and the Santa Ana river in Orange county, various holdings in the cities of Long Beach and Los Angeles and other localities.
Mr. Bixby was elected president of the first bank established in Long Beach and is now first vice-president of that institution, which is now called the National Bank of Long Beach. The growth of the bank has been steady and rapid, while at the same time it has practiced a policy of conservatism and security in loans
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and investments. He is one of the stockhold- ers, though not a controlling owner, in the Long Beach Hotel Company and other enter- prises which have been started with a view to developing the resources of the town in which the latter years of his life have been cast, and in the growth and prosperity of which he has always taken a lively interest. Mr. Bixby has never been in any strict sense a speculator, all of the properties which he now owns having been purchased with a view to permanence of investment. It was his good fortune to come early to a favored region and to acquire large interests here ; to him were also given the clear head and sober judgment to manage these in- terests sometimes through seasons of pros- perity and again of perplexity and discourage- ment, but always with skill and a good meas- ure of that success which comes alone from correct perception and appreciation in the use of figures as applied to receipts and disburse- ments in business. Californians, indeed, of that day and training were more generally actuated, it may be, by the principle known as "live and let live" than those schooled in an environment of more exacting commercial competition. In this prevailing spirit of fair dealing among Californians, which, of course, like most rules, was not without its exceptions, it is believed that the student of social conditions may find an item of real compensation for many of the hardships and drawbacks of a life so far re- moved from the great metropolitan centers of social and industrial activity. At all events to those who know Jotham Bixby best it is not necessary to enlarge upon this side of his char- acter as a business man.
Later at Los Cerritos and Los Angeles six more children were born, of whom two, their daughter Fanny Weston and their son Jotham Winslow, are now living. Both these sons are married and there are now eight grandchildren, of whom one is the son of their son Harry Llewellyn, who died in 1902. There is one great-grandchild.
Larger fortunes than Mr. Bixby's are not un- common among those who have combined the exceptional opportunity of early residence in California, good judgment in investing and close study in the handling of their affairs, but in this case at least the best legacy which will be left by the pioneer father to his offspring, when in the days to come, let us hope still many long years distant, his soul goes faring forth out of an outworn tenement to join those of his own forbears, will be a name unsullied by personal misconduct, cowardice or any mean- ness. More than this, on the positive side to those who really know him, will be revealed a depth of kindness and considerateness toward others but thinly veiled under habits of reserve and unostentation bordering on diffidence.
How are the strong, simple men of that gen- cration to be replaced under these more arti- ficial and tense conditions of American society ? The answer comes through an appreciation of the spirit of the virile verses of the poet Whit- man written in praise of our western pioneers:
Hail and all hail our fearless, able, generous pioneers! For the good of the Republic may the fine example and stirring memories of your adventurous lives prove a beacon guide alike to leaders and to hosts of many a stalwart gen- eration of Americans yet unborn !
In 1862 at San Juan, San Benito county (then in the county of Monterey), Jotham Bixby mar- ried Margaret W. Hathaway, daughter of Rev. George W. Hathaway of Skowhegan, Me. This JOHN MACKAY ELLIOTT. The First National Bank of Los Angeles has indissolubly connected with its substantial progress the name of J. M. Elliott, who since 1881 has been a factor in the work of the great institution, filling va- rious positions of rising importance until 1892 and from that time to the present officiating in the capacity of president. Merit alone has brought him to the front in finance. Appreciative of the responsibilities incident to his office, mindful of the trust reposed in him by the multitude of de- marriage followed an engagement made some time before on a visit by Mr. Bixby to his old home, and for this purpose this handsome young woman came out alone under the pro- tection of acquaintances, on the -long steamer trip by way of the Isthmus. An older sister was at the time married to Llewellyn Bixby, who was to become her future husband's part- ner, and they were living in San Juan. Here the young couple made their first home, and their eldest son, George Hathaway, was born. , positors doing business with the bank and alert
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to the solution of the problems faced each day, he regards all finance as a straightforward matter requiring the utmost honesty of character, the greatest earnestness of purpose and a spirit of helpfulness which impels one to the sacrifice of self in the interests of those confiding in his busi- ness judgment. That his high-minded attributes inspired confidence appeared in 1896 with his selection as a trustee of the Hollenbeck Home for the Aged and received further evidence in his continued retention on the board, of which he has served as president with results most satis- factory to all connected with the Home.
The Elliott family genealogy is traced back through successive generations of southern pro- fessional or business men, not the least prominent of whom was Dr. Ralph E. Elliott, of South Caro- lina, a professional man of the highest type of the old school, who with his wife, formerly Margaret Cooper Mackay, had established a colonial home in Pendleton, S. C., and there, October 6, 1844, occurred the birth of John Mackay Elliott, now the president of the First National Bank. Aside from his studious temperament and determination to gain an education, there was little in his early life to indicate the high destiny awaiting him. After he had studied for some terms in the Chat- ham Academy at Savannah, Ga., lie spent the winter of 1859-60 in the Pendleton School at Lexington, Va., and during 1861 attended the Georgia Military Academy. The training in the latter institution gave him a thorough knowledge of military tactics and prepared him for service in the Confederate army, whose hardships, pri- vations and sufferings he shared with the forti- tude characteristic of the gallant young men of the southland. After the war he remained for four years in Georgia, being employed for one year as a shipping clerk in Savannah, then as re- ceiving teller for the Central Railroad Bank in Savannah until 1869, when he resigned his posi- tion to take up the battle of business life in the west. Here his first work was that of book- keeper for Lynch & Gragg in Santa Cruz. Early in 1870 and later he engaged as railroad agent for Griffith, Lynch & Co., at Compton, from which place he was transferred by the firm to Los Angeles in 1872. Thus began a career in the city which has been his home for more than forty years and in which his highest business triumphs have been attained.
A valuable banking experience as cashier and secretary of the Los Angeles County Bank from 1874 to 1880, followed by service as cashier and secretary of the Southern California Packing Company in 1881, qualified Mr. Elliott for the higher duties awaiting him in the First National Bank, with which he has been connected in va- rious capacities since 1881 and which has risen through his judicious oversight to a foremost place among the financial institutions of the great Pacific southwest. Engrossing as has been the work of the presidency he has found time for civic enterprises and measures of a public nature, having, in addition to the very important task of acting as trustee of the Hollenbeck Home for the Aged, served as member of the Los Angeles Board of Education in 1884-85, member of the city water board in 1902-08, president of the Los An- geles Cemetery Association for a number of years and president of the Broadway Realty Com- pany. The State Mutual Building & Loan Asso- ciation has had the benefit of his able services as vice-president, and he has further been con- nected with the Los Angeles Trust & Savings Bank as a director. Mr. Elliott is a member of the Episcopal Church, of which his wife (in maidenhood Alice I. Peel) was also a member until her death in 1902. His social clubs are the California, Sunset, Sierra Madre and Sierra. As might be expected of a citizen connected with the business, realty and financial growth of Los An- geles since 1872, his knowledge of its affairs is profound and comprehensive, embracing accurate information concerning realty valuations, commer- cial enterprises and civic development. The little Spanish town of his earliest knowledge has been transformed into the western metropolis, with business blocks and residences that would do credit to the cultured old cities of the east. Where once a few thousand inhabitants dwelt in leisurely content, a population of one-half million now ex- hibits the American qualities of restless energy and resistless enterprise. In the more than four decades of his residence here he has seen many seasons of phenomenal growth and has witnessed the collapse of many "booms," but financial de- pressions have not weakened his faith in the ulti- mate destiny of Southern California, nor have periods of unprecedented activity impaired his calm and equable judgment. In the hands of such men, conservative in action but progressive in policy, calm in times of business stress and at all
El Sargent.
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seasons faithful to the interests of stockholders and depositors, the financial future of Los An- geles is safe.
EDWIN W. SARGENT. More than casual interest attaches to the history of land titles in Los Angeles and Southern California. Owing to the proximity to the Mexican border large numbers of Spaniards became early land-owners and, as is generally known, the Spanish method of recording ownership was faulty, inaccurate and misleading, so that it was possible for otli- ers to claim property and cast grave doubts upon the authenticity of title. A system so in- accurate bequeathed to modern days a heritage of clouded titles that required the skill of the most capable lawyers to clear from defects. The foremost of the American settlers recognized the need of a different system, yet nothing sat- isfactory was presented to the general attention until a group of men, with Edwin W. Sargent as their attorney and legal adviser, offered to the public the full certificate, now known as the unlimited certificate of title. The plan de- vised by Mr. Sargent marked a turning-point in the abstract business and laid the foundation for the present satisfactory, systematic method of certifying as to titles in Los Angeles, dis- tinguished as the only large city in the world em- ploying this form of title guarantee.
To the attorney known as "the father of land titles in Los Angeles," the man who notwith- standing the most bitter opposition persisted in his efforts to secure prompt and general ac- ceptance of the more modern system of cer- tificates, due credit should be given for secur- ing results so necessary and so far-reaching. With the utmost faith in his newer plan he fought strenuously for recognition on the part of realty men and fathered the system as used here today. It must not be supposed that the change of attitude was immediate. Great re- sults are seldom achieved rapidly, but the mat- ter undoubtedly was hurried by the fact that the great boom around 1887, with the many changes in titles, found the old system, with its lack of adequate methods for ascertaining in- disputable titles, so unequal to the demands made upon it that the more modern plan began to be generally discussed and thus won con-) of title was conceded by attorneys, land owners
sideration and converts. Once adopted, it was finally admitted even by former opponents that the certificates of title had much to do with the further upbuilding of the city and surrounding country. Vast sums have been invested in buildings that would not have been erected if titles to lands had not been unquestionably es- tablished Another beneficial effect was the promptness with which absolute ownership can be established and the relief from danger of tedious legal processes incident to the clearing of title.
A resident of Los Angeles since 1886, prior to which he had been an attorney in Atchison, Kans., for seven years and of Denison, Iowa, from 1874 to 1879, Mr. Sargent was born at Oregon, Dane county, Wis., August 15, 1848, being a son of Croyden and Lucy W. ( Hutch- inson) Sargent. In 1868 he entered the liberal arts department, University of Wisconsin, and continued his studies there until removing to Iowa in 1870. In 1874 he was graduated from the law department of the University of Iowa and admitted to practice in the supreme court of that state, after which he opened an office at Denison. While at Atchison he became a specialist in land titles and came to be re- garded as an authority on that subject. On his removal to Los Angeles he found no guar- antee title companies in existence and he im- mediately turned his attention toward that line of work, the result being, as previously indi- cated, that he established as evidence of title in the city and county of Los Angeles the cer- tificate of title practically as used today. The full certificates are now denominated unlimited certificates and there is also a guaranteed cer- tificate in substance the same, excepting that the word certify is changed to guarantee. The Los Angeles Abstract Company, incor- porated in January, 1887, prepared its abstract plant according to the property system, with a ledger account of all transfers affecting each piece of property, but in the course of a few months the firm advocated the new system of compiling abstracts of public records and be- gan to push the plan advised by their attorney, Mr. Sargent, furthermore agreeing to issue full certificates of title at a moderate price. Grad- ually the company began to absorb competing companies and by 1893 the unlimited certificate
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and realty men to be the most effective evi- dence of title ever offered for public use. It is said that a man of large affairs, who about thirty years ago transferred several pieces of property in Los Angeles and who in later years had experiences with expensive transfers in cities of the east and middle west, returned to Los Angeles in 1912 and purchased property. His surprise at and admiration of the econom- ical, prompt and thorough-going methods con- nected with the transfer of title were great, forming as it did so striking a contrast to his many annoying experiences in the past.
Upon re-organization in 1893 the Los An- geles Abstract Company became the Title In- surance & Trust Company. In 1895 Mr. Sar- gent organized the Title Guarantee & Trust Company, of which L. C. Brand is now the president. Each concern owns a magnificent "skyscraper" and has quarters commensurate with the substantial nature of the work and the magnitude of business transacted. Their devel- opment and probably even their existence is to be attributed to the early efforts of Mr. Sar- gent, who has given the best years of his life to the perfecting of the titles of the vast and enormously valuable properties of his city, while at the same time he has not been negli- gent of those patriotic duties that fall upon every loyal citizen. It is his ambition to see Los Angeles not only one of the greatest cities on the American continent, but also one of the best governed, the cleanest and most sanitary, as well as the home of contented, prosperous and progressive people. His family consists of a daughter, Lillian, and his wife, who prior to their marriage was Mrs. May Carson of Chi- cago, Ill. Fraternally he is connected with the Knights Templar and Shriners of Masonry, while socially he holds membership with the Jonathan, Athletic and Annandale Clubs.
MILTON WOLFSKILL. A genuine Forty- niner, having crossed the plains with mule teams when the first rush was on for the once famous California gold fields of 1849, Milton Wolfskill remained on the coast, making his home contin- uously in California, save for a short time when he resided at Dallas, Texas. He came to Los Angeles in 1885 and from that time until his
death, in 1906, he made this city his home, and his widow, Mrs. Anna S. Wolfskill, still resides here.
Mr. Wolfskill was a native of Missouri, born January 28, 1819. His father was a pioneer of that state and came from Kentucky with Daniel Boone, the famous frontiersman. The grand- father, Joseph Wolfskill, had seven brothers, all of whom were seven feet or over in height and all of them were soldiers in the famous Potsdam Regiment of Frederick the Great.
Milton Wolfskill remained at home with his parents on the farm until 1849, when he made the trip across the plains with mule teams to California, starting from Arrow Rock, Mo., with a large party of settlers and gold seekers. He first settled on Putah creek, in Solano county, where he purchased a tract of land and planted a vineyard and orchard, engaging also in grain rais- ing. From there in 1873 he removed to Dallas, Texas, where he planted a vineyard and culti- vated grapes on a large scale. He found, how- ever, that the climatic conditions were not suit- able for the growing of grapes, and so turned his attention to grain raising.
It was in 1885 that Mr. Wolfskill disposed of his Texas holdings and came to Los Angeles to make his home. For a time he was engaged with his nephew, J. W. Wolfskill, on the latter's fruit ranch, near the city, and later became flagman for the Southern Pacific Railroad, which posi- tions he filled for seven years prior to his death in 1906. He was well known in Los Angeles, es- pecially among the Masons, he being a member of the Blue Lodge.
The marriage of Mr. Wolfskill and Miss Anna S. Sweany took place February 20, 1860, in So- lano county. Mrs. Wolfskill bore her husband seven children, two of whom are living, William C. and Louis W., both well known in Los Angeles. Her father was James G. Sweany, a native of North Carolina, and her mother Jane Rogers, a native of Tennessee. The father settled in Mis- souri in pioneer days and engaged in farming and stock raising. In 1850, with his wife and nine children, he crossed the plains to California, mak- ing the long journey with ox-teams. There were thirty-three outfits with the train that comprised their party, and the trip consumed five months. Mr. Sweany and his family settled first in Nevada City, Cal., where he engaged in mining and also conducted a grocery store. Later he moved to
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Putah creek, in Solano county, where he engaged in farming and stock raising until his death, in 1868.
The pioneer women of California suffered many trials and hardships in the trip across the plains and deserve great credit for the part they played in the settling of the great commonwealth. Mrs. Sweany was one of these women. She lived to see all of her nine children grown to manhood and womanhood, and almost all of them married. Her death occurred in 1863.
Mrs. Wolfskill was the youngest of this large family, she being but eight years of age when she arrived in California. She and one sister are the only members of the family living today. She re- calls many interesting incidents of her childhood in Nevada City. The miners made her a small cradle for gold washing and she took out quite an amount of the precious yellow metal. She rode on the first steel railroad in the state in 1860, the line running from Sacramento to Folsom. Mrs. Wolfskill has been very active all her life in the cause of temperance and for the general good of the human race. She is an active mem- ber of the Young Women's Christian Associa- tion, and also of the Woman's Christian Temper- ance Union, and the Juvenile Protective Asso- ciation. Another line of activity has been through the California Anti-Saloon League, of which she is a charter member. For twenty-five years she has been president of the Foreign Missionary Con- ference Society, and for eleven years she was edi- tor of the local organ of the W. C. T. U., the Southern California White Ribbon. Mrs. Wolf- skill is a member of the Trinity Methodist Church South, which has recently completed one of the most striking church edifices in the city. Since her husband's death Mrs. Wolfskill has continued to make Los Angeles her home, devoting her time to her religious and philanthropic works and to her many friends.
the public with an ability and skill that evidence a trained mind and inexhaustible fund of patient energy and strength. He has already accom- plished much, yet there are plans and projects dear to his heart, which are today receiving the best of his thought and ability, and which when materialized will mean better conditions and a beneficial effect throughout the professional world. Known as "The Father of the Recall," he having been largely responsible for the placing of that measure upon the statute books of the state of California, he has been encouraged to enter other measures for public safety and provisions rela- tive to that end.
On September 9, 1911, Charles D. Willard in the California Outlook referred to Dr. Haynes in the following article. which we quote verbatim :
"There is in Dr. John R. Haynes some of the material of which great law-makers are made, also something of the hero and martyr, also a bit of the prophet and seer, and a lot of the keen, vigorous man of affairs. It took all of that to accomplish what he has put to his credit in the state of California. He arrived in Los Angeles from Philadelphia in 1887 and started right to work for direct legislation. It took ten years to make the people understand what it was, and then five years more to get it into the Los An- geles city charter. He did it; nobody can dis- pute the honor with him; and he was abused and insulted every inch of the way. For ten years and more he has been urging every State Legis- lature to let the people vote on a 'people's-rule' amendment. At last he won that fight. Inci- dentally, as mere side issues, it might be men- tioned that he is one of the most eminent phy- sicians of California, that he is one of the city's largest property holders, and that he is personally one of the most popular men in that part of the country."
Dr. Haynes is a native of Pennsylvania, born in Fairmount Springs, Luzerne county, June 13. 1853. His parents were James Sidney and El- vira Mann ( Koons) Haynes. The son attended the public and private schools of Pennsylvania. later graduating from the University of Pennsyl- vania with marked honors, and at the unusually early age of twenty-one years received the degrees of Doctor of Medicine and Doctor of Philos- ophy. Opening his office in Philadelphia, he con- tinued to practice there for almost thirteen years,
DR. JOHN RANDOLPH HAYNES. Phi- lanthropy and a deep, widespreading influence for good have characterized the long career of Dr. John Randolph Haynes, whose skill and pro- ficiency in his chosen work have marked him among the eminent physicians of the city, county and state. The interests of the people have been his interests, and he has sponsored the cause of ) meeting with well-merited success and attract-
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ing attention by his progressive ideas and his philanthropic work. It was in 1887 that the Doc- tor came to Los Angeles to make his home, and he immediately opened offices with his brother, Dr. Francis Haynes, the distinguished surgeon, whose death in 1898 was so severe a loss to Los Angeles. Since that time Dr. Haynes has con- tinued his practice alone, and has acquired a repu- tation in the medical world that is both distin- guished and distinctive. In 1903 he became a member of the Los Angeles Civil Service Com- mission, and since that time has figured promi- nently in its every movement, being its presi- dent for a period of two years.
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