USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > A history of California and an extended history of Los Angeles and environs, Biographical, Volume II > Part 35
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schools brought him into close contact with a large number of men and women who remember him with the highest regard. His widow, who is also well known in the city, has continued to make her home here, while a daughter by the former mar- riage resides in Roxbury, Mass., the wife of a prominent business man.
J. W. TAGGART. Those who appreciate the many high qualities essential to a success- ful career in the legal world have viewed with satisfaction the active life of J. W. Taggart, who as one of the most capable attorneys was well known throughout Southern California. Well developed abilities of oratory, mental alertness and high personal attributes of honor and trustworthiness drew to him a large clien- tage. The several avenues through which his intellect was spent evidenced in every phase the high order of his splendid mind and the force- ful sincerity of his nature. He was born in Parkersburg, W. Va., and was second in a fam- ily containing four sons and two daughters. During the years of bitter persecution in Scot- land the Clan McTaggart numbered among its members those who rebelled at the religious in- tolerance in their native land, and sought and found an asylum in County Antrim, Ireland, where they were among the well known Orangemen. In the Irish province the paternal grandfather, James Taggart, was born. He was a seafaring man, and upon engaging in trans- porting cargoes between Glasgow and Mon- treal, Canada, made his headquarters in the Canadian city, finally giving up the sea and for a time making that his home. His declining years were spent in Wheeling, WV. Va., where he engaged in farming and stock-raising, and where he died at an advanced age. A Presby- terian in Ireland, he became an Episcopalian in America, and was buried with the rites of his adopted church.
Col. George Washington Taggart, the father of J. W., was born in Montreal, Canada, and went to Wheeling, W. Va., when a child. He was educated in Virginia, and at an early age decided upon the law as a means of livelihood. As a preliminary, he read law under Mr. Kirk- wood, then of Mansfield, Ohio, later United States secretary of the interior, and was admit-
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ted to the Ohio bar. However, possessing a decided talent for mechanical engineering, he became master mechanic for the Baltimore & Ohio (then the North West Virginia) Railroad Company, with headquarters at Parkersburg, W. Va., and remained in this capacity until the Civil war. To further the cause of the Union he raised Company D. Fourteenth West Vir- ginia Volunteer Infantry, of which he was cap- tain, and later served as lieutenant-colonel on Gen. George Crook's staff. Eventually he was made provost-marshal of the department of West Virginia, and served as such until the close of the war. With the restoration of peace he returned to Parkersburg and engaged in the mercantile business. He held many local po- litical offices, was a member of the Loyal Le- gion and in the Grand Army of the Republic he was an ex-grand commander of the Department of West Virginia during the year 1887. A num- ber of years previous to his death he was made brigadier general of the latter organization. Colonel Taggart was a member of the Metho- dist church, as was also his wife, Eliza (Hines) Taggart, who was born in County Galway, Ire- land, her parents having been farmers in the west of Ireland.
The education of J. W. Taggart was ac- quired in the public schools of Parkersburg, W. Va., and after graduating from the high school he for a year attended the West Vir- ginia College at Flemington. Later he com- bined educational work with the study of law, his first professional researches being con- ducted under the capable leadership of C. C. Cole, judge of the district court of the District of Columbia. He was admitted to the bar in 1885, came to California in 1881, and in 1882 located in Santa Barbara, where for two years he was manager for the Dimmick. Sheffield & Knight Fruit Company. In 1885 he undertook the practice of law as a partner of Judge E. B. Hall, the first attorney-general of West Vir- ginia, and in 1889 began independent practice. In 1893 he formed a partnership with John J. Boyce, which was amicably continued until the election of the latter to the state senatorship, after which Mr. Taggart continued to practice alone. He was prominently identified with Re- publican political matters in the west, was ex- member of the county committee, and was sec- retary of the same for ten years, and he also
served on the congressional committee of which he was chairman, besides being a delegate to state conventions for several years. For four years he served as a member and president of the school board, and during that time the ad- vance was made of incorporating the kinder- garten and manual training school into the pub- lic school system. This was the first undertak- ing of the kind in the west, and Santa Barbara has now the finest Sloyd school on the coast, the school building and equipment having been presented by Miss Anna S. C. Blake. Mr. Tag- gart was a member of the first board of fifteen freeholders, and also of the second board of freeholders, each of which formed a city char- ter, the charter of the latter being eventually endorsed by the legislature. He was instructor and lecturer in the University of Southern Cali- fornia College of Law for a long period. Dur- ing 1886 and 1887 he was assistant district at- torney, and at the general election held in 1898 was the Republican candidate for judge of the superior court of Santa Barbara county. In 1902 he was elected judge of the superior court of Santa Barbara county, was elected associate justice of the district court of appeals for the Second District of California in November, 1906. and held this office to the time of his death, which occurred in Los Angeles July 13, 1910. He was chosen captain of the camp of the Sons of Veterans, and later served for one term in the naval reserve of Santa Barbara. Fraternally he was associated with the Masonic Lodge No. 192, of Santa Barbara, and the Royal Arch Masons, and he was a charter mem- ber of the Santa Barbara Benevolent Protective Order of Elks.
The marriage of Mr. Taggart and Kathrine Payne occurred in Los Angeles, Mrs. Taggart being a native of Pennsylvania. Three chil- dren were born to them, James Deacon, Elise and Kathrine. Elise and Kathrine are both graduates of the Marlborough school of Los Angeles, Elise completing her education at the La Salle Seminary at Auburndale, Mass., and Kathrine being a graduate of Stanford Uni- versity. Since the death of Judge Taggart Mrs. Taggart and her children have continued to make their home in Los Angeles. Mrs. Tag- gart is a member of the Episcopal church.
James Deacon is at present practicing law in Los Angeles, being associated with Edwin Me-
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serve. He is a graduate of the Santa Barbara high school, St. Matthews Military Academy. Electrical Engineering Department at Stan- ford University, and the law department of the University of Southern California, winning the gold medal for scholarship in the University of Southern California.
In the death of Judge Taggart a severe loss was felt by the bar of the state, by attorneys and the bench throughout California. A man of brilliant attainments, always attuned to the keenest appreciation of justice and truth, he has left his impress indelibly upon the many with whom he was associated.
DAVID K. EDWARDS. The life of David K. Edwards has been an active one in the business world, and closely associated with the progress of Los Angeles in the various important undertak- ings which have made for the advancement of this thriving Southern California city since the boom of 1887. Mr. Edwards is a native of Wash- ington county, Tenn., the date of his birth being August 7, 1851, he being the son of Samuel Ed- wards, a farmer of that county, and Mary ( Kitz- miller ) Edwards. The education of Mr. Edwards was received in Tennessee, and when nineteen years of age he began to teach school in that state, which he continued for one year, going thence to Smith county, Tex., where he continued teaching for a year and a half. From there he came, in 1874, to Monterey county, Cal., where he taught for six years, in 1880 receiving a life certificate for teaching in the state of California. He, however, preferred business life, and accordingly became the owner of warehouses in Salinas Valley, Cal., which, after six or seven years, he sold, and came to Los Angeles in 1886. Here he entered the real estate business, profiting by the boom of Los Angeles property that came about in 1887, where- by the city advanced rapidly from its early and more crude state, toward the prosperity and im- provement in countless ways which have marked its career of late years. In 1889 Mr. Edwards once more went into the grain business, being for fifteen years in partnership with M. N. New- mark, under the firm name of Newmark & Ed- wards. Selling out to Mr. Newmark at the end of that time, it was the intention of Mr. Ed-
wards to retire from active business life, but the next year, 1906, saw his return to his former cares and responsibilities. He was invited to be- come a member of the first Board of Public Works of the city, a position which he held for three years, also being connected with the early history of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, which has brought a river across hundreds of miles of desert and mountain country to supply the city's needs. He was also inspector of public works. The board consisted of himself ( three years). Gen. Adna R. Chaffee ( two years ), and Messrs. Albert A. Hubbard (four years) and J. A. Anderson (two years). The first important work of the board was the construction of the outfall sewer. The years 1909 and 1910 were spent by Mr. Edwards in extensive travels in the United States and also a trip abroad, after which, upon his return to Los Angeles, the Board of Supervisors in 1911 asked him to become a member of the Los Angeles County Highway Commission, and for three and one-half years he was connected with this board, acting as its chairman. He is the oldest director of the Young Men's Christian As- sociation, having been associated with the organi- zation in that capacity about twenty years, and is also a director in the Fidelity Savings and Loan Association and the Merchants' National Bank of this city.
The marriage of Mr. Edwards at San Jose, Cal., in 1881, united him with Miss Edith Rivers, and they became the parents of one daughter, Hazel, now the wife of J. Roy Pinkham and the mother of two children, Edith and Anne. Mrs. Edwards died in 1898, and Mr. Edwards married again, in 1900, his second wife being Miss Edith Hadley, who is a very prominent Los Angeles woman, having lived here many years, well known in church work and actively identified with the Young Women's Christian Association, of which she is now a vice-president. Mr. Edwards also is much interested in religious work, being a mem- ber of the Temple Baptist Church in Los Angeles, and on its official board, also having been director and secretary of the Southern California Baptist Convention for fifteen years. In politics he is a Progressive Republican ; fraternally he is a Mas- ter Mason; and socially he is identified with the California Club and the San Gabriel Valley Golf Club.
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ROSS HANNA. The same pioneering in- William Jennings Bryan and supported the Popu- stinct which sent William Crawford Hanna and list ticket in 1896. his wife, Clementine (Boner) Hanna, into the wilds of Iowa in an early day, also sent their son, Ross, into the far west when the state of Cali- fornia was still young. The lad Ross was born near Burlington, Iowa, July 4, 1850, and was a genuine Fourth-of-July boy in his spirit of inde- pendence and justice and fair play, which in- cluded a deep love for the open. His grand- parents had left their comfortable home in the east when they themselves were still young, and journeyed through the then "wild west" in search of a new home, finally reaching Burlington, in company with other pioneer homeseekers, on rafts and flat boats.
The spirit of adventure was born in the son, and he came to California in 1872, when but twenty-two years of age. He had been well educated, according to the standards of the time, having been a student of La Grange College, Missouri, and of the Christian University, at Canton, that state. Following the completion of his education he taught school for a term or two before coming west. What more natural, there- fore, than that he should turn to teaching in the new state by the Pacific? Mr. Hanna found ample demand for his ability, and taught for a number of years in the northern counties, including Co- lusa, Lake and Lassen counties. During the summer he filled in his time by working on the big ranches, where there was also much demand for help. In 1883 he came south to Los Angeles and secured a position in the county schools, where he remained until 1905, making a splendid record of efficiency and ability for himself, and also many warm friends among the pupils, who are now the business men and women of Los An- geles.
During his residence in Los Angeles Mr. Hanna was associated with prominent business men in many enterprises of note, one of the most note- worthy of these being the founding of the Cali- fornia Savings Bank, where his associate was S. G. Lehmer.
A stanch Democrat in politics, Mr. Hanna was always prominent in local politics and was a power in his party. He served faithfully and with great ability on local Democratic committees and was always vitally alive to the best interests of the city and state. He was a great admirer of
On coming to Los Angeles, Mr. Hanna and his family united with Trinity Methodist Church South, they having all been members of this church at their former home in Missouri. Mrs. Hanna was formerly Miss Jessie Annette Barke- lew, daughter of Henry A. Barkelew, of Canton, Mo. Her parents were from Ohio, having re- moved from there into Missouri in the early '50s, her father becoming a prominent farmer and stock raiser. She was married to Mr. Hanna near Can- ton, Mo., in 1879, and three children blessed their union : Jessie Ray ; Anna Belle, who was married in 1908 to Walter Linville Munday; and Amy Louise, who passed away in infancy. The death of Mr. Hanna occurred in Los Angeles, January 3, 1914, and a host of friends mourn his loss.
RALPH ROGERS. When Mr. Rogers came to California in 1868 he first engaged in farming at the town of Compton, which had recently come into existence, having been laid out by G. D. Compton, after whom it received its name. This property, which now supports a thriving little city, many dairies and the largest cheese factory in Southern California, was bought by Mr. Comp- ton originally for $5 an acre. The country round about, which is devoted to farming and dairying, is at the present time well supplied with artesian wells, one of the first artesian wells in the country having been sunk near Compton. Here Mr. Rogers was engaged in farming for eight years during the early life of the town, after which he removed to Los Angeles, where, with the inter- ruption of only a few years, he lias since been engaged in the real estate business.
The birthplace of Mr. Rogers was the state of Tennessee, where he was born in Jackson county, April 30, 1850, the son of Andrew and Tempy Sarah Ann (Ward) Rogers. He removed to Cali- fornia in 1868. After engaging in farming at Compton for a time he took up grading contract- ing and followed this for seven years, and in 1883 he entered the real estate business in Los Angeles. In this he gave evidence of the deep interest he felt in the advancement of the west- ern city by organizing and building in that year the first cable street car running from Second and Spring to First and Belmont streets, he also being
John Schumacher
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one of the organizers of the old Temple street cable line. In those early days, when the con- struction of these car lines was such a vast im- provement over former conditions it would have been impossible to foresee the excellent street car system which at present makes all portions of the city and suburbs so easily accessible to the traveler. The town of Garvanza, one of the pretty ' suburbs of Los Angeles, where many pleasant homes stand amid palms and lawns and well-kept streets, was laid out by Mr. Rogers, who purchased sixteen hundred acres of property for that purpose. Numerous other undertakings of his also turned out profitably to himself, among them being the Bryson Villa, the Parmelee home, Florence avenue and Redondo home tracts. The business activities of Mr. Rogers have been varied by a trip to the Klondike, where he re- mained three years, and since his return from the far north to the equable climate of Southern Cali- fornia he has continued to be actively engaged in the real estate business in Los Angeles.
JOHN SCHUMACHER, the pioneer, was a native of Wurtemberg, Germany, where he was born January 23, 1816. When thirteen years old, both of his parents being deceased, he left his native country for Paris, thence coming to New York, where he lived sev- eral years. In 1846 he enlisted in Company G of Stevenson's Regiment of United States Volun- teers, and on the twenty-sixth day of September of that year he set sail with his comrades in the ship Thomas H. Perkins for San Francisco, where he arrived in the month of March, 1847. On April 3 his company sailed on the United States storeship Lexington for Monterey, on May 5 re-embarking on the same ship for San Pedro, arriving in Los Angeles on the ninth, which post was made the headquarters of the regiment. The company remained here until discharged from the service on September 18, 1848. In 1882 Francis D. Clark, who had been a private in Company D. published in New York a very interesting history of Stevenson's regiment, which was known in the Mexican war as the First Regiment of New York Volunteers. After his discharge, Mr. Schumacher went, as everyone did, to the newly discovered gold mines in California. While working in the diggings on Sutter's Creek, he found a nugget
which he afterward sold for $800 in money, al- though he had been offered for it large tracts of land in San Francisco, which today are worth millions of dollars, and nearly all of the city of Sacramento.
After working a while at mining Mr. Schu- macher returned to Los Angeles and settled here permanently. In 1855 he married Mary Uhrie, a natiye of Paris, by whom he had six children, two daughters and four sons. The eldest daughter, Mary A., is the wife of Edward A. Preuss, who was born in New Orleans in 1850 and came to Los Angeles in 1868, having lived in early life at Louisville, Ky., where he learned his profession of druggist, which he also followed in Los An- geles until 1886. Mr. Schumacher's second daughter, Caroline, married Prof. Paul Schu- macher, of the Smithsonian Institute, who died in Mexico in 1883, his widow continuing to be a resident of Los Angeles. The four sons are: John H., Frank G., Percival F. and Arthur W .; the three former reside in Los Angeles, and the latter in New York City. Frank and Percival made a tour of the world in 1889. Soon after Mr. Schumacher settled in Los Angeles he opened a store on Spring street near First, which he kept till about the year 1870, and almost from the first he commenced to own land. He bought for $700 nearly the whole block bounded by Spring, First, Fort and Franklin streets, and was the owner of hill lands where Ellis College now stands. This property he used as a sheep range, his partner in the sheep business being a Mr. LeGarde, and in some realty transactions. Jacob Bell, who was afterward killed by Lachenais, for which the latter was hanged by the people. Mr. Schumacher at one time owned a vineyard op- posite the old City Gardens, and also a farm on the Brea Rancho, where shortly before his death he started a small vineyard as an experiment, to see if vines would grow without irrigation, which venture proved a great success. He also owned the land where Evergreen cemetery stands and sold this to that association. One of the first pianos brought to Los Angeles was bought by Mr. Schumacher, and in the days when "carretas" were about the only vehicles here, he had a cov- ered carriage made by John Goller. He built his block on the site of his old store in 1880 and 1881. Mr. Schumacher was twice a city councilman. He spoke fluently German, French, Spanish and English, and often assisted Spanish people who
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did not understand English or American laws and customs in the management of their business affairs, and as he was as honest as the day, they had unlimited confidence in him. A kind-hearted, genial man, he was one whom everybody in the old days of the city knew and respected, and probably did not have an enemy in the world, his friendly, cordial manner toward all making him universally popular. Mr. Schumacher died of apoplexy March 2, 1885, in the seventieth year of his age. His wife preceded him in death five years, dying on July 25, 1880. She was beloved by everyone who knew her.
JOAQUIN ABASCAL. Ever since the ma- terial development of the west became the ulti- mate goal to which men of ambition aspired, the salubrious climate of Southern California has at- tracted to its winter residence for rest and recrea- tion captains of industry and promoters of vast enterprises intimately identified with the entire trans-Missouri country. As early as 1883 Joaquin Abascal established a winter home in Los An- geles and from that time until the end of his event- ful career, while never acquiring large interests here but maintaining his influential citizenship in Montana, he remained loyal to the city and con- sidered the winter season in this ideal climate, within sight of the mountains and refreshed by the breezes from the ocean, the most delightful months of the year, returning to his duties in the spring renewed in health and inspirited of soul through the temporary cessation of the important activities crowning an eventful existence.
Though possessing the heritage of an old Span- ish ancestry whose lands once extended for miles between the mountains and the Bay of Biscay, to Mr. Abascal, however, there came no heritage of lands or gold, but the vastly more important endowment of superior intellectual qualifications and an inheritance of the chivalrous spirit of by- gone Spanish warriors. Forced to make his own way in the world, he left his native province of Santander in Spain and sought the shores of South America, only to learn that opportunities were limited in that section of the world. From there when only twenty years of age he came to California, a stranger whose only capital was a keen mind and indefatigable energy, and with these assets he won his way to independence after
many hardships and through the conquering of obstacles that would have daunted one of less resolute spirit than himself.
The railroad whose completion in 1869 marked the beginning of a new era of progress for the Pacific coast had not been built at the time of the arrival of Mr. Abascal in San Francisco. The ab- sence of transportation facilities gave him his first opportunity. The operation of a pack train from San Francisco to Washoe, Nev., for the purpose of taking provisions to the mines gave him a neat sim with which to embark on other enterprises. On the completion of the railroad he sold the pack train and outfit and went to Montana, where he ran a freighting outfit over the mountains to Helena. Later he engaged in mining at Bear Gulch and also conducted a general store for the miners at that point. Quietly and unobtrusively he made his way from humble circumstances to independence and prosperity, ever willing to aid others less judicious or less fortunate than him- self, and proving at all times the generous friend, the accommodating neighbor. Naturally to such a man, so considerate of the rights of others, so large of heart and so generous of soul, there came the warm friendship of all the miners of the camps as well as of citizens of greater oppor- tunities and broader culture. It would have been possible for him to secure election to the highest offices within the gift of his fellow-citizens had he so desired, but aside from serving for two terms as a member of the Montana legislature he held no political offices. When Montana became a state in 1889 he had the honor of being a mem- ber of the constitutional convention. For years he was a Democratic leader in Deer Lodge county. His decisions were regarded as final in party affairs and his judgment was seldom questioned by political allies. Equally popular was he in Masonry, the only fraternal order to which he ever gave allegiance. In the home of his boy- hood he had been trained in the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church and throughout his en- tire life he gave loyal aid to that denomination.
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