USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > A history of California and an extended history of Los Angeles and environs, Biographical, Volume II > Part 21
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Harris Howmarc
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
HARRIS NEWMARK. Not many names of Los Angeles merchants or financiers are better known, nor are any more honorably associated with the history of the city's commercial develop- ment, than that of Harris Newmark, practically the founder of the numerous family long so active here in various walks of life. Born in Loebau, West Prussia, on July 5, 1834, the son of Philip and Esther, nee Meyer Neumark from the old German town Neu- mark named after a direct ancestor, Harris Newmark profited from early youth through an intimate association with a father whose natural enterprise and business operations enabled him to see a good deal of the world. Philip Neumark, for example, while apprenticed in Russia, was one day sent on an errand requiring a personal interview with no less a dignitary than the great Napoleon; and ever afterward he told with modest satisfaction of the circumstances under which that duty was discharged, and the striking attitude of the meditative conqueror,-braced, as he was, against the wall, with one hand to his forehead and the other behind his back,-appar- ently absorbed, until aware of the lad's presence, in deep and anxious thought. Later, as a manu- facturer and vender of ink and blacking, Philip Neumark made many trips through Scandinavia, and once even journeyed westward to rural New York. For a while, the father was assisted by Joseph P. Neumark-better known as J. P. New- mark-who went to England, in 1846, and was the first of his family to come, about 1851, to the Pacific Coast; and after J. P. Neumark left Germany, Harris traveled with his father, and thus enjoyed his first introduction to the outside world.
Preceded, therefore, by his brother and an uncle Joseph-who had settled in Somerset, Conn., as early as 1830, and was probably the first to adopt the English form of the name-Harris Newmark came to America in 1853, by way of Gothenburg, Hull and Liverpool, arriving in New York on August 28, and sailing again for San Francisco, via Nicaragua, on September 20. His adven- tures on that trip, as one of a thousand or more travelers rushing across the continent to the land of promise, were thoroughly typical of the dis- turbed times and region; nor were his expe- riences less exciting and instructive, after ar- rival, on October 16, at the Golden Gate, amid the turmoil of early, chaotic San Francisco life. On
October 21, a mere youth of nineteen, Newmark reached San Pedro on the steamship Goliah, where he was met by Phineas Banning, to whom he bore a letter of introduction, and who soon bun- dled him aboard one of his stages, to race madly, in a contest with a rival, for quaint old Los Angeles. Dusty, overgrown roads, drunken In- dians understood to represent the bulk of the pop- ulation, and ground squirrels, everywhere in evidence and easily mistaken for huge rats, con- tributed little to enliven the diffident young stranger unable, on arriving at the Bella Union, to speak correctly a sentence of either Spanish or English, and about to commence, in casting his fortunes here, a residence of more than sixty strenuous years.
At first, Harris clerked for his brother, in a little store at the southeast corner of Main and Requena streets, bunking at night, as best he could, in a stuffy, unventilated room; and when, in June, 1854, J. P. Newmark sold out, Harris Newmark commenced business for himself, on Commercial street, near Los Angeles. In a few months he had made $1500, whereupon he joined Jacob Rich and Elias Laventhal, in or- ganizing the firm of Rich, Newmark & Co., whose store, also on Commercial street, carried a gen- eral stock and had a San Francisco office. During 1856 this firm was dissolved, after which Mr. Newmark joined his uncle Joseph, who had come to California two years before, his brother and Maurice Kremer, and together they formed New- mark, Kremer & Co., opening both a retail and a wholesale business, on the south side of Com- mercial street between Main and Los Angeles. In the fall of 1858 this business, proving insufficient to support four families, was dissolved, Joseph Newmark and Kremer retaining the dry goods, J. P. Newmark removing to San Francisco, and Harris Newmark, still on Commercial street, con- tinuing to sell clothing. About the same time Mr. Newmark, who had already dealt somewhat in hides, began to invest in sheep. In 1861 he aban- doned the clothing business, which was always distasteful to him, and became a commission broker, with an office in the same neighborhood. In 1865, hearing of a threat to "drive every Jew in Los Angeles out of business," Mr. Newmark speedily made a private agreement with Phineas Banning by which the cost of hauling merchan- dise from San Pedro was saved and a clear advantage over all competitors was thus as-
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sured, and straightway he established, in the Arcadia block, the wholesale grocery of H. New- mark & Co., resulting eventually in a number of leading rivals, including the one who had made the boastful threat, retiring altogether from trade. In 1865 also M. A. Newmark, a nephew, was en- couraged to come to California. Two years later Harris Newmark removed to New York, where he opened an office at Nos. 31 and 33 Broadway -- soon placed in charge of M. J. Newmark, later president of the Chamber of Commerce-return- ing to Los Angeles in 1868 when one of his part- ners here became ill. During the period of the great boom, Harris Newmark joined another nephew, Kaspare Cohn, in creating the firm of K. Cohn & Co., hide and wool merchants doing business on Main street ; but this firm was dis- solved in -- , when Mr. Newmark continued to handle hides. In 1906 Harris Newmark retired from business, and has since devoted himself to the management of his estate.
In his pioneer experience as a merchant, and particularly in his organization and development of H. Newmark & Co., represented today by their successors, M. A. Newmark & Co., the well- known wholesale grocers, Mr. Newmark estab- lished what is now the oldest important business house in this city. He was one of a committee of two -- Governor Downey being the other-to visit San Francisco, in pursuance of a lively agita- tion here for a railroad, and successfully to urge Collis P. Huntington to build his line to Los An- geles ; and later, dissatisfied with the minimum rates offered the merchants here, Mr. Newmark was the first to lead a fight against that same corporation, even chartering the vessel Newport to compete with the railroad company. He also assisted in the organization of both the Board of Trade and the Chamber of Commerce, and as a member of a committee from that body, helped to exploit Los Angeles at the Philadelphia Expo- sition. With Kaspare Cohn and other associates, he bought from the estate of the erratic Italian held up and robbed by the bandit Vasquez, the Repetto rancho, and there he later laid out the towns of Newmark and Montebello. H. New- mark & Co. owned also the Santa Anita rancho, selling the same, after negotiations full of inter- esting details, to "Lucky" Baldwin. With Kas- pare Cohn and M. A. Newmark, Harris New- mark owned the Temple Block and finally agreed to dispose of it to the city on very reasonable
terms when a promise was made-never yet ful- filled-to make the neighborhood a municipal cen- ter. For the sufferers through the Johnstown flood, Mr. Newmark quickly raised a fund and telegraphed the donation east as the first cash remittance received by the Governor of Pennsyl- vania. The oldest living member of Masonic Lodge No. 42, Harris Newmark is also one of the original organizers of the Los Angeles Public Library, was for years president of the B'nai B'rith Congregation, and has been for some time a member of the Archaeological Society of America.
On March 24, 1858, Harris Newmark was mar- ried to Miss Sarah, the second daughter of Joseph Newmark, born in New York in 1841, who came around the Horn to California, and to whom he had been engaged since 1856. The ceremony took place at the bride's home, at what is now No. 501 North Main street, and the story has often been told how, among the guests, men came armed according to the custom of those days, and women brought their babies and deposited them beside the men's weapons. For some years Mr. and Mrs. Newmark lived at the site of the pres- ent Brunswig Drug Company ; then they moved to another adobe on Main street, near Third, entrance to the kitchen of which was through the living rooms; still later to Fort street, where Blanchard Hall now stands, and finally they went to the northeast corner of Grand avenue and Eleventh street, maintaining also a summer home at Santa Monica. Eleven children were born of this union. A daughter, Estelle, married the French consul and merchant, L. Loeb; a second daughter, Emily, married J. Loew, president of the Capitol Milling Co. ; and still another daughter, Ella, married Carl Seligman, of M. A. Newmark & Co. On April 25, 1910, Mrs. Newmark died, beloved as well as esteemed by all who knew her. The site of the Southern California Hebrew Orphan Asylum and its administration building commemorate her life and works.
During his busy life, fraught not merely with routine cares but with volunteer service on pub- lic committees of all kinds, Harris Newmark has still found time to travel widely, crossing and recrossing the United States to inspect the Phila- delphia, New Orleans and Chicago expositions, touring Mexico and seeing Alaska, and spending many weeks in revisiting Europe, in 1867, 1887 and 1900, and since his retirement finding pleasure
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in the society of old-time friends and the pur- suits of a quiet life. A warm advocate of public libraries, he has also served as a patron of the Southwest Museum and similar organizations, while in hours of later leisure, though at the age of fourscore, he has written, as a fitting crown to the fulness of years, the unassuming story of his life-a well-made volume entitled, "Sixty Years in Southern California : 1853-1913," and published in 1915 by the Knickerbocker Press, New York; the whole illuminating as it does the now dim, vague past, being a pleasing and accept- able tribute to the land of his adoption, and par- ticularly to the Californian Southland. In pre- paring this illustrated work so full of stimulating and familiar reminiscence and constituting, in its mass of data either hitherto unpublished or not found collated elsewhere, a rather unique collec- tion of Southern California, Mr. Newmark has been assisted by his two sons, Maurice H. and Marco R. Newmark, both Native Sons and ar- dently devoted to their unrivalled and progressive state.
Maurice Harris Newmark was born in Los Angeles on March 3, 1859. Educated both in pri- vate schools in Los Angeles and New York City, and for three years in more advanced courses in Paris, he returned to Los Angeles in 1876, en- tered the employ of H. Newmark & Co., and in time became vice-president of their successors, M. A. Newmark & Co. On July 3, 1888, Mr. New- mark was married at San Francisco to Miss Rose, daughter of Joseph P. Newmark, by whom he has had a daughter, now the wife of Syl- vain S. Kauffman, a junior member of M. A. Newmark & Company. In addition to his official affiliations with numerous commercial organiza- tions such as M. A. Newmark & Co. and the Harris Newmark Co., of which he is also vice- president, Mr. Newmark for about thirteen years was honored with the presidency of the Associated Jobbers, while for more than a decade he has been president of the Southern California Whole- sale Grocers' Association. He has also been a director of the Chamber of Commerce, the Mer- chants and Manufacturers Association, and the Board of Trade. He was a member of the Con- solidation Committee, campaigning vigorously for the end in view, and, under appointment by Mayor Alexander, held the important post of harbor commissioner. Every measure for the perma- nent benefit of Los Angeles and her service and
influence among sister communities has had his unqualified support, one of his special efforts having been directed to bringing about a fair equalization of railroad freight rates; while at another period, when San Francisco lay stricken in ashes, he was indefatigable in directing relief, heading a committee that, within a few hours, shipped north a great amount of supplies and soon assisted the bay city to rise, while depre- cating any and all movements calculated to take a commercial advantage. Like his father, M. H. Newmark has also traveled widely, visiting and re- visiting Europe and Australia and Alaska. He is a trustee and one of the stanchest supporters of the Southwest Museum, and has found time, be- sides, to assemble a notable collection of postage stamps and the nucleus of a fine library on Cali- fornia, as well as to devote a part of each year to extensive reading and the pleasures of both rod and reel, and to enjoy the amenities of the Con- cordia, Jonathan and Athletic Clubs. He is also a Thirty-second degree Mason and a Shriner.
Marco Ross Newmark, who assisted his brother in the preparation of the Autobiography of Harris Newmark, is the younger son of that pioneer, having been born here on October 8, 1878. After attending local private and grammar schools, Dr. Saxe's School in New York City and the Los Angeles High School, Mr. Newmark graduated from the State University, and then went abroad to the University of Berlin, intend- ing to devote himself to an academic career ; but later he entered the mercantile field, becoming in time a junior partner of M. A. Newmark & Co. On June 6, 1906, Marco Newmark married Miss Constance Meyberg, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Max Meyberg, of this city, by whom he has had two children, Harris Newmark, Jr., and Eleanor. Fond of public life, Mr. Newmark is secretary of the Orphan Asylum, is prominent in Jewish activities, is past president of Los Angeles Lodge No. 487, I. O. B. B., and is also identi- fied with many civic endeavors. He is the treas- urer and a director of the Merchants and Manu- facturers' Association; is a director of the Civic Center Association; is a member of the Uni- versity, Athletic and Concordia clubs, and of Westgate Lodge, F. & A. M .; has literary tastes and a wide circle of friends-an intimate among whom was the late Homer Lea-and is a devotee of sport and recreation, especially fishing, auto- mobiling and camping.
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LEOPOLD WINTER. To trace the career of Leopold Winter from the time of his arrival in California via the Isthmus of Panama from his native Germany, to enter into an appreciative knowledge of his business handicap in a land whose language was unfamiliar to him and to understand his solitary position in a country far distant from friends and kindred, is to gain a new conception of the difficulties faced by those who come to this region of opportunity with no capital except their own dauntless courage and untiring energy. The humble home in Baden, Germany, where he was born November 12, 1841, and where in childhood his parents had trained him to habits of industry and integrity, was the shelter from which his youthful ambitions aspired to better things and to opportunities not offered by his native land. Following the usual custom of the country, he had left school at fourteen to serve an apprenticeship to a trade and had later given three years of service to the German army. The latter proved of helpfulness in developing robustness of constitution, a sense of obedience to military authorities and a perfection in military tactics. The former, however, was even more valuable, for he learned the trade of baker so thoroughly that he thus laid the foundation of subsequent financial success and business promi- nence.
The Civil war had just come to a close when Mr. Winter came to America at the age of twenty- four years. This was some years before the com- pletion of the first railroad across the plains and California was therefore still isolated from the east by weeks of travel with prairie schooner or pony express. Gold mining had ceased to be the only industry of the state. People had begun to develop ranches and start business enterprises. Solidarity of interests made the inhabitants of the state harmonious in action for the general wel- fare. The young German felt the opening to be excellent and he engaged to assist in a bakery owned by an uncle at Oroville, where he gained his early practical knowledge of business condi- tions in the west. Pleased with the outlook, he bought the bakery of his uncle and for some time conducted the only business of the kind in Oro- ville, but the climate proved unhealthful to him and he disposed of his interests there. The next place of his residence, San Diego, had only twenty-five hundred inhabitants at the time of his arrival. Notwithstanding the small population
and general business dullness he believed that the equable climate would attract permanent settlers in due time and he determined to embark in busi- ness. Together with a brother, Joseph Winter, he for ten years conducted the only bakery in the town. Meanwhile Los Angeles was beginning to attract the attention of keen, foresighted investors and he decided to shift the scene of his operations to the rising city of promise. The year 1883 found him, as an associate in a business enterprise numbering several capitalists and men of prac- tical experience, one of the organizers of the Los Angeles Cracker Company that bought an old mill on Lyle street and embarked in the manu- facture of crackers.
The prosperous history of the concern is familiar to all who have kept posted concerning the industrial development of Los Angeles. Water power from the Los Angeles river was utilized for a brief period, but during the floods of 1884 a change became necessary and steam power was thereupon introduced, making an improvement of great importance in the subsequent growth of the establishment. With the development of the busi- ness it became possible to absorb the Southern California Cracker Company, whose title was adopted with the consolidation of the two indus- tries. The output of the factory was large, the quality excellent and the methods of management the most modern, hence a gratifying growth marked its history throughout the entire period up to the sale in 1899 to the organization now known as the Pacific Coast Biscuit Company.
If inquiry were made as to whose energy had built up this great business, whose fine mental endowments had been devoted to its development and whose name was a synonym of success in every department of the bakery enterprise, those conversant with the history of the company would give the name of Leopold Winter, the self- educated, self-made German-American whose training was not acquired in the narrow confines of a college room, but in the more practical school of the business world; whose success is not due to inheritance or to fortuitous circumstances, but to the impelling influences of a mind essentially modern in make-up and thoroughly alive to every opportunity of the hour. However exacting might be the demands of the business, he always found time to aid in civic affairs. Whenever a new improvement for the city was attempted he was relied upon to assist to the extent of his
Frank Salichi
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
ability. With the organization of the Commercial National Bank in 1903 he became a large stock- holder in the institution and since has given ef- ficient service upon its directorate. Along many lines of endeavor he has aided the city to whose advancement he is loyally devoted and which has counted upon his disinterested services in every civic emergency. For many years he made his home on Main near Seventh street, but with the encroachment of business interests into the neigh- borhood and with the sale of his cracker factory, he sought a more suburban location. Coming to the Boyle Heights district, he bought on the east side of Soto street three-quarters of a block of ground, whereon he erected a residence for him- self and wife (the latter formerly Miss Annie Hoffman, of Germany), a home for his son, William Joseph (who is married and the father of a boy), and a dwelling for his daughter, Mrs. Flora M. Chalmers (who is the mother of one daughter ). In this charming location, in the midst of grounds laid out under his personal direction and representing his own love of the beautiful in flowers and trees, surrounded by his children and grandchildren, he is happily passing the twilight of a successful career, honored in the Turnverein Germania and the Society of Pioneers, of which he has long been a member, as well as past president of the Association of Veteran Odd Fellows, an order that for years had his active co-operation.
FRANK SABICHI. The story of California would be incomplete indeed without reference to its prominent and characteristic men, men whose accomplishments live after them in rich and profitable legacies of sturdy thought and manly action ; in gracious deeds ; in discernment and foresight; in devotion to the interests of their native and chosen homes; in their appre- ciation of the wealth and power that in their own day they saw advancing surely to develop- ment and to the full and rounded measure of fulfillment that is the possession of a favored land of our own day.
The life history of California is interwoven with the most stirring and sacred traditions of its history and ever teaches a lesson of action, of rugged deeds and of chivalry. Frank Sabichi was one of the type of men who well
adorned the times and graced the environment in which he passed his long and useful career. He was born in the city of Los Angeles October 4, 1842, a native son of the Golden West long before the memorable discoveries that turned westward the eyes of the whole country. His native place was then the humble pueblo, shel- tering but a handful of the great-hearted and hospitable people whose flocks and herds roamed broad acres now congested with the traffic and utilities of a modern city : whose vines and orchards thrived, to succumb a half century later to the onward growth and broad- ening of commercial activity. His father, Matthias Sabichi, of Austrian birth, coming from Vienna, had settled in Southern California in 1838, and there won a bride of an old family from the Mexican capital. In 1850 the elder Sabichi, desiring to afford his sons, Frank and Matthias, Jr., the advantages of a liberal educa- tion, took passage for England, accompanied by his children, intending to place them in school in that country. While crossing the Isthmus of Panama upon the voyage over the father was seized with yellow fever and succumbed to the disease without seeing the fulfillment of his wishes. The young Sabichis were thus suddenly thrust upon the world at a tender age and in a foreign country bereft of the guidance of their parent, and after an eventful trip reached Eng- land and there were taken in charge by the American Consul, Joseph Rodney Croskey, who received them into his own family, became their true foster father and carefully attended to their education. At the proper age Frank Sabichi was sent to the Royal Naval Academy at Gosport, near Portsmouth, and there com- pleted a course of several years' study, receiving a practical and thorough education. Upon leaving the Academy he received a commission in the English Navy, and upon the British men- of-war cruised through the waters of Europe, visited the principal cities of the continent and saw much of the Orient. In his travels the young sailor found ample opportunity to ac- quaint himself with the history, customs and languages of the various countries, and so be- came apt and fluent in French and German.
The sad loss of his father and the necessities of his life amid strangers had made Frank Sabichi selfreliant and observant far in advance of his years, and with his studies at Gosport
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and the influence of diverse travel in the com- pany of cultured people, he was easily a well- informed and highly educated young man. Dur- ing his service in the navy he saw and took part in many adventures and historical actions, no- tably during the Sepoy war in India and at the famous siege of Sebastopol. He visited the Philippines upon more than one occasion, and often expressed his appreciation of their wealth and possibilities and of the magnificent tribute they would one day lay at the disposal of the world's commerce.
Notwithstanding the highly interesting and engaging life of the navy and its many oppor- tunities for the study and investigation of strange and stirring scenes, young Sabichi yearned for the land of his birth and longed to come back again to the sunny land of Cali- fornia. In 1860 he seized the opportunity to return and reached Los Angeles in the summer of that year. Here he determined to equip himself for the bar, and so entered the office of Glassell, Smith & Patton, at that time the leading lawyers of Southern California. He pursued his studies under the vigilant eye of his superiors with characteristic determination and turned to immense advantage the excellent opportunity afforded to ground himself well in the principles of law and the practice of the courts. He was duly admitted to the bar, and through his wide reading, acquaintance with the language of the then prevailing population, and knowledge of local affairs came rapidly into a substantial and remunerative practice. His nat- ural ambition and restless energy could not be confined by the range of activity afforded the practitioner in a community of small popula- tion, and gradually Mr. Sabichi found his busi- ness enterprises demanding increased attention until he retired from active practice to better manage his personal affairs. With a deep ap- preciation of the magnificent opportunities af- forded for the development of industry in Southern California, and with a grasp of future possibilities, he immediately became interested in several important land syndicates and pro- jected railway systems. He acquired valuable holdings of real estate in and around Los An- geles, and became a director in the San Jose Land Company, which controlled vast acreage now in the heart of the orange belt of Southern California. Realizing the necessity of extend-
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